He and his brothers had been talking about expanding into LA for years. Aaron, the second oldest, had opened an Amos Auto Body in Reno, Nevada, but he was the only one who’d broken away so far. “LA’s ninety minutes from here.”
“That’s not very far. I can take a week to get you set up before I go back.”
He still hadn’t let go of her wrist. Her whole arm tingled at his touch, and a memory danced around the edges of her mind—a memory she’d banished long ago. “Who would run the new shop?”
“I would.”
“You’d live in LA.”
“Yep.”
Which meant he’d be much closer to her. Whiskey Creek, where he and his brothers had grown up, and she’d once lived with them, since they’d taken her and her mother in while their father was in prison, was six hours away, not far from Sacramento.
“Are you going to stay with us, Uncle Mack?” Lucas cried, finally abandoning the poor bug so he could hurry over.
As soon as Mack let go of her, Natasha stepped out of reach.
“For a few more days,” he said.
“Yay!” Lucas yelled and launched himself into Mack’s legs.
Mack laughed as he tossed him up and over his shoulder like a sack of flour and her son squealed in delight. “You got those keys?” he asked her.
She almost refused. But on what grounds? That she wasn’t sure she could deal with their history?
She’d die before she’d ever admit that—to him or anyone else—so she retrieved her purse and handed him the keys.
Two
Mack glanced at Natasha’s little boy in the rearview mirror, but he was driving, so he couldn’t let his gaze linger as he was tempted to do. This was the first time he’d ever been alone with Lucas, the first time he’d been able to study the child without having to worry that Natasha might figure out what he suspected.
Did the boy look like him?
It was hard to tell. He’d watched Natasha’s son carefully ever since he first met him three days ago, but it was hard to say. He’d never seen Natasha’s ex, hadn’t run across a single picture of the man while they were packing. Maybe the boy resembled Ace so much the answer would be apparent, but from what he’d seen so far, the boy was the spitting image of Natasha.
He pulled into HD Home Supply, parked and walked around to let Lucas out of the car.
The kid had already unfastened his booster seat.
“Good job,” Mack said. “Let’s go.”
Lucas insisted on taking a plastic sword into the store, and Mack couldn’t help smiling when he brandished it at everyone they encountered. Maybe the boy didn’t look a great deal like him, but he couldn’t hold still for two seconds, which was exactly how Dylan described Mack as a child.
Mack let his gaze run over the boy again. Was this his son?
“On guard!” Lucas yelled, frightening an old lady who was trying to purchase some paint.
“Let’s take it down a notch, okay, buddy?” Mack said with a chuckle, ignoring the dirty look the woman gave him.
“Why are we here?” Lucas asked, sword fighting with phantom opponents once they reached the main aisle, which was momentarily clear.
“We’re getting supplies, remember?” Mack told him.
“What kind of supplies?”
“A window, if we can find one that’s the right size. But as old as that house is, we’ll probably have to order a custom one. I’m also going to need a hammer and some nails. A socket wrench. A drill. A saw. A Shop-Vac. Those sorts of things.”
“My dad has a hammer,” he announced.
Mack wished he could borrow it and any other tools Ace had. It seemed silly to purchase everything again when it was unlikely Ace would need them in the near future. But he wasn’t going to ask, even if he was willing to make the drive to get them. Any guy who could leave his wife in the situation Natasha was—heartbroken over what’d happened to her practice, barely able to eat or sleep because of the pressure and worry of everything that was going on in her life, and alone with a child to care for and no money—was a total douchebag. That Natasha didn’t expect any more from her ex spoke volumes. Maybe that was why Mack felt completely justified when he took advantage of this opportunity to speak to her unsuspecting little boy and, hopefully, satisfy some of his curiosity. “What’s your dad like?”
“I dunno.”
“He nice?”
“Yeah.”
“What types of things does he do?”
“Plays video games on TV.”
Lucas would’ve knocked a stack of batteries off the shelf if Mack hadn’t reached out to redirect his sword. “Anything else?”
“No.”
“Where does he work?”
“I don’t know. On the TV, I guess.”
Ace should be set, then. Mack didn’t remember loading a TV into the truck, which meant any that Natasha and Ace had owned together had stayed with him.
The aisle where he could find the windows came up on their right. Mack took hold of Lucas’s free hand to guide him down it. “Can you tell me when your birthday is, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
“So? When is it?”
The boy screwed up his face as though he was thinking hard but ultimately shook his head. “I can’t remember.”
It was in the fall. Mack knew that much. The instant he’d learned that Natasha had had a baby, he’d counted back the months, and would never forget how hard his heart had started to pound when he realized he’d been with her about the time she’d gotten pregnant. She’d returned to Whiskey Creek to see her mother for Christmas, they’d bumped into each other at the annual Victorian Christmas Days Celebration, and things had moved quickly from there—years of pent-up desire had exploded all at once.
“Look at all these windows,” Lucas said, obviously impressed.
“Pretty cool, right? Now we just need to see if we can find one that will fit.”
Before he could check the various sizes, Mack’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
He pulled it out to see that his oldest brother was trying to get hold of him.
He punched the talk button. “Hey, Dyl.”
“What’s up, man?”
“Not much. We made it to Silver Springs. But you should see the house.”
“Is it nice?”