The thin line Danny made with his lips warned Nate would soon be cut off, but he tapped the glass again, raising a brow at the bartender.
"Maybe you ought to slow down a little, Nate." Danny's gentle words just grated at Nate. He wanted to burn and he didn't care who went down with him.
"Maybe you ought to remember I'm a paying customer."
Danny stepped back, his normally jovial countenance changing. Nate had been kicked out of Danny's enough times to know he was walking a fine line between getting his next drink and Danny calling Banks. And then there'd be hell to pay. From Banks and Nan. A guy couldn't catch a break around here.
And then a shadow fell across his irritatingly empty shot glass and he knew before he even looked up who it was. Danny had said 'yet'. He let a slow breath out through his nose, keeping his gaze focused on his empty glass. Goddamn small towns. A man couldn't even let himself hurt in peace. He hadn't longed for Denver or his old life since he'd started spending time with Layla, but right now he would have given anything to be back there, even if it meant chucking his guts in the back end of the rodeo chutes and sleeping on someone's couch for the rest of his life. At least then he could enjoy a drink without coming face to face with the very reason he was drinking.
*
Layla could have done without running into Nate, but she should have expected it, given that, apart from Saturday nights at the dance hall, Danny's was the only place somebody could get a drink. And if her own desire to burn the whole summer out of her mind with alcohol was any indication, Nate needed a drink or sixteen. In fact, she was almost surprised she hadn't run into him sooner. As many times as she had prepared how this would go in her mind, her insides still seized. But she needed money—now more than ever—and she couldn't let the possibility of seeing him stop her from doing her job.
He was sitting on the other side of the bar from his usual spot, the spot he'd been taking every time he came in since he first started showing up. And her heart was pounding a hundred miles an hour.
Though he'd been clean-shaven most of the summer, he had a good scruff going on. His hair was messy and unkempt and he had on a stained t-shirt. He reminded her a lot of the Nate who had walked through the door of this very bar that first night when she'd wanted nothing to do with him. Now she wanted everything to do with him, and wished there was some way to undo what her deceit had done to him. He'd been broken when he'd first landed back in Three Rivers, and because she'd been scared, and selfish, he looked like he'd gone another round with Night Train. She'd worked hard as an adult not to be the taker her family was known to be, but apparently she couldn't outgrow her roots.
Swallowing back a burning that felt like tears, she met Danny's eyes and held her hand out for the whiskey bottle. He didn't look happy, and he didn't hand her the bottle either. She raised her brows, insistent.
"Aren't the books waiting for you?"
It was the end of the month and he was behind on inventory and bookkeeping, so he'd asked her to cover him a couple hours on a shift she didn't typically take. She could only guess that was why Nate was here. There was no way in hell he would be intentionally putting himself in her path. She'd done her own share of looking over her shoulder while in town, but largely, she'd spent as much time at home with Mason as possible, trying to refocus on her job as a mother. Nate had been a diversion from her normal life—and she'd known it was temporary. She told herself Mason needed her undivided attention, so it was easy to push aside her heartbreak and thoughts of Nate…until she laid down to sleep for the night. Then, while she tried to clear the day's troubles, her anxieties about raising Mason, and what she had to do the next day; there in her big, empty bed, he wiggled his way into her thoughts. The smile lines that sank into his face when he looked at her, the stretch of his muscles while he repaired something for her, the warmth his big body generated…but more than that, how he made her feel. Like she was important. Like she mattered and was worth taking care of. It had taken her too long to accept those feelings, and now she regretted she hadn't let herself bask in them for just a little longer. Because even though she'd never felt any of those things before in her life, living without them now just chafed.
Danny frowned. He didn't know what had transpired between her and Nate—nobody did. Of course, some people had heard her mother go off in Hinkley's but Layla had kept her mouth shut and nobody had enough balls to actually ask her about it. She'd known Danny had heard the gossip when his eyes turned soft, like they were right now, watching her intently. If she didn't want to be left alone with Nate—not just normal Nate, but surly, on-his-way-to-drunk Nate, she wouldn't have to be. But a part of her needed normalcy and allowing her boss to just pussyfoot around for her wasn't part of that plan. Presumably, Nate would stay in Three Rivers, and sooner or later she was going to have to figure out how to live here with him. If she wanted Mason to have any kind of normal life, it would be sooner.
"I'm fine, Danny," Layla insisted, and her boss finally handed the liquor bottle to her, his lips pressed in a firm line.
As he walked past her toward the back, Danny didn't look convinced she was fine. But she had to be fine. She had to convince Nate—and herself—that she was fine. She had no choice.
She had to call on the Layla she'd been before this summer. The one who hadn't known what it was to be cherished the way she'd been, one who had learned to stuff everything down, force a smile, repeat the mantra I'm fine until the words didn't even make sense anymore. Nobody wanted a bartender who looked like they needed a bartender. She mustered everything inside of her to force a smile onto her lips.
And then Nate looked up at her and met her eyes and she was pinned down, all the air squeezing out of her lungs; she could have sworn her heart stopped beating altogether. She could read every bit of the ache of betrayal in his eyes and it shattered her. Angry Nate she could handle; or at least her heart could. Sitting down at breakfast knowing he was angry; she'd made him angry, that was one thing, but knowing he was hurting, that was a totally different beast altogether. She had to figure out a way to fix it.
Because she was a bartender and he was asking for a drink, she tipped the bottle toward him, but he drew his shot glass back toward him instead of holding it out to be filled. She pressed her lips together. So she couldn't take back what she'd done—there was no way to fix weeks and weeks of this lie—but she could at least let him get to his desired final destination.
"Nate…"
He pushed back from the bar, rising unsteadily to his feet.
"Never mind," he slurred, then walked away.
Layla watched him go, her heart aching and her stomach heavy with regret. He was different; smaller now somehow, than he had been when he'd first showed up in her bar. She could figure out how to live in Three Rivers when he lived there, but living with the knowledge of his pain was going to be damn near impossible.
—THIRTY-SEVEN—
"All right, that's enough."
As Nate was securely in his bed with the blankets pulled over his head, Nan's voice had to be a hallucination. Maybe he was still a little drunk. It had been at least six hours, judging by the daylight piercing his cocoon, since the empty beer on his bedside stand had been consumed. But it might have ganged up on him with all the other beers before it.
When the blankets flew off of him from the foot of the bed, he knew it wasn't a hallucination.
"For the love of God, Nan! What if I'd been naked?" He scrambled for the blankets, but she was quicker than he'd expected.
"I used to change your diapers," his grandmother said, winding the blankets up in her arms so he couldn't pull them back over himself. "And besides, you aren't."
That was true. He was still in last night's jeans and he was pretty sure they were the source of the stink he'd just noticed.
"How did you get in here?" He knew he'd locked the door.
"This is my house. You think I wouldn't have a key? And don't even start about tenant's rights to 24 hour notice. I h
ad to make sure you were still alive. I haven't seen you in days, and if you weren't talking to me right now, the smell alone would make me think there was a corpse in here."
"I've seen Banks. You could have talked to him."
He squinted in the late morning light streaming in through the window above his bed and rolled onto his back. He should have known Nan wouldn't let him wallow for long. It wasn't her style. She was always the first to move to action in difficult situations. She usually did the right thing, with good intentions. He couldn't really say the same for himself.
"Your brother has been known to lie for you."
"And rat me out. So which was it?"
He didn't remember much after Layla had taken the bar at Danny's, but he did remember Banks pulling up on him, lights flashing, and the tense ride back to Nan's.
"None of the above. Get up and take a shower. There's a pot of coffee and two Advil waiting for you upstairs."
With that, she turned and marched out of the room, taking his blankets with her. And, because he knew she wouldn't give up until he did, he got up and took a shower.
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting at her kitchen table with the promised painkillers and coffee and a no-nonsense Nan sitting across from him, her eyes trained on him.
"I don't wanna talk about it, Nan."
"Well, you're gonna. Because everybody else in town is."
"Did you know?" Suddenly, it occurred to him maybe this hadn't been only Layla's secret. Nan had been spending a lot of time and energy on the pair, she had to have known.
"No," Nan said, shaking her head. "I had my suspicions, but she didn't tell me. Not my place to ask. Did you ask her? Or did you just listen to her mother's poison?"
"I shouldn't have had to ask. I shouldn't have found out from her mama, either. She should have told me. Called me in Denver when she found out she was pregnant. Or at least been up front when I started hanging around."
Nan nodded slowly, twisting her coffee cup in place thoughtfully.
"Yes, she should have told you."
He'd expected a fight, or at least a more defensive response from Nan. She didn't want to fight. And neither did he. Dropping his elbows on the table, he put his head into his hands, fisting his fingers in his damp hair. This monumental shift in his life didn't feel better no matter how he tried to approach it—drunk, sober, sleeping, awake. His heart hadn't beat at a normal pace since Rhonda walked into Hinkley's. Every second felt itchy and uncomfortable. If it had been anything else, his first instinct would have been Layla. Lose himself in her; her big heart, her fragrant skin and soft body. But what he wanted most for comfort was the very source of his discomfort. Hardly seemed fair.
"She should have told you, but I understand the reasons why she didn't." Nan's voice cut through his fresh rush of anguish. "That girl has had one hell of a hard go. From the time she was little. Half the people in this town won't even look her in the eye, and it got worse when she was pregnant and there was no father around. But she made a happy little life in that old house for her and her son, regardless. I think she was trying to protect herself. And she might not have done the right thing, but I understand why she did. That's the first real peace she's had in ages."
"She could have protected herself without lying to me."
"She could have, but I imagine this was the path of least resistance. For a girl who's been fighting for her whole damn life for a fair chance…I can see why she'd take the easy way out."
He shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fist on the table in front of him. Talking about it opened it up like a fresh wound. Drinking had definitely been the better choice.
"I still can't believe she lied to me," he said more to himself than to Nan.
"Have you been completely honest with her?"
That one stuck. He hadn't. While he'd talked about the fact he'd never go back to the rodeo, he hadn't been entirely truthful about the true state of affairs. The fact that he had nothing to offer her. He supposed that was a lie by omission just like Mason's paternity.
When he didn't answer, Nan pressed her lips together. "Well what do you want to do now?"
"I don't know." And if he had his way about it, without Nan prodding him, he probably would have been frozen in action for the foreseeable future.
"Well, this is how I see it." She leaned back in her seat and Nate knew she was probably going to say something he didn't want to hear. Because that was Nan's way, cutting straight to the heart of the matter, regardless of what comforting platitudes you wanted. She was always frank, but kind. "You were game to be a part of their lives before this all came to light. I saw the way you looked at Mason the other night, Nate. You were gonna be his father whether or not you were, biologically speaking."
"I have no idea how to be a father," he said with a scowl. "I didn't exactly have a shining example to follow."
Across the table, Nan let out a long breath, folding her hands together the way she always did when this topic came to light. It was less and less frequent as he and Banks had grown older, but this was a predictable move, like she had it hidden away in a compartment in her brain and her heart and needed this particular sequence of behavior to get it out to talk about it. None of it could have been easy; the act of raising her grandchildren when their parents just simply wouldn't, and further, never saying an impolite word about it.
"No, you didn't. Nate, your parents…they weren't bad people. My son wasn't a bad person. They were just selfish. And overwhelmed. That happens sometimes; and yes, there are days I wish they had stood up to their responsibilities…but my life was richer for having you two boys to take care of, so in a way, I'm glad they went east without you. I know that's probably something you've never come to terms with."
He shook his head. No, he hadn't come to terms with that. He'd been bitter about it growing up; every birthday card with a five dollar bill in it fueling his adolescent frustration—but then the cards came less and less often, and he hadn't heard from them in a decade now, and while he hadn't come to terms with it, he'd been able to bury it…until now. He cared about Mason so much already he couldn't imagine abandoning him, no matter how well he knew Layla could take care of him. And yet, cutting ties with Layla was exactly what that meant.
"You didn't even know Mason was yours and you were already a significantly better father figure than your dad ever was to you," Nan continued. "You're not selfish. A little overwhelmed, maybe. But you're also still in Three Rivers, so that counts for something."
He let out a breath. If he was truthful, the one thing he'd wished for over the last few days was that things would go back to the way they were before he'd uncovered her lie. Without having Layla and Mason to look forward to, his time spent in his grandmother's basement was as dismal and depressing as the time he'd spent laid up in his house in Denver, except maybe a little worse, because what he wanted was only ten miles and a serious conversation down the road.
"What do you think I should do, Nan?" He expected she'd be on Layla's team here—she was still helping her out as far as he knew.
"I think you should have a conversation with the girl. A serious one. Hear her out. Tell her what you want. And if you feel good after that, do what feels right. You know she doesn't expect anything from you, right?"
"Yeah," he breathed, pressing his fingertips to his eyes. Maybe that was the worst part.
—THIRTY-EIGHT—
Layla woke with a jerk. Something's not right. She reached to the bedside stand and turned up the volume on the baby monitor. Everything sounded normal, but she couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. Carefully, she slid out of the bed, and pulled on her robe, illuminating the light on her phone to check the time. 3 a.m. With the device still clutched in her hand, she tiptoed to the door of the bedroom, but by the time she was there, the icy dread that pulsed through her veins moved her feet faster, until she was sprinting to Mason's bedroom door.
By his change table, she flicked on a soft-light lamp and
peered into the crib. Her heart stopped. Eyes half open, Mason lay on his side, his body stiff, face and hands twitching.
Layla picked the baby up and cradled him gently to her chest, supporting his head and fixing her gaze on his. When she finally found her voice, she repeated his name in a whisper, trying to keep his focus on her. He was trying to cry, but the breaths got cut short as he seized. Tears rushed her eyes, but she somehow managed to find her way into the gliding rocker in the corner before her knees gave out. She picked up the 'just in case' cordless phone she kept on the dresser beside the chair. Things that weren't supposed to happen. She'd never thought she'd have to use it.
She stroked her baby's hair back off his forehead and focused on a repetitive tremble in his cheek, trying to temper the panic that made her heart beat a double-time staccato at the base of her throat as she fumbled to punch in the first number that came to mind.
It rang three or four times before Nate's groggy voice answered.
"Nate…" Layla choked on her words, pausing to take a breath. She hadn't planned to call him—she was pretty sure she was the last person he wanted to hear from, especially if it was concerning Mason—but it had been instinctual. He'd been such a huge part of her day-to-day over the last few weeks.
"Layla, is everything okay?" Suddenly, his voice was sharp and clear and filled with concern. The tears that had been building up spilled over and her next words came out on a sob.
"S-s-something's happening with Mason."
"I'll be right there," he said, and she heard movement, fabric sliding, jingling. "Just sit tight. I'll be right there. Stay on the phone. Just put it down beside you. If anything changes, talk to me, okay?"
"Okay," she said, following his direction, then pulling Mason to her chest, hoping he couldn't see her tears or scared face. She heard doors closing, footsteps, an engine roaring to life, but none of it really registered.
There had been another time she'd felt this way, and for a long time it felt like it was a million years ago. And now it felt so close. Too close. She hadn't known that baby for long, never felt him in her arms or kissed his soft hair. She'd never stared at his face wondering what sort of man he'd grow up to be. And she'd mourned for him for months, afterward. The circumstances that had produced that baby might have been even more complicated than these, but she'd wanted him. Badly. And she hadn't been allowed to keep him. She had Mason…had had him for eight months, and that wasn't nearly long enough. I'll trade anything to keep him just a bit longer.
Secret Heart Page 19
