A Family Affair: Summer: Truth in Lies, Book 3 Page 5

“Nate Desantro. Laughs, too. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it myself.”

  “He deserves it.”

  “Yes, he does after carrying too much on his shoulders for so many years. And then that first wife.” Gina Servetti scowled and helped him sit on the edge of the bed. “She was a piece of work. Patrice. The town was glad when she left. But Christine is perfect for him, though you know who she is, right? And how my cousin almost broke them up last year?”

  Despite his desire to shut down Gina’s tales, this last piece intrigued him. Nate had been married before? Patrice? Patrice who? And then some cousin tried to come between Nate and his new wife? That had to be Natalie Servetti, sex in stilettos.” She was like that even in high school. What the hell had Nate done? And why should he know who Christine was? And…Damn it, she’d yanked him right in. Well, he’d yank himself right back out.

  “Enough, or I swear to God, I’ll boot you out of here.”

  She ignored him and handed him a weight. “Eight reps. Nice and slow.”

  Six months ago, he’d been able to curl fifty-pound dumbbells, but apparently lying in bed decreased muscle tone, even in healthy body parts. Screw that. He increased his reps. He was not going to turn into a scrawny—

  “Easy. You have to build up to it.”

  The doctors told him he’d lost a lot of blood and it would take time to heal, but for someone who demanded endurance and perfection from his body, struggling to lift a puny weight was pathetic.

  “I know why you don’t want to talk.”

  He shot her a look. “Good.”

  “It’s because of Tess.”

  Finally. He knew it was coming from the first time she walked into his room six days ago. What he hadn’t known was how she’d broach the subject, or if she’d mention it at all. She could gather information and fill Tess in on the sad state of her ex-fiancé. If Tess even cared, which she probably didn’t. Still, he did not want Tess Carrick to know he’d been reduced to a mess of body parts that didn’t work like they used to and a brain that couldn’t forget.

  “I definitely don’t want to talk about her.”

  “Switch hands and repeat.” She shrugged and met his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about her either. Bree and I haven’t seen or heard from her since the funeral.”

  He wanted to ignore that, but how could he? “You three were inseparable. Hell, I thought you were best friends.”

  Her voice dipped. “I thought so, too.”

  ***

  Nate bounded up the steps and opened the front door. Christine sat in the rocking chair Harry had sent them, with Anna cradled in her arms. She smiled when she saw him and his chest squeezed with pure joy. Would he ever get used to watching his wife and daughter? He doubted it. God had given him a second chance and he’d spend the rest of his life being grateful for it.

  “Hi.” He leaned over and kissed his wife softly on the mouth. Then he planted a kiss on the baby’s forehead.

  “Hi. She just fell asleep. A full tummy does that to her every time.”

  Nate stroked Christine’s cheek, trailed a finger to the opening of her unbuttoned shirt and pushed the fabric aside. He’d never thought breastfeeding was beautiful, even sexy, until he watched his wife feed their child. “I think she had a better lunch than I did.” He kissed the satin skin above her left breast, and whispered, “Definitely.”

  “Busy day?”

  He shrugged and dragged the ottoman closer so he could sit next to her. “I spent the morning at the shop and ran out to Will’s after lunch. He had a few questions and I’m trying to finish up the cradle for Jack’s daughter.”

  Two months ago, Will Carrick had offered his barn to Nate as a workshop. There was plenty of room, power, a toilet and fridge, and it negated the need to use Gino Servetti’s workshop—and run into Natalie Servetti. Word had it she was back in town with a story and a tear about how she’d been coerced by Gloria Blacksworth to destroy Nate’s marriage. Right. That woman had a story all right—big, bold, and packed with lies.

  “No news about your friend?”

  Nate stroked the dark, fine wisps on Anna’s head. Soft, delicate, so very fragile. “I’ve called four times, but Ramona said he’s not seeing anyone. Mom said Pop told her the only person who’s gone in the house besides Ramona is Gina Servetti to do his therapy.”

  She smiled. “Pop would know.”

  “He gets his information directly from Ramona and she has to know he’s going to spread the word. Maybe that’s exactly what she wants him to do.” He shrugged. “Cash can only play the hermit card so long before the town stampedes the house. One way or the other, I’m going to see him. We have a lot to talk about.” Like why Cash had avoided him after the shooting and left town without a word. Or how eight years had passed with nothing but distance and dead silence between them. They’d been best friends, two angry young men trying to figure their way out of hurt and disillusionment. When Cash’s parents took off and his aunt moved in, he started hanging around with older boys, like Nate, trying to prove himself. Those attempts got him a bloody nose and swollen lip more than once, but he kept coming back. The damn guy just never gave up.

  Until JJ’s shooting. He lost a fiancée, a home, a reason to believe he deserved better. Nate blamed Tess Carrick for pushing his friend away. What kind of person accuses the man she’s about to marry of cold-blooded murder? It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true or that she’d most likely regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth. She’d said it, Cash had heard it, and the town remembered it. End of story. There had been an investigation that turned up nothing and three hours after the announcement, Cash was gone.

  “What will happen to him?”

  “I don’t know. He’ll rest up here awhile, then maybe go back to Philly. It’s really up to him.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the middle of her palm. “I’m betting he’s as lost and angry as I was before you came along.”

  Her lips twitched. “No one was as lost or angry as you were, Nathan Desantro.”

  He smiled. “True.”

  “Can you help him?”

  How to answer that? His wife was as bad as Lily in that area. They really thought he had superpowers and could dig people out of any and all situations, especially ones of their making, even if said individuals had no desire to dig out. Still, he did not want to disappoint his wife or his sister.

  “I’ll do my damnedest, but if he’s going to get through this, he’s going to have to talk about Tess Carrick. And that could be a big problem.”

  ***

  Olivia Carrick was starting to believe in miracles again, something she hadn’t done in a long time. Eight years to be exact. She’d lost too much to think the world could be a gentler, kinder place where lives were spared, people given second and third chances.

  But Tess was coming back to Magdalena! She even planned to stay for a while, from what she’d said on the phone. A much-needed vacation, she’d called it. And true miracle of miracles, Cash was here, too. Of course Tess didn’t know that. If anyone breathed a word before she arrived, she’d never set foot here. But this town had a way of keeping secrets and sometimes letting just enough truth seep out to set the wheels in motion.

  Most small towns were like that, but Magdalena had the distinction of being the only one that prided itself on its ability to match-make, feed a stomach, and listen to a sad tale, all at the same time. The town had been responsible for matching Olivia and Tom Carrick. Indeed they had. She’d grown up two towns over in Willowick and met Thomas John Carrick the summer between her junior and senior year of college. Tom recited Robert Frost and sold cleaning supplies out of the back of his station wagon. He stood six-foot-three with a barrel chest and a booming, contagious laugh. It was the laugh that stole her heart, promised a surefire recipe for a lifetime of happiness.

  It might have worked, had Olivia been a bit more carefree, Tom, a bit less. She trusted results and wasn’t willing to dip her big toe in the waters
of uncertainty, while Tom preferred to dive in head first, no consideration for depth, climate, or contingencies.

  The union proved volatile and grew quietly disastrous despite their love for each other. When Riki was born, Tom changed jobs, selling dog food from county to county despite the fact that he was allergic to the four-legged creatures. After Tess, the search to fulfill that elusive dream stretched past New York, into Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. By the time JJ came along, Tom only made it home every three weeks. But, oh, that week he was home, well, it filled the children’s hearts, and it filled Olivia’s heart, too.

  Years and seasons passed, and Olivia ran the household, paid the bills, repaired the garbage disposal, and began teaching English literature to juniors at Magdalena High. She feared Tom would die on the road and leave her a widow and begged him to find a job that kept him home at night. But Tom Carrick couldn’t live in the day-to-day life of most people’s worlds. He needed the change to propel him on his latest adventure, even though he always returned to Magdalena saying there was no place like home.

  The truth about her husband surfaced when a young Tess’s appendix burst and she needed emergency surgery. Tom refused to visit her in the hospital because he couldn’t stand to see her in pain. And later, when JJ was caught shoplifting fishing lures from a tackle shop, Tom would not acknowledge the problem. This left Olivia and her brother-in-law, Will, the town’s police chief, to deal with JJ and his misdeeds. But in the end, she could not see her son punished and Will talked to the shop owner, who dropped the charges.

  When Riki was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Tom insisted the doctor had misdiagnosed their daughter, and when JJ’s misdeeds continued, he would not agree to send the boy to counseling because he said, The boy will grow out of his shenanigans by the time he hits twenty.

  Sadly, their son never lived to see twenty. Maybe he’d still be alive if he’d gone to counseling or been made to suffer the consequences of shoplifting, vandalizing, and doing drugs. Cash had done all he could to mentor and protect JJ, but the boy could not be protected from his own poor choices and that was what ended his life, not Cash’s service revolver. Tess hadn’t seen it that way until it was too late.

  Olivia wearied of being a mother, father, parent to them all, wishing just once that her husband would take a stand, which he never did. She lost her family, one by one, from death, disappointment, and disappearance. Tom died in his own bed the night Olivia went to see her students in the high school rendition of The Music Man. For all the years she’d worried about him dying on the road, she’d been the one who wasn’t home, and he’d died alone.

  Olivia mourned the dreams she thought they would share that never happened. She’d given up on Riki years ago from sheer hopelessness and exhaustion, and because she simply did not know what else to do. Year after year of traveling from specialist to specialist, trying to find the next “right fit” that was never a fit at all. The worry when her eldest disappeared, then reappeared, found a job, quit, found another job, and never deemed it necessary to inform her family where she was, if she were okay, if she needed help. Riki had inherited her mother’s brain and her father’s wanderlust—a surefire and inevitable disaster.

  With JJ’s death, a piece of Olivia fell in the grave with the first shovel of dirt. Tess was her only hope. She took her daughter’s pending return as a sign, a miracle that was about to happen.

  Olivia sat at the dressing table and wrapped a red scarf around her dark hair, tucking every strand under the fabric. The doctor said they’d have the results of the ultrasound and lab tests in a few days. She’d delivered three babies and never had female problems until the bleeding a few months ago. But if she thought about it, there’d been pelvic pressure, leg aches, even problems going to the bathroom, for several months.

  How on earth was she to know these might be symptoms of a problem? Growing older created all manner of havoc to a woman’s body, from sagging skin to excess belly fat to unwanted facial hair. She’d assumed the female issues were just one more change in a sea of unwelcome changes.

  The doctor mentioned fibroids. Dolly Finnegan had fibroids and she ended up with a hysterectomy. That meant surgery. What an inconvenient time to deal with this. She supposed whatever it turned out to be, she’d have to tell Tess eventually, but not right away. There was too much to do, and she was putting all of her efforts, prayers, and hopes into seeing Cash and Tess together again. Where they belonged. Miracles were about to happen in Magdalena and Olivia Carrick was not going to miss them.

  ***

  Nate stood in the doorway of Cash’s bedroom, taking in the posters, plaques, stacks of CDs, an old-school stereo with vinyl albums, all a blend of the boy he’d been and the man he would become. The posters on the wall were sports cars: a Ferrari, a Maserati, and a Lamborghini. In his teens, Cash could tear apart a carburetor faster than an Indy pit crew and had known all about pistons and spark plugs. Ripping apart cars and rebuilding them was his passion until Tess Carrick came along and became his ultimate passion.

  Nate moved into the room, glancing at the row of plaques on the dresser. He didn’t have to study them to know they were all related to marksmanship, a sport that had become Cash’s specialty. And music? The guy could name the tune in less than three notes and mouth the words. No singing, though, because Cash Casherdon was not a singing kind of guy.

  Nate didn’t know what kind of guy his old friend was anymore. Hell, he doubted if anybody knew. He turned toward the bed and almost wished he could have postponed the inevitable a few seconds longer. Cash looked washed out and beat-up, his features drawn, his face a close match for the hospital-white sheets. His longish curly hair brushed his neck and was perhaps the only true reminder of the old Cash. The forearms were still large and much darker than his face, but Nate guessed they were not as toned as they’d once been. His gaze shot to Cash’s shoulder and chest, covered by a navy T-shirt.

  Would he be able to rejoin the force? Live a normal life? Nate yanked back the last thought because, hell, what was a normal life? Did anybody fall back to “normal” after something like this?

  “You really don’t understand what ‘no visitors’ means do you?”

  Nate swung his gaze to Cash’s and shrugged. “I’m not a visitor; I always kind of thought of myself as a friend.”

  Cash scowled. “As a friend, you damn well ought to know I mean what I say.”

  Nate eased into the recliner next to the bed and ignored the “I’m in charge” look and said, “You always did think you had answers for everything, even when you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.”

  “You’re really going to try and pull that ‘get him pissed, get him talking’ routine on me? Not going to happen. I just want to be left alone.”

  “I’m sure you do. Unfortunately, you’ve got an aunt walking around with rosary beads in both hands and a frown that’s etched on her face. Okay, maybe the frown isn’t your fault, since your aunt doesn’t know how to smile, but the town’s starting to think there’s a corpse in here instead of a breathing man.”

  “So tell them the truth; I’m a breathing corpse.”

  Who the hell was this guy in Cash Casherdon’s body? The guy that Nate had known would kick the crap out of this bellyaching one. “I’m sorry about what happened in Philly.” He hesitated a second, almost adding, And what happened between you and Tess, but decided against it. “Sometimes life really sucks.” And then, because he had no idea what else to say, he threw in a bit of personal commentary. “You know, I’ve had my share of off days.”

  That perked him up. “Off days? Off years is more like it.”

  Nate shrugged. “Yeah, well.”

  Cash shot him a look. “I hear that’s all changed.”

  Nate’s lips twitched and his voice took an involuntary dip when he thought of Christine and the baby. “You could say that.”

  “I hear she’s Charlie Blacksworth’s daughter.”

  Was that a glimme
r of interest? Charles Blacksworth still had people talking, even from his grave. “Her name’s Christine.”

  “You hated that guy’s guts. Putrid, black, decimating hate. What happened to change all that?”

  Christine happened. She’d walked into his life and, despite the fact that Nate had acted like a miserable sonofabitch to her, she’d seen something in him. She’d made him want to be a better person and for the first time in his whole life, he believed in love, believed, too, in second chances. How to explain that? He couldn’t find the words for those feelings, so he simply said, “I met Christine.”

  “She must be a saint.” Cash paused and added, “Or one hot babe.”

  Nate stared at his old buddy, his voice turning hard. “If you weren’t already on your back, I’d put you there for that comment. Christine is my wife, not a babe.”

  “Fine. Sorry. I’m happy for you.” He let out a ragged sigh. “Who would have thought?”

  Nate knew exactly what he was thinking. Who would have thought Nate would end up in marital bliss and Cash would be alone, separated from the woman he had planned his whole future around—Tess Carrick. She was the other reason he was here today.

  “I’m going to leave in a minute so you can rest up before Gina Servetti comes to manipulate the crap out of you. But first, I’ve got a few things I want to say. Now you can ignore me, but you ought to know me well enough to remember I always do what I say.”

  “You mean, you’re a hardass? Yeah, I remember that about you.”

  “Then remember I’m your friend and I’m telling you this as your friend.”

  Cash looked away, an obvious attempt to shut out Nate’s words. Wasn’t going to work. “Everyone’s tiptoeing around the real issue, but I’ve never been a tiptoer, so here it is. I’ll be checking up on you,” he paused, “regularly, so get used to it. Second, we are going to talk about what happened eight years ago and how you blew out of here without a word to me, your supposed best friend. I get that you were torn up, but damn you, all those years and not a word but the tidbits Ramona shared?”