Perfect Fit (29 page)

Since his almost-arrest, he’d gone into hiding, but Mike didn’t kid himself that the man had left Serendipity. There was an egocentric part of Rex that was still looking for validation here. From Mike, Simon, or Ella—Mike couldn’t be sure. If he didn’t get what he came for, Mike wondered how far he’d go in retaliation.

Mike approached Simon, hoping maybe Simon, who’d once known the man best, had a clue. Simon sat behind his desk doing some paperwork in the family room. “Hey,” Mike said, making his presence known.

“Hey, yourself.” Simon looked up from his desk. “What brings you here midday? They not keeping you busy enough at the station?”

Mike shook his head. “For a small town, they keep me busy enough. Meetings and more meetings.”

Simon laughed. “Which brings me to my point.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “You have a point?”

“I do. Sit.” Simon gestured to the sofa.

Mike acted on instinct, listening to Simon and lowering himself into the seat. “Dad—”

“Me first.”

Mike clenched his jaw. He wanted to have his say, but the old Simon was back and he intended to go first. “What?”

“Maybe I should have done more…I always realized you kept yourself apart from me, from the family. That you
didn’t feel like you belonged, but I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Dad!” Mike jumped up from his seat. “You couldn’t have done more. Hell, you probably should have done less.” He paused, being more honest than he’d ever been. “But I’m glad you didn’t. Even if I was a pain in the ass.”

Simon grinned. “I wouldn’t have wanted you any other way. You challenged me, son. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just sorry you held yourself down to that man’s standards and not up to your own.”

Mike dipped his head, thinking about what Simon said. “I thought everything I did wrong was about me. It was about him, wasn’t it?”

Simon stared in silence. Mike knew the drill. Simon liked to let his kids figure things out for themselves. It might have taken Mike almost thirty years, but he’d finally figured out that Rex’s problems had nothing to do with his own. That didn’t mean Mike didn’t have his own issues, however.

“Whoever you are, whatever you do, you make your choices, Michael. It’s not because Rex is your biological father.”

“I’m beginning to prefer the term
sperm donor
,” Mike muttered.

To his credit, Simon laughed.

“Can I ask you a question?”

The man who’d raised him and denied him nothing nodded. “Did you do the right thing with the money and marrying Mom—and fall in love later? Or—”

“No
or
about it. I loved your mom from the day I laid eyes on her. Everything I did was for her.”

“At great risk to your own career and freedom,” Ella said, surprising Mike by walking into the room.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” Mike said, hoping his burning cheeks weren’t bright red.

Ella sat down next to Simon. “I’m glad I did because I think this talk is long overdue. You need to know—I loved
Simon even back then. I may not have realized just how much or what kind of enduring love we’d share, but I did love him.”

“And Rex?”

“Lust, Michael.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” He turned his head, unable to look his mom in the eye.

But Ella wasn’t deterred or finished. “As for Simon, maybe it started different, softer, but it was always much more real.”

Watching them over the years and even now, as they held hands, united as they discussed the past, Mike couldn’t help but believe.

“And yes, I was grateful Simon offered me a future. What pregnant single woman wouldn’t be? But once I was with Simon, I never wished Rex had stepped up—except for your sake.”

Mike nodded in understanding, as Ella smiled gently at him. “You’re entitled to have questions about us. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if your views on relationships weren’t skewed by things you wondered about but didn’t ask.” She eyed him with those wise, brown eyes, making him squirm.

He didn’t know what she meant and, given the fact that she wanted him to discuss his love life, he didn’t plan to ask. But that wouldn’t stop her from continuing.

“You say you don’t want a serious relationship. In fact, you believe you aren’t capable of one because that would mean staying in one place, correct?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she rolled up a magazine and smacked his leg.

“Hey!”

“Answer me,” she said, a twinkle lighting her gaze.

“Why bother? You already think you know the answer!”

Simon snickered. “Haven’t you learned by now? Humor her, son.”

“You’re right. I’ve never stayed in one place or with one woman very long. I don’t think I can.”

“Bullshit,” his very proper mother said.

Mike blinked in surprise.

“You’ve been in Manhattan for a long time, haven’t you?”

He nodded.

“That’s commitment. You came here when your father needed you? Also commitment. As for women, did you ever think you just hadn’t met the right woman?”

Simon patted his wife’s hand. “She’s got a point. I wouldn’t have stepped up to marry and love just any pregnant woman.”

Mike’s head was spinning, not just with all the emotional shit they were throwing at him, but really, who wanted to hear about his parents’ sex life? No matter how far in the past? They’d given him plenty to think about, but it was past time to change the subject.

“When your mother was with Rex, I sowed my share of wild oats. I never thought I’d settle down with one woman,” Simon said.

“Okay, enough. I appreciate the truth and the talk. I do. But I need time to digest it all, okay?”

“Fair enough.” Simon swept his hand through the air, cutting off any further discussion. “Any thoughts on what you’re going to do with the cold case?”

The older man didn’t pull any punches, with anything. It was as if being given a clean bill of health from his cancer scare had brought the old Simon back, and for that Mike was grateful.

“Yeah, I’ve done nothing but think about what to tell the mayor.” He ran a hand through his hair and met his father’s gaze. “Listen, legally you should be fine. The statute of limitations on any past crime has run out. Nobody’s going to prosecute, so a full reveal wouldn’t jeopardize your freedom.”

Simon’s reputation? That was another story and explained why Mike was sick to his stomach over his alternatives. Because telling the truth was the only out that Mike could see that would put this whole damn thing behind the family once and for all.

“Before you say anything else, I need you to know something,” Simon said.

Mike swallowed hard. “Go on.”

“I’d never ask you to bury the truth to protect me. From the time I made the choice to replace the money, I knew there was a chance of being found out. I’ve lived with the knowledge that I did something I wasn’t proud of. More than losing my job, I dreaded you kids finding out.”

Mike shook his head, not wanting his father to feel bad. “Want to know one more thing? Honestly?”

Simon nodded. “Always.”

“It’s good to know you’re not perfect after all.”

His father burst out laughing, as did Ella.

“Oh, son. If I ever made you feel like I was—”

“You didn’t. That was all me, living in Rex’s shadow and comparing myself to you, Erin, and Sam.” It felt damn good admitting that out loud, and it helped shed some of the weight he’d carried around with him for most of his life.

“Michael…” Ella’s voice trailed off.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. We’re fine,” he said to his mother.

Simon cleared his throat. “One last thing. Don’t you worry about telling the mayor what you need to. I can handle it.”

Mike already knew that now. Not that he liked what he had to do worth a damn. “What about your job? She might ask you not to come back.”

The thought of Simon, the town’s beloved police chief, stepping down for good, in possible disgrace, turned Mike’s stomach. “Maybe she’d let you walk away without stating why.” Mike would lean hard on the woman to give Simon at least that much dignity.

“Funny you should mention his job,” Ella said. “Your father and I have been talking, and with his illness and everything, we realize that life’s short and fragile.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“That it is,” Mike said, having confronted his father’s mortality this year.

“We want to spend more time together,” Simon said. “Make the most of these years.”

“I’ve always wanted to travel,” his mother said.

Mike wasn’t following. “Wait. What are you saying?”

“I’m thinking of retiring anyway,” Simon said, the bombshell detonating in Mike’s brain.

“I did not see this coming,” he muttered, more to himself than to them.

“Be happy for us, though.” His mother smiled, and Mike couldn’t do anything less.

He inclined his head. “Whatever you decide, of course I support you.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind my recommending that you be given the job beyond the temporary position? You’ve already made changes that have improved the department. Everyone’s pleased with you—”

Mike’s breath caught in his throat. “How would you know?” he asked, unable to broach the
other
subject—of him permanently taking on the job.

“I have visitors. I get phone calls. I’m damned proud of the work you’re doing, son. You’re bringing Serendipity into this century and though I might’ve fought it in here”—he tapped his heart—“I applaud it here.” His finger went to his head. “I like the old ways, but I’m smart enough to know things need to progress.”

“And there are plenty of people who could handle the force and continue to modernize.” Suddenly unable to breathe, Mike rose from his seat.

“But the men and women already respect you,” Simon said. “Just think about it.”

He was thinking.

Take the chief of police job permanently?

Settle in Serendipity?

For all his thoughts about enjoying things here, until now, Mike had always had his safety net. Simon would return and life would go back to normal. Okay, so things here had begun to feel almost normal, he silently admitted…but how long until the feeling of being strangled returned? Until he grew antsy? Bored? Resentful? Given the way he was itching inside himself, with just the mention of him taking over for good, Mike figured not long.

“And think of how happy Cara would be if you stayed,” his mother added.

Cara. At the thought of her, Mike’s chest constricted painfully. How long before he broke her heart? “I have meetings,” he choked out.

Ella rose, concern in her gaze as she reached for him. “Michael, please relax and just think things through. You’re reacting on instinct, not reality.”

Oh, shit. Mike wasn’t ready for this. His mother was right. He needed to think.

Hell, who was he kidding? He needed to
breathe
.

Sixteen

Since his father’s announcement, Mike was off kilter
and completely thrown. In another life, he’d have had one foot out of town, but he had enough sense of responsibility to know he had things to wrap up here. And he had a woman he cared deeply for—maybe even loved—who deserved more than for him to pack up and leave without telling her.

It was Wednesday and Joe’s Bar hadn’t yet started hopping when Mike and Sam met up for chicken wings. Off duty, Sam decided to call friends to join them later on, and Alexa, Erin, Dare, and Liza and whoever else in Sam’s crowd decided to show. Mike already knew Cara would be there, since she’d mentioned it when he’d seen her on Monday. He hadn’t spoken to her since.

He hadn’t picked up the phone.

Instead he’d spent the last two days alone with his thoughts and the occasional shot of whiskey for good measure. Not that he’d gotten far in his thinking, hence this sit-down with Sam.

Mike and his brother talked about family stuff for a while
before Sam studied Mike through narrowed eyes. “What gives?” he asked at last. “You look like you’re jumping out of your skin.”

Mike rolled his shoulders, but it did little to alleviate the stress.

“Last week you were mellow. Less antsy. What changed?”

Mike leaned in closer. “Dad’s thinking of retiring. He wants to recommend that I replace him permanently.”

Sam’s eyes opened wide. “No shit?”

Mike gestured to Joe for a shot of whiskey. He wasn’t on duty and he didn’t want to think. “Wish I were kidding, little brother.”

“What’s Cara say about this?”

Mike narrowed his gaze. “She doesn’t know.”

Joe placed his drink on the counter and strode away, giving them privacy once more.

“Don’t you think she’d want to know?” Sam asked. He tipped his beer bottle to his lips.

“Do not open your mouth,” Mike warned his sibling. “You’re the one always saying that you don’t want her hurt. So let me handle this in my own way.”

“Explain.”

Mike rubbed the cold glass between his palms. “Every time I think about staying for good, my insides twist into painful knots. It’s not something I ever considered. She knows it. Once I tell her all this…things will blow up fast. I need to find the right time and place.”

Sam’s expression showed his disappointment. “And here I thought that you’d been looking pretty settled and happy these last weeks.”

So had he. “As soon as Dad asked me to stay, it was like a noose wrapped around my neck.”

“Don’t you think maybe it’s time to grow up?” Sam asked.

“Go to hell,” Mike muttered, grinding his teeth at his
brother’s inability to understand. “Look at my history. I move through life quickly, no time to think too hard or focus too much because any time I did, it felt like I was suffocating.”

“Didn’t look like it last week,” Sam muttered. “Or the week before that.”

His parents had said something similar, but neither of them could possibly comprehend the choking feeling he experienced at the very thought of a commitment like that.

Mike shifted in frustration and decided to dig into his past for examples. “When I was here before, starting out and then again in Atlantic City, walking the beat made me crazy. I couldn’t do what you do every day without going insane. When my superior got me the shot to do undercover in Manhattan, he did it because he knew I needed the excitement. The adrenaline rush.”