line was answered on the other end. “It’s Jenny Beckinsale. I’m ready to finish the website.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jared swore as the wrench busted free and his knuckles scraped against a bolt.
“You shouldn’t swear. My mom says so.”
Jared picked the wrench off the hangar’s cement floor and looked at the back of his hand. Welts were already beginning to form. A thin gash beaded with blood. He sucked at the wound. If he’d been paying attention to what he was doing and not to the kid, he wouldn’t have made such a careless mistake. But Cody hadn’t stopped yammering since they’d left the house almost an hour ago. “Yeah, well, your mom isn’t here, is she?”
“She never is. Neither is my dad.” Cody pushed off with his feet and sent the office chair careening across the open expanse of the hangar.
Jared braced himself for the inevitable crash. When he’d first brought the chair out for Cody to sit on, he’d never considered the wheels to be weapons of mass destruction. He was quickly rethinking his tactical error. “Sounds like they both have pretty important jobs.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
Jared refitted the wrench on the bolt.
“What did your parents do?” Cody asked.
The wrench paused. “Nothing much.” Nothing at all.
“I bet they didn’t treat you like a baby. I’m thirteen. I don’t need a babysitter.” Again the chair went flying. “You’re mom was probably cool.”
“Yeah, cool.” That was the last way Jared would describe Nancy.
“Your mom probably let you stay home all the time by yourself.”
Jared nearly laughed. “Kid, my mom split when I was eight. I haven’t seen her since.”
The chair stopped. “Never?”
“Never.”
“How come?”
Jared knew he should just shut up, but there was something about this kid, this place . . . Jenny . . . that was making him remember a past he fought hard to forget. “She didn’t want to be a mom,” he said with enough finality to end the conversation. Cody didn’t take the hint.
“That sucks.” Using the toe of his tennis shoe, Cody spun the chair in a circle. “Do you want to see her?” he asked when the chair stopped.
“I saw a small rowboat behind the hangar,” Jared said, sidetracking the conversation. “Why don’t you ask your aunt if you can take it out?”
“I can’t go on the water, remember?”
No, Jared didn’t remember. The only thing he wanted to remember was a way to get the kid out of here.
Cody leaned down staring sideways at Jared. “Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
“A cat?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
Christ, did the kid ever shut up? Jared retightened the wrench on the bolt. He glared out the hangar’s door, toward the house. He scowled against the bright sun, scowled at the woman who had put him in this position. Babysitting hadn’t been part of the plan. And Jenny damn well knew it. But the minute Cody had said booby prize, Jared felt himself cave. And like a predator, she’d sensed his weakening and pounced. “Just because.”
The chair rolled away and then came back to a stop near where Jared was working. From under the plane, he looked up at the kid. There was nothing about Cody that should stir up memories from Jared’s past. Nothing at all. So why was it the more time he spent with the kid, the more old memories resurfaced?
“There are worse things than not having a dog and parents who work,” Jared said.
“Yeah? Like what?”
Hadn’t the kid been listening?
Like having a mom who screwed so many guys she didn’t know who your dad was. Or who split one day while you were at school. It had taken Jared over a week to realize Nancy was never coming back. He’d held on to hope like some pathetic fool clinging to a waterlogged life ring. Not even when the small amount of food they’d had in the house had run out, or the power had been shut off, would Jared let himself believe his mom wasn’t going to return.
His grip tightened on the wrench, and he put everything he had into it. His muscles bunched and bulged, and he was surprised the damn bolt didn’t just snap off.
Cody kicked at the empty oil pan. “Mom’s missed all three of my baseball games.”
“Tough break,” Jared said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
The kid didn’t notice.
At least his mom hadn’t missed the last three decades of his life. Well, not quite three. Jared would give Nancy that. She’d waited until he was in second grade to split.
There was no stopping