Chapter Six

“Of course she will.” Will was watching his son closely. “Is that a problem?”

“I –” Nick swallowed hard. “No. Yes. Well… no.”

“Which is it? Yes or no?”

“I – I don’t know. Neither. Both.” He shut his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Uh-huh.” Will Spencer leaned back in his chair, regarded his only child. “Some advice about Mia, Nick?”

Stunned, Nick gazed at his father. The man had never – not once in recent memory – offered Nick any advice about his personal life. His education, sure. His professional martial arts career, for damn sure. How to run his business? Will had been a geyser of information and advice, most of it as annoying as hell, though also usually bang-on correct.

But women? No, that was strictly a no-go topic of conversation between them, and Nick was cool with that. Even after his girlfriend Shelley had been killed and Nick had gone off the deep end with one-night-stands, his Dad had stayed out of it. So his father wanting to say anything about Mia was shocking to the point of being damn near electrocuted while standing chest-deep in water.

“Uh,” Nick stammered. “OK.”

Will paused, then he said in a low voice, “Did you know that I almost lost your Mom just over ten years ago?”

“Lost her?” Since actually sitting up was out of the question, Nick shifted on the bed, trying to turn to face his Dad better. “Lost her how?”

“I was – going through something. Something painful and personal, and I pushed her away. Didn’t talk to her. Hell, I didn’t tell her what was going on at all.” Will sighed heavily. “I thought that I was sparing her pain and worry, but all I was doing was keeping her in the dark. She noticed that I was holding out on her, you see, and she started asking me what was going on with me. I lied and said nothing, and I just carried on trying to handle it all alone. But she

knew. She knew that I was hiding something, and all she could do was just stand there helpless as I pulled farther back in on myself, and left her all alone.”

“Yeah,” Nick muttered. He knew a thing or two about this scenario. “So what happened?”

“She left me.”

“She – what?” Now Nick did sit up, at least as far as his elbows. “Mom left you?”

“Yeah. Packed a bag, rented a studio apartment, moved out of the house.”

“How the hell did I not know anything about this?”

“Because you were still reeling from Shelley,” Will said. “We thought that you were… in bad shape. We didn’t want to add to the shit that you had to deal with. We kept it between us.”

“And what happened? I mean, clearly you worked it all out. But how?”

“I opened my mouth and talked to her,” Will said simply. “Told her what was going on.”

“What was going on?”

Will paused, hesitated. His son was just out of surgery for something major – physically and psychologically and most certainly emotionally – and he wasn’t sure about upsetting him more. Then again, this was important, and the clock was ticking down. He was sure that Mia was barreling through the hospital that very second, intent on getting to Nick.

“I’d been diagnosed with cancer,” Will said reluctantly. “Skin cancer.”

“You what?” Now Nick’s voice was a shout. “Dad…”

“It’s OK,” Will soothed him. “I’m OK.”

“Yeah, obviously. But back then?”

“Most definitely not OK. I was scared out of my mind, I swear it, and I was going for doctor’s appointments, and specialists visits, and tests, and I just – I hid it all from your Mom.” He sighed. “She thought I was having an affair.”

Nick flashed back to Mia asking him if he was pulling away because he wanted to break up with her, and his heart cracked almost in two. Fuck, what a man could put a woman through… most especially a woman that he loved. Yeah, both he and his Dad had been trying to protect their women, but had really only succeeded in hurting them deeply.

“Anyway.” Will cleared his throat. “I almost lost her for good. She forgave me for being a secretive, lying asshole, and thank Christ, because I’d be a wreck without her.”

Nick raised his eyebrows at that. His father was one of the least demonstrative men that he’d ever known, and the thought that he’d have been destroyed if he’d lost Marnie was inconceivable.

Will caught the look, interpreted it perfectly. “I know I don’t say two words about how I feel, Nick. I’m a silent and unemotional bastard, just like my Dad taught me to be… and now I’m afraid that I’ve raised you to be the same way. Pulling back and shutting down, downplaying how you feel, running from emotional things instead of tackling them head-on. I almost paid the price for being that way, and I think that you did too.”

“Yeah,” Nick said quietly. “Twice. The first time was when I realized that I loved her, and then freaked out about it. Took off to the bar and kissed another woman, and Mia caught us. She was kidnapped that same night and beaten badly. I thought – I thought she’d been killed. The second time that I almost lost her was when Mia damn near got on a plane to Thailand for four months for work. Had the ticket in her living room and everything. She thought that I wouldn’t even care that she’d gone, but it would have fucking wrecked me, Dad. I mean completely.”