HeartStrings

by Savannah Kade

  She was still mad that he'd taken away her chance to save her boys herself, but she was also grateful that he was doing it in a way far better than she could. Even if she worked her ass off, it would be three more years of visits and bad weekends before she could get that lawyer. Three more years at the least of waiting for fathers who didn't show up and didn't know how to show love, if they were even capable of feeling it.

  She had her pride. And it meant nothing when it came to her boys.

  She made a decision then. Her money was there for all the extras. She no longer needed to worry about the cost of this DNA test or that investigator. She could afford those things now. It meant she could do this right. Parker Wilcox didn't doubt that he could get Jason and Brian's part of the joint custody taken away. He thought he might even get visitations reduced or removed all together.

  As soon as she got home she was going to ask Wilcox how to go about getting a DNA test between her son and Jason that would stand up in court.

  Shay started to take a deep breath in.

  Then she cried again. There were so many things she hated about her old life. One constant had been that she chose men who expected her to fail. They told her what she couldn't do, what she couldn't accomplish. When she did fail, they said it was inevitable. When she tried, they told her not to, that she didn't have it in her to do great things, or even normal things. She was stupid, or wrong, or . . . always something.

  Getting into that over and over was her own fault. Sure her mother had drilled it into both her daughters that nothing much was expected of them. Mom still waved her hand—the free one, the one not holding some beer or other—and dismissed Zoe's degree. Why she didn't marry was beyond mom. Mom even held Shay up as the good one. Look at Shay, getting married, having kids! As though Shay was an example of anything other than what not to do.

  Putting herself into that same situation over and over was her own fault. Living with men who told her she wasn't good enough and that she was going to fail was a shadow she'd finally crawled out from under. But treating Craig that way? That was actually failing.

  He was right to call her on it.

  She felt like shit about it and she wasn't sure how she was going to make it up to him. She needed to, though. And not the way she'd tried. Or like it had looked like she'd tried.

  He was probably right about the other thing, too.

  She was over halfway home, driving through the familiar territory of Knoxville, when she finally let herself think about it. When he'd told her she didn't owe him anything, that he was giving the money to the boys, she'd thanked him.

  He'd calmed down pretty quick, which impressed her. He'd been very angry. Her past experience with angry men wasn't good. But he didn't say anything more about it. He'd only sat there on the floor, stroking a happy little puppy's head and alternating when the other got jealous. Then he asked her a question. "Did you come to Nashville just for this?"

  She nodded.

  "In the middle of the night?"

  Shay had nodded again, then tried to explain. "Zoe, my sister, is home with the boys. And I was so confused by the whole thing. So mad." She shrugged at him as though not being able to really explain was an explanation in itself. When he waited, she tried to find words. "In the past, when men have given me something, it's always called in later. You know how people always say that women hold onto things and bring up old problems in a fight?" She waited until he nodded. "Well, men always did that to me. Something they gave me—some help, some favor, some service—would get called in. Even if I didn't ask for or didn't need what was given. I was expected to pay for it. Just whenever they wanted something from me."

  Tipping her head to one side as though to minimize it, as though to spill away all the old hurts, she stared at him, hoping he'd understand.

  "I won't do that."

  Suddenly, she'd believed him. Even that first night, he'd made sure she was sober before he asked her to his room. When she said she had to go the next morning, he told her he wished she would stay but took her at her word.

  Somehow, it had escaped her notice that Craig had never once thought she didn't know what she wanted or needed. He never doubted what she said. He never cataloged what he'd done for her or suggested that she owed him anything for any of it. Even the thousands of dollars in legal fees he'd ponied up for her boys. He wasn't keeping score.

  The only other people in her life who didn't keep score were her boys—which Shay admitted didn't really count—and Zoe. Even her mother had often thrown it in her daughters’ faces what she'd given up to have them, how she'd done X or Y and how the girls owed her. Shay had been fighting that all along.

  She'd been sitting there, on his chair when she recognized that, watching him hold those dogs. His hands had scratched them under their chins, rubbed their heads until the tiny creatures practically purred. And it hit her, she knew what it felt like to have those hands on her.

  When the small dogs whined in concert and ran for the back door, he calmly stood and clipped leashes onto their collars. The leashes were big, thick ropes and looked ridiculous holding back a tiny dog that probably needed yarn at the most as a leash. He clearly expected them to get larger.

  Without looking back at her, Craig had disappeared out his back door, leaving her to sit there with her realizations. For Shay, what she'd just figured out was stunning.

  She'd found a decent man.

  She looked around the house without him in it, seeing the old couches that looked like they'd been picked up at a yard sale. The kitchen had pots and pans, but not a nice set—these were mismatched pieces that he clearly used. Only the TV and sound system reflected the money he was making.

  It occurred to her that this was a man who was not only decent, but one who understood her. He'd come from a place that didn't buy for show, but for need. He didn't throw things away because they weren't pretty anymore. Despite his on stage persona, he didn't need the flash and excess of fame.

  He'd grown up in foster care. He didn't want a house. He wanted a home.

  Shay didn't have a house, but she finally had a home.

  Only her home was six hours away. Until the court cases with the boys were resolved, she couldn't move. She was legally bound to stay within a certain distance of the boys' fathers and couldn't leave that area for more than seven days without permission from men who couldn't even show up on time for what little time they had with their sons. Sometimes they didn't show up at all—and she was left holding the bag, trying to explain to her sons why the man who was supposed to love them didn't do a decent job of it.

  Since she'd started the court case, she'd started reading up on it. No more library romance novels before bed. Now she was learning about what to do, how to dress for court, what was normal for divorced parents. Not that there was anything normal about her case, but she needed to know what she could push for and what she couldn't. What she'd found was a treasure trove of "me, too." It seemed most divorced mothers with bad or barely passable fathers went through a lot of the same troubles she had. In fact, her case seemed better because her boys didn't spend their time crying over their dads. Shay simply created back-up plans, and if dad didn't show, she was ready with something else. Her boys seemed just as happy if their fathers didn't come.

  The lawyer told her that would play well in court.

  For a moment, a spark of hope took hold deep inside her chest. Parker Wilcox told her she could expect to be free of the men in her life. Hopefully soon. And there stood a man, just beyond the glass of the sliding doors, carefully helping two small puppies navigate the grass wet from the day's rain. He didn't get frustrated when they tangled their leashes. He was patient when they played, even though they'd seemed to need the services of the grass, and he gently tugged them back in the right direction, never yelling, never angry, when they didn't pay attention.

  Her heart turned over.

  She watched as he scooped them up and fumbled with the door handle, a squirming puppy under ea
ch arm. Jumping up, Shay slid the door back, and he passed by, not speaking. But he moved the air around him and stirred her, too. She smelled him as he came so close. Then he was down the hall, but the memory of him lingered, mixing with older memories she had of him. She'd tucked them all away, savoring every last one each time she pulled it out. Now they all washed over her, moving her toward the hall and the sounds of tiny puppies protesting being put down for bed.

  She understood that. So she waited at the entrance to the hall, not wanting to interfere with whatever routine he had, and wondering why his competence at it turned her on so much. When he came out from his room, pulling the door shut on the whimpering behind him, he looked at her. His eyes met hers straight on and he looked tired. Sad. Maybe a little beaten down by the night.

  That was her fault, she thought.

  So when he said, "It's almost four in the morning," she whispered back, "It is almost four in the morning," and closed the distance between them. On tiptoes, her lips met his with the slow lightning that permeated her whole body each time she kissed him.

  He almost responded, and she tried again, reaching her hands up to his shoulders, pulling him a little closer, pressing her mouth to his a little more firmly.

  This time he began to kiss her back. His mouth moved softly over hers, his tongue darting out against her lips, hers answering back.

  Shay sighed as her fingers threaded into his hair, holding him there for her to explore as she wished. Her feet stretched, trying to reach his height, to make the most of it, and she found herself pressed full-length against him. When she bounced up further on her toes, her whole body moved against his, eliciting a soft moan as he moved them just a few inches to the right to press her back to the wall.

  Craig leaned into her, his hands at her ribs, clenching as though his fingers twitched on their own, as though he was holding her there lest she get away. He kissed her while his hands then skimmed the sides of her breasts, crept over her shoulders and planted on the wall on either side of her head.

  He pushed back from the wall so smoothly, it took her a moment to realize it wasn't a move.

  Craig closed his mouth and looked at hers. The deep breath he took turned her insides cold. His words turned her colder.

  "I can't do this."

  "What?"

  "With you, Shay. I can't be with you anymore." This time his hands left the walls, tucking themselves into his back pockets as he turned away.

  "What?" She asked again as though she couldn't remember any other words.

  When he turned back, his eyes were sadder than they'd been before she kissed him. "You're going to leave again. I can't do this just so you can walk out the door."

  When she opened her mouth, it was his voice that sounded.

  "You'll go back to your boys. You'll say you can't bring men around them. They're your first priority." He closed his eyes. "And you're right. But I can't be your backup player anymore."

  "I—" it was all she got out.

  "You should go." He walked toward his front door, opening it to the pre-dawn blackness outside. Then he said the worst thing. "You don't owe me anything."

  Turning, she stared at him. He thought she was paying him? But she was too slow, too numb, and when he gestured her out the door, her feet moved. She wandered into the dark of his front yard, fumbling for her keys as she heard him click the lock behind her, the bolt sliding heavily into place as though she might try to break back in and break his heart.

  Instead hers cracked.

  She'd been awake for over twenty-four hours. She was exhausted, but she had to get home to her boys. To Zoe, who didn't keep score. To her bed. So when the sky opened up and rained on her, it only seemed appropriate that it was crying with her.

  Chapter 23

  Craig watched as three sets of small feet scampered past the dining room table. Each of the kids had put their dishes in the sink—with great noise and little care, but it seemed enough for Kelsey and JD—then ran past on their way to play in the back room where he'd parked the puppies in their crate.

  He watched them go, thinking for the first time how little they'd been when he first met them. Allie only three. She still popped like popcorn, and Kelsey said it had never been about her age, she was just always energetic. They had all grown. Daniel was nine now, able to talk to adults, and clearly in charge of the small trio.

  Beside Craig, Ari squirmed to get down from her high chair.

  The only one still at the table—Kelsey and JD having disappeared into the kitchen for a moment to clean up—Craig reached out and undid the tray from Ari's seat. There was a buckle, too, and he unclipped it, sliding his hands under her chubby little arms.

  "Wait." He told her, and set her bare feet on the floor before he wiped at her smeared face. Then he told her, "Go!" and she scampered off to join her brother and sisters. She still had the bow-legged run of a kid in diapers and he watched her padded butt disappear around the corner into the hallway before he yelled out to Kelsey, "I just set Ari free. Do I need to follow her?"

  Kelsey reappeared from the kitchen, her rounded belly preceding her. Craig knew she was barely halfway there, but the whole process didn't seem to bother her. "Did she head in with the other kids?"

  Craig nodded.

  "Then she'll be fine." Kelsey hollered back over her shoulder, "You okay in there, honey?"

  JD yelled back. "I've got it. You sit!" and she smiled softly, her expression a clear indicator of the simple but strong love the two seemed to have for each other.

  Craig fought a flash of jealousy. He'd lived in houses like this, but he'd never been part of that circle. Sometimes it hurt more to watch. "Thank you for dinner, but—"

  She put her hand out, covering his and effectively stopping him from getting up from the table, unless he wanted to be flat-out rude—which he could never be to Kelsey.

  "How was your trip?" She asked, her voice not loud but not low. She seemed to sense his need to talk and also his need to not be overheard.

  He nodded, thinking. "Better than I thought it would be. Things worked out well."

  "The plane didn't go down." She grinned at him, and it took a moment for him to remember that was the excuse he'd given her for getting all his affairs in order before he left. So he nodded.

  "It was actually a pretty easy flight."

  She wasn't done with him. "You seemed lighter when you came back. You got your business taken care of?"

  He nodded again, thinking that if TJ had made it to the weekly 'family' dinner, this wouldn't be happening. In fact, Kelsey hadn't asked about it last week. She'd probably been waiting for this, knowing sooner or later, TJ would call in and say he couldn't make it. There was usually a hangover or a woman involved. Sometimes both.

  Kelsey's voice was too soothing for the knock of her words. "So why do you look upset again? You were so much . . . I don't know the word, happier, I guess, last week. And now you're down again."

  "Lost some sleep last night." He offered. He'd actually lost a lot of it, never having gotten back to sleep after he showed Shay out the door. He second guessed that decision enough times to stay awake for hours. Then the sun was up and he was certain Shay was already back in Bristol.

  Kelsey raised her eyebrow at him. Even though what he'd said was true, she had a phenomenal bullshit meter and never hesitated to call people on it.

  Without his permission the words fell out of his mouth. "Shay came by around three a.m."

  Her eyebrows rose even higher now, surprise across all her features. "All the way from Bristol?”

  Kelsey was the only one who knew the real story of Shay, and even she didn't know all of it. She just had a way of cornering him and getting him to talk. For the first handful of months he'd known her, he'd managed to keep a distance, but then she'd helped them get their first record contract and she'd hugged him. He'd hugged her back.

  She didn't know it, but that had been the first time anyone had hugged him without an agenda. She'd done it ag
ain. Casually reaching a hand to his shoulder sometimes. A smile of understanding here. A cupcake there. And he couldn't keep anything from her.

  Kelsey may have seemed like the all-American wife, but she had a background almost as fucked-up as his. Her old family history included alcoholism, sometimes violent mental illness, suicide, raising a kid that wasn't hers and more. Maybe that was why she was easy to talk to. He didn't—couldn't—truly surprise her.

  "Shay was mad. I paid for something for her kids and she wanted to tell me not to." He shrugged. Shay's story wasn't his to tell, so he didn't give any details.

  Kelsey didn't ask for them. "Did her kids need it? Was it something she could handle?"

  "Yes definitely, and no, not entirely. Not as well as I can."

  "Did you talk her into it?"

  He nodded.

  "But you're still sad." It was just a statement.

  He nodded, feeling it deep in his chest. Kelsey was the perfect person to unload on. She asked him to do it, so for once, he obliged. He looked into the kitchen, wondering if his bandmate was still in there or if he'd pop out at any time. He didn't really want JD to overhear. Kelsey's smile told him it was taken care of. Maybe somehow she'd known he needed to let something off.

  So Craig talked the long way around, something he never did. "You know I grew up in LA—all over LA, really—but what I don't tell people is that it was entirely in foster care."

  She only nodded once. "I figured. Did you go to LA to visit?"

  "No, just to clear up some old documents, that kind of thing." He turned the conversation back to Shay, "So I understand that Shay's boys come first. I know legally she can't move them away from their fathers. But I can't move there either. She doesn't want me there. It creates too much of a problem because her exes are complete dickheads who got upset that I had a nice car in her driveway." He shook his head at the memory. "It's not worth it to her to fight them off."

  I'm not worth it.

  The phrase rang through his head and he would have thought it wouldn't hurt so much anymore, but somehow it did. It hurt more from Shay who found her sons to be worth anything, and Craig not much.