by Jeannie Watt
Layla forced herself to concentrate on the last of the buttons. “No. But it isn’t going to fix anything, either. Unless you want to fix things.” She looked up. “I love you as you are. I’ve done my very best to just prove that to you. You don’t love yourself and that’s going to stand in our way.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again, perhaps because there wasn’t an argument he could make. She’d spoken the simple truth.
“I was up-front about that.”
“Yes, you were. And I’m also being up-front.” She went to him and put a hand on his chest, felt his heart beating against her palm and wished things could be different.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, Justin. I’m sorry you had no support system when you needed it.” She let her hand drop before she lost her willpower, and went to pick up her jacket off the wooden chair.
I’m sorry you won’t accept help now.
“If I could offer you more, I would,” he said as she slipped into the jacket and lifted her hair over the collar.
“Good to know.” She felt the distance between them, distance she’d put there. Maybe she was selfish for wanting to sleep with him once before walking, but she didn’t regret it. “I have to go.”
She lost the fight with herself and crossed the room to where he stood, stone still, and pressed a kiss to the side of his face. “I wish things could be different,” she said in a low voice. “But they aren’t.”
And showed no sign of changing in the future.
“I hired a guy to find Rachel.” He blurted the words just after her lips touched his face. She practically froze in the act of kissing him.
“Have you found her?”
Justin’s expression became hard. “I found out that Rachel kept our son.”
For a moment Layla couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find her voice. “She kept him?”
“My son thinks her husband is his biological dad.”
“Are you going to do something about it?” Layla demanded.
“No.” Justin took a few steps closer to her, and she could now see the battling emotions in his eyes. Pain, frustration. Sadness. “Rachel broke off with her parents, probably because she met the guy she was going to marry, and he helped her. They had the baby and raised it as their own.”
“She kept him and never told you?” Layla felt a groundswell of fury. “You’ve been going through hell and she’s been giving birthday parties and experiencing milestones.” Layla found herself blinking back tears. Tears of anger, tears of empathy.
Justin reached down and took her hands, which she hadn’t even realized were balled into fists. The hell that woman had put him through!
“She was trying to protect him. Give him a father.”
“He had a father,” Layla said.
“I meant one in the same family.” Justin looked down at her. “I keep asking myself what I might have done had positions been reversed. If I’d had the kid in my hands, had a chance to raise him with someone I loved, what decision would I have made?”
Probably one that wouldn’t have destroyed anyone’s life.
“I’ve never held a kid of my own,” Justin said, “but I’ve seen Reggie and Tom with theirs, and I don’t know that I could have given him up if I had.”
“But surely you would have told the other parent.”
“Not if I’d wanted that child to believe he was being raised by his two biological parents.”
“Are you going to be able to forgive her?” Layla finally asked.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “It’s not feeling too good right now, and that worries me.”
“Why?” she asked softly.
“I have feelings for you, Layla, but I’ve been messed up for a while. A long while. I want to come to you whole.” His mouth worked for a moment before he said, “I’m not there yet.”
She tilted her chin up. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You’re whole enough for me. The rest we can work on together.”
“But don’t you see, Layla? I’m not whole enough for me.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JUSTIN SHUT UP the cabin shortly after Layla drove away, hurt and frustrated because he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, let her help him. That seemed to be her perpetual state around him. It killed him to keep doing that to her, but regardless of what she said, he wanted to come to her a whole man. Not some shell of a guy with deep problems. Not a bitter man, angry at what he couldn’t fix. So angry at Rachel that he couldn’t allow himself to think about what she’d done.
Why would Layla want to hook up with a guy like that? A guy who, as she said, had nothing to give back. No sane person would do it.
He’d just pulled into his driveway when his phone rang in his pocket. He hoped it was Layla, but it wasn’t a number Justin recognized, nor was the voice. Masculine with a note of stress in it.
“Justin Tremont?”
“That’s me,” Justin answered in a flat, don’t-try-to-sell-me-anything voice. He stared out his windshield at the bushes in front of his parking spot.
“I’m Kyle Linnengar. Rachel Kelly’s husband.”
Justin had the oddest sensation of his face going numb as the blood drained out of it. “Yes?”
“I’m calling because…” The guy’s voice trailed off, the emotion in it clear, even though he was trying to hide it. Put on a brave front. “My wife is not doing well since you called.”
“I haven’t been doing well for the past ten years.”
There was a brief silence before Kyle said, “I can fully understand that, being a father.”
Justin closed his eyes. Okay. Acknowledgment. Kyle had unwittingly played the proper card. When he didn’t answer, Kyle continued.
“I…I need to know what your intentions are in the future, so I can prepare my son.”
“I don’t know,” Justin said honestly. “He apparently thinks you’re his dad.”
“I am his dad,” Kyle said in an adamant voice. “But so are you.” He spoke as if he needed to placate Justin, so as not to rile him into action.
“And like Rachel, you’re asking me to disappear?”
“For Brent’s sake, I am.”
“I already told Rachel I wouldn’t destroy your family.”
“It would do some serious damage to our family if you came into Brent’s life, but I understand why you would feel the need to do that.”
“Damage your family?”
“See Brent. Only…I’m asking you not to.”
“He’s a pretty happy kid?”
“Totally happy. He’s a kid kid, if you know what I mean. The kind that skateboards off the roof.”
Damn. Was skating off the roof a genetic tendency? “Has he done that?”
“I caught him in the planning stages.” Justin once again felt moisture welling in his eyes. “I know how hard this has to be. It’s hard for us, too, not knowing what you’re going to do. Living with this shadow over us. I don’t think Rachel has slept through the night since you called. My daughters keep asking her what’s wrong. But I know that’s not your concern. We made the decision to do this.”
“I don’t get why she didn’t tell me.”
“She wasn’t in a good place. Her parents insisted on the adoption. We met when she was six months pregnant. I worked at the clinic part-time as an office aid during my first year of college, and we started talking while she was waiting for an appointment. We kind of fell in love and…well, imagine two eighteen-year-olds in a forbidden love situation. We married. Kept the baby. And, crazy as it is, it worked out.”
Up until now.
“I want a picture of him.”
“I, uh…”
“You can email it to me. Just…a picture. I need to see him.”
“I can do that,” Kyle said. “And then what?”
“And then,” Justin said, his throat closing, “I think that’s it. You’ll raise your son.”
; Kyle cleared his throat. “If you give me the address, I’ll see what I can find to send.”
“Thank you,” Justin said. “And tell Rachel…look, I’m not going to lie. I’m mad as hell, but I won’t hurt the boy. Hurt your family.”
“All right.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
Justin cleared his throat. “If he happens to come up with any ideas regarding bikes and ramps over fences, make him wear a helmet.”
“Will do.”
After giving Kyle his email address, Justin paced through the house, fighting the urge to start beating his fists on the wall. There wasn’t a lot he could change here. Fair? No. Reality? Yes.
And he recalled Layla’s words about not taking away from anyone, but not giving, either. He wasn’t giving anything back. Nothing permanent, anyway.
He was just existing. Feeding his grief, refusing to give anything more than he absolutely had to. True, he wasn’t taking more than he was offering…unless he counted Layla. He’d taken something from her. Freely offered, but if she hadn’t cared deeply for him, hadn’t been hurting because of him, then she wouldn’t have lit into him as she had.
Wouldn’t have understood him the way she did.
An hour later he checked his email, and sure enough, there it was, waiting for him. An email from the Linnengar family with an attachment.
His hands actually shook as he opened the messageless email and clicked on the attachment. The photo loaded slowly, starting at the top of a blond head and moving down over blue eyes, Justin’s eyes, to a freckled nose—Rachel’s—to a gap-toothed grin. Definitely some mischief there, and a kind of sweetness he hadn’t expected. Brenton Kyle Linnengar smiled out at the world with a happy, trusting expression.
It appeared that his son was doing just fine without him.
LAYLA TRIED ON the green dress she’d worn on her less than stellar date with Justin, and slipped a short cream-and-black Chanel-style jacket over it. Three weeks had passed since she’d left him at the cabin, and no contact. It appeared their moment together was over. It’d sure be nice if she could shove him out of her head. But that was the way Justin had always been—there when she didn’t want him to be.
“Not bad,” Sam said, leaning back on Layla’s bed. “Maybe a couple gold chains and you’re good to go. Although I can’t believe you really are going.”
“I’ve won an award. I’m going.” Not looking forward to it… No, she was in one way. She was looking forward to doing what no one thought she would do—accept her award. How could she not?
“Would you like some company at this event?” Sam asked as she got off the bed and started digging through Layla’s meager jewelry cabinet. She pulled out the one and only gold chain, held it up, then shook her head.
“Are you volunteering to go to a boring awards ceremony?”
“No. I’m volunteering Willie again.” Sam put the gold chain back and came out with a heavier silver one. “He won’t sing. He promised me.”
“Maybe you could go?”
“Sorry. I have a lingerie party booked tomorrow night.” The parties were Sam’s latest endeavor, and had taken off like a rocket, or perhaps a Rocket Launcher—still her top-selling item.
“Kind of short notice for him, since the ceremony is tomorrow,” Layla said.
“He’ll be free,” Sam said with certainty.
Layla let out a sigh. “I would love to have Willie escort me. Perhaps you could ask him to pick me up at six?”
Sam smiled. “I already have.”
LAYLA WAS NOT AT HER HOUSE. Justin walked back to his car, wondering if she was at the library or a class or something. He’d tried to call first, but her phone was off. That was when he’d decided to do what she’d done to him over and over during the past several weeks, and simply show up at her door.
She definitely had more success doing that than he did.
Maybe Sam’s shop. If she wasn’t there, he’d call again.
The door was locked, but he could see Sam’s red head bent over as she counted out her cash drawer. He knocked on the glass and her head snapped up. She frowned, then crossed to the door.
“Well,” she said simply.
“Yeah. Uh, I was trying to find Layla.”
“Call her.”
“I think her phone is off.”
Sam rubbed her head with the hand holding the money. “Probably is.” She shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to do whatever it is you’re planning to do.”
“I wasn’t going to do anything but talk.” And talk. “Why tomorrow?”
“She has that educational awards thing tonight at the convention center and won’t be home.”
“Shit. The Merit Awards.” He frowned. “Convention center?”
“She has a date,” Sam said sternly.
Great. He forced a smile. “Thanks.”
WILLIE ARRIVED AT LAYLA’S house five minutes early. He’d cropped his beard and wore a suit jacket over a dark glen plaid shirt. Since he was six foot four inches tall and solid muscle, he looked a bit like a CEO lumberjack. Layla smiled at him.
“Thanks for doing this, Willie.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t mind. I owed Sam.”
Layla slipped into her coat and grabbed her purse. She’d known Willie for almost five years. He and Sam had once been lovers, but now they were more like best buddies.
“I hope it was for something big,” Layla said with feeling. “Or else she’s going to owe you.”
“Is this thing going to be boring?” Willie guessed.
“So boring that you’ll want to be shot and put out of your misery. But the food is pretty good.” Or it had been the time she’d won the award for her Civil War class.
“I brought my phone. I can play games under the tablecloth.”
“Would you do me a favor?” Layla asked. The idea had come to her that morning. Tonight was going to be the perfect meshing of her old and new selves. The plan had been made, but it would take chutzpah to carry it out. Both old and new had a job to do.
“Sure,” Willie said. “Name it.”
“I need you to move some stuff for me.”
JUSTIN ARRIVED at the convention center wearing his best catering suit, after deciding the catering tux would be too highbrow for this affair. He’d been mistaken—there was everything from tuxes to corduroy blazers—but his suit fit nicely into the range of fashions worn by the short line of people about to give their tickets at the door.
Tickets.
That could be a problem—or it would have been if he hadn’t worked this facility so many times. Justin did an about-turn and headed for the kitchen. He walked in as if he knew what he was doing—which he did. He was crashing a teacher party by looking like a caterer.
No one questioned him as he headed out the service door and then stepped aside to stand next to a set of curtains. Every table was full and it took him a while to find Layla in the darkened room, wearing the same green dress she’d worn the one time they’d gone out. She was sitting next to a giant.
A few weeks ago Justin would have said he was not a jealous man, but he knew now that was not true. He was jealous. And he wanted that big guy gone.
ONCE THE DESSERT DISHES had been removed and the opening remarks began, Layla had the uncomfortable feeling she was about to hyperventilate. The opening remarks lasted about twenty minutes too long, as they always did at educational functions, but it gave her time to finally spot Ella across the room, sitting with Dillon and his wife, Dora James from the math department, Tom Galliano from social sciences and his wife, and Melinda. Representing the English department, no doubt. Sans Robert.
Hmm. Trouble in paradise? Darn.
Layla drew in another deep breath and then jumped when Willie put his big hand over hers. “Relax,” he said, in what was probably supposed to be a whisper.
“Trying,” she said.
There were only twenty recipients of this award, statewide
, and, thanks to low airfares from Las Vegas to Reno, most of the winners were actually present. Plus there were school board members, administrators, legislators and fellow teachers showed up for the meal and to show support. The room was packed.
Once the actual ceremony started, the teachers took the podium, received their award and said a few words. Or, being teachers, a lot of words. Witty, warm and heartfelt words. Her friend Dillon’s speech made her tear up as he talked about the excellent students he was privileged to teach.
