CHAPTER 12
His mother arrived just after lunch.
When the girls had finished devouring their second-favorite meal of macaroni and cheese, Allie sent them off for their daily trip to the park with Jessica then returned to her house to throw the last load of Gage’s laundry into the dryer.
She wasn’t avoiding him, she assured herself, even though she had to admit she was grateful for the opportunity to be on her own for a moment, to try to regain some desperately needed equilibrium.
The laundry room sweltered from the dryer and from the hot sun blazing through the windows—not the most pleasant place to spend a June afternoon, but at least she had a little solitude here.
While she folded linens amid the torpid heat and the sweet, clean scent of laundry detergent, the dazzling intensity of that kiss looped through her mind over and over. His strong hands on her skin, his mouth hard and urgent on hers. Her own eager response.
She didn’t know she could catch fire so quickly, so completely. She had been totally lost to everything but Gage and to the sheer wonder of being in his arms.
What a tangled mess. So much for her plans to keep a careful distance between them until she could leave Park City. That resolution had lasted all of a half hour, only until she had walked into the kitchen and seen him acting so sweetly around her daughters.
How foolish she had been to think she could pluck out her growing feelings for him like Ruth going after weeds in her flower garden. Already he was rooted so deeply in her heart that she didn’t know how she would ever be able to break free.
With a snap, she shook out the last of his pillowcases and folded it neatly, smoothing her fingers over the cotton to straighten the fold. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could get rid of the rest of the wrinkles in her life so easily? Just flip her wrist and make them all disappear?
Much as she’d like to, she couldn’t hide out here in her laundry room all afternoon. She was made of sterner stuff, anyway. She kept telling herself that as she loaded the clean and folded linens into the basket and walked back to Gage’s house.
As she reached his porch steps, the low throb of an engine purred through the quiet summer afternoon. She turned to see a small late-model Toyota SUV parked at the curb in front of Gage’s house.
Curious, she paused on the steps and watched as a trim woman in her midfifties wearing navy capris and a cheerful yellow shirt hopped from the sporty vehicle. Bright sunlight glimmered off artfully streaked blond hair and classically applied makeup.
This was a woman with confidence and grace, one of those timelessly beautiful women who had always left her envious.
With her own shorts and T-shirt, choppy haircut and unattractive dye job, Allie felt as sweaty and grubby as one of the girls after a day spent at the zoo.
For some reason she didn’t quite understand, something about the woman’s smile as she approached sent sharp foreboding prickling through her. Don’t be silly, she chided herself. She’s probably just a lost tourist looking for directions.
“Hello,” Allie said with a polite smile. “May I help you?”
“You must be Lisa. My son Wyatt told me about you. I’m Lynn McKinnon, Gage’s mother. Please, let me help you with your basket.”
Gage’s mother. Oh, no! He would not be happy about having his mother show up suddenly at his doorstep, not after his revelations the day before about the tense, awkward relationship the two of them shared and the reasons for it.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” For all the heat of the afternoon, she felt frozen on the steps, unsure what to do, what to say.
“Um, come in,” she finally managed to squeak out. “I’ll just let Gage know you’re here.”
“Wait. To be honest, I would really like to speak with you first before I see Gage.”
She stared blankly at the other woman, baffled and nervous. “Oh?”
“I know my son, Ms…. Connors, isn’t it?”
Allie nodded, hating the alias. She wanted to be Alicia DeBarillas again not the stranger named Lisa Connors.
She hated this deceit and the reasons for it.
“I’m afraid Gage won’t be very thrilled to see me,” Lynn said bluntly. “I’m also afraid he won’t want to tell me the truth about his injury. Before I face him and hear all his macho lies about how he’s fine and has barely a scratch, I wanted to ask you as his nurse how he’s really doing.”
She wasn’t sure how Gage would want her to answer that. She couldn’t claim total insight into the man who employed her, but she thought she knew him well enough to guess he wouldn’t want her sharing his complete medical history with his estranged mother.
On the other hand, this smiling woman seemed to genuinely care about her son’s welfare. Allie couldn’t bring herself to lie to the woman. “He’s in pain but he tries hard to pretend he’s not.”
“That sounds very much like Gage.”
“I can only tell you what the doctor said when I drove him there a few days ago. His right leg is healing quickly. Because of the angle at which he was hit, it sustained only a simple fracture. A few more weeks and the doctor thinks he’ll be able to start weight bearing.”
“And the left leg?”
“It still has a ways to go. He’s probably looking at another month or two in the cast, then rehab after that.”
“I see.”
“He still has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but he’s able to get around better every day.”
The other woman nodded and touched her arm with cool fingers. “Thank you for being honest. You must think I’m a nosy, interfering old woman but I knew Gage wouldn’t tell me the truth. He’s my son and I love him but I’m the first one to admit he can be a little stubborn sometimes, as I’m sure you have discovered.”
Again, Allie didn’t know how to answer. She did know she had a hard time believing this warm, friendly woman could possibly blame her son for something that had happened when he was only a child.
“Come in and I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
Allie led the way up the porch steps and into the house, then left Lynn McKinnon waiting in the living room. At Gage’s closed bedroom door, she paused, her nerves scrambling.
He wasn’t going to be happy to see his mother. She only hoped he wouldn’t stomp all over Lynn’s maternal concern.
No. As gruff and taciturn as he could be sometimes, Allie knew he was also capable of great gentleness. Only look at that morning, how he had tolerated her girls and their mischievousness.
She had a feeling that despite his own discomfort around his mother, he would treat her with only respect.
She knocked, then swung open the door after he bade her to enter. He was on the bed working through some of the physical therapy exercises that didn’t require her help. His features were strained as he extended his leg, and sweat beaded his forehead.
“Sorry to interrupt but you have another visitor.”
Irritation flashed through his gray eyes and he muttered an oath. “Can’t a guy get a moment’s peace around here?”
“Sorry.” She paused, loath to tell him the rest of it. “Um, Gage, it’s your mother.”
She expected him to show some reaction to her announcement but he only continued his stretching. All she could see was a hint of resignation in the set of his mouth.
“You don’t look surprised.”
“I expected her last night. The only surprise is that she could stand to wait until today to show up.”
“Can I send her in?”
“Give me a minute, will you?”
She studied him, trying to figure out what was going through his mind, then she shrugged. “Sure. I’ll stall her.”
She returned to the living room and found Lynn tracing her finger along Gage’s CD collection. Trying to find some clues into the son she didn’t know? Allie wondered.
She cleared her throat and Lynn looked up quickly, flushing a little.
“He’ll just be a moment,” Allie said. “Would you like something to drink while you wait?”
“No. I’m fine. Thank you.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment. “Gage tells me you live about an hour away.”
“Yes. I grew up in the little town of Liberty and I’ve lived there most of my life. And what about you? What brings you to Park City?”
A nightmarish custody battle and raw terror at the idea of losing her girls. She couldn’t say that, of course, so she offered only the bare bones of her story. “My husband was killed in a car accident a few years ago and I decided my girls and I could use a fresh start. We were heading to California when we had engine trouble and ended up staying.”
“I’m so glad you did, for Gage’s sake. Wyatt assured me you’re taking very good care of him.”
“I don’t know about that. He would much rather do everything by himself.”
Lynn smiled suddenly. “This was an awful thing to happen to anyone, and I wish with all my heart my son didn’t have to go through such an ordeal. But sometimes it’s not necessarily a bad thing for certain people to learn they can lean on someone else once in a while.”
She was quite sure Gage would strongly disagree, but she smiled politely.
“Let me ask you something else,” Lynn went on. “Do you think I would be in the way if I stayed around town for a few days? I’m in the middle of summer vacation from school and, like you, could use a change of scenery. I was thinking about renting a condominium somewhere nearby for a week or so. It would give Gage and me a wonderful chance to catch up. What do you think?”
He had a spare bedroom going unused, but she knew it wasn’t her place to offer it to Lynn. “I think you should talk to your son about it.”
“I’ll do that.”
They lapsed into silence, and after a moment Allie decided to see if Gage was ready yet.
“Excuse me for a moment and I’ll check on Gage,” she murmured to the other woman.
When she returned to his room, she found he not only had changed into a clean shirt and a pair of nylon sweats that snapped up the sides and over his casts but he had also transferred from the bed to the recliner.
“Can I bring your mother back?” she asked.
He nodded, and Allie returned for Lynn. She showed his mother to the bedroom then hovered in the doorway, though she wasn’t sure why.
In just one brief moment when Lynn walked into the room, Allie saw a myriad of emotions pass between the two of them. Lynn’s gaze brimmed over with a sort of anguished love as she looked at her son and Gage wore a look of mingled stoicism and yearning.
Allie closed the door behind Lynn, then touched a hand to her chest, to her heart. She could almost feel it break apart as she realized what she would have to do.
* * *
How could one small woman leave him so totally exhausted?
By the time his mother left two hours later—after pressing a smooth cheek that smelled of lavender and sage to his and promising she would return the next day—Gage felt as if he had just run twenty miles through blinding rain, broken legs and all.
As much as he loved his mother, she somehow managed to leave him weary and drained, maybe because he had to navigate so carefully through the minefield of emotions between them. Two hours listening to his mother’s cheerful chatter was more grueling than spending two hours interrogating the worst of criminals.
He was tempted to indulge in a little nap for a while but he had a feeling if he did, he would only end up spending a restless night tossing and turning in his bed. He didn’t want to risk it, not when he knew he would already have a tough time sleeping because of that kiss he and Lisa had shared earlier, the one he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Lynn had left his door ajar and he could hear Lisa laughing quietly in the kitchen, then the higher-pitched music of her daughters joining in. He could picture them together, sharing smiles and stories and affectionate touches.
She was a toucher, he had noticed, with her daughters and with everyone else. A comforting hand here, a gentle squeeze there. He’d never been one who liked casual physical contact—he was usually uncomfortable with it, even—but for some reason he didn’t mind it from her.
As it had done all too often that afternoon, even when he’d been talking to his mother, the memory of their kiss earlier in the morning played through his mind again, of the incredible rightness of having her in his arms. He had never experienced anything like it, that wild jumble of tenderness and sweetness and raw desire.
If not for her girls, he would have pulled her onto him, buried himself inside of her, lost himself in her.
Even hours later, his body still ached for her. Not just his body, he admitted. As crazy as it seemed, his whole soul yearned and burned for Lisa Connors.
He wanted to be near her. To talk to her and listen to the low murmur of her voice and watch her face soften and glow with her smile.
He heard her and her daughters laugh again and suddenly wanted desperately to be in that kitchen with them, not trapped here in this damn bedroom by his physical and emotional limitations.
Even as he told himself how foolish it was—how, if he had any kind of a brain in his head, he would keep his butt planted right where it was—Gage transferred with painstaking care from the recliner to the wheelchair.
When he wheeled to the kitchen, he paused in the doorway. None of them noticed him at first so he settled in to watch, drawing a strange peace from the domesticity of the scene.
Lisa stood at the kitchen counter wearing the same apron she had worn on that first day when he’d come home from the hospital. The girls stood on chairs set at either side of her, watching their mother’s actions with their cute little faces bright with glee and anticipation.
He loved watching her, too, he had to admit. Everything about her seemed so fluid and graceful, like watching some rare, exquisite bird floating on air currents. She made even an action as mundane as mixing some kind of batter in a bowl look elegant and smooth.
The littlest one, Anna, saw him first. She gave him a small, painfully sweet smile and a bashful little wave, then ducked her head. He lifted his fingers to wave back just as the other one caught sight of him.
“Hi, Mr. Gage!” she exclaimed. “We’re makin’ brownies. Me and Anna love, love, love brownies.”
“Who doesn’t?” he asked wryly.
She frowned, giving his off-the-cuff remark far more consideration than it deserved. “Mommy doesn’t. She doesn’t eat them, anyway. She says these will be just for me and Anna and you.”
He glanced at Lisa, who shrugged and returned his gaze with a rueful look. “Okay. You caught me. The truth is, I love, love, love brownies, too, but I can’t afford to eat them very often. They and my diabetes don’t get along very well.”
He found it poignant and heartrending that she would make treats for her daughters she couldn’t enjoy herself. What a good mother she was, so very different from a lot of the women he came in contact with on the job. The ones who were too high or drunk to notice when their boyfriends spent an inordinate amount of time alone with their children or the bruises or the frequent trips to the emergency room.
“There’s that superstrength willpower again.”
She studied him for a moment then looked away, her cheeks dusted with color. “Not really. I just know the consequences of overindulging better than most.”
“Do you want to help us make the brownies, Mr. Gage?” Gaby asked.
“How about if I just watch?”
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Once we made a cake with Grandma Irena and she let us lick the spoon but Mommy says we can’t ’cause we’ll get worms in our tummies. That’s gross, huh?”
“Gabriella!” Lisa exclaimed. The spoon clattered against the metal of the mixing bowl with a discordant sound.
What had the little girl said to put such raw panic in her eyes, such sternness in her voice? Gage wondered.
Gaby looked confused, too. “Well, it is gross. Who wants worms in their tummies?”
“We don’t need to talk about this right now,” Lisa said sternly. “I think we’re done mixing now and ready to pour the mix into the pan. Hold it steady for me, okay?”
He couldn’t help thinking she was changing the subject and he racked his mind trying to figure out what in such an innocuous statement had set her off.
Finally he gave up trying to puzzle out her strange reaction and just enjoyed the sight of them working together. Both girls held tight to the pan on either side, as if it were a wriggly puppy trying to escape. Their tongues were thrust tight between their teeth in concentration while Lisa poured the batter and scraped the remainder out.
“I want to set the buzzer,” Gaby begged when she finished.
“Okay.” Lisa handed her the small kitchen timer. “Thirty minutes. Do you remember how to do that?”
Gaby nodded and twisted the dial, that solemn look on her little face again, then held it out for her mother’s inspection. “Three zero. Thirty minutes.”
“Good job. Now you two need to wash your hands, then go out in the backyard and start gathering up your toys to put into the basket. As soon as the brownies are done, we need to go back to our house for the night.”
The girls jumped down from their chairs obediently and dragged them to the sink.
“Bye, Mr. Gage,” Gaby said when they finished washing up and were on their way out the door. “Don’t eat all the brownies without us.”
“I won’t, I swear.”
Her sister gifted him with another shy wave and smile before following at her loquacious sibling’s heels, leaving him alone with Lisa.
He shifted in the wheelchair, uncomfortably aware this was the first time he had been alone with her since their kiss that morning. Tension seethed through the kitchen, taut and cumbrous, and suddenly Lisa seemed to have an inordinate preoccupation with wiping down the counter.
“So how was your visit with your mother?” she finally asked.
He shrugged. “We both survived.”
Somehow the look she sent him was both reprimanding and sympathetic. “I thought she was very nice. And it’s obvious she’s concerned about you.”
“Right. So concerned she’s decided to rent a condo in town for a few weeks so she can keep an eye on me.”
“She told me she was thinking about it. I hope you told her how silly that was. Did you tell her you have a spare bedroom and she could stay here with you?”
“No.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
Guilt pinched at him but he staunchly ignored it. “Because I don’t want her here.”
She set down the cloth she’d been using on the counter and faced him, a militant light in her eyes that made him more than a little edgy. “Gage, she’s your mother.”
“I believe I’m aware of that fact, thanks.”
“So you should welcome this chance to spend some time with her! I know things are awkward between you, but they don’t have to be that way. You could use this time together to heal the rift between you.”
He ground his back teeth. “There is no rift between us. We just prefer to go our separate ways.”
“You might prefer things that way, but your mother doesn’t sound as if she agrees. Otherwise, she wouldn’t feel compelled to stick around for the next few weeks, would she?”
He couldn’t answer because he’d wondered the same thing, just what his mother was after by deciding to take up temporary residence in Park City. Surely she didn’t want to try to build a relationship with him after all these years. It didn’t make any kind of sense. But what other explanation could there be?
All these years he thought she preferred things the way they were, that she needed that distance between them as much as he did, but now he was beginning to wonder if he had been wrong.
Even if he had been, he couldn’t imagine having her stay here. Hell, just a few hours with her left him wrung out. Limp as a worn-out fiddle string, as his grandpa would have said. Having her here on even a semipermanent basis would be more than he could survive.
If she was here, Wyatt would probably turn up, too. Before he knew it, he would have more family than he knew what to do with.
“Just leave it alone,” he growled to Lisa. “I don’t remember asking your opinion about how to run my life.”
As soon as the words skulked out, he regretted them. Her eyes darkened to a wounded midnight blue, and that soft mouth that had tasted so delicious earlier in the day thinned and straightened.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment. Her voice sounded small, flat. He had hurt her, he realized, and hated himself for it. He wanted to apologize but he couldn’t find the words.
“I’m only the hired help,” she went on. “It’s none of my business if you want to throw away a chance to make your peace with a mother who loves you.”
“Lisa…”
She shook her head. “Excuse me, but I need to put fresh sheets on your bed before I go home for the day.”
She walked out, leaving him alone in the kitchen with his guilt.