by Dani Collins
The little dynamo launched herself at him and he caught her with an “Oof.”
Holding her flat on her belly, he wafted her in the air. “This is my little sister. Lindsay.” Something behind his smile was guarded. Wary.
Mercedes tried to make her numb lips smile. “Because your mom remarried,” she said, but she knew. She couldn’t look into Zack’s eyes and Paige’s eyes and not see where Lindsay’s laughing, bottomless gaze came from.
“She did, yeah, but, uh...” Zack scooped Lindsay upright against his chest and looked to his aunt, ignoring the baby’s kicking legs and insistent, “Again, again.”
Paige’s smile faded as she began to sense what was going on. Apology slackened her mouth. She looked to her husband.
“I said we should call first,” Sterling said.
Mercedes tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. She had known L.C. would hurt her, she just hadn’t expected it to be immediately and in such a heart-wrenching way.
Paige’s smile firmed. “Where is Lyle?”
“Right on cue,” Sterling said, pointing as the courtyard doors whooshed open and L.C. walked in.
Chapter 20
“I thought I recognized that square head...” L.C. ribbed Sterling, pleased to see his brother-in-law in a way he had never been able to imagine for most of their lives. He lost the grin and trailed off, however, as he absorbed Sterling’s expression.
L.C. shot his gaze to Paige, worrying her lip. Eyes wide with apology. Zack—
Zack held a baby. A toddler with light brown skin, hair like a dandelion puff and a chin that dimpled exactly like Brit’s.
The crack across L.C.’s heart, the one he’d been clutching so tightly in fear of it widening, pried open. All the hurt he’d tried to dodge for two years spilled out like acid inside him. He’d always known that seeing her would release a trainload of pain. What he hadn’t known would come with it, however, was joy.
God, she was beautiful.
He watched her little legs kick and heard her say, “Again, again,” to Zack, bouncing herself on his arm, animated and trusting.
Pride washed through him. Those were his two kids, right there. His. He and Brit might not be worth a pair of pennies as a couple, but damn they made perfect kids.
L.C. tightened his lips against a trembling laugh just as Mercedes said, “Apparently your family came to visit.”
Mercedes.
He came back to reality with a jolt. His eyes went hot along with the rest of him.
Yesterday, he’d held her and loved her with everything in him. He very much feared he was in love with her, his emotions were so deep and sharp where she was concerned.
That’s why it destroyed him to see her turn such a look on him, one filled with betrayal and hurt and fuck-off-and-die.
His throat clogged with a sharp knot as he absorbed her condemnation. He said a word that shouldn’t be said in front of early talkers and walked right back out the automatic doors.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Paige said behind him. She caught up to him outside in the courtyard, grabbing his arm.
Fighting the emotions swamping him, L.C. shook her off and swung around, only to see that Golden Boy husband of hers was charging out behind her, ready to play white knight. The baby he’d been holding was gone.
L.C. leveled his chin at his brother-in-law. If Sterling wanted to get into it, they could get into it. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how. It was just like that s.o.b. to think L.C. would stoop to taking a swing at his own sister and rush to interfere.
Not that he wasn’t tempted. L.C. glared at Paige, so angry, so furious. To hurt Mercedes like this, in the most devastating way...
It was his own fault, of course. Distantly, he recognized that. He’d had chances to tell her. He could have told her yesterday, but he wanted to be the new guy. L.C. Not that loser Lyle, the one who hadn’t seen his own child because he was too cowardly.
Not that he took any of that responsibility on himself right now. He only glared at his sister with blistering fury. “You had no right.”
Paige’s know-it-all mouth puckered up. “Between you and Brit—”
“Does she know you’re here?” he demanded. That would be just like Paige, to kidnap a baby across a couple of states to prove a point.
“Yes!” Paige folded her arms. “She said you called a few weeks ago and wanted to come home.”
“I never said that. He wanted me to come back there.” L.C. jabbed a finger in the air toward where Zack and Mercedes emerged from the interior of the main building, each of them with a baby on their hip. He flinched from looking at Mercedes, or his son and daughter, vaguely wondering if everyone with a balcony seat to the courtyard was pulling up a stool right now.
“It doesn’t matter who suggested it,” Paige said. “It’s past time you came home. Even Brit sees it and she won’t stand in your way anymore.”
“Here’s news, Pidge. Brit doesn’t have that kind of power over me. If I wanted to come back, I would.”
“What are you saying?” Paige stood taller, even though she was too short and slight for it to make a difference. “You have a daughter.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he roared.
God damn her, she couldn’t be this stupid.
“Did it ever occur to you that this would be hard for me? That it would kill me to watch someone else raise her? That maybe I didn’t need that pain? Jesus, you’ve got one of your own now.”
He dared a look at Mercedes, protectively clutching a stranger’s child against the ferocity of his overflowing temper.
“Imagine what it would be like if—” He waved in Sterling’s direction. “—if he took your kid and raised her with someone else.”
The corners of Paige’s mouth went down, but she didn’t back down, only lowered her voice.
“So it’s hard. When will it get easy? When she’s six, or ten, or twenty? What about how hard this is for her? She’s starting to talk. No one is going to hide you from her. Pretty soon she’s going to ask, ‘Why doesn’t my other daddy come see me?’ I won’t let you and Brit do that to her.” Paige’s voice shook with the passion she’d always been able to rouse in defense of anyone but herself.
L.C. could barely breathe and looked away.
“I won’t let you do that to yourself,” she said and touched his arm, ignoring his flinch. “You’ve created a wonderful person, Lyle. You deserve to know her.”
After staging a show for the entire courtyard, Mercedes foolishly decided there was no way L.C. would bring his three-ring circus back to their duplex. However, when she returned from picking up the kids, there sat a green mini-van, blocking the fire lane.
Mercedes almost turned her car around and took the kids out for burgers, but Dayton had to use the bathroom and Ayjia caught sight of a stuffy on the grass beside the driveway. She darted out of the car as soon as Mercedes pulled in.
“What’s this?” Ayjia asked, picking it up.
“L.C. has guests. Just leave it on the step, honey.”
L.C.’s front door opened and Paige came out, her timing so perfect she might have been watching for them. “I was just coming to look for that,” she said to Ayjia, thanking her. “Hi, again,” she said to Mercedes, and approached with a placating smile.
“Who does it belong to?” Ayjia asked.
“My niece. Are you Zack’s neighbor? This belongs to his baby sister. You can meet her if you like, if it’s okay with your mom. Lindsay is only two, but she loves older kids.”
“My mom’s on vacation,” Ayjia said. “We’re staying with Auntie M ‘til school finishes. Can I, Auntie M? Pleeeeeze?”
Dayton danced beside her, distracting her. “Can I have the keys?”
“Sure, hon,” Mercedes handed over the keys only to see Ayjia take it as agreement. She shot off toward L.C.’s front door. Mercedes sighed and dredged up a dismissing smile for Paige.
Paige gave her a heartbreakingly anxious look that could have com
e from Ayjia’s arsenal. “I’m really sorry for the episode of All My Children earlier. If I had had the first clue that you and Lyle were—” She glanced toward the house. “That he hadn’t even told you...”
“We’re not. He and I are just neighbors.” Silently she added, and only until I tell him to get his ass on the road and out of my life.
Paige considered her a minute. “Yeah, Sterling and I were ‘just neighbors’ for a while. It’s funny. Lyle’s never given a damn what the neighbors think of him, but I’m darn close to getting my backside tanned for airing his dirty laundry in front of them today.”
“It’s a pretty tight community.” Mercedes was cooking from the pit of her gut upward as she contemplated the gossip that must be circulating on the heels of ‘L.C.’s truck was seen.’
“Mmm. Our hometown is like that. You never live anything down, never see any forgiveness for the sin of being human.”
“We’re not that bad,” Mercedes said, defending Coconino while making the leap to wondering if growing up in that atmosphere was the reason L.C. was so hard on himself.
Paige’s smile brightened. “Great. Then you’ll join us for take out Chinese.”
Mercedes entered her side of the duplex to find Dayton sneaking a slice of bread.
“Honey, I’ve told you to ask for a sandwich if you’re hungry. You need more than just bread in your body.” She tried to recall if she’d already fed him tuna this week while she took tomato and lettuce from the fridge. “How about a cheese sandwich?”
“‘kay.”
“Yes, please,” she corrected, then said, “Open the back door for Ayjia, please. She ran over to L.C.’s.”
“Can I go?”
“Not right now.” They would be over there for dinner later. How had Paige bait and switched her into that?
“But why is Ayjia allowed?”
“She’s not staying. She’s coming right back.” Mercedes pushed her hair off her sweating face. “Actually, she should be back already. All right. Run over and tell her it’s snack time and she should come home.”
He took his sandwich, thanked her without prompting, and zoomed out the door.
Mercedes sighed, had a glass of water, sighed again and cleaned her kitchen. When twenty minutes had passed and the kids still hadn’t returned, she worked up the courage to go after them. L.C. stood on his side of the patio out back.
“Dayton and Ayjia?” she asked.
“Ayjia’s playing dolls. Dayton’s playing a video game with Zack.”
“Could you ask them to come home?”
“They’re fine. Ayjia’s keeping the little one busy so I can stand out here with...” He shifted his gaze from glancing inside the unit to the bricks of his own patio, where his daughter stood.
The toddler leaned on the stone blocks that made up the half-wall between their patios.
“Paige and Sterling are picking up the take-out,” he explained.
“Mmm,” Mercedes said, not looking at him, too fascinated with the little midge blinking up at her. “Hi,” Mercedes said, because she wasn’t mad at the sweetheart. Who could be? She was adorable with her soft round cheeks and kissy doll’s mouth and sweeping eyelashes.
“Lindsay, this is Mercedes,” L.C. said conversationally. “She hates my guts.”
Mercedes leaned on her elbows so she was closer to the little girl. “I don’t hate his guts,” she confided. “Your Auntie Paige made excuses for him, so now I just pity him.”
“She did not,” L.C. said with the grim tone that reminded her he wasn’t a man to be trifled with, even by those whom he loved.
“Where Mamma?” Lindsay asked.
“Sorry, sweetheart, I don’t know where she is,” Mercedes said.
“Work.” Lindsay answered her own question.
“You’re probably right. How old are you?”
“Two,” L.C. said.
“Dadda work,” Lindsay said.
“Mmm. Well, he hasn’t done much today, but he had a hard day yesterday. It’s understandable if he’s goofing off today.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?” L.C. asked, arms folded, chin set, voice grim.
“Hardly.” She straightened and brushed the dirt specks from her bare forearms.
“Lindsay, who’s this?” L.C. pointed at his own chest.
“Dadda Liah.”
“Daddy Liar,” Mercedes repeated, impressed. “You’re one smart cookie, aren’t you?” she said to the little girl.
“Cookie?” The girl reached up. “Pees?”
“The cookies are all gone, Linds. Auntie Paige went to buy some with the Chinese food. We’ll have one for dessert.”
“Tell my kids to come home, would you?” Mercedes said.
“They’re fine. Totally comfortable hanging out with an asshole like me.”
She sighed, not liking to hear him call himself that.
Not moving to go in, she relented and let him see the hurt boiling inside her. “You should have told me.”
He flinched. “I know. But you would have told me to go see her.”
True. Mercedes watched the little girl squat to poke at an embedded rock. “How did you stay away?” she asked, kind of rhetorically. She was just too sweet to resist.
“Staying away from that town is easy.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But I knew once I’d seen her, that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to leave her again.” He trailed off, lifting his head to look at her, both of them hearing what he hadn’t quite said.
He was leaving. Going home.
It hit like a punch in the gut.
Mercedes cupped her elbows, pressing her arms to the sick, lingering knot in her stomach.
“Merce,” he whispered, showing her a helpless palm.
She shook her head and shifted her gaze back to the little miracle the woman he didn’t love had given him, the kind of miracle that the woman who did love him never could. A sob choked into her throat.
Straining to get the words out, she said, “Call me when dinner gets here,” and went back to her empty unit, closing the door behind her.
It was odd to be miserable and happy at the same time, but L.C. couldn’t help it. Paige might have spent her entire life trying to nag him into being a better man than he could ever hope to be, she might have married a man L.C. had hated down to his last red blood cell most of his life, but they were family. It was good to be with them.
“So what you’re telling me,” L.C. said, watching Sterling unload Chinese food and paper plates onto the end of the ping-pong table, “Is that you’re trying to knock up my sister before my ex-wife’s new husband gets a bun in her oven.”
“It doesn’t sound as sporting when you say it like that. Oh, hi.” Sterling flashed his golden grin past L.C.’s shoulder.
L.C. closed his eyes in a cringe, aware of Sterling stepping up to open the gate for Mercedes, making apologies in that obscenely perfect way of his. “Please excuse our scene earlier. I take full responsibility. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“Oh, get real,” L.C. said, opening his eyes to see Mercedes had changed into a sundress. She must have showered because her hair was damp and when she sent a curious look over her shoulder at him, he saw her lashes were dark and her lips glossy.
Dragging his gaze off her flushed cheeks and somber mouth, he said to Sterling, “Seriously, did you have anything to do with this plan at all?”
Sterling touched his tongue to his bottom lip. “I barely made it into the van before it left town.” He treated Mercedes to another killer grin. “But it doesn’t change the fact I’d like to smooth things over with Mercedes. Is there anything I can do?”
“Help L.C. replace the windows in the office,” she joked.
“I can do that. Here, why don’t you dish up for your kids? Paige was worried about allergies.” He handed her a plate. “Now who is Elsie? One of the senior ladies?”
Fuck. L.C. closed his eyes. He was never going to hear the end of this one.
Mercedes swung her gaze to L.C. and her mouth twitched. She started to laugh, but he didn’t care. At least she was smiling again.
Mercedes didn’t want to like Paige and Sterling. She didn’t want to linger through dinner and talk and make nice. But the time flew and watching L.C. interact with them was fascinating. They cracked jokes, they teased each other, and Mercedes gleaned there was some family factory where L.C. and Sterling had worked together, because they talked extensively about a capacity problem on some machine or other.
Meanwhile, Paige and Sterling operated like a single person, passing babies back and forth, wiping faces and hands, disappearing to change a diaper or fetch a toy, communicating without words, touching with natural familiarity.
Mercedes watched Sterling’s hand reach for Paige’s yet again, toying with her fingers while she offered Dayton and Ayjia fortune cookies and asked them to keep the pieces away from Elizabeth. “She’s too little,” Paige explained, then looked at Zack as he snapped open his own. “What’s it say? Anything about romance? How’re things with your girlfriend, by the way? You should have invited her. I want to meet her.”
“Girlfriend?” L.C. broke off his conversation with Sterling to swing his attention to Zack. He so rarely missed anything that Mercedes couldn’t help biting back a grin.
Zack gave Paige a pained look. “Thanks.”
“Hashtag spoiler-alert? You haven’t met her either?” Paige asked L.C. “How is that possible? They’ve been seeing each other for ages. Don’t tell me you’ve broken up,” she swung back to ask Zack. “She’s the reason you stayed here.”
“We stayed here so you could chase a skirt?” L.C.’s voice dropped to a dangerous tone that made Zack sink deeper into his lawn chair.
“She’s not just a skirt,” Mercedes volunteered. “She’s really nice. The kids like her a lot.”
“This is the one who’s too young, right? The Dean’s daughter?” Sterling asked, openly piling on.
“The Dean’s daughter?” L.C. repeated. “How young? How do you all know about her and I don’t?”
“You guys are not helping!” Zack protested.
