She was still having trouble wrapping her head around the fact her son would be spending that much time with Ryan Kowalski. While nobody knew it but her and Ryan, Nick could just as easily have grown up with Ryan as his stepdad if she’d packed her bags and left town with him.
Fran rambled on about how the Northern Star Lodge had been so pretty when Frank and Sarah Kowalski had run the place, and how heartbreaking it had been to see the toll the crappy economy had on it. And on Josh, who’d tried to shoulder the burden without dragging his siblings into it.
“It was a mistake,” Fran said. “But people learn from their mistakes. Josh has, and Nick will, too.”
She thanked Fran and carried her bag out to the car. Because she wanted to savor the secret candy bar, she had to drive slowly and even take a little detour to avoid pulling into her driveway before it was gone. Once she’d licked her fingers clean and folded up the wrapper to shove in her pocket, she parked and went inside.
Nick was sitting on the couch, looking as miserable as she’d seen him in a long time. He wasn’t crying, but she could see it was taking some effort on his part not to.
“I’m really sorry, Mom. I really am.”
She dumped the bag in the kitchen and went to sit next to him. “I know you are.”
“I just get mad at, like, stupid stuff. Dad or my teacher or...whatever.”
“Me,” she supplied for him, patting his knee.
“Sometimes. Anyway, I just get mad and I break stuff.”
“How much stuff?” It hadn’t even occurred to her until now he might have vandalized more of their neighbors. “Am I going to have other people banging on my door accusing you of breaking their stuff?”
He shook his head. “There are lots of trails in the woods behind the lodge and I like to walk there, so I haven’t done it anywhere else. I promise.”
“We need to find another way to channel that anger. Maybe some hard labor will help.”
“He’s not going to go easy on me, is he?”
“Ryan?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he has you splitting cordwood every day until you can’t lift your arms. He’ll be fair, though. And you have the punishment coming.”
“I know. I just want you to know I’m sorry. Everybody in town’s going to know, so I embarrassed you.”
“I don’t really give a damn what everybody in town thinks. What’s important to me is that you don’t ever do something like this again, and that you do the right thing now. And you’re going to, so we’ll get through this.”
“Okay.” He mumbled something that might have been “I love you.”
“I love you, kid. You’re still not getting your iPod back, though.”
Chapter Five
On Monday afternoon, Rose Davis watched the teenage boy chug the lemonade she’d given him and smiled. Their vandal turning out to be Lauren Carpenter’s son was an interesting twist in her plan to see all the Kowalski kids and her own Katie happily married before she got too old to enjoy grandchildren, biological or otherwise.
Sean was happily married, of course, but his wife owned a thriving landscaping business, so Rosie wasn’t too sure she’d be in a hurry to have kids. Plus, they lived in New Hampshire. Mitch and Paige would be married soon, but they were avoiding answering any questions about starting a family. Once she’d heard Paige was going to rent out her trailer and look for a house, Rose had hoped they’d move into the lodge, but Mitch was adamant that he and Paige wanted their own space.
Now Lauren had been thrown back into Ryan’s life. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened right before Ryan had left Whitford to start his job in Mass, but she’d had her suspicions for a while that he’d cared more for Lauren than he let on. He’d gotten over her, of course. Fallen in love, gotten married, fallen out of love. But Rose didn’t think it was a coincidence that it was Lauren’s son who got busted shooting at the windows. Cupid had a master plan.
“You want some more?” she asked Nick when he’d drained his glass. She wasn’t surprised he was thirsty. It was still early enough in the school year to be hot and the school had no air-conditioning.
“Yes, please.”
“Sit down and get your homework done.” She refilled the glass and set it in front of him. “The guys are waiting for you. But don’t rush. Do it right.”
“I did most of it in study hall.”
She snorted. “I raised a daughter of my own and five others. You think I haven’t heard that before?”
The tips of his ears turned pink, but he started pulling stuff out of his backpack and got to work. Once he was scribbling on a math worksheet, she took the pitcher of lemonade and some paper cups into the backyard.
Ryan saw her first, and she smiled when he scowled and shook his head. She wasn’t supposed to care if Dill and Matt dehydrated while putting up the scaffolding? They might draw their paychecks from Kowalski Custom Builders, but they were temporarily living under Rose’s roof.
“I told you not to spoil them,” he hissed when she got close enough to set the pitcher on a sawhorse.
“It’s not a triple-layer chocolate fudge cake. It’s lemonade.”