As Good as His Word Page 3

  Did Hayden have ulterior motives?

  HAYDEN LET THE FIRST FEW blocks pass in silence. Let the boy sulk for a minute or two before starting the interrogation. The kid’s pride had been wounded, and Hayden needed it to at least scab over before he started picking at it again.

  Which was why he was driving in the opposite direction of his destination, his brother Greg’s house, where Shannon, at least, would be home to get Hayden out of the damn costume.Then Nick leaned over and turned down the AC.

  “Hey. Hands off. Controls belong to the driver.” Hayden blasted it back full throttle.

  “What’s with you? It’s not ninety degrees out.”

  “When you drive, you can set the stuff.”

  “Great. Pull over. I’ll drive.”

  “Smart-ass.” Hayden adjusted the vents so they all blew in his direction. Greg was so dead. At least Hayden had managed the court appointment with no one becoming the wiser about his “underoos.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “That’s the honest-to-God truth. So, now that we’ve established we’re cut from the same cloth, I want you to explain to me exactly how you ended up with a backpack full of spray paint and pot you claim wasn’t yours. Just remember, my BS detector is finely honed, so let’s skip the crap and cut straight to the truth.”

  Nick fidgeted in the passenger seat. After another block and a half of silence, he finally muttered, “There’s this girl…”

  An enormous sense of relief eased the tightness in Hayden’s chest. This was familiar ground. He’d had this conversation with numerous students in his capacity as teacher and coach. He grinned over at the kid. “A girl, huh?” Then he chuckled. “Letting the wrong head do the thinking already? As you can see, that just gets you into trouble.”

  Without warning, Nick slammed his fist into the dashboard, muttering words Hayden hadn’t dared use in the presence of an adult until after he’d enlisted in the Marines.

  Hayden started, hands gripping the steering wheel harder. “Hey, sport, easy on the car, huh? What’s the problem?” While he’d just laid into the kid for disrespecting his mother, these curses clearly meant something big was up with him.

  The boy folded his arms across his chest. “I didn’t want to ever be one of those guys.”

  “What guys?”

  “The ones that let the wrong head do the thinking.”

  This time the laughter burst forth fully, causing Nick to glare at him. “You don’t know it, but I’m laughing with you. Nick, we’re all that guy at numerous points in our lives.”

  “Well…I wasn’t going to be.”

  “Welcome to manhood.” Hayden swallowed hard. It should have been Ian having this conversation with his son. “At least tell me you’re smart enough to use protection. You need condoms?” He reached over, popped open the glove box. “There’s a few in here.”

  “Damn, Unk…” The kid slammed the compartment shut, once more rattling the entire dash. “You’re as bad as Mom. ‘Here are some condoms, Nick. If you need them, use them,’” he mimicked. “Your mom offered you condoms?” Hayden knew what too many fourteen-year-olds were doing these days—hell, he taught sex ed, although sometimes he wasn’t sure who was educating who. He liked sex just as much as the next guy, probably more, but even he had to marvel at some of the stories and problems his kids came to him with. But he hadn’t expected Ronni to offer her fourteen-year-old son protection.

  Nick shifted in the seat. “Hello? Teen mom?” He snorted. “She’s been preaching condoms since I turned twelve. Makes me feel like I was one giant mistake she’s horrified I’ll repeat.”

  Hayden steered to the side of the residential neighborhood street, which was mostly empty at this time of day. He popped the stick shift into Neutral and unbuckled his seat belt, turning to face the boy. “I know that’s not the case. In fact, it would break your mother’s heart to hear you believed that. No, they didn’t plan on you. But once she found out you were on the way, both of your parents were thrilled. Much to the dismay of their own parents. Look, Nick, parents want the best for their kids. Your mom’s had a tough row to hoe.” Holy crap, was he actually saying these things? Had he suffered heatstroke from the suit?

  But it was the truth. He’d been present for moral support the day Ian and Ronni had told their parents, one set at a time. What the kid didn’t need to know was how hard Ronni’s parents had lobbied for her not to have him. And then threw her out of the house when she’d defied them and continued the pregnancy. “She wanted you more than anything. She just wants your life to be easier. Which means waiting to have kids. Which means making sure you do the thinking with the head on your shoulders.”

  “You ever let the wrong one do the thinking?”

  He laughed again. “Yes. I speak from experience.”

  “I figured that, what with all the girls you date.”

  “Hey, hey, watch it there. There’s a time and place for everything. Keep that in mind. No point in getting too serious yet. The world is filled with women, Nick. Don’t let one tie you down too soon. Especially not one who’s already getting you into trouble.”

  “Wasn’t there ever a girl you liked enough not to care if you got into trouble?”

  Hayden refastened his seat belt, then pulled the car from the curb. They still had a few more blocks to go to reach Greg’s house.

  “Uncle Hayden?”

  “What?”

  “I asked if there was ever a girl who made you not care about getting into trouble.”

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “There was a girl like that once.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of my brothers asked her out first.”

  “Which one?”

  “Never mind. Ancient history.”

  “What did you like about her?”

  Hayden sighed. Dangerous territory, given how his morning had gone. And yet the memories stormed him. Hazel eyes that twinkled when she smiled. How excited she could get over the simplest things. The way she’d chide him and Ian when they’d dared to do things she considered bad or risky. A lump swelled in his throat when he compared those memories to the pale woman he’d seen that morning, with dead, haunted eyes. He forced it down, forced himself to answer. “When she laughed, I thought I could just float on it. Even better if I was the one who made her laugh.”

  The boy scowled at him. “Lame.”

  “Okay, she was damn cute, too.”

  “How did it work out for your brother?”

  “In the end, badly. Let it be a lesson to you.” It sure as hell had been for Hayden.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A LANDSCAPER RAKED FRESH mulch across the flower beds in front of Walnut Creek Manor as Ronni crossed the parking lot and headed for the building. Outside the automatic double doors, she paused to take a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped. The place was a prison of sorts. For her, as well. But she came every morning. This made today’s second trip. After a moment, she drew in another breath, straightened up and strode on in.

  In the waiting area, Vera launched herself from one of the chairs. A young woman hunched over a notepad, and a ponytailed man holding a camera plastered with the WEGL logo sat in chairs beside the one Vera had vacated.“Ronni! I’m glad you’re here. The staff won’t let us go back to Scott’s room. These folks—” she waved at the two newspeople “—are here to tell his story for a special Memorial Day feature they’re doing at the end of the month.”

  “I know, Vera.” She took the woman by the elbow. “Excuse us,” she said to the news crew. “We need a moment to talk.”

  She steered Scott’s mother toward the hall, well out of earshot of the media reps. Willie, the receptionist, offered a sympathetic smile as they passed.

  “Look, Vera, I understand that you’re proud of Scott and want him honored. But please, think about it. Why don’t you invite these folks over to your place, show them Scott’s service picture and some of his medals, and just do it that way?”

  “But that’s the point, Ronni. He’s still alive. That would make it seem like he’s dead.”

  Ronni didn’t think video footage of Scott in his current state would make him seem alive. She did know he’d hate it. “We’ve had this argument before, Vera, right after he came home. This isn’t how Scott would want people to see him. Please. With everything else that’s been taken away from him, don’t violate his pride, too. Not any more than it is on a daily basis.” And given what a proud man her husband had been, and the indignities he suffered as part of his regular routine, it was probably just as well he didn’t know what was going on.

  Vera’s blue-gray eyes filled. “I just want him remembered on Memorial Day.”

  “I know.” Ronni rubbed Vera’s arm, then pulled her into an embrace. “I know. But not this way.”

  Sniffling, her mother-in-law broke away from her, fishing a tissue from her purse and swiping at her nose. “You’re right, Ronni. You usually are. I’ll take them home and show them Scott’s stuff. Oh, I know. I can show them all his baseball trophies.”

  “Good. I’m sure that would make him a lot happier.”

  The pair walked back to the waiting room. The reporter was on her feet when they arrived.

  “We’re not going to film Scott here,” Vera told them. “We’re doing the interview at my house. I can show you all his service photos, and some of his medals.”

  The reporter zeroed in on Ronni, while the cameraman pointed the lens in her direction. “Mrs. Mangano, don’t you want your husband’s story told?”

  “You can do it without exploiting him like a sideshow. What Vera’s offering you will let you tell a fine story of a heroic man who served his country honorably.” Unfortunately, a lot of Scott’s other behavior had been less honorable.
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  “We’d like to tell your story, too. How much you and your son have also sacrificed. Are still sacrificing.”

  “Absolutely not. Memorial Day is about those who served.” Just what she needed was some reporter grilling Nick, or worse, looking into what they’d sacrificed in the nineteen months since Scott’s injury in Iraq, and finding out about Nick’s court appearance that morning. She could imagine the lead-in: And coming up next, a war hero’s traumatized stepson runs afoul of the law.

  “Can you tell us the circumstances of your husband’s injury?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Didn’t it involve a motor vehicle accident?”

  The snot-nosed kid had done her homework. “Yes.”

  “So, your husband went all the way to Iraq and ended up injured, not by an IED or a sniper, but in a motor vehicle crash?”

  There was more to the story than that. But… “Yes. Which is just as ironic as stories about vets who come home from Iraq and end up being shot in their own neighborhoods, isn’t it? Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  The reporter pressed her card into Ronni’s hand. “If you change your mind, call me at the station. We’d like to cover all the angles.”

  After waiting in the reception area long enough to make sure they’d left, Ronni headed for Scott’s room, greeting other patients and staff along the way. She paused in the doorway. The drone of the television hummed in the background, some guy talking how-to about fishing. Scott, strapped in his full-support wheelchair, sat in front of it.

  But he wasn’t watching the screen.

  She entered. “Hey, Scott, how’s it going? You’ll never guess what your mom is up to today. She had plans to make you a TV star. Not to worry, though. I persuaded her to go a different route.”

  Scott’s head jerked in her direction, but his eyes remained fixed on the window.

  Not that it mattered where his eyes were aimed.

  She crossed to his dresser. A sealed pack of cigarettes and an empty beer bottle had been placed in the middle, just under the wall of photos she’d created. She shook her head. “I see Dan’s been by.” Dan Abbott was one of Scott’s buddies, a long-time friend he’d served with. Not many others found time to visit. The cigs and bottle—empty because Dan always drank it in Scott’s honor—were in lieu of flowers, which he said didn’t suit Scott.

  The photo in the center of her board, Scott in his uniform, always made her nostalgic.

  And pissed.

  He’d been a handsome man, even more dashing in that damn uniform. But as Babcia, her paternal grandmother, had always said, handsome is as handsome does. And Scott’s behavior…well, it hadn’t all been pretty.

  Ronni grabbed a container of lotion, then dragged a chair to his side. Pouring some of the cream into her palm, she slicked her hands, then began applying it to his forearms.

  Forearms that had once been strong, but had withered with disuse over the last nineteen months. “Did you have your physical therapy this morning?” Dry skin and atrophying muscles were only two of the battles waged daily for someone like Scott.

  Someone with PVS, permanent vegetative state. Permanent because he’d been this way for more than a year.

  She chattered at him like a magpie, saying nothing of substance. Because although he made a great listener— no different, really, than before he’d been injured, where she’d be lucky to get an occasional grunt out of him in response—one never knew who was lingering in the hallway, also listening.

  And if there was one thing she’d learned, it was to keep the dirty laundry out of sight.

  She worked her way down to his hands. Hands that had once caressed her. Held her. Loved her.

  She clenched her teeth, then swallowed hard against the sudden wave of nausea that climbed her throat.

  Hands that had caressed and loved other women, as well. Including while he’d been on tour in Iraq.

  She had the pictures to prove it.

  “MOM!” Nick’s voice echoed down the staircase. The boy’s lungs apparently hadn’t been impacted by his foray into smoking.

  Ronni pushed back from the small desk that served as both the reception booth and her office at the salon in the basement of her house. The house she’d moved into when her parents had kicked her out, pregnant with Nick. Babcia had taken her in. When she’d died five years later, she’d willed the house to Ronni.Leading to another round of her father’s wrath. The last time she’d seen her parents had been in the lawyer’s office, for the reading of Babcia’s will.

  “Mom?” Nick yelled again.

  No customers on Mondays. Instead, she used that time to catch up on paperwork—or computer work, to be more accurate. And do the major cleaning. Or course, today had also been Nick’s courthouse appearance, and she was still drained from dealing with Vera and the reporter at the nursing home.

  “Mom!”

  She strode around the desk and through the archway to the hall. Going left would take her to the parking lot in the back of the house. Turning right led to the stairs. She stood at the bottom and looked up at her son, silhouetted at the top. “What, Nick? And please don’t bellow.”

  “Uncle Hayden’s here. He brought pizza.”

  Hayden? Here? Now?

  “I’ll be right up.” She returned to the computer, saving and backing up data, closing down the programs. What could Hayden want? Why not just call her to deal with scheduling his time with Nick?

  At the top of the stairs, she flicked off the basement lights and drew the door closed. The spicy aroma of pepperoni and tomato sauce wafted from the kitchen. Two steps later, she watched Hayden bop Nick on the hand with a paper plate as her son reached into the pizza box on the table.

  “Wait for your mother.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “And you can be hungry until she gets here. Won’t kill you.”

  For someone who hadn’t spoken to her in years before this morning, and whose first glance had spewed death in her direction, the man was awfully defensive of her.

  Or maybe that was just the good manners Lydia Hawkins had drilled into her children.

  Ronni sighed. Another point where she’d failed to live up to Hawkins standards. It was probably just as well that they didn’t speak to her. Most likely she didn’t want to hear what they’d have to say.

  Hayden had ditched his court clothes in favor of a pair of faded, well-worn jeans that cupped his butt…in a way she had no right noticing.

  Nor should she have noticed his broad shoulders in the skintight turquoise T-shirt that accentuated the sandy highlights in his hair and the muscles in his back.

  But then, a woman would have to be dead not to notice those kinds of things about him.

  Although most days she felt so numb she wondered if she were dead, or in some other form of living limbo like Scott…apparently she wasn’t.

  Good to know. But rather surprising.

  A cool breeze flowed into the room through the sliding glass door that led to the deck off the dining area, bringing another surge of spicy pizza scent her way.

  Hayden turned around. “Hey, there you are.” He waved his hand toward the table. “I brought dinner. Thought maybe you could use a break after today.”

  “That’s very…thoughtful of you.”

  “Saved me from Meat-loaf Monday,” Nick said, wrinkling his nose.

  “And I can pop it in the oven tomorrow night, and we’ll have Meat-loaf Tuesday for a change of pace.” Ronni took stock of the table. Napkins, a six-pack of root beer and a four-pack of dark ale rounded things out.

  Nick dived into the box, dragging a slice onto his plate and immediately taking a huge bite.

  “Brought your favorite,” Hayden said to her. “Pepperoni from Two Friends.”

  “That’s not her favorite,” Nick said around his half-chewed food.

  Ronni mentally head-slapped him. Another demonstration of his fine manners.

  “It’s not?” Hayden rounded the table. Instead of taking the empty seat at the end, he pulled out the chair opposite Ronni. “Do you know how much of that your mother ate while she was pregnant with you?”

  Nick paused midbite, staring at his uncle. He chewed several more times, then swallowed the chunk of pizza in his mouth. “That’s Scott’s chair.”