Second Time's the Charm

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And then they’d found out how imperfect their unborn son actually was.

  At first, like Jon, Kirk had been in denial. And later...she’d never seen a man change so quickly.

  Or so cruelly.

  She absolutely could not go through that again.

  But it didn’t stop there. As Lillie showered half an hour later, donned scrubs and drove herself to the clinic, bypassing the day care completely, she knew that even if Jon came around and did the right thing where Abe’s hearing was concerned, even if Jon was absolutely nothing like Kirk, she still had to cut short her involvement with the Swartz men.

  Because if it wasn’t Abe’s hearing, it would be something else. She’d be watching for potential problems every step of every day. He’d get a cold, she’d see lung disease. Have a dizzy spell, she’d see heart failure. Fail a test, she’d see a brain tumor.

  She’d drive herself and Jon crazy imagining symptoms, and suffocate the boy in the process, running him off to the doctor far too often.

  She was not and never would be a mother.

  * * *

  JON DIDN’T HEAR from Lillie on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday, after hearing in lab about another break-in, he called her.

  This one had been slightly different. The sliding glass door had been broken. Either the thief was getting careless, or desperate, or both.

  Lillie didn’t answer his call. He tried again when he parked his truck in the employee parking lot at the cactus jelly plant before going in to work. Again, no answer. He called the day care, to check on Abe, of course, but intending to ask if anyone had seen or heard from Lillie. He was probably overreacting. Lillie was busy.

  Or possibly not wanting to take his calls. Chances were she was just fine.

  It never hurt to check.

  “Abe’s doing fine now, Jon,” Bonnie Nielson said as soon as he identified himself.

  “Now?”

  “He’d been crying, not a tantrum, just crying, which is unusual for him.”

  Abe didn’t cry much—unless he was sick. Wrapping his finger around the keys that were still in the ignition, he started the truck. “Does he feel hot?”

  “No, he’s fine. He’s inside playing ring-around-the-rosy and laughing so hard he’s making his teachers laugh.”

  He turned the ignition back off.

  “He was asking for Lillie,” Bonnie told him. “She was scheduled to meet with a parent this morning, and as soon as she got here, she went in to see Abe. He ran straight to her and the tears stopped.”

  That answered one question—Lillie was fine.

  “Is she still there?”

  “No, she’s got a full schedule at the clinic today. She was only with him for a few minutes. Long enough to give him a hug and talk to him a bit. The woman’s magic with kids,” Bonnie extolled while Jon’s thoughts ran way ahead of her. “I’m not sure what she said, but that’s all it took.”

  No, that wasn’t all. Where Lillie was concerned, his son had it as badly as he did.

  In a short period of time, Lillie had become a part of their small family.

  And because Jon had unwittingly exposed Abraham to an overdose of the woman, his son was feeling her absence. Suffering for it.

  It was up to Jon to do something about that.

  The bottom line was, they needed Lillie.

  He just prayed that she needed them, too.

  And that, when she found out about Jon’s past, if she didn’t already know, she’d still want them.

  * * *

  ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, pulling into the parking lot of the funeral home where she was going to be supporting a six-year-old who’d just lost her older brother to a car accident, Lillie heard her phone ring.

  She couldn’t keep avoiding Jon’s calls. She didn’t even want to. She just wasn’t sure what to do—how to be friends with him and keep her distance, too.

  At the third ring, she pulled her phone out of her purse. One thing was clear—they were going to have to work something out where Abe was concerned. The boy needed her. With all the time she’d spent with him, she couldn’t just drop him cold turkey because she’d had incredible sex with his dad.

  The caller wasn’t Jon.

  “Hello, Kirk,” she answered. Might as well get the weekly call over with now when she had an excuse to let him go quickly.

  “It’s good to hear your voice, Lil.”

  “What do you want?” She’d never have believed she could be so mean. Or cold. She didn’t like it.

  “Are you working?”

  “I’ve been working all day and I’m about to be again.”

  “Shelter Valley’s lucky to have you.”

  And he wasn’t, didn’t, and it was going to stay that way.

  “I was thinking I’d drive up tonight, maybe we could get some dinner. Go to the pub again. I’ve got something I’d like to show you.”

  “What?” She couldn’t imagine anything he’d have that she’d want to see.

  “I had something made for Braydon’s grave.” His voice dropped. “It’s meant to sit in front of the stone you and Dad chose. It was just something I had to do, Lil.” Kirk’s voice broke. He tried to speak, and only made sounds.

  Unsure of what to do or say, she struggled for words. He had never cried in front of her. Ever. Not even when the doctor had told them about Braydon’s condition.

  She heard ragged breathing and then, “I’m...sorry.” His voice was weak, but legible. “I don’t know what’s coming over me. I just... I swear, Lil, I don’t want anything from you. I don’t mean to put my crap on your shoulders. I just didn’t want to put anything on his grave without you seeing it first and approving it. If you don’t want it there, I’ll take it back.”

  Tomorrow was the anniversary of the day she’d told Kirk she was pregnant. Could it be that he remembered? And that he had to visit his son’s grave on that day? If so, she couldn’t deny him. If he was honestly trying to deal with Braydon’s loss, which would enable him to be a better father to his living son, she had to help.

  “Okay, Kirk. I’ll meet you at the store on the Shelter Valley exit at six. No to dinner or the pub or anything else.”

  “Six? That’s good. Okay, I’ll be there.”

  He was remembering Braydon. She was touched. And didn’t want to be.

  “And, Lil? Thanks.”

  * * *

  THE WILLOW FAMILY wasn’t there yet. Waiting in her car for them to arrive so she could walk into the funeral home with six-year-old Chloe Willow, Lillie listened to her voice mail.

  Jon had left two messages. And deserved a callback.

  He didn’t pick up. Relieved, she waited for his voice mail to be activated.

  “Jon? It’s Lillie. Yes, I’m free tonight. I can swing by around seven, if that works for you.”

  Abe would sleep better having seen her. He’d be more relaxed at the day care, too, if she didn’t go so many days between visits with him.

  She and Jon had to talk about a schedule that would meet Abe’s needs and their own, too. Maybe she just had to come up with more jobs for him to do at her house. Keep it about work.

  With the appointment with Jon scheduled, her meeting with Kirk would have to be brief.

  And if Jon wanted more from her? Wanted to discuss their sex life? Or know where they went from here?

  She didn’t have any answers.

  * * *

  UNWILLING TO SIT home and let that evening’s appointment with Lillie gain momentum in his mind, Jon splurged and took Abe for hamburgers and French fries for dinner Wednesday night.

  He stopped in at the big-box store out by the freeway because it was in the same parking lot as the fast-food restaurant. He wasn’t going to get all sappy and try to woo Lillie with r
omance, but neither could he just let their conversation that evening pass without some kind of preparation.

  It would be a conversation they’d remember for the rest of their lives.

  If he did it right—and was reading her right.

  “What should we get her, Abie baby?” After a long day at Little Spirits and with his belly full, Abraham was ready for a bath and bed, not using his words. Two of his fingers hung out of his mouth as he pointed to the bags of candy that were left over from Halloween.

  “Candy’s bad for your teeth,” he reminded his son, purposely not putting his face in Abe’s as he spoke. The boy seemed satisfied with his answer, anyway.

  Brownies were bad for your teeth, too, but Lillie had mentioned once that they were her vice. She loved them. Plain fudge. Without nuts.

  He picked up what he needed to make a batch.

  And bought a bottle of sparkling wine, along with two cheap champagne flutes, satisfying himself with the fact that they were at least glass and not plastic.

  He didn’t think beyond plastic and glass and the fact that he had a nine-by-twelve-inch pan at home for baking. He couldn’t dwell on the might-be’s. On the possible outcomes of the night ahead. Or run speeches through his mind. He knew what he had to say. The words would come.

  What came out of them, he couldn’t know.

  Whatever happened, he’d deal with it.

  * * *

  KIRK’S SILVER BMW convertible was under a streetlight in the big-box store parking lot outside town when she pulled in on Wednesday precisely at six. The temperature had dropped down to sixty as the sun went down, and he had the top down.

  It was so Kirk.

  She drove up beside him, rolling down her window.

  “Get in.” He nodded toward the passenger seat.

  The car was newer than the one he’d had when they were married. And almost identical to it. She shook her head.

  “Just show me what you want to show me, Kirk.” Their deal had been phone calls only—one a week—and already here she was, meeting him.

  Either the man was diabolical or truly reaching out....

  “It’s in the backseat,” he said. “I’m not going to be able to hold it up for you.”

  She studied him for a second, searching for any sign of duplicity. She hadn’t been able to detect it when they’d been married, and had no idea why she thought she’d be able to now.

  They were talking about something for a grave, she reminded herself. And got out of her car.

  She wasn’t getting in his, though. Instead, she leaned over the edge of the back passenger’s side, peeking at the seat.

  And stared.

  There really was something there.

  The stone was marble. And in the center of it was a photograph of her, holding a perfect-looking Braydon dressed in a baby-blue outfit decorated with bears and hearts. It had been taken just hours before he died. She was wearing jeans and a yellow spandex pullover, sitting in a padded rocker, and could remember the moment as if it was happening right then.

  She’d never gone home after having him, but had spent every single night of Braydon’s short life in the neonatal intensive care unit, and every day, too, holding her baby. Feeding him. Praying for a miracle that didn’t come.

  If, after all the tests they’d done, they’d had hope of any kind of treatment for him, she wouldn’t have been able to feed him. Or hold him. He’d have been kept sterile and inside a bubble.

  “There were no tubes in this picture.” Kirk’s voice came softly, beside her. She hadn’t realized he’d joined her outside the car. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “From my dad. He sent it to me years ago. Like a fool I tucked it away and refused to look at it.”

  “It was taken that last day.” She’d told herself he wouldn’t get to her. That she wouldn’t feel. And her throat closed with the effort it was taking to hold back tears. “They’d removed all life support.”

  And then she saw the inscription on the stone.

  Braydon Thomas Henderson

  In the arms of angels

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LILLIE WAS RIGHT on time. Jon heard her knock and answered the door, trying to read her expression.

  She wasn’t looking at him.

  “Illie! Illie!” Abraham’s screams were a gleeful shrill as he jumped up from his cars and hurled himself in her direction.

  Picking the toddler up, she hugged him tightly, as though she hadn’t seen him in weeks. Or years. And she spent the next hour, until Abe’s bedtime, playing with him, singing with him, reading to him—and touching him. Jon had never seen her be so...clingy. A hand on Abe’s arm, running her fingers over the soft hair on his scalp, sitting on the floor with him on her lap.

  And he took hope.

  Lillie talked to Jon, too. Peripherally. If he spoke, or to ask his permission to give Abe a bath.

  And she looked at him a time or two, long looks. Personal looks.

  It was those looks that had him cutting brownies and putting them on a plate while she used the bathroom after they’d put Abraham down for the night.

  Those looks and the seconds when they’d stood together in his son’s room, taking turns kissing the toddler good-night, and Abraham had looked up at them with his blanket in his hand and his thumb in his mouth and said, “Uv you.”

  The first time ever.

  His boy knew how to pick his moments.

  “I guess I should be going.” Lillie surprised him in the kitchen while he stood at the counter getting all emotional over a toddler’s verbalization of words he’d heard over and over again since his birth.

  Turning toward her, plate in hand, Jon said, “I made brownies.”

  Like some kind of little kid, trying to please. The whole time he’d been stirring the brownie batter he’d been fantasizing about smearing it all over her breasts, her nipples and lower. And then licking it off...

  “Brownies?”

  She was staring at them. Not at him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Homemade?”

  That was when he knew for certain that no matter what was going on with her, she would stay. “Yeah.”

  Setting her purse on the faux-wood table, she sat down, seeming to study the grain in the laminate.

  Jon put the brownies in front of her, along with a couple of napkins. And then, because he was a barreler, he opened the sparkling wine and poured some into the newly purchased flutes.

  * * *

  “DID YOU SEE me?” Lillie wanted a brownie. She had to get rid of some of the knots in her stomach to make room.

  “See you?” Standing at the counter, his back to her while he poured what she assumed was sparkling water, Jon sounded sincere.

  She’d spent the past hour worrying over nothing.

  No. That wasn’t accurate, either. There was much to worry about. But apparently, having to explain who Kirk was to the man she’d seen come out of the store while she’d been saying goodbye to her ex-husband hadn’t been one of them.

  “At the store. I was...across the parking lot when you and Abe came out tonight.”

  “I didn’t see you, sorry,” he said easily, joining her at the table and setting a flute of sparkling liquid in front of her. “I guess I was too busy getting a limp two-year-old into his car seat and trying not to dump my groceries on the ground.” He didn’t touch his glass. Or the brownies. “Did you call out?”

  “I was too far away.” It was technically true, but she wouldn’t have called out, anyway.

  But...good, her secret was safe. Picking up a brownie, Lillie smiled at her host, thinking about how badly she wanted a sexless night in his bed, with him holding her until she fell a
sleep.

  * * *

  SHE WAS EATING the brownies. Jon relaxed. It would be okay. Lillie clearly loved Abraham and wanted to be there with them.

  Holding up his glass, he said, “I’d like to make a toast.”

  She lifted her glass, too, looking curious.

  “To the future,” he said, cutting himself off before adding, “Mrs. Swartz.”

  “To the future,” Lillie said, clinking her glass to his before taking a long sip.

  She barely swallowed before starting to choke. “I...thought...that was...water,” she gasped in between bouts of coughing. Jon got her a glass of water and she sipped from it. He rubbed her back. The coughing subsided.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, sitting down again, feeling like a fool. “I thought you’d know from the flutes and the toast that it wasn’t water.”

  “We’ve never... You don’t keep alcohol in the house.”

  “I just bought it tonight.” He was blowing this. Making a memory that would last forever, but not in the way he’d thought. It probably would have been a better idea to give the idea a little more time to percolate.

  But then he’d have talked himself out of it. He’d just wanted it to be natural. Nice. A memory she’d cherish in the years to come. Something he’d cherish, too, in the secret recesses of his mind where a guy allowed such things.

  “Champagne,” Lillie said, sipping again, more slowly this time. “What’s the occasion?”

  He stared at her.

  “What?” She smiled. “Did you get a promotion at work already? I’m not surprised. Come on, tell me. You have no reason to be modest.”

  “You love my son.”

  Her smile faded and she took another sip of her champagne. “I care for him a great deal, yes.”

  “And you and I... It’s pretty obvious that we’re...compatible.”

  “I... It’s been a long time since I had male companionship,” she said, obviously choosing her words with care. Jon read between the lines. She was hot for him. “I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t enjoying your company. Very much.”

  It felt right.

  “I want to marry you.”