The Bachelor's Sweetheart (4 page)

“I'll let you go, then. I have to run and meet Myles at the Majestic. He's interested in learning how I choose the movies to show.”

“Yeah, more people are pulling in. I've got to go. I'll see about the windows tomorrow night.”

“Sure, whenever you get to them. It's your place now. Bye.”

Josh slammed the truck door behind him. There was no logical reason Tessa watching the video clips with Myles should bother him. He'd encouraged Tessa to make more friends since his plan was to move up the ranks at GreenSpaces somewhere else. But Myles was a kid, a college student, not really their contemporary. Josh strode across the parking lot and into the fire hall. Tom Hill, the fire chief and owner of a car repair shop in Paradox Lake, and his son, Jack, were already suited up.

“Hey, Josh,” Tom said, raising his hand to someone behind him. Jon and Autumn walked by them to the EMS vehicle.

“Grab your gear. It looks like we have enough volunteers now to take the tanker up.”

His brother Connor's new father-in-law and brother-in-law had come in behind the Hanlons. With so many members working in Ticonderoga and other surrounding villages, getting a crew together could be hard.

Jack took his position behind the wheel of the truck while Josh and the others put on their protective gear. Tom pressed the button to open the hall door, and Jon and Autumn went ahead in the emergency vehicle followed by Tom in his pickup.

Josh and the other guys piled into the truck. Adrenaline rushed through him as the siren screamed and the lights flashed, increased by the fear he had whenever they responded to an accident that someone he knew might be involved.

He spotted the flashing lights of the sheriff car and the EMS vehicle when the fire truck raced through the intersection of Routes 9 and 74. Jack pulled the truck ahead of one of the accident vehicles, a pickup truck with a smashed left fender sprawled diagonally across the two lanes of the highway. The wrecker from Hill's Garage was already there, along with one from a garage in Schroon Lake. But Josh didn't see a second vehicle. He hopped off the truck and saw it, a compact station wagon with a crushed top rolled off the road in a small gully, resting against a stand of pine trees. A second emergency vehicle arrived from Newcomb as Jon and Autumn carried a stretcher down the incline.

Tom returned from talking with the deputy who was directing traffic. “A woman and two kids. Doesn't look good. The other driver is intoxicated.” Tom jerked his head toward the deputy's car, where a middle-aged man sat staring out the window.

Bile choked Josh. The unkempt dark hair and strong profile reminded him of his father. He turned away and caught his breath. It wasn't him. Dad was dead, had been for nine years.

“Let's get the hose and extinguishers down there. The jaws of life, too,” Tom commanded.

Josh joined his fellow volunteers, glad for the action to stop his thoughts. When he and the rest of the team reached the car, Jon and Autumn had a small unconscious form on the stretcher. He swallowed hard. The child looked about Hope's age, maybe a little younger.

The child's eyes opened. “Mommy?”

“We're working on getting her out,” Autumn reassured him.

“There's a woman and another child trapped inside,” Jon reported to Tom. “We talked to the little boy. The woman is unresponsive. Moriah and Newcomb are on their way.”

“Newcomb's here,” Tom said. “Pulled in right after us.”

As if on cue, the second emergency squad came down the bank.

“We'll get this little guy up,” Jon said. “I don't like the looks of that smoke from the engine, not with all the dead winter growth.”

“That's why we're here,” Tom said. “Jack, Donnelly.” He motioned to the front of the car, and Josh and Jack began soaking it.

The third emergency squad arrived as Josh and the other firefighters were tramping back up to the road.

Tom approached the deputy when they reached the pavement. “If you want to get
him
to county lockup—” he jerked his thumb toward the deputy's car “—we can take over traffic control.”

Josh made a furtive glance toward the car. The man had his head down, chin resting on his chest.
It couldn't be Dad
. He looked away. One wrecker had removed the pickup, and he could hear the fading siren of the Schroon EMS team on its way to the hospital. Hill's truck waited to take the car. Soon after, the other two rescue squads had extricated the woman and other child and taken off for the hospital.

“You guys can head back to the fire hall,” Tom said. “I'll go back to the shop with the wrecker.”

“The guy in the cruiser,” Josh said. “Anyone we know?”

Tom shook his head. “The deputy said he didn't have any ID.”

Josh wiped his forearm across his forehead. Responding to accidents always took more out of him than the actual physical demands warranted. He looked at the evening sky. If it wasn't too late, maybe he'd stop by the Majestic and hang out with Tessa and Myles. The drunk in the deputy's car and the little boy on the stretcher were juxtaposed in his mind. He could use some companionship to take the edge off before going back to the empty cabin.

His cell phone buzzed as he walked to the truck. It could be Tessa. He stopped and checked the phone. Connor's, not Tessa's, name flashed at him. Two missed calls and a text. His little brother was on his honeymoon. What could he want?

Josh swiped his finger across the screen and went stock-still when he read the text.

Call me. We got back from the beach, and there was a voice-mail message on my cell, forwarded from the parsonage phone. From Dad.

Chapter Four

J
osh stared blankly at the phone screen. The colors of his apps blurred together. He shook his vision clear and jammed the phone back in his pocket.
Dear old Dad
. He had no doubt the call Connor had gotten was from their father. It fit his MO. Reappear after a bender expecting the family to welcome him home as if nothing had happened. Except this bender had lasted nine years. Dad had known better than to call him or Jared. He'd called Connor because Connor was a minister and most like their mother, making him the only one of them likely to take the call.

Josh grabbed the door handle and hurled himself into the back of the fire truck, looking over at the cleared accident scene. Bile rose in his throat as he focused his mind on the glimpse he'd had of the man in the sheriff's car. Once they were back at the firehouse and he called Connor, the first thing he was going to ask was when his father had called and from where. His skin tightened. If it was his father, it wouldn't be the first time he'd hurt someone driving drunk. Only this time it was kids.

“You all right, Josh?” Paul Delacroix, Connor's brother-in-law, asked.

Josh blinked Paul and the other guys in the truck into focus. “Yeah.”

“Kids,” Paul's father said. “I hate responding to injury accidents, but it's always worse when kids are involved.”

“Right,” Josh said.
And not only in car accidents
.

When they got to the firehouse, Josh took his time stowing his equipment. Now he sat in his pickup in the parking lot, his finger hovering over Connor's call notice on his phone screen. He touched it and pressed the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Josh,” Connor answered.

“Hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

Connor laughed. “No, we just got back from supper.”

“So, was it really him?” Josh refused to personalize the man by calling him Dad.

“Yeah, it was Dad.”

“You're saying that from the message he left, or you got back to him?”

“I called him back before we went to dinner.”

“And he was drunk.”

“He didn't sound drunk, wasn't slurring his words.”

That didn't mean he hadn't been impaired enough to hurt that family.

“Dad called to—”

Josh clenched his free fist. How could Connor sound so calm about this? “I have a good idea why he called.”

“He—”

Josh cut Connor off again. “What time did he call and when did you call him back?” Connor had probably called when their father was in the sheriff car and still had his cell phone, before the deputy had taken him to Elizabethtown and booked him. “Where did he say he was calling from?”

“Back off. Do you want to know what he said or not?”

“I'd like the answers to my questions. When you called and texted me, I was responding to an accident caused by a drunk driver. A woman and two kids hurt. When we got there, the sheriff's deputy already had the other driver in his car. From his profile, the driver could have been the old man.”

“The woman, the kids, do you know who they are?”

“No, only that one of the kids looked about Hope's age. The rescue squads took them to Glens Falls Hospital. Tom Hill probably knows.”

“I'll call him later. As for Dad, he left the message this afternoon. I called him back about five-thirty at the Super 8 in Ticonderoga.”

The original call had been too early to be the old man calling for Connor to bail him out of the DWI. But the callback was in line with the accident before the deputy had left. “That's what he told you, he was at the Super 8?”

“No, the number he called from that I called back was the Super 8. I did a reverse phone number lookup before I called.”

Josh rubbed the back of his neck as some of the anger drained out of him. The man who'd caused the accident this evening couldn't have been their father. “Where's he been and what does he want?”

“All over the country. California mostly. He said being homeless was a lot more comfortable in San Diego than in Plattsburg.”

“I'm supposed to feel sorry for him? He had a home here.”

“No. He's in a twelve-step program and wants to make amends to us.”

“I don't believe that for a minute. I wonder what he really wants out of us.”

“He said he went down to Pennsylvania and talked with Mom.”

Josh shook his head. “Unbelievable that he could show his face to Mom after everything he put her through, including dropping off the face of the earth and letting her think he was dead. Did you call her? He was probably looking for his share of money from her selling the house in Paradox Lake, the one she wore herself out working at the diner to pay for.”

“I didn't talk with Mom, but I did talk with Jared. He and I both know alcoholics who are successfully working a twelve-step program, me through my counseling and one of Jared's close friends on the motocross circuit.”

Sure, they're successfully working a program—a program of fooling everyone around them
.

“Jared agrees with me that we should meet with Dad and hear him out.”

“Big brother says so, so we should all fall in line. Well, count me out of your little family reunion. And don't give the old man my phone number.”

“I wouldn't without your permission.”

“You're not going to get it. Tell Natalie hello from me, and enjoy the rest of your honeymoon.” Josh hung up without waiting for a response from his brother.

Josh gunned the engine of his truck and threw gravel as he tore out of the parking lot. By the time he'd reached the stop sign at the corner, he'd gotten control over himself. Leave it to their father to reappear just as he and his brothers were all doing well and were accepted by the locals who'd either scorned them or pitied them when they were growing up. That was probably it. Dad had gotten wind of their collective success and wanted to cash in on it. He turned left on US Route 9. Might as well follow his original plan and go to the apartment, use his excess adrenaline to unstick those windows. Then he could stop off at the Majestic if he saw the lights on there. His stomach grumbled. If Tessa hadn't ordered pizza for her and Myles, he would when he got there.

Yeah, that was what he needed to put the evening behind him. To hang out and watch some flicks with his best bud. Tessa would understand. She always did. He couldn't believe Connor and Jared, Jared especially, were giving in to their father. Josh wasn't about to be sucked in. There was no such thing as a recovering alcoholic.

* * *

Tessa started a clip from a new Disney film that had gotten good reviews as a film kids and adults could both enjoy.

“Disney?” Myles said. “I thought you wanted to increase attendance.”

“Give it a minute. You haven't even seen the opening yet.” Myles hadn't been anywhere near as objective judging the movies as Josh was, favoring blow-'em-up action adventures and panning everything else. While Josh liked thrillers and action-adventure films, he wasn't big on gratuitous violence. He'd said seeing gunfire firsthand took the attraction out of it. That was about the only thing he ever said to her about his tour in Afghanistan.

As the clip ended and Tessa marked the film as a “yes,” she heard what sounded like footsteps on the stairs to the projector room.

She tensed. “I locked the theater door, didn't I?”

“You did.” Myles's mouth tightened into a thin line.

So it hadn't been her imagination. He'd heard the steps, too. Night noises never made her edgy when she and Josh were viewing clips. Tessa glanced sideways at Myles. She'd seen Myles grow from a teen into a young adult since she'd moved to Schroon Lake but still thought of him as Jamie Payton's oldest kid, all six-foot-one, and hundred and eighty-five pounds of him.

“I'll get the lock on the room door,” he said. “You get ready to call 911.”

The door swung open as Myles rose, and Tessa clenched the arms of her chair.

“Hey,” Josh said. “Got any pizza left?”

Her heart dropped back from her throat to her chest. She hadn't thought about Josh and that he had a key for times when he worked late and stopped by after she'd already started viewing the clips.

“Um, I finished the last piece,” Myles said. “I'll run out to the diner and get you something if you want, like if you guys want to be alone.”

“Good idea.” Josh pulled a few bills from his wallet. “Ask for my usual burger and fries. They'll know. And something to drink. Take your time.”

Myles pocketed the money and grinned at Josh.

“Why did you do that?” Tessa asked.

“I'm hungry. With the accident and fixing the windows at the apartment, I didn't catch any supper.”

Tessa crumpled the napkin on the table next to her and tossed it at Josh. “Not the food. The
take your time
. You're giving Myles the wrong idea about us.”

“Hey, I have a reputation to uphold. I'm with a beautiful woman. What man wouldn't want her all to himself?”

Tessa warmed at his compliment while she also weighed whether to pick up her paper plate and chuck it at him. “As big an honor as it may be, I'd rather not join the long list of Josh Donnelly's former girlfriends. I prefer being on the more exclusive just-friends list.”

“And you're at the top of that one. So what's wrong with my wanting to have you to myself for a few minutes? This is our usual Monday evening.”

Tessa attributed the uptick in her heart rate to residual
ah
from the heartwarming romantic comedy clip she and Myles had watched before the Disney one. After all, this was good old love-'em-and-leave-'em Josh. No one she could take seriously.

“Do you have any clips left to view?”

“A couple.” Tessa ran the videos and they talked about the films. She added them to her show list and shared the titles of the others she was ordering.

When Josh finished reading and commenting on her choices, he ran his hand over his hair and glanced around the room as if making sure they were really alone. “I've got some news.”

“About the accident? Someone we know?”

Josh dropped into the chair beside her, where Myles had been sitting. “About my—”

“Yo, incoming food.” Myles stomped up the stairs like half a detachment. “I've got your food.” He inched the door open. “Didn't want to walk in on anything.”

“Get in here. There was nothing to walk in on.” Tessa glared at Josh.

“Yeah, right. I know that.” Myles gave Josh a nod that she was sure he didn't think she caught. He handed Josh his food and fumbled for the change.

“Keep it for gas,” Josh said.

“Thanks. Tessa, you don't mind if I leave now that Josh is here?”

An inexplicable wave of apprehension almost made her urge Myles to stay.

Myles cleared his throat. “A friend. You guys know her from church. Kaitlyn Flynn. She lives with Jack and Suzi Hill. She's in my algebra class at the college. She texted me for some help with our assignment. The Hills' house is on my way home. If I leave now, it won't be too late to stop.”

Tessa was pretty sure she'd never heard Myles string together that many words about himself in one conversation. “Go ahead. I've showed you how I judge and choose the movies. That's what you wanted.”

“Yeah. I'll come in early on Friday to be here for the candy delivery.”

“That would be great.” Tessa pinched her lips and held her breath until she heard Myles's last footfall on the stairs. Then she broke out in laughter. “Poor boy. From what Suzi told me, their former foster child Kaitlyn is a math whiz.”

“So her call for help was all a setup.” He joined in Tessa's laughter. “I should warn him.”

“And break his heart? What guy doesn't want to be the white knight riding in on his trusty steed—in this case, math skills—to save the damsel in distress?”

“True. But some of us have more finessed rescue skills.”

“You've never been watching from the outside.”

He grinned. “So that's what you do, watch my moves?”

His tease hit a little too close to the mark. Sad as it sounded to her, she did watch him with other women, wondering when he'd start dating someone and have less time for her. Another sign she was too dependent on their friendship.

“Who could miss them? But get serious. Before Myles got back with your food, you said you had news.”

Josh unwrapped his burger and lifted the roll. “Catsup, mustard, pickle. Good. They didn't forget the mustard.”

Sometimes Josh was as reticent in his communication as Myles. “That's the news, the diner puts catsup, mustard and pickles on its burgers?”

He lifted his pointer finger while he finished chewing the bite he'd taken of the sandwich. His throat muscles worked as he swallowed. “Connor got a phone call from our father today.” His jaw hardened. Josh placed the burger on its wrapper on the table.

“How?”

“The call was forwarded from the parsonage phone.”

“I didn't mean that. I don't understand. Your father's dead.”

“Don't I wish, but apparently not.”

“Josh! You can't mean that.” He'd shared bits and pieces with her of his growing up with his alcoholic father, probably more than he'd intended. It wasn't a pretty story, but she couldn't believe Josh would prefer his father dead if there was a possibility he was still alive. Or maybe she didn't want him to have that much hatred for his
alcoholic
father.

He dropped his chin to his chest. “I suppose not.” He lifted his head, eyes blazing. “Apparently, he's here to make amends to us. But I don't have to want him here, want him messing up my life again.”

Tessa scratched at a nick in her fingernail, thinking where she might be if her grandparents had felt the same way, if they and others hadn't accepted her apology, hadn't forgiven her. She swiveled her chair to face him directly, knee-to-knee. The play of anger and raw emotion on his face twisted her insides.