Safe Love (Love Brothers #4)

by Liz Crowe

  She did, and a few ghost-braking, dashboard grabbing minutes later, they were installed in a booth at the Love Pub, pizza ordered, and staring at each other in awkward silence. Antony sipped his beer, not really tasting it. AliceLynn fiddled with her napkin and her phone.

  Several servers and guests stopped to chat with them and finally the food arrived. Antony knew the girl could out-stubborn him and wouldn’t talk until he did. After inhaling a slice and watching her type yet another text, likely to the mysterious ‘Jason who required her to be on birth control,’ Antony took a deep breath and leaned his elbows on the table.

  “So, how do you feel about the thing with, ah…um, the therapist lady?”

  AliceLynn shot him an odd, searching and somehow knowing look. He swallowed past the urge to deflect and change the subject. “She’s all right, I guess.” After a few minutes spent watching her chew, swallow and text before she finally looked up at him, he knew had to get control of the temper rising in his gut and heating his face.

  “I don’t care for it,” he admitted, grabbing another slice. “Much.”

  She frowned down at her screen.

  “I’m up here, AliceLynn. Can you put that damn thing away for half a second?”

  She heaved a sigh, set it face down on the table top and glared at him. “Why not? I think she likes…you.”

  He blinked, sucked in a breath and spent the next few seconds trying not to choke to death on a pepperoni, while his daughter pinned him with a look that was too old for her years. He sipped some water and tried to formulate an answer. “Don’t be stupid,” he managed. “I’m engaged to Rosie. She’s just…I’m…it’s…oh, hell.”

  To his alarm, AliceLynn’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t call me stupid,” she whispered. “I’m going to the ladies’.” She slid out of the booth and stomped away.

  Antony sat, holding the half-eaten slice of pizza that had damn near killed him just now, wondering not for the first time what in the hell he’d said to upset her so much. A sudden, unwelcome vision of Crystal’s face floated around in his brain. He ground his teeth and tried not to curse her for having the nerve to get in the car and fucking die on the interstate, leaving him to navigate the female teenage waters alone. What a colossal mess this was. And of course, he had no one but himself to blame.

  He stretched his long legs out under the table and tried to relax only to feel a strong, familiar slap on his shoulder. “Oh, hey Daddy,” he said when Anton Love took the seat AliceLynn had vacated. “What’s up?”

  “Your mama wanted some of Pat’s barbecue for supper,” he said, dropping a bag full of eco-friendly, bio-degradable and, Antony knew, expensive takeaway boxes onto the table. ‘Pat’ was the longtime chef in the Love Pub kitchen whose barbecue and beer dinners drew visitors from as far away as Cincinnati. “On a date?” His father indicated the large pizza.

  “No. It’s AliceLynn.”

  Anton Love raised a dark eyebrow. “So that therapy crap is working?”

  “I don’t know about all that,” Antony said, unwilling to admit that maybe it was, if for no other reason than something about his one full session today had compelled him to come home and be a father for a change. After a few minutes when it became clear that his daughter had skipped out on him, he slumped down into the booth and put his hands on the table. “Like I said, since it would appear that she’s bailed on me because I called her ‘stupid…’”

  Anton chuckled and got up slowly, making Antony realize that his father was not wearing his sixty-some years very well lately. “Son, don’t ever call a girl anything she might even slightly consider an insult. It’s not the same as it is with your knucklehead brothers. Thought I raised you better than that.”

  “Great. Thanks for the tip. Now I don’t have a way home since I assume she took her car and went over to that damn boy’s house.”

  “Jason?” Anton asked, sending a spike of something resembling jealousy through Antony’s head.

  “I guess,” he muttered, waving down the waitress so he could get a box, pay the check and get the hell out of here. Anton headed to the door, leaving Antony to fume at the girl’s nerve, just bolting on him.

  Yeah. She got you with that one, dad. Best just go on home.

  Once he’d paid, tipped and snagged his leftovers he shouldered his way out the door. His father stood at the door of the brewery van. “Get in, you big dumbass. I’ll run ya home.”

  Chapter Seven

  Margot looked across the vast expanse of her desk, trying to decide what to say to the young woman who sat sobbing her eyes out and clutching a handful of tissues, or to the man sitting next to her with his arms crossed over his massive chest, face cloudy with a combination of fury and resignation. After cancelling the last two of his scheduled appointments, Antony had appeared today at her door behind his daughter. The following forty minutes or so had been torture for everyone in the room.

  In all her years of helping people, listening, giving subtle suggestions to teens, married couples and others, she had never felt so utterly useless in the face of what would and should have been a straightforward case. The room was suffused by the sound of AliceLynn’s sobs and barely understandable mumblings about how she ‘hated her Daddy’ and ‘hated all this stupid talking’ and ‘he hated her anyway.’ Sweat beaded under Margot’s shirt the longer Antony sat there, glaring at her as if this were somehow her fault.

  She prayed that no one would catch her in this mess because she would surely, without a doubt, one hundred percent, lose her damn license to practice if they did. Antony cleared his throat, shifted in his seat and attempted to drape an arm across the increasingly miserable girl’s shoulders. “Get off me!” Her screech made Margot’s head pound. Antony withdrew his arm, his face red and his hackles raised. “I hate you!”

  She jumped to her feet, purse clutched to her thin frame. A sudden thought filled Margot’s head and she acted on it, for reasons that never really clarified themselves. “What’s in the bag, AliceLynn?”

  The girl blinked, brushed the back of her hand across her runny nose, then glared at Margot. “None of your dang business.”

  Antony snagged it quick. The girl made an attempt to grab it but he held her off, and tossed it to Margot without a word. The surrealism of the moment made her heart race. This was not right. This was not her place. She was not the girl’s mother.

  Even so, she sat and tugged the strings, getting a distinct whiff of marijuana when the bag opened. Frowning, she pulled out the elaborate, blown-glass pipe and a baggie about a quarter filled with weed. She set them on the desk, ignoring Antony’s sharp intake of breath. Antony’s mother and his younger brother Dom had filled her in on his pot and beer-fueled high school and college days. That wasn’t what concerned her at the moment anyway. The item below all that stuff did.

  Just as Antony opened his mouth to bellow or berate, generally making the whole scene a million times worse, she held up a hand. To her relief, his lips pressed together in a thin line and he stayed quiet. Margot closed the purse, leaving the paraphernalia on the desk and handed the bag over to the red-faced girl. “AliceLynn,” she said in a firm voice. “You need to get a grip on yourself now. We understand…” She stopped, catching her error. “Your father understands how you feel. Our…uh, I mean your task now is to move forward, to get past it, to work together and be stronger as a unit.”

  “He’s a jerk,” the girl said, clutching her bag that contained something Margot would be discussing with her, just not in her father’s presence. With that move, she sincerely hoped AliceLynn would trust her. “That’s my property.” She jerked her chin toward the baggie of weed and pipe. Margot raised an eyebrow, surprised, but not really. From what she had heard about Crystal and knew about Antony, AliceLynn came by her strong, defiant, somewhat self-centered personality honestly.

  Antony rose, his set shoulders blocking Margot’s view. “I may be a jerk, but I am your dad. And I am sorry. Really, I truly am so sorry, honey.”
Margot hesitated. This she had not anticipated. Antony held out his arms. Margot willed the girl to respond but she just stood, gnawing on her lower lip, her pale cheeks tear-streaked, red hair in a wild riot around her face.

  “You should be sorry, Daddy.” AliceLynn spit the last word out as if it tasted bad. Antony took a step back, straight into Margot. She put a hand on his bicep. “You dumped me. Dumped me right out of your life, like I was never in it. Like… like…without my mama you didn’t even care about me, you know?” Antony didn’t move. AliceLynn’s gaze flickered down to the hand Margot still had on his arm. “And I think,” she said, drawing herself together in a classic self-justification stance. “I think this session should be over.”

  Margot dropped her hand to her side, feeling her face flush hot. “I love you AliceLynn,” Antony said, making Margot frown when AliceLynn flinched as if he’d slapped her. “I love you,” he repeated, his arms hanging at his sides and his broad shoulders slumped.

  “Well, goodie for you,” the girl said before turning and flouncing to the door. She yanked it open then whirled around with a dramatic flourish. Margot tried very, very hard not to roll her eyes. “Let’s go, Daddy.” She kept her gaze on Margot who’d stepped out from behind and now stood shoulder to shoulder with Antony. “Don’t you have a date? With your fiancée?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t have a date. Rosie said she’d be late tonight, some meeting at the bank.” His voice was strong, steady and free of anger. Margot gave him mental kudos. He crossed his arms. His daughter mirrored him. If the whole thing weren’t so hopelessly messy, Margot would consider this moment a breakthrough. But she couldn’t get past her bizarre, huffy, knee-jerk reactions to the girl’s teenage-style baiting.

  AliceLynn frowned then slipped out the door, leaving Margot at a loss, and unsure for the first time in a damn long time what to say or do. Antony turned and dropped into the closest chair, burying his face in his hands. She stood over him, raised a hand to touch his shoulder and then dropped it. Then raised it again and dropped it once more. Confusion churned through her.

  After a few brutally awkward minutes, Antony lifted his head and looked at her, making her weak in the knees, in a way no grown woman should be. She took a step away from him, shaking her head but he remained seated, staring at her. “I can’t do this.” His voice was low and sounded strangled.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she insisted, making her slow way around so the huge desk was between them again.

  “I can’t be this…person everyone needs me to be. I don’t know how I got here in the first place and I’m sick and fucking tired of disappointing everybody with my inability to father that…that girl. Oh god,” he moaned and leaned his elbows on his knees.

  Letting her inner caretaker overrule her logical mind, which was fairly screaming at her to stop, run away and put a lot of distance between herself and this imminent disaster, Margot moved back around the desk and put her hand on his shoulder. The way he settled under her touch and the way she sensed it, provided her with even more inner turmoil.

  “You aren’t disappointing anyone,” she said, attempting and nearly failing to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Stop saying that.”

  He rose so fast the chair tottered and tipped backward with a thud. Before she could blink he had her wrists in his hands and his lips close to hers. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m…I …”

  Giving herself a firm shove over the precipice, Margot took a breath and yanked her arms out of his grip, wrapped them around his neck and pressed her lips to his. They both made low, satisfied sounds deep in their throats. He hesitated a split second then met her more than halfway, pulling her close and opening his mouth to hers. After a few, glorious seconds, he broke away, breathing heavy and glaring at her. “Don’t make this fucking worse,” he said under his breath as if talking to himself.

  Margot’s body was on high alert. She tingled from tip to toe and knew her face was flushed. “It’s…all right.” She moved closer, taking his large, warm hand in hers. He jerked out her reach.

  “No, it’s not and you damn well know it. I don’t know what the fuck it is about you—no, wait, I do know and I don’t want it, do you get me? Margot? I can’t want it. I had it. I loved it. And it got into a car and was crushed by a fucking semi-trailer on the interstate.” His voice broke. “I won’t allow myself to feel that way about anyone ever again.”

  Margot dropped onto the small couch, her therapy brain clicking in on autopilot. “But, you…what about…” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the poor woman’s name.

  “Rosie,” he growled, keeping a solid four to five feet of air between them. “Oh fuck.” He stepped further away, stumbling on the overturned chair. “This is our last session. You can keep working with AliceLynn but you and I…we can’t …”

  Margot rose slowly, keeping her gaze on his, noting how he automatically reacted and owning it.

  This could be pretty incredible. But for her shitty timing. She took a long, shaky breath. “You’re right. We can’t. Please tell AliceLynn I’ll see her on Friday. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, barely making it to the small private washroom before bursting into tears.

  Chapter Eight

  The weird, empty, post-therapy feeling stole over Antony as he drove like a bat out of hell all the way home. Opening up the Charger’s hemi and blaring Luke Bryan music didn’t dispel it. Neither did the two hours of riding and grooming his horses, or the six pack of beer he downed. If anything, all the physical activity and booze expanded the hole in his chest, leaving him shaky and as horny as a sailor on shore leave.

  Cursing, he slammed the window shut when a strong wind blew a squall of rain into the kitchen. His phone buzzed across the counter. He snagged it, registering AliceLynn’s text about ‘staying at Janey’s’ and wondering if she were actually doing that or in the middle of making out with her boyfriend. He groaned as he tried to formulate an appropriate response.

  After typing and deleting all the stupid auto corrections, he hit ‘call’ and leaned against the counter, heart pounding.

  “What,” she said, picking it up right before it went to voice mail.

  “Is that any way to answer my call?”

  “Sorry. Hi Daddy! How can I help you this evening?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he growled. “Where are you, really?”

  “I told you. At Janey’s.”

  “So if I said ‘put Janey’s daddy on the phone, hon. I need to let him know I’m still waitin’ on a part for his Honda,’ that wouldn’t present any sort of a problem, would it?”

  “Not at all. As a matter of fact, he’s sitting on the couch now, staring at a baseball game. I’ll get him.”

  “You do that.” Antony waited, tapping his toe, knowing he had to follow through with this, or she’d call his bluff.

  “Hey Antony. What’s up?” Janey’s father’s voice filled his ear. “What’s that? Oh, okay. So, AliceLynn says I’m to tell you that she is here, and not anywhere else. Teenagers,” the man said, chuckling under his breath. “How’s my Honda?”

  “Should be done tomorrow if the part shows up. Put my daughter back on, would ya?”

  “Sure thing. Hang in there, man. It’s gotta get better, right?”

  Antony grunted, acknowledging that of all the things so grossly wrong in his life at that moment, he would take a little right with his daughter. But he had to own up to his piece of it—he’d done this. So he had to take a little extra on top of the usual teenage girl BS.

  He could hear her breathing and waited for her to say something, then realized she probably wouldn’t. “Have a nice…night,” he said, cursing under his breath. Would he ever get the hang of this?

  “Sure. Whatever.” The phone went silent in his hand for a minute before buzzing, startling him. Noting the name on the screen, he pondered ignoring it until something in his head started pinging like crazy.

  “Hey Rosie, what’s up?” He sat at
the kitchen table with his hand over his face, acknowledging that while his fiancée was the last person he wanted to talk to right now, he could use her company, considering that since his anger at AliceLynn was dissipating, his earlier, more primal urges were returning in a sickening rush. The sound of her sharp intake of breath and sob drove all that out of his head. He jumped up and started pacing. “Honey, what is it? Calm down. Is it Jeffrey? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come over?”

  “No,” she said between crying. “No, no, no it’s…nothing. I’m just…I wanted to…oh shit, Antony.” The sobbing recommenced.

  “Damn it, Rosie, talk to me. What the hell is—?”

  “Nothing, I’m sorry. I’m all messed up, just, you know, emotional and stuff I guess.” She sniffled. Antony heaved a sigh, thinking that suggesting she come over so he could fuck her and take his edge off might be in the ‘wrong’ column at that moment. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “You too,” he said, rummaging through the fridge for more beer and coming up empty.

  “I don’t…deserve you.”

  He frowned and rubbed the bridge of his nose where a headache was taking up residence. Exhaustion hit him in the chest. Close on the heels of that, the most overwhelming urge to run out into the night yelling like a crazy person. He had to clench his jaw to keep from doing exactly that. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”

  “I, um, got the promotion.”

  “Oh, that’s great, baby. Congratulations.” Something occurred to him then—a memory of a promise he’d made to take her out wherever she wanted for dinner once the promotion came through. Before he could ask if she’d been out looking for him today to break the news, she spoke.

  “I’m gonna go. I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know. I wanted to hear your voice.”