Page 32 of Hearts Don't Lie
Mac shook her head and smiled in wonderment as she inspected Stowe’s room. It was down the hall from hers, separated by their bathrooms and a linen closet, giving each of them a modicum of privacy despite being a small house. The room was as neat as a pin, unusual for his age but typical of him. He liked his space organized and tidy. She let Homer out of his pen to roam the house, noting her son had given his rabbit fresh bedding, hay, and water, and the litter change was recent as well.
“Hey, buddy. How about some exercise?”
True to form, Cori had stripped all the beds and remade Mac’s bed after sleeping in it. She had also hung fresh towels in the hall bathroom—which doubled as Stowe’s—and hers, then started the laundry with the linens from his twin beds and run the dishwasher.
Homer followed her around as she unpacked and tidied up. She did a quick clean of the bathrooms, emptied the dishwasher, and then pulled a carrot from the fridge.
Even though her son hadn’t seen his mom for a few days, he would not appreciate an unexpected appearance from her at camp. The plan was that he and Beck would ride home. Sometimes they rode their own bikes. Other times they shared a bike with one pedaling while the other sat on the seat. She couldn’t wait to see him, to ruffle his silky dark hair that was weeks overdue for a cut—something he was fighting her on—and inhale his gamey boy smell he’d have after running drills all day.
No one had been able to convey how a person could love so hard, so completely. Eleven years after his birth, it still amazed her. She blinked her moist eyes, grateful she savored all time with him, even the tough times, which had been infrequent so far. Mac knocked on the lower wood cabinet as she folded to the floor. Some superstitions had a way of sticking around. Knocking on wood for luck, she did that one a lot.
Mac had been so fortunate to have Stowe with her, homeschooling giving her more time with him than if he’d attended their public school. But a big change was on the horizon. A small-town boy, he knew most of the kids. He had begged and then set out to convince her to send him to traditional school. Sixth grade seemed like a reasonable insertion time, and he was registered to begin next month.
Stowe was asserting his independence, exploring how he fit into the bigger picture of the preteens and teens in Piñon Ridge. He now shied away from hugs and any other public displays of affection, and although she understood it was a normal stage of his development, sometimes it stung. When home though, he still snuggled with her, often climbing into her bed during her late mornings, sipping hot chocolate or juice while she drank her coffee. Their conversations were lively, jumping from topic to topic. Her son’s mind was sharp, curious, and compassionate. Like her, he loved to read and ask questions and turn everything on its head.
“Homer, look what I have.” She waved the carrot. The Holland Lop ran over and licked her hand before nibbling on the carrot. “You sweet boy.” Mac patted her thigh. “Come up?”
The affectionate rabbit hopped into her lap. She kissed Homer and then stroked his soft, mottled gray and white fur while reflecting on the only topic Stowe steered clear of—his father.
He didn’t want to know.
Mac had tried since he was old enough to understand, but the minute she raised the topic, his face visibly shuttered and he tuned out. With each year that passed, Stowe grew more adamant, especially after one of his friends became a pawn in an ugly custody battle. He had been visibly shaken and then cried, admitting his biggest fear was losing her. She hadn’t tried to revisit the topic since then, nor did she dare share that her biggest fear was the same—losing him—and that it would destroy her.
Stowe’s paternity was the secret they mutually protected. Their answer to anyone who asked was an evasive “father is out of the picture,” and that included their closest, most-trusted friends. While it was factual and worked, it hid the truth—Stowe had no desire to know the identity of his father and had no idea that the man who’d helped create him was clueless that he existed.
She wanted Stowe to have the truth, to know his full story of who he was. His parentage was part of his identity, and she’d read enough parenting books and been a mother long enough to know that the psychosocial stages of development were very real. Her son needed the information about his father so that he’d be able to make his own decision when he was ready, and of course Mac would support it. She feared the freedom of time was running out, and it scared the living shit out of her. How would he take the news? And how would he feel toward her? Regardless, she was going to have to push the topic, and soon.
Mac shook her head and exhaled forcibly to clear the barrage of thoughts and feelings assailing her. She gently lifted the Lop and kissed him on his cute little nose, then set him down on the old hardwoods next to her before rising to her feet. “I’ve gotta clean up, mister. I’m a little ripe. No way for me to greet the love of our lives, right?”
Satisfied that everything was done, including some peaceful time with Homer, and that her son would slide into clean, crisp-smelling sheets tonight after he showered, Mac entered the laundry and put the washed load in the dryer. She undressed and dropped her clothes into the washer with the towels, then padded into her bedroom at the front of the house, enjoying the freedom of moving naked though their cozy home, unseen by neighbors or her son, and stepped into her shower.
Mac was dousing her head under the spray and reaching for the shampoo when the thought that the small space would be a tight squeeze for Hardin and her came out of nowhere.What the hell?She winced from scrubbing her scalp too hard.
Seeing Hardin, being with him for three days, had upended her world and the life she had built for herself and her son. Being told of the lengths to which his parents had gone to keep them apart had made knots form in her stomach. Their power frightened her, and the actions they had taken made her blood boil.
“How dare they,” she spat out as the water flowed over her.
She swallowed convulsively to keep the nausea down when thinking about what else they might have done if Stowe’s existence had been discovered, thankful that she’d left Illinois and taken the steps she had to protect the identity of herself and Stowe. Because of them, Mac had faced the hardest decisions and choices in her life. She had faced fear and moved through the stages of grieving Hardin.
But there had been unexpected gifts too. Overcoming emotional and financial obstacles had made her fastidious, purposeful, and determined, a planner who liked to oversee her life and that of her son and prepare for things far in advance. What Mac hadn’t planned on was Hardin’s unrelenting search to find her and his showing up out of the blue. Neither had she planned on her love for him to burst forth again—she’d believed it was dead and buried. What she still felt was all the more stunning because he said he felt the same. What was between them as teens still existed.
How could that be? She had grieved him and was able to watch him play with an emotional distance, although she still resorted to loud armchair coaching from the privacy of her bedroom long after Stowe had fallen asleep.
All those emotions. All that desire. It came racing back at breakneck speed, practically suffocating her with its power. If he had pushed just a little bit more, she would have had sex with him, and she suspected that as incredible as it was in high school, being with him again would take her to new heights, possibly break her forever.
Stop it. Just stop it,she chided herself as she toweled off.It’s done.You got through it. Intrepid has a cushion to expand thanks to Hardin’s insistent generosity. Breathe.
She slid into a clean sleeveless tank and cutoffs and went into the kitchen to prep Stowe’s favorite dinner. Homemade mac and cheese with broccoli and red pepper, and a fresh fruit salad. Nowadays her son was ravenous, one of the first indications that hormones were firing. It was likely the boys would graze when they showed up, so Mac preheated the oven and pulled out the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies as well as a can of concentrated lemonade from the freezer while she mixed a batch of Stowe’s favorite treat. The cookies would be warm, just out of the oven, when the boys arrived.
The front door banged open. “Mom! Hey, Homer. Come here, dude. Shut the door, Beck.”
Mac spun around, her smile huge, trying to figure out how to squeeze her son to pieces while he held his rabbit. She cleared her throat, raised her eyebrows, and opened her arms wide. Wisely, Stowe handed his rabbit to Beckett, his best friend and Cori’s oldest, who stood next to him, his blond head even with her son’s equally dark one.
He smiled lovingly at his mom while he moved into the circle of her arms, relaxing into her bear hug. His head rested over her shoulder. “I missed you,” he said softly. “You smell good, Mom.” He lifted his head and winked at her. “Almost as good as those cookies.”
Mac pushed him back. Her smile and joy radiated from her heart. “Oh nice. I missed you too, honey.” She wrinkled her nose. “You two stink. Here’s my offer. You can shower and have some cookies inside, or you can have a plate outside with some iced lemonade.”
“Uh, Aunt Kenna. That’s a no-brainer. Outside.” Beck reached for a warm cookie on the cooling rack. “I’m starving.”
