No Matter What

“That was kindergarten!”

Molly talked right over her. “You were the only girl in Mrs. Carlson’s fifth-grade class to have a boyfriend. Who wrote you poetry.”

“We were children! Like it’s the same.”

“Middle school dances,” Molly continued inexorably. “I chaperoned them. Don’t imply you weren’t popular. You were the only freshman in high school invited to the senior prom—”

“Which you didn’t let me go to.”

“You were fourteen years old! He was eighteen.” The knife was still clutched in her hand, but she’d given up slicing.

“I didn’t care about him, okay?” Cait’s pale, redhead’s skin was a furious red. “I love Trevor, and you’re…you’re persecuting him because he likes me, too!” She shoved one of the stools and it crashed to its side on the hardwood floor.

“Caitlyn Callahan!”

“I’m through listening to you,” Cait yelled, and raced from the room. The front door opened and banged shut.

Molly let the knife fall to the cutting board, braced her hands on the tiled countertop and closed her eyes.

Dear God, she asked, why didn’t we get this over with when she was thirteen? Why did raging hormones have to hit now?

Easy answer: Trevor Ward.

“I do not hate Trevor,” Molly said aloud. “I am more adult than that.” She thought.

* * *

“TALK TO ME,” HIS father said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

The anger that filled Trevor 24/7 rose like a storm-driven wave ready to crash on the beach. Trevor didn’t know how to handle these violent impulses, this deep hunger to make everyone else hurt as much as he did. He couldn’t have formed all this hostility and sense of betrayal into words even if he’d wanted to, and he didn’t.

“Nothing’s going on.”

His father sighed. “Have you ever been in a fight before last week?”

He shrugged.

Dad had just slapped dinner on the table—a frozen lasagna nuked in the microwave, salad from a bag and presliced garlic bread, also nuked. He hadn’t said a word during the drive home. When they’d walked in the door, he’d said, “Go to your room and don’t come out until dinner,” and continued toward his home office without looking back. Trevor had hesitated, but Dad hadn’t looked or sounded like himself. There wasn’t anyplace he wanted to be, anyway, he’d told himself, and gone upstairs where he threw himself on the bed and discovered he had enough adrenaline still heating up his bloodstream that he wished Aaron Latter was on his feet again and coming at him.

Now Trevor only wanted his father to get the lecture over so he could sneak out and meet Cait. So far, she was the only good thing to come out of moving to this crappy little town. When he was with her, his anger settled. He felt more normal. Horny, but normal. He grinned. Yeah, okay, that was normal.

“You find this funny?” his father asked coldly.

He kept his head down. “I was thinking about something else.”

“I guess the first thing I need to figure out is how to keep your attention, then, isn’t it?”

His first thought was Oh, shit, and his second— Yeah, big scare, what can he do to me anyway?

Dad held out his hand. “Car keys.”

The legs of Trevor’s chair scraped on the floor as he recoiled. “What?”

“You heard me. Your driving privileges are suspended.”

Rage rose in him. Tide coming in. “That car’s a piece of crap, anyway.” He took pleasure in the slight flinch he detected beside his father’s grimly set mouth. Dad had bought the heap of junk before Trevor had even shown up. He’d been proud that he already had a car for his son.

Trevor dug in his jeans pocket, pulled out the keys and tossed them toward his father. He wasn’t real sorry when they landed on Dad’s lasagna.

Without a word, his father picked them up, took the car key off the ring and handed it back to Trevor. “You might want to wash that,” he commented, in the hard voice that didn’t sound like the dad Trevor knew and had thought he loved. Then he calmly wiped his fingers on his napkin and started to eat.

Trevor stared at his meal.

“The cell phone is next,” Dad remarked, as if he was commenting on something that happened at work that morning. “One more call from the school. You understand?”

“I’m not hungry.” Trevor pushed back from the table.

“Understand?”

“Yes! I understand! Are you happy?” He hated the tremor in his voice. The little boy in awe of his daddy. The wriggling, squirming need to piss on the floor because daddy was mad at him.

“Happy?” For a moment their eyes met, the same espresso color. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“May I be excused?” Trevor asked with mocking courtesy.

“Certainly,” his father said. “Check the refrigerator in the morning. Since you’ll be home, anyway, I’ll post a list of chores for you to do.”

Trevor didn’t say a word. He left the dining room and went upstairs. He’d already perfected the art of leaving the house via his bedroom window and swinging down from the arbor that covered the back patio. He and Cait were meeting at ten. Fortunately, he could walk anyplace in this nowhere town.

Tonight he’d get in her pants. She was dragging her feet. She hadn’t done it before, she said. She wasn’t sure she was ready. Furious, he turned on his music loud enough to shake the walls.

Well, screw that. Screw her. He was ready. Past ready. Desperate. He needed something, and she was it.

CHAPTER TWO

MOLLY DIDN’T DARE go so far as forbidding Cait to see Trevor. That was about the dumbest thing any parent could do, she had always believed. But oh, how she wanted to.

He did not appear chastened when he reappeared in school the following Monday. The black eye had already faded to mustard and lavender. All it succeeded in doing was making him look tougher. He seemed not to have shaved that morning, as if making a statement with the dark stubble. Molly noticed, as she noticed most things in her school. That was one of the mornings she greeted students arriving from the parking lot. His eyes met hers briefly, and she had to work to keep herself from taking a step back. The disquieting thing, she realized, was that there was no spark of rage. Instead, if she hadn’t imagined it, he’d smirked. As if he knew something she didn’t.

A mother’s panic struck her. Cait. That son of a bitch. If he was planning to get to her through her daughter, she’d… Her stomach clenched. Do what? She couldn’t even prevent whatever it was he had in mind, not without locking Caitlyn in her room for the foreseeable future. Sending her off to boarding school. And that was assuming she wasn’t already too late.

I’ll keep the channels of communication open, she told herself, tamping down the fear. Cait and she had always talked, often and easily. Her daughter’s recent behavior was an anomaly. She’d get over it.

But that same panic had Molly wondering, When?

She had spoken at length to Aaron and his mother—his father was apparently too busy to take time to discuss his son’s behavior with school officials. The mother talked about pressing charges. Aaron’s eyes got shifty and he insisted that was ridiculous, he could take care of himself. Molly pushed; he got shiftier. It would appear Cait was right; something had been going on that he didn’t want his mother or anyone else to know about. He was not the complete innocent he had initially seemed.

“My daughter has mentioned you,” Molly made a point of saying, and Aaron looked alarmed.

“Cait?”

“Yes.” Molly had studied him unblinkingly. “Did you know she and Trevor are friends?”

The mother’s head had been swiveling as she tried to figure out what this digression had to do with anything. Neither Aaron nor Molly enlightened her, but Molly was satisfied she’d made her point.

She still didn’t like Trevor Ward—although I do not hate him—but she’d decided she didn’t like Aaron Latter, either. Practically stalking, huh? Let him try that again.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Trevor managed to avoid getting into a fight. He still walked the halls of West Fork High School looking like an escapee gunfighter from the O.K. Corral, minus the black duster and—so far—the gun. Oh, God, horrendous thought—he wasn’t that angry, was he?

Molly still caught glimpses of her daughter’s shining strawberry-blond head at his side, barely topping his broad shoulder. Caitlin was going to the library to study a lot these days, after school and evenings. Or hanging out with friends, often unnamed.

“Does it matter?” she asked with apparent indignation. “Like there’s anywhere in town to go.”

There was Trevor’s house afternoons when his father was at work. That was one place Molly would hugely prefer Cait not go. Or Terrace Park, the peculiar one-acre piece of old-growth forest somehow saved as a city park. The vast, tall, dark trees offered too many hiding places, especially at night. A teenage girl had been raped in the park only last year.

In her professional role, Molly had no reason to speak to Richard Ward, although she knew several of the teachers had called him. Trevor was not performing to ability in his classes. In other words, he was obliterating his chances of getting into Harvard or Stanford or possibly even the local community college. Coach Bowman had also called Trevor’s father to ask why Trevor was refusing to go out for the basketball team. Coach Loomis had been sulking since school began because Trevor had refused to play football. West Fork had come within one win last year of taking the league championships. This kid who’d led his team to all-state in California could have taken West Fork to the Promised Land. It was killing Chuck Loomis that Trevor had refused. Gene Bowman was refusing to lose hope.

Molly wished him all the luck in the world. She’d love to see Trevor tied up every afternoon in basketball practice. Friday or Saturday nights at games. Whole weekends at tournaments! He could take some of his aggression out on the court in a healthy, culturally approved manner. He could be frequently unavailable to spend time with her daughter. Despite the many pluses, however, she was staying out of the campaign to win Trevor over. She had had to assure Gene several times that her intervention would hurt more than it helped.

One day the first week of October Molly overheard Caitlyn whining on the phone to someone—probably Trevor—that Mom hadn’t let her take driver’s ed this semester, so now she couldn’t get her license until next summer even though she would turn sixteen in April.

To the best of Molly’s recollection, they’d both agreed it didn’t make sense for her to take the class until spring since it would be almost summer before she’d be able to drive, anyway.

Of course there was no mystery about Cait’s new passion for getting her driver’s license. When he couldn’t hitch a ride to school with one of his new friends, Trevor had become a walker. Knowing Richard Ward had taken the kid’s car away from him after the last fight did soften Molly’s feelings toward Ward senior, if only slightly. Smart to hit a teenager the hardest where the privileges he or she took for granted were concerned. For a boy, the car had to be number one.

She would swear she’d never set eyes on Trevor’s father before, but by some evil chance she kept seeing him now.

One Saturday she was pushing her cart filled with groceries out of the store and came nearly face-to-face with both father and son, striding across the parking lot toward her. Trevor looked sulky—gee, nothing new in that. His father looked sexy, in well-worn jeans and a faded T-shirt that clung to a powerful body. Oh, Lord, she thought, reacting to his loose-hipped, purely male walk.... One, she was disturbed to see, that his son shared.

The boy’s stride checked briefly.

“Trevor,” she said pleasantly, nodding. “Mr. Ward.”

“Ms. Callahan.”

Was she imagining the mocking emphasis on the Ms.? Molly’s eyes narrowed. She’d expect it from the son, but not the father. No wonder his kid was such a butt.

The heavily laden cart had taken on a life of its own and she couldn’t have paused even if she’d wanted to. “You need a hand?” said a reluctant voice behind her.

Father. Son hovered by the double doors, confusing them so that they slid open and closed, open and closed.

“Thank you, but no. I generally manage groceries on my own.”

A flash in his so-dark eyes told her he’d heard her antagonism. He nodded and turned away.

“Mr. Ward,” Molly called, ashamed of herself.

He paused and looked back, eyebrows up.

“Thank you. I mean it. It was kind of you to offer.”

She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. He only bent his head again and joined his son. The two disappeared into the store. Molly realized she hadn’t seen them so much as glance at each other, never mind exchange a word.

She spotted him less than a week later behind the wheel of a moss-green cargo van that said Ward Electrical on the side. Molly had seen the vans before. In fact, hadn’t they done the electrical work on the new elementary school? He must own the company.

She had pulled into a parking spot on the main street of West Fork’s old-fashioned downtown. The Ward Electrical van had had to wait while she maneuvered. She turned her head as the van passed, and their eyes met. Inimical, she thought was the word. High school English teacher though she’d been, she had never until now put that particular word into real-world use. Mr. Ward did not care for her.

What ate at her was the knowledge that she deserved his dislike. He’d been a jerk, but she hadn’t behaved any better. In fact, she’d been a jerk first. She’d had a headache, Trevor had quite honestly scared her and because of Trevor she was losing all closeness with her daughter, her only family. She prided herself on being a professional, but she hadn’t been where either Ward was concerned.

Richard was in the bleachers on the evening in early October when the school held its first open house, mainly geared at freshman parents but open to all. Marta welcomed them, induced a few chuckles then introduced some of the staff, including Molly.

“Our vice principal, Molly Callahan,” she said, “spent her summer ensuring that students were placed in appropriate classes and that when they got there, each and every one would find a chair to sit in and a desk to write on. This busy lady is part of our curriculum committee, deals with behavioral issues, oversees building maintenance and support staff. You are much likelier to meet with Ms. Callahan this year than me, although—” she smiled broadly “—I sincerely hope it isn’t when your child gets in trouble.”

A laugh rippled through the assembled parents, all looking awkward crowded on the bleachers. Probably feeling a hint of déjà vu. Unfortunately, that was the moment when Richard Ward, seated halfway up on the end of the senior class bleacher, caught her eye. He was not laughing.

After the speeches, teachers settled at tables hurriedly placed around the gymnasium and out in the main corridor. Parents circulated to chat with their particular child’s teachers. Molly wandered around, greeting people she knew, pausing to talk longer with a few who had concerns. She kept seeing Richard, who was apparently determined to speak to every single one of Trevor’s teachers. Probably he wanted to put faces with the voices he’d already heard on the phone when they called to discuss his son’s shortcomings. Lucky man.

She slipped into the administrative offices to call Cait, who answered neither the home phone nor her mobile. Wonderful. Molly had a sudden image of all the unsupervised teenagers in town assembling at Terrace Park for some kind of bacchanalian party while their parents were all earnestly engaged in planning their futures. God.

A new headache nudged at her temple. She’d been getting a lot of them lately. Better drunken revelry, she decided, than Trevor and Caitlyn alone. She shook with sudden frustration and anger. What if they were in Cait’s bedroom right now? Listening to the phone ring? Laughing? She could hear Cait, in that new snotty voice, saying, “Ooh, Mommy’s checking up on me.”

Putting on her game face, Molly let herself out of the offices only to see Richard Ward walking toward her.

Voices spilled into the broad corridor from the gymnasium and open area outside it. In the other direction, headlights were coming on in the dark parking lot outside. But momentarily, the two of them were alone and she felt the oddest pang of…fear?

Surely not.

Molly stiffened. “Thank you for coming tonight, Mr. Ward. I hope you were able to meet with everyone you wanted to.”

“Yes, thank you.” He looked gorgeous in a charcoal suit, white shirt and even a tie rather than his green work uniform.

She hated the knowledge that she could totally understand how Caitlyn had fallen so hard for this man’s son. With hair long enough to be slightly unruly, mocking dark eyes and that lazy, long-legged stride, he was the sexiest man she’d ever seen.

He’s a parent, she told herself. An electrician, for Pete’s sake. A regular, garden-variety man. Maybe even married.

She didn’t remember noticing the name of a stepmother in Trevor’s records, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

That splashed cold water on her involuntary leap of attraction. It hadn’t occurred to her, for some reason, but of course he was. How many men his age who looked like that and made a good living hadn’t been snatched up long ago? None. Molly made a mental note to check Trevor’s records again. Only to satisfy her curiosity, of course. Yes, he’d come to school conferences alone, but his current wife wasn’t Trevor’s mother, obviously. A defiant seventeen-year-old son would be his responsibility, not hers.

“Good night, then.” She offered him another vague, pleasant smile and passed by him close enough to touch as she returned to the gym and he continued to the outer doors and parking lot. If he wished her a good-night, she didn’t hear it.

She had another hour to get through before she could go home and find out whether her daughter was Jekyll or Hyde tonight. With an odd ramble into frivolity, she thought, Maybe I should I make it Jacqueline or…hmm, Heidi?

* * *

“DAMN IT, ALEXA, ANSWER,” Richard growled, listening to the phone ring. He’d left half a dozen messages. He’d have flown to California to confront her if he’d been positive where she and Brianna were living. The house had belonged to Alexa’s husband, Davis, so of course she’d been the one to have to move out along with her children. A month ago, the two had been staying with friends. Brianna had texted that she and Mom had an apartment now, but Richard had yet to get an address.

“Richard.”

She’d picked up. About goddamn time.

“You’ve been dodging me,” he said.

“You know my life is a mess.” She had an irritatingly little girl voice that always caught him by surprise. Hard to imagine why he’d thought it was cute when they were in high school together. Now it only grated. “I don’t need more to deal with. Trev flipped out. It was too much for me. The two of you have always been tight. I thought he’d be happy to be living with you.”

“He’s damn near flunking out of school, he’s been in two ugly fights and is a hair away from getting expelled, and every word he deigns to speak to me drips with sarcasm and hostility. I can safely say that he isn’t happy.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“Lexa, what happened? This had to be almost an overnight thing. He’s not talking. You need to tell me.”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “Okay? Davis and I were having problems, and maybe I just didn’t notice something. All I know is that he suddenly hated me, Davis and everyone else.”

“Brianna?”

She let out a breath that might have been a sob. “Maybe not her. I don’t know. I think he calls her sometimes.”

“She told me he does.”

“Did you ask her?”

“Not yet.” It seemed underhanded, using one kid to get a handle on the other. And he’d always found it harder to talk to Brianna.

“Well, try,” his ex snapped. “Trevor sure doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t answer when I call and hasn’t called me once. He’s all yours, Richard. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”

It was all he could do not to say, Yeah, but I’d have liked to get him before you screwed with his head.

That wasn’t fair, anyway. As little as he liked Alexa, she’d done fine with the kids. Brianna seemed like a normal teenage girl—i.e., incomprehensible to him—but what was new about that? Trevor had thrived until whatever happened happened.

They talked for a couple more minutes. Alexa got sulkier and sulkier. He found himself responding in monosyllables. He finally asked if Brianna was there and his daughter came on.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Daddy. Call him a sucker, but that warmed him. Not so much when she was trying to persuade him to buy something for her, but when it popped out for no reason, yeah.

“Hey, honey. How are you? You settled into school?”

She’d had to change schools, too, which wasn’t fair, but her mother couldn’t afford an apartment in Beverly Hills where Davis lived. The guy was rich enough to have made it possible if he’d wanted, but why would he? The kids weren’t his. At least the break hadn’t happened mid-school year.

Brianna was fourteen, and a freshman in high school now. Only a year behind Trevor’s apparent girlfriend, Caitlyn Callahan. Had that occurred to Trev?

“It’s okay,” Bree said, tone telling him it really wasn’t. “At least I still talk to Lark.”

His daughter might be a near stranger to him, but Richard did know that Lark was her most recent BFF. Lark’s daddy was with one of the big Hollywood talent agencies. Brianna had been moving in slightly scary circles. He’d wondered without ever asking her if she told anyone that her father was an electrician.

“That’s good,” he said cautiously. “Gotten to know some new kids?”

“Oh, kinda. The classes are way behind the ones I was in last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He felt helpless, as he often did when talking to her. He couldn’t have offered her what Davis Noonan had. He’d had painfully mixed feelings about the advantages this man he’d never even met had given his children. His feelings about them losing those advantages were even murkier. “I’m betting you’ll rise to the top wherever you are,” he said in the hearty tone any self-respecting kid would see through.

“Oh, Dad.” Rolled eyes. He knew it. He’d been demoted to “Dad,” too.

“Trev is having a tough time,” he said abruptly.

“Yeah, he doesn’t say much.”

Unhelpful. “I was hoping he did to you.”

“Nuh-uh. I think he’s mad at Mom and you, too, but I don’t know why.” She paused. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”

“Partly,” he admitted, shamed. He tugged at his hair hard enough to hurt. “I always want to talk to you. You know that.”

“I kind of wish I’d come for the summer.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I wish you had, too, honey. I miss you. It’s been too long.”

Bree hadn’t spent this past summer with Richard, either. She’d seemed reluctant with her brother not coming, and Richard hadn’t pushed it. He was sorry now.

“Maybe I can come for Christmas,” she added. “Except then Mom would be alone, so maybe not. Plus I wouldn’t know anyone there.”

“You know me and your brother.”

She made a noncommittal noise. He tried to coax some more information from her about new friends, teachers, anything, but got nuggets like “not really” and “they’re fine.” Finally he gave up and they signed off.

In frustration he thought, This is as good as it’s going to get. I’ll watch her graduate from high school and probably college, help pay for a wedding, walk her down the aisle if stepfather number four or five doesn’t get the nod, and I’ll never really know her. My own daughter.

He’d actually had doubts about whether she really was, although he rarely let them surface. He hadn’t guessed when Bree was born that Alexa was sleeping around, but later… He’d wondered, that’s all. Unlike Trevor, she had her mother’s coloring and enough of her mother’s looks there was no being sure. It didn’t make any difference, though. He’d loved his little girl from the first time he held her, and never stopped. It didn’t really matter if biologically she was his or not. It was only that she was more like her mother. Girlie.