His Rebel Heart

Adrian pursed her lips. Briar would know all about grief, as her mother, Hanna, had died of cancer when Briar was fresh out of cooking school. “Be that as it may. It’s been eight years since he left. Longer since his father died. He’s a grown-ass man and I’d be a moron to buy that as an excuse for his behavior anymore. And besides, he didn’t leave me in the lurch because he was grieving.”

“I know,” Briar acknowledged. “I’m not trying to make excuses for him. And I do agree that caution is your best plan of action as far as he’s concerned—particularly for Kyle’s sake. However, I have a hard time believing he’d come back to Fairhope unless he really did think he had something to prove, something to fix. It takes a great deal of courage to come back or to redeem yourself. Especially in a place where you experienced or were the cause of as much upheaval as he was eight years ago.”

Adrian shook her head. “I don’t have it in me to feel sorry for him. I spent two months as his coping mechanism because his arrest cut off his other means of dealing with his problems, those of the substance variety. It took me a long time to accept the fact that that’s all I was to him.”

Briar frowned, glancing toward the living room where they could both see the baby crawling haltingly across the rug, encouraged by the dark-haired man and the enthusiastic boy. She sighed and lowered her voice. “That’s justifiable. But after seeing Cole cut off from his son the way he was for so long, knowing what it did to him...I’m sorry, I have a hard time agreeing that you shouldn’t at least let James try to earn a place in Kyle’s life, even just a small one.”

“This is different,” Adrian told her. “Cole didn’t deserve to be apart from Gavin the way he was. Nothing in James’s past tells me that I should trust him.”

Briar took a sip of tea and added, “So what are you going to do? You aren’t really going to send Kyle to The Farm to live with your parents, are you?”

“No,” Adrian agreed.

“You can’t keep them from seeing each other,” Briar pointed out.

“I realize that,” Adrian said darkly. “And I’ll deal with that, too. Even if I have to set up an electric fence on the property line to zap James if he gets within five feet.” She felt too tired now to contemplate that particular quandary. “Is Liv still sick?”

“She was here this morning,” Briar said. A small smile pulled at her mouth. “Asking about ginger. For nausea.”

“So she is still sick.”

“Yes, but...” Briar let out a laugh as she set down her mug with a clack. “Come on, Adrian. You and I have both been there. The first trimester is hardly a walk in the park.”

“First tri...” The words trailed off as Adrian finally put the pieces together. She gasped and sat up straighter. “No! Olivia’s pregnant? I can’t believe this.”

“Neither can she, bless her heart,” Briar admitted. “But she and Gerald are married. They’re happy. They just bought all of her grandmother’s land in Silverhill. It’s not like they don’t have the room, the heart or the capacity for a baby...”

“Sure,” Adrian said. “But it’s Liv.” She shook her head when Briar raised a brow. “I guess I just never thought of her as a mother. Especially not so soon.”

Briar tilted her head. “Did you think of yourself as one?”

Adrian blew out a breath. “No. Not until I was.” Glancing toward the living room again, she felt the knots in her shoulders loosen. “Not until I felt the first flutters, those first kicks. And then not completely until I held him the first time, until he looked at me...”

Briar smiled warmly. “And look at you now. The best mother any little boy could ask for.”

“Thanks for that.” She’d needed the vote of confidence, Adrian realized.

“Bring Kyle for breakfast tomorrow,” Briar said. “There will be quiche and beignets. Olivia and Gerald will be here, as well. You can avoid James for a bit longer and we can tell Liv she has another shoulder to lean on.”

Adrian nodded. The promise of breakfast at Hanna’s surrounded by friends who were as close as family cheered her immensely. “We’ll be here.”

“Hey, ladies!” Cole called from the living room. “Come see this.”

Briar and Adrian walked into the living room in time to see Harmony standing on chubby bowlegs, her tiny hands clasped tightly in Kyle’s. The boy’s eyes were wide and bright on hers as he called out words of encouragement. Cole, grinning like a fiend, hovered close at Harmony’s back. When she took a halting step toward Kyle with little assistance, Briar shrieked and clapped her hands.

Cole looked to her and they exchanged proud, bittersweet smiles before his eyes found Adrian’s. “She did it for Kyle.”

They made a picture, the two giggling children. Adrian’s heart gave a little squeeze.

“She loves him,” Briar said when her daughter held her arms up insistently for Kyle and he obliged by picking her up with a “Hoorah!” for her efforts. “Every time she sees Kyle, she lights up. And no wonder. He’ll be a bona fide heartbreaker before long.”

“I know,” Adrian muttered sadly. “What the heck am I going to do?”

“I’m still trying to get over the fact that my baby’s eating solid foods,” Briar said woefully. “I can’t imagine her growing up, dating, getting married...”

“Liv’s right. Denial works wonders sometimes,” Adrian told her. “I’ll be sticking to it.”

Cole walked to her, the proud papa smile not quite worn off. “Everything all right?” he asked, seeming to read past the nostalgic gleam to Adrian’s troubles.

Adrian patted him on the arm. He was a damn good man. It hadn’t taken long for her to grow to love him, too. “Nothing a trip to Olivia’s tavern won’t cure.”

His expression sobered as he narrowed his eyes on her face, a glimmer of doubt flickering in his dark eyes. “What do you say we all meet there tomorrow night? Liv mentioned it’s Monica’s night off, so Briar’s helping out behind the bar and her dad’s coming by to spend a few hours with Harmony.” He wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders, bringing her in close to his side. “I know we could both use a night out.”

Adrian could, too. “I’ll talk to my parents, see if one or both of them can watch Kyle for a few hours. Anyway, it’s getting late. I know you’ve got to put Harmony down for the night and bedtime is fast approaching for her knight in shining armor, too.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Cole offered. He followed them to the door of the inn. When Kyle bounded ahead down the front steps of the porch, Cole grabbed Adrian’s arm. “You sure you’re okay?”

She hitched the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder, avoiding his gaze. The man could spot turmoil from a mile away. Probably because he’d been through the worst of it. Adrian had a fair sense that if she told him not just what was bothering her but who, he’d go storming off to take care of her business for her. “I’m fine, Cole. I promise.”

Unconvinced, he searched her face. “You know if you need anything...”

“I know,” she said with a small smile and patted his hand. “Good night.”

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCENTRATINGONANYTHINGbut his son proved to be problematic for James, even with the grand opening of Bracken Mechanics right around the corner. The morning following the bombshell at Flora, James met Priscilla Grimsby at the offices of the local newspaper to talk about Fairhope’s newest business venture.

Fortunately, the reporter skimmed the more sordid details of his past, even after she learned that he had been born and raised there. Though she did seem interested in the fact that his father had once been the town preacher.

James frowned as he drove back to the garage, wondering just how many of those gritty details about his past would end up in Priscilla’s business column. Like her brother, Byron, she’d seemed quite interested in generating as much positive press as possible for Bracken Mechanics. He hoped for the best and put it out of his mind.

The latter part proved easier than the first with Adrian and the blue-eyed child they had made together lurking at the forefront. He hadn’t the first clue how to prove to Adrian that he could be a good father, much less that he deserved her respect and trust.

Regret was a barb he’d come to know all too well—regret over his father’s death, over how badly he had let things get between him and his father before the accident, over how far James had gone to avoid the resulting grief and loss...

However, none of it compared to the regret he felt now knowing that Adrian had had to raise their son alone while also dealing with the heartbreak and humiliation she’d spoken of the day before. She’d faced it all on her own. Suddenly, his leaving looked an awful lot less like doing what was right and a lot more like the coward’s way out...

Hell, if only he had known. Things could have been different. He would have made things different.

His thoughts circled and spiraled, then circled again until the sun was hanging low in the west and he’d done all he could at the garage for the day. Scowling, he took one last look around. It was coming together, no mistake. Still, there were things that needed to be done, including hiring a couple of guys to help out. A fellow mechanic. A tow truck driver. Maybe somebody to man the phone and handle administrative tasks.

As he locked the doors and pulled the grate over them, a mud-caked Dodge pulled into the parking lot and parked next to the tow truck. James noted the gun rack in the truck bed and the two nuts hanging by a silver chain loop off the back exhaust pipe. He crossed his arms as the driver door opened and a familiar figure jumped to the ground from the raised cab. James scanned the faded jeans, the plaid shirt and the red-bearded face and shook his head. “I’ll be damned,” he said as a smile stretched across the man’s mouth.

Dustin Harbuck took off his sunglasses as he approached James in dirty work boots. “Jim Bracken,” he greeted James. Dustin wore a battered camouflage baseball cap with a shiny, silver fishing hook clipped onto the front of the bill. Stretching out a large hand, he pumped James’s fist. “Been gone long enough, brother?”

They weren’t brothers. In fact, they’d only been friends for a brief stretch of time. All the Harbuck boys were more than a little rough around the edges and daredevils to boot. A few of them had even served time behind bars, but over the months between the fateful wreck that had changed James’s life and his departure from Fairhope, James had grown to rely on Dusty and his bad influence to cope with life as it was then. Through their shared antics, they had grown as close as two small-town rebels could.

In fact, it was Dusty James had gone to at the end of that fateful summer. Dusty hadn’t hesitated to give James enough money to get him as far away from Fairhope as he could manage on a limited budget. He hadn’t asked questions, either.

James looked at Dusty and saw the first friendly face of all those ghosts he had left behind. Without a word, he embraced him hard. “It’s good to see you, buddy,” he said, and meant it.

Dusty thumped him on the shoulder. He stepped back and surveyed the beard and tattoos that covered James and laughed. “The big, wide world’s left its mark on you.”

“Seems so,” James muttered, turning his tattooed left hand until the art on the underside was revealed. “How’s life been treating you?”

“Decent enough,” Dusty said with a nod. He glanced over James’s shoulder at the locked garage. “Clint told me he’d heard a rumor you were back in town. As shocked as I was to hear that, it wasn’t anything compared to how I felt when I heard you’re trying to throw together a new business.”

James looked at the garage. “I heard Witmore was retiring. I couldn’t let the old place go to waste.”

Narrowing his eyes, Dusty pushed the bill of his cap up with his knuckles, then used them to scratch the spot where the hat had been rubbing just below his red hairline. “And, just like that, after eight years, you come flying back into town to rescue it?”

James lifted his shoulders. “Why not?”

“I ain’t buyin’ it,” Dusty said, pinning an inquisitive gaze on James’s face. “I figure you’ve either gone nuts or we’ve got ourselves a new underground gaming establishment here.”

James chuckled. “Nah. All my gaming’s above ground these days.”

Dusty’s head tipped back suddenly, as if he’d been hit. A brief wince crossed his face. “So you’re telling me not only are you a legitimate business owner now...you’re also on the straight and narrow?”

Smiling, James watched his friend’s face as the crystal-blue eyes roved his for flaws. “Believe it, Harbuck.”

Dusty bolted out a loud laugh. “You are nuts.”

“Maybe,” James acknowledged. He clapped Dusty on the shoulder. “We all gotta grow up at some point.”

“Hmm.” Looking unconvinced, Dusty jerked his chin at the tow truck. “Heard you were looking for a tow driver.”

“Yep,” James said as they strode over to Witmore’s tow truck. “You interested?”

“Clint’s done with the big rigs. Dad gave him the tow I was using around town so I’m in the market. What kind of pay would you be offering on a part-time basis?”

They haggled for a few minutes over commission, hourly rates, benefits and so on. In the end, they shook on an agreement and James handed over the keys.

Watching Dusty flip the key chain from one hand to the other, James leaned back against the tow truck’s grille and frowned. “You’ve been working for your old man since high school?”

“Here and there,” Dusty said with a scowl. “He trusts Clint and Hawk more than me, ever since that little incident involving you, me, a bottle of Johnny Walker and his tractor a few months before that fiasco with the Carltons.”

The Carltons. James’s heart did a little roll and his shoulders straightened. “So you’ve been around since then?”

“For the most part.”

“You ever cross paths with Adrian and her little boy?” James asked.

“Not so much anymore,” Dusty considered. “Not since she and Radley ended things.”

James’s pulse and jaw dropped simultaneously. “Radley Kennard?”

“One and the same.” Dusty nodded. “They divorced about six years back. It ruined him. She told everyone who’d listen that he took a swing at her a couple times. He was a cop. Lost his badge and everything. She slapped him with a restraining order. Poor guy hasn’t been the same since.”

James took a moment to close his mouth, pressing his lips together hard as he digested this new nugget of information. Adrian had been...married? And how in God’s name had she gotten involved with a creep like Radley Kennard? Radley’s younger brother, Scotty, had been one of the guys that ran in Dusty’s hell-raising crew...though even James had been wary around him and his family. Word then was the brothers had run cock-and dog-fighting rings in the woods—though James had never seen as much for himself. Even in his eagerness to fly headlong into the abyss, he’d known to steer clear of the likes of Radley Kennard.

As to the allegations of abuse...James’s blood ran cold at the thought. However life had treated her, she had never been the kind of person to point fingers falsely. She’d worked and fought for what she was and what she wanted. James couldn’t dismiss Adrian’s claims of abuse as Dusty had. And the thought of anyone hurting her like that made James’s fists clench until the knuckles cracked under the strain.

“Why are you interested in Adrian again?” Dusty questioned. “You should know better than that.”

James pursed his lips and took in a long breath—long enough to clear away the fog of rage that the thought of a man like Radley Kennard so much as touching Adrian had stirred. Slowly, his fists unclenched and he relaxed the fingers one by one, lifting one hand and using it to massage the knuckles on the other. “Why do you say that?”

Dusty gave him an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right? The Carltons got you arrested twice. They practically ran you out of town. If I were you, the last thing I’d be thinking about is getting involved with Adrian. That can only lead to trouble.” He pushed off the tow to walk back to his truck. “Just ask Radley.”

It was more complicated than that. Though, since Dusty hadn’t mentioned the kid, James doubted he knew that Kyle was his son. “How do you feel about starting the week after next? I told a reporter over at the Courier this morning I was planning on opening shop then. She’s doing a feature in next week’s paper.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dusty said and smiled, tipping the bill of his hat to James. “And, hey, for the record, welcome back.”

“Thanks,” James said.

Dusty climbed up into his Dodge. “I’ll see you Monday after next.”

* * *

ADRIANHADNOCHOICE. It had to be done. Just after lunch the following afternoon, Adrian reluctantly asked Penny if she could manage the shop for an hour or two while she went home to work in her kitchen.

Her spring line of homemade candles was selling like hotcakes this year. If she didn’t find time to work on a new batch, she would sell out by the end of the week.

It was the slowest day of the workweek. Flora had only received a trickle of calls that morning. Penny could easily handle a fruit basket, a couple of baby arrangements and a spring wreath. Adrian figured it was her only chance to get away from the shop before the weekend Easter rush.

As she pulled into her driveway, she chanced a glance over into James’s neighboring one. Yep. There was that black sportster sitting on the cracked pavement. She fumbled her keys as she walked briskly to her front door. Even in her hurry, she avoided the grass she tended so carefully, sticking to the footpath that skirted her front beds. There were the annuals and perennials she and Kyle had planted together. The hydrangeas were blooming like crazy and she was pleased to see Kyle’s favorites, the citrus trees, coming back from the harsh winter.

If James saw her come home, he didn’t hail her in time to stop her from escaping inside the cottage and bolting the three locks she’d installed on the door when she and Kyle had first moved in. She couldn’t avoid him forever. She knew that. But she could damn well try...

Breathing a sigh, she walked back to the kitchen and shed the light crocheted sweater she’d left the house in that morning. Opening the window over the sink to let in the scent of Kyle’s sweet olives, she took a moment to indulge in the light, cool breeze that blew through the screens and over her bare arms. She opened the half door to the back porch and smiled at the sound of birdsong. Feeling close to relaxed, she covered her shorts and tank top with a red apron and got to work.

Any mother of an seven-year-old boy knew that silence was a rare thing. So she worked without music, unless the birdsong and the jangle and ting of wind chimes counted. Humming to herself, she melted wax and cut wicks. She dyed the wax, except what she set aside to use with one of her bestselling scents, gardenia. She’d discovered over the years that gardenia had its own hue, turning the wax a lovely shade of green.

Carefully, she measured out her various essential oils. Each reacted differently with the wax and some could even eat through plastic or remove paint so here the process became a bit intricate.

Just as she was beginning to measure and stir, a deep, bass note rent the quiet, making her flinch. The scent, wax and dye mixture she was currently working on tipped over and spilled across the hardwood floor of the kitchen. She shrieked in alarm, then again in anger when the clash of drums and guitars of Audioslave followed.

James was, indeed, home. After doing what she could about the mess, Adrian threw the ruined bits into the sink and glared out the window above it, raising herself onto her tiptoes to look over the fence line. But her honeysuckle vines prevented her from seeing anything. The whine of a power saw joined the musical blast. Her teeth ground together as she fought back a growl.

She had half a mind to go pound on his door. She was a few steps from her door when she realized what she was doing...

No. No way in hell was she facing the embodiment of her problems. Balling her hands on her hips, she glared again through the window at the fence and the small bit of James’s house that was visible through glossy green leaves.

Muttering, she walked back to the sink and salvaged what she could of the wax. One of the other neighbors would surely be as offended as she was. They’d go over, put an end to it...

But it was early afternoon. Most of the neighbors were at the office. The kids were in school.

She was on her own.

Cursing, she went back to making her candles. As the hour stretched into another and the sounds of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” followed closely on the heels of Van Halen’s “Eruption,” her movements became jerky. She broke two mason jars, spilled more wax on the floor, cursed up a storm...

Adrian figured he was baiting her. She’d avoided coming into contact with him since his visit to Flora days ago—when he’d promised to prove his worth as a man, a father. This had to be his way of getting her over there, face-to-face so they could hash it out again....

“Moron,” she muttered, mopping up another mess. If this was his way of showing her he was a changed man, he was failing miserably. Just as her gardenia mixture failed... She thought seriously about murdering him.

Another half hour. Zeppelin was replaced by Sublime, Guns N’ Roses and finally Red Hot Chili Peppers. She scowled as she affixed her labels to the fronts of the finished mason jars. Yep. He knew all he had to do was play a little Chili Peppers for her to remember...

It took her back instantly to that night she’d driven him home. Or, rather, when she drove him to the harbor where his father’s boat was moored. He’d invited her aboard for a drink. There had been something different about him that night. All that day, in fact. Where friendship had smoothed the rough edges between them with ease, and even jokes and laughter, there had been something amiss that night, a shift back to the haunted shell she’d found in the barn nearly a week before. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to just leave him, so she followed him onto the deck of the Free Bird, the daysailer that looked as if it had seen better days. There was a tattered pirate flag flying off the stern and more than a little rust to be seen, but all in all, she was a clean boat, one James took pride in. She could see it in the way he ran his hand over the mast and helm.

She’d followed him belowdecks where he admitted to sleeping most nights. He’d told her how he couldn’t bring himself to go home—to his mother, his stepfather, the disappointment and feelings of hopelessness they generally cast in his direction. She’d taken his hand because she understood, at least to some degree. It didn’t take a genius to see that her mother felt the same way about her—and she told him as much. His hand had squeezed hers a moment or two before he released it and got up to grab them both a beer.

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