Love Gone (3 page)

“Sorry baby,” Faith purred, her tiny
hand caressing her husband’s rough one. “Why don’t you let your
poor starving son go get started on his homework while you help
your lovely wife out and grab some of the groceries out of the
trunk of the car, okay? I’ll tell you all about our day while I get
some dinner on for us.”

Suspicious but placated, Mac released
Liam, who scurried away into the safety of his room, and he
followed his wife around to the trunk to help grab a few of the
bags he could see in the car.

“There’s some Stella in one of those
bags, honey.” Faith said over her shoulder as she reached into the
backseat for some of the Christmas shopping she’d done. “But don’t
look in these bags. These are a surprise, so don’t let me catch you
peeking. You’re worse than Liam was when he was little!”

“I don’t need to peek into shopping
parcels, my love,” Mac answered with bravado, “I’ve told you time
and again, I’ve got the sight. My mother had it and my grandmother
had it and now I have it. You can’t surprise a psychic.”

“If you’re so psychic honey, then you
must know why we’re late already so there’s no explanation
necessary. Isn’t that so?” Faith joked with him as they walked the
groceries into the kitchen together.

At her words Mac’s mood turned serious
again. Setting the groceries carefully on the counter he gathered
her to him in a fierce hug.

“It’s not funny Faith. I was worried.
There’s no shame in admitting it, I was more worried when you and
Liam weren’t here than I ever have been.”

“I know, my love,” she soothed him,
rubbing his back softly. “I know you were worried, I wasn’t trying
to make fun of you about it, I would have been worried too if our
positions were reversed. I’m just trying to lighten the mood up
around here. Everyone’s fine.”

He stared at her, unconvinced.
Obviously he wasn’t going to be put off with soft words and
flippant answers. She’d have to tell him, she just hoped he
wouldn’t be too upset at Liam.

Trying to ease the inevitable
outburst, she pulled a cold Stella out of the bag and popped the
top off before handing it to him.

“Uh oh. Trying to butter me up with a
beer before you give me the hard news, is that it?” Mac joked,
somewhat uneasily as he took a nerve bolstering swig from the
bottle.

She smiled. Not much to add to that
when he was actually right, was there.

“Okay Mac honey. The thing is that
Liam and I got into an accident tonight on the way
home.”

“A small accident,” she hurried to
add, cutting his questions off. “A very small accident, no one was
hurt, the car still drives fine, and our insurance probably won’t
even go up very much!”

She didn’t know how true that last
part was. Everyone knew that insurance companies jumped on any
infraction to raise rates, so they could probably look forward to
higher insurance costs when their premium was renewed, but that was
months from now and the immediate goal was to keep Mac calm, cool,
and collected. This dumb accident didn’t need to ruin the entire
evening, did it?

“What about the baby?” He asked with
an eye on her emerging baby bump.

Trust Mac to immediately worry about
the safety of their newest addition. She loved him so much. Most
husbands would rush out to inspect the car or put up a fuss about
higher insurance rates, but her loving husband cared only for his
family and she loved him for it. Such a difference from the way she
was raised.

“The baby is fine. Mommy, baby, and
son all fine,” she assured him.

“Are you sure,” he persisted? “Maybe
we should take you to Dr. Ross just to get a scan done. A test of
some kind to make sure there’s no damage inside you, where you
can’t feel it?”

“Honey, it’s fine. I swear. I think I
would know.” She said again.

“Okay, well if you feel anything
unusual, and I mean anything,” he insisted, “We’re going to Dr.
Ross. Don’t try to be a hero or something.”

“Don’t worry baby,” she laughed, “I
won’t try to be a hero.”

“Alright,” Mac said mollified. He took
another long pull at his beer before giving her a sidelong look.
“Who was driving?”

Ah…the meat of the issue. He had a way
of diving right into the heart of any discussion and unearthing the
one thing that no one wanted to discuss, Faith thought.

“Well, that’s the thing,” she started
tentatively.

“Liam, was it?” Mac guessed
correctly.

“Yes. Liam was driving, but it wasn’t
his fault.”

“If he was driving and you got into an
accident, how wasn’t it his fault? Were you rear ended?” Mac asked,
confused.

“No. We did the rear ending,” she
clarified with a laugh. It just sounded so strange to say you had
done the rear ending. “But it’s not like he was texting and driving
or something so obviously irresponsible. He just mixed up the
pedals. Pushed the gas when he should have braked, that’s
all.”

“Oh is that all?” Mac mocked her light
tone with a smile of his own. “He just pressed the gas instead of
the brake and ran over a whole crowd of people going to the cinema?
He just pressed the gas instead of the brake and ran headlong into
the plate glass window down at Alan’s Jewelers, that’s all.” He
joked.

“It wasn’t anywhere near as tragic as
all that.” Faith reprimanded him, “but I get your point. Of course
it’s terrible and could have really been horrible, but the reality
is that we were pulling up to the light at Creek Street and we hit
the back of another car that was already stopped. Very minimal
damage.”

“Liam!” Mac bellowed, making Faith
jump a little. “Come out here please!”

In his room, Liam felt the familiar
feeling of dread that he got a lot lately when his father yelled
his name like that, with sort of a combination of disappointment
and confusion in his voice. With a resigned sigh he pushed himself
away from his computer desk where he’d been agonizing over an
English paper, and stood up. To get to the door he had to maneuver
around piles of dirty clothes, dishes, books, and computer games.
His mom was always on him to clean his room, but somehow he was
never able to make a dent in it no matter how much effort he felt
like he put in to keeping his space picked up and clean.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the
mirror on his doorway as he moved to swing it open and march out to
face the music. Or the firing squad, as the case may be. His skin
looked a little pale, but that was due to the Alaskan winter and
his penchant for staying indoors with a book or his
computer.

His blue eyes – a genetic gift from
his father – didn’t sparkle like Mac’s did, but they had an innate
wisdom Liam thought. They were deeper, bluer and had the added
benefit of making the girls in his class look twice at him. They
sort of surprised people when they gave him a second look, Liam
knew. He’d seen it happen. At first he seemed to be very
unassuming, no one special, but on second glance they noticed his
deep blue eyes and his level gaze always made people pause and take
him in a little longer. Yes, he thought, not for the first time,
his eyes were his best feature and probably the only similarity he
had to his father.

“Man up Liam,” he ordered himself
sternly. “Just go out there and explain that you were confused, but
it won’t happen again. That’s it.”

Yeah that’s it, he thought as he
skulked rather than marched out to the kitchen to face his
father.

Rounding the corner into the kitchen,
he was struck by how happy his parents looked together. Happy and
content. His little mom, already petite at 5’2”, should have
appeared even more dwarfed by her big husband, but as she stood
next to him, leaning against him almost like a sturdy tree trunk,
she appeared larger and bigger. His spirit and physical enormity
lent itself to her and she absorbed the spirit of him and grew
bigger with it.

They completed each other perfectly he
realized. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen it before, so clearly as he
was at this moment. Maybe it was because his parents were rarely
alone. If he was seeing them it was because he was with them and
they changed a little when he was in the room. His presence shifted
their dynamic from ‘couple’ to ‘family.’ He never got to see them
like this. As the loving couple they’d been when they’d met in
Boston so many years ago. Maybe because he was growing up, but he
could finally appreciate their love, how they fit together so
effortlessly.

He hoped that he’d be able to find a
girl that fit him like his mom fit his dad. Was it even possible?
Half his friends parents were divorced. Girls didn’t often pay him
much attention, even with his deep blue eyes. He didn’t feel like
he understood females any more than they seemed to understand him.
Well, he had time, he figured. He was only a freshman. There was a
big world out there, outside of Alaska and this tiny town. There
would be plenty of opportunities.

“Yeah dad?” he spoke up as he came
into the kitchen. He didn’t want his parents to know he’d been
observing them. That just sounded creepy.

“Liam, just what in the bloody hell
were you thinking?” His dad started, trying to sound gruff but
failing as his mom sparkled up at him with laughing
eyes.

“Oh Mac, come on,” Faith said in his
defense, “he’s only 15. Don’t make me start telling him all the
stories your mom shared about you learning to drive when you were a
kid.”

Liam looked at his dad
wonderingly.

“Okay, okay darling, there’s no need
to start making threats.” Mac backed off laughing. “I just want to
say one thing to my son, is that alright?”

Faith nodded with a smile as she
continued to pull out salad fixings for the dinner she was making.
Her husband had such a good heart and he meant well, he just didn’t
understand how sensitive Liam was and how important his opinion was
to the boy.

“Liam,” Mac started sternly, sitting
down at the table with his beer. “Driving is a big responsibility
and as you discovered tonight, it can have big consequences if
you’re not ready to take that responsibility seriously and treat it
like life and death, which is what it truly is, don’t you
agree?”

Liam nodded silently.

“So next time you get behind the
wheel, it’s going to be you and me in a big empty parking lot and
we’re going to run some drills. Especially the pedals. Brake. Gas.
Get those right before we let you loose on the open roads, what do
you say?”

“Yeah, okay fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to hit that girl dad.”

“I know you didn’t my boy, but the
fact is that you did and it could have gotten someone hurt. We were
lucky this time. Lady luck might not smile on us so brightly the
next time. And your mother could have been hurt. In her condition
that’s not such a trivial ‘what if.’” Mac continued.

“Mac, I told you I’m fine!” Faith
called from the kitchen where she was busily breading cod to make
the fish and chips her husband and son loved.

“I know darlin’, but I’m trying to
explain to the boy that it could have been worse.” Mac called
back.

“I don’t need you to explain anything
to me dad,” Liam retorted, suddenly angry and tired of this
lecture. “I was there. I could see that we were lucky. And it’s not
like we got off scott free or anything, the girl I hit seemed like
a total nutcase, she almost hit mom!”

“What?” Mac asked, his face anxious.
“What about this girl?” He called to Faith.

In the kitchen, her fingers coated
with the sticky egg and flour mixture, Faith could have throttled
Liam for bringing up Emily. She had deliberately avoided mentioning
the strange girl to her husband and she hadn’t thought to worry
about Liam saving her the trouble of keeping that fact to
herself.

“It’s nothing Mac,” she said, not
looking at him, making every effort to keep her voice even and her
face calm. Like their son, Mac could read her expressions
instantly. She could never lie to him and the only way to keep him
from finding things out that she didn’t want him to know was to put
them completely out of her mind. Truly not even think them to
herself or before she knew it Mac was questioning her about the
very thing she had tried to keep from him.

Maybe he did have a touch of the
sight, as he liked to call it. A little bit of ESP to go with his
adorable Irish brogue and big, strong arms. Just her luck. She had
to marry the only Irishman in all of the United States who brought
the ability to see the future from Ireland with him, but not the
famous Irish good fortune.

Oh well, she loved him anyway. Even if
he could see right into her very soul. Not always a good thing, no
matter what the romance novels might have you believe.

“Don’t be putting me off Faith,” Mac
warned. “I can tell by the way you’re trying to keep me from
panicking that Liam’s right and there’s something more to be said
about this girl.”

With an inward groan she gave up and
went over to the sink to rinse off her hands before drying them on
one of the many hand towels in the kitchen.

She came over behind his chair and
started rubbing his shoulders. She would tell him about Emily, but
that didn’t mean she wanted to stare him straight in the eyes while
she did. No matter how much she tried she couldn’t shake the plain
old gut fear she had about the girl. It was silly, no doubt, maybe
all she needed was a good dinner, or blame it on her pregnancy
hormones, but Mac wasn’t the only one with dead on instincts. There
was something not right about the whole situation. A big ‘not
right’ or a small ‘not right’ that remained to be seen, but there
was something there….she just didn’t want to bring that dark thing
into her bright kitchen with her family.