A Family Affair: Spring: Truth in Lies, Book 2 (13 page)

Thankfully, Lily kept the conversation going with her talk about Pop Benito’s new tennis shoes from his son in California and the postcard his granddaughter sent him from Spain. Christine made a few comments, toyed with her food, and actually ate a few bites. She did not look at her husband or speak directly to him. The next time Miriam invited him to dinner, Christine would make sure she wasn’t home. Pop said she could stop over whenever she wanted to strategize about ways to get The Bleeding Heart Society’s support or just chit
-chat.

What would he say if he knew about Nate and Natalie
Servetti? Quite a bit, and it wouldn’t be sugarcoated either. After peach cobbler and cleaning up the kitchen—Nate insisted on washing—he kissed his mother and Lily and made some lame comment about getting back to sanding the floor.

“Christine, can I see you for a minute?” He had his hand on the doorknob and when she nodded, he opened it and motioned her past him. She made her way to the truck, out of earshot and partially blocked from view, in case Lily was in one of her inquisitive moods. Nate leaned against the truck door and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are we going to talk about this?”

She stood a few feet from him, just out of arm’s reach, in case he got the urge to touch her. “Eventually.”

“That could mean anything.” He shrugged, his voice guarded.
“Two days, ten? A year?”

“I don’t know. It’s too soon.” That was the truth. Her emotions wouldn’t settle down so she could think logically, and aside from Miriam, who pushed for her to work it out with Nate, there was no one she could talk to. She certainly couldn’t confide in Uncle Harry who might get it in his head to drive to Magdalena and confront Nate. There would be a scene because Uncle Harry didn’t do anything on a small scale
. It would be in the
Magdalena Press
, and the whole town would read about the photos of Nate and Natalie Servetti. And then there was the baby that no one knew about: their baby. She would have to tell Nate, but not yet, certainly not under these circumstances.

“What’s going to happen when you find out I’ve been set up and you didn’t believe me?”

The fact that he wasn’t giving up that story unsettled her. Was he telling the truth? Or did he merely think he could make her believe it was the truth if he said it with enough conviction? She needed answers and time.

“Why were you at Gino
Servetti’s? What was the big surprise that you would risk running into your old lover for it?” He looked away, his expression unreadable.

“Well? Can you at least tell me that?” When his gaze met hers, she could have sworn she spotted a flicker of pain in those dark eyes.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Yes, it does. What was it?”

“Forget it.” When he spoke in that tone, he was done with the subject. She knew him well enough to know that.

“Fine.”
A few days ago, she could share anything with him, had been planning to tell him he was going to be a father. Today, she could barely maintain eye contact.

“Call me when you want to talk.” He opened the truck door, turned and said, “The longer you wait, the harder this is going to be to fix, until one day, it won’t be able to be fixed.”

***

Pop watered the first of three pots of basil, careful not to drench the delicate leaves. They’d need transplanting soon so they could spread out and grow. Too many people tossed the seeds in a pot and with the exception of an occasional bottle of water, did nothing, and wondered why their basil was so puny, or died, or withered into a spindle. Where was the wondering? Plants were like people; you had to tend to them or they’d go wild or shrink from neglect. Take Nate
Desantro. Pop could sure tell Christine had been tending to that young man, showing him he counted as her number one person. You can’t buy that kind of love; it grew from inside a person and when they shared it, it spread, kind of like Pop’s secret fertilizer that only he and Lucy knew about.

“Ah, Lucy, you’d like Christine. She’s not snooty like Nate’s first wife, and she loves Lily. You can see it when she talks about her.”

Pop lifted the watering can to the second pot, ran a steady stream into the soil. “I took her to The Bleeding Heart’s Society meeting the other day.” He chuckled and pulled a weed from the pot. “She got an earful. Didn’t know what to think, I could tell. Not many garden clubs talk about ways to handle an unruly fifteen-year-old or who’s gonna make a Homecoming dress for Denise Bellan. I had to let her see for herself what we’re all about.”

He fingered the leaf of a small basil plant. “Every time I walk into that meeting room, I remember the first time you suggested starting a
wish box for people to write in what they needed. Who would have thought the whole town would get behind it? I know you remember the first wish the society granted.” He fingered a basil leaf and pictured his Lucy handing an envelope to the soon-to-graduate college student with four brothers and a father on disability.

“M
eg Delstant never forgot that suit the society bought her so she could go on that interview. She said that’s what got her the job.” He chuckled and watered the Swiss chard.

“We know that brain of hers had something to do with it, but that suit gave her courage to do what needed to be done.” His voice dipped, filled with a mix of sadness and love. “That was you, Lucy. That was all you and your kindness
.

“What do you think about Christine? Think she’s a keeper? Or do you think she’ll
hightail it out of here at the first sign of trouble? She really seems to love the boy and you know Nate’s a hard one to love. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Even love that blooms eternal runs into patches of crabgrass.’ You got a point, but all I want to do is make sure that patch don’t explode into a football field.”

Pop set down his watering can, shielded a hand against his eyes
, and glanced at the sky. The blue matched Lucy’s eyes. He smiled and laid a hand across his heart where his dear wife rested.

“Nate and Christine remind me of us,” he whispered. “She’s feisty until she talks about him. He’s bull
-headed but can’t see nobody but her. But time and crabgrass will tell their story, like it did ours, don’t you think so, Lucy?”

***

“Okay, what did you do now?”

Nate kept his head bent and his eyes fixed on the spreadsheet in front of him.
Damned if he was going to open his mouth about anything personal, especially the truth behind the reason he was at work on a Saturday morning doing the one thing he hated more than anything—inventory.

“Nobody can count anymore. Do people just make up the numbers so they don’t have to move parts around and get their hands dirty?” Frustration seeped through his words, spilled over Jack’s inquiry. This wasn’t about numbers or inventory
; hell, this wasn’t about business at all. The reason he was here, the reason he’d been unable to stay at his house for longer than the few miserable hours when he tried to sleep, had to do with Christine. Falling asleep in front of the television, drinking, moodiness, extra hours at the shop—all centered around his wife and her obvious attempts to distance herself from him while she figured out her life and his part in it.

“Uh-huh.” Jack moved closer, tapped a bony hand on the desk. “The last time you blamed inventory on your misery was when you fell for that wife of yours but refused to admit it.”

“Leave it alone.” He did not want to talk about Christine to anyone right now.

“You know, this marriage business isn’t always a smooth road. Nope, sure isn’t. Sometimes you get stuck in quicksand and feel like you’re
gonna suffocate. Other times, you gotta push uphill so damn hard, you think your heart’s gonna burst.” He blew out a long breath. “And then there’s the times you think about getting in your truck and driving off. You don’t, though, because that’s not what you signed up for now, is it?” His voice turned gruffer than usual. “And you wouldn’t make it past the county line because you belong together. So, what did you and Christine fight about?”

Damn, but the man would not leave it alone.
Nate shoved the spreadsheet aside and looked at Jack. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” Nate snapped.

“Nothing.
If you say everything’s fine, then, of course, I believe you.” He scratched his jaw. “I’m just wondering if life is so good right now, why you’ve been such a crabass lately, and why hasn’t Christine stopped by with lunch?”

“She’s been busy.”
Busy avoiding me.

“Right.
Busy.”

“I’ve got work to do, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to it.” The only way to survive right now was to keep his brain and his body in steady motion so he couldn’t think about the emptiness eating his soul.

“Sure.” Jack nodded, his bushy brows pulled together. The man saw more than he let on, and most times he kept his observations to himself, unless they involved Nate. Then, he made it his job to investigate the situation, put it under a damn microscope, and eventually offer a solution, solicited or not. So why wasn’t he doing that now? Why was he so amenable to staying out of Nate’s business? Something was up.

“I just have one question.”
Damn, here it comes
. “I was back in the warehouse a few days ago and I noticed this tarp over some big contraption. Couldn’t figure out what it was, unless one of the workers got lazy and covered up some material they didn’t want to put away. So I investigated.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “And you’ll never guess what I found.”

Nate looked away. “I have no idea.”

“Really? Sure as hell looked like your work.”

“Huh.” He picked up a pencil, fiddled with it. Jack’s inquisitiveness was closing in on him. It was only a matter of two or three more sentences before he called Nate out.

“Yup. Nice piece of work.” He tipped his baseball cap back and scratched his forehead. “What I can’t figure out is what’s a cradle doing back in the warehouse.”

Damn Jack Finnegan and his intuitive nosiness. “Okay, you got me. It’s my work.”

“Christine’s pregnant?”

Nate shook his head. “No. It was just something I wanted to make, for when the time came.” He should have started the cradle months ago and given it to her. Maybe by now she’d be pregnant. That would have given her the extra reason to work things out instead of what she was doing now, which was stalling and avoiding him. Why
was it luck was always a stroke behind him? Just this once, couldn’t things roll in his favor?

“Why did you say ‘for when the time came’, not ‘for when the time comes’?”
Jack had worked his way back to Nate’s desk. “What’s going on, boy? I’m a good listener and sure as hell not a gossip trap like Betty. Whatever you tell me won’t leave this room.”

It wasn’t that he thought Jack would broadcast Nate’s marital problems throughout Magdalena because the man was as solid and trustworthy as they came. No, this was more about voicing the accusations and the current state of his screwed-up marriage. He didn’t want Jack giving him that pitiful look that said,
The worst is yet to come
, or even
It’s not irreversible, but damn close
. Once you started talking about it, it became a reality; sometimes other people’s reality, and everybody had an opinion.
Let her go. Fight for her. Stand your ground. Get a lawyer. Never trust a woman, especially an estranged wife
.

He’d said these words a time or
two himself, but dammit, this was different. This was his marriage; this was Christine they were talking about. Nate opened his mouth, willing the truth to spill out, but he couldn’t do it.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I can’t talk about it right now.”

The old man nodded, his expression somber. “I understand. How ’bout I move that piece of furniture to the computer room, so nobody sees it and starts asking questions? Tom ain’t gonna say nothing seeing as it doesn’t have a keyboard or a monitor attached to it.”

Tom Finnegan, ND’s computer man and Jack’s nephew. “Sure.”

“Okay then.” He made it to the door but couldn’t quite get to the other side without one more word.

“You know, years ago, Dolly and I had a bout of difficulties.
Mostly from my stupidity. We’d just had Jenny and I was feeling trapped, unappreciated, and steamrolled by a pack of kids who needed this and that, and a wife who didn’t want nothin’ to do with me. I came within a hair of making the biggest mistake of my life.” He sighed and shook his head. “Thank God I woke up before it was too late. Don’t wait until the hurt’s gone on too long that you can’t go back. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” He turned the knob and disappeared down the hall.

It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out the biggest mistake Jack almost made had to do with a woman. Didn’t it always? Maybe he’d had a Natalie
Servetti type in his past, too. Maybe Nate should have confided in him. After all, Jack had been around a long time and, other than Miriam, knew the pieces of Nate’s life better than anyone. There’d been the death of his father, the presence of Charles Blacksworth, the divorce from Patrice. All twisted and torn with anger, grief, sometimes despair, and Jack had been there to guide him and make sense of it all with his backwoods philosophizing. But this thing with Christine was different. Nate needed to make this work because if he lost her…he would not even consider it. He wasn’t going to lose her. Christine was his wife, his partner, until they drew their last breaths.