Читать книгу Worth Fighting For - Molly O'Keefe - Страница 7

AND YET ANOTHER excellent example of my big mouth, Daphne thought, as the door swung shut behind Jonah.

“That’s the missing Mitchell?” Tim asked into the stone silence of the kitchen then whistled low. “You scared him off good. You better apologize.”

“To the Dirty Developer?” she cried; her skin practically crawled at the thought.

“To Patrick’s son,” Tim said and she groaned. He was right.

Daphne took off after the Dirty Developer/the missing Mitchell boy/the handsomest man she’d seen in real life.

You’d think by this point she’d have learned to think before she opened her mouth. But as Jake had always told her, it was as though she came with a broken edit mechanism. And a temper that didn’t really understand the phrase “appropriate time and place.”

Though she could usually control that.

“Hey!” she yelled at Jonah’s very wide retreating back as she chased him to his Jeep. The gravel of the parking lot crunched under her boots.

The guy’s angry stride made it impossible to catch up to him, and before she knew it he was pulling open the driver-side door of his dusty vehicle.

She bumped her fast walk into a jog. If she actually chased away Patrick’s missing son, she’d never forgive herself. To say nothing of probably losing her biggest client and best friends.

“Hey wait!”

Finally he whirled, squinting against the sun behind her. At least she hoped he was squinting against the sun and not glaring at her as though she were some bug buzzing around his head. “I’m so sorry,” she said, coming to stop a few feet from him. “That was very inappropriate. I never expected you to come in the back door. Everyone is waiting for you up at the front, which really is a terrible reason for saying something so rude. So, I apologize. Again. More, actually. I apologize more. If that’s possible.”

She just didn’t know when to shut up.

He watched her for a second, all that handsome male focused right on her and, despite the sunglasses that covered his eyes and his barely contained animosity, she felt her stomach dip as if she were going down a hill too fast.

Whew. He was some kind of man.

And then he shrugged.

She apologized and he shrugged.

For the life of her she didn’t know how to respond to that shrug.

He was destroying the planet and he was rude, to boot. This guy didn’t deserve the Mitchells. But that wasn’t her call.

Best foot forward, take two.

“I’m Daphne Larson, Athens Organics. Your family will be out here shortly I’m sure. Everyone’s thrilled you’re here.”

Jonah looked at her hand as if she were offering him a palm full of manure. A smile—or was it a sneer—tugged at the corner of his mouth. She couldn’t really be sure without seeing his eyes. He pulled his keys from his pocket and scanned the lawn behind her, utterly ignoring her hand.

“Tell my mom to call me on my cell,” he said and turned to his Jeep.

Wow, she thought, stunned by the audacity of his rudeness. In her world no one treated anyone the way this man had the balls to treat her.

She gritted her teeth.

“Jonah.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm, just below the sleeve of his T-shirt and the spark between his sunwarmed flesh and her rough hand shocked both of them. She jerked her hand back and shook it, uncomfortable by the contact and the spark that zinged through her whole body.

Women like her didn’t know anything about men like him.

“Your family—” She tried again, distracted by the tingle in her arm.

He ripped off his sunglasses and waves of anger poured from him as if it had been contained by those expensive shades. For the second time in the mere moments she’d been in his presence she fought for a big breath. This man wasn’t rude, he was mad. And he was barely in control.

His whole body radiated fury.

“Don’t call them that,” he said, his voice a burning purr. His face might as well have been made of stone. “They’re not family.”

“Then why are you here?” she blurted, stunned. “If you feel that way—”

He made a dismissive gesture, his lips thin and white. Conversation, his vibe screamed, over.

Now she was getting a little mad.

“Look, I just wanted to apologize about the Dirty Developer thing—”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“No,” she clarified. “I’m trying to apologize.”

“Well, how about you start by not calling me that?”

If he hadn’t used that tone with her, maybe she could have kept her mouth shut. “I didn’t,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “The New York Times did. If you don’t like the title, maybe you should rethink your business practices.”

Not a very good apology. She could see that. Now. Now that he was angry all over again and she was a little peeved herself.

“Athens Organics?” he asked, tilting his head, his blue eyes sharp, as if he could see right through her, past her pink chambray shirt and the T-shirt bra with the fraying strap, down to her bones, her DNA. And he judged all of it, all of her, as somehow beneath him.

“Let me guess, you grow a few tomatoes?” he asked.

“Sell them on the roadside?”

“Athens Organics is a thirty-acre, environmentally sound organic farm.”

“You grow a lot of tomatoes,” he said, but it wasn’t a compliment. This man, in his fancy clothes and his bad attitude, understood one thing. Money.

And she only worked for one reason: to be able to look herself in the mirror and smile every day. To be able to pass on the best possible earth to her daughter.

She took a deep breath. “I employ thirty people and give them a fair wage. I support my daughter and myself and I am proud of what I do. I haven’t sold myself, or this planet, to do it.” She studied him. “How about you?” she asked. “Are you proud of what you do?”

He didn’t answer, not that she expected him to. He simply stood there, staring at her until, because she was who she was, her righteous temper flickered and died and she suddenly felt the need to apologize again. As if she’d done something wrong.

She opened her mouth, mustering up the energy for one more sorry to this loathsome man.

“Yes,” he told her. “I am.”

Her mouth hung open, stunned. Building homes on dirty, poisoned land. He was proud of that?

“Your father is going to be so disappointed in you,” she whispered. He stepped toward her so fast she almost fell back. She almost put up her hand, not to ward him off, but to push back. The man was too much. Too angry. Too resentful.

“I have no father,” he said, each word like a bullet from a gun.

“Son?” Patrick Mitchell, as if summoned, appeared on the other side of the Jeep. He wiped his hand across his large chest, like a nervous boy. His heart was all too visible in his watery blue eyes.

Eyes that were, she realized, just like Jonah’s.

No, she wanted to cry. No, Patrick, don’t put your hopes on this man. Don’t let him hurt you, because he will.

She knew it in her bones.

This man hurt everyone.

“JONAH?” Patrick asked again, waiting for the big man to turn away from Daphne. The air crackled between her and the stranger with Iris’s jawline and hair color, who could only be his youngest son. Patrick could tell she was upset but he was too at loose ends to try to determine what had happened.

Christ, he couldn’t even figure out what to do with his hands. His heart was thundering in his chest and all he wanted to do was pull that man, that boy he never got to know into his arms and hold him as tight as he could.

My son, his whole body cried. That’s my son.

Daphne stepped away from Jonah, keeping her eyes on him as though he were a snake that might strike. Crossing in front of the Jeep, she stepped up to Patrick and wrapped her sturdy arms around him. He watched Jonah’s stiff back sag momentarily.

What is happening here? Patrick wondered.

“You’re a good man,” Daphne whispered in his ear. Stunned, he tried to tilt his head, to push away slightly so he could see her face, but she held on tight. “The very best. I would have killed for a father like you.” She kissed his cheek, patted his chest and walked away.

Sparing one sharp glance over her shoulder at Jonah.

Odd, Patrick thought, curious about what had gotten into their practical fruit and vegetable supplier.

He looked at Jonah to find the young man watching him. Staring at him across five feet and thirty-plus years. Jonah wore his sunglasses and Patrick longed to tell him to take them off. To let him see his eyes. They were blue, Iris had said, like Patrick’s own.

“Hi,” Patrick finally said into the tense silence between them. Jonah nodded, a regal tilt to his head and Patrick felt more unsure than he had the morning after his wife had walked away, leaving him with two young boys to care for.

The speeches he’d prepared and discarded over the past few months couldn’t be resurrected. He didn’t remember anything he’d thought would be so prudent to say. All those things that would explain the past thirty years without casting blame or judging. All the words he’d hoped would bridge the gap between them vanished. His brain was empty.

What should I say? he wondered, jamming his hands in his pockets. What am I supposed to do with my hands? Why doesn’t Jonah say something? Why doesn’t he take off those damn glasses?

Jonah just stood there.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Patrick said. It was a ridiculous understatement. A mere patch on what he truly felt, as if his life, missing something for so long, was finally going to come together. And this boy, his boy, this strong, handsome and angry man was the key to it all.

But Jonah stared at him as though Patrick were speaking French and he didn’t understand the language.

“Son—”

“Where’s my mother?” Jonah asked, his voice flat.

“She went back to her cabin to freshen up,” Patrick said, stammering slightly. He understood it wasn’t going to be roses with this boy. They had a lot of demons between them that needed to be put to rest. But he had hoped for a better start. Something closer to friendly than this frigid behavior. Iris had warned him that Jonah was not happy about this. That he was reluctant to come. But Patrick truly had not expected there to be no connection. They were flesh and blood after all and it wasn’t as though Patrick had known about him and rejected him. If he’d known Iris was pregnant when she left, he would have moved heaven and earth to get them back.

“I’m sure she’ll be out here soon. My boys are coming, too. Gabe just had a baby and he’ll want to show her—”

“Listen…Patrick,” Jonah said, his voice cutting him like a knife. “I’m not here for a family reunion. I’m here because my mother asked me to be here. And—” his voice grew slightly meaner, mocking “—you probably don’t remember this about my mom but she doesn’t ask for much. So, I’m here for her. I don’t care about your sons—”

“They are your brothers,” Patrick insisted.

“They are no one,” Jonah said. “You are all strangers and you’re going to stay that way.”

Patrick watched this boy and tried to see into him, tried to find him amongst all that attitude. But couldn’t. And it broke his heart a little.

“We’ll see about that,” Patrick said, not ready to give up the fight just yet.

Jonah shook his head. “This isn’t a made-for-TV movie,

Patrick. There is no happy ending for us. Mom had no business trying to get us all together.”

“Don’t you want her to be happy?” Patrick asked.

Jonah lifted his sunglasses before bracing himself against his Jeep. Patrick felt pinned by the hate in his son’s blue eyes. Eyes that were, as Iris had said, identical to his own.

“You don’t know my mom,” Jonah said. “You don’t know what makes her happy. And you sure as hell don’t know me.”

“I want to,” Patrick said, bracing himself against the Jeep, too. There was only so much of this man’s disdain and disrespect he could take. “You are my son and I want to be a part of your life.”

“Well.” Jonah laughed and the sound made Patrick wince. “You should have thought of that thirty years ago when you told your wife you wanted nothing to do with her. Twice.” Jonah put his glasses back on and checked his watch, dismissing Patrick like a waiter at a restaurant. “Tell my mom I’ll pick her up for lunch—”

“Tell her yourself.” Iris appeared on the walkway leading from the cabin she’d been staying in. She wore red—a scarf in her hair and a banner of crimson across her lips. Happiness, a certain motherly excitement radiated from her like raw electricity. It was as if the woman Patrick had gotten to reknow in the past five months was plugged in suddenly, amped up.

She looked like the woman he’d married. The woman he fell in love with so long ago. And seeing that woman again knocked all the wind right out of him.

He barely stopped himself from sagging to the ground.

“Hey, Mom!” Jonah said, his face changing, growing younger, lighter, happier. His body, so rigid, softened as he picked up the smiling Iris and wrapped her in a giant bear hug.

“It’s been too long,” Jonah said.

“Yes,” Iris agreed. She stroked her son’s hair away from his face and pulled off his sunglasses. “That’s better,” she said, smiling into his eyes.

Patrick felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

They were a unit, these two. A family. Who was he, at this point in their lives, to insist on being involved?

There was so little chance of this working, he realized. He understood Jonah’s anger and Iris’s reticence to get him and Jonah under the same roof.

“Well, well.” Gabe, his oldest boy, stepped up next to Patrick while Max, his middle son, flanked him. Patrick could not have been more relieved.

This was his unit. His family.

“I should have guessed that Jonah would use Mom’s maiden name, but I never put two and two together,” Gabe murmured quietly so Jonah and Iris didn’t hear. “The Dirty Developer is our missing brother.”

Patrick’s jaw dropped. “No,” he breathed. “No way.” They’d talked about the news article this morning over coffee and he hadn’t put two and two together, either.

But Jonah did bear a remarkable resemblance to the grainy picture of the man in the newspaper.

My son? Patrick thought. Someone with my blood was capable of such things?

It was obscene. Gross.

“Jonah,” Iris said, keeping her arm around him but pointing him toward Patrick and the boys. “Meet your brothers.”

Max stepped forward, all business, a policeman to the core. “Max,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

Jonah just stared at the hand and Patrick held his breath, waiting for Max’s short fuse to be lit by Jonah’s apparent ingrained disrespect. The last thing this situation needed was Max’s fighting instincts to be stirred.

“Jonah,” Iris admonished the full grown man next to her as though he were a five-year-old. Jonah reached out to shake Max’s hand.

“And I’m Gabe,” Gabe said, stepping up beside his brothers. With all of them standing together Patrick could see how similar they all were. Tall men, like him. Gabe had Patrick’s blond hair and olive skin. Max and Jonah had Iris’s dramatic coloring—dark hair and light skin—though Max’s eyes were dark. And Jonah’s eyes, like Gabe’s, were blue.

Patrick glanced at Iris and caught the worry in her expression, her clenched hands and tight lips.

The parking lot was filled with dangerous fumes, combustible tempers and incredibly hurt feelings. The wrong word uttered and Patrick knew the whole place would go up in smoke. But he didn’t know what to say. What to do. This whole situation was too big to be dealt with. How did one pull it apart and try to fix what was so terribly wrong?

“Well, now,” Iris said, charging into the clutch of boys, wrapping her arm around Jonah’s waist and grabbing Max’s hand, giving them both a little jostle. She glanced around, her smile fierce, her eyes daring any one of them to say something wrong at this moment. “Isn’t this nice.”

Patrick tipped his head back and laughed.

That’s how, he thought, pride and respect for Iris washing over him. That’s how you do it.

IRIS COULD BE a powerful riptide, dragging Jonah places he didn’t want to go. School. Church. Parties. Into the Riverview Inn for lunch.

“Go,” he told her when she turned to wait for him. Patrick, Max and Gabe had already headed for the front doors. Max and Gabe had practically grabbed the laughing Patrick and ran away with him, as if rescuing him from Jonah. “I’ll be right in.”

This was not my idea, Jonah wanted to yell. But he didn’t have enough air. He didn’t have enough air to walk to the lodge, much less give those men, his brothers, the fight everyone was itching to get to.

My chest, he thought, a frenzied panic starting to claw up his back.

“Mom,” he said when she continued to stare at him with her obsidian eyes, knowing him far too well to believe him. She thought he was going to turn and run.

“I have to call Gary,” he lied. “A quick call and I’ll be right in.”

She quirked an eyebrow and he smiled, dug into his pocket and chucked her his car keys, which she caught deftly in one hand the way she used to when he was a teenager.

Go, he wanted to beg, please just go.

“Happy?” he asked and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes got wet and she bit her lower lip.

“I am, Jonah,” she said, standing against the rustic and wooded background of the inn like a brave and noble pioneer woman. Which so suited how he always saw her. Strong and stalwart. Unflinching but also, most of the time, unsmiling.

Life had been hard on Mom.

“I am very happy right now,” she said and Jonah forced himself to smile so she would leave him for a few minutes. Just a few was all he needed. Or he’d pass out on the gravel.

His body awash in cold sweat, he waited until she worked her way down the path to the lodge before he opened his passenger car door and slumped into the seat. Gasping, he pawed open the glove compartment and grabbed his emergency inhaler.

It had been weeks since he’d needed this. Weeks since the asthma had fought past his carefully acquired relaxation tools.

He took a deep puff from the inhaler. Another. Waited, inhaler poised, until finally, he felt the steroids at work, opening his lungs. His throat.

Air, like cold, clean water, filled his body, and his head stopped spinning.

He stared at the brilliant blue sky, the muscular shoulders of the Catskill Mountains and waited for his body, his constant betrayer, to fall into line.

“See you later, Tim!” The tall blonde, Daphne, shut the kitchen door behind her and stepped onto the gravel heading toward her white pickup truck with the Athens Organics logo in green on the side.

But she stopped, like a deer sensing danger and glanced over at the Jeep, the open door and him slouching in his passenger seat.

God, she was pretty.

Her hair, so gold it seemed white, was lit like a halo around her head, as if further proof of the differences between them. He could practically feel the devil’s horns pushing out from his skull. Her green eyes raked him. Her lush mouth opened slightly in surprise and, he was sure, a mild disgust.

Not wanting her to see him like this, he tossed the inhaler back in the glove box and sat up. Met her gaze as if he had nothing to hide.

She lifted a hand—a farewell or a greeting he didn’t know—then walked to her truck, got in and drove away, right past him, without another glance.