She broke our connection first, turned away and walked toward the inside of the house. I watched as she paused by the patio door, keeping her back to me. “I’m really sorry, Jacob.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
Chapter 28
I lasted the total of an hour in the confines of my gigantic home. I couldn’t even stand the patio, claustrophobia setting in even in the great outdoors. I rushed out the door, locked up and headed somewhere where I knew I could clear my head.
I drove the forty-five minutes into the countryside and came to a stop by the massive barn. I marched to the house, let myself in and found Paxton, Jasper and Alissa in the kitchen.
“Jake?” Alissa looked puzzled but her expression went straight to worry when my eyes met hers.
“Hey.” I kissed her cheek then ruffled the tyke’s hair. “Jasper. Allie, can I steal your husband for a bit?”
“Everything okay?” With a brief shake of my head, she reached and squeezed my hand and said, “Just go, I won’t wait up.”
I left their kitchen and headed outside, my best friend on my tail. Making my way straight to the back of the barn, I opened the back doors and located the four-wheeler. The keys were missing.
“You might need these.” Paxton dangled them on his finger and pocketed them instead of handing them over. “Talk, then you can ride.”
I let out a long drawn out breath and ran my fingers through my hair. “Where do I start?”
“From the beginning, where else?” He could be such a smartass at times.
I chuckled without much humor. “Wise ass.” The man waited with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning on the old beat up tractor behind him. “Danica’s leaving had nothing to do with me, that much is for sure,” I said. “I have a serious bone to pick with her father though. If I ever see the man again and that fucking bastard…” My words trailed. “I can’t believe...” I stopped myself. My eyes stung but I held the tears back, tapping into my rage instead of my grief and on a growl, I said, “She was raped, Pax.”
The walls surrounding us vibrated with Paxton’s single word. “What?”
“And Jordan…” I continued. “Oh God, Pax.” My legs gave out on me and my ass landed on the edge of the ATV’s seat.
“What happened to Jordan, Jake?” I had to set his mind at ease from the worry I saw on his face.
“Nothing.” I met his eyes. “N-nothing’s happened to Jordan. It’s just…” Panic hit me tenfold and my breathing became labored. It felt like the world was closing in on me, snuffing the breath from my lungs. I saw dark spots on my peripheral, ringing started in my ears.
Paxton grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Hey, man, breathe!” I didn’t. He tried again and when I didn’t cooperate, the son of a bitch punched me in the jaw. My head snapped up to look at him in shock. He backed away, knowing that there might be retribution. “I’m sorry, dude. I had to do something to get you to snap out of it.”
I didn’t have the urge to retaliate. Instead, I caught my breath, massaging my jaw and said, “He might be mine, Pax.”
“I must have heard wrong. Did you just say...?”
My eyes locked with his. “Jordan might be mine,” I repeated. “What the fuck am I going to do?”
“What do you mean by might?” Before I could answer, I saw the realization spread onto his face. “She doesn’t know?”
I shook my head. “They never caught the bastard.” I kicked a clump of dust at my feet. “Now, how in the hell do I deal with a fifteen-year-old when I haven’t been able to deal with his mother?”
He sighed. “I can’t answer that, but what I can say, is get a damn paternity test and get yourselves some answers.” He was right. “Wow… a kid!”
“I know.”
“A fifteen-year-old!”
“A smart one at that.” I smiled at the memory of our bantering episodes.
“Dude, you could be a dad.” It was clear the man was in shock.
“I know!”
“That’s scary.”
“Hmm…” My mind began to wander on what I should do next.
“But it’s fucking fantastic!”
“Huh?”
“Well, yeah… I mean… oh, never mind what I mean.” He clapped the side of my arm. “So what’s your plan?”
I snorted. “What plan?” I began to list things on my fingers for him. “Pax, I just found out that the girl I loved in high school left me by force after being raped. She has a kid that may or may not be mine. She was coerced to stay out of touch with me because her father thought I wasn’t good enough for her despite the fact that she’d told him that she loved me at the time. He told her he’d cut her off if she left so in order to save her education and support her son, she stayed.” I got up to pace as I gave the man the entire story and finished with a frustrated growl.
Paxton broke the silence first. “Okay, I get it now. I don’t think there’s a plan for this one.” He ran his hand over his face. “And I thought Allie and I were complicated with the hell we went through.”
Cue the sarcasm. “Yeah, a real pickle.”
“You said earlier today that you love her, has any of that changed with what she told you?”
I had to think about that one for a minute.
Had it?
I replayed key moments of the day, of the past, of what’s transpired between us since her return. Despite her reasons, she had done it all for love. In a twisted way, she kept everything from me in order to ensure I got the schooling, the life, the success she thought I deserved. Someone who knew Danica through and through would understand. And I knew Danica—down to the very tiny atom that was her. In that moment, I realized I understood it all. It didn’t mean that I was happy about her choices. Christ, I was put through hell with no answers for fifteen years! But I still understood.
“The truth?” I paused to see if I’d missed anything in my mind. “No, nothing’s changed.” I let out a pregnant breath. “But everything else has.”
“If you could do anything right now, what would it be?” he asked.
“Right now?” He nodded and his smirk transformed into a knowing grin. “Right now, I’d like to wipe that smug look off your face. Fuck!” I ran both hands through my hair and fisted it with a tug.
Paxton howled a laugh and I let my hands fall to my sides. “I hate to say it but, I told you so!” he said in a singsong tone.
I punched his arm. “Yeah, yeah… so, we going for a ride or you going to pussy out on me and head on back to that wife of yours?”
“I’ll take my wife.” He gave me a wicked grin as he rubbed his arm. “At least she kisses me after she punches me.”
“Good point.” I shook my head with a light chuckle.
“Nope, good woman,” he said as we walked out of the barn, closed the doors and headed toward my car. “Are you sure you’re all right? The wife gave me a free pass. We can go get you drunk, get you…”
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m still blown away by everything but…”
“It’s pretty amazing isn’t it?” he asked. “The feeling you get when you get a bit of clarity?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t say I blame you.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Hit me up if you need an ear… or a drive home.”
“Thanks, man but I think the drinking will be done in the comfort of my own home. No car service will be needed.”
“You’re welcome and this bomb of yours doesn’t get you off for Saturday by the way.”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t dare piss that woman of yours off.”
Seated in my car with Paxton having disappeared inside his house, I realized that a weight had been lifted. I still had a lot of thinking to do but figuring out what to do next didn’t seem as daunting of a task when it came to Danica and me.
As I drove home, a plan began to take shape.
Chapter 29
Friday morning, I was greeted with a guest I wasn’t quite ready to deal with but I wasn’t going
to put my foul mood, due to lack of sleep and troubled thoughts, on him.
“Jordan?”
“I need your help.” He walked past me and entered the house like a man on a mission.
“Why is it that every time you show up on my doorstep, you need my help?” Funny how his sudden need had erased my gloomy demeanor, making me feel better and then it struck me. “Wait a minute, shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Um…”
“Jordan!”
“But it’s important, I swear!”
“What’s so important that you had to ditch?” I asked. “You know your mo…”
“It’s Mom’s birthday today,” he said this as if I should have known all along. “Normally I have Granddad to help me out but it’s just me and Mom now. I need to get her a gift.”
“So you need a ride.”
He shrugged his shoulders as if it were no big deal. “Yeah, if you’re up for it.” His eyes told me that my answer meant the world to him despite his feigned nonchalance.
“Let me get dressed,” I said and smiled at his brightening features. After all that I’d learned yesterday, I found myself taking a moment to study him. There was no doubt that he looked a lot like his mother but looking at him closer, his black hair could have been mine, his square jaw, mine, his height and build, well, that could be a toss-up since the men on Danica’s side of the family towered at six feet, plus. His eyes were like mirror images of color, the same clear green as mine. Or maybe you’re just trying to see things for more than what they are.
The more I thought about things, the more I found myself hoping that Jordan would turn out to be mine. At least there’d be a way for him to understand and know that his father had always wanted him instead of settling with the knowledge of him being a product of a brutal crime. Don’t get me wrong, as much as these thoughts comforted me, I was scared shitless. What did I know about raising kids? I was an only child!
Hours later, we had nothing but a suitable card for Danica.
“You’re just like your mother except you don’t know what you’re looking for.” I laughed. He looked at me confused from across the food court table. “When we were kids, she asked me to go with her and find a gift for her mom.” His goofy grin came out. “She made me go to every shop with her until she found the perfect thing. A few weeks later, against my better judgement, I agreed to go with her for your Uncle Mike’s birthday gift. Took her longer that time around.”
“Really?”
I could tell he enjoyed learning more about his mother. Something told me that over the years, he hadn’t gotten the glimpses of the true Danica, the one I knew, the one I hadn’t seen much of since her return.
“Really,” I said. “She’s got a fantastic ability of knowing what the perfect gift is. The problem is that it’s always something so specific, and she’s so stubborn that she won’t budge once she’s set on buying it. She always claimed that anyone could do a video game, a new phone, some CD’s and movies, but that kind of gift never meant much than the ones you put more thought into. She was right.” I didn’t tell her about the photo of us she’d framed for my last birthday that we’d been together. The glass was the first to go and the frame followed not too long afterward in one of my fits after she’d left but I kept the photo in a box of mementos that contained all sorts of trinkets and photos of mine from my earlier years.
“She really is the best at getting presents but she’s not like that. At least, not now.” That was a disappointing truth. “No one else is around this year. I want to make it special but we’ve been through every store in this place and I haven’t seen anything that would be great for her.”
With that, I decided it was time to pull out my arsenal from the dusty corner of my memory and I said, “You know what? I have an idea.”
Chapter 30
By the time we were finished, it was nearing four o’clock. I drove Jordan home with our gifts. Yeah, I got her a few things myself. What can I say, Jordan’s enthusiasm to my idea had been contagious.
When we arrived, I held my breath.
Jordan hissed. “Shit! I’m done for.”
Danica leaned back on the trunk of her car, arms crossed over her chest, tapping her high-heeled foot with a look of disapproval.
“Follow my lead.” I exited the car and stood beside it. He did the same, bringing his gifts along.
“Where in the hell were you?” She looked at Jordan. “I got a call from your school at lunchtime saying that you hadn’t shown up. And you…” Her eyes were aimed in my direction.
Before she could finish, I reached into the back of the car and pulled out a large basket. I walked up to her, pushed it into her arms and kissed her cheek. “Happy Birthday, Nica.” Her look of surprise faded to tightened lips and the lines in her face grew taught with frustration. “Well, aren’t you going to look?”
Her eyes travelled between her son and I and she commanded more than said, “Let’s take this inside.”
Jordan looked at me with a grim look on his face as we followed.
She led us to the living room and sat the basket down on the coffee table. Her mouth opened, about to say something but then she snapped it shut when I crossed my arms at my chest and nodded my head toward the basket. I got why she was mad but Jordan had put so much of himself in this that she needed to cut him a break. On this, I wouldn’t budge.
“Oh, all right.” She huffed her submission without me having to say a word.
Danica peered through the contents of the basket, pulling out a box of pasta noodles, cans, bags of spices, wine, bread and movies I knew she liked and a few other assorted items.
With humor in her gaze, she looked up at me. “What is all this?”
“I’m making you dinner,” I said.
“Correction,” Jordan said, “we’re making you dinner.” Jordan grinned at me. “And this,” he handed her the gift bag and gestured to the basket as well, “is why I wasn’t at school today. I wanted to make today special. Happy Birthday, Mom.” He kissed her cheek and I smiled when her eyes fused to mine and all the frustration left her, her eyes tearing up.
She rummaged through the tissue paper and looked in. I watched as her eyes widened in surprise. Her head snapped up to Jordan and then me. “I can’t believe you remembered.” She pulled out the large box of truffles. Jordan nudged my side. When I turned to him, I winked at Jordan’s grinning expression.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I never forgot the place, having gone back more than a few times over the years. In our teens, when things were rough, and Pax and I couldn’t pull it off, those homemade truffles were the one thing that could make her smile, make her troubles melt away. There’s no way I would forget that.
“I haven’t had these in so long.” She opened the box and picked one out but Jordan and I protested. “But…” One shake of my head and she dropped the sweet back in the box. “Fine.” She grumbled.
“That’s dessert,” Jordan said.
I walked toward the kitchen. “I say we get started on dinner since the birthday girl seems famished.”
With a celebratory fist-bump, the kid said, “You got it, hot shot.”
Aside from opening cans and containers, Jordan wasn’t much help in the kitchen. When he dropped the can of tomato juice, which exploded all over the floor and lower cabinets, his duties changed to cleanup. When he finished, I made him sit at the island and keep me company as I took care of the cooking which meant I had to improvise. I was thankful to find that Danica had a full container of cream in the fridge.
We sent Danica off to relax but she walked in when I was half-way through making the sauce. “Smells good,” she said.
“Shouldn’t you be reading or something, Mom?”
“Aren’t you the one that told me to do what I want to do since it’s my birthday?” I eyed the exchange. After Jordan’s nod, she continued. “Well then, what I want to do is sit right here and enjoy the action.”
“Action, Mom?” Jordan looked at
his mother like she was the furthest thing from cool.
She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever known this guy to cook a day in his life.” Her eyes crinkled at the sides and tried to hide her smile.
“Things change,” I said and her lips tilted up to match the humor in her twinkling eyes.
When dinner was ready, I served Jordan and Danica and walked back to the sink, pouring water for the dishes.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Jordan was eating with gusto while his mother had yet to touch her meal.
“I’m cleaning.” I added the suds and made sure the water temperature was just right. “I made you dinner but I’m not about to leave the dirty dishes behind.”
“Come and eat,” she said and Jordan dropped his fork, his attention now on our conversation.
“It’s for you. Enjoy it. I’ll get something later,” I said.
“Jacob, sit down,” she said, “you’re being ridiculous.”
“Jacob?” Jordan looked from me to his mother.
She nodded but didn’t explain. “Sit down or I’m not eating.” She sat back and crossed her arms at her chest like a pouting three-year-old.
“Your name’s Jacob?” Jordan asked.
I turned the water off at the sink. “Yeah, but no one calls me that but my parents and your mom.” Danica had engaged me in a staring match.
“That’s my middle name,” he said.
I smirked at Danica. “I think I remember hearing your mother shouting it out once or twice,” I said. Her eyes narrowed and so I gave in, serving myself a plate. “There, are you happy now?” I joined them at the table. “Eat.”
“Much.” She held the bottle of wine up. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.” I kept my head bowed and scooped up my first bite.
Jordan broke the awkward silence. “So, Mom, how was your day?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Busy as always,” she said. “Things are looking better in Austin though. Uncle Mike is doing great fixing things there.”
Almost Forgotten (Contemporary Erotic Romance) (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 2) Page 11
