Worth Fighting For. Molly O'Keefe

of manure. A smile—or was it a sneer—tugged at the corner of his mouth. She couldn’t really be sure without seeing his eyes. He pulled his keys from his pocket and scanned the lawn behind her, utterly ignoring her hand.

      “Tell my mom to call me on my cell,” he said and turned to his Jeep.

      Wow, she thought, stunned by the audacity of his rudeness. In her world no one treated anyone the way this man had the balls to treat her.

      She gritted her teeth.

      “Jonah.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm, just below the sleeve of his T-shirt and the spark between his sunwarmed flesh and her rough hand shocked both of them. She jerked her hand back and shook it, uncomfortable by the contact and the spark that zinged through her whole body.

      Women like her didn’t know anything about men like him.

      “Your family—” She tried again, distracted by the tingle in her arm.

      He ripped off his sunglasses and waves of anger poured from him as if it had been contained by those expensive shades. For the second time in the mere moments she’d been in his presence she fought for a big breath. This man wasn’t rude, he was mad. And he was barely in control.

      His whole body radiated fury.

      “Don’t call them that,” he said, his voice a burning purr. His face might as well have been made of stone. “They’re not family.”

      “Then why are you here?” she blurted, stunned. “If you feel that way—”

      He made a dismissive gesture, his lips thin and white. Conversation, his vibe screamed, over.

      Now she was getting a little mad.

      “Look, I just wanted to apologize about the Dirty Developer thing—”

      “Are you trying to piss me off?”

      “No,” she clarified. “I’m trying to apologize.”

      “Well, how about you start by not calling me that?”

      If he hadn’t used that tone with her, maybe she could have kept her mouth shut. “I didn’t,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “The New York Times did. If you don’t like the title, maybe you should rethink your business practices.”

      Not a very good apology. She could see that. Now. Now that he was angry all over again and she was a little peeved herself.

      “Athens Organics?” he asked, tilting his head, his blue eyes sharp, as if he could see right through her, past her pink chambray shirt and the T-shirt bra with the fraying strap, down to her bones, her DNA. And he judged all of it, all of her, as somehow beneath him.

      “Let me guess, you grow a few tomatoes?” he asked.

      “Sell them on the roadside?”

      “Athens Organics is a thirty-acre, environmentally sound organic farm.”

      “You grow a lot of tomatoes,” he said, but it wasn’t a compliment. This man, in his fancy clothes and his bad attitude, understood one thing. Money.

      And she only worked for one reason: to be able to look herself in the mirror and smile every day. To be able to pass on the best possible earth to her daughter.

      She took a deep breath. “I employ thirty people and give them a fair wage. I support my daughter and myself and I am proud of what I do. I haven’t sold myself, or this planet, to do it.” She studied him. “How about you?” she asked. “Are you proud of what you do?”

      He didn’t answer, not that she expected him to. He simply stood there, staring at her until, because she was who she was, her righteous temper flickered and died and she suddenly felt the need to apologize again. As if she’d done something wrong.

      She opened her mouth, mustering up the energy for one more sorry to this loathsome man.

      “Yes,” he told her. “I am.”

      Her mouth hung open, stunned. Building homes on dirty, poisoned land. He was proud of that?

      “Your father is going to be so disappointed in you,” she whispered. He stepped toward her so fast she almost fell back. She almost put up her hand, not to ward him off, but to push back. The man was too much. Too angry. Too resentful.

      “I have no father,” he said, each word like a bullet from a gun.

      “Son?” Patrick Mitchell, as if summoned, appeared on the other side of the Jeep. He wiped his hand across his large chest, like a nervous boy. His heart was all too visible in his watery blue eyes.

      Eyes that were, she realized, just like Jonah’s.

      No, she wanted to cry. No, Patrick, don’t put your hopes on this man. Don’t let him hurt you, because he will.

      She knew it in her bones.

      This man hurt everyone.

      “JONAH?” Patrick asked again, waiting for the big man to turn away from Daphne. The air crackled between her and the stranger with Iris’s jawline and hair color, who could only be his youngest son. Patrick could tell she was upset but he was too at loose ends to try to determine what had happened.

      Christ, he couldn’t even figure out what to do with his hands. His heart was thundering in his chest and all he wanted to do was pull that man, that boy he never got to know into his arms and hold him as tight as he could.

      My son, his whole body cried. That’s my son.

      Daphne stepped away from Jonah, keeping her eyes on him as though he were a snake that might strike. Crossing in front of the Jeep, she stepped up to Patrick and wrapped her sturdy arms around him. He watched Jonah’s stiff back sag momentarily.

      What is happening here? Patrick wondered.

      “You’re a good man,” Daphne whispered in his ear. Stunned, he tried to tilt his head, to push away slightly so he could see her face, but she held on tight. “The very best. I would have killed for a father like you.” She kissed his cheek, patted his chest and walked away.

      Sparing one sharp glance over her shoulder at Jonah.

      Odd, Patrick thought, curious about what had gotten into their practical fruit and vegetable supplier.

      He looked at Jonah to find the young man watching him. Staring at him across five feet and thirty-plus years. Jonah wore his sunglasses and Patrick longed to tell him to take them off. To let him see his eyes. They were blue, Iris had said, like Patrick’s own.

      “Hi,” Patrick finally said into the tense silence between them. Jonah nodded, a regal tilt to his head and Patrick felt more unsure than he had the morning after his wife had walked away, leaving him with two young boys to care for.

      The speeches he’d prepared and discarded over the past few months couldn’t be resurrected. He didn’t remember anything he’d thought would be so prudent to say. All those things that would explain the past thirty years without casting blame or judging. All the words he’d hoped would bridge the gap between them vanished. His brain was empty.

      What should I say? he wondered, jamming his hands in his pockets. What am I supposed to do with my hands? Why doesn’t Jonah say something? Why doesn’t he take off those damn glasses?

      Jonah just stood there.

      “I’m glad you’re here,” Patrick said. It was a ridiculous understatement. A mere patch on what he truly felt, as if his life, missing something for so long, was finally going to come together. And this boy, his boy, this strong, handsome and angry man was the key to it all.

      But Jonah stared at him as though Patrick were speaking French and he didn’t understand the language.

      “Son—”

      “Where’s my mother?” Jonah asked, his voice flat.

      “She