“If I’d known I had a son, my dick would have stayed inside my pants.”
I slapped the top of my thigh. “Here we go again. Back to that awful bitch Cassie playing tricks on that poor, innocent Josh. Give me something new, Champ. I already know how bad I screwed up.”
But his only answer was a frustrated groan. I wanted to bait him so that I could bite back. But my brain was scattered. I tried to think about something to say that would floor him. Something that would make him feel as shitty as I’d felt that night. I watched his profile, how his body had now relaxed against the driver’s seat. He wasn’t up for a fight.
“I want you to understand something, Cass.” If he looked relaxed, his voice wasn’t. It was all stretched and broken at the same time. “If it’s the last thing I say to you before we part ways.” He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking straight ahead, into the night. “We are both responsible for what happened. We both share the guilt. We are both to blame.”
That wasn’t true. I was the one who gave up on Lucas. I was the one who walked away.
It was like Josh could read my mind. “You’re not leaving me tonight without knowing that. We both made mistakes because we loved each other so goddamn much.”
I reached for him and cursed the seat-belt for keeping me from hiding against him. I only touched his forearm. His muscles tensed underneath my fingers. I could feel the energy inside him twisting beneath his skin, ready to burst. A car drove by and its lights splashed all over his face for a couple of seconds. I saw raw pain and tears at the corners of his eyes.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say it.
I still love you so goddamn much.
But I had no right. No right to him. Not anymore.
The truck turned into the muddy path leading to the farm. The bumpy road shifted my body back towards the passenger door. I removed my hand from his arm and, for a moment, it felt like Josh was shifting towards me.
But the creaking sound of the hand brake told me that my time was up. The truck had stopped. Panic rushed through me. I could hear the clock ticking in my head. It was like what they said when you were about to die and your life flashed before your eyes. My life with Josh played out on the movie screen of my mind. The memories were cherry-picked to show only the good and almost perfect.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.” I forced myself to look in the same direction as he was.
There was a SUV—a brand-new looking Escalade—parked next to my ancient Chevy.
“Do you recognize the car?” Josh was peering through the windshield.
“No.” I wasn’t much help.
There was only one way to know. I stepped out of the truck.
“Wait,” Josh shouted after me. It didn’t take him long to get out and stand in front of me. “Let me.”
The temperature had dropped and I tugged at the sleeves of Josh’s hoodie. The cotton was soft against my skin. First, he checked the inside of the SUV. It was empty. I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Like the lit-up end of a cigarette butt glinting through the night.
“Guys, no need to call the Secret Service.”
My saliva went down the wrong way. I coughed and waved to Josh to let him know I’d survive. My visitor’s steps on the old wooden planks of Gran’s porch grew closer until he stood on top of the stairs that led down to the front yard.
“The plan was for the two of you to get a quick divorce.”
“Sam. You’ve come. Just like you said.”
I walked past Josh, climbed the steps, and Sam wrapped his arms around me. His chin rested on the top of my head. “I promised I’d come, Kitten.”
Behind me, Josh cleared his throat. It was a starry night, but there was no moon and the three of us were lost in the dark. I parted from Sam and pulled open the screen door and the entrance door. I got inside the house to switch on the porch light. When I joined Sam and Josh again, it was like a duel scene in one of those old Westerns.
“Why didn’t you give me a warning?” I mumbled. “I’d have waited for you at home. Cooked dinner or something.”
Seeing Sam here, on the porch of my house, was totally surreal. Like two worlds colliding.
“I wanted to surprise you. I thought you could do with some moral support. But good ol’ Josh here seems to have everything back under control.”
Josh crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re right. Cassie won’t need to be rescued anytime soon.”
“Cassie can still speak for herself,” I chimed in.
Sam turned his face sideways. His eyes softened. I wanted him to feel welcome. After all, he’d traveled to Nowheresville just to see me.
“Josh gave me a lift. The friend I went to a bonfire with had too much to drink.” Technically, I didn’t own Sam an explanation.
He nodded and I could feel he’d backed down. I relaxed. I wanted to sound chirpy. “So, apart from the moral support, what are you here for?”
Sam swiveled round to face me. He took one of my hands in his and stared down at it. When his eyes met with mine again, he seemed to have found his answer.
“I hope it’s not too late.” He didn’t sound as cocky as normal. “I can help you getting Lucas back.”
“Sam, it’s too late, I—“
“Marry me .”
thirty-six
Josh
“The hell you are.”
I was already half-way to that jerk when Cassie’s hand flew up, palm facing me.
“Stop.”
But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at him. And I could see how his goddamn proposal was hitting her. Her lips were parted. Her eyes glistened. He had no right making her cry.
I saw all of it, but at the same time, felt robbed. Robbed of the memory of when I’d climbed to the top of the cotton tree and froze my ass off under the snow, waiting for her to come. To tell her I loved her. To ask her to be my wife.
Since then, I’d asked someone else to marry me. But that memory was already blurred.
That made me a world-class jackass.
I was the one who had no right. My only right was to keep my mouth shut and let Cassie decide what she wanted, what was good for her.
She kept staring at him, shaking her head, in disbelief. “Why would you do that for me?”
Who wouldn’t want to marry her?
“Because I fell for you that first night when you landed at the Turf all brave and lonely.”
It was my turn to shake my head. Those words should have been mine.
They should be mine now.
I should be the one standing in front of her, holding her hand, opening my heart. Giving in. Instead I was the one watching.
“You don’t know me well enough, Sam. I’m going through a divorce. I’ve no idea where I’ll live. I’ve got nothing to give.” She rushed through her words so fast that she was breathless.
Sam grabbed her shoulders. He lowered his face as if he wanted to push a point home. “I won’t let you give up on Lucas that easy. I want to help you get him back. If we get married, we can fight for custody.”
That punched me straight in the stomach. I didn’t have a claim on Cassie anymore but my son...
“Lucas is mine. I’m his father.” Sam finally turned toward me. “You try to take my son away and I’ll destroy you.”
Sam cocked his eyebrow. “But it’s fine for you to take him away from Cassie?
Now I wanted the guy dead. “You don’t know shit about what’s going on between Cass and me.”
I launched myself toward the dickhead, with my elbow crooked and my right hand hungry for a hit on his jaw. But Cassie stepped in front of me and cut me off. “Don’t be such a macho asshole.”
I froze. She laid her hand on Sam’s wrists and removed his hold from her. The tension in my shoulders eased a bit when she forced some distance between herself and Sam. But she kept looking at him with tenderness and I felt like an intruder.
“What you just said, Sam, tho
se were some of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.” She kept her voice very low, like she always did when she was scared of losing it. “But getting married won’t change anything about Lucas.”
“Come on, Cassie. There are things you don’t know about me. I come from money. My father knows a lot of people. We can make your dreams come true. Together.”
Her fingers brushed against Sam’s jaw as if he were a child. “But you see, this isn’t about me. It’s about Lucas. You and I will never be the family he needs.”
Sam wasn’t ready to give in. “Why not?”
My gaze swung back to Cassie. I clung to what she was about to say as if my life depended on it. She bit her lip and I saw how her breathing hitched.
“Because I don’t love you, Sam. Not the way you deserve to be loved. Not the way I want to love the father of my child. And I am pretty sure you don’t love me the way you’ll love the mother of your child one day.”
There were so many ways to love someone, but there was only one way to love Cassie. Only one way Cassie could love.
Fiercely.
And then I knew. I knew that it was also the only way I wanted to love. The only way I wanted to be loved.
I stepped closer to her. I’d forgotten about the other guy. It’d taken me five years to understand. It’d taken me a lifetime. I couldn’t wait another minute.
“Cass, I want—”
I made her jump. While I’d been seeing only her, hearing only her, she’d completely switched me off.
“I think you should go.” She told me.
“I don’t—”
“You shouldn’t be here. This is strictly between Sam and me.” The look she gave him was an apology.
The one she didn’t give me was a dismissal.
I got that much. So I walked backwards, not wanting to lose one single sight of her.
“I’ll come back,” I assured her. “As soon as I’m back from D.C., I’ll come and talk to you.”
She nodded absent-mindedly, but they were already going inside the house.
I heard the screen door, followed by the entrance door, shutting behind them. Like the walking dead, I got back into my truck. I switched the engine on and shifted into reverse. I didn’t want to think that I might never be here again, that she could be gone by the time I returned from D.C., that I’d never get a chance to…
There was nothing I could do here until I’d talked to Lenor. Lenor whose heart I’d already broken once. I pounded the steering wheel with my hand.
I drove without paying attention. I knew the road by heart even after a five-year absence. I was returning to the house that had never really been home. Thank God, my dad had a reserve of bourbon that could get us through the Apocalypse. The beer I’d drunk at the start of the night felt like a memory. I needed something strong to make me forget that Cassie was now alone with Sam, that there were many ways to love someone, and that one of them could be how she loved him.
Seeing my house fully lit up came as a surprise. My parents had been early risers all their lives. They went to bed at sunset. But apparently not tonight. I hadn’t even made it out of the truck when I heard the shouting coming from inside. A weight settled in the pit of my stomach. My father was very loud. He was loud with me, but he always kept his temper under wraps around my mom.
Not tonight. I rushed inside, pushing the door wide open. They were in the living room. The TV was on, but between my dad’s shouting and my mom’s sobbing, it might as well have been on mute.
“Good to see you, son. I wasn’t sure you’d make it home tonight,” he slurred. His eyes were blood-shot, while the corpses of beer bottles littered the coffee table. That was what had come before the Jack Daniels he was currently gulping down had even been opened.
Yep, Dad was shit-faced. But what killed me was seeing my mother crumpled up on the sofa, her hands covering her face. She was the reason I’d come to Steep Hill before flying to D.C. I’d have stayed in Kansas City with Lucas otherwise.
I knelt at Mom’s side and slowly laid my hand on her shoulder. She trembled. I turned to my father, who was watching me. I hated how our eyes looked the same. “What have you done to her?”
He knocked down the contents of his glass, winced and refilled it. My dad didn’t used to be a drunk.
“I’ve done what you should have done with your woman a long time ago. Reminded her who’s the boss.”
I stood up but didn’t move away from my mother. “What kind of bullshit is this?”
“The bullshit I should have taught your over-educated ass long ago. If I had, you wouldn’t have knocked up that O’Malley slut… or married her.”
I launched myself across the room. When my fist crashed into my dad’s sorry face, it felt good. My father was a big man like me. But he was older. Older and drunk.
And I was angry. Angry and in love.
In love with that O’Malley slut, who wasn’t any more of a slut than my dad was a decent man.
“I should’ve done that a long time ago.” I shouted as his body crumpled onto the living room rug. “Right back to the first time you put Cassie down, back to the first bad word you said about her.”
My mother’s arms encircled my chest. She laid her cheek on my shoulder, softly hushing my anger. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wasn’t going to let it go. My father was trying to get back on his feet. Neither my mom nor I made a move to help him.
“Because of you, I wasn’t there when my son was born.” I wasn’t shouting anymore. My voice sounded dead cold. “I wasn’t there when he took his first steps. Because of you, my son doesn’t call me dad.”
He used the dining table to pull himself back on his feet. I hated him. Always had, but I’d been good at ignoring it so far.
I wasn’t ignoring anything anymore.
My father wiped his hand underneath his nose, smearing the blood across his face. He looked pathetic. “What did she do to you tonight?” he snarled. “Tell me you didn’t forget to wrap up again.”
My right arm was alive again and it wanted Jack MacBride dead.
“He’s drunk, Josh, dead drunk” My mom had moved her small body in front of me as a barrier. She cradled my face and her eyes reached some place deep inside me. “You’re better than that. Better than him. Always have been, always will be.”
She gave me that soft smile of hers, the one that always made me feel like I could do no wrong. But I’d done so much wrong.
Tears welled up in my throat. I swallowed them back. “Mom, I’ve screwed up. I’ve screwed up so badly. I’ve got no idea how I can make it better.”
“Back to crying for your momma because you wet your bed?” He just didn’t know when to shut up.
I closed my eyes. Curled my fist. Thoughts of Lucas, of how hard I’d try to be the best dad for him, how hard I’d try to make him proud.
But I still could hear my father. “You always were that O’Malley girl’s puppy. She trampled all over you like a doormat. A real man keeps his woman in line. A real man shows her who’s boss.”
“None of those things make a man.”
“What would you know—”
“—One more word from you and I tell the cops you faked my signature.” My threat sobered him up. Somewhat.
“If you do, the O’Malley girl goes down with me.”
True. That was why I hadn’t even considered it. “She was a minor. She’ll say you forced her, you and that corrupt lawyer friend of yours, Webster.”
I was bluffing, but my dad didn’t have the sharpest mind, and alcohol dulled it even more.
“I can’t stand the two of you anymore,” he spat back at us while stumbling out of the room. “I’ll sleep in the shed.”
He could sleep there for the rest of his days for all I cared. Looking at my mom’s empty stare, she’d prefer that too. When had things gone so wrong between them?
Had it always been like that?
“I’ll get us some cocoa,” she said while she tapped my chest gen
tly. “Wait for me on the porch.”
Cocoa was really the last thing I wanted tonight. I eyed the half-empty bottle of Jack my dad had left behind. I was craving the harsh taste of whiskey, but I turned my back on it. My mom had dealt with one drunk tonight, she didn’t need another one.
I walked back to the front porch and sat on the bench. In five years, nothing seemed to have really changed.
“Your father and I are getting a divorce.”
Mom held the two mugs of cocoa. She slowly set them down on the square low table at the side of the bench, then she settled next to me.
“That’s why he lost it tonight.”
I wanted to feel sad for her, for us, for my family. I wasn’t. She deserved so much more than that big-headed, misogynistic loser.
“I can put you in touch with my lawyer.”
That could very well have been the most insensitive thing I’d ever said, but Mom just chuckled. She stared back at me with twinkles in her eyes, and then burst into laughter. Although I felt like anything but laughing, I did the same. When we were done, she took my hand and squeezed it.
“I’m going to be there for you, Joshua. For you and my grandson.”
I was a grown-up man. I was a father. Still, knowing that my mother was back by my side, it made me feel stronger.
“I had no idea, no idea at all about what Jack did to Cassie.” Mom had her hand on her heart. “I’d never have let him use Mrs. O’Malley’s illness to get Cassie to give your son up.”
“I know.”
I still struggled to reconcile the truth with what I’d believed for six long years.
Mom tightened her shawl around her. The night had turned chilly and I was only wearing an old T-shirt. My hoodie was still on Cassie’s shoulders.
Out of nowhere, all those crazy images collided in my brain. Cassie in Sam’s arms. Sam taking my hoodie off her. Him kissing the soft skin behind her ear…
“You still love her, don’t you?”
The question broke the flow of snapshots right before it stepped into porn territory.
“I do.” I locked my eyes with my mom’s pale blue stare. “I’ve never stopped.”
“I know. I know.” She patted my hand. “It seems like you’ll have to talk to this lovely fiancée of yours. Sooner rather than later.”
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