When I Found You by Brenda Novak

One

The old Victorian looked nothing like the pictures she’d viewed online.

Dr. Natasha Gray sighed as she stood in the entryway, peering at the place she’d rented, sight unseen. No wonder her landlord had been willing to leave the key in the mailbox. She’d assumed it was because the town was so safe he wasn’t worried about someone else finding it. Now she understood that a key wasn’t necessary—a large window on the side had been broken out. Although the hole had been taped off with black plastic, the barrier would do little to stop anyone who really wanted to get inside.

“This is where we’re going to live?” Her six-year-old son, Lucas, had slipped past her and was turning in a circle, surveying the dilapidated interior.

She could understand his disappointment. Living here would be different, in every way, than what they’d known in Los Angeles. There, they’d had a nice upper-middle-class home in the suburbs. This was an old, one-of-a-kind house located in a small town ninety minutes to the northwest of the sprawling metropolis they’d called home, with the town’s main drag in front and a small patch of worn grass in back. But it was all she could currently afford. And they were far enough from where they’d lived before that she’d no longer have to face the stigma of everything that’d happened this past year.

“This won’t be so bad once we get it fixed up,” she heard herself say, but she’d expected much more after seeing the darling pictures online. They must have been taken a while ago, because it was obvious the house had been vacant for some time. Whoever had cleaned up the glass from the broken window had left footprints in the dust on the hardwood floor.

“Who will I play with?” Lucas asked.

Since there were only commercial businesses in the immediate vicinity, they’d have no neighbors—none with children, anyway. “Silver Springs might be small, but there will be other kids,” she told him. “You’ll make friends once school starts.”

“When school starts! It just got summer,” he said in a sulky voice.

She tamped down her own disappointment. “It’ll be fall before you know it. You’ll see.”

The way he shoved his hands in his pockets and bowed his head let her know he wasn’t even slightly mollified. But she hadn’t asked for what’d happened; she and her family had been victims of it. The nightmare that had destroyed her practice had also wiped her out financially and proved to be the death knell for her marriage.

But there were others who’d been hurt—and some of them had suffered much worse. She couldn’t think of them without wanting to cry.

If only she could’ve figured out what was going on sooner...

“Why can’t I live with Daddy until school starts?” Lucas asked.

Natasha wished she could let him. As much as she’d miss him, she had no doubt spending the summer with his father would be easier on him—less lonely—than spending the summer with her in this strange new place. His father didn’t give him a great deal of attention. Ace never had. But Lucas would have been able to associate with his grandparents, who were more hands-on, and some of his friends had he stayed in LA. Natasha might’ve considered leaving him with his father for a month, just so that the summer wouldn’t seem so long and lonely for him. Except she and Ace had lost the house when her practice failed, and he’d made it clear that there wasn’t room for Lucas to stay with him in the condo he was now sharing with two roommates—not permanently. Visits would be crowded enough.

“I’d rather you stick with me and we both get settled here,” she said. What else could she tell him? Not only had Ace agreed to let her move to Silver Springs, he’d only requested two weekends a month and every other holiday for visitation. Natasha suspected her ex preferred to be free to play the field, so he could find another woman.

“But I don’t like it here.” Lucas pinched his nose. “It stinks.”

He was right. The scent wasn’t strong, but it was distinctive. “Smells like a skunk to me.” Had one died under the house? She couldn’t say until she looked, but she wasn’t ready to brave what she might find under there, not when the part of the house that was supposed to look good didn’t. “A thorough cleaning will make a big difference,” she insisted.

The dust and dirt she could contend with. Natasha was more worried about the integrity of the roof and the rat droppings she spied in one corner. Did they have a rodent problem?

This was hardly the sanctuary she’d envisioned. But since when had anything ever been easy for her? With a mother who’d dragged her all over hell when she was a child and consistently put her own needs first, Natasha had always had to fend for herself.

She’d get through this, too.

“Maybe you should play on the porch while I sweep,” she said.

He peered out the door. “When will Uncle Mack be here?”

“Any minute.”

“Uncle Mack” was driving the rental truck that carried all of their belongings, other than what she’d been able to squeeze into her car. He wasn’t really her son’s uncle. As far as she was concerned, a long-ago marriage that had, for a fleeting time, joined her family with his didn’t qualify. It wasn’t as if they’d grown up together. He’d been twenty-five when they first met, and she sixteen. Neither did they get together for the holidays or anything like that. His father was just another man in the long line of men who’d been in her mother’s life, except that he’d had five sons who’d stepped in to help her at a critical point when she was a teenager.

But she and Mack had always struggled to figure out exactly what role they should play in each other’s life. Ever since she’d lived with him and his brothers before she went to college, she hadn’t had a lot of contact with him, especially since her son was born. So she’d been surprised when he’d called, out of the blue, and insisted on coming to help her move.

No doubt he’d heard about what’d happened to her practice and her marriage and felt sorry for her. She hated being the object of his pity, once again, especially after all she’d done to make something of herself. Not only had she put herself through medical school, she’d survived the insanely long shifts required during residency—while raising a young child, no less—and, after eleven years of pushing for all she was worth, had finally achieved her dream. She’d become a pediatrician and started her own practice—only to be leveled just when she’d thought she was home free.

“He left when we did,” Lucas said.

“He can’t travel as fast in that big truck,” she explained. Her son had taken to Mack instantly. Maybe it was because he’d lost his father and his friends all at once, but the relationship worried her.

“Maybe he doesn’t know how to get here,” Lucas said.

“He has his phone, and GPS will lead him right to us.”

She went out and got the cleaning supplies from her Jetta, which she’d parked in the unattached garage. She was eager to get started on the house.

After setting the supplies inside the door, she gingerly picked her way up the stairs. Because she was afraid they wouldn’t hold her weight, she made Lucas stay in the living room until she’d scaled them first. But they seemed sturdy, so she let him come up.

Fortunately, the bedrooms weren’t as bad as the living room. There were no broken windows, no water damage, no rat droppings. She tried to tell Lucas that his room would soon look as good as the one back home, but he wasn’t buying it. He trailed slowly after her, so dejected he could hardly put one foot in front of the other, but he didn’t want to be left in a different room, either.

The rumble of a large engine sounded as they were checking out the laundry facilities, which were—along with a plethora of spiderwebs and Lord knew what else—in the musty, unfinished basement.

“There he is!” Lucas exclaimed and ran up to greet him.

Natasha took a few seconds to compose herself. She didn’t want Mack to know how disappointed she was in the condition of the house, just as she didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t bouncing back as readily as she’d hoped from everything that’d happened in LA. She didn’t have a lot left, but she had her pride.

“This is it?” Mack said, as she met him in the living room.

“It won’t look so bad once I get it fixed up,” she replied.

He removed his sunglasses. About six-two, he had powerful shoulders, dark hair and large brown eyes that were currently filled with doubt. “Really? Because it looks like a bulldozer would be the best way to fix it.”

“It’s structurally sound.” She wasn’t sure she fully believed that, but she preferred to pretend that she’d known what she was getting into when she rented this place—that it hadn’t been the act of a woman so desperate to escape her current situation that she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. She had to convince him that she was going to be fine so that he’d leave. The sooner, the better. Then she could get on with the business of rebuilding her life, wouldn’t have to deal with the conflicting emotions he evoked.

He’d been with her for three days, and she still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come. To help, certainly. He’d done plenty of that. But why did he want to help her? That was the question. Since when did what happened to her matter to him?

Actually, that wasn’t fair. Mack, like his brothers, had tried to look out for her during those few years when her mother was married to his father. He was the baby of the family, so although she was nine years younger, she was closest to him in age. After she graduated from high school and confessed her love for him, however, he’d pulled back a great deal. Although he’d continued to check in and let her know he cared about her, and she would visit him and his brothers whenever she returned to Whiskey Creek, he wouldn’t allow their relationship to go any deeper, especially after that one night during Victorian Days. And after she got married, she’d actually heard from his brothers—Dylan, Aaron, Rod and Grady—more than she heard from Mack. She wasn’t even aware of how he’d learned that her life had imploded. The news hadn’t come from her own lips. If she could’ve hidden it from him, she would have.

It was possible he’d read about it, though. It’d been such a shocking and horrible situation; the media had been all over it.

Or her mother could’ve told him. Although Anya had divorced Mack’s father years ago, she was still in Whiskey Creek. Mack and some of his brothers still lived there, too, where they ran the original location of their family business, Amos Auto Body. Knowing her mother, Anya stayed because she considered them the only family she had, and even though Natasha doubted they felt the same way, they continued to help Anya whenever she got down on her luck.

Natasha refused to lean on them the way her mother did. She preferred to stand on her own two feet, had decided long ago that if she couldn’t have Mack’s love, she’d at least have his respect. That was why it was so difficult to let him see her now. This should’ve been a moment of triumph, when she faced him as a practicing pediatrician who no longer needed him.

Instead, because she’d hired the wrong nurse, she was standing amid the rubble of everything she’d established so far.

“Well, structurally sound or not, I can’t bring in the furniture,” he said, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his faded jeans, which had a hole in one knee, as he surveyed his surroundings. “Not until we get a few things done in here, anyway. And—” he wrinkled his nose “—it stinks.”

“That’s a skunk,” Lucas piped up. “Oh, look! A potato bug!” He dropped down on his stomach so he could examine the insect crawling on the floor.

At least he wasn’t by the rat droppings.

“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ll check under the house to see if we have a dead animal there. It’s probably nothing, just residual spray—”

“Which means we can’t do anything about it,” he broke in.

“It’ll fade with time,” she said. “And I’ll work around the furniture, once we bring it in, so that you can take the truck back to LA.” After all, she didn’t have that much; her ex had taken their bedroom and living room furniture and their washer and dryer. “I can get this place fixed up on my own, a little at a time.”

He gave her a look that said she must be crazy. “You want me to leave you alone with this mess?”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever put in a window?”

She had no idea what she was going to do about the window. She’d poured everything she had into becoming a doctor. When would she have had the time or the opportunity to learn anything about home improvement? “I can probably get the landlord to handle that much.”

“You told me the lease you signed was ‘as is.’ That the landlord had no money for repairs, which is why he gave you such a sweet deal.”

“That’s true, but...he can’t leave me without a window.” The landlord had mentioned that the house needed work, but this was ridiculous.

“Why fight with him when I can fix it?” Mack asked.

“Because it’s not your job to fix it. I can hire someone.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “With what money?”

He’d been there when she’d tried to rent the truck and her debit card had been rejected. She still cringed when she remembered him stepping forward to front the money.

“I have a job,” she said defiantly. She’d been lucky enough to land employment nearby, which was why she’d moved here. She’d be the medical professional at New Horizons Boys & Girls Ranch, a year-round school for troubled teens located not far outside of town, until she could save up enough money to once again open her own practice. She was overqualified for the position. Aiyana Turner, the woman who ran the school, had stated as much in her interview. Mrs. Turner had been looking for a nurse, not a doctor. But at least the school would have someone on hand who could provide expert medical care, and Natasha would soon have a steady income. She was grateful for the stopgap. And she’d pay Mack back as soon as she received her first paycheck.

“Your job doesn’t start for another week,” he pointed out. “And then it’ll take at least two weeks to get paid. You’re staring down the barrel of three weeks without income. You realize that.”

“I’ve got a few bucks in my purse.” She hoped he’d let it go at that, but he challenged her instead.

“Oh yeah? How much?”

“Enough to get by,” she retorted. No way was she going to reveal the specific figure; then he’d know just how poor she really was.

“Probably three bucks exactly,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I don’t know who you hired to do your divorce, but your ex must’ve paid him a lot more than you did.”

“Her. It was a woman,” she said. “And that’s not funny. After what happened, there wasn’t much to divide between us.”

“I heard you on the phone yesterday when you were talking to your mother. You admitted you agreed to pay alimony, for heaven’s sake, even though you have primary custody of Lucas. Why would you ever agree to spousal support?”

Although she’d seen the scowl on Mack’s face when she’d made that revelation, he hadn’t said anything about it until now. “Once he told me he wanted out, I decided not to prolong the split by fighting over possessions.”

“Why would he fight over them? That’s my question. Especially after everything you’ve provided already—and everything you’ve been through?”

“Because they mean more to him, I guess.” And because he wasn’t working. He hadn’t worked for a number of years, which made it much less likely that he’d be able to replace those items—unless he found a job or another wife to take care of him. Ace wasn’t the most motivated person. He’d sold her on his dreams, droned on and on about all he was going to accomplish in the future. But once it became apparent that was all talk, that he’d probably never accomplish anything, she’d consoled herself with the fact that it would be nice to have him home with Lucas, and it didn’t really matter if he contributed financially as long as she could earn enough to support them.

It wasn’t until Lucas started preschool that it began to bug her that Ace was spending most of his time gaming. At that point, she’d asked him to come in and run her front office so that she wouldn’t have to hire someone else, but he did such a lackadaisical job she would’ve let him quit even if everything hadn’t gone to hell right about then for an entirely different reason.

“Is he unable to work?” Mack asked.

“No.” She lowered her voice so that Lucas wouldn’t be able to hear her. “He comes from a wealthy family and has never had to work for anything.”

“So he’s lazy.”

She checked Lucas again, who was, thankfully, still absorbed in examining that bug. “Stop. I don’t want to talk about Ace.” She’d just had a baby when she married him. Because she’d been frightened to be a single parent, especially one who was juggling so much, she’d made a bad decision. But she’d been willing to compromise as much as possible to make the marriage work. So it was pretty ironic that he ended up finding fault with her and felt he’d be better off on his own. “I can get by. And if I have to, I can sell what he did let me have to bring in some quick cash. It’s not as though I have any kind of sentimental attachment to these things. There’s no need to hold you up any longer.”

“God, you’re stubborn,” he said with a scowl. “I can see that hasn’t changed.”

“You’re just as stubborn as I am,” she retorted, pretending to be irritated, but really she was just trying not to admire the handsome face that’d fueled so many of her dreams over the years.

“Damn right,” he said with an unrepentant grin. “Did you bring any tools?”

She dragged her mind back to the focus of the conversation. She couldn’t allow herself to admire Mack, couldn’t fall into that trap again, especially after the Christmas before she got married. But it was difficult not to at least acknowledge that he’d only gotten better with time. Although he’d recently turned forty-one, he didn’t look that much older than when she’d first met him. “What do you think?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say Ace got those, too, which means I’ll have to buy some, because I’m not going to leave you like this.”

She wanted to tell him to just walk away. He was good at that. But she didn’t feel the barb was warranted—at least not right now, when he was trying to help. Maybe this was about penance for the pain he’d caused before. Maybe he was looking for forgiveness or something. But she didn’t dare let him into her life now—not in any big way. She couldn’t pile more hurt on top of what she’d endured so recently. “The truck has to be back by the end of the day, or they’ll charge me—er, you, until I can pay you back,” she said. “You don’t have time.”

“So I’ll pay the extra thirty bucks.” He shrugged as if it was nothing. “Give me the keys to your car. Lucas and I will go find a home improvement store.”

“What?”She blinked at him. Surely he wasn’t planning to stay any longer. She’d already let him off the hook. “Seriously,” she said. “You’ve spent three days getting me out of the house in LA. I appreciate your help—truly—but there’s no need to hold you up any longer.” She started for the door. “Come on. Let’s unload so that you can be on your way.”

He caught her by the wrist. “You need the help, Tash, and I’m standing here, offering it. Why won’t you let me? Are you really that angry with me? After seven years?”

Yes, she was. So angry that she couldn’t believe he’d even bring it up. She might forgive him. Since when had she ever been able to hold a grudge against Mack? But she would certainly never forget. “I just don’t want to inconvenience you any longer,” she said.

“It’s not an inconvenience. I’ve been planning to visit LA for a while now to scout a good location for another shop.”

He and his brothers had been talking about expanding into LA for years. Aaron, the second oldest, had opened an Amos Auto Body in Reno, Nevada, but he was the only one who’d broken away so far. “LA’s ninety minutes from here.”

“That’s not very far. I can take a week to get you set up before I go back.”

He still hadn’t let go of her wrist. Her whole arm tingled at his touch, and a memory danced around the edges of her mind—a memory she’d banished long ago. “Who would run the new shop?”

“I would.”

“You’d live in LA.”

“Yep.”

Which meant he’d be much closer to her. Whiskey Creek, where he and his brothers had grown up, and she’d once lived with them, since they’d taken her and her mother in while their father was in prison, was six hours away, not far from Sacramento.

“Are you going to stay with us, Uncle Mack?” Lucas cried, finally abandoning the poor bug so he could hurry over.

As soon as Mack let go of her, Natasha stepped out of reach.

“For a few more days,” he said.

“Yay!” Lucas yelled and launched himself into Mack’s legs.

Mack laughed as he tossed him up and over his shoulder like a sack of flour and her son squealed in delight. “You got those keys?” he asked her.

She almost refused. But on what grounds? That she wasn’t sure she could deal with their history?

She’d die before she’d ever admit that—to him or anyone else—so she retrieved her purse and handed him the keys.