Home for the Holidays. Sarah Mayberry
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for a group of university students. Jaw set, she took up her cue. Lining up a ball, she took her shot. The ball sped straight into the pocket with a satisfying thwack.
“Aw, man,” Bugsy complained as she started to clean up the table.
She wouldn’t back off. She would come here after work two or three times a week, same as she always had. Joe was nothing to her. Less than nothing.
Absolutely.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Joe let himself into the house to find his mother dozing on the couch. He tried to be quiet but she started to wakefulness as he entered the room.
“Joe! You scared me.”
“Sorry. I tried to be quiet.”
She sat up and ran her hands over her hair.
“My goodness, it’s after eleven. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but television was dreadful tonight. All that horrible reality TV just celebrates the absolute worst in humanity. What happened to good old-fashioned dramas like Dallas and Dynasty?”
“Joan Collins got old and J.R. got sick,” he said. He dropped his keys onto the coffee table and stretched out his back. “How were the kids? Did Ben get through his homework okay?”
Joe had been making a point of being home when the kids got in from school most days, only heading into the pub after they’d had their dinner. His long-term plan was to hire a night manager, but his mother had been good enough to cover the evenings while he learned the ropes at The Watering Hole in these early weeks. Tonight, however, he’d had to delegate all child care to his mother while he dealt with a staff crisis. Not a big deal, but annoying given that the whole point of buying the business had been to offer his kids a more stable home life.
“He told me he did it. I’m not sure what that means anymore,” his mother said.
He ran a hand over his hair. He knew exactly what she meant. Ben had become increasingly incommunicative lately. He spent a lot of time alone in his room listening to his iPod or playing on his handheld game, and no matter what Joe said or did he couldn’t get more than a shrug and a handful of words from his son.
“Have you had that talk with him yet?” his mother asked.
“Yes. He said school is fine, he’s making friends. He likes the new house. I couldn’t get anything more out of him.” He sat on the couch beside her. “I should have stuck it out in Sydney.”
“Maybe, but you’re here now. And once Ben and Ruby settle, things will even out, you’ll find new rhythms and routines.”
“I guess.”
“How’s the pub going?”
“Good. Still getting used to being on my feet most of the day.” He gave her a tired smile. “Got soft over the past few years, being a desk jockey.”
He’d given up his work on the offshore oil rigs when Beth died and taken a desk job so he could be around for the kids. It had been more than enough to prove to him that suit-and-tie stuff was not for him. Hence the purchase of the pub. It had always been Beth’s dream that they buy their own place and run it as a family.
“You look tired,” his mother said, her eyes concerned.
“I’m okay.”
“I know it must be hard. You and Beth always planned on doing this together.”
He shrugged. He had to do something with his life now that he could no longer do the rig work he loved. He’d decided to go ahead with Beth’s dream because he hadn’t had one of his own and she’d always said that when he gave up offshore work he’d go stir-crazy if he tried to take on a nine-to-five job. The past two years had more than proven her right.
Just for a moment he allowed himself to wonder what she’d think of The Watering Hole. He hoped she’d like its old-fashioned wooden bar and beat-up floor, the scratched and scarred tables and chairs and the chalkboards dating back to the 1930s. She’d always talked about buying a traditional place, a pub where families could get a reasonably priced meal and where the locals came to spend time with each other. No slot machines, no loud bands to scare people off. A neighborhood place.
His mother stood and started collecting her things. “I’d better get going. I’ll see you around dinnertime tomorrow, okay?”
He looked at her. “I appreciate this. You know that, right?” He’d never been great with words, but he hoped she understood how much he valued everything she’d done for him and his kids.
“I do. And you don’t have to keep thanking me. Ben and Ruby keep me young.” She squeezed his hand and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Get some sleep.”
He walked her to her car and waited until she’d rounded the corner before turning back to the house. He glanced at the Napier place as he walked up the front path. The light was on in the garage, illumination leaking out around the edges of the roller door. He could hear the radio playing. Hannah was obviously in there, tinkering away at something. He didn’t need to check his watch to know it was late, well past eleven. What the hell did she have to do in there that couldn’t wait until morning?
Over the past two weeks he’d watched her at The Watering Hole. He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d been unable to help himself. The moment she walked in the door she exerted a gravitational pull on his senses that he found impossible to ignore. She came in twice, maybe three times a week. She had a beer, sometimes two, played a couple of games of pool with her biker friends, then she left. She never got drunk, never flirted, never let the guys win to make them feel good about themselves. Watching her interact with them, he was almost certain she wasn’t sleeping with any of them. Although why that was any of his business he had no idea.
She’d let Ruby help her twice since his knee-jerk reaction. Both times Ruby came home with greasy fingernails and clothes and conversation peppered with lots of “Hannah saids.” Through his daughter he’d learned that Hannah was restoring an old Triumph Thunderbird, that she planned to take off on a round-Australia road trip as soon as she had enough money saved, and that Hannah couldn’t stand Brussels sprouts, turnips or radishes.
He couldn’t work her out. She was gorgeous, yet she spent most of her time alone, up to her elbows in oil and grease. He’d finally discovered that her mother owned the house next door and that Hannah was living with her, and not the other way around. Yet Hannah didn’t strike him as the kind of person who would cling to her mother’s apron strings.
She was a mystery. One that his mind kept mulling over, again and again.
He climbed the steps to the house, shutting out thoughts of his provocative neighbor along with the cool night air as he closed the front door. He had no business speculating about her, just as he had no business fantasizing about what she looked like naked or how her skin would feel against his own. It was a dead end, and he didn’t have time or energy to waste on dead ends.
He locked the door then did his nightly check on the kids before heading to bed. Ben’s door was closed, but Joe eased it open and stepped into the room. His son looked much younger than his thirteen years when he was sleeping, his face more rounded, his chin less determined. Joe backed out silently then made his way to Ruby’s room. Her door was ajar and he swung it open quietly. Unlike her brother, Ruby was twisted in her quilt, one hand flung up near her head on the pillow. He crossed to the bed to untangle her and frowned when he saw the damp patch on her pillow. Her eyelashes were spiky with moisture, her cheeks flushed. She’d been crying, had cried herself to sleep, in fact. That was a blow to his solar plexus. It was one thing for him to be around while his daughter cried, to be able to comfort her and talk to her, but it was another thing entirely to know she’d been huddled in her bed, crying her misery into her pillow all on her own.
He wanted to wake her and reassure her and make her world right again. Instead he crouched beside the bed and smoothed the hair from her forehead. She looked more and more like Beth every day. She was going to be beautiful like her, too.
Because