“That’s what happens when you go abroad, Reece. People die. Babies live without their mothers.” Jax wanted to hurt her the way she’d hurt her parents, Maizy—Jake. He wanted to see her suffer the way everyone she’d left in her abroad wake had.
Still, she didn’t bite. No angry words, no defensive reactions, just straight ahead on a path he couldn’t figure. “But Dad says he still sees Maizy. Thank you for that.”
She’d talked to her father? Why hadn’t Lorne mentioned it? “I make it a point to bring her to see him twice a year, and she calls him once a week. She loves Pop-Pop Givens, and he spoils her senseless.”
Reece smiled then, that dazzling smile—the one that held the secret to everything. The answer to any man’s ills. Except his. Looking down at her now, he couldn’t even remember what she’d been like before today. Couldn’t remember a single thing he’d been drawn to.
All he could see, all he could hear, was how Maizy had been an afterthought to her. How she’d run away and left everyone to pick up the pieces of her broken life.
“I’m glad my dad knows her. What about Jake’s dad? Has he seen her?”
“Jake’s dad has no interest in anything but a case of beer and his misery. He was happy to walk away and never look back.” Just like you.
“Just like me, right?” She mirrored his thoughts.
“So let me get something straight here—even after you knew about your mother’s illness, when you knew Jake was dead, and you knew your dad couldn’t help with Maizy because your mother was so ill, you still stayed abroad? Not knowing what would happen to her? Jesus Christ, Reece! How the fuck could you be so damn selfish? She was two months old.”
“Because I knew.”
“Knew? Knew what?”
“That Jake would take care of everything. I knew he’d make sure his father never got anywhere near her, and I knew he’d take measures to ensure her safety after I left.”
Jax crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Well, look at you. Always so sure everyone would handle your shit for you. Do you have any idea what could have happened to Maizy if Jake hadn’t made sure that will was airtight? If there’d been a single screwup in the language, she could have ended up in the foster-care system.”
But Reece didn’t take his angry bait. Instead, she shook her head, the mass of her red curls whipping in the wind. “Nope. I knew Jake. I knew that would never happen because Jake didn’t make mistakes, except for getting involved with me, and I knew, if my parents couldn’t take her, or if anything ever happened to them, he’d leave her to you. You were everything to him, Jax. He loved you like a brother.”
No. No, he wouldn’t allow that to hurt him anymore. He would pull that damn arrow out of his gut and drop it at her feet. “Until I wasn’t like a brother.” Jake had broken that pact, and it still killed him. “Last time I checked, there was some unspoken rule about sleeping with your brother’s girlfriend.”
She put her hand on his arm then, squeezed it before releasing. “Don’t hate Jake. Please don’t hate him. If there’s one thing I wish you wouldn’t do—it’s hate Jake. He was sick over the loss of your friendship. Sat up late at night trying to figure out ways to win you back and still keep me. Forgive yourself for not making up with him before he died. Don’t use Maizy as your way to make everything right with Jake. Because you can’t. You shouldn’t.”
Jax swallowed hard. He’d seen all sorts of red when he’d found out about Reece and Jake sleeping together. He’d walked away, and he’d never looked back.
And when Jake’s team of lawyers had contacted him about Maizy, when he’d seen her for the first time, realized that his former best friend since eighth grade had left in his care the most precious thing he had, Jax swore nothing, no one would ever take away his chance to make things right. “How could you not want to meet her?”
The shrug of her slender shoulders made him angrier. It was dismissive. As though this life she’d created with Jake was something she’d picked up at the grocery store on her way home from work. “I don’t know how to explain it, Jax. I don’t want to try to justify it to you. I just know that all through my pregnancy, all while Jake planned and prepared, bought books, signed us up for Lamaze classes, I kept waiting to feel attached. I kept waiting for that magical moment when I’d fall in love with this thing growing in my belly. Waiting to feel something other than ugly and bloated. I wanted to. I tried to. I prayed for it. I wanted to be as excited as Jake. I wanted to want to paint a room for her, buy blankets and strollers and cribs.”
He was offended—offended that this amazing kid she and Jake had created stirred nothing in her. So he kept his mouth shut. For the moment, she didn’t want to see Maizy. He wanted to keep it that way. Never, ever would he allow Maizy to know her mother felt like this about her.
“That pisses you off, doesn’t it? That after everything that happened between you and me and Jake, I couldn’t love Maizy. The least I could do for all the trouble I caused is love my own flesh and blood.”
“You’re goddamn right it pisses me off.”
“That’s good. It should piss you off. You know why it pisses you off?”
“Because you’re heartless and Maizy is amazing?”
“No. Because you’re her father, Jax. You love her because, aside from biology, Jake was your brother. In your mind, she’s as much your flesh and blood as Jake was. Only someone who loves Maizy as much as you do would hate me for not loving her the way you do. That’s why I’m here. To tell you she’s all yours. That I wouldn’t dream of taking her from you, and I’ve signed papers to that effect—because you can give her the kind of love I’ll never be capable of. I don’t want to lay any claims to her. I don’t want visitation or weekends or anything. I just want you to stop worrying I’ll crop up someday and try to take her from you. Because I won’t.”
He should walk away right now, let her go while she was handing off her kid like a football pass, but he had to know. “Why? Why now, Reece?”
“Because my life fell apart, Jax. It didn’t fall apart when it should have. It didn’t fall apart when society dictates it should have fallen apart, but when it fell, it fell hard. And there was no one there to fix it but me. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m fixing it. I’m fixing all the things I should’ve fixed a long time ago, and I’m letting go of the guilt for not feeling guilty about leaving Maizy with Jake. For instinctively knowing I never wanted children, and letting Jake and his brand of charm talk me into it anyway.”
“Is this some kind of weird redemption?” He’d seen a lot of that lately—in all forms.
Reece rolled her shoulders. “Just an admission. I’m admitting the truth I ran away from six years ago. I would have been a crappy mother, Jax. Maizy deserved so much more. At least I wasn’t too selfish to recognize that—even if Jake wouldn’t. Isn’t it better to admit to it than to have let her suffer my inadequacies?”
“So when Maizy asks about you, and she has, what do I say?”
Reece’s eyes met his, but this time they weren’t dull and lifeless. They held a raw honesty he couldn’t say he’d ever seen from her. “Tell her I left to make room for the woman who was better at this than I’ll ever be. Tell her sometimes, when the parent picking happens, every now and then, the stork makes a huge mistake. Tell her I left so the right mother, the one who knows all of the important lessons it takes to be a good person, could step in and teach her.”
Emmaline.
Jax didn’t have to say her name. Reece already knew. “She’s so good with Maizy, Jax. With her boys, too. I hope you’ll let them get to know one another. I hope you won’t let what happened with me and Jake keep you from loving someone who’ll love you back just as hard.”
That caught him off guard. “You’ve seen them together?”
She finally smiled again—easier this time. “I’m not
so heartless I didn’t want the best for her, Jax. Of course I’ve seen Maizy with her. I know all about Emmaline Amos. I did some poking around before I made the decision to come here and see you. I watched her after I did. I think your friend Caine saw me. Either way, she’s amazing, and patient, and beautiful, and so in love with you, she’s up to her stinkin’ eyeballs in it.”
His jaw got so tight from his clenching, it began to ache. “She claims she isn’t.”
Reece grinned. “She lies.”
They stood for a little while, the sounds of the park beneath the bridge filtering between them. The wind blowing, the sun setting. Jax absorbing, Reece letting go.
“I have to go now, Jax.”
Letting Reece go, letting her leave without looking back, was like letting the last piece of Jake go. The last person who’d been with Jake before he died was shrugging off her old life, walking away from it and taking Jake with her. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why don’t we say what Jake always said?”
He closed his eyes, hearing the phrase Jake always used on the whistle of the wind. “Say good night, Gracie.”
Reece’s laughter was soft, echoing along the bridge. “G’night.”
When Jax opened his eyes again, Reece was a small dot on the horizon, bleeding into the vivid colors of the purple-and-blue night.
An engine started, a door slammed and she was gone.
Jax climbed back in the truck and shuddered a sigh, letting his head fall to the steering wheel in relief. He sat like that for a little while—catching his breath, grateful. Grateful that the tie that once bound him to Jake with guilt and anger was no longer cutting off his circulation. That he could think about Jake and remember the good times.
Pulling his wallet out, Jax dug deep into it to find a smaller version of the picture Em had found. In a fit of anger, he’d torn the half with Reece in it off, but he’d kept this tucked away, pulling it out only from time to time, staring at it and trying to figure out how everything had gone so damn sideways.
He tapped Jake’s smiling face with a finger and smiled to himself. “I miss you, brother, but I gotta go now. I have a woman to win, and it isn’t going to be easy, but never give up the fight, right?”
The sound of his phone buzzing on the passenger seat made him drop the picture of Jake on the dash and grab up his phone, hoping it was Em.
He read the single word she’d sent him.
The one word he knew he was going to regret the minute he’d agreed to it.
Done.
Fuck.
Nineteen
Em stared at her phone, ignoring the texts Jax had been sending over for the past two days now. He wanted to talk when she couldn’t speak. There was nothing left to talk about anyway. Continuing with Jax would only bring more misery to him and Maizy.
But heavens, she wanted to. She wanted to burrow against his wide chest and catch her breath against this storm of fury raging in her. Hear his heartbeat beneath her ear.
He’d been angry with her when they’d last parted. It was better she just cut him off, even if seeing his texts, at first funny, then urgent, were breaking bits of her heart off piece by piece.
She’d taken some personal days, telling Dixie she had the flu, sent the boys to Idalee’s, parked her car in the garage, locked up and hidden away.
All the crying and raging she’d been doing over what her mother had said to Clifton Junior and ending it with Jax had lent to her fake cold story when Dixie showed up with chicken soup. From behind a wad of tissues, her eyes red and runny, Em had told her to stay away so she wouldn’t catch it. But that wouldn’t hold water for long.
If Dixie and the girls knew what she was about to do, chaos would surely ensue. She hated scenes, even if they were out of love.
They’d try to talk her out of it. They’d somehow manage to convince her that Emmaline With No Spine could fight Clifton and the big bad meanies of Plum Orchard. Dixie would wave her money around and threaten to sue the pants off someone in her outrageously dramatic way in Em’s defense.
LaDawn would offer to sock the gossips in the mouth and Marybell would growl at Louella a little extra the next time she encountered her.
But would that keep Clifton from trying to take the boys to Atlanta? Would that keep his rich girlfriend from using her money to help him fight fire with fire? Would any of that money keep her son from being teased in school day after day?
She couldn’t risk a custody battle. How could she possibly win when she worked for a phone-sex company? Add in all the grief the boys suffered at school, and it left her too afraid to take a chance she’d lose them forever.
Appease Clifton were the first words that came to mind. Make a deal with him. Negotiate. Do whatever you need to in order to keep the boys close.
Her fingers tightened on the papers Clifton had sent. She’d tried calling him, tried to find a way to work this out, but he wasn’t taking her calls.
Now that he’d lobbed the arrow, and she was considering rearranging her whole life, moving to Atlanta to allow him to see the boys more often, he was hiding. The same way he had when she’d found out he was cheating on her.
Her phone buzzed, turning her red, puffy eyes to note a voice mail message from Hank Cotton, her former boss.
Grabbing a tissue, she put the phone to her ear. “Emmaline, Hank Cotton here. I think I might have found you an opening at my brother’s firm. He’s willing to interview you Friday morning, if you can make the trip. On one last note, Plum Orchard is losin’ one of its finest. Best to you always, Emmaline.”
Em grabbed a pen and took down the information and tucked it into her purse, relief flooding her.
Now she just had to get out of her pajamas and pack a bag and speak to her mother.
And find the courage to let go.
Two deep breaths later and she was on her feet when the pounding on her door began.
* * *
“Emmaline, damn it, open this door!” Jax yelled, giving little to no shit that Em’s neighbor Arlo was peeking out of his window.
The hell with the busybodies of this town. He didn’t care if they saw him at her house. He didn’t care if they talked. Let ’em. Let ’em come for Em while he was around.
No one had seen Em for two days due to her alleged flu, but something wasn’t sitting right with him. Couldn’t put his finger on it, but something wasn’t right. She’d ignored every text, every phone call he’d made, and if Em was nothing else, she was polite.
Completely ignoring him didn’t fit her character.
If it was really over between them, he wanted her to say it to his face. He wanted to hear the words, see her when she spoke them.
Fuck, he just wanted to see her.
Because it wasn’t over for him. He had apologizing to do—explaining to do. He had to tell her he was falling in love with her. Even if she rejected him, he was going to say it anyway. Because he didn’t want to miss the chance to do what was right for him and Maizy. For his heart.
Fueled by that thought, Jax fisted his hand and banged harder. “Em, I know you’re in there—talk to me, Em. Just talk to me.”
Nothing. Nothing but the stares of the neighborhood people he’d acquired with the racket he was making, nothing but the sounds of the coming night.
He had to clench his fist to keep from driving it through the cold metal of the door. “This isn’t over, Em. Not by a long shot. I’ll keep coming back until you see me. Until you hear what I have to say.”
He pressed his ear to the door and waited, as though after all that banging, she’d suddenly pop open the door and welcome him with that warm Em smile.
More silence.
Damn it.
If he had to come back with a backhoe, he was going to get her to open her door.
* * *
Em let her cheek rest against the door, distantly watching tears roll off her face and onto the hardwood entryway. The sound of Jax’s truck revving its engine and driving away left her empty and cold.
She wanted to fling open the door and launch herself at him. To tell him it was all her. This had nothing to do with him. But she couldn’t. Seeing him would only make everything that much harder in light of their sex-only relationship.
Why did he want to talk anyway? Did you talk about ending a sexual relationship, or didn’t you just end it? Wasn’t that what they’d agreed on?
Did he need to see her to end it? Admittedly, texts were bad form when breaking up, but they weren’t breaking up, breaking up. They were quitting the sex games.
This was the no harm, no foul part.
But she’d realized something today. Dixie was right. She wasn’t a fling kind of girl. She wasn’t the kind of girl who could take a lover in the afternoon.
Because she was in love with Jax Hawthorne.
* * *
“Daddy?”
“Maizy?”
She hopped up on the couch next to him, the feathers of her boa shedding on the new couch he’d been talked into, and pressed her nose to his. “Do you feel sick?”
“Nope. Why do you ask?”
She used the back of her hand to feel his forehead, knocking him in the eye with the charms from the bracelet Em had given her. “Because you look sick.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Your face is all pouty like Uncle Tag’s.”
Jax rubbed his nose against hers. “I’ll try not to be so pouty.”
“If you’re sad, it’s okay to be pouty. Em said so.”
Em. She’d only been in their lives for a little while, and already she’d left an impact on Maizy. “Em’s smart.”
Maizy giggled, that light giggle dipped in fairy wings. “She’s nice. Can she be your girlfriend? You’re not so cranky when she’s around.”
Something to Talk About Page 26
