A ripping pain tore through her, but she didn’t dwell on it, focusing instead on getting through the service with some level of professionalism. The residents of Coconino needed to know they would be treated with respect and caring when their time came.
Harrison, not being a church goer, was being remembered here at the complex, in the big meeting room. It allowed more residents to attend and significantly cut costs.
The minute it was over, she stole into the first aid room, ostensibly seeking a bandage for the finger she’d pricked on a rose thorn, but secretly longing for its bed. Five minutes. She would just rest for five small minutes.
“Hey, M— Oh, sorry.”
L.C.’s voice came in along with a soft knock on the door. She opened her eyes and pushed to sit, severely disappointed she wouldn’t get a nap.
They stared at each other and she became ridiculously aware she was on a bed.
“What’s up?” She tried not to sound suspicious—or mad—that he might be drunk. Swinging her legs to dangle off the side, she tugged her skirt down over her knees. “I shouldn’t even think about napping. I’d be out for hours and miss getting the kids.”
“I was going to suggest you move over. I haven’t been sleeping either.” His smile faded before it fully formed. He lifted and dropped a self-deprecating hand.
Right. Share a bed with him. Turn one moment of grief-induced weakness into a lifetime struggle of trying to stay whole while loving a broken man.
“Look—” she started to say, while he spoke at the same time.
“I think we—”
They both faltered.
“We should talk,” he said, then snorted. “I mean more effectively than this.” He stepped into the room, closing the door most of the way behind him. “I, uh, don’t have anything that you need to worry about. A disease, I mean.”
Heat poured into her cheeks. That was the last repercussion she had considered. Covering her blush with her hands, she said, “Me, too. I wasn’t worried.”
He frowned. “You should. I didn’t take care of things. I’m really sorry about that. I know better, I just...well, extenuating circumstances. It’s not an excuse, but it’s all I’ve got.” His lip curled up at the corner and he glanced over his shoulder, shutting the door completely. “Are you...on the pill or anything?”
Actually, that was the last concern on her mind. It hadn’t even entered her consciousness because she hadn’t worried about it for over five years. Not that she advertised her mutilated uterus. Still, she had lived with it long enough she ought to be well past bracing herself for the pity face, but she tensed with dread as she admitted, “I can’t get pregnant.”
A tiny jolt in his posture spoke of his surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t tell you until now.” She gave him a flat, c’est la vie smile, not up to saying more.
Pushing off the bed, she steadied herself on her feet, then tried to pull her spine into something like a decent posture. She had to find the strength to remain upright for a few more hours.
“So we don’t need to talk,” she said.
“No,” he agreed distantly. “I guess we don’t.”
Chapter 18
Mercedes told herself she had been adult and sensible, had shown maturity and sophistication, when she had spoken so matter-of-factly with L.C.
What else was there to say anyway? She might have feelings for him that were getting out of hand, but she couldn’t follow up on them. It was best to keep them unspoken and unacknowledged. No, they’d said all that needed to be said, addressed the most important concerns, and could now move on to pretending nothing had happened.
Except, if she was so darned blasé and sophisticated, she ought to be able to face him without panicking. However, she found herself avoiding him the next few days then using the kids as a buffer over the weekend. Definitely by Monday, she should have had a grip. She ought to have been calm and grateful when he showed up at Harrison’s with the rest of the volunteers.
Instead, she became obsessed with scrubbing out cupboards and finally faced that her determination to ignore what had gone between them didn’t stem from a desire to forget, but from an inability to.
As grief subsided a little, she began to recall their lovemaking. It started seeming less like an act of despair and more like something that had been inevitable. And even though their physical joining had been primal and swift and crude, it had also been tremendously satisfying. Wickedly sexy. Everything she had anticipated he would deliver.
She longed to experience it again and she was very much afraid it would only take one look to melt her onto the nearest flat surface.
But she couldn’t, absolutely could not, take up with an alcoholic. Even one in recovery and seeming to be on top of his problem. A quiet aside to Zack had reassured her that somehow L.C. was pulling through this without a crutch, but it was still early days.
Maybe if she didn’t have the kids... But, she did have the kids. So there was no maybe. He was off-limits.
“Thinking about drinking that?” he asked from behind her.
Mercedes almost dropped the bottle she held in her damp hand. “Pardon?”
L.C. nodded at the whiskey. “You’ve been staring at it a while.”
“No. Just lost in thought. But if I didn’t have to go home to the kids, I probably would.” She unscrewed the top and poured it down the sink.
“Hey, I could have taken that home,” Pete Dolinsky said, pausing in sweeping.
“No, you couldn’t,” Shirley said, raising her head from reading through the spines on Harrison’s bookcase.
L.C. smirked and Mercedes grinned at the way Shirley’s stern tone prompted a turn-tail reaction in Pete. He skulked out to the garage to hide from his eagle-eyed wife.
Mercedes rinsed the bottle and the sink, then set the bottle aside on the counter, watching L.C.’s gaze follow it.
She tensed when he reached for it, but he only said, “It goes out with the rest of the bottles and cans, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. And this box is ready for the Food Bank.”
He crowded her while he hooked his arm around the box then stayed close, pausing because Shirley was speaking to him again.
“Shall we donate these to the library?” Shirley asked.
“We could leave them in our library, in the sun room,” Mercedes said. “But I don’t have a clue what to do with his awards. Usually family makes the tough decisions about what to do with keepsakes.”
Mercedes hated picking over things, trying to decide if they had value.
“L.C., you should take this furniture. It’s in good shape. You boys don’t have a decent kitchen table and this bookshelf only needs a coat of paint.”
L.C. set down the whisky bottle and scratched his head. “Zack started exams and he’s almost finished his community hours. We’ll be leaving soon.” He looked to Mercedes.
Shirley looked at her, too. Mrs. Levine stopped washing the window to look and Corbin Pratt set down the print he’d just removed from the wall so he could look to her as well.
Mercedes heated. “Everything smells like cigars and we just got the cat smell out of the duplex.” She turned back to the cupboard. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to bring this furniture into it.”
“Harrison rarely smoked in the house,” Shirley said, dismissing that argument. “Perhaps Mr. Hilroy could use this furniture.”
“That’s a better idea.” L.C. picked up the bottle from the counter, hovering just long enough to try to catch her eye, but she kept her head buried in the cupboard. What was she supposed to say? You have to stay. I need you.
Impossible.
L.C. had spent his life pretending rejection didn’t matter. His mother had been hot and cold, due to an undiagnosed bipolar condition. When she had walked out, claiming it was because his dad had cheated, she’d been in no shape to take him and Paige with her. His stepmother—she’d been a real prize, always ready to let him know what a worthless piece of shit he was—had blamed him openly for his father’s failings. Teachers hadn’t been any better and there had been plenty of kids at school willing to exalt the jocks and marginalize the misfits. His own father had taken a swing at him and acted like he wanted to disown L.C. when L.C. had caught him with the wrong woman. By the time he’d married, L.C. was so inured to criticism and censure, he had set himself up for Brit’s condemnation just so he could prove to her how little it mattered.
Prize-winning fucked-up stuff.
When he’d finally found an even keel, at least controlling his drinking, showing up to work and expecting a baby with a woman he thought he might have a chance with, he’d almost felt like not quite the jackass everyone had always called him.
Then Ester had died and April had left and one day, when he’d been at a low point, Brit had stopped by and they’d wound up making a baby again, proving he was still as reckless and negligent as ever. When Brit had told him she didn’t want him to have anything to do with Lindsay, all hell had broken loose inside him, but he had taken the rejection in stride.
As his due.
There’d been a part of him that had been relieved, too. The idea of waiting for the birth, maybe facing another nightmare... He had seized the excuse Britta had handed him. Maybe he looked like a deadbeat dad, leaving town like that, but he had never been a stellar one. The running shoes had fit so he’d laced them on and ran.