“Well, yeah. I mean… you’re a father.” Scars stared at Sam as a thought dawned on him. “Shit, man. That makes me an uncle.”
Sam cracked a real smile for the first time in days. “I know, right? Doesn’t it freak you the hell out?”
“Christ.” Scars contemplated this. “So… now what? I mean, what’s the next step?”
“Well…” Sam poured more whisky. “They’re – they’re living with me.”
“OK,” Scars said slowly. “For now, or for good?”
“For now, for sure. I don’t know about for good. That’s what Kathleen wants –”
“Naturally,” Scars muttered. “Free rent for a fucking freeloader.”
“– and it’s cool for now,” Sam continued, as if his brother hadn’t said a word. “But the thing is, I can’t see me living with a woman that I don’t love. Hell, man, I don’t even really like her. But…”
“But Cindy?”
“Yes. My – my daughter.”
“Your daughter.”
The two men gazed at each other. Finally, Sam looked away.
“I have no problem finding them a place to live and paying for everything. Taking care of money and bills and everything that Cindy needs. School in a few years, medical stuff, the works, you know. But I feel like – if I’m doing all that anyway, shouldn’t I be around my kid all the time? Bedtimes and breakfast, see her every day as such as I can? Maybe change my work schedule to be more regular, less on-call.”
“You’re thinking about doing the Dad thing for real, huh?”
“Well… yes.” Sam stared at his hands. “I mean… it’s not what I thought I wanted, but now that it’s here, I don’t see how I can refuse it. And honestly, Vic? It’s great. She’s a sweet, funny, smart little kid, and I want to be around her, and I mean as much of the time as I can. She’s just… she’s like a little ray of sunshine, and I look forward to seeing her every day. I like her living with me.”
“Oh, shit, kid.” Scars shook his dark head, the kitchen light making the scars on his face glow very white. “You got problems.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“There’s more?”
“There’s a woman. An amazing woman, a woman that I love.”
“Awww, crap.” Scars reached for the bottle, decided it was time to break out the triples. Maybe even start swigging straight from the bottle neck. “You seeing someone?”
“I was, until this happened.”
“She dumped you?”
“Pretty much.” Sam rubbed his eyes again. “I mean, Annie says that she doesn’t want to get in the way.”
“Would she be in the way?”
“She’s convinced that she would be. She has kids of her own, thought they’re adults now, so she gets the whole parenthood thing. When I called her this morning and told her that the DNA test was positive, she said that she’s stepping aside for me to get to know my daughter. Said that the most important person here is Cindy, and Annie thinks that she’d just be a big distraction and attention-grabber. Also, she told me that it would be confusing for Cindy to see Annie coming and going from the house that she and her Mom live in.”
“But if you got them their own place, then surely you and Annie could keep seeing each other?”
“But that goes back to me not really wanting Cindy to leave.”
“Oh, right.” Scars rolled his broad shoulders. “Shit, kid. When you make a mess, you go for broke.”
“Me?”
“You know what I mean.” Scars gentled his voice. “Is Annie at least talking to you? Keeping the lines of communication open?”
“No. Took time off work, slammed the doors, bolted the windows, cut the phone cords, dug a moat around her house and tossed in a few alligators to make the point. She is completely and totally out of my reach.”
“Give it some time, Sam. It’s all new, everything is still up in the air, nothing’s settled. Figure things out, get to know Cindy, sort Kathleen with living arrangements and expectations, sign all the legal stuff that surely has to be made official. Then, who knows? Maybe you guys can make it work. People do every single goddamn day, after divorces and separations and deaths and cheating and kids born out of wedlock. You’re a pretty smart guy, most of the time. You’ll figure it out if you really want to, and if you and Annie are meant to be in it for the long haul, then that’s how it’ll all play out.”
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”
“Through and through,” Scars growled. “Besides, I want you to be happy. If being a Dad to Cindy makes you happy, then I want you to have her. If being with Annie makes you happy, then I want that to work. And if Kathleen being eaten by alligators makes you happy, I’ll shove her into Annie’s moat. Make it look like an accident, though a very fortunately-timed one.”
Sam laughed aloud, knowing full well that although ferocious Scars Innis, VP of the Road Devils MC, was capable of many many things, murdering an innocent – albeit annoying and awful – woman was way off the table. Not even for his younger brother’s peace of mind.
Scars grinned back, worried as hell despite his devil-may-care attitude. He knew Sam, felt him in his bones and blood, and he knew that the kid was hurting. Hurting bad. Scars also knew that besides pouring whisky like water and throwing it down Sam’s throat, there was nothing that he could do to help ease all that hurt.
No, this was one of those life problems that even a badass big brother could do nothing much about. Nothing except listen, give hugs, and keep his scarred fingers crossed that Sam would find his way.
Scars couldn’t do any of it for him, but he sure as hell was going to have his brother’s back while he did it for himself. It was all he could do, so he was going to do it until it was done.
However it all turned out.
**
Annie was slumped on the sofa, mindlessly watching some horrific TV nightmare, something about crazy rich housewives in McMansions who all hated each other. Idly, she noticed they were all very orange.
She reached for the carton of ice cream that Jax had brought over the day before, and was shocked to see that it was empty. She’d actually horfed down two entire family-sized tubs of Oreo cookie ice cream in one day, along with far too many diet Cokes, which made zero sense, now that she stopped and thought about it.
Weird that she was still hungry, though. She was living off take-out, naturally, since she’d decided to launch her plan of never leaving the house again, the one that she’d formulated in Sam’s car that first night and which she now realized, far too late, that she should have gone ahead with back then. She flipped through a few flyers scattered on the floor, settled on the pizza place six blocks over. Yeah, they’d just been there the day before, but what the hell.
She was just trying to locate the phone under her mound of blankets, to call for the meat-lover’s-heart-attack-on-a-plate, when there was a knock on her front door. Right away, she ducked down and despite the TV blaring with some catfight between two of the orange women, pretended not to be home.
But a small part of her, the part that she hadn’t fully managed to stomp all hope out of, rose up in her chest. Whispered to her that it might be him out there on your porch. Told her to get up off her rapidly-spreading ass and go open the door, let him in, talk to him, make it all work. Someway. Somehow. Anyhow.
But no. No no no. No matter what Annie wanted, what she wanted desperately to the point of needing like she needed air to breathe, there was a small girl whose wants and needs mattered more than her own. No way Annie was standing between a small girl and her father, between a man and his child, not for anything. Not for love or money, as her Mom used to say, and Annie finally grasped the expression fully, because she wasn’t willing to hurt or confuse Cindy. Not for millions of dollars. Not even for love.
Not even though Annie’s heart wa
s broken clean in half. She had no earthly idea how it possibly kept on beating, but it did, and she kept on getting up every day to stare at the TV, and eat crap, and work at methodically killing that last, stubborn little bit of hope that seemed determined to have a last few gasps.
Damn him for making her believe in him, in them, in the goddamn fairy tale… because now she didn’t know how to stop. And it hurt to believe those things – hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. She’d forgotten how painful faith and hope and wishes could be, how their edges could slice and dice the heart and soul like talons. How they stole her focus and her energy and her will to brush her hair… yeah, belief was a serious fucker, and she had spent hours every day trying to kill it.
But as this knock on the door showed her, she’d failed pretty badly. In fact, she’d sucked at it, and she could now add ‘lousy murderess’ to her glowing and growing list of life fails.
The knock came again. Annie kicked down on hope again.
“Mom!” came a voice. “Mom, open up. We can hear the TV.”
She wasn’t sure of she was relieved that it was Noah standing outside her door, or if she was crushed that it was Noah standing outside her door. Then she instantly felt awful for being disappointed that her son was there, and she scrambled to her feet.
“Coming!” Annie called in the direction of the door as she frantically picked up potato chip bags and chocolate bar wrappers and soda cans. She kicked the pizza box from the day before under the chair, threw a blanket in front of it to conceal the evidence, then grabbed the melting ice cream carton and dashed to the kitchen. “Just – hang on a second!”
“She’s hiding all the junk food packages,” Annie heard Noah say to someone as she tossed the cartons in the sink among the wine glasses and coffee cups. “Don’t sit in the blue chair.”
“Why not?” Callie’s voice responded. “What’s wrong with the blue chair?”
“It will have stuff hidden underneath it.”
“Oh. OK.”
Ha, Annie thought as she raced to the door, trying to make her hair more presentable but knowing that that battle was lost before it even began. I hid the pizza box under the green chair this time. Changing it up, keeping you guessing, kid.
She just had time to wish for some lipstick, then she opened the door, tried to look normal. “Hello.”
Noah and Callie both recoiled, looks of horror on their faces.
“Mom.” Noah was nothing short of totally disapproving. “When did you last brush your hair?”
“And wash it?” Callie added. “And put on makeup?”
Annie stepped back, waved her arm grandly, noticing too late the hole in her sweater sleeve. “Please come in.”
They did, gingerly, as if they expected her house to have turned into a ‘before’ dwelling on ‘Hoarders’. Noah nodded meaningfully at the blue chair, and Callie made a bee-line for the pink one.
Good choice, kid.
“So.” Annie returned to the sofa and Noah joined her there. She was all casual, like she didn’t look like a lunatic maiden aunt that had just wandered down from the attic. “How are you two?”
“Good,” Noah said. “And you’re terrible.”
“Clearly,” Callie chimed in. “Very terrible.”
Annie sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
She should have known better, of course, since Noah and Callie took what she said literally. Sarcasm bypassed them, every single time.
“Yes,” Noah responded with a grim face. “It is.”
Callie nodded.
“Well, yes.” Annie pushed her hair back. “I mean… I’m upset. I’m sad. I’m – well. I’m upset and sad.”
“We asked Naomi what we should do to make you feel better, and she said to bring you chocolate chip cookies,” Callie said. “So we did. We looked up the recipe on the internet and we baked them this morning. For you.”
“Oh.” Annie took the paper bag, ridiculously touched at the sweet gesture. “Oh, thank you.”
“But maybe we should take them back,” Noah said. “Because you’re eating too much junk food already, and cookies are just flour and sugar.”
“And chocolate,” Callie added. “And butter.”
“Yes, well.” Annie set the cookies on the table. “Thank you for the ingredients list.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Mom,” Noah said. “You’re not OK.”
“Sweetie –”
“No.” Her son’s face was as troubled as it ever got. “You look like you’re not sleeping and like you’ve been crying for days. Your face is all puffy and you have bags under your eyes and your house is a mess. I know you’ve hidden candy wrappers and take-out boxes all over the place, and I bet that if I went to the sink, it would be full of wine glasses.”
“Noah –”
“No. Mom. I know you’re upset and sad about Doctor Sam. I know that if Callie wasn’t with me, I’d be upset and sad too. But you’re scaring me.” He was opening and closing his hands, the one sure sign of his agitation. “I’m worried.”
“He is,” Callie said. “Really.”
“God, Noah… I’m sorry.” Annie was horrified. “Sweetie, you don’t need to worry about me, OK? That’s not your job.”
“Why not?” Noah asked. “Isn’t that what family members do for each other? Worry and watch out and care for one another?”
“Well… yes. Yes. But I’m fine.”
Noah and Callie’s expressions showed their complete lack of faith in that statement.
“OK, look.” Annie fiddled with her sweater sleeve. “That’s not true. I’m not fine. I’m – hurt. I’m lonely, a bit. I’m definitely sad. I miss Sam. I wish that things were different. I – I want him back. But – well. It’s not possible.”
“Right now,” Noah said.
“What?” Annie said.
“Right now. It’s not possible right now. Because of Cindy and Kathleen. But Doctor Sam will figure out their place in his life, and then you can figure out yours.”
“Honey…”
“Why not?” Noah asked. “You love him, he loves you. He needs some time to make some adjustments and you’re giving it to him. It hurts you both, but it’s what has to be done right now. I understand all of that. It’s logical.”
“Yes.” Annie was fitting the urge to smile, despite herself. “It is.”
“But this won’t go on forever. Things will fall in line because Doctor Sam will make them. And then you can be together.”
“It’s not that simple, Noah.”
“Why not?” His tone was combative. “If you want to be with him, and he wants to be with you, and you’re both mature adults who can talk and solve problems, then why not?”
“Uhhhh…”
“I think you’re being very pessimistic,” Noah told her severely. “I also think you’re being very unfair to Doctor Sam. I don’t believe that he’s going to forget you, and I really don’t believe that just because two new people came into his life suddenly, that he’s going to kick you out of it forever. I think that you’re kicking yourself out for good, and I don’t understand why. Why do you want to be unhappy, Mom?”
Annie was struck dumb. Why was she kicking herself out of Sam’s life forever? OK, yes, as Noah pointed out, a temporary absence was needed, no doubt about that. Sam had a boatload of issues to sort, and that would take some time… but why was she acting like she had to be banished from the fairy tale kingdom forever? Why didn’t she have more faith that Sam would organize his new life – and leave a place for her in it? Why was she acting like she’d been written out of the story, just told to exit stage left?
Because nobody has ever made me feel important before.
Because in my whole life, nobody has ever made me a priority, never put my happiness on the agenda.
Because I’ve never been th
e princess, always the disposable distant cousin.
What if I just rushed to beat him to the punch, thought that I was protecting myself by dumping him before he could dump me… but what if he really, truly, never intended to dump me at all? What if I pulled the trigger on an empty gun?
Shit. I’m an idiot.
“Has he ever lied to you before?” Callie asked. “Even once?”
“No.”
“Then why would he lie about this? If he says that he wants you and Cindy in his life at the same time, and he promises hat he’s going to make that happen somehow, why would that be a lie?”
“Uh… it wouldn’t be.”
“So why don’t you believe him?”
“I – oh, Lord.” Annie sighed, finally finally seeing the goddamn light. “I’m so stupid.”
“Yes,” Noah agreed. “Not in general and not about everything, but about this, you are. Now… it’s time to stop what you’ve been doing. Pull yourself together, Mom, because you’re a mess. Go back to work tomorrow. Shower and wash your greasy hair. Clean up the house. Go shopping and buy some healthy food. Put on makeup again. Go back to your life. Wait for Doctor Sam to figure things out, then talk to him.” He paused. “And throw out that horrible sweater – it’s full of holes.”
“Yes, sweetheart,” Annie said meekly, so glad that her bossy son had come by. “Can I keep the cookies?”
“Yes.” Noah gave her a rare smile. “But save a few for when Doctor Sam comes over.”
That was when Annie finally decided to wait for Sam, to fight for him, and for them. To make the fairy tale happen for real and for good – and no way in hell was Annie going to be cast as the evil stepmother.
No. She was the princess. She always had been.
Now all she needed was her cue to re-enter, and go get her prince.
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later
Sam jolted awake, totally confused and disoriented. He turned over, saw Cindy’s sweet face almost right next to him. He jumped.
“Hi, little sunshine,” he said through a yawn. “Is it time for me to get up?”
Lush Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 8) Page 17
