And tonight, she discovered about an hour later, was becoming one of those battles.
Johnny wanted to stay up late to play a computer game, and Marco refused to go to bed and was holed up in his room, hiding in the corner of his closet, rejecting her requests to come out even when she relented and offered him the gelato he’d asked for earlier.
“Please come out,” she pleaded, standing by the closet door, knowing she could wrestle him out of the small space, but she didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was.
Yeah...an uphill battle just about covered it.
“No,” he wailed. “You don’t care what happens to me.”
Nicola hung on to patience and remained by the door. “Of course I do. Please, Marco...it’s nearly bedtime. You have to get up for school in the morning.”
“I’m not going back to that stupid school!”
She sucked in a long breath. “Marco, please—”
“Everyone’s hates me. And my hand hurts,” he wailed. “No one is nice to me. Not you. Not Johnny. No one except that doctor.”
Except that doctor.
Nicola’s breath stilled in her chest. Kieran. She tried to ignore the way her pulse started to beat wildly. “Well, he’s not here. He’s at the hospital, and you don’t need to be there now. But I’m here, and I’d really like to talk to you. So, can you come out, and we’ll have some gelato and spend some time together...okay?”
Silence. The deafening kind. She heard movement and thought she’d made progress when he spoke again. “You could call him. Doctors come to people’s houses, too.”
Nicola hung on to her patience and took a deep breath. “I can’t do that.”
She heard him huff. “You never do anything I want. Only what Johnny wants.”
The pain in his voice was unmistakable. The boys had once been close, but over the past few months she’d seen the divide between them become wider.
The guilt landed squarely on her shoulders. She was a lousy parent. And she clearly needed help.
Nicola left the room and headed downstairs. She got to the living room and discovered the overhead light bulb had blown. Great...that’s all I need. She loathed heights and had no intention of bothering her neighbor for a ladder, even though she was sure the elderly man would help if she asked. Besides, her independent streak made her resist asking anyone for assistance. But as she got to the kitchen, filled the kettle and sat down at the table, Nicola admitted that she did need help. Right now.
A minute later she was calling the hospital, feeling foolish through to her bones. He’d probably left for the night, and she hoped he had. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to ask for his help. But within seconds she was connected to the ER, and a moment later she heard his deep voice.
“O’Sullivan,” he said as a greeting.
She clenched the phone and sucked in a sharp breath. “Kieran...”
Silence stretched like brittle elastic, and then he spoke again. “Nicola? Is that you?”
She was shocked that he’d recognized her voice. “I... I...”
“Is everything okay?”
Her belly did a foolish loop-the-loop at the concern in his voice, and then words just blurted out. “Kieran... I need you.”
Twenty minutes later Kieran was pulling up outside a two-story home on Grove Street.
I need you...
It had been fifteen years since he’d heard Nicola say anything so provocative.
He glanced at the address scribbled on a crumpled note on the passenger seat and saw that he had the right place. It was ironic that she lived only a couple of streets from the apartment he’d rented. The large Victorian he’d moved into five days earlier had been divided into several apartments, and his was on the second floor. His sister-in-law, Kayla, had been the previous tenant so it had been an easy sublet, taking over the payments and dealing with the landlord. And he liked the place well enough. There was one bedroom, a combined kitchen and dining room, and a spacious living room—plenty of room for the few boxes and sparse assortment of furniture he’d brought with him from Sioux Falls.
He got out, locked the Jeep and headed for the house. The porch light flicked on the moment he closed the white picket gate, and within seconds the front door opened. Once he was up the three steps and on the porch, Nicola was there, holding the screen door open and inviting him inside.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quickly as he crossed the threshold and she closed the door. “I know it’s late and you’ve been working and I shouldn’t have called but he was asking for you and I didn’t—”
“Nicola,” he said, cutting her off as he followed her down the hall. “Slow down, you’re rambling.”
She stopped and turned to face him. God, she was beautiful. His blood suddenly rumbled in his veins, and an old attraction spectacularly resurfaced, knocking him out. And in that moment he realized nothing had changed. He was still as attracted to Nicola as he’d always been.
But he would never let her know it. There was no point. They were ancient history, and he was in no condition to get involved with anyone. Particularly a woman who clearly hated the sight of him.
“Rambling?” she echoed, glaring at him.
He nodded, biting back a grin. “Yeah...rambling. Take a breath and calm down.”
“I am calm,” she shot back. “I’ve just had a crappy day. We’ll have to go to the kitchen as the light bulb in the living room has blown.”
He glanced into the darkened room as they passed. “Want me to fix it?”
“No,” she said and kept walking.
“So, what seems to be the problem?”
“I can’t get Marco out of the closet,” she said and then quickly explained how the boy liked to hide there. “And when he asked to see you, I just... I couldn’t think of anything else to do except call. He doesn’t generally take to strangers...which is good, I suppose. But he seemed to connect with you at the hospital, and all I could do was what he asked. Right now, I simply want him to come out of the closet and get some sleep. Plus, he said his hand hurts.”
“He’s got a few stitches, so that’s not unusual,” Kieran said, realizing she was clearly frazzled and holding on by a thread. “I’ll talk to him in a minute, but perhaps you should fill me in on what’s been going on with him lately.”
She nodded. “Sure.”
Kieran followed her up the hall. “Where’s your other nephew?”
“Bed. Johnny fights to stay up and play video games and then ends up flaked out on the floor in his room,” she said as they entered the kitchen. “He’s willful and defiant and doesn’t do anything I say. Unlike Marco, who is usually a people pleaser and hates getting into trouble. But tonight... I think he’s simply overwhelmed by his injury and after what happened at school...” She sighed and her voice trailed off. “It’s been one of those days.”
“What happened at school?” he asked, standing on the other side of the island. watching as she began pouring coffee into two mugs.
“He got bullied today,” she explained quietly. “And then he got upset, and some of his classmates saw, and then he withdrew like he sometimes does and wouldn’t talk to his teacher. It’s happened before. I left the restaurant, picked him up early and brought him home. But he still wouldn’t talk