upstairs.
Are you on your way? Caitlyn had messaged him almost an hour ago.
He smiled, glad she was as eager to see him as he was to see her. Soon.
He also had a message from Tony, who owned the series of underground sex clubs Owen frequented. This weekend’s passphrase is “Tangerines go well with mangos.” Good for entry at any of my clubs until Monday.
Owen wasn’t sure if he’d take Caitlyn to another club or not, but if they did decide to go, he knew he could get them in.
“I’m ready,” Lindsey said.
She looked so fresh and innocent with her recently scrubbed face and simple ponytail that he stuffed his phone into his pocket as if she’d find it offensive. He knew Lindsey was freaky in the sack from experience, but she looked positively angelic.
“Do you want to take the Jeep or walk?” he asked.
“Walk?”
“It’s about a block. There’s a sidewalk.”
Lindsey blinked at him. “You, Owen Tags Mitchell the rock star, live a block away from your mother?”
“Hey, at least I don’t live with her,” he said. “Anymore.”
She laughed and rocked forward on her toes as she leaned closer to him. “We can walk. I could use the exercise.”
He insisted on carrying her bag as they headed out the back door and down the driveway. As they passed his neighbor’s house, Mrs. Worth stopped watering her geraniums to stare.
“Did you get married, Owen?”
“Uh, no, Mrs. Worth,” he said, feeling the heat of embarrassment rise up his throat and face. Perhaps they should have taken the Jeep after all.
“Does your mom know you’re home?” Mrs. Worth called as they passed the end of her picket fence.
“Not yet. We’re going to see her now.”
“Maybe we should have called first,” Lindsey said.
“And ruin the surprise? My mom loves surprises.”
Lindsey didn’t look convinced.
The houses got increasingly larger as they traveled up the block. They passed what was now the worst house on the block since Owen had fixed up his once-dilapidated home, and he noticed a For Sale sign in the yard. Perhaps a project for the winter, he thought. He could buy it, do the work, and resell it. Or . . .
He glanced down at Lindsey. “What do you think of that house?”
She paused at the end of the overgrown lawn and studied the Tudor-style cottage. The timbers and the once-white stucco between them could use fresh paint, and the brown shingles were curled in spots. They definitely needed to be replaced.
“It needs a lot of work,” she said.
“I like working on houses. My house had squirrels living in it when I bought it.”
“So you’re thinking about buying this dump so you can live even closer to your mother?”
Owen laughed. “Maybe.” Or maybe when Chad got back from Afghanistan he’d like a place of his own. Also near their mom. “My brother might like it.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yep. Three years older. Chad is a soldier. The dog tags I wear are to honor him. He’s been off at war, but he’s coming home soon.” Owen scowled at his words. Such a lame description for such a remarkable man.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering the last conversation he’d had with Chad. “You can’t tell my mom he’ll be home in a few weeks. He wants to surprise her. She loves surprises.”
She grinned at him. “You said that already.”
“It must be true then.”
They crossed at the next corner, and Lindsey gawked at the large kid-friendly park across the street.
“It’s a great neighborhood. Good schools too,” Owen said. “The reason I met Kellen is because they were doing this experiment where they bused in a group of underprivileged kids and tracked their progress in our school district. I think they were trying to figure out if it was the low-income schools or the kids’ home lives that made it so difficult for them to succeed and get ahead.”
“Kellen is poor?” Lindsey asked, tearing her gaze from the perfectly tended park to look at him.
“He isn’t now.”
“And you never were.”
“My parents are average middle-class citizens.”
She shimmied her shoulders. “Who raised a rock star.”
“And a war hero,” Owen reminded her. That was far more important in his book.
At the end of the block, they stopped before a large gray house surrounded by a sturdy wooden fence. Dad said it was to keep kids out of his yard, but it was really there to keep the dogs in the yard.
Hawn, the family’s golden retriever and who-knew-what mix, began to bounce excitedly at the gate, barking a friendly greeting at him.
“I probably should have asked if you like dogs before I brought you here,” Owen said, reaching over the gate to give Hawn a vigorous rub on her furry neck.
“I love dogs,” Lindsey said, holding out her hand for a sniff. It was soon covered in dog spit as Hawn immediately accepted Lindsey as a friend. Of course, Hawn accepted every decent person as a friend.
“Watch the little ones,” Owen said as he opened the gate and ushered Lindsey inside.
As he and Lindsey shuffled carefully up the path, their three-legged Chihuahua, Maxie, and blind-in-one-eye Jack Russell, Toby, raced around and around their feet as Hawn leaped gleefully beside them. An unfamiliar gray kitten was sunning himself on the front porch next to the aging pair of ginger cats named Betsy and Ross.
“Looks like Mom picked up another stray,” Owen said as he stretched out a cautious hand to give the newcomer a scratch behind the ear. The cat yawned and gave the now-sniffing-him Hawn an annoyed look before curling his crooked tail more securely around his body and returning to his nap.
“You have a lot of pets,” Lindsey observed as she bent to give Maxie and Toby the attention they craved. Maxie immediately peed in her excitement, but managed not to wet Lindsey’s sneaker.
“Always have,” Owen said. He was certain his mother would be over the moon to help Lindsey get back on her feet.
He rang the doorbell and waited for Mom to answer. The door was likely unlocked, but he’d once walked in on his parents engaged in a nooner on the foyer floor and would never again surprise them by letting himself into the house. He would also never look at his great-grandmother’s Persian rug quite the same way.
“Owey,” Mom said as she threw open the door and hugged him. “Mrs. Worth just called and said you were on your way.”
“So much for surprises,” Owen said under his breath. Mrs. Worth had babysat him when he’d been in elementary school, and apparently she’d never thought to stop.
“And this is . . .” Mom asked. Her dark blond bob shifted forward to cover one blue eye as she inclined her head in Lindsey’s direction.
“This is Lindsey . . . uh . . . What’s your last name?”
“It had better be Mitchell,” Mom said, giving him a stern stare that made him feel about three inches high.
Lindsey flushed, and Owen was pretty sure he needed to throw up. “Uh, well, no . . . It’s, uh . . .” Damn, he should have called first. Or come up with a feasible story before he delivered a pregnant groupie to his mother’s doorstep. Especially since he had no clue what Lindsey’s last name was.
“Donaldson,” Lindsey supplied. “I should be going now.”
She turned to escape—and abandon him to his mother’s death stare—but Owen caught her arm before she could take a single step.
“I, uh, found her. Uh . . . at the arena in Houston.” That was sort of true. Well, more like Lindsey had found him. “She doesn’t have any place to go. She got fired, thrown out of her place. Her car broke down. She has no money, no family willing to help her, so I thought . . .” What had he thought? That his mom would just open her home and her heart to a perfect stranger? “Maybe you . . .” He tipped his head toward his mom, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I could help her out. But I don’t know where to start.”
“First you start by claiming your baby,” Mom said.
“Oh, it’s not his,” Lindsey said, pulling at the hem of her shirt with both hands. “Maybe.”
“Hi, Owen!” someone called from the sidewalk outside the fence.
He waved at whoever it was and squeezed his mother’s arm. “Can we talk about this inside?” There were plenty of good things about knowing all of your neighbors since birth and plenty of bad things too. “Please?”
“Of course,” Mom said, meeting Lindsey’s troubled gaze. “Please come inside, Lindsey.”
Lindsey gave Owen a questioning look and when he nodded, she stepped over the threshold.
“Wow, Mrs. Mitchell, what a beautiful rug!” Lindsey said.
“It was my grandmother’s,” Mom said.
Owen cringed and made sure he stayed on the hardwood showing around its borders.
“You have a lovely home,” Lindsey said. “And you raised a very thoughtful son.”
“Why, thank you,” Mom said with a sweet smile. Her frostiness was already melting, not that Owen was surprised. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?” She moved her mouth closer to Lindsey’s ear and asked quietly, “Have to use the bathroom?”
Lindsey laughed. “Actually . . .”
“It’s like they’re standing directly on your bladder, isn’t it?” Mom whispered. She pointed Lindsey toward the powder room.
As soon as Lindsey had shut the bathroom door behind her, his mom whirled on him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be a father?” she hissed.
“I—”
“If you’re going to fool around, I thought you at least had the good sense to be safe.”
Even though he was a grown-ass man, it still bothered him when he disappointed his mother. “Mom, it’s not mine.” He also agonized about lying to her. It probably was his baby.
“Then why did you bring her here?”
“I told you—she didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“That’s really the reason? The only reason?” She gave him that look, the one that made it psychologically impossible to lie to her.
“It might be mine,” he admitted in a rush of breath. He immediately wanted to stab himself.
“Might?”
“She, uh . . . We, uh . . . The band, we . . .”
“Used your fame to take advantage of an innocent young woman.”
Innocent? Yeah, Lindsey looked innocent, but she was far from virginal. Or even monogamous.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” Mom pressed. “Do you love her?”
“No.”
“Do you even like her?”
“I don’t hate her,” he said.
Mom’s eyebrows shot up, and she shook her head. “Wow, Owen, really?”
“It was a mistake to bring her here,” he said, recognizing that Mom wasn’t having any of his nonsense. “I’ll figure out other arrangements for her.”
Lindsey cracked the door open. He wondered how much she’d overheard. They’d been conversing in harsh whispers, but the powder room wasn’t exactly soundproof.
Mom turned and smiled kindly at Lindsey. “Feel better?” she asked.
Lindsey had that terrified, hopeless expression on her face that had convinced Owen to bring her home with him in the first place.
Mom put an arm around Lindsey’s slight shoulders and urged her toward the cozy living room off the foyer. Apparently he wasn’t the only Mitchell on the planet affected by that look.
“Let’s talk.”
Lindsey was pressed into a patterned wingback chair, and Mom sat on the sofa across from her. Owen stood behind the sofa, behind his mom’s back, just in case he had to lead the direction of Lindsey’s answers with telepathic looks and/or had to run for his life if scary-mom made an appearance. No one was safe from scary-mom.
“When are you due, dear?” Mom asked.
Lindsey glanced up at Owen before settling her gaze on his mother’s. “In about three months, I think.”
“You think? Do you have a specific due date?”
She looked at Owen again. “September fifteenth.”
“So we have a little time to get your life together before the baby arrives,” Mom said. “Don’t look so upset. Everything will be okay.”
Oh sure, Mom comforted the stranger and made her own son feel like total shit.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
The tiniest of smiles curved Lindsey’s lips. “I think it’s a boy.”
“They couldn’t tell for sure in the ultrasound?”
Lindsey ducked her head. “I haven’t had one.”
“Why not?”
Lindsey’s ponytail shifted to cover her face, and she coiled her hair around one finger. “I haven’t had . . . time to go to the doctor.”
He was pretty sure she hadn’t had the resources to go. Or maybe she’d been too ashamed. Owen circled the sofa and sat next to his mother, who reached over and squeezed his knee.
“I know a great ob/gyn,” Mom said to Lindsey. “We’ll get you an appointment this week. Have you been taking prenatal vitamins?”
“I bought some at the store.” She looked up and met Mom’s eyes. “Mrs. Mitchell, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t afford to go to the doctor.”
“So you’re going to give birth in a public restroom?” Mom lifted both eyebrows at her. “Is that your plan?”
Lindsey cradled her belly in her arms. “I thought I could go to the ER and . . . not pay the bill. They can’t turn you away, can they?”
“What? That’s nonsense,” Owen said. “I’ll pay for everything.”
Lindsey straightened and shook her head. “You can’t.”
“I have plenty of money, Lindsey. It’s not a big deal.”
“I can’t. I can’t just take a handout from you or, as Nessi suggested, from the welfare office or from anyone.”
“If you won’t take my money, then think of it as a loan,” Owen said.
“Owen!” Mom chastised. “You aren’t going to make her pay you back.”
He didn’t care if she did or not, but if he was reading Lindsey correctly, she might actually go to the doctor if she thought of his monetary assistance as a loan instead of a handout.
“I want to pay him back.”
The relieved look on her face was payment enough for him. All the stress she’d been under couldn’t be good for her or the baby.
“We’ll get you some health insurance,” Mom said. “And you can stay here with me and James until you find your own place.”
There was the woman Owen knew his mother to be.
“I couldn’t,” Lindsey said.
“You will.”
“Could she use the apartment?” Owen asked hopefully.
Mom glanced at Owen. “Yes. Perfect.” Her attention shifted back to Lindsey. “We rent a room above our garage to college students during the school year, but it’s vacant until late August. You are more than welcome to stay there.”
“How much is the rent?” Lindsey asked.