by Amy Faye
The crowd suddenly started calling back, a thousand different things. Any one of them would be impossible to pick out of the cacophony, at least for the woman sitting there at the head of the crowd, listening from the seat of a stagecoach. The preacher waited until the crowd had died down before continuing.
"'For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' I have asked only repentance. Now, here he stands, and before us all, he repents. Do you not, Chris Broadmoor, repent of your sins?"
Chris looked up. Something was strange in the way he moved, and it took Marie a moment to realize what it was: he held every muscle in his body tight. It was as if he were afraid of how he might act. He spoke in a tight voice.
"Forgive me, Father," the bartender said, loud enough to be heard clearly, though he didn't call out loud like the preacher.
And then he looked down at the ground again. That was all it took for the crowd to start murmuring amongst themselves, a hundred voices or more all talking at once, wondering what they were supposed to make of this confession.
The preacher let Marie's arm go.
"And you, young lady? You seem to know your bible awful well for one outside of the Lord's grace."
He spoke now only to her. It occurred to Marie that this was the first time she'd met the preacher in this town, and that it was hardly a good first impression that they'd given each other.
"I was raised a Christian girl. But back in Ireland, a Catholic, my father was. And a Catholic, I am as well. So—"
The man looked at her blankly. "Then I suppose you wouldn't discuss it, would you?"
"No, father."
The preacher sat down. He had a calm demeanor, even when he was whipping the crowd into a fury. Forming impressions was difficult, in a situation like this one, but she was beginning to see where his habits separated from the situation, and she could see that steadfastness in him. He might have made a good Catholic priest, as well.
"Father—you can't let them take Jamie. I've heard the most awful stories about orphanages, and I simply cannot—"
He turned his eyes on her.
"I've already given you a fresh start, Miss Bainbridge. After all the controversy that you and your…" his eyes flicked over to Chris. "… friend, have caused, I would think that you might be in less of a hurry to make requests."
"And I would, Father, but I cannot let this go. I told you I was raised Christian, and I wasn't raised to leave a boy to the pit because it might not be convenient."
Her jaw tightened up as he considered it. She didn't have anything else to fall back on. But if she had read him right, then maybe—just maybe…
He nodded. "I see what you mean."
"Then, does that mean—"
He nodded again. "If you'll permit him to join us at church, and perhaps see fit to attend service yourself, then—"
She tried to thank him, but her teeth chattered and she knew that if she opened her mouth, not much but a sob would escape it. So she nodded, blinking back tears.
"Then go get him," the preacher said softly. "And go home. This crowd is blocking the road."
Epilogue
Chris leaned his head back against the wall. They'd been in the new house for a long time, now, more than a year. But there were still days that it seemed like he'd just moved in. Days when he wanted to turn to Marie, and tell her, 'you know, we're in our own place.'
Jamie sat cross-legged between his knees, watching Marie. Chris forced himself back under control, his body still not quite used to the work he'd been doing lately. Getting back into carpentry had been one thing. But working for hours out there, and then coming back to work on his own house, took a heavy toll.
That pain was something he could deal with later, though. Today wasn't a day for him. He could complain tomorrow, when they were coming home from church. It still felt strange and foreign to be going, even after all this time. He hadn't been in a church, aside from passing through, since he was Jamie's age.
"How's she doing?"
Marie looked up and smiled. She didn't look half as tired as she must have felt. Claire was just starting to think about sleeping through the night, but that didn't make up for months of Marie being the one to spend all night lulling her back to rest. Nothing ever would, but his wife never complained.
"She's good. Do you want to hold her?"
Chris smiled, pushing himself up and ignoring his body's protests. "You know I do, Mrs. Broadmoor."
He took the baby in one big arm. She was so big, now, and yet even though Claire had more than doubled in size since she was born, she was so small, too.
"Hey, little girly. Happy birthday. Are you being nice to your Momma?"
"She's being a little sweetheart—like she always is around Daddy."
Jamie smiled at her and Claire cooed and gurgled. Chris couldn't help the smile spreading across his face.
"What a good girl."
The little girl squirmed in his arms, desperate to be put down. Chris let her down slow, and the minute her kicking legs found the floor, she wobbled to find her balance. He'd never known how much it would mean to see someone walking across the room. Not before Claire.
But now, watching her, he couldn't help but smile.
"Are you alright, hon?"
Marie looked over at him. "Don't tell me you're worried," she said. "About little old me?"
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as Claire tried valiantly, ultimately fruitlessly, to climb into the seat of a chair that was nearly as high as she was tall.
"I'm always worried, when it comes to you."
"That's why you're the husband," she teased. "Always fussing. You ought to try having a child some time."
He raised an eyebrow at her and gave a smile that said all he needed to say. "Another one, you mean?"
The Surprise
Secret Baby Bad Boy Romance
Amy Faye
Published by Heartthrob Publishing
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Here’s a preview of the sexy love story you’re about to read…
Even through a zipper and several layers of denim, folded up to make a nice, heavy-wearing garment I could feel her touching me, and I could feel the electric sensation of pressure driving me up a wall.
“You like that, don’t you?”
It was my turn for my breath to catch in my throat, to sound ragged and needy and demanding. “Don’t tease me.”
She looked up at me and batted her eyelashes demurely. “No? Why not?” Then she started to drift down to her knees, her hand still rubbing the front of my jeans.
“God… I just… don’t.”
“After all those years that you teased me?”
“Don’t hold high school against me.”
“I’ll hold whatever I want to against you, David Collins. And if that means…” She paused to bring her face dangerously close to my crotch without ever making a real move to take my hardness out of them. “If that means that you get teased, then you get teased.”
I sucked in a breath. “You sure that’s what you want?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You might end up regretting it,” I say, trying to make my voice sound vaguely threatening.
“Who says I’d regret it?”
She let the question hang in the air a moment before reaching up to undo the button of my jeans, and then worked the fly until I was standing proud of the opening of my jeans, my hardness straining against the fabric of my boxers.
“God,” I growled. “I should have done this years ago.”
She didn’t respond to that, just pulled the boxers down a little bit, enough that my cock sprung loose and stared her in the face.
“You think so, huh?”
I took a deep breath in and leaned back against the counter. It didn
’t creak under my weight.
“Yeah,” I said softly. An image flashed in my mind, halfway remembered. Something about the smell and the sensation of her hand gripping my shaft aroused a memory, faint even in focus.
Then she took me into her mouth and I lost my mind and the memories it held. The only thing that existed was the feeling of her lips wrapped around my shaft and giving me the pleasure that I needed. Pleasure that was all-encompassing and impossible.
“God, that’s good,” I growled. It was an effort not to take her hair in my hands and force her to move faster.
I let her move at her own pace for a minute. But the temptation grew, and grew. I pulled her away and looked her in the eyes.
“I’m going to move, now,” I said.
She didn’t respond except to start sucking again. I grabbed her head and thrust my hips. It caught in her throat and she made a soft choking noise as I pulled back. My body wanted to keep moving, keep going deeper and deeper until I was practically all the way to her stomach. But I forced myself to stay to a slow, controlled rhythm.
Then I pushed her away.
“No more,” I said. My breaths were coming hard and fast and my head needed to clear. But even then I had trouble controlling myself. Even knowing what was still to come. “Stand up.”
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One
Dave
I always hated my home town. There’s a reason that I left, and I used to tell myself afterward that there wasn’t going to ever, under any circumstance, be a reason I came back.
But when you’re a teenager, things are a little different, I guess. You don’t have responsibilities. No sense of responsibility. So I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, looking back, that I was wrong. Because I was a teenager, making brash declarations that I was going to make everything different this time, and I was just as wrong as every other teenager who thinks that.
When I was seventeen the whole thing seemed small. I knew every little nook and cranny of Woodbridge as if it were a part of me. As if I could know the whole place by sheer intuition, and there was nothing that I needed to know aside from that.
Coming back, after so long in so many other places, I can tell that it’s not as small as I’d given it credit for. When you’ve seen tiny villages, fewer than a hundred people, you start to gain a sense of perspective for how many moving parts their are, even in a town that I thought was impossibly small when I left.
I took a deep breath, and let it out slow. My hands gripped the steering wheel, and my foot eased down onto the gas pedal. The car beneath me groaned and started to move forward at a snail’s pace. The rental car wasn’t my favorite, but I had my entire life in the back of it, all three bags of it, and I needed to trust it even if I didn’t like it.
There were changes everywhere. The impression I got was that it was almost all change: nothing seemed to be all that familiar, or to have stayed the same after all that time. The houses were different colors, they’d been replaced with new houses, with massive additions. The middle of town is the worst of all; Tom’s Hardware closed, and it’s been replaced with an Ace, same as any other hardware store in Michigan these days it seemed.
Everywhere I look, it feels like the local flavor’s gone and it’s just another town. Might as well be two miles out of Detroit, for all the difference it makes. At least then you’d be able to get some business going, rather than living in some dead-end place where there’s no work and no future for much of anybody.
Eight years is a long time for anybody. For someone who said they were never coming back, not for nothing or nobody, though, it wasn’t nearly long enough.
With a long, deep breath, I pulled off the main road and towards the house. The town had changed, or at least the paints of coat that it wore had. But the skeleton was still the same. Alverson onto Washington, left turn onto Scott. The fourth house on the left. It hasn’t changed at all. The old Ford is still sitting out front, right where the old man left it. Only, I suppose he didn’t leave it there this time.
I put the car in park. Maybe this is a mistake. I could get out of here. There’s no reason that I have to come into town for the funeral. Mom can handle it. She’s handled plenty of other stuff without me, this is just one more thing, right?
My jaw sets. Not this time. I’m not going to keep running away like this. Not if I can help it. I push the door open and step out, and breathe in the air.
I didn’t realize how different the air here is from other places, until I left and saw half the world, and realized that not everyone has this damp smell in the autumn. The smell comes off the lake. Even though it’s almost two miles outside of the edge of town, and there’s no beach, you can’t escape the smell of damp lake water when the humidity is up, and the humidity never seems to go down after August.
I heft one of my bags onto my back and start the short walk up the stairs. It’s the longest three steps I’ve ever taken, and at the top of it there’s nothing to be done but knock. My hand comes up, and then it goes back down.
I can still leave. I’ve got enough time to get back into the car and go. Keep my promise, never go back to this little dead-end town.
The door opens and a woman looks out at me. She’s young. Too young to be Mom, that’s for sure.
“It’s you,” she says. I recognize the voice, long before I recognize the woman. She doesn’t look anything like herself, not any more.
“Laura?”
“You could’ve called.”
“Is my mother home?”
Laura steps away from the screen door without a word. I open the door and look around.
Everything around is changing. There’s new development, and stores are getting bought out and replaced all the time. But not my mother’s house. It’s a testament to the fact that almost thirty years can go by without a damn thing happening. A boy is born, grows up, leaves, and comes back, and nothing’s moved except the trash can liners.
“Mom?”
She’s sitting on the sofa with her fingers gripping her knee. She turns when I speak, even though I know she must have seen me come in.
“David.” She purses her lips with a worried half-smile. “I didn’t know if you’d be coming.”
“Of course I came,” I say, as if I weren’t just thinking about leaving without even stopping in for a moment.
“I wasn’t sure you would, after the way… well, whatever.”
“How are you holding up?”
Her smile doesn’t become any more convincing, but it does become slightly wider. “I’m doing alright.”
“She’s barely eaten,” Laura says from the other room. “Since Mark passed.”
“Mom, you have to eat.”
“I eat when I’m hungry,” she says defensively. “I’m not going to stuff myself just because someone says I’m not eating enough. And besides, I just… don’t like to cook.”
I frown. There’s a lot to digest here. Mom looks ragged, like she hasn’t slept in a week. Maybe she hasn’t. I don’t know what her and Dad’s relationship was like when I wasn’t around, but when I was around, it was strained. Maybe that’s not the right word.
Strained sounds as if they were having temporary difficulties that would eventually, with a little effort, be resolved. Their relationship was tuned up like a piano wire, and if you hit it with a hammer it would make a nice clear note. It was so strained that it had taken on the strain like it was a permanent characteristic of all relationships.
“Is that what Laura’s here for?”
“Laura,” Mom said softly, “is here to tell me that I don’t eat enough, and I need to leave the house more, and that I’d feel better if I put some work in.”
“You would feel much better,” Laura intoned from the other room, obviously drawn by the comments from Mom, “if you just worked at it.”
The sound of pots and pans banging around as they were shifted out
of the lazy Susan made as clear a sign as there could be that she was cooking. I pushed myself up. “Do you need anything from me, Mom?”
She shrugged.
“A bullet to the head?” Then she gave one barking laugh and shook her head.
I purse my lips and look down at her. Her hand had worked itself loose on her knee, and moved now to wrap around herself, both hands holding her body like she was worried her front might start wandering away.
I step through and around the couch, and into the kitchen.
“You need any help in here?”
Laura takes a pan full of something white and liquid and puts it on the stove. A moment later, underneath the pan, the flame burner kicks to life.
“No,” she says. “I can get along just fine.”
I look down at her. Some parts of her are still the same. She’s still got a knife-shaped nose. She’s still got large, voluptuous lips. She’s still dark-haired, and she’s still almost a foot shorter than I am.
That’s where the similarities end. Her hips are wider, now, and her bust heavier, as well. When she steps across and fills another pot with water I take a moment to look at her. Hourglass, I suppose you’d call her. When I was in high school, I’d always thought of Laura as a thin woman, maybe even twiggy.
The decade I’d spent away from her had been kinder to her than it had to the rest of the town. I looked at her left hand, where all five fingers were bare. Then I took a deep breath.
“So how have you been?”
She ignored me and turned back with the pot of water. “I have to get this pasta on the boil,” she said by way of explanation. “Or nobody’s going to eat in this house until the cows come home.”
Two
Laura
I could feel the blood pressure rising. I didn’t like the feeling, and I liked thinking about what’s causing it to rise even less. So I ignored it, because that’s what I’ve always done when Dave Collins is around. This time, I told myself, I was going to keep my wits about me. I wasn’t the same girl I was in high school, and I was never going to let myself get wrapped up in his bullshit again.
