“It’s not too late for you and Max. He needs you and you’re here. From what you’re telling me, you could be just what he needs at this stage in his life. How did you grow out of your klutzy phase, anyway?”
“Once there wasn’t someone looking over my shoulder, trying to change everything about me, pointing out every pitfall before I even got there…” He raised an eyebrow. “I grew out of it on my own.”
“You’re telling me to let Max be Max.”
“I’m not telling you anything, Livy, except that you look beautiful with the moon on your hair.”
Before she could stop herself, Livy touched her hair. She could almost feel the soft light of the moon. J.J. had often murmured poetic phrases that had charmed her girlish heart. Tonight Garrett charmed her woman’s soul. She could tell him that she was too old for such things now, but that would be another lie, and she’d had far too little charm in her life.
“Max is your son,” he said. “You do what you think is best.”
“He’s your son, too.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t know what’s best for him after all.”
“My life isn’t Max’s life. Thank God. Once you think it’s all right to tell him the truth, I promise he’ll always know his father loves him. That’s something I can’t say about myself. I don’t want the same for Max.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you they loved you?”
He crossed the floor, silent in stocking feet, and stood close enough so that the moon shaded them both. Her breath caught as she saw again that strange flicker in his eyes she could not place. She braced herself for a torrent of feelings when he kissed her and touched her as she wanted him to. But he merely brushed his lips along her brow, tucked her hair behind her ear and murmured, “You were the only one.”
*
“I’ve got a story about the closet monster and a story about the goblins in the bathroom mirror.”
Max sat so close to Garrett on the couch he was practically in his lap. Garrett had discovered over this past week with Max that if the child wasn’t in his pocket he was trying to get there.
Starved for his son’s voice, his warmth, the sweet drift of white-blond hair, the little-boy scent of heated sunshine and dry grass, Garrett didn’t mind. Everything about Max fascinated him.
So much so that he hadn’t thought of the un-book at all, and his Muse might be dead for all he cared. Even Andrew seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. A fact that would concern Garrett if he could work up concern about anything other than Max—and Max’s mom.
Livy had suspended Max’s two-week jail term on condition that he stay with Garrett after school and not wander off. No problem there. The two of them were exactly where they wanted to be. Together.
Garrett shifted just a little, and Max climbed right into his lap, then opened the sketchbook Garrett had given him. “Do you think these goblins are goblin-y enough?”
He took in the blue Magic Marker blobs that seemed to be climbing right out of the gray crayon mirror. Max was really good at visualizing what frightened him. Almost as good as he was at articulating it. For eight, Max was amazingly bright. Garrett tried not to pump out his chest and preen. But he couldn’t help it. His son had to be the smartest kid in the world.
“Very goblin-y. I can see why you wanted to keep an eye on that mirror at all times. I wouldn’t want any of those coming at me when I had my pants down.”
“’Zactly. Mom would never understand. It’s a guy thing.”
“Definitely.”
Livy wouldn’t like to hear that, but truth was truth, and some things were guy things. Like eating ice cream in your underwear, or pizza without plates. Drinking milk right from the carton. We don’t need no stinkin’ glass! Or watching cartoons on the iPad and drag racing on the TV at the same time while you listened to the radio.
“Once I got the goblins done, I was going to work on the zombies in the basement, but I got a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
Garrett tipped Max back until his son lay on his arm, his head tucked against Garrett’s chest. Without even thinking, Max snuggled. Garrett’s heart thundered with a love so deep he could barely keep it to himself. But he’d made a promise—one that was getting harder and harder to obey the more deeply he fell in love with his son.
“There’s something that’s always scared me, and I want to make a story about it before I do the basement zombies.”
“You’re worried about something worse than monsters, zombies or goblins?’ ’
“Lots worse.” His voice quivered, and Garrett’s arms tightened around him.
“What is it, big guy?”
Max giggled. “I’m not big like you.”
“I was little once.”
Max twisted to look into Garrett’s face. “You were?”
Garrett had promised not to tell Max he was his father, but he hadn’t promised not to tell him anything else. Max needed to know that he wasn’t a freak, that the way he was, was the way he was supposed to be, and that in the end everything came out all right. Or near enough.
“I was very small. Then when I hit high school, boom, I shot up. One summer I grew four inches and that fall another two.”
Max stuck out his feet. ‘‘I suppose your feet grew, too.”
‘‘No, I think that’s when my body caught up with my feet. I didn’t trip so much after that.”
‘‘You tripped?”
‘‘Everyone does.”
Max held up his cast. ‘‘Not like I do.”
‘‘That’s because you’re special.”
“I am?”
“Didn’t you know that?”
“Mom says, and Rosie, too. But they have to.”
“And I don’t?”
“No. You’re just some guy.”
Garrett hated being “just some guy.”
“I wish you could be my daddy.”
“Me, too,” Garrett whispered, his lips against Max’s hair.
Despite the poignancy of the moment, Max was suddenly done cuddling. He leaped off Garrett’s lap, leaving him feeling cold and empty, then tumbled to the floor to write his newest, biggest fear in earnest.
“Half an hour and we have to get back,” Garrett reminded him.
Max merely grunted. He was busy.
Livy had worked several late nights. Her mother’s case was at a standstill and some of her other cases weren’t going well, either. Not that she talked about work with him, or much else. But Garrett knew what a person looked like when the work wasn’t going well. He still saw that person in his mirror every morning, though he no longer cared quite so much.
Each afternoon Garrett met Max at his house. They went to Garrett’s place, where they did guy things until dark. Then Garrett would bring his son home so he could be in bed by eight-thirty.
Most often Livy arrived just as they did, but sometimes she showed up after Max was asleep. The guilt in her eyes saddened Garrett, and he’d tried to lighten it by telling her some of the funny things Max had done or said. But it didn’t seem to help.
Some nights she was so tired she went right to bed, and Garret wandered home, taking a detour through any cemetery he could find—major or minor. So far not a single idea had jumped up and bit him. But what did a book matter when he had Max in the daylight and sometimes Livy all night?
Because there were nights when they’d watch Max sleep, then she’d pull him into her room and they’d make love. He’d lose himself in the taste of her skin and the scent of her hair and the play of her hands along his body. Then he’d hold her in his arms, and she’d sleep as he watched her face shift beneath the shadows of the moon.
On nights like those Garrett felt as if he were part of a family—until he had to walk home alone in the cool drift of dawn.
She had no idea he loved her. No idea that he always had, or that he always would.
Garrett had come to terms with his feelings the first night she�
�d welcomed him into her body, then her bed. Just because he hadn’t been able to tell her all those years ago didn’t make his love nonexistent.
Just as telling her now would not make her believe him, even if he could manage to say the words he’d never said before. She’d think he was saying them because of Max. Then he’d lose her, lose him, lose this. So while he often felt lonely, even as she lay in his arms, legs all tangled with his, breath warm and sweet on his skin, he’d keep his mouth shut, keep his feelings to himself and do his damnedest to make her love him all over again.
*
“Livy, wake up!”
Livy almost slammed her nose into the desk when her chin slipped off her hand. She had been sleeping. And dreaming again of him.
“You all right?” Kim sat on the desk.
“Fine.” Livy shoved at her hip. “Get off my desk.”
“But I look so good on it.” Before she jumped off, Kim posed like a sex kitten from a forties calendar. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were having wild and crazy sex all night long the way you keep falling asleep at your desk.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“We’ve had this discussion, and you said you didn’t like men. Besides, if you were getting that much, you’d be smiling more often.”
Livy smiled now, and Kim’s eyes sharpened. Livy stopped and turned her attention to the file on her blotter. Kim was too smart. That was why Livy had purposely frowned whenever she felt like grinning.
It wasn’t hard to find something to frown about around there; all she had to do was open a case file. But inside, even when she was frowning, even when she went home tired and found out she’d missed seeing Max again and the guilt hovered, deep down she was happy, as she hadn’t been for a long, long time.
If Garrett hung around, as he seemed bent on doing, soon enough she’d have to tell Max the truth, and everyone else, too. For now, she wanted to enjoy this uncommon stretch of E.R.-free life. Whatever Garrett was doing with Max, it seemed to be working. There hadn’t been a new mark on her son since Garrett took over.
For just a while longer she wanted to have Garrett to herself. Once everyone knew the truth, they’d all be under heavy Savannah scrutiny. Once Rosie came home, the fun would be over.
Livy didn’t want to think about that. In fact, she was tempted to throw Rosie to the wolf sisters just so she could keep Garrett in her bed.
Had the sex been this good last time? She would have remembered. But while she could recall every nuance of what she’d felt for him, the intensity of her love, the depth of her need—the sex? Livy gave a mental shrug. Adequate. Maybe neither one of them had known what they were doing back then. But Garrett certainly knew what he was doing now.
“You’re smiling. That file isn’t funny. What’s up with you?”
“Sometimes you gotta laugh or you’ll cry.”
“Sometimes,” Kim agreed. “What do you want to cry over today? Rosie?”
Livy glanced at her watch. “I’d better run over and see her. Have you checked with Judge McFie’s office? When can we get another appearance?”
“Next week.”
“Have you found out anything about the goose?”
Kim was shaking her head before Livy finished the question. “If Rosie took that goose, she hid it better than they hid King Tut’s tomb. Do you think you can get her to give it back?”
Livy merely rolled her eyes.
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Throw her on the mercy of the court?”
“That should work. Not.”
“I’ll try to think of something.” Livy considered the file in front of her again. “I should never have taken on Jeremy Dubouis as a client. I should have known an easy divorce only meant trouble later. Maybe I should recommend another lawyer.”
“He’ll just keep calling you. He likes you. And he’s harmless.”
“But lucrative.”
“What did he do this time?”
“Played the bongos on the lawn.”
“He did that last week.”
“In his jockstrap.”
“Oh.” Kim’s lips trembled. “Well, that’s new.”
Livy hesitated. Something had been bothering her since that first night in Garrett’s arms. Since he’d told her about his past, she’d been thinking a lot about that little boy whom no one had loved. And about herself. How she reacted to people, what she believed of them and how she acted on those beliefs.
“Kim, do you think I believe the worst of people before I even give them a chance?”
“You’ve been talking to Rosie.”
“Not today.”
“Maybe you do.” At the expression on Livy’s face, she rushed on. “But I can’t blame you. Look at your job. What choice do you have? Like you said—Dubouis had trouble written all over him from the moment he walked in the office. Besides, I’m the same way. So is Klein. The only person I know who loves everyone on contact is Max, and he’s a kid. He’ll grow out of it.”
“When he gets burned one too many times.”
“It has to happen.”
Livy only hoped it didn’t happen to her baby the way it had happened to her. She didn’t want Max betrayed by the person he loved the most.
Chapter 15
“I don’t have the goose. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Rosie seemed none the worse for her week in the slammer. In fact, her cell had the air of a hotel suite. Friends had brought colorful blankets and pillows for her bed, books, flowers, and countless other presents. The police, who’d known and loved her for years, had ignored it all.
While once this might have annoyed Livy, now she was merely glad her mother was happy in jail. She might be there quite a while.
“I have to be honest, Mama, I don’t know what I’m going to do for you.”
“Defend me. It’s my word against theirs.”
“Unfortunately, theirs is going to hold more weight.”
“Why is their word better than mine?”
Livy looked Rosie over—from her unbound, flyaway hair, past the slogan They’re Not Hot Flashes. They’re Power Surges across her chest, the hot-pink spandex tights, down to the purple ballet slippers that matched the wings of the hummingbird in her tattoo—and she had a revelation. If she believed in justice, her client was innocent.
Livy might think Rosie had stolen—make that emancipated—the goose, but if Rosie stuck to her story, then so should Livy.
“Their word isn’t better than yours.”
Rosie began to pace the confines of her cell, arms waving with the force of her annoyance. “Exactly. But because of how I dress, what I believe, who I married, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are going to win?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Ready to roll, Rosie came up short. “What did you say?”
“They’re not going to win. You’ve got the best lawyer in town in your corner.”
Confusion took the place of surprise. “But you think I’m silly.”
“Silly? I think you’re nuts. But I love you anyway.”
“You do?”
“You thought I didn’t?”
Rosie flopped down on her bed. “I figured you were going to hate me forever for leaving you behind.”
“Hate? Now you’re being silly. You’re my mother.”
“But I didn’t act like one, and you’ve never forgiven me.”
“I’m starting to think that I’ve been a bit rigid about some things.”
“Rigid.” Rosie snorted. “That’s a good word.”
“Maybe you should tell me why you felt compelled to leave.”
A darkness settled over Rosie’s cheery face. “What good would that do now?’’
Livy joined her mother on the single bed. “One thing I’ve learned in this job of mine—people do things that don’t make sense. But they usually have a reason that makes sense. In their mind, anyhow. I’d like to know yours.”
Rosie stared into Livy’s eyes a moment before she sighed and glanced away. “I didn’t leave you. Well, I did, but not the way you think. I had to get away from the memory of him, which appeared every time I saw you.”
“I don’t look like Daddy at all.”
Rosie’s smile was sad. “It’s your expressions. The way you tilt your head sometimes. The way you used to laugh. You and Henry were so much a part of each other, and I was always on the outside looking in.” She held up her hand when Livy began to protest. “That’s the way it was, and I didn’t mind.” She flipped her wrist in a careless gesture. “Much, anyway. Wherever you found Henry you found Livy. So when he was gone, and there was you but no him, I couldn’t bear it. I had to run.”
Livy had had the same problem every time she’d looked into Max’s eyes. But there’d been nowhere for her to go. All she’d been able to do was bury her pain and her fear beneath layers of anger, then devote all of her love to her son. Hover over him, keep him safe, attempt to control the uncontrollable.
“Silly how the past can affect every little thing,” she murmured.
Rosie put her arm around Livy and tugged her close. Livy’s head rested naturally on her mother’s shoulder, a place it hadn’t been for far too long, “Let’s forget about the past and start over. Look forward, and the whole world looks with you.”
“You ought to put that on a T-shirt.”
“Maybe I will.”
*
Garrett and Max turned up the walk and found Livy sitting on the porch with a glass of wine.
“Mom!” Max dropped Garrett’s hand and sprinted for her arms.
Garrett followed more slowly, watching them both, letting the love lap at him and try to draw him under.
Livy glanced up, and the memory of several nights in each other’s arms flickered in her eyes. Garrett went under gladly. She might be different, but in many ways Livy was still the same. Even if she hadn’t been the mother of his child, he wouldn’t be able to resist her any more now than he had back then.
“Hi,” she said, her voice a bit hoarse, as if she’d been crying, but he could see no other evidence of it.
Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) Page 17
