A Mother's Wish / Mother To Be: A Mother's Wish

“I don’t know, boss. An’ anyway, it’s not up to me.”

Aidan released a breath. “Winnie swore up one side and down t’other she wouldn’t tell Robbie who she was, but what’s to prevent her from having another change of heart? All it takes is one slip, and the damage is done.”

Rinsing out her sponge at the stainless steel sink, Flo tossed him a wordless glance over her shoulder.

“He never even asks about his birth mother, Flo—”

“An’ you don’ exactly encourage him, do you?”

“Why would I do that when everything’s fine the way it is?”

Slamming the sponge down by the faucet, the housekeeper spun around, grabbing a dish towel to dry her hands. “Fine?” She barked out a laugh. “After a year, Robbie still mopes aroun’, keeping to himself…that sure don’ sound like fine to me. Dios mío—when was the las’ time there was any real laughter in this house? I’ll tell you when,” she said, tears pooling in her dark eyes. “Not since Miss June was alive. If you call that fine, I call you loco.”

Aidan’s mouth pulled tight. True, Robson and he rarely talked anymore. Even tonight, Aidan’s awkward attempts to draw his son into some sort of conversation had been a bust, like always, his offer to help the lad with his homework rejected out of hand. No, things were far from fine. But…

“She had her chance, Flo. We were more than willing to keep her in the loop, and she backed out of the deal. And whose side are you on, anyway?”

Flo crossed her arms over a bosom so flat it was nearly concave. “Robbie’s my baby, too, I don’ want to see him hurt any more than you do. An’ I’m not saying I totally trust this girl—”

“You think she’d try to make contact behind my back?” Aidan said over the jolt to his heart.

“At this point,” Flo said, frowning, “no. I don’ think so. She knows forcing the issue’s not gonna get her what she wants. No, it’s Robbie I’m worried about.”

“Robbie?”

“When you get back from Garcia’s, he comes in here, starts asking me if I knew there was some lady staying in the Old House, how come nobody ever stayed there before now.” When she paused, Aidan caught the ambivalence in her eyes, that she was just as conflicted as he was. “If I knew who she was. I tell him no, but I can see the wheels turning,” she said, pointing to her head, then crossing her arms. “An’ once those wheels get started…” Her sentence ended in a shrug. “You know what they say—el gato satisfecho no le preocupa ratón.”

Aidan was by no means fluent in Spanish, but after ten years of living in a town where the population was seventyfive percent Hispanic, even he got that one: The satisfied cat ignores the mouse.

“Except Winnie’s leaving in the morning,” Aidan said, “so the point’s moot.”

“You think if she disappears, so will his questions?” When Aidan grimaced a second time, Flo added, “Maybe you should ask yourself…what would Miss June do? What would she wan’ you to do?”

A few minutes later, tall boy in hand, Aidan stood outside on the second story deck looking down toward the Old House, slivers of window light barely visible through the trees. And in that house, a woman with the courage to ask for something even she’d acknowledged she had no right to ask. As much as her plea had annoyed him, it had also threatened some part of himself he’d thought he’d secured good and tight months ago.

One hip propped against the railing, Aidan took a swig of his beer, replaying that whole cat-and-mouse thing in his head. Except people weren’t cats. In fact, that was the trouble with humans—the more they knew, the more they wanted to know. Winnie Porter had already demonstrated that, hadn’t she?

Aidan pushed out a groan into the rapidly cooling air. Winnie’s coming here was definitely an aggravation he did not need. However…what would June do? Where would her sympathies lie?

Stupid question, he thought on an airless laugh. As thrilled as his wife had been about adopting Robson, hadn’t she been the one to worry about how Winnie was dealing with it, if she had anybody to talk to who understood what she was going through? Then when Winnie cut off communication, he’d thought surely Winnie herself couldn’t be taking it any harder than June.

His mouth curved. In so many ways, June had been as tough as they came, taking on causes nobody else would touch, having no qualms about stirring up trouble if she thought stirring was warranted. But her heart was soft as cotton. She was more than a loving person, it was as though love was her purpose in life. Not the kind of love blind to human failings, but the kind that sees through those failings to the core of a person. His wife had no patience with stupidity, but deep down she believed in the basic goodness of mankind.

Aidan’s lungs filled with the sweetly acrid air, that pungent blend of moldering leaves and fireplace smoke that would always remind him of his wife. For her, not spring, but autumn had always been about new beginnings. She saw in the blaze of color that swept the mountains not death, but beauty. Comfort. Joy.

And right now, he felt her presence so strongly he could barely breathe.

June had never specifically spelled out her wishes regarding Robbie and his birth mother, but if she were here…

But she’s not, Aidan thought bitterly. And the situation was very different than if she had been. His first duty was to protect Robbie, at all costs. He didn’t owe Winnie Porter a damn thing.

Oh, for godssake, babe, the breeze seemed to whisper, don’t be such a tight-ass!

Aidan jerked so hard he nearly lost his balance. But a moment later Winnie’s voice replaced his wife’s, a voice every bit as strong and determined—even in pleading—as June’s had been, along with a pair of smoky blue eyes unafraid to meet his dead-on. Of course, the woman was bleedin’ crazy…

And sometimes crazy’s just courageous in disguise.

June again. His nostrils flaring as he sucked in a deep breath, Aidan squeezed shut his eyes, remembering how June had said, after they’d met Winnie, how much alike she thought she and Winnie were.

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Aidan said aloud, then shook his head, thinking, And who’s crazy now? Only to violently shiver when the wind shoved at his back, insistent as a pair of hands, pushing him upright. Even more alarming was the way it seemed to be whistling, Talk to her Just that, over and over, until he thought he’d go mad. Madder than he suspected he already was, at least.

The wind—and the whistling, and the words—stopped when he went back inside. Thank God for small favors, Aidan thought as he tossed his bottle in the garbage, then went upstairs to say good-night to his son. Except Robbie was already asleep, a tangle of bedclothes and long arms and legs, Spider-Man and Transformers at war. Aidan straightened out boy and bedding as best he could, then eased himself onto the edge of Robbie’s bed to brush one permanently oil-paint-stained hand over his son’s shaggy hair. And underneath the hair, a face that spoke the truth far more in sleep than it ever did when the lad was awake, his expression as tangled as his bedding.

“We’re a right mess, you and I,” Aidan said softly, the emptiness inside about to stretch him to bursting. Things were supposed to get easier, “they” said, after a year. Certainly, Aidan had hoped they’d be more adjusted to their new reality better than they apparently were.

Then he thought of the look in Winnie’s eyes and realized that some realities are harder to adjust to than others, whether you’re “supposed” to or not.

Aidan’s loss was permanent, irreversible, the hopelessness of it an odd sort of comfort, he supposed. But for a nine-year-old child…

For a woman who, nine years ago, had quite possibly felt backed into a corner…

Releasing a long, silent sigh, Aidan rose from the bed and left his son’s room, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket as he went.

Chapter Three

The next morning, Winnie awoke with a yelp when an ice-cold doggy nose torpedoed underneath the comforter to make contact with her warm back. Instantly awake—and cranky—Winnie flipped over to glare at the beast whose toothy grin was a blur in the wriggling excitement that was Annabelle.

It’s morning? We go play? Find things to herd?

“Forget it,” Winnie grumbled. Between feeling like she’d hosted a rowdy keg party in her brain all night and an unfamiliar bed, she was lucky if she’d logged in three hours the entire night. Morning, whatever. And it was coollld out there on the other side of the comforter—

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, remembering that Aidan had invited her to breakfast. That she’d said yes. That loneliness and butter-soft Irish accents were a really, really bad combination. That—

That somewhere in the distance, a rooster was crowing.

“Crap, what time is it?” she asked the world at large, grabbing her watch off the nightstand, then sinking back into the mattress, groaning. Lord, show me a sign, she’d prayed the night before, mainly because Elektra was a big believer in the suckers and Winnie was up the creek, whether I should go or stay. Whether her wanting to get to know Robbie was a right idea, or a relapse into the stubbornness that had ruled so many decisions for so many years. Then Aidan had called, not a minute afterward, and she’d thought, Wow. Fast service.

“I can’t do this,” she now said to the dog, even though she had no earthly idea what this was. Annabelle stopped wriggling long enough to cock her head at her mistress, after which she heaved a great doggy sigh, laid her snout on top of the mattress and commiserated with Winnie with what she probably thought was her best soulful look. Except Annabelle, not being a hound, didn’t do soulful very well. Annabelle was all about perky and playful. Like a cheerleader.

Sure enough, after, oh, ten seconds of sympathy, the dog moonwalked backward, bowed with her butt in the air and yarped. Her version of Get your fat bee-hind out of bed. Now.

With a sigh of her own, Winnie dragged said bee-hind out of bed, the comforter wrapped around her shoulders and trailing after her like a poufy coronation cape as she let the dog out, then clumsily put on coffee, because facing the world—and Aidan—without fresh caffeine in her system wasn’t gonna happen.

Her cell rang. Winnie stared at it, shimmying on the counter like a rattlesnake, a thought that made her shudder mightily. With any luck, it would be Aidan, canceling. Except then she realized, yeah, well, if she wanted to get closer to Robbie, going through Aidan was her only option.

And according to Elektra, once you accepted a sign, you were pretty much stuck with it.

“Good,” Aidan said the moment Winnie put her phone to her ear. Now she heard the crowing in stereo. “You’re awake.”

“Up, yes,” she said, yawning. “Awake, not so much.” Annabelle whined at the back door; Winnie shuffled over to let her in.

“I thought I said breakfast was at eight-t’irty?”

And early morning Irish attitude was just what she needed. “It’s eight…” She squinted at her watch. “Ten. So no problem.’

“Glad to hear it,” Aidan said, and hung up.

Winnie looked at Annabelle, who’d been pretending not to listen. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” she said, but, sadly, dispensing advice was not part of Annabelle’s job description.

The village of Tierra Rosa, Winnie thought as her truck wound up, then down, the curved main drag like a roller coaster on downers, was oddly charming, in a Tim-Burton-gone-Southwest kind of way—a cross between an old Spanish settlement, a set for a fifties’ Hollywood Western and a trailer park. To add to the confusion, she mused as she spotted the cafe, was the occasional bank or church or police department building that was pure Sixties blah.

“No, baby,” she said to the dog as she got out, leaving the truck windows at half-mast since the temperature had inched up to maybe fifty or so, “you have to stay here.” After a moment of looking bereft, the dog sighed and sat. Annabelle was nothing if not flexible.

Then, the breeze zipping right through the persimmon-colored velvet blazer that had seen her through any number of Octobers, Winnie started toward the cafe and was hit by a wave of nervousness so strong she half expected to pass out. The moment she pushed through the glass door, however, the pungent aromas of coffee and griddle grease, the sounds of breakfast orders being barked to the cook, the crush of animated early-morning conversation, wrapped around her, both soothing and unsettling in their familiarity.

The place was nearly full, patrons squeezed around a half-dozen randomly placed tables, into as many bright-red booths. Hand-painted bougainvillea vines snaked underneath a heavily beamed ceiling, the bright pink flowers vibrating against deep-blue walls. The kitchen was open to the dining room, framed by an enormous mural depicting vintage pickups traveling along piñon-dotted mountains.

Nope, definitely not in Texas anymore, she thought, recovering from the onslaught of color. Her nostrils flared at the top note of roasted chili peppers seasoning every deep, calming breath, like Elektra had taught her before she gave birth, although as Winnie recalled when the time came they didn’t do her a damn bit of good. Then her gaze snagged on Aidan, rising out of his chair, and she thought, Not gonna do a damn bit of good now, either.

He dwarfed the tiny table in front of him, the light streaming in through the window beside it bouncing off all those angles and muscles and things practically hard enough to hear, making his white shirt—open one button too far—downright glow. Some people might think the jeans rode a trifle too low, too. Winnie couldn’t decide if she was one of those people or not.

Aidan angled his head slightly, his frown only accentuating the Celtic warrior/cowboy thing he had going with the wild hair, the beard shadow. Not that he was scuzzy—oh, my, no—but he was—

“If you don’t mind?” he said, the frown deepening.

Sorely in need of some manners, Winnie thought irritably, winnowing her way through the maze of tables and chairs toward him, remembering why she was here. Reminding herself that Aidan had the upper hand. And that if she’d had any sense she would’ve left her hormones back in the truck with the dog.

However, the closer she got, the more she could see past the muscles and the too-low jeans and the sheer oh-my-God-ness of the man to the pain-pretending-to-be-annoyance in his eyes. A look she’d seen plenty, in various permutations, over the years as she’d poured yet another cup of coffee or set down a piece of pie or a serving of fresh-made meat loaf and whipped potatoes and gravy. This realization did not make her less nervous, exactly, as much as it somehow gave it a different color.

Although she somehow doubted she’d look back on her years of indentured servitude to her grandmother with anything resembling fondness, there was nothing like working in a diner to hone a person’s ability to read people. The men, especially, hard-wired to believe they were impervious to things like sorrow and heartbreak.

She’d even been able to dispense the odd parcel of advice, now and then, when she’d known enough of the particulars to feel on sure footing. But this time, when something too formless to be a real thought suggested she might be able to help Aidan, too, she nearly laughed. Not only did she know nothing about the man, but how in heaven’s name was she supposed to help somebody else when her own life felt about as solid as a half-set Jell-O salad?

Except then it felt like a pair of hands gently pushed her into the seat in front of him, and she sighed, resigning herself to this being one of those times when the angelthought said, Do this, and you said, Okay, I’ll try.

“You look different,” Aidan said, like it was gonna bug him to no end until he figured out why.

Suddenly ravenous, Winnie picked up the laminated menu with hands she refused to let shake and said, “It’s daylight.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…you’re wearing makeup.”

Winnie batted her eyes over the top of the menu. “So?”

“You weren’t last night.”

She shrugged. “End of the day. And I wasn’t expecting company.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but whatever. “Trust me,” she said, scanning the column of breakfast specials, “I’m doin’ you a favor. But good news—no bunnies were harmed in the making of this mascara.” Her selection made, she slammed down the menu. “So. What made you change your mind?” she said, taking no small pleasure in the look of surprise that crossed his features, just as the waitress—small, blond, fine-featured, grinning—appeared.

“Hey, Aidan…haven’t seen you in here for a while.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said, not returning her smile, and Winnie briefly considered kicking him under the table. Except then the blonde gave Winnie a bemused shrug and a “watcha gonna do?” eye roll. And a light smack on Aidan’s shoulder with her order pad. She was still young enough to look good under fluorescent lighting—and in tight black jeans—but old enough to smack ornery customers with her order pad. Winnie liked her immediately.

“You gonna introduce me or what?”

Aidan frowned at Winnie. Like it had just occurred to him that maybe taking her someplace where people knew him hadn’t been the smoothest move in the book.

“Thea, this is Winnie Porter. Winnie, Thea. Are the eggs fresh?”

“Considering they came from your chickens, I assume so. Salsa’s fresh-made, too.”

Aidan waited until after she’d taken their order and zipped back to the kitchen before he finally said, “What makes you think I’ve changed my mind?”

“Other than you giving the definite impression last night that you were hoping the mother ship would snatch me up?”

“That’s assuming they’d be interested in reclaiming you.”

“Brother. Your wife was clearly a saint.”

“No argument there,” Aidan muttered, his gaze drifting outside as he sipped his coffee. He appeared to be looking at Annabelle, who was looking back. Winnie waved and the dog barked, although you couldn’t really hear it through the glass. Then Aidan said, “Even so, I’m sorry I came down s’hard on you,” and her gaze swung back to his.

But only for a moment. “You had cause,” she said, lowering her eyes to spread her napkin on her lap, then upending the sugar dispenser over her coffee, watching the stream of white crystals disappear into the lake of dark, steaming liquid. Frankly, she needed more caffeine like a hole in the head, this being her third cup in less than an hour, but some days were like that.

She set the sugar dispenser back between them, stirred her coffee. “So, what?” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze, aching for him whether she wanted to or not. “Is this some kind of trial? The number of correct answers determine whether I get to see Robbie or not?”

“It’s not that cut-and-dried,” he said, looking none too comfortable himself.

“No,” Winnie said, lifting the heavy cup and taking a sip. Grimacing, she added more sugar. “I suppose not.”

Her gaze drifted out to Annabelle again, lending her silent, but unwavering, support, her eyes cutting back to his when he said, “I gather my housekeeper paid you a little visit last night.”

“She did.” Winnie took another swallow of coffee. “Did I pass muster?”

“For having cojones? Yes. What’s so funny?”

“Never heard that word with an Irish accent, that’s all. But tell her thank you.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s necessarily on your side.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” When Aidan’s brows lifted, she said, “Flo’s obviously very loyal to you. All of you,” she added, backing up slightly when Thea brought them their food, then left to chat up a good-looking cowboy who’d just come in to pick up a take-out order, or so it looked like. She was all smiles; he wasn’t, doing the whole eye-avoidance thing that spelled doom with a capital D, and Winnie, who’d been on the receiving end of that little scenario more times than she could count, thought, Uh-oh. Then he left, shoulders hunched with apology, and Thea’s eyes touched Winnie’s, full of hurt and confusion and embarrassment, before she disappeared through the archway marked Restrooms.

“That she is,” Aidan said, and Winnie thought, What? Oh. Flo. Right.

She dug into her fried potatoes. “Which is how it should be. So it wasn’t like I was sensing any real support from that camp. Still, I’m a big believer in fate.”

Aidan paused, his fork suspended over his own huevos rancheros. “Willing something to happen isn’t the same thing as fate.”

Again, Winnie laughed, the food too good to stop eating. “Oh, honey…believe me, you’d know if I was being willful. This doesn’t even come close.” She leaned forward to butter a piece of toast, thinking that sometimes nothing hits the spot like a perfectly toasted piece of white bread drenched in butter. “And anyway, nobody told you to call me.”

His eyes dipped to his breakfast, but not fast enough for her to miss his blush. “So this is my doing, is it?”

“Works for me.”

Apparently stymied, at least for the moment, Aidan seemed unable to tear his gaze away from Winnie’s slathering her omelet with copious amounts of thick, fragrant salsa.

“You might want t’go a little easy with that. It’s not for wimps.”

“I think I can handle it,” she said, thinking maybe she was talking about more than salsa. She forked in a large bite of eggs—the stuff definitely had a kick, but she’d had hotter. “And you know, if this really is about gettin’ to know me, you’ll have to take at least some of it on face value, since it’s not like I’ve got a half-dozen character witnesses in my back pocket. But I swear, I didn’t come here to mess with anybody’s head.” The salsa hit the pit of her stomach with a small explosion. “Least of all Robbie’s. And I also swear…”

“What?”

Winnie chewed for a moment, thinking that while she could probably B.S. her way through this little interview, in the long run what would be the point?

“Okay,” she said, noting that Aidan seemed suitably impressed that she hadn’t sucked down half a glass of water to douse the flames, “this probably isn’t gonna earn me any points, seeing as you already think I’m a couple bricks shy of a load as it is. But since you brought up the whole human will thing? I didn’t exactly decide to come out here.”

“What you said about not having any family left notwithstanding. ”

“Oh, that was—is—true enough. Only that alone wouldn’t’ve been enough to make me do something like this. But a couple days after my grandmother died…” She blew out a breath. “It was almost like I heard…a voice. Although not a voice, voice, more like…a real strong feeling. That I had to come here.” At his what-kind-of-fool-do-you-take-me-for? expression, she shrugged. “I know. Elektra thought I was nuts, too. So there’s another tick mark in your column.”

“Elektra?”

“She runs my grandmother’s diner. My diner now, I guess.”

“You don’t sound exactly thrilled.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I just inherited a chain of five-star hotels or anything. And I know I should be grateful. It’ll never make me rich, but that’s okay, I wouldn’t know what to do with rich if it bit me in the butt. It’s just not…me.”

“And what is…you?” he asked, unsmiling.

“I think maybe I want to work with kids—I’ve got my teaching degree, I just have to get certified—but I haven’t had five minutes to myself to think about it.” Then she let out a sound that was equal parts laugh and sigh. “And here I’m supposed to be at least trying to make a decent impression. But you know what? I am who I am, either you deal with that or you don’t. I may be a bit on the flaky side, but I’m not a bad person. Not anymore.”