CHAPTER FOUR

      THE IDEA OF living with Sarah already pushed boundaries Matt didn’t feel comfortable crossing. Taking money from her left him feeling disgusted for accepting her terms. But he knew Sarah would have this no other way.

      Later, he’d try to find a way out of their agreement. For now, he’d take one challenge at a time. First challenge: find a way to live in close proximity with Sarah for two months without kissing her—or worse. Second challenge: fix the mess the previous contractor left for him. He was driving down Monterey Road toward his father’s house when his third challenge buzzed his cell phone.

      Joanne. His ex.

      He punched her through to the speaker. “What’s up?”

      “We have a problem here. Junior has decided he has a new purpose in life. It’s called driving his mother to drink.”

      “What now?”

      “He and his friends spray-painted the long wooden fence down from the high school. Security cameras caught the little Einsteins, and now the school wants to have a conference with all the parents before the end of the year. I want you there. I think maybe having his father be an Air Force veteran could help. Can you come in your uniform?”

      “Are you kidding me?”

      “Why not?”

      “First, I wouldn’t do that if it would get my own father off death row. Second, I’m no longer in the Air Force. I’m not going to put on the uniform to prevent my son from receiving his deserved punishment.”

      “There you go again, father of the year.”

      Even now it stung, despite knowing the source. Joanne had never before encouraged his relationship with Hunter. She’d simply wanted the checks sent on time, no matter what part of the country he’d been living in at the time. He’d paid child support faithfully for years, but since he’d separated from the Air Force and settled back in his hometown for good, he wanted a real relationship with fifteen-year-old Hunter. And the kid wanted to hang out with Matt about as much as he wanted to repeat his sophomore year.

      “Text me the day and time and I’ll be there.” He hung up.

      Hunter might not want to have anything to do with Matt, but it didn’t mean he could give up. He hadn’t worked his ass off for most of his life only to be intimidated by a fifteen-year-old kid now. Matt wanted to be some kind of an influence on his son in the next few years, maybe so the kid wouldn’t wind up making some of the same colossal “think with the little head” mistakes Matt had made in his teens.

      It also wouldn’t hurt to demonstrate to a certain dark-haired beauty that not all estranged fathers were deadbeats. Matt tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with Sarah, but something about her made him care a lot more deeply for her than he wanted to. More than was probably wise. Not that he’d been able to stop. He enjoyed teasing her, playing with her, and while he told himself it was all harmless flirting, he’d have to put a stop to it if they were going to be living together. Because were he being honest with himself, he and Sarah weren’t a good idea for many reasons. She planned to leave town after selling her father’s house for a tidy profit, and for the first time in years, Matt was determined to be grounded. He’d stay here in Fortune at least until Hunter graduated from high school.

      Matt stopped by the local market and stocked up on a few of his father’s favorites, and thirty minutes later he arrived at Dad’s gated condominium complex in San Jose.

      “Hey, Dad.” He said as he let himself in the front door with his spare set of keys.

      Dad sat in front of the TV watching an old Western. “Did you get my cookies?”

      “You think I would forget after you left me ten voice mails in the space of an hour?” Matt set the brown paper bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking.

      Dad wasn’t much for cooking any longer, so Matt usually bought frozen and prepackaged meals he could heat in a microwave. The cookies were a treat he didn’t think should be in any sixty-six-year-old man’s wheelhouse but it was hard to argue with the man. Plus, Matt’s special deliveries were about the only time they spent together.

      “Did you get the double-stuffs? I don’t want those little thin shits they’re trying to sell to the health nuts. I want the real deal.”

      “Got the real deal.” Matt lobbed a package of the sugar lard in his Dad’s direction and the man caught them one-handed.

      “Hear from your son lately?”

      “I’m going to be seeing him again next week.”

      “Good, good. A boy needs his father.”

      A boy needed his father to show him how to be a man. Matt agreed. But Hunter didn’t need Matt to bail him out of jams he’d created for himself. “He’s got himself into some trouble and Joanne asked me to come to the meeting at the school.”

      “What kind of trouble?” Dad ripped open the package of cookies.

      “Something about a fence they tagged.”

      “Stupid kids,” Dad muttered. “It’s good you’re going over there. Good that Joanne asked you to help. She’s a good mother. You lucked out.”

      Matt supposed this was a dig at his own mother, who’d taken off when he was ten. Dad had been a single father, choosing never to remarry, and putting Matt first in everything. He’d been a Class A hard-ass, leading Matt to find boot camp a kind of mini-vacation, but he’d kept Matt out of trouble. Mostly. Until Hunter. The resulting humiliation at having failed to “keep it in his pants,” as his father had repeatedly warned him to do, still hung over Matt.

      As the only son of a top-level executive in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, Matt had been expected and groomed to succeed. And succeed big. With his grades and test scores, he could have made it into an Ivy League school, until one unfortunate night almost sixteen years ago. Shocked and disappointed in Matt, Dad had still offered to pay child support to Joanne so his plans for Matt would not have to be derailed, and had vehemently opposed his idea to join the Air Force. But no