Waltz This Way (v1.1) (23 page)

Dinner was served buffet style, chock-full of noise and chaos.

When she finally located Drew again, it was to find him stuffing his mouth full of one enchilada after another.

His smile in her direction from across the table made her heart beat harder in her chest as she had a second helping of red beans and rice. Her extended family was small, but she loved the feel of this big one. The constant vibe that said they always put family first.

It fit a place in her heart she didn’t even know existed until this moment.

While she watched them interact. Share food. Tease each other.

And that scared the shit out of her.

It was an odd feeling to have so early on, but she chalked it up to the fact that you couldn’t help but love the McPhee’s. It went without saying they were hardworking, genuine, but above all, happy.

Stranger still was the odd sensation that crept over her, warm and sweet, when she caught Drew rocking his sister Kathleen’s baby Felicity. It did something peculiar and fluttery to her stomach to watch the tiny infant curl her fingers into her uncle’s hair and press her round-cheeked face against Drew’s wide shoulder.

It did something even funnier when Drew nibbled on her chub by fist.

The blare of a familiar Latin tune took her attention away from the warmth Drew was creating in her. She smiled as Selena and Myriam got the older boys to move the kitchen table out of the way so they could dance.

Mel had leaned into the doorway to watch them when Nate yelled, “Hey, Grandma, bet Ms. Cherkasov could show you a thing or two.”

Myriam and Selena rolled their hips, moving their feet in her direction to the rhythm of the music. Myriam wiggled her finger at Mel in invitation while she held her arms, bent at the elbows and shook her shoulders in the best ever imitation of Charo Mel could claim having seen. “C’mon, Latin champion. Give us hell!”

Mel blushed and shook her head, feeling Drew’s eyes bore into her back. “Oh, no. You two are too hot for me.”

Selena did a pretty good imitation of a samba roll with Myriam, gyrating her hips comically at Mel. “Show us what you got, dancer!”

She let go of Myriam and grabbed hold of Mel’s hand, pulling it in the air and twirling around.

The rhythm thrummed through her veins, making it hard not to allow her body the freedom to interpret it.

“Is that the best you got?” Myriam shouted with a devilish grin.

“I thought you were some kind of a champion? What happened to that infamous hip action?” she taunted.

Mel kept her movements reserved. She wrinkled her nose at Myriam. “You’re baiting me, Myriam. You don’t want me to show you up, do you?”

Myriam shook her hips in a challenge, rolling her neck in Mel’s direction. “You bet your bippy, I do!”

“C’mon, Ms. Cherkasov!” Nate yelled, clearly enjoying the rivalry the two older women had created. “Show them that thing you did in class the other day.”

Mel blushed. The hell she’d do the bootylicious in front of Drew.

Myriam danced around her in a challenge of hips and feet, and when the music changed to “Sway,” Mel couldn’t resist showing Myriam and Selena a thing or two about all that hip action. She lifted the edges of the skirt she’d bought just for her date with Drew. A frilly purple chiffon with a small slit in the fabric that reached two or three inches above her knee.

Mel used it like she would in a paso or a tango, stomping her feet to challenge Myriam and Selena right back. Her face split into a grin when Myriam gave her a defiant gaze.

Her hips had a will of their own, gyrating to the rhythm, sultry and quick. Someone whistled when Mel grabbed Myriam’s hand and her feet automatically took over the familiar steps to a salsa.

Mel shimmied her shoulders, twisting her body, pulling Myriam with her into a cha-cha, purposely accentuating the lines of her body by pointing her toes and keeping her chest thrust forward.

When she spun past Drew, she felt the heat of his gaze consuming her movements, his eyes dark, and it empowered her, compelling her to draw on the sensuality she’d always saved for only the dance floor.

Joy pumped through her veins. Her heart thumped and while she fought to keep her movements low-key and fit for children, her body warred with her common sense. Her breathing came in familiar huffs, her veins hot with blood running through them while the music carried her feet away.

And this— the laughter from Myriam and Selena as they tried to mimic the quickness of her steps, the smiles as some of the smaller children attempted to do what the adults were doing— the freedom to communicate her one true love, was why she danced.

It bubbled inside her, making her feel well and truly alive for the first time in a long time.

When the song ended, everyone clapped, whistling and catcalling.

Everyone but Drew.

But she chose to ignore him and instead curtsied and made a big deal out of clapping in Selena and Myriam’s direction, praising them for their impressive salsa and cha-cha knowledge.

“Did you see that, Drew?” Myriam yelped. “Can you believe she’s not Puerto Rican the way she moves those hips? Phew!” Myriam fanned herself.

“Drew!” Selena yelled over the noise. “Phone.”

Mel watched as she handed the phone to Drew and the expression that passed between mother and son. Drew took the phone, handing over the baby to his mother.

His lips hardened to a thin line while his head nodded. His expression had gone from doting uncle to a mask of disgust Mel didn’t understand.

He hung the phone up and tapped Nate on the shoulder, hitching his jaw to draw his son out into the living room.

Headlights hit the front bay window in the living room, followed by a sharp screech of brakes that had everyone up and on their feet to see what was going on.

Mel stood at the back of the crowd of Drew’s relatives, her stomach twisting when a hand crashed against the front door.

A hush fell over the room, and again, the hand banged on the door, relentless and angry. “Nate! You tell your scum-sucking father to open this door right now!” The words from behind the door were slurred and choppy, but whoever it was, it was a woman.

Alarm bells sounded in Mel’s head when she saw Nate’s face fall.

Threading her way through the children and adults, Mel came up behind Nate and put a hand on his arm.

She felt a slight tremble in his shoulders before he said with resignation, “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll go with her.”

Drew held up his hand to prevent Nate from moving. “Like hell.”

“Damn this woman,” Selena muttered, moving to stand on the other side of Nate.

“Open this door, Drew! Open it now. You can’t keep me from my son!”

Mel’s stomach sank like someone had attached an anchor to it.

Nate’s mother.

Dread filled her when she realized, Drew was going to open the door.

Just as the woman began to screech again, Drew yanked the door open and made a move to keep her from coming in the house, but she ducked under his arm, wobbling in a zigzag toward Nate.

She threw her arms around him, tripping on her ripped trench coat, and nearly toppling him. “There’s my baby.” She slurred the coo of words at him.

Mel had to put a discreet finger to her nose to stamp out the stench of alcohol. Horror welled inside her.

Nate’s mother was drunk.

When she caught sight of Mel, clearly a new face in the crowd of McPhees, her face distorted. “Are you here with Drew?” she asked, clinging to Nate who hadn’t moved an inch.

Mel didn’t answer her.

“What are you? Deaf? I said, are you here with Drew, slut?” she shouted just before she lunged for Mel.

I’ll only say, in all of the things Stan has done to me over the last months, I’m so grateful none of them involved substance abuse and a child.

Mel refused to allow her shock to show, but then Sherry lost interest altogether in her. Rather, she was too busy focusing on Nate who she still clung to.

Nate stood ramrod straight. He didn’t rebuff her embrace, but he didn’t welcome it either. Mel’s eyes sought Drew’s and found them blazing with anger.

“You can’t take him, Sherry.”

Sherry, petite, porcelain skinned if not a bit green around the gills, shot Drew a look of disgust with her wide blue eyes. “Can, too. The judge said so, didn’t he, Nate?” She lifted a wobbly hand up and threaded her fingers through Nate’s hair in a gesture of affection.

When Nate finally moved, it was to step backward with a shrug out of Sherry’s reach.

Drew stepped in front of Nate and Mel, crossing his arms over his chest. “The judge said you have to be sober. You will not take my son from this house in your condition.”

“He’s our son!” she cried with a warble, stumbling in her heels.

“You can’t keep him all to yourself!”

The eerie calm of Drew’s reply settled in Mel’s bones. This wasn’t just angry. This was infuriated on a level that surely only a parent can feel when one’s child is in a potentially dangerous situation. “I can and I will if you’ve been drinking.”

Sherry swatted a hand in the air with a dismissive gesture. “I only had one drink. Just one.” She waved a shaky finger up at him. “You can’t prove I didn’t. It’s my turn to have Nate. Give him to me!”

Drew grabbed at her arm, but not before she stumbled and reached out again in her drunken stupor to Nate, latching on to a handful of his shirt and ripping it.

Still Nate didn’t move. Not when everyone gasped, and not even when Selena called Sherry something in Spanish Mel guessed wasn’t kind. His face was blank, his young body stiff. It was as if he thought because she was his mother, he had to endure such horrific behavior.

Not on her watch.

Mel put Nate’s hand in hers and quietly tugged at it, hoping to remove him from the situation, but Sherry caught sight of it and shoved past Drew. She launched herself at Mel in an awkward, crab-like thrust, catching Mel in the jaw with her flailing hands.

“Who’s the slut, Drew?” she accused, spit flying from her mouth, her lips curled in a snarl. “Did you think you were going to get a new mommy for Nate because you’re in charge of everything? You don’t own everything, Drew, and she can’t have Nate! None of you can,” she seethed, piercing everyone with hateful eyes. “You bastards— all of you are bastards, trying to keep my son from me!”

Mel winced, but she refused to let go of Nate’s hand. Instead, she gave him a hard yank, pulling him back against her. Though he was taller than she was, she thrust him behind her, taking a defensive stance by putting her body in front of his.

If there was going to be a rumble in the jungle, the hell she was coming out the loser.

“That’s enough, Sherry!” Drew roared, wrapping his arm around her waist and propelling her toward the door while he pulled his cell phone from his shirt.

Sherry screamed her rage, twisting her body against Drew’s while he literally carried her out the front door.

Maura’s husband slammed the door shut the moment Drew walked through it, blowing out a heavy breath while everyone else gathered together, muttering terse words.

But Mel wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Nate who’d silently slipped out the back door off the laundry room and out into the backyard.

Myriam was the first to react, throwing a kitchen towel at the sink with a yowl. “Ohhhhhh! That woman is a filthy, filthy creature!”

Selena ran her weary hand over her forehead and patted Mel on the back. “I’m sorry, Mel.”

Mel was torn between going to Drew and finding Nate. “Forget me. What will Drew do?”

“The same thing he always does,” Delia said, pulling a hat down over the ears of her son Patrick who squirmed and giggled. “He’ll call her a cab and lodge his millionth complaint with the courts about that drunk floozy. Then tomorrow, because he’s the salt of the earth, he’ll drive her car home for her and check to be sure she’s not dead of alcohol poisoning.”

Kathleen, dark and gorgeous, and a complete dichotomy in coloring to the fair Delia, scrunched her face. “And it’ll be the millionth complaint they ignore because she’s Nate’s blood. That they won’t terminate her visitation until she gets sober stuns me speechless.”

Mel was horrified. “How can it be okay for her to show up plastered and try and take Nate? Clearly, she shouldn’t be driving with him in the car. What kind of law allows that?” Mel asked, outraged that Nate was subjected to something so ugly and so detrimental to his safety.

“Oh, she can’t. She absolutely has to be sober, but that doesn’t mean she can’t try. It also doesn’t mean she can’t make a scene that Nate has to be a witness to time and time again. In the end, she’s his mother. That’s what the court says,” Maura’s husband, tall and lanky, spat.

A tear slipped along Selena’s pudgy cheek. One Mel was sure she’d shed many times before. “It was her Saturday. I should have known she’d show up here and try to assert all those rights she flings around at us when she gets done at the bar with whatever man she’s managed to weasel into buying her drinks.”

Kathleen put her arm around her mother, and kissed the top of her head. “C’mon, Mom. I’ll make you some tea before we go.”

While everyone cleared dishes and soothed Selena, Mel made her way to the laundry room to take a peek out the window at Nate.

The backyard light shone on his lone form, sitting on one of the yellow plastic swings, unmoving, his torn shirt flapping in the subtle breeze.

Mel dug around on the washer where the coats were piled and grabbed the one she’d seen him wear at school. Tightening her sweater around her neck, she headed out the back door into the inky evening.

Nate’s eyes glistened, tearing at her heart. It almost made her want to hunt down Sherry and club her to death with the broomsticks she gave the boys to use for their posture.