A Risk Worth Taking

“The fool should have picked it up. He was lucky there wasn’t a serious accident.”

“And then,” said Cressa, still ignoring him, “he stepped onto a rotten log, dislodged a wasp nest and got stung three times.” She grinned smugly. “I think it was fate getting him back for being so high-handed.”

“High-handed? I was doing my job, Cressa. The one you got me.”

“Wrong!” She pointed her fork at him. “I got you a nice little number as an insignificant stuntman like the rest of us. It was you who moved in and just took over.”

With a so-there toss of her head, she scooped up another mouthful of chili—and choked. Served her right.

“I haven’t taken over, I’ve simply got some expertise that they are using.” He’d meant to sound calm and rational. He was annoyed to hear the so-there in his voice, too.

His mother smiled. “Dear me. Things certainly sound far more eventful today than on previous days.”

He cast her a sidelong glance but there was nothing to read in her face except demure interest.

Cressa shook her head as she loaded her fork with a five-to-one ratio of rice to chili. “I simply don’t understand how such a nice woman like you, Alicia, could have produced such an infuriating son. I bet his dad was overbearing in that same quiet way.”

A stillness fell over the table. Cressa glanced up. “Oh, shit. Have I put my foot in it? Sorry, Alicia.”

Alicia’s laugh was a shade too tinkling. “Of course not.”

Adam wanted to wring Cressa’s neck. He and his mom had managed just fine. The two of them had enjoyed perfectly reasonable, friendly chats every night. Cressa was home for one night and already she was upsetting things. Glaring, he said, “We don’t talk about him.”

Cressa, typically, paid him no attention. She was looking at Alicia. “How come?”

His mother stirred a portion of rice and chili together, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It upsets Adam.”

He was taken aback. “No, it doesn’t. We don’t talk about him because it upsets you.”

She was surprised. “Why should it upset me?”

“Because…” He floundered. “Well, because you never mention him.”

“Because you got so angry the one time I tried to tell you about him. Don’t you remember?”

Adam stared at her. “What?”

Alicia put her fork down and faced him. “When you were about six, you asked why you looked different from the rest of us. I tried to explain, but when I got to the part where Dad—Cole and Sass’s father—wasn’t yours, you covered your ears with your hands and ran screaming from the room.”

He had vague memories of that now. Strange, how he’d never remembered before.

She picked up her fork again. “Of course, I completely understood. Terrence, to do him credit, had always treated you exactly the same as the other two. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

Adam thought of their father, tall, blond, good-looking, humorous. They’d all adored him—when he was around, which wasn’t that often, even before he took off completely. Adam had wondered a lot over the years how his dad had really felt about having this dark kid foisted upon him, proof to the world that he’d been cuckolded.

“Was I the reason Dad left?” he asked abruptly.

Alicia appeared horrified. “No! Absolutely not. He’d have gone whether you were there or not, Adam. You have to believe that.” She paused and added more matter-of-factly, “Some men aren’t meant to marry, Adam. Terrence was one of them. He loved being on the rodeo circuit. He was never a ‘nine-to-five, come home to the kids’ sort of man. Not deep down. We only married because I was pregnant with Sass. Looking back, I see that’s the worst reason to get married.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Cressa was so emphatic that both Adam and Alicia stared at her. “But, Alicia, you still haven’t said what Adam’s real father was like. Was he all macho and bossy?”

His mother’s eyes softened in memory. “No, Adam’s father was a modern-day troubadour. A man with a heart full of poems and not a cent in his pockets.”

“Wow, he sounds so romantic, whereas Adam—” she looked at him pointedly “—so isn’t. How did you guys meet?”

It didn’t matter how they met, and it wasn’t any of Cressa’s damn business. He pushed his plate away and was suddenly aware of how airless the kitchen felt, the heat of the oven fogging up the windows. His mother smiled. “He came to our school to talk about poetry to some of our writing classes.”

Poetry! Oh, jeez. Why the hell couldn’t he have had a real job, been a truck driver or something? His mom really knew how to pick them.

“And were there sparks the first time you laid eyes on him?” Though she’d asked Alicia the question, Cressa glanced sideways at Adam.

“Why, yes, there were. Funny you should ask. There was this strange electricity between us. Hard to explain.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said Cressa. “What was his name?”

Adam’s stomach hollowed at the question.

“Adahy Wilson. A lot of the time he was just called Andy, but his real name was Adahy. It means ‘lives in the woods.’”

“Adahy.” He tested the name. “Adahy Wilson.”

He must have spoken, because Cressa stared at him. “Don’t tell me you never even knew his name.”

Alicia cut in. “That’s my fault. He never asked, so I never told him. I should have.”

Adam was hating this whole conversation, but what the hell, now that Cressa had started poking around, he had a few questions of his own. One in particular that he’d never dared ask. “Did he know about me?”

“No.”

At that single word, emotion jagged so sharply that Adam couldn’t identify it. Relief? Anger? Disbelief?

Alicia continued. “You see, we only saw each other for a month—Terrence was away. Adahy moved on and I never tried to contact him.”