“You wanted to talk with me?” he asked.
She blanked on the question. It took her several seconds to remember the voice mail she’d left.
“About Chloe,” she said with a start. “She had a rough morning at school. But she seems to have rallied.”
“For now.” Law grinned. Or was it a grimace? “She refused to talk with me today, until I mentioned coming here. All is well in her life again, at least for the next hour or so.”
“Have you heard from Fin?”
“Heard what?”
“He’s not reacting much better than Chloe to me pushing you at him.” Kristen swallowed, choking on the cotton candy sweetness in her mouth. “He’s run away, actually. I never should have…”
Law reached for her. The warmth of his fingers brushed the side of her neck. He folded down the collar of the crisply ironed oxford shirt she’d thrown on with a pair of jeans for basketball practice, and then his hand fell away.
“You did the right thing,” he said. “I…I really hope he comes back and settles in at the Dixons’, so he can play. I may have put too much pressure on him yesterday. I was pushing him to talk Chloe into playing, too. When I get a chance, I’ll make sure he knows that’s my problem, not his. I’ll coach the kid, regardless of whether my daughter wants to be on the team.”
“Oh…”
Kristen was suddenly blinking back tears. She wanted to reach for him, too. She didn’t. This part of them—the Chloe and Fin part—was still her job, regardless of her growing feelings for Law.
“That’s…” she fumbled. “That’s wonderful. And I really do hope you can bring Chloe around. She needs something steady right now. She needs…you, so much.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I need her, too.”
An awkward pause stretched between them. This was it. Were they going to be anything but this? Did she dare? Did he?
“I need to ask you a personal question,” he said, “if that’s okay.”
“Um…” How did she form a complete thought, let alone speak, when her heart had stopped beating?
“Can you tell me if you’d have kept staring at me all night from over here, the way you’ve been staring at me on Sundays from across the park? Or would you have worked up the nerve to talk to me again? It’s important, Kristen. I need to know before I push this any harder. And believe me, I want to push just as hard as you’ll let me. Maybe a lot harder than I should. But I can’t seem to stop. If it weren’t for Fin, if it were only about this thing between us that we’ve been avoiding, would you have worked up the nerve to get closer to me?”
Law was frozen, waiting, hoping, telling himself he was a fool for saying and asking what he had.
He watched Kristen swallow again, hard. She gave a shaky nod, Yes, and he found himself starting to believe, for the first time in a long time, that something good just might have found its way into his life again.
Music swirled through his thoughts as he stared down at one of the most beautiful creatures he’d ever seen. Rock music this time. Metal-band stuff that throbbed and overwhelmed, and promised to make a girl yours, so she’d never leave you.
“I’ve been telling myself a lot of things today,” she said. Her voice was shredded—maybe with embarrassment. Maybe the blush on her cheeks meant something totally different. “Mostly that you’d been so pissed by my meddling yesterday that you’d never talk to me again. So what did it matter what I wanted? Or how much I wanted to talk with you again, just to apologize, even before I heard about Chloe’s difficulties in class and left you that voice mail. When you didn’t call back…”
“I wasn’t ready to deal with what you might say. What I might say.” He still wasn’t ready. But he was there. That had to count for something.
“What…what would you have said?”
He’d wanted to say that each time he’d caught sight of her in the park, tall and lean and amazing-looking, he’d wanted to know if all of that confidence and composure and perfection tasted as good as he’d imagined. He’d wanted to tell her that especially since the divorce he’d lain awake nights thinking about her, when he couldn’t sleep because he was worried about Chloe and pissed at Libby, or just wishing he’d made the kind of choices that would have made a life with someone like Kristen possible. He’d wanted her to know that she’d become somewhere clean and free for his thoughts to escape to. Somewhere nondestructive, maybe a little addictive, but always healing. That she’d become a harmless fantasy he was dying to make a reality.
“I’d have asked,” he answered, instead of overwhelming her with the rest, “if yesterday morning was really only about the kids. I totally understand if it was. For the record, I respect what you’re trying to do with Fin, and how kind you’ve been to Chloe, even if ambushing me to get me to coach wasn’t the smartest move. You might have noticed I don’t respond well to being cornered like that. But if that’s all this was for you, if the kids are all you called about, I’ll walk back over to the bowling alleys, and we’ll pretend none of the rest happened. We’ll politely stare at each other from time to time. People will talk if they want. What do I care what anyone thinks about me? But if there’s something else here for you, too... We should probably try to figure that out.”
Law was breathing hard, as if he’d been sprinting. It was more than he’d said at any one time, to anyone, including Libby and Chloe, since moving to town.
Kristen seemed to almost melt before his eyes. Her expression softened. Her lips parted, just enough for him to see her bubblegum-pink tongue. Instead of answering, she was staring at his mouth, then up at his eyes, drinking him in as if she needed to. The way, while he’d been watching her from across Pockets for the last hour, he’d suddenly needed to be beside her, no matter how much he’d warned himself to take things slow.
She jerked when he reached for her hand. He wrapped his fingers around hers, trapping her, except she wasn’t trying to get away.
“You’re right.” She lifted her chin, her expression honest, a challenge. Damn, he liked that. “This isn’t a very good idea.”
“This is trouble.” And surprise, surprise. Chandler Elementary’s ultra-professional soon-to-be principal liked herself a little trouble.
He stepped closer, telling himself that he was a free man, and as far as he knew she wasn’t dating anyone. They were just getting to know each other. Perfectly harmless. He needed to be sure if she was sure, before he let himself want more. But for now, he needed to be closer.
“What has a woman like you…” His free hand brushed against the softness of Kristen’s long sleeves. Hers came to rest against the muscles of his arm. Totally innocent. Sexy as hell. “…who goes out of her way to do everything right all the time, been doing all these years, staring at a wrong man like me?”
Her eyes lit up even more. Her lips curled confidently.
“Maybe I see a lot of good in an intelligent man like you”—her fascination with his mouth tortured him some more—“no matter how determined you seem to be to lead with your past and let people believe the worst.”
“Right about now, I’m inclined to let you believe just about anything you want.”
For an intelligent man, he’d officially lost what was left of his mind.
They were in public. His daughter and her friends were laughing it up across the room, and who knew where Julia Davis had gotten herself off to so she could act like she wasn’t watching everything he and Kristen did and said, along with the rest of the adults.
But the Pockets opening was fading away from him. His world was narrowing like it used to when he’d latch onto a new song that would consume everything until it was done with him. All he could see or feel or hear now was Kristen.
“See something you like, Law?” a high-pitched, slightly slurred female voice said.
It echoed with a bitterness that had been Law’s constant companion for
most of the last ten years.
He closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself. Of course Libby had shown up tonight. Of course it had been to give him hell. When Kristen tried to draw her hand away, he held tight. He inched back from her, but he didn’t let go. He grimaced and squeezed her fingers, silently apologizing.
Walter had been right. Law had to start living a life with Chloe that transcended Libby’s jealousy and unhappiness. He couldn’t protect his daughter and make sure she thrived, living the life of a hermit because otherwise her mother might make trouble. What Libby had been doing since she’d heard about his visit to Chandler—not just bitching to him over the phone, but texting and calling Chloe and instigating a flurry of rumors about him and Kristen as if they’d somehow done something wrong—had to stop.
“You’ve met my ex-wife, I presume?” he asked Kristen.
“Of course.” Kristen’s chin went up again. She set down her cotton candy. She firmly removed her hand from his and offered it to Libby. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“I just bet it is.” Libby didn’t shake.
Behind her were Brooke’s mom and Summer’s mom, and behind them were the girls and Chloe, who’d walked away from their bowling to watch the show.
Libby redirected her anger from Kristen to Law. “When I heard you’d made an ass out of yourself yesterday, doing this sort of thing in the middle of the school playground, even I didn’t think you were stupid enough to try it again someplace like Pockets.”
Kristen did a double take between Libby and Law. “Mrs. Beaumont, I assure you that there was an official reason for me to ask Law to meet with me yesterday. I—”
“About Chloe?” Libby craned her neck so she could stare daggers up at Kristen. “I have primary custody of my daughter. If you have anything to discuss about her schoolwork, then—”
“Yes, ma’am. But this matter didn’t concern Chloe, at least not directly. I wanted—”
“You don’t need to explain anything,” Law said.
“But—”
“Stop picking a fight, Libby,” he said to his ex. “You should know by now that doesn’t work with me. I assure you, it’s not going to work with someone as levelheaded as Kristen. Let’s step outside so everyone can get back to Walter and Julia’s party, and you can rip me a new one about whatever you want—in private.”
“I want my daughter’s father not to be panting over her assistant principal in the middle of school.” Libby checked behind her to find her two best friends with their arms crossed and their expressions set in matching glares. “I want him not to be pawing over one of Chloe’s school faculty in a public place, with her and her friends and everyone else watching, because my girl can’t look away any more than the rest of the town can. God, Law, at any moment I was expecting the DJ to start playing a sappy love song. Could you be more indiscreet? If you want to do her, at least have the decency to take her over to the EZ Sleep for an hour.”
Law did step away from Kristen then.
He moved toward his ex with a burning need to put his hands around her neck. He dug his fists into his pockets to keep himself from making an even bigger mistake than he had the day Libby had told him she was knocked up and he’d taken her to a justice of the peace and married her—instead of doing whatever he had to, including crawling back to his parents, to take Chloe away from Libby then, and raise his daughter on his own.
“You need to shut your mouth,” he ground out, his voice hard and unforgiving, just the way she liked to describe him to anyone who’d listen. “We need to step outside, so we can take care of this discreetly. You’re making a scene, Libby, and it’s not going to do any good. The divorce is over. The judge made his ruling. You have no claim on my life anymore, and I’m not the one whose behavior is hurting our daughter. You’re—”
“I’m what?” She cocked her head sideways, daring him to say more. She glanced back at Chloe this time. She was cowering beside her friends, as she hung on every word Law and Libby said.
Law braced his hands on his hips. He stared at his boots. He counted to ten and reminded himself that no matter what he wanted, no matter what he needed, traumatizing Chloe wasn’t a price he was willing to pay. Libby always found a way to hurt their child, every time she went after him. That seemed to be the point lately—if Libby even had a point anymore. And that was what he needed to stop first. Dealing with the rest of his ex’s increasingly poor choices would have to wait.
“Outside,” he said between clenched teeth. “You’re drawing a crowd.”
“I’m drawing a crowd?” Libby’s voice grew louder. “If I hadn’t shown up once I heard you’d brought her to the opening, thinking I could save you a trip and pick Chloe up here, I’m guessing you’d have Kristen laid out on one of Walter’s pool tables by now. Have you lost your senses, Law, or have you been drinking the afternoon away, the way you boozed your way through our marriage?”
He saw red.
He grabbed her arm. “I haven’t had a drop to drink since before Chloe was born, and you know it. That’s enough.”
“Dad?” Chloe asked.
Law glanced her way, to see his brother, of all people, emerge from the crowd of onlookers. Dan hugged Chloe to his side.
“Let your momma and daddy talk, honey,” he said. “Come have some pizza with Sally and your aunt and me. Then we’ll check out the dunking booth. I hear the Perry boys are up next. And Josh is just a grade ahead of you at Chandler, right?”
Chloe nodded at her uncle. Her attention didn’t move away from Law and Libby. Dan locked gazes with Law, his expression hard, judging, disappointed…just like old times.
“Bring your friends with you,” he said to Chloe. “We won’t stop until both Perry boys are soaked head to toe. Maybe we can get their daddy to give it a go, too. Brian owes me big-time for that trip to Charleston he bid out from under me at the Founders Day silent auction.”
Chloe hesitated. She let Dan lead her away. After a few seconds, Brooke and Summer took off after them, whispering like mad, casting glances over their shoulders at Law and Libby and Kristen.
“Let’s go,” Law said, half dragging Libby away from her own friends and toward the door. And for once he didn’t care what she had to say about it or how loudly she said it.
“Turn me loose,” she yelled.
“You first.” He pushed her through Pockets’ double doors and headed around the building to the alley that ran alongside it, keeping a tight grip on his ex the whole way. “When are you going to stop this, Libby? When are you going to finally be satisfied? When you’ve made sure our daughter hates us both as much as you hate me?”
Kristen shouldn’t be there.
This wasn’t her family, it wasn’t her drama, and Chloe wasn’t her child to protect. Not to mention that Kristen showing up at Pockets had been the catalyst for the horrible scene between the Beaumonts that half the town had just witnessed.
She most definitely shouldn’t have followed Law and Libby out of the bowling center. Just as earlier she shouldn’t have let herself get lost in Law’s touch, or the honest and downright endearing things he’d been saying before Libby interrupted them. She shouldn’t be standing at the corner of the building now, watching the man confront his ex, hearing things nobody but the two of them should ever hear.
But she couldn’t walk away, any more than she’d been able to resist Law inside. If she was going to own her feelings for the man, it was time to own them, including backing him up with Libby.
This is trouble... Law had said about the two of them, while he’d held her hand and touched her arm, his body language and his voice communicating how much he’d like the kind of trouble they could make together. Her defenses against him had bottomed out so completely, she wasn’t sure how she’d ever rebuild them. How did she walk away, when he’d just unknowingly given her something her oblivious parents had never figure
d out how to?
He’d wanted her. It was just that simple, and that life-changing—to feel wanted so completely. What woman could resist having that kind of need focused on her?
“Let me go!” Libby shouted. “Or I’ll call my lawyer.”
Her voice sounded not quite right, Kristen realized—in a not-quite-right way that Kristen had no problem identifying. She was, after all, the daughter of a woman who’d almost always been drinking—not quite drunk, but most of the time too far gone to be completely careful about the things she said or did.
Law let Libby go. “I have your lawyer on speed dial. I’ll call him for you. What do you want now? Tell me what it’s going to take to get you to stop this.”
“I want it all.” Libby’s tone was close to hysterical, each word louder than the last, making Kristen wince.
They might be outside. But they were next to one of Pockets’ side exits. The walls of the strip mall the bowling center had been built into were likely paper thin.
“There’s nothing left to take,” Law said.
He’d rammed his hands into his pockets again. His expression was unreadable. His body looked relaxed, nonconfrontational, in control. But when he glanced at Kristen, there was hell in his eyes.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Libby pointed a finger at his abdomen. “Your brother’s rich. Your family’s rich. Where’s my piece of that?” The top of her head barely reached his chest, even though her brunette hair was teased into a frenzy that rivaled the crazy swirls of Julia’s cotton candy. To emphasize her point, she poked Law with her manicured fingernail. “Dan was right there, stepping in to protect Chloe tonight. Wasn’t that sweet? Even after the shitty way you’ve treated him, your brother would do anything for you and our kid. Anything. But you never loved him either, did you? Just like you never loved me. Well, if you want to keep seeing Chloe as much as you are, and you want to whore around town with Ms. Thing over there while you’ve got my daughter with you, then maybe you better buddy it up with good ol’ Dan, and see if he’ll finance whatever it’s going to take to make sure I can swallow watching you leave me behind for the first skirt to come along before the ink’s dry on our divorce!”
Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 10
