Hannah rested her head against the door. Walking back into her bedroom could be as devastating as waking up earlier and facing two crushing memories: her son wanted to die, and she had forced herself on his friend.
Her son wanted to die. And in the past hour, she had discovered that the only person with the power to save him was the guy lying naked in her bed.
She breathed through the impulse to retch. The stench of bleach permeated the house, but it could never erase the memory burned into her mind.
My son wanted to die.
She turned the doorknob.
Will sat up, and the sheet fell to his groin. Images besieged her, images of stripping off his clothes and pinning him to her bed. Using him the same way she’d used the temazepam. To forget that her son wanted to die.
Shame settled: cold, heavy, suffocating.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Will looked younger than ever, whereas she’d aged overnight. For the first time, she was aware life was half-over, not half-begun.
Keeping hold of the doorknob, she eased the door closed behind her and leaned into it. “Thank you. For cleaning the bathroom.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Last night—I’m...I’m just so sorry.”
He twisted the sheet, then untwisted it. “You regret sleeping with me?”
“No, just the sex part.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, it wasn’t...that wasn’t me.”
“Demonic possession?”
“A break with reality.”
“It was pretty intense.” He blushed. “We didn’t even stop to talk contraception.”
“Tubes tied. After Liam was born.”
She broke eye contact first. “What kind of a mother has sex while her son—”
“Hannah,” he said softly. “There’s nothing wrong with what happened between us.”
“How can you say that?” She glanced up. “There’s a world of wrong with what happened! I’ll never forgive myself for being so irresponsible, so selfish, so amoral.”
“I share the blame. I didn’t exactly stop you.”
“I wish you had. I wish life had stopped twenty-four hours ago. I wish today was yesterday and the future was still unlived.”
“Come here.” He started to reach for her, but she couldn’t risk moving. Couldn’t risk a repeat performance of the night before. She could fix this, if they could just forget what had happened in her bed.
His hands jiggled in the air. “Not to...you know...just to cuddle. Last night—you and me—we were good. Together, I mean. Wow.” He smiled. “Stellar communication from someone who’s spent ten years on the New York Times bestseller list.”
“Nothing good can come from last night, Will. Nothing.”
He dug his hands into his hair, combing it back from his forehead. “All I know is that last night we needed each other. You told me things happen for a reason. What if you and me—us—was one of those things that was meant to happen?”
Was, not is. Already she was his past.
“How can it be, Will? You’re a celebrity author who lives in a skyscraper and dates gorgeous young things twenty years my junior. I have two grown sons and a quiet life in the middle of nowhere. You go to charity galas. I stay home and read.”
“I love to stay home and read, too, and I’ve only been to one charity gala, with my ex.”
“It’s irrelevant, Will. We’re on different tracks, heading in different directions. We need to forget last night, concentrate on the only thing that matters right now—saving my son.” She paused. “My suicidal son.”
She had finally branded her son. But this wasn’t labeling, this was staring down truth. This was marching up to the enemy and saying, I’ve seen your face, I know who you are and you will not win. You will not claim my son as well as my father. She was going to fight for her son, fight for his life, and right now the only thing that mattered was convincing Will to help.
He squinted at her alarm clock. “Eleven o’clock? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I thought you should sleep. Poppy said she could stay with your dad as long as you needed.”
“What time are you going to the hospital?”
“I’m not. Galen refused to see me. He doesn’t want to see Inigo, either. The only person he wants to see—” she stared at Will “—is you.”
“Me? Why would he want to see me?”
“Because you’re his friend. And right now, I’m the enemy.” She opened the door. “I’m fixing breakfast, so why don’t you get dressed and join us. Then I’ll pack a bag of clothes for you to take to Galen. He’s going to call your cell phone with the password for the day. You can’t speak to him without it.”
Will was wasting time. He needed to get moving; he needed to get to the hospital; he needed to show Galen he was not alone. That he was loved.
“Don’t ask me to do this, please,” Will said.
“I’m not asking you. My suicidal son is.”
“That’s even worse.” He swung his legs around and, jumping out of bed, stood before her, naked.
She kept her eyes on his face. “You’re the only person who’s reached my son since he came home. Please, Will. I need you to do this for Galen’s sake.”
“I can’t,” he whispered.
“So Galen has to suffer because I made a terrible mistake?”
“Do you honestly believe that’s what’s going on here?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“This isn’t about us, Hannah. Can we just leave it at that?”
“No!” She threw up her hands. There was no time for anger; she had to stay calm. “Okay, okay. Let’s be adults here and forget that I forced myself on you while my son was fighting for his life. Forget that we—” she shielded her eyes “—forget everything but this. Galen needs you.”
“I’ll do anything else for you, Hannah. Anything.”
“I’m not asking for anything else.”
“Please. You have to trust me when I tell you I cannot help your son.”
“Why?” She folded her arms and waited, but Will stayed silent. “Let me guess, because you have to get back to your life in the city?”
“Yes, no, I mean—”
Hannah turned and left, because what could she say? The only words that filled her mind spoke of humiliation for screwing—quite literally—with the one thing that mattered to Galen: his friendship with Will. But it was irrelevant, because if he wasn’t going to help Galen, then she was done with Will Shepard.
* * *
Will grabbed the edge of the sheet and tugged it off the bed. Tucking in the ends, he hopped after her like some comic-strip mummy. “Come back, let me explain! Darling, please.”
He stumbled, stubbing his toe. “Damn it, Hannah—”
The sheet began to unravel. What the hell. He ditched it and jogged down the hallway.
However she phrased it, she was offering him the parental reins. He’d never wanted to be a parent and yet, for a while, he’d allowed himself to believe fatherhood would be his greatest achievement. But history had a nasty habit of repeating itself. And like his mom, he had proved to be incapable of looking after his son. No way could he fail someone else’s son; no way could he stick around to see if Galen finished the job.
“Hannah—” He rushed into the kitchen. “Come back and—”
“Willie!” His dad pushed up from one of Hannah’s pine chairs. “No sleepin’ naked with the womenfolk around. Cover yourself, son.” He handed Will an oven mitt. Poppy, over by the sink, was holding a dish towel that would have covered more of his groin area, but she seemed reluctant to share. She winked, then craned her neck for a better view.
Hannah turned her back on Will, picked up a metal whisk and began beating a bowl of raw eggs. Up Saponi Mountain, a hawk screeched. Another hawk answered, and for a moment, a soulful duet resonated around the kitchen.
Will shuffled toward his dad in a parody of a straight dance—the warrior dance that was slow and graceful with no fancy moves—and felt stupid as shit. He grabbed the oven mitt.
“Thanks.” Great, now his dad was looking after him.
Hannah cranked and cranked the pepper mill. “I’m fixing everyone breakfast,” she said. “If you want to join us, Will, I suggest you take your father’s advice and get dressed.”
The look she threw over her shoulder shriveled his dick to nothing. He swallowed back a Yes, ma’am.
“Ah, c’mon, Han,” Poppy said. “Us girls gotta get our kicks wherever we can.”
Spontaneous evaporation would have been a blessing.
“Hannah, I—” I what? I love you, but I can’t be there for your son?
“Yes?” She flipped around with the whisk in her hand, and for one brief moment, he wondered if she might hit him with it.
The phone rang and Hannah snatched it up. “Andrew? It’s okay, take a deep breath and start again.” She paused. “Scarlet hasn’t eaten in how long? Okay. Keep her comfortable, and I’ll be there within an hour.”
“Really?” He didn’t like his tone, but now he was ticked off on Galen’s behalf. This was the kind of stunt she’d pulled on his first night home. Had she learned nothing? “Your son’s in the hospital, and you’re going to look after a cat?”
“I’m going to do my job, since my son refuses to see me.” Hannah placed the phone back on the cradle and avoided eye contact. “He does, however, want to see you.”
Will tossed the oven mitt onto the counter and ignored Poppy’s comment of, “Nice bod. Got yourself a keeper there, Han.”
“Galen’s right,” Will said. “You’re a people pleaser with shitty boundaries.”
“Now, son. None of that language around the ladies.”
“Yeah? Tell someone who gives a fuck. I’m going to the hospital.”
Something clattered to the counter, but Will didn’t turn to find out what. He stormed into the hallway and slammed Hannah’s bedroom door. That, without a doubt, was the harshest morning-after scenario ever. Yes, he’d woken up in the wrong bed before and summoned charm he didn’t know he possessed to extricate himself, but this was different. He didn’t want to be the one leaving; he didn’t want Hannah to wish him gone. Clearly, she did. In her eyes, he was little more than a terrible mistake.
A sound came from her bedroom floor—a voice message alert on his phone. He snatched up his jeans and pulled his phone out of the back pocket. One voice mail.
“Call the ward,” Galen said, and rattled off a number. “They’ll ask for the code word. Flower. Don’t tell Mom.”
Another secret to keep from Hannah.
Will sat on the edge of her unmade bed and stared at his iPhone, at the blank screen, at his reflection in the black mirror.
If he didn’t go, if he bailed on a friend in need without even saying goodbye, what did that make him? He could still head back to New York—that part of his plan didn’t have to change—but he didn’t have to go today. He could sit with Galen, be there for him—since Hannah wasn’t going to fight for the right. If that were his son, he would be banging on the locked doors, demanding entry. Demanding Freddie not be alone....
Will glanced up at the framed photos. Beautiful pictures without people. Studies in loneliness. He would go, but not as Hannah’s substitute, not as a parental figure. He would go as a friend.
And tomorrow he would head back to New York where he was known yet unknown. Where those who crossed his life—the woman at Starbucks, the building doorman—smiled and asked how he was doing without caring that he answered by rote.
Twelve years ago he’d gone to New York to lose himself in crowds, to find anonymity, not to expand his social network. And it had worked. Ask him to identify any of his neighbors in a lineup, and Will would flunk. These days, people knew the name, the face, the P.R. propaganda—everything but the darkness of his true story. In New York, he could be whomever the hell he wanted. And Hannah would never have to see him again.
Will threw the phone onto the bed. On my way, dude.