Rice Bishop looked startled as hell when he spotted them. “Austin! I didn’t realize you were home.”
“I just got in tonight,” Austin said coolly.
Discomfort creased the older man’s face. “Ah. Well. It’s good to see you.”
Austin didn’t answer. After a beat, he glanced at his mother and said, “Mari and I are taking off now.”
Unlike Mari, Della didn’t bother hiding her disappointment. “Oh. All right.”
“It’s been a long day of driving for us,” Austin reminded her. “But I’ll see you tomorrow morning, remember?”
A hopeful smile lifted his mother’s lips. “Yes, we’ll see each other tomorrow. Thanks again for my gift, sweetie.”
“You’re welcome.” Completely ignoring his uncle, Austin leaned in to give Della a quick kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Mom.”
“Happy birthday,” Mari echoed. “And thank you so much for inviting me into your home.”
Impulsively, she gave Della a big hug, then felt silly for doing it, but the older woman looked touched by the gesture.
Austin didn’t utter another word to Rice, but he did nod and grunt out what might have been classified as a goodbye. Then he took Mari’s hand and the two of them left the party.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Mari remarked after she’d settled in the passenger seat and buckled up her seatbelt.
Austin drove away from his mother’s house, a dark look clouding his eyes. “It was all right.”
She hesitated, then decided not to bite her tongue. “Seeing your uncle wasn’t exactly fun, huh?”
“Nope.” His profile revealed a jaw so hard it was starting to twitch.
“He really hasn’t tried to talk to you about all this? This whole year?”
“Not even once.”
“I wonder why.” She paused. “Is it okay if I ask you something?”
“We both know you’re going to ask it anyway, so why bother making sure if it’s okay first?”
“True.” She paused again. “Why is it so easy for you to act civil toward your mom, and actually engage in conversation with her, but you can’t do the same with Rice?”
Austin’s jaw became impossibly stiffer. “First of all, it’s not easy for me to be around my mom, not by a longshot. And secondly, it’s hard to be civil to him when he’s deliberately going out of his way to avoid the fucking elephant in the room.”
“I get that, but it seems like you’re at least willing to work things out with Della. Nothing’s stopping you from calling Rice and bringing up the subject yourself. But you’re not doing that—why not? Why aren’t you trying to make it right with your uncle too?”
“I…” He trailed off for a moment, and then a helpless note entered his voice “I don’t know. I just can’t.”
Mari reached across the center console and stroked the beard growth on his cheek. “Everything will be okay, you know that, right?”
“I hope so,” he said roughly.
They reached an empty intersection, where Austin started to make a right turn but at the last second abruptly executed a sharp left that made Mari slide in her seat.
She was torn between laughing and sighing. “Let me guess. Another spontaneous detour.”
His lips curved in a smile. “Yup.”
It was much too dark to see out the window, but Austin seemed to know exactly where he was going. The paved road they were on narrowed and turned to gravel, then sloped upward and became dirt. The trees thickened as the road took them on a twisty, winding path whose destination Mari didn’t bother questioning. She’d find out soon enough where they were going, and besides, the anticipation was half the fun.
Five minutes later, the headlights illuminated a tiny clearing up ahead. As Austin pulled right up to the edge and killed the engine, Mari gazed out the windshield and admired the view. From their perch on the top of the small bluff, she could see the shadowy backdrop of the mountains, the twinkling lights of houses, the red taillights of cars whizzing along the highway beyond the town of Paradise.
“What a pretty view,” she said softly.
Austin chuckled. “You think everything about Paradise is pretty.” He paused. “But you’re right. The view rocks.”
“So is this where you used to bring your girlfriends back in the day?” she teased. “You know, for necking purposes?”
He rolled his eyes. “I did bring my girlfriend here, actually. But we didn’t neck.”
“No?” She arched a brow.
The naughty grin he flashed her made her pulse speed up. “No. We fucked.”
“Such language.” She feigned disapproval, but truth was, her thighs squeezed involuntarily at the thought of Austin having sex up here.
“Oh hush, you love my dirty language.”
She broke out in a grin of her own. “Yeah, I totally do.”
They sat there for several moments, staring out at the gorgeous panorama beyond the windshield.
“I do know why,” he blurted out.
She jerked at the sudden outburst. “Huh?”
Looking sheepish, Austin lowered his voice. “I do know why I can’t make it right with Rice.”