by Deb Kastner
To find out that the only woman he’d ever really loved was a heartless liar was enough to throw any man’s life into a tailspin, but to find out that he had a nine-year-old son whom he hadn’t even known about—well, it was nearly too much for him to bear.
He stretched his calves in preparation for a run. It was only a mile and a half from his small ranch to the community center, and he hoped the crisp, cold air would clear his head so that he’d be able to coach his boys with at least some semblance of coherency.
Besides, jogging gave him more time to pray.
There were many things he intended to say to Delia. It would be difficult for him to rein in his emotions, not to rail at her for not telling him the truth, to make it crystal clear how hurt he was by her decision not to involve him in Riley’s life.
He had so many questions. He couldn’t even begin to put them in a semblance of order.
And of course he wanted to spend time getting to know Riley—his son.
He’d always wanted a family, but he’d never quite been able to imagine one without Delia. Now he’d learned that they’d been blessed with a child through their love, however misguided their union had been at the time. Joy like he’d never before encountered rushed through him every time he thought about Riley.
How could he not be elated?
At the same time, he felt desolate. Even though the two reactions were at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. He had missed so many things in the boy’s life. His heart ached just thinking about it.
What had Riley looked like as an infant? What was his first word? How old was he when he first picked up a basketball—and who had taught him how to dribble and shoot hoops?
Zach’s anger flared once again. He should have been the one doing all of those things. A son needed his father. Didn’t Delia even think about that when she so conveniently decided he shouldn’t be a part of Riley’s life?
For a moment, he once again considered calling off the basketball practice. He could say he was sick or something. He certainly felt sick.
He groaned aloud and shook his head. He wouldn’t do that to his kids. They depended on him.
In any case, as much as he might want to talk to Delia and Riley, this wasn’t the time. His emotions weren’t yet under control. He needed time to cool off and pray for God’s grace to guide him through this mess.
Was Delia praying as well, or had her faith all been a ruse? He remembered back when they were teenagers and the tender, sincere way she’d shared Christ’s love with him. He’d made fun of her beliefs. He’d known she hadn’t been comfortable when he’d persuaded her to cross the line—he thought that might have been part of the reason she’d left Serendipity.
Anger swelled in his chest and his breath came in heavy rasps. Could it have been more—that she knew she was carrying his child? She’d denied that she’d known, but she’d also kept Riley’s existence a secret from him.
He didn’t know what to believe.
There were several cars parked in the lot when he arrived at the community center. Dedicated townsfolk were cleaning up after the party. Usually, he would have dropped in to say hi and probably pitch in; but today he didn’t really feel like socializing, so he avoided the community hall and went straight to the gym.
The basketball equipment was already out along the sidelines and in order for practice. Several boys of different ages were shooting hoops, while others milled around jostling and teasing each other.
Zach blew his whistle to assemble the team together, and then gave instructions to begin running laps around the gym.
“Zach?” Delia’s voice came from behind him and he immediately tensed. The last thing he needed right now was for her to find him, let alone approach him.
And after the way he’d laid into her last night, he hadn’t expected her to seek him out anytime soon.
He turned, determined to tell her—politely, if he was able—that he didn’t think now was the time to confront their issues. Instead, his eyes lit on Riley, who was standing by her side. Whatever words he’d been about to speak vanished the moment he set eyes on his son.
The boy didn’t say a word, but his posture was defensive and his expression wary. Zach suspected Riley thought he was the enemy here.
If only he knew.
His heart clenched at the sight of the young man being so adorably protective of his mother. The two of them clearly had a close relationship.
Riley’s gaze was occasionally drawn to the boys playing basketball, and Zach saw more than one wistful look cross over his face, but he stood his ground and shook his head when one of the boys asked him to come play with them.
Riley was a good kid who loved and protected his mother. That only made Zach all the more determined to be the father the boy needed.
But that could happen only after he worked through the issues with Riley’s mother, which was apparently going to be now. He wasn’t certain he was ready for any kind of confrontation, but there it was.
“I was helping to take down the decorations from the party when I saw you jog up,” Delia explained.
Zach nodded.
“I see,” he said, even though he didn’t. He would have thought she would start running for the hills if she saw him coming.
“This is Riley.”
Zach put out a hand. Riley eyed him a moment before reaching out his own hand and shaking Zach’s. Zach grinned. His boy had a good, solid grip.
“Good to meet you, Riley.”
“Riley, this is Coach Bowden.”
Any guardedness in Riley’s expression and posture was immediately erased as his face lit up with excitement.
“You play basketball?” Zach asked, even though he already knew the answer from the night before.
He wondered what Riley would think when he discovered that Zach was his father. What would his reaction be then?
“Maybe you’d like to shoot some hoops with the boys,” he suggested.
Riley nodded with enthusiasm, and Delia beamed at her son’s delighted expression.
Their son.
“I was on a league in Baltimore. I played center.”
“Good to hear. As you can see, we have our own squad here, and we can always use another player. We often play other teams from the surrounding areas. Would you like to join us?”
Riley looked to his mother, who smiled and nodded.
“Do you always meet on Saturday mornings?” Delia asked, sounding as if she were just another parent and not the mother of his child. “That would be the most convenient for us, what with school starting up again after the winter holiday.”
“Every Saturday from ten until noon.” Zach gestured toward the small office attached to the gym. “Why don’t we go into my office for a moment and get Riley’s paperwork together.”
“Of course.” Delia blanched at his words, and for a split second, Zach felt sorry for her.
It was obvious from her demeanor that she knew that signing papers for a basketball league would not be the first order of business once they got behind the closed doors of the office. It was no wonder she was apprehensive.
Zach shook his head. Why was he troubled about her feelings?
She should be worried. She still had a lot of explaining to do, and he couldn’t imagine anything she could possibly say that would justify the actions she had taken with regard to Riley. It would be touch and go as to whether they could even speak to each other about it and stay civil at the same time.
But she had to have known that before she approached him. She’d been the one to seek him out today, not the other way around. She was obviously ready to come clean with her past. Wasn’t that the real reason she was here?
Zach blew his whistle and the boys once again gathe
red around him.
“Some of you guys probably met this dude last night at the Christmas party, but in case you didn’t, this is Riley Ivers. He has just moved into town and he’s going to be playing on our team. I expect you to welcome him.”
Zach didn’t think that would be a problem. From what he’d observed the night before, Riley made friends easily enough.
“I will be in my office for a little while speaking to Riley’s mother, so I want you all to take turns practicing your free-throws.” He pointed to one of the older boys. “Josh, you’re in charge.”
All of the boys hovered around Riley for a moment, welcoming him to their team and finding out what he knew about basketball, and then they set out toward the far end of the gym to practice their free-throws.
“Shall we?” Zach asked Delia, putting his hand at the small of her back to guide her. As his fingers touched her and the sweet, soft coconut scent of her shampoo reached his nose, he nearly forgot that he was angry with her and that they had an impossibly wide gap looming between them.
If he pulled her just a few inches closer, she would fit perfectly underneath his shoulder, as if they were made for each other. He experienced a deep, physical longing just to wrap his arms around her, kiss her senseless and forget about the past.
But that he could never do.
He’d once believed with his whole heart that he and Delia were meant to be together. He’d believed in lasting love. But that was before she’d smashed his heart into millions of pieces and left him completely alone to try to put his life back together.
Delia stepped out of his reach the moment he shut the door to the office. When she turned to him, there were tears shimmering in her eyes, and his gut wrenched painfully. He’d never been very good at handling a woman crying, Delia especially. It made him feel helpless and out of control, and he didn’t like that.
It was, however, a good reminder to him that he really wasn’t the one in control. He could count on the Lord to get him through this.
He prayed silently, asking God for strength and wisdom—not to mention the ability to keep his temper under control, which was a constant thorn in his side, to say the least. Right now all of his emotions were riding just beneath the surface, bouncing around and smacking into each other like bumper cars. He wasn’t quite sure which of his feelings would dominate this conversation—and that was what scared him.
Delia took a deep breath and tilted her chin up resolutely, meeting his gaze straight on. “I imagine you have a lot to say to me. I’ll answer all your questions, but I want to say something to you first.”
Zach folded his arms across his chest and rested his hip against the side of the desk.
“This ought to be good.” He couldn’t seem to control the sarcastic tone of his statement.
“I just want to say up front that I know I made a lot of mistakes in the past, and I don’t blame you for being angry with me. However good my intentions were at the time, I now understand that what I did was selfish and unfair—not only to you, but also to Riley. I initially returned to Serendipity because my mother is very ill, but now I realize that I need to make things right with you.”
Zach tilted his head and narrowed his gaze on her. “And how, precisely, do you plan to do that?” he asked drily, his voice cracking with emotion. “You can’t reverse the years. I’ll never have all of the special experiences you got to share with Riley. You’ve stolen those away from me.”
“I know.” She shook her head and bit the bottom corner of her lip. “How many ways can I apologize to you?”
“You can’t. Not really. But I want to hear the truth from your own lips. The whole truth.”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“How about starting with high school. Tell me why you hightailed it out of Serendipity so fast without as much as saying goodbye to me. Did you find out you were pregnant? Were you just trying to get away from me? At the very least, didn’t I deserve an explanation? Did I really matter that little to you?”
Her breath caught audibly at his barrage of questions. “You know that’s not true. I love—loved you.”
His chest tightened so rigidly that it left him gasping for breath. “Then why did you leave me?”
“What, you don’t remember us getting arrested for the possession of illegal drugs?” Her voice was laced with bitterness and a hint of sarcasm. “Drugs, I might add, that I knew nothing about?”
She may as well have slapped him right in the face. No one had to tell him that he’d been nothing but trouble to her as a teenager. He wouldn’t deny it.
And yet…
“I’ll admit that wasn’t my brightest moment,” he said. “But, in all fairness, it wasn’t a total disaster. It didn’t turn out nearly as badly as it could have. Don’t you remember? I confessed—I told the police the truth and convinced them you had no part of it. They never charged you with a crime.”
“No, they didn’t, thankfully—I only had the delightful experience of spending the night in jail before everything was straightened out.” Her voice was so acerbic that it burned his ears like acid. “I was terrified, Zach. Terrified.”
Zach sighed. “Yes, and I’m sorry about that. I suppose we both have things to apologize for.” He paused thoughtfully as a new understanding washed over him. “And that’s why you didn’t tell me about Riley, isn’t it? Because I was getting you in to so much trouble—more than I knew.”
“Partly,” she acknowledged. “What would you have done in my place, Zach?” Her brow knit together over her eyes. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was a long way from home and all alone. You had been self-destructing right before my eyes. If I hadn’t left when I did, you would have taken me with you—and Riley, too. You stole my heart and then destroyed it. I couldn’t let that happen to our son.”
“Our son,” he repeated softly. It felt foreign to say the words; yet, at the same time, it was as if it had always been that way. He and Delia were permanently joined together in their son. In a way, Riley tied all the loose ends together. For all these years, Zach had been living with a deep sense of incompleteness, and now he knew why. God had blessed him and he hadn’t even known about it.
Regret merged with shame for all he had lost. How different might his life have been if he hadn’t been such a careless and irresponsible youth? When he’d first discovered the truth about Riley, he had placed the whole blame on Delia. Now he was seeing the bigger picture.
To move forward with his life, he was going to have to step up and take some of the responsibility for the way things had gone down in the past.
He held his emotions in check for a moment as he tried to look at the circumstances through Delia’s eyes—rationally and without judgment. If he was being honest, he partially understood how she thought she was making the best decisions she could—at the time.
All that she’d said about him was true. He had been on the road to self-destruction. And he probably would have taken Delia and Riley down with him and bankrupted all three of their lives. There was no denying he’d been heading in the wrong direction even before Delia had left. He’d ditched school, gotten into fistfights and had even run drugs for a while. If it wasn’t for the Lord rescuing him from himself, changing his heart and turning his life in the right direction…well, who knew where he’d be?
But God had found him. And he was different—a Christian man, ready to be a father.
A father.
Chapter Eight
“Can you at least try to understand where I’m coming from?” Delia asked softly.
Zach stared at her without speaking. His gaze drilled into her. Finally, he shrugged a shoulder. It wasn’t exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for, but at this point she’d take what she could get.
She breathed a sigh of r
elief. At least she and Zach were talking rationally and not yelling at each other. When she’d first seen him jogging up to the community center she hadn’t been the least bit sure whether she should approach him; but, in the end, she’d decided their problems weren’t just going to go away on their own, so she might as well take the initiative and address them.
Besides, Riley had been asking her nonstop about when he would get to go meet Coach Bowden and join the basketball team. The sport was important to him, especially because he was trying to make new friends.
“So you really didn’t know you were pregnant when you left?” Zach inquired, even though she wondered why he bothered asking—again. After all, he hadn’t believed her the first time.
She looked him straight in the eye, hoping he would see the truth. “No, I did not.”
He narrowed his gaze on her, obviously trying to gauge how honest she was being with him. Finally, he gave a clipped nod, indicating he accepted her words at face value. Whether he really believed them was another thing entirely, but it was the best Delia could hope for at the moment.
“So when did you find out, then?” he asked in a low, controlled voice that was a strange divergence from his usual honey-rich drawl.
“About a month after I’d left. I probably should have realized I was pregnant earlier than I did, but I was under so much stress that I didn’t think about it.”
“Why didn’t you return to Serendipity once you found out you were carrying a baby? My baby,” he amended, his brow lowering. “Wouldn’t that have been the easiest for you both? To be with your family? Not to mention, me.”
She frowned, her shoulders tightening under the emotional strain. “I considered it, but I’d already found an apartment and registered for school. And for the record, there was no easy answer.”
She hated that Zach could so easily put her on the defensive. She’d thought—or hoped, in any regard—that she’d be immune to his innate ability to manipulate or charm her.
Unfortunately for her, she’d quickly discovered that time hadn’t changed a thing on either count. She was still very much vulnerable to Zach in every way.
