In his high-rise office, Will swiveled his chair to face the San Francisco Bay glittering in the sun. “Who called you this time?”
Susan laughed. That’s what he loved best about her: her laughter. She’d never yelled at any of them. Even when he’d been a complete shit, Susan would give him a long look and ask, “Do you really think that was the right thing to do?” As if she’d known that he hadn’t been thinking, he’d just been doing, reacting, acting out in the wrong way. Somehow Susan always managed to forgive him anyway.
“They all told me,” she said.
“They’re a bunch of freaking busybodies,” he grumbled, though it amused him that men in their mid-thirties would rush to their mom with gossipy tidbits.
“How else am I going to be updated? You don’t tell me anything unless I drag it out of you.”
This was true. He’d talked to Susan several times since Harper and Jeremy had first come to his garage and work had begun on the Maserati, and yet he’d managed to avoid answering nearly all of her questions after that first call.
“You’ve never introduced your brothers to a woman before,” Susan observed. “They say she’s lovely.”
“She is,” he said softly.
“And they all really like her brother, too.”
“Jeremy’s a great kid.”
“We’d love to meet them both. I hope someday you’ll bring them to the house.”
The Mavericks had planned to buy the Spencers property out in one of the exclusive Chicago suburbs, but Susan and Bob had wanted an average home in an average neighborhood, nothing ostentatious. All they required was something large enough to house all their grandchildren and pseudo-grandchildren. Unfortunately, to date, the Mavericks had done a piss-poor job of filling up those extra rooms, and Daniel’s younger sister Lyssa wasn’t even close to starting a family.
But Will could easily imagine Harper and Jeremy and a white Christmas in Chicago. Susan would adore them both. She’d fill up the fridge and freezer with baked goods because Jeremy was “a growing boy.” And they would both love Susan, too.
“They’re good for you, honey, I can tell.”
But was he good enough for them?
That’s what plagued him. Even in something as simple as that scene by the pool with Whitney. He should have been standing guard over Harper’s brother to make sure no harm came to him, just as he’d promised her. But he’d failed. Badly enough that he couldn’t stop going over the situation in his head—and also couldn’t keep from asking Susan, “Did you hear about Whitney’s explosion at the barbecue?”
Susan sighed. She’d obviously been apprised of every nasty detail. “That poor girl. Whitney lost her way after that first miscarriage.”
“I’m sorry about that. We all are.” Whitney had had three miscarriages in the last two years. It had broken Evan into pieces, especially since he’d been on the road for work each time his wife had miscarried.
“They’ve been trying so hard for a family,” Susan said, “and Whitney’s disappointment is coming out in her testiness.”
Testiness? Will had a whole other word to describe it. “I know they’ve been through a lot. But still...Evan’s a saint.”
“He’s a good man. One who bends over backward to handle Whitney’s moods because he appreciates how badly she feels about not being able to give him a child.”
The Mavericks backed each other up to the ends of the earth, always there when anything bad went down, but they all turned to Susan when they needed to keep their emotional crap from festering inside. She was their sounding board on matters of the heart.
“Trust me, honey,” she added, “unfulfilled need can change a woman’s entire personality.”
He could see that, but the truth was that Whitney had always been more difficult than most. And he knew without a doubt that Harper, in the same situation, wouldn’t bust a guy’s manhood the way Whitney did.
The thought of Harper with a child, his child, growing inside her sent a wave of emotion flowing through him—delight, need, fear, desire. And something that felt giddily like happiness.
“I think that’s also why she doesn’t pay more attention to Noah,” Susan said thoughtfully, as if she’d just considered the point. “It breaks her heart. Hopefully when a baby finally comes, she’ll settle down again. Right now, Evan’s giving her the supportive environment she needs to try again, and I’ll be there for your brother. I know you will, too, all of you. But I also want you to realize that while I understand Whitney’s feelings, I’m not making excuses for all her bad behavior. And that incident with your friend…” She didn’t finish, and he could almost see the shake of her head.
Her words brought back the ache of guilt. “I shouldn’t have let Jeremy get hurt.”
“I wish he hadn’t been hurt, too. But the truth is that you can’t protect everyone all the time. No matter how much you wish you could. Trust me, I should know, with the five of you.”
Susan was right. The Mavericks had certainly given Susan and Bob a crazy ride those first few years. But Jeremy was different.
“I wish I could do more than provide a new job for him and work on the car. Harper works so hard to look out for her brother. But every time I offer to help, she insists on doing it all on her own.”
“Maybe that’s because she thinks she still is on her own.”
Frustration rose up in Will. “How can I get her to understand that I’m not going anywhere? And that I mean it when I say I won’t hurt her or her brother? What else can I do to get through to her?”
“You know how.”
No. The reaction was instinctive. Even before Susan continued with exactly what he knew she was going to say.
“Have you told her about your past yet?”
“I rewrote that story already,” he said in far too sharp a tone, considering that Susan was only trying to help him. Plus, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he wasn’t actually sure they were true. Sure, he’d rewritten the part where he was poor, but what about the rest? Because he sure as hell had never been able to forget that he came from a worthless thief and bully who hadn’t deserved to be called a father. Still, he had to ask Susan, “What’s so important about my past that she needs to know?”
“Will.” There was a slight note of exasperation in Susan’s voice. “She needs to know because you love her. And love means being completely open, even if you’re scared.”
Will had given Susan and Bob a merry ride, pushed their limits, tested their boundaries. After his dad, he hadn’t trusted anyone without proof that they were worth it. Susan and Bob had passed with flying colors in the end, and he’d do anything for them.
But Susan saw right to Will’s core—so deep that there was no point in even trying to deny what he was feeling. Not any of it.
“I think I’ve been in love with her from the first moment I saw her standing outside my hangar with her brother, so protective, so beautiful, so strong.” And then so free and passionate during their first fast ride. His heart brimmed over with all that he felt for Harper. “I admire everything about her. But if she knew about me—”
“You were a child, Will. Your father made you do those things for him.” Susan, God love her, made excuses for everyone, even him.
“I kept doing them even when I got older. After he went to prison.”
“It was all you knew. All you had to go on. But then you learned what was wrong, you learned what was right, and you never mixed up the two again.”
“I learned those things from you,” he said softly, remembering her never-ending patience. And loving her for it.
“Does it matter where or how or from whom you learned it? You made yourself into the man you are. That’s why I’ve always said you don’t need to wear that tattoo as some sort of reminder about your father and the life he forced you to be a part of. You’re your own man, not the least bit tainted by him in any way. And I’m so proud of you, honey.”
He could hear the tears in her voice. Susan rarely cried when she was upset. She cried when she was happy. “If you reveal who you are, I know she’ll love you as much as I do. How could she not?”
But unlike Susan and Bob and the rest of the Mavericks, Harper hadn’t lived not knowing where her next meal would come from and had no idea of the depths to which people could sink. She hadn’t known men like Will’s father. She’d never stolen or lied simply because someone ordered her to.
What if she didn’t understand that sometimes you became exactly like the very person you hated because that reflection in the mirror was the only thing you knew how to see?
“I can’t tell her, Susan.”
“Listen to me—I’m proud of you because I know what you went through. Because you rose above it. I’ve never known better men than any of my boys. And that most definitely includes you.”
Her words humbled him.
“Tell me something, Will. Do you think Harper is worthy of love? And happiness?”