She’d been dumb enough to have sex with Kiefer on the night before she’d left him. And he had been out of condoms. She wasn’t on birth control because she could never remember to take the pills and they hadn’t been able to afford any other form of birth control for her without insurance.
Delphina laid her head on the closed toilet seat and cried for a good fifteen minutes. Then she got up and took a shower and got ready for work. Her day did not go well. Every other customer she spoke with had a problem that was more complicated than her step by step screen prompts or wanted to speak with a supervisor.
She wanted to run her car into a tree by the time she left for the day. She stopped at a drug store and bought a pregnancy test. It took her two hours after she got home to find the courage to take it. When she saw the results, she cried for half an hour. It was positive.
She went to the bedroom and unplugged her phone from the charger. She took a deep breath and then let it out. She dialed Kiefer’s cell phone number.
He answered before the first ring was through. “Del. Did you change your mind? Oh baby, I have been so lost without you.”
Delphina bit her lip and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Kiefer I need to tell you something.”
“What is it babe? You can tell me anything. Please just tell me that you are coming home. I know that I haven’t always been there for you. Not during the bad times or even always the good. I know that I’ve been a real asshole and missed your birthday and that I lied and cheated and did a whole bunch of really messed up shit. But I promise you that I will be there for you from now on if you’ll just give me the chance.”
“This isn’t about us. Well, in a way it is, but I didn’t call you to tell you that I want to come home. I’m doing fine here. My paychecks are almost twice as big as at my old job. The apartment’s not too bad.”
“Don’t you miss me even a little?”
Delphina sighed. “I didn’t say that.” She decided that she needed to just say it or he was going to have her talking in circles all night long. “I’m having a baby. I mean, we’re having a baby.”
“Huh? How can you be pregnant with my kid? I haven’t even seen you in six weeks let alone had sex with you.”
“Kiefer, don’t play stupid. We obviously made a baby on the last night we were together. If you don’t want to be a part of the child’s life, that’s up to you. I’m not going to keep you away, but I’m not going to fight you for child support or anything like that.”
“Wait a minute Del. We made a baby and you still won’t think about giving me another chance? I think that the kid deserves to have two parents don’t you? I know I sure as hell didn’t appreciate growing up without a father.”
“You didn’t listen to a damned thing I said like usual. I said you can play Daddy.”
“Huh uh. I’m not just gonna play Daddy. I want to be a real Dad. I want you to marry me. I quit drinking. I’m trying to quit smoking, but it’s really hard. I can come up there. I sorta already have a job offer there.”
“Kiefer.”
“What? I miss you. I love you Del. I’ll be the man that you deserve. I found a house for us to rent. It’s gotta be better than that shithole that you’re living in. I saw your car in the lot the day I went there for my job interview.”
“No Kiefer. You are not coming here.”
“Why the hell not? This job is a really good job. We can have a better life Del. You, me and the baby.”
Delphina sighed. “You can come here, but we are not getting back together. I don’t care what you say. You talk a good game, but you never live up to your promises.”
“People change. When you walked out on me babe, I looked in the mirror and I saw this fuckup looking back at me. I’ve screwed up a lot of shit in my life Del, but never anything that was really worth a damn. Nothing that really mattered to me. You matter to me. I’m serious about wanting to marry you. I bought you a ring. I don’t know if it’s the right size though. Your sister wouldn’t tell me. She made her husband get on the phone. He told me to stop bugging her.”
“You shouldn’t have done that Kiefer. I hope you can take it back.”
“I don’t wanna take it back. I bought it for you. Please Del. I’m just a broken down empty shell of a man without you.”
“Kiefer, I can’t do this. Especially when I’m pregnant. I can’t let myself depend on you again. You always end up letting me down.”
“I know baby, and I’m sorry. If I take the job, I start next week. Maybe you might change your mind by then.”
“Yeah right.”
“Del, I am serious. Why can’t we give it one last try? I know you miss me.”
“It doesn’t matter if I miss you. That’s not the point. I have to go. I have to work at six o’clock in the morning and I’ve been really tired lately.”
“It’s seven o’clock at night Del. Are you okay? Are you sure it’s not more than being pregnant? Have you been to the doctor yet? I get insurance with this job. It’s got really good coverage too.”
“I don’t care about your insurance Kie. I’m hanging up now.”
Delphina pushed end on her phone. She wanted to throw it against the wall when it rang almost immediately after she’d hung up. She closed her eyes briefly. You did what you needed to, she told herself. You told him.
She didn’t feel like she slept at all that night. Luckily, her next day at work was easier and it passed quickly. Kiefer had decided that it was okay to call her again. He called ten times and left nine messages before she went to sleep that night.
The next Monday Kiefer was waiting for her when she got home from work. She groaned. She tried to pretend that she hadn’t seen him, but he was at her side seconds after she got out of her car.
“Hi,” he said.
She looked up at him. “Hi.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Delphina sighed. “Don’t do this Kiefer. It’s going to be hard enough as it having a baby together.”
He reached a hand out towards her, but stopped when she gave him a look and shoved his hand in his pocket instead. “It doesn’t have to be hard. Come on, I want to show you this house. It’s rent to own. We can afford it too. You won’t even have to go back to work after you have the baby.”
“I don’t want to see it. I don’t care.”
“So you’re gonna raise a kid in this shithole?” He snorted as he gestured to the rundown apartment building.
“I’ll find another place.” She turned away from him. It was starting to hit her how much she had missed him. She wanted to kick her own ass when she caught the scent of his cologne. It was affecting her like it always had. She wanted to pull him to her and smell him.
She turned back towards him. “You shaved.” She reached out and brushed her hand over his face. “You look so young. I bet they card you when you buy cigarettes.”
He chuckled and put his hand over hers. “I quit two days ago.”
She took her hand back. “Oh.”
“Please baby. Just look at the house. You don’t have to decide today. I’ll give you all the time you need.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and she left it there. “You’re so tense Del. You should let me give you a massage.”
Delphina shook her head. “No way. We both know what happens when you give me a massage.”
Kiefer grinned. “It was always pretty damned good though wasn’t it?”
Delphina gave him a dirty look and pulled away from him. “So what if we had good sex? It doesn’t mean anything. I’m willing to bet you had good sex with plenty of other women while we were together. Hell, I know you did. You were an asshole and told me about it half the time.”
Kiefer frowned. “Do you really have to remind me of shit like that? I’m trying to be a better man for you.”
“Be a better man for yourself. I’ll look at your stupid house. Then you’re going to go away and leave me alone.”
“Del, you’re being unreasonable.”
; “I am not. You tore my heart out and stomped on it for three years.”
“Everybody deserves a second chance. We’re having a baby.” Kiefer reached out his hand and laid it gently over her stomach. “My child is growing inside of you.”
She pushed his hand away. “I gave you a second chance. I gave you a third chance and a fourth chance and a damned twentieth chance. I think that’s enough. Let’s go. I’ll follow you.”
“Why don’t we go in my truck?”
“I don’t want to ride with you.”
Kiefer smiled. “I forgot that the way I smell drives you crazy.”
“Shut up.” There was no way she was going to tell him that he smelled even better now that he didn’t smell like cigarette smoke.
She opened her car door. “Go. I’ll follow you.”
Kiefer sighed. “Fine.”
He walked back to his truck. She had always found his truck to be almost comical. It was old and painted black with a neon green stripe on it. His friends had called it his UFO truck.
She watched him get into his truck and then followed him out of the parking lot. He pulled up in front of on off white house with red shutters a few minutes later. He grinned widely at her as he opened her car door for her.
“Pretty nice huh?”
She offered him a half smile. The yard was well kept, and the chain link fence was in good shape. The paint job on both the inside and the outside of her apartment seemed even worse now. “Sure. What’s the inside look like?”
He held up a key. “I’ll show you. I paid to move in today. My friends are helping me get the rest of my stuff moved in over the weekend.”
“That should be fun. Are they going to let you pay them in beer?”
“My friends aren’t that bad. Okay, so maybe they are. I’ll make new friends here. Better friends that aren’t just drinking buddies.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”
She shook her head. Being this close to him again was getting to her. When she was just listening to his voice on the phone, she could pretend that she hadn’t missed him. When she was beside him, and could catch the scent of his earthy cologne when he moved, it drove her crazy. It had never made sense to her that the cologne smelled so good on him. When he’d been out and had let her smell it at the store, it hadn’t smelled good to her. But when he put it on, it made her want to crawl up into his lap and turn her head into his neck and just breathe in his scent.
“Can’t you just give a little Del?”
“I’m looking at your damned house aren’t I?”
“Yeah.” He opened the gate. She followed him inside the yard and shut the gate. She stood on the porch as he unlocked the door.
When he pushed the door open, she decided that she liked her apartment even less. The carpet was a nice midnight blue color and it was springy, not worn down as if a thousand pairs of feet had walked over it for years. The living room was good sized. There was a large window that was without blinds or a curtain at the moment, so she could see that it gave a nice view of the front yard. The walls had been painted off white, but the job was much more carefully done than it had been at her apartment.
She held back a sigh as she followed him into the kitchen. The kitchen table from their apartment was already set up. The cabinets were in good shape, the counters were spotless. The stove looked relatively new, as did the fridge. The tile was a blue color with veins of green through it that complemented the color of the living room carpet.
He led her back to the bedroom. His suitcase and older than the hills duffel bag were in the closet. There was a new looking dresser and a curtain on the window but no other furniture. The bathroom was clean and the shower had a nice sliding door, with a good sized tub.
She was silent as she followed him to the second bedroom. The walls were sky blue. The shade was close to the color of her eyes.
“This would be the baby’s room.”
“Kiefer.”
“Even if you don’t want to move back in with me, the kid would need a room here.”
Delphina sighed. “Yeah.” She turned to leave the room.
He touched her arm. “Wait.”
“What?”
She turned back to him. He pulled a velvet covered box out of his pocket. She closed her eyes and then opened them again as he popped open the box. She didn’t want to look at it. She didn’t like to think of all of the times he’d promised to marry her before.
“Del, aren’t you even going to look at it?”
“Why? We can’t get married. I don’t want to be the laughingstock of the town because I was dumb enough to marry a guy who doesn’t bother to pretend that he doesn’t stick his penis anywhere he wants to.”
“I haven’t been with anyone since you left.”
“How dumb do you think I am? You’re a sex addict. If we went more than a few days without having sex, you went looking for it somewhere else. Even when we were doing it all the time, you still looked for it elsewhere.”
“There was one woman. But that was right after you left me. I was drunk for three days straight Del. She didn’t mean anything. I can’t look at a woman anymore without comparing her to you. I love you. I want to be with you.”
She turned away from him. She had made the mistake of looking at the ring. It was very pretty. The styling wasn’t modern, but she didn’t like much modern jewelry. It looked old and romantic, like something that had been passed down in a family for generations. She wondered briefly where he had found it before she told herself to shut the hell up in her head.
“I don’t want to be with you.”
He slid his hands up and down her arms. It sent shivers down her spine. “I think you’re lying.”
She moved away from him. “So what? There is a sensible part of my brain and an emotional one. The emotional part of me is what kept me with you for so long. I do love you, but I can’t be with you anymore. It hurts too much.”
“It doesn’t have to hurt Del. I’m never gonna be perfect, but I promise that I will be a better man. I want to be a good husband, a good father.”
“I want you to be a good father. But you’re going to have to find yourself another wife.”
Kiefer sighed. “Can we compromise?”
“No.”
“Women. I will back off. But I want you to know that if you decide you want me back, I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Kiefer. Ah, never mind. I’m not going to bother to say it. I have to go.”
“Let me take you out to dinner.”
“No.”
“I’m getting to you aren’t I? That’s why you want to run away from me.”
“You know how men walk around thinking with their penises all of the time? Sometimes women think with their hearts. But all too often it only brings them heartache. So I’m telling mine to shut the fuck up. It’s getting easier every day.”
Kiefer shut the ring box and pressed it into her hand. “I want you to have this.”
“Give it to the next girl that you decide to sleep with. It doesn’t look like a regular engagement ring. They’ll never know that’s what it was meant to be. ”
“I picked it out for you. I knew that you didn’t like the kinda stuff that most other women like. I could have bought you some generic engagement ring like all the other guys buy for their girls. But I didn’t want to do that. I was actually thinking about you when I picked it out.”
Delphina shook her head and shoved the ring into her purse. “That would be the first time.”
“You don’t need to be such a bitch. I know I was an asshole for three years, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or that I need to be treated like shit when I’m trying really fucking hard.”
“I’m sorry Kiefer. I’ll be civil. I promise.”
“Thanks. I guess I’ll let you go home now. Does that place have cockroaches? It looks like it would.”
“No. Do you have anything to sleep on before you bring the rest of your stuff down here? There’s a thrift s
tore downtown.”
“I don’t need to buy a bed. Our bed is comfortable and it’s got a lot of good memories. You crying out my name in the heat of passion, the way you look when you’re moving on top of me. You’re the only woman that I’ve ever been with that always keeps her eyes open during sex. That is so hot.”
“Shut up. I have an air mattress that you can use until you bring the bed. You can keep the damned thing. It’s not very comfortable.”
“I can buy my own. Wait, it probably smells like you. I love the way you smell too.”
Delphina shook her head. “I said I would be civil. That doesn’t mean you need to talk about our relationship and especially not about our sex life.”
“You can’t pretend it didn’t happen Del. We had three good years together.”
“You had three good years. I had three years of you lying and cheating and going to jail.”
“I went to jail three times in three years. I went to jail way more than that before I met you. I only went to jail when I was drunk anyway. It won’t be a problem anymore. I know that it’s really hard for you to remember the good memories around all of the bad, but we did have good times. You don’t need to let them stay hidden. Do you remember that picnic I took you on last year?”
It wasn’t something that was easy for her to forget. They’d been fighting for weeks beforehand. Then he’d surprised her and taken her on an evening picnic. It had started to rain and they’d made love on the grass in the park. The experience had been incredible.
“None of that matters anymore Kie. Even the worst relationship had some good times. I’m going home. Do you want to follow me so I can give you that air mattress?”
“Yeah.”
Kiefer followed her outside. She drove back to her apartment and he followed her. He insisted on going up to the apartment with her though she practically begged him not to. He made a face, but didn’t remind her that she could live with him.
He thanked her for the air mattress and then left. She knew that he’d wanted to kiss her. She had let him get away with hugging her, but she couldn’t let him kiss her. She was feeling way too vulnerable as it was.
She went to her first doctor’s appointment. She made it on a day when she knew that Kiefer couldn’t come and then ended up feeling bad because she’d been able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Her job was going well. She felt more comfortable every day.
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 203
