A Mother in the Making

Pay tribute to his desire to remain involved? Was she reading from a script?

“Okay…” Jack said cautiously. The pain in his left side still throbbed, although it had begun to ease. He waited for the other shoe to drop.

“So we’ve decided to give you what you want,” Terri said, and despite that little teaser from her about “the right decision” a couple of minutes ago, he almost didn’t believe what he was hearing.

Give him what he wanted?

Just like that?

There had to be a catch!

“Ryan can spend every second weekend with you,” she announced. “Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, and three midweek nights, Monday through Wednesday, of every second week.”

Okay, so there was a catch. Five nights out of fourteen, split into two separate packages, when Jack had wanted seven nights in a row. Ryan didn’t need an extra session of packing pajamas and homework and going back and forth.

Still it was so much better than he’d expected.

So much better—enough that he wouldn’t push for the seven consecutive nights.

Real, genuine day-to-day time with his nine-year-old son, and no battles to fight along the way. They could start the new arrangement immediately. He had seriously thought that Terri would hold firm on the current grudging one weekend in four unless he took her to court, and he’d been so torn about what was best for Ryan. He’d tried so hard not to let things get too ugly between himself and Terri, for their son’s sake.

Ah, hell…hell…

This was really, really good.

On top of the pain in his side and last night’s sleeplessness and bad dreams, the news had him battling his emotions, desperately trying to keep them at bay. He felt his throat tighten, felt the physical wash of relief that made his legs go weak. His eyes began to sting.

He was not going to give in to this! The police counselor kept telling him he was bottling things up, that something would have to give, and that it wouldn’t be pretty. She was probably right, but he was not going to pop the cork on that bottle now, in front of his ex on the phone.

With the effort of keeping himself in check, he tightened his stomach muscles, and the pain gave another sharp rip at his guts.

“That’s good, Terri, that’s great,” he managed, heading for the kitchen.

Water.

He just needed a glass of water, to loosen up this lump in his throat.

In that direction, he heard a door open, and a clatter.

“But we’ll need to work out the exact details…” His ex-wife’s tone gave out a warning, like a parent saying, You have to do your homework first.

“Of course.” The emotion pushed harder into his chest, and the pain knifed his side. What had he done to himself, coming down those stairs? The doctor had said he was very happy with the way the injury had been healing since the surgery.

“I’ll pick him up from school Thursdays because he has violin,” Terri was saying.

“I can take him to violin,” Jack managed to answer.

“Well, no, because I need to take notes from his teacher on his practice schedule,” she explained, as if such a task was quite beyond Jack’s abilities.

“Let’s talk later, okay?” he said, through teeth clenched from the pain in his side.

“I guess you need to get dressed…”

“Something like that.” He disconnected the call and rounded the corner into the kitchen, intending to lean over the sink and just pant and gasp and swear and groan for a while…maybe let the cork out of that bottle…as soon as he’d safely put down the phone. But there was a strange woman standing there with a dilapidated toolbox open on his equally dilapidated kitchen table, and the sight of each other brought both of them up short.

She dropped something back in the toolbox with a metallic clatter, gave a loud, startled squeak and clamped a fist over her heart. “Oh. Didn’t hear you!”

Jack gulped back the jagged rock in his throat, dropped the phone onto the kitchen bench and said, “Uh, hi.”

Why was there a woman in his kitchen? She had goose bumps on her bare arms and an aura of energy in every limb, and he was confused.

This should be Cormack O’Brien, here to begin work on the kitchen and bathroom remodeling, not this curvy little thing, underdressed for early April in a red cotton T-shirt and blue denim shorts. She had dangling red earrings that swung back and forth when she moved her head, dark curly hair, brown eyes and tanned skin. She also had an alarmed look getting stronger on her face, and he did not want her here to witness…to witness…

With a heroic effort, he tightened every muscle in his body, shook out his T-shirt ready to put it on, and managed to look…just…as if he was okay.

“You’re Jack,” Carmen said, taking a large step backward, for safety’s sake, her heart beating a little too fast as she looked at the new arrival in the kitchen.

She really, really hoped this man was Jack, shirtless owner of the house, because she wasn’t convinced she could tackle him to the ground and put a knee in his back if he was an unwanted intruder. He was tall and strong, and with that bare chest, knotted arm muscles and a crumpled garment dangling from a tight fist, he looked wound up and ready to snap.

“I’m Carmen O’Brien, Cormack’s sister,” she continued quickly. “The other C in C & C Renovations. Cormack is sick and can’t work today.”

Although she was the one making explanations, Jack Davey looked like the one who thought he didn’t belong. “Right,” he said. “Right.”

“And you’re Jack.” She managed to avoid making it a question.

“Yes, that’s right.” He lowered the T-shirt or rag or whatever it was. He was only half-dressed. His feet were bare, and the snap on his ancient jeans was undone. His dark hair was rumpled and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He had cool gray eyes with little crinkles at the corners that she wanted to trust. The crinkles had to say something good about his smile. But he looked so far from smiling right at this moment, he scared her.

Ah. Okay.

With the T-shirt out of the way, she saw the red slash of a barely healed wound slicing across his tanned rib cage, which maybe explained the scary vibes. She wondered what on earth he’d done to himself. Heart surgery? Was that why he looked so serious and struggling and grim?

“I’m sorry about this,” he said through a tight jaw. She saw his throat work and his body spasmed. “Side’s hurting a bit.”

“Oh, of course, it looks nasty.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m not who you were expecting. I mean, I guess we startled each other.” She hadn’t been expecting a half-naked, freshly scarred, well-built, thirtysomething man who looked like a bomb about to go off, here to greet her this morning.

“You need to get to work. I’ll, uh…”

“No rush. Although it would help me to warm up a bit.” She tried a grin as she rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “I’m dressed for working hard in the middle of the day, not standing around doing nothing early in the morning.”

He nodded vaguely, and looked past her, toward the sink. What was wrong with him?

“Um, are you okay?” she tried.

“Fine. I’m fine.”