These Ties That Bind

One way or another, he would find a way to be Finn’s dad, Sara be damned.

CHAPTER FOUR

SARA TOOK THE ELEVATOR down to the emergency waiting room. Finn waited for her there, listening to music in his headphones and sketching. Thank goodness he’d broken his left wrist instead of his right.

She should go home and make him lunch, but acid churned in her belly. How could she possibly eat after the bomb Rem had dropped?

Since his birth, she’d had Finn all to herself, had taken him to and from school with her, year after year until she finally became a nurse, her dream of medical school eliminated by her pregnancy. No regrets, though.

She’d kept him with her despite Mama’s and Timm’s arguments to leave him in Ordinary with them.

She made every decision about his life. If she could keep her son close enough to her, Sara could keep him safe. How could she possibly share him, especially with a man who had spent too many years wasting his life on the worst habits, and who’d made a mistake of the biggest proportions? He’d burned Timm and ruined her brother’s teenage years. He’d ruined Sara’s, too.

With her parents’ attention firmly on Timm’s operations and physiotherapy, and the illnesses brought on by a compromised immune system, Sara had faded into the background. Had disappeared. Had become another caregiver for her older brother.

But their care had never been enough. Timm had been sick too often. He’d been scarred. Sara had felt so helpless, so useless no matter how hard she’d worked. She’d been only ten years old when the accident changed the landscape of her family’s life. It had never been good again.

Then her oldest brother, Davey, had been killed by a bull, in the rodeo, and things had become even worse. Dad had turned more and more to the sedative of the bottle. He’d finally killed himself by driving into a tree on his way home from a bar in Monroe.

Sara had never been able to do enough to fix her brother or to save her family.

So…now she was a nurse. She’d learned how to take care of people and to help save them. Or was she just kidding herself? She hoped the work she did had value.

She stepped forward and called Finn’s name. Time to take care of her son. Rem was not going to ruin what was already working fine.

Finn closed his book, took the buds out of his ears and showed her his cast. “You know the guy who pulled that girl out of the car?”

“Rem? Yes.”

“Look what he put on my cast.”

He’d signed only his first name, a big flamboyant Rem, but he’d drawn a smiley face beside it—with a lopsided grin and devil’s horns. Sara couldn’t help laughing. She had never doubted his charm.

On the drive home to Ordinary, Finn didn’t put his earbuds back in, nor did he open his sketchbook. His MP3 player sat idle in his hand as he stared out the window.

Sara glanced at him, worried. He looked pensive, the way he’d been lately just before asking her questions she’d rather not answer.

“Mom,” he said, turning to her.

“Yes?”

“Father’s Day is coming up.”

“I know.” Nuts. Every year, Finn became more and more curious about his father, more troubled by his lack of one. The issue seemed to be pulling him further and further away from her. She felt that separation like a physical ache.

“On Father’s Day, all the kids are allowed to bring their dads to school. Everyone’s talking about it. There’s gonna be a big party in the gym. I’ll be the only one there without a father.”

“The only one for sure?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Everyone’s talking about their dads.”

“But I know there are single mothers living in town. How about Stacey Kim’s daughter, Joy?”

“She’s in high school.”

“Oh. I guess she is by now.” Sara came up with more names, but the kids were either too young for school or were in high school. Of all the rotten luck for Finn. A fluke of demographics left him isolated.

As the new kid in school, life was hard enough on Finn. He already stood out too much. Adding the weight of his being the only kid without a father at the party was so unfair; but he had no idea of the kind of damage Rem Caldwell had done to the Franck family. Sara had no idea what additional harm Rem could still do while trying to father Finn.

Her parents had spent her adolescence warning her away from Rem, from the boy who’d been her best friend before Timm’s birthday party. One small mistake. Such big consequences.

“Why don’t you have a photograph of my dad?” Finn’s question caught Sara by surprise.

Why hadn’t she prepared herself for this? But what preparation could there have been?

“I didn’t know him for that long.”

“How long did you know him?”

She swallowed around a lump that was the lie she’d told her family and the entire town—that she’d met a man at a party and they’d had unprotected sex. Finn was still so young for that explanation.

“Well?” Finn asked. “How long?”

He wasn’t going to let it go.

“One night,” she answered.

Finn’s chin dropped. “You had a one-night stand?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“That’s so uncool, Mom. So uncool.”

He stared out the window silently for a moment and Sara hoped that was the end of it.

“So, why didn’t you find him and tell him about me?”

“The name he gave me was false.” Was she going to hell for telling her son so many lies? “I discovered that when I tried to track him down.”

“So, there’s some guy out there who doesn’t even know I’ve been born?” His voice had risen in anger. “That makes me feel really rotten, Mom.”

Sara brushed her hair back from her forehead, but her hand shook. This was so hard. How long could she continue to lie to her little boy?

“Finn, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond, so she continued, “I made a mistake one night, but it gave me you and I’m not sorry for that. Can you forgive me?”

Wasn’t that sweet freaking irony, such hypocrisy on her part to beg her son’s understanding when she hadn’t forgiven Rem a single one of his many transgressions?

“I’m not even supposed to be alive!” He turned to her with an accusation that cut through her defenses. “I’m a big mistake!” he yelled.

His anger fueled hers.

“Stop right there.” She didn’t shout but she wanted to. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Ever.”

Finn crossed his arms over his chest, but his fury seemed to seep out of him. His lower lip jutted forward, but rather than looking petulant, he just looked sad. “I’ll never have a father.”

She shook her head, unable to tell him “no” out loud. She’d come close with Peter Welsh in Bozeman, a sweet, smart, handsome doctor. But after that one night when she slept with Rem last summer, after he’d been stabbed, Sara hadn’t been able to sleep with Peter again. She’d broken off their relationship.

As much as she tried to forget Rem with other men, she couldn’t deny her feelings for him, even if she wouldn’t act on them.

It didn’t look like marriage was ever going to be in her future. So, yet again, she was on her own. Independence suited her just fine.

They turned down the road to the old Webber home. It had been vacant for more than a dozen years, had been for sale for ages.

This past spring, Sara had bought it.

She and Finn could live here, just the two of them, and not worry about having to depend on anyone else. Not emotionally, and certainly not financially. This little house was hers and only hers. She’d earned it and deserved it.

The property abutted Still Creek, and the spot where she and Rem had created Finn on a blanket under the stars.

Refusing to consider why it had been so important to her to buy this property, she turned and studied the house. A smallish bungalow, it would be more than enough for the two of them.

The siding was dirty, the wraparound veranda needed a coat or two of paint, the eaves troughs needed cleaning and the gingerbread appointments had fallen apart. But the bones were good. Just right.

She and her son had lived in tiny cheap apartments, some dingy, most crowded, none in the best parts of town. On the rare occasions that she dated and developed a relationship with a man, she never brought him home. Not to those places in which she felt no pride.

Now they had a house where she could give her son safety and a permanent roof over his head. It didn’t look like much but it was all hers. Amazing how proud that made her feel.

She pulled the key out of her purse.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

She pulled the cleaning supplies she’d picked up yesterday from the trunk. Because of his broken wrist, Finn could carry only one pail filled with bottled cleaners.

She opened the door of her house and stepped in.

The rooms smelled stale. She could fix that. She could fix anything here.

As she walked through the hushed rooms and opened windows, the house breathed in fresh air and seemed to come to life. She could bring a spark to this place.

She handed Finn a broom. “Sweep up. I’ll wash the kitchen and the bathroom. Unless you’d rather scrub the toilet and I’ll sweep.”

“I’ll sweep,” he mumbled without cracking a smile.

The ancient bathroom fixtures still worked. One of the Webbers had fitted the old claw-foot tub with a showerhead and a track on the ceiling from which to hang a shower curtain. She hung the new yellow-and-mauve-striped curtain that she’d picked up in Bozeman before the move.

This house was hers. All hers. She hadn’t told anyone about it yet, not even Mama. This was her own private secret. In time, she would tell everyone, but not until she fixed it up the way she wanted to. Then she would throw a big party and be proud to have her family here.

She heard a sound in the doorway and looked up. Finn stood there with a scowl on his face.

“Mom, when are we going to move here from Oma’s house?”

“Soon. When I’m off work, I’ll gradually move over some of the boxes from Oma’s and then have our furniture shipped from Bozeman.”

“So, like, only you and me will live here? Right?”

Sara looked around. A fresh coat of paint on the walls would brighten the space beautifully.

“Mom, right? Only you and me?”

“Hmm? Sorry! Yes, only us.”

Finn stared out the window above the sink. “What is there to do out here?”

He’d stumped her. “We’ll come up with stuff. Anything you do at Oma’s can be done here.”

She was worried, though. With her working two jobs and Finn being supervised by only Mama, would he get into trouble, as he’d started to in Bozeman? He had no friends here. Who was going to fill that void when he finally did make friends? Good kids?

Or would he follow in his father’s footsteps? She refused to allow it.

“How am I supposed to become friends with kids in Ordinary when I live way out here?”

If she had to drive him everywhere, then she could control who his friends would be.

She packed the supplies into a hall closet. Finn followed her down the hallway like a lost puppy.

“Mom, are you listening to me?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t hide her frustration. “Don’t be so negative about this, Finn. Give the place a chance.”

Finn stomped out of the house and to the car. Sara locked up and followed him. Why did he have to question everything she did these days? Was this a lead-up to adolescence? If so, she was going to go nuts before it was over. Seriously. Stark raving mad.

On the trip into Ordinary to the Franck house where they currently lived, Finn fell asleep. Taking advantage, she touched his nape.

Such a beautiful boy.

It was her job to protect him and she took that seriously. When they got home to Mama’s, Sara spent the afternoon checking out every class, course and organized sporting activity around Ordinary and Haven, to replace that swimming course Finn should have been in three afternoons a week. She glanced at the calendar. She’d have to cancel the basketball league she’d signed him up for, as well. That left too many days empty—too many days he could fill with mischief—and there was nothing left to register him for.

CHAPTER FIVE

AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THE following morning, an unforgiving sun followed Rem out of the house and to the corral where his horse Rusty ambled lazily, kicking up puffs of dust with his hooves.

What was taking Ma so long to get here? He’d expected her half an hour ago.

He’d already been out to the hospital this morning with a bag of nice clothes for her to wear home. He’d signed all the necessary papers, had packed up all of the cards the townspeople had given her. He’d found an elderly woman in another room who had no family and had given her Ma’s flowers. Then he’d driven out ahead of Ma’s ambulance. He’d expected them to be only a few minutes behind him.

He’d already had time to put the cards around her room, to give her something to look at all day.

He glanced around the yard. It looked good. Clean.

He’d taken Ma’s pretty flowered cushions out of plastic in the storage shed and had spruced up her blue wicker chairs on the veranda. Rem’s ancestors had built this two-story home more than a century ago, had built it with brick to last and with gingerbread trim that Rem had repainted white in May.

He’d put a fresh coat of blue paint on the veranda floor and stairs, too.

He’d started on the stable with more white paint, but had only finished the front and the corral side, both of which could be seen from the dining room windows. He still had to paint the far side and the back, but that would come in time.

Gracie lay on the steps like the grand old dame she was, a border collie with too much gray fur among the white and black. She spent a lot of her days sleeping, sometimes in the house, sometimes in the stable.

Two days ago, Rem had planted pansies across the front of the house, in yellow, purple and mauve. What did he know about flowers? If they lasted through the summer, he’d be surprised. They brightened the place, though.

At the rumble of an engine in the driveway, he turned.

The ambulance rode up the long lane, with neither siren nor flashing lights.

Ma. Home at last. Feeling like a kid getting a present, he ran to the steps at the front of the house. He’d missed having her here.

The ambulance swung around in the yard, backed up toward the house and stopped a couple of yards away from him.

The driver jumped out of the vehicle and came around the rear, nodding at Rem, his pressed white shirt almost blue in the sun.

“How is she?” Rem asked.

“Comfortable,” the attendant replied while he opened the door.

“What took so long?”

“Half the staff came out to say goodbye.”

Rem thanked his lucky stars that he lived in a close-knit community. Ma would have loved the attention.

Another attendant jumped down from the patient area and Rem caught his first glimpse of Ma, half sitting in the dark interior. She looked pale, her face immobile, her eyes a little scared.

His chest tightened. Ma, I’ll take care of you. You’ll never go to a home to be taken care of by strangers. I promise.

The attendants lifted the stretcher out of the ambulance and released the legs. Rem stepped close. He took Ma’s hand in his, but it was the paralyzed one, so she might not have felt his touch.

Her eyes flickered to the pansies raising their colorful faces toward the sun and a weak smile cast the ghost of movement across her face then disappeared. She blinked.

On the veranda, she dropped her good arm over the side of the gurney and Gracie stood and licked her fingers. Her glance at the cushions on the chairs brought forth another smile. Rem was glad he’d worked so hard.

After the attendants wheeled her through the front door, Rem ran ahead to open the dining room doors. “In here.”

He’d rented a comfortable hospital bed and had crowded Ma’s treasured dining room set into the closed-in porch at the back of the house. For the past two nights, he’d worked until three in the morning to make Ma a comfortable new bedroom.

After they transferred her from the stretcher to the bed, Rem walked the paramedics out and shook their hands.

“Thanks, guys. I appreciate you taking care of her.”

Any minute now, one of the caregivers should be showing up.

Sure enough, a small blue sedan rode up the lane just moments after the ambulance drove off. Ah, here she was, the first nurse.

Sara stepped out of the car, spit polished and as crisp as a new dollar bill in a white shirt and navy skirt. She pulled a bag out of the backseat and turned toward the house.

Sara? What was she doing here?

She approached the steps then stopped before climbing them.

“Hello, Rem,” she said, her voice as cool as her gray eyes.

His expression flattened. “What are you doing here?” Even to his own ears, he sounded unhappy. “Checking up on me?”

“I’m here to work with Nell. I’m with TLC Outreach.”

“No way. You’re a nurse at the hospital.”

“I have two jobs.”

“What do you need two jobs for?”

“I have student debts to pay down.”

Rem knew Sara well. Again, as with her reasons for returning to Ordinary to live, he got the feeling he wasn’t getting the whole story.

“Why didn’t they send someone else?”

“I volunteered.”

“Why?”

“Rem. It’s Nell. How could I not want to help her?”

Yeah, that part made sense, but, honest to God, this complicated things.

“There will be two of us caring for Nell,” Sara explained. “You’ll have one full-time nurse, and I’ll be working part-time.”

“We’ll see.”

Free of yesterday’s emotional overload, Rem got his first good look at Sara.

She never changed. The conservative clothing did nothing to brighten a dull landscape. With her brown hair pulled back hard enough to draw tears, she looked all business. Would a little lipstick hurt?

Her legs, though… Her legs were her best feature, not long, but damned perfect. Her slightly pigeon-toed walk, that minor vulnerability in a capable woman, had always charmed him, as had her hint of an overbite.

She watched him with a solemn gaze in that unremarkable face. “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

She climbed the steps to the veranda and gestured with her head toward the hallway. “May I see her?”

Rem stepped aside and she brushed past him.

“Ma’s in the dining room,” Rem said. “You remember where it is?”

She nodded. Of course she would. She’d been here last summer to nurse him after the stabbing at Chester’s. That had been a rough time. He hadn’t forgotten a thing that had happened between them in those days while he recovered.

On the day that Timm had driven him home from the hospital, Sara had arrived to take care of him. After Timm had left, Sara had crawled into bed beside Rem and had held him while he’d slept.

In those days that Sara had nursed him, Finn had stayed with her mom. Rem’s own mother hadn’t said a word about Sara being on the Caldwell ranch and spending so much time in Rem’s room. He suspected that Nell would have loved for them to have married. Maybe last summer she’d hoped it was finally going to happen.

Anyway, Rem had needed a caregiver. Ma had already had a stroke and couldn’t have nursed him back to health.

Then there’d been that night a week or so after the stabbing when they’d made love, carefully so he wouldn’t hurt his healing wound. And tenderly, because they’d both known how easily that biker’s knife could have killed him.

Getting close to him had scared her, though, and she’d packed up, had taken Finn and had run away to Bozeman. The woman was a coward.

When Sara passed him to walk into the house, something scented with lily of the valley swirled around her.

She used to smell like sunshine, fresh air and kid sweat. Now she simply smelled feminine.

Just inside the dining room door, he pulled up short, Ma’s new appearance catching him off guard again. He kept expecting to see her old self, but she looked like she didn’t weigh much more than a handful of green beans.

He felt his eyes water and blinked hard. Shoot.

When Sara saw his mother, her face lit up and she looked younger.

Sara bent forward and wrapped Ma in a hug. “I’m going to be one of your caregivers.”

When she pulled away, Ma’s pleasure in seeing her was obvious. She loved Sara, and wasn’t that a kicker because it meant there was no way Rem was going to boot Sara out as one of Ma’s nurses. Ma’s joy would make having to put up with Sara worthwhile.

It also made him sad, made him rue that horrible day when Timm had been burned. If that accident hadn’t happened, would Sara be living here now as his wife? Would he have been a father to his son all along?

What-ifs weren’t worth a hell of a lot, though, were they? They just left a person regretful.

“I’m going to make you better,” Sara said, smiling and rubbing Ma’s hands.

Really, Sara? You do that and I’ll kiss your feet.

When Sara pulled a nightgown from a stack of clean laundry Rem had put in the room last night and then started to remove Ma’s clothes, he rushed outside.

The nitty-gritty of having Ma home overwhelmed him. He didn’t have a clue how to take care of a sick woman.

His cell phone rang.

“Rem, it’s Max Golden. Got a problem with a horse. Can you take a look at her today?”

“I can come now.”

Rem ended the call and went to the kitchen to rummage in the fridge for a carrot or two.

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