Faith (Rescue Me, A Contemporary Romance) (3 page)

“Hey Liam,” she said. “Why don’t you let me tell dad what happened tonight, okay. Maybe it would be better if you just headed to your room. How about you start your homework, okay?”

“Yeah mom, okay.” Liam was no dummy. He knew his mom was trying to protect him from his dad’s Irish temper. He wasn’t abusive or anything – and there was plenty of that type of parenting in Alaska, he saw it all the time with other kids at school – but he could get a little gruff. It was especially disarming because he was usually a big teddy bear. Always joking around and laughing.

All his friends agreed that Mac was the favorite dad of their crowd, and Liam was proud of his big, tough dad and his delicate, pretty mother; but, he knew enough to stay out of his dad’s way when necessary. Right now it looked pretty necessary. He didn’t have to be told twice to go to his room and start his homework. Let his mom work her magic on his dad before he made an appearance.

Sliding out of the car after it pulled into the bright light of the garage, Liam grabbed his book bag from the back seat and scooted past the big form of his father standing in the doorway with a quick, “hi dad.”

“Not so fast there laddie,” Mac grabbed the back of his shirt with one big hand and held him there while Liam squirmed and looked to his mother for assistance. “Where have the two of you been? I’ve been right out of my head with worry.” His Irish brogue always got thicker when he was tired or overly emotional.

“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 su
re 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.