With a laugh, she changed her expression. “Sorry. I would be mad too if you went on about some guy I’d been with.”
“Good. So, we understand each other then.” Picking up the glass, I took a dainty sip. “I’ve got so much to learn about being a mother. If Kane allows that, I guess.”
“Do you honestly think he won’t let you be a mom to your own kid?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Is there something you can do about that if he does try to keep you out of the boy’s life?”
“I don’t think there would be anything for me to do about it. I signed away my rights when they made me give him up.” The thought hit me like a punch to the gut. “What if Kane thinks I won’t be a good influence on Fox? What if Kane has a problem with my job or something, or the way I live my life? What if he just wants to screw me now and then, but won’t let me be anything more than an occasional lay?”
Taylor shook her head adamantly. “No. You can’t let him treat you that way. You’re going to have to up your game, girl. We need to mother you up. We’ll get you some mom clothes to wear around the kid—things that are less sexy and more casual or something. Maybe trade that Mustang for a minivan. Is the kid into sports of any kind?”
“Yeah, baseball. He’s an athlete, just like his dad.” The thought of a minivan made my stomach clench. “But I don’t want a minivan. That’s going too far, Taylor. But maybe something kind of sporty, but more like something a mom would drive.”
She tapped her chin with her index finger. “My Beemer is kind of like that.”
“Yeah!” I agreed with enthusiasm. “Something along those lines. I like the way you’re thinking.” But then I thought about the fact I would need to keep my current job to make that kind of a payment. “Or maybe something a bit cheaper. I’ll have to look around, and maybe look around for a more suitable job, too.”
Clucking her tongue, Taylor went on, “You know what the bills are here, Zandy. Not every job will pay well enough to keep the lights on.”
She was right about that. There weren’t many jobs that paid as much as I made at the club. Not for people with nothing more than a high school diploma, anyway.
Running my hand through my hair, I felt a bit of a headache coming on. “I should really think about expanding my horizons if I want Kane to see me as a woman who’s fit to be the mother of his son.”
“He’s not only his son, Zandy,” she reminded me. “He’s yours too.”
“Not on paper,” I reminded her. “Fox is his alone and has been all this time. I wonder how Kane is going to feel about sharing him now.”
“Oh, hell,” she whispered. “I didn’t even think about that. You said it’s been ten years. That’s a long time for it to have been just the two of them. I bet they’ve got their whole routine established. And where the hell will you fit into that?”
“I know.” I took a long drink as I thought about what the future would hold for me. “This may only end up bringing more pain to my life, and not the joy I was thinking.”
With a sad nod, she agreed. “Yep.” She finished her drink then got up to refill it. “I hate to say this, but I’m not feeling as great about this anymore, Zandy.”
Looking at the beverage in my hand, I thought about dumping it out. When my bouts of depression hit me, alcohol only made them worse. And I didn’t want to fall into a pit of despair right when I’d just found my son and reunited with the only man who’d ever been able to push my sexual buttons.
Chapter 14
Kane
Not used to my son being angry with me, the quiet ride home wasn’t comfortable at all. “So, what do you want for dinner, buddy?”
“I wanted you to cook out on the grill.” He looked out the window, but I could still see the glare in his eyes. “I wanted my mom, the person you know I’ve wanted to see my whole life, to come over and eat with us. Now, I don’t care what we have for dinner. It can be a bowl of cereal for all I care.”
“Okay, Fox, I’m going to be very honest with you. That woman is your mother, yes. But we don’t know her. All we know for sure is that she just moved back here from Chicago, and that she has worked in bars her whole adult life, and currently works in one.” I thought about how to word my misapprehension when he looked at me like he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. “Okay, let me clarify. A lot of the time, the people who work in bars tend to live a wilder lifestyle than you and I are used to living.”
“Wild?” he asked with a confused expression. “Like a wild animal?”
“Like a wild person. Drinking alcohol. Getting drunk. Staying up late.” I stopped myself before I went too far and said something that might make him think badly about his mother. “Lots of things. And I have no idea if she does any of those things or not. I need to get to know her first before we figure out how involved she’s going to be in your life.”
“That’s not fair!” he wailed. “Why do you get to do that and not me?”
“Because I’m a grownup who knows a thing or two about life and people and you’re a little kid, Fox.” The dull throb of a headache began, and I knew this wasn’t going to end anytime soon.
“She’s my mom!” he shouted.
“Fox, control your voice when you’re talking to me. I’m not yelling, and you’re not allowed to either.” I had to keep our rules in place. This was the first situation where he’d really bucked me. But I couldn’t let things get out of hand. “Now, let me tell you more about what I’m thinking. Maybe then you can understand where I’m coming from.”
“Doubt it.” He sulked as he sat in the middle of the backseat.
“Well, I’m going to try anyway.” I paused, heaving a heavy sigh. Man, this shit sucks ass. “Since we don’t know her yet, we have no idea if she’s a good driver. And you wanted her to take you to school. What if she drives dangerously? I’ll have you know she sped out of the parking lot back at the hospital. What if she’s had a lot of wrecks?”
His eyes darted up to meet mine in the rearview mirror. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”
I had no idea what he was getting at. “And what does that mean?”
He gave me a stoic look. “It means that she’s alive. She hasn’t killed herself in a car wreck or something.”
Sometimes this kid was too smart for his own good. I could already see that he was going to have an answer for everything. My job would be hard, but I had to do it. “Okay, so she’s alive. But we have no idea if she’s been in accidents in the past that have hurt her. Heck, we have no idea if she was involved in an accident that killed someone. That’s how much we don’t know.”
“Drama.” After all I’d said, that one word was his only reply.
Another sigh came out of me as my head began to throb. Rubbing my temples, I had never been so glad to see our home coming up. “It’s not drama, Fox. It’s being a responsible parent. And no matter how dramatic you think I’m being, I will do what I think is best to keep you safe.”
After we stopped inside the garage, he took his seatbelt off and we both got out of the car. Stomping away from me, he muttered, “And what you think is best is that you get to know her better right now and I don’t. Real fair, Dad.”
“Life isn’t fair, son.” I gritted my teeth as the age-old saying came out of my mouth. But there was no other way to put it.
Life wasn’t fair. People weren’t always good. Children sometimes didn’t understand why things were the way they were. It didn’t make a difference. A parent had to do what a parent had to do.
Pounding the security code into the pad, Fox disabled the alarm system then slammed into the house. Now he was in trouble, and he had to have known that.
I came in right behind him. “Fox, you walk back out that door and come back in it the right way.”
Ignoring me, he just kept on walking away. In ten years, I had never seen this side of my son.
Catching up to him, I tried my best to remain calm even though my head was pounding like a herd of elephants was dis
co dancing up there. One hand on his shoulder was enough to stop him, but I didn’t expect what happened next.
Turning to face me, my little boy’s face was glowing beet red. “Let me go.”
I had never met Zandra’s parents, though I’d heard a few things about them through the years, like how strict they were. And I knew they must’ve been pretty damn opinionated and obstinate as hell to make their daughter give up her baby. But I had a feeling that I didn’t know the half of it. I could only assume this new side of Fox came from them.
“I’m going to schedule a meeting with Dr. Parsons tomorrow.” I didn’t let go of his shoulder, but I did ease up on the grip I had on him. “I know you don’t understand or even agree with me about this, but you will respect me and my decisions. Now, do what I told you to. Go back out that door, come back in, and do not slam it this time. If you don’t, then you can go on to your bedroom, take a bath, and go to bed for the night without dinner.”
Shrugging my hand off his narrow shoulder, he didn’t say a word as he went back to the door and did as I’d asked him to. I stood there, watching him, his face never lightening up at all. Instead, it stayed red and angry.
No longer stomping, he walked by me.
“Dinner will be in an hour.”
“I don’t want any,” he told me as he kept on walking. “I’m going to take a bath then go to bed. I’m not hungry.”
Stunned, I stood there, just watching him walk away from me. In the space of an hour, he’d found out he would have his mother in his life, and that seemed to mean that he didn’t care about me anymore.
After a long moment of standing there in shock, I started walking to my den. A bottle of Scotch sat on the small bar. Pouring myself a drink, I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened.
Lying back in my recliner, I turned on the heat and massager to try to relax and think rationally about everything that happened that day.
Is he right for being so angry with me? Should I have been more careful about letting him learn who Zandra was?
Should I have, at the very least, let his mother come over for dinner, the way he’d wanted?
Should I have let her stay the night, the way he’d asked?
Closing my eyes, I saw Zandra in my mind. Her long dark tresses, adorned with deep blue streaks, flowed over her naked back as she walked away from me. The two dimples at the tops of both ass cheeks held my attention as I looked down her body.
Then she turned, beckoning me to join her as she wiggled one long, slender finger at me. “I’m not a girl anymore, Kane.”
My cock stiffened. “No, you’re not. And I’m not a teenage boy anymore, Zandra Larkin.”
“I know.” Her red lips parted, showing her pearly white, perfectly straight teeth. “Come show me what you can do to me now that we’re all grown up, Kane Price.”
“Dad?” my son’s voice startled me.
Looking down at my crotch, I found some pretty good wood there, standing at attention. Luckily, he’d come up behind me and couldn’t see that.
Grabbing yesterday’s newspaper off the table next to me, I put it on my lap to make it look like I’d been about to read it. “Yes, son?”
“I want to say that I’m sorry.” He walked around in front of me.
He had no idea how good that made me feel. “Thank you. It takes a strong person to apologize, Fox. I respect you for doing that.”
“Good.” Getting down on his knees in front of my chair, it looked as if he was about to beg me, and I could see he already looked on the verge of tears. “Dad, I know you want to do what’s best for me. Please don’t let too much time pass by before you let Mom be around me.”
He hadn’t had his real mom his entire life. He’d waited ten years for her, and I could see that he was ready to have her in his life, now that we’d found her. “I’ll do my best. I promise you that.”
“I know she’s not like you. But that doesn’t make her bad.” He tried to prove his point.
“I know that.” Taking a sip of the Scotch, I took a second to think about what to tell my son. Our son. “Let me just get the basics out of the way. I’ll talk to her tonight. I’ll ask her all the right questions. Tomorrow, if she’ll meet with me, I’ll talk more with her in person. We’ve got to see what she wants from us too, Fox.” I knew he hadn’t thought about this at all. “She may not want to be a mom. It’s not an easy thing to be.”
“She can do it, Dad. She wants to, I know it. She just needs us to help her. Tell me that you’ll help her, Dad.” He placed his hand on my knee. “Please.” His voice cracked on that plea, breaking my heart a little.
“I promise I’ll do my best to help her become a mom for you.” How could I say anything else?
“Thanks, Dad.” The smile on his face would be enough to see me through what I knew would be a difficult path ahead of us.
“So, about dinner,” I said, thinking that his appetite would be back now that he’d gotten at least part of what he wanted. “How about we order a pizza?”
“Really?” he asked as he jumped up. “We hardly ever have that. Can I have pepperoni?”
“As long as you eat a salad too,” I said as I took my cell phone out of my pocket. “And drink a glass of milk with it, too.”
“Deal.” And just like that, our fight was over.
In no time, we sat at the bar in the kitchen, eating the pizza the delivery boy had brought for us. Fox munched on a piece of pepperoni pizza while I ate my salad. “Don’t forget the deal, Fox. You’ve got to eat your salad too. Not just the pizza.”
Putting down the slice, he took a bite of his salad as promised. “Dad, we’ve got a big house here. Five bedrooms in all.”
I already knew what he was getting at. Along with that, I knew I had to watch what I said, or we’d end up arguing again. “Yes, we do.”
He took a drink of milk before adding, “If you don’t like Mom being a waitress in a bar then why don’t you invite her to live here, so she doesn’t have to work?”
And here we were, on the cusp of what I hoped wouldn’t be another argument. “You know, Fox, I think that’s something I can talk to her about.” That should be good enough for him.
“’K.” He smiled, then stabbed his fork into the salad. “Make her want to come here, Dad.”
I didn’t even know if I wanted her to come live in our home yet, if ever, but I wasn’t about to push my kid’s buttons. “I’ll see what I can do.”
As if a light bulb had gone on in his head, his entire face brightened up. “You know what you should do?”
Go to my bedroom and hide from you.
Knowing I couldn’t do that, I asked, “What should I do?”
“Ask her to marry you,” came his tremendous answer.
I nearly choked on the water I’d just sipped. “Fox! She and I don’t know each other well enough for that.”
His eyes immediately drooped. “Yeah. I thought you might say that.” He looked up at me with a weak smile. “I had to try though. I just want her around, like, all the time.”
My heart began to ache for him. “Of course, you do.” I ran my hand through his dark hair. Hair that would look just like his mother’s if she hadn’t dyed it. “That’s understandable. And I’ll do all that I can to make sure you get as much time with her as possible. She has a life too, though. You’ve got to understand that. She never saw this coming.”
“I know.” He looked sad as he stared at his food. “Why does life have to be so hard?”
“I wish I knew.” But then I thought about how good we had it. “But you should be thankful for all the good you’ve got in your life. You’ve got a family who loves and adores you. You’ve got a nice home, plenty of food to eat, a great private school to go to.”
He nodded then took a bite of the pizza. “And a great dad too. And now I’ve got my mom. My real mom. I thought that one day you might meet someone and get married and I might have a stepmom.”
“You know, that still might ha
ppen,” I had to let him know.
Looking at me with sheer determination in his eyes, he said, “I don’t want a stepmom. I want my mom.”
“I know, buddy.” It didn’t feel like the right time for any more mentions of marriage or other women. “We’ll just see how things go. ’K?”
“’K.” He went back to eating. “I like this pizza and salad. Thanks for getting it.”
“You’re welcome.” I messed up his hair. “How about tomorrow you and I go get a haircut after school? You’re getting shaggy, and I should try to look my best for your mom.”
“Now you’re talking, Dad.” His smile went from one ear to the other. “Reel her in for us!”
I had no idea when my ten-year-old kid had learned anything about reeling in a lady, but it made me laugh just the same. With no idea if I would even want to try to catch Zandra Larkin, much less reel her in, I prayed I wouldn’t disappoint my son. Or make him angry with me again, because that argument had left me with an awful feeling.
Chapter 15
Zandra
Lying on my bed, I stared out the window at the rising full moon. Trying to be smart and responsible for once, I’d only had two of the mimosas Taylor made. I figured it was time for me to start acting more like a mother. And the only mother I had to pattern myself after was my own. She never drank at all. And she didn’t cuss. She also didn’t have any empathy, a trait of hers I was going to be sure to steer clear of.
My cell rang, pulling me out of my numb moongazing to look at the phone on the bed beside me. An unknown number flashed on the screen. I noticed the time was ten minutes to nine.
“Oh, well. Let’s see who the mystery caller is.” I mused to myself before answering the call. “Hello?”
“Is this Zandra?” came a little boy’s voice.
I knew who it was right away. “Yes, it is. Is this Fox?”
“Yes, it is.” He sighed, and I could tell he was happy that I recognized his voice. “Mom, I just wanted to call you tonight, and every night at this time, if that’s okay, to tell you goodnight.”
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