Satisfying Lonergan's Honor Read online

  Shaking her head, she watched her mom, Catherine, preen and primp like a teenager getting ready for the prom. Leaning into the mirror, the older woman touched up her lipstick, then fluffed her short, auburn hair. Smiling knowingly into the glass, she said, “Your dad’s been gone two years, baby.”

  Donna sighed. True. Jeff Barrett, a healthy, robust man of fifty-five had dropped dead of a sudden heart attack two years ago. Donna was still living in Colorado then. Her mother had insisted that she was fine and that Donna should go on with her life.

  And she had. At least, she’d tried, keeping in touch with near-daily phone calls and several visits. Until finally, a couple of months ago, she’d overridden her mother’s objections and moved back home. And though Catherine hadn’t wanted to admit it, the relief in her face had told Donna all she’d needed to know.

  She’d had to come home—for a lot of reasons. But that didn’t make being here any easier. Especially now, with two of the Lonergan boys back in town. She’d already run into Cooper at the drugstore. And with Sam the new town doctor, she’d certainly be seeing him sooner or later.

  And Sam would be seeing Eric.

  At the thought of her son, Donna chewed frantically at her bottom lip. There was no going back, now. She was home, for good. Better for her mom. Better for her. Better for Eric. It was just the settling in, finding their way that was so damn hard.

  For so long, it had been just the two of them. And now, everything was changing.

  Oh, God.

  She felt as though she were on a broken Ferris wheel, spinning continually, first up, then down, then up again. Her stomach churned and every breath felt like a battle well fought.

  Her mother was watching her, worry in her eyes, so Donna pushed her thoughts to one side and tried to smile. “Hard to believe Daddy’s been gone so long already.”

  “Nice attempt,” her mother said softly. “But you weren’t just thinking about your dad.”

  “Yes, I was,” Donna said. “About dad and Mac and Eric and…everything. I guess,” she added with a helpless smile, “I just don’t like change.”

  “I know,” Catherine said, her gaze shifting to the small, framed photo of Jeff Barrett, standing on the dressing table. “Took forever for me to actually believe your dad was really gone. Sometimes I still expect to hear him calling to me from the other room.”

  Great. Way to go, Donna. Depress your mother just before her big night out. “Well, if he were here, he’d be the first to tell you that you look great.”

  Catherine smiled. Mission accomplished.

  “So how long have you been dating this guy? And just what do we know about him?”

  “Very funny,” her mother said dryly. “And I know all I need to know. I started seeing Michael six months ago.”

  “Six months ago?” Donna stared blankly. “And I’m just hearing about this now because…”

  “Because I thought—silly me—that you might take it badly.” Catherine’s lips twitched.

  Outside, the neighbor’s dog barked at the moon and the sprinkler hissed and stuttered as it shot water across the wide lawn. Cool air whispered from the overhead vents and seconds ticked by as Donna tried to come to grips with a single fact.

  Her mother had more of a social life than she did.

  “I’m just…surprised, is all,” Donna hedged. “Who is this Michael person and why haven’t I met him? I’ve been home two months, you know.”

  Catherine laughed and her deep blue eyes, so much like Donna’s own, sparkled. “We haven’t seen much of each other since you got home. I wanted to give you a chance to settle in before…” Her voice trailed off, then picked up again. “Besides, you have met him. It’s Michael Cochran, honey.”

  “Mr. Cochran?” Donna yelped, jumping off the edge of the mattress. “My biology teacher?”

  Catherine picked up her bag, opened it and stuffed in her wallet and lipstick before saying, “He’s not your teacher anymore.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Donna—” her mother’s tone changed slightly “—I’m delighted you’ve come home, honey. But Michael hasn’t been your teacher in fifteen years.”

  “True,” Donna said, sinking back down to the foot of the bed again. “It’s just…weird,” she added. “Thinking about you going out with someone who isn’t, well, Dad.”

  Catherine smiled a little and took a seat beside her daughter. Draping one arm around her shoulders, she said, “It was hard for me, too. At first. But whether we like it or not, honey, life goes on. And I’m tired of being lonely. You understand, don’t you?”

  Lonely? Oh, yeah. Donna understood lonely.

  And scared.

  And worried.

  “Sure I do,” she said. “I was just…surprised. That’s all.”

  Her mom gave her a tight hug, then sprang up when the doorbell rang. Shooting a glance at the open doorway, she said, “That’ll be Michael.”

  “Have a good time,” Donna said, forcing a smile she really didn’t feel. Not an easy thing, seeing your mother go off on a date. Especially with your old teacher.

  “You sure you’ll be all right?”

  Donna rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom. I’m fine. Eric and I will order pizza or something. Go. Have fun.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Catherine said with a wave as she scurried out of her bedroom, headed for the front door.

  “Right.” Alone, Donna just sat there for a long minute, staring at her own reflection in her mother’s mirror.

  Nothing stayed the same, she knew that better than anyone. But did everything have to change at once?

  When the phone rang, she scrambled up off the bed and hurried into the hall to pick up the extension. Probably Eric begging to stay a little longer at the miniature golf palace.

  Snatching up the phone, she was already smiling as she said, “Hello, Eric.”

  “Wrong Lonergan, Donna,” the deep voice rumbling in her ear said. “This is Jake.”

  Two

  “Donna?” Jake asked. “You still there?”

  The silence on the other end of the line stretched out for what felt like forever. Laughter and bits of conversation drifted to him from the living room where the rest of the family was gathered. Here in the kitchen, though, Jake stood at the window, looking out into the night, trying to imagine Donna’s face.

  An image of her the last time he’d seen her popped up in his brain and he almost wished it hadn’t. She walked across the cemetery, weaving in and out of the headstones decorated by wilting bouquets. Her steps were slow, unsure, shaky. Her head was bent, her long blond hair hanging down on either side of her face like a soft curtain designed to keep the world out. She stopped alongside him on the way to her parents’ car and lifted her face to him.

  Jake felt again, that punch of helplessness as she’d looked up at him through blue eyes, red from crying. Fresh tears tracked across her pale cheeks and shone in the sunlight. Her full lips pressed firmly together, she didn’t speak. She only looked at him for a long minute before turning and walking away. Standing alone, Jake could only stare after her.

  Two weeks later, she’d left Coleville without telling a soul where she was going.

  “What do you want, Jake?” she finally asked, dragging him back from the past.

  “Jeremiah told us.” He deliberately pushed old memories down into the deep, dark hole he’d dug for them years before. “About Mac’s son.”

  She sucked in air and the soft hissing sound teased his ear. “My son,” she corrected.

  “Of course he’s your son, too,” he said, and his voice sounded harsher than he’d meant it. He slapped one hand to the wall and winced as the sliver still embedded in his palm dug a little deeper. He leaned in closer to the window, stared past his own reflection in the glass, to watch the sky. A falling star sliced across the blackness leaving a trail of fire behind it. He closed his eyes, searched for calm and tried again. “I only wanted to say that we know about him now and we want—”
>
  Before he could finish, Donna interrupted.

  “I really don’t care what you guys want, Jake.”

  “Well, good to know we’re going to be reasonable.”

  “I’m plenty reasonable. I didn’t call you,” she reminded him hotly.

  “No, you sure as hell didn’t,” Jake accused. “Not then. Not now.”

  She blew out an impatient breath. “Look, I know you probably mean well…”

  “Probably?” He took the phone from his ear, stared at it, stunned, then slapped it back into place. “I probably mean well?”

  “Fine. You mean well. But I don’t need anything from you. My son doesn’t need anything from you.”

  “You don’t have to jump down my throat,” he countered, “I was only—”

  “What?” she demanded. “You were only what, exactly?”

  “Damn it, why’re you being so bitchy about this?”

  “Bitchy? Excuse me?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did. And you can just back off, Jake Lonergan. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  Shaking his head, he cursed himself mentally for clearly going about this all wrong. He should have remembered what a hard head Donna had. Should have tried to be calm. Should have tried to talk to her without starting World War III.

  “You’re making this harder than it has to be,” he said on a tired sigh.

  “It doesn’t have to be anything, Jake,” she told him. “Just because I’m home doesn’t mean that I’m looking to share my son with the Lonergan cousins.”

  “Well that’s too damn bad, isn’t it?” he countered quickly, forgetting all about trying to be calm. Hell, just hearing her voice again after all these years was enough to get rid of any chance for “calm.”

  Turning away from the window, he leaned one hip against the wall, and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Inhaling sharply, he tightened his grip on the phone receiver, and managed, through a great use of will, to keep his voice even. “The kid is one of us. He deserves to know it.”

  “The kid,” she emphasized the word he’d used and Jake muffled a groan. “His name is Eric. And he knows who his father was,” she said quietly. “I’ve told him all about Mac.”

  “Ah, God.” A knot of pain lodged in Jake’s throat and he grimly swallowed it. The swinging door from the living room opened and Sam stepped into the kitchen, his dark gaze locking on Jake. Jake scowled at him and jerked his head at the door, telling his cousin silently to get out. Sam planted his feet and shook his head.

  So Jake ignored him.

  “Donna,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “we just want to talk to him.”

  She was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Jake was almost convinced she’d set the phone down and walked away.

  “I’ll think about it.” One quick sentence, then she hung up.

  A dial tone rang in his ear and Jake ground his back teeth together. Slowly he walked back to the wall phone and hung up the receiver carefully.

  “So,” Sam observed wryly, “that went well.”

  “Butt out.”

  “Yeah, because you’re doing so great.”

  Jake snapped him a look that should have fried him on the spot. Sam was unmoved.

  “Don’t try the black look on me, bud. I’ve known you too long.”

  Jake blew out a frustrated breath and rubbed one hand viciously against the back of his neck. He shrugged and admitted, “She didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “Not a big surprise, is it?” Sam asked, walking past Jake to the refrigerator.

  “Well, yeah,” Jake said, “it is. Why wouldn’t she want to talk to me?”

  Sam opened the fridge, rummaged around inside and kept talking, his voice muffled. “Not just you. I’m thinking any of us would have gotten that reaction. Hell, Jake, she’s been hiding Mac’s son from us for fifteen years. Any big shocker that she’d like to keep on doing it?”

  “Guess not.” He leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed one booted foot over the other. Folding his arms across his chest, he waited for Sam to straighten up and close the fridge with his hip before saying, “But she’s gotta know we’re not going to go along with that. Not now that we know.”

  “Sure she does. Doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.” He held the necks of two beer bottles in each hand. “It’s just going to take some patience. A little finesse.”

  “I can do finesse.”

  Sam snorted. “Right.”

  Frowning, Jake pushed away from the counter and shoved both hands into his jeans pockets. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Sam just stared at him for a long minute, then said, “Fine. We’ll wait for you to screw it up, then we’ll step in.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Sam chuckled. “No offense, Jake, but you never have been long on patience.”

  No point in arguing that, he thought, and said nothing as Sam left the kitchen to rejoin the family in the living room. He’d never been a patient man. He’d gotten a grip on his flash fire temper years ago, but the impatient streak was still there.

  That sense of urgency had served him well on the professional racing circuit. He’d stayed ahead of the pack by pushing the limits, by expecting more from his custom built motorcycles than the other players did. But Sam was right. Impatient wasn’t going to work on Donna.

  He wished he knew what the hell would.

  “Did you hear? Jake Lonergan’s back in town.”

  Donna jolted at the sound of his name, but kept her smile fixed and firm as she met Margie Fontenot’s cool blue gaze. The older woman had lived her entire life in Coleville and her grapevine was always buzzing. Nothing happened in this town that Margie didn’t hear about.

  “I heard.”

  “Not surprised,” Margie said, handing over a DVD copy of her favorite musical. “Town’s talking about nothing else. Imagine those Lonergan boys finally coming home. Jake was the last one to arrive, you know. Saw him myself two days ago, big as life, rolling down Main Street on a motorcycle loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “That sounds like Jake all right,” Donna managed to say despite the huge knot suddenly tightening up in the middle of her throat. She wondered how she’d missed seeing Jake on his motorcycle. And wondered why she was sorry she had.

  Her fingers shook as she picked up the DVD, ran the bar code over the scanner and said, “That’s two dollars even for a five day rental, Margie.”

  “More than fair,” the older woman said, digging into a “pocketbook” as big as a suitcase. She finally came up with a wildly flowered change purse, which she opened to pour out a stream of quarters, nickels and dimes across the counter. “You know,” she continued as she systematically counted out the correct amount of change, “the Lonergan boys were always a wild bunch. Used to tell Jeremiah to draw a tight rein on ’em, but he never could. Just loved watching the four of those boys together.”

  The four.

  A sharp, sweet ache settled in Donna’s chest and her breath caught at the familiarity of the sensation.

  Years ago, there had been four Lonergan cousins, Donna remembered, her memories sweeping over her while Margie Fontenot chattered away. Sam, Cooper, Mac and Jake. Fifteen years ago, she herself had been a part of their exclusive group. Mostly because of Mac. She smiled now, remembering the then sixteen-year-old boy’s easy grin and kind eyes.

  “Of course,” Margie said on a sigh, “after the tragedy, nothing was ever quite the same again.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you know that better than most, don’t you dear?”

  “I guess maybe I do,” Donna agreed vaguely, refusing to give Margie any more gossip than she’d already picked up. The older woman had, more than likely, come into the video rental store only to get more fodder for her grapevine.

  The other ladies in town were probably dying to find out what was going to happen now that Donna had brought her son home. One look at Eric and his paren
tage was no secret. Her son was absolutely the picture of Mac at that age. There could be no doubt who the boy’s father had been.

  He had Lonergan dark eyes and hair and the same quick grin Mac had flashed all the time. He stood like Mac, moved like Jake, had the imagination of Cooper and was as smart as Sam.

  But her son had his mother’s heart.

  And Donna would do whatever she had to do to protect him from pain.

  “Now, honey,” Margie said, stretching out one well-manicured hand to pat Donna. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “I’m not worried, Margie.”

  “That’s good, then. No need, you know. It’s time your boy got to know his family.”

  Donna inhaled slowly, deeply and told herself that the older woman meant well. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You always were a good girl, Donna.”

  Grabbing up her huge purse, Margie clutched her rented movie and swept through the front door. Donna blew out a breath, steadied herself then hustled out from behind the counter. Wandering up and down the aisles, she straightened movie jackets, plucking sci-fi flicks out of romantic comedy and cartoons out of horror.

  Shaking her head, she returned everything to their proper places and tried not to think about what Margie had said. Or, about that phone call from Jake last night. Better if she just concentrated on running the shop her parents had started so long ago. Better if she kept reminding herself that she hadn’t only returned to Coleville because her mom was alone. But because Eric was getting older. Needing a man in his life. Needing…more than she was able to give him.

  Oh, how it stung to admit that.

  Behind her, the front door swung open and the cowbell her father had hung so many years ago jangled a greeting. Donna turned and grinned.

  “Hi, Mom,” Eric shouted, snatching up a candy bar from the display by the cash register.

  “Hey, did you have lunch?” she automatically asked.