by Rachel Cross
“The ‘am I willing to take your virginity right now, against this wall’ question?” he panted.
She laughed. “I was thinking more along the lines of, is he as attracted to me as I am to him?”
He stared at her, incredulous. “Asked and answered in the back of a cab in New York. The chemistry with you is — ”
“Yeah,” she interrupted. “It is. But I haven’t heard from you.”
He laughed. “I’ve been sitting on my surfboard on a flat ocean hoping to see you for the past two days.” His admission startled him in its honesty.
Her eyes widened. “Really? But I only run on workday mornings.”
He glanced at his watch and groaned. “I’ve got a conference call. Can I take you home and call you later?”
“Sure. I’ll be sleeping for the next few hours and I have to go in tonight around six.”
He frowned. “I have business in LA tomorrow and the next day, but I’ll make arrangements to stay in Cielito for a day or two after that. We’ll go do something fun.”
He slung an arm over her shoulder, pulling her up against his body and they headed for his car.
Chapter 12
A few hours later, humming to herself, she pulled the makings of a salad out of the refrigerator. The cell phone rang. Her heart leapt. Alec?
No. The area code was unfamiliar, so she answered it cautiously. The rescue had been more than a month ago, yet there were still occasional calls from the media. And Billingsly. Always Billingsly. Daily texts. Nightly voicemails. Insisting she give him another chance. At least it wasn’t him.
“Kate Gibson?” the masculine voice on the other end of the phone asked.
“Yes?”
“It’s your father.”
All the blood rushed out of her head and white spots clouded her vision. She slowly sank to the kitchen floor pressing her forehead to folded knees. My God. Him. After all this time. Her mind raced but she sat, utterly still, the rapid throb of her heartbeat deafening.
“Damn it, say something,” he demanded.
“How did you get this number?” she croaked.
“Never mind,” he said. “Don’t you think I had a right to know?”
Rage washed over her clearing out the disconnected feeling and she sat up abruptly. The wooziness counteracted by the heat of fury and adrenaline racing through her bloodstream.
“You don’t have a right to anything,” she enunciated with finality.
He let out a sharp crack of laughter. “Oh, that’s hilarious. I don’t have a right to anything? I gave up college. I gave up my career when your mother got pregnant with you, and took that dead end fucking job at the bank. I made sacrifices and then you guys kicked me out. So don’t tell me I have no right.”
Kate sat, speechless. So that’s why they got married. Still, how was she to blame? Or her mother for that matter?
He blew out a breath, and when he spoke his tone was calmer, kinder. “Look, that’s not what I mean to say. I would’ve liked to be around to help you. They said on television you raised Emma yourself. How were you able to do that?”
“I was eighteen, the social worker — ”
He interrupted. “Did your mother keep that life insurance policy?”
Really? But of course this was about money.
“It’s gone. Long gone.” Kate lied.
“I don’t know what your mother told you, but we didn’t have the most amicable parting.”
Her fist clenched. “Mom didn’t tell me anything. The police reports did.”
“Emma is my daughter.”
Kate closed her eyes.
“Don’t bother to deny it, she looks as much like me as you do.”
Kate opened her eyes, body hollow and vaguely nauseated.
“Why wasn’t I contacted when your mother died?” His tone was even. “I’m her father, legally you guys had to let me know.”
“The birth certificate lists Emma’s father as unknown,” she replied, woodenly.
It was his turn to be silent. Then he blew up.
“That is bullshit! She didn’t list me as the father? What the hell was wrong with that lying bitch?”
Tears of rage choked her throat. She would not give him the satisfaction. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears but she fought for control and won. She did not dignify his words with a response.
“I want to talk to Emma. Put her on,” he ordered.
Through gritted teeth, she replied, “She’s unavailable.”
“Bullshit. Put her on!”
“No. Don’t raise your voice to me and don’t call us again,” she said, as evenly as she could manage. “Matt, we don’t want you in our lives. Leave us alone.”
“I want to talk to Emma. I have a right.” He disconnected the call.
Kate started at the phone in her hand as though it had turned into a snake. She sat frozen, mind racing, then called Roy Morgan.
By the time the call went through to Roy, she was crying too hard to speak. He tried for a few moments to calm her before he gave up. “Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Sit tight. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Diana is out but I’ll text her.”
What felt like a long time later she heard a knock, let Roy in and collapsed in his arms.
He held her away from him. “Has something happened to Emma?” His tanned face was lined with concern.
She shook her head, gestured to her phone and got out “Matt.”
“Damn it,” Roy said, fingers tightening on her arms. “Don’t worry, love. He can’t hurt you or Emma.” Between hiccoughing breaths she relayed the conversation. “He wants to talk to Emma. He tried to tell me my mom was a lying bitch. I could kill him.”
A few minutes later, Diana arrived and took Kate into her arms.
“I’m going to call the police. Give them a heads up,” Roy said. “Everyone just calm down. He’s probably just gotten himself into trouble again. And he always had a gift for sniffing out money.”
“What do I do?” Kate asked, gripping Diana’s hand.
“Let’s wait and see.”
“Come back to our house and we’ll have dinner, watch a movie, and relax,” Diana said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Relax? Impossible.
Chapter 13
The door jingled as Alec held it open for Kate to precede him into the kayak shop. The three days since they made out in the alley felt like an eternity. Alec had texted her to set up the date yesterday. She’d been counting the minutes until she could see him again. She debated telling him about the call from her father. No. He dealt with enough of that stuff at work. No way would she burden him with her family issues this early in the relationship.
“We’ve never done this. What do we need to know?” Alec asked the girl behind the counter while Kate leafed through the brochure.
She looked up to see the cute, young sales girl preening, flipping her hair and peering up at Alec with wide brown eyes as she explained the cold weather gear, cost, timing, and rules of the self-guided excursions into the slough. Alec examined the brochure while Kate watched the sales girl look up at him, her eyes racing over Alec’s broad chest and arms, idly chewing one finger while her other hand twisted her bottle-bleached split ends. “Do you want a private guided tour?” she near-whispered to Alec, completely ignoring Kate.
He looked over at Kate with a wide grin. She shook her head and raised her brows.
“No thanks.”
“Two person kayak or a kayak for each of you?”
“Two person.” he said, definitively.
“Two person?” Kate asked, skeptically. “Why?”
He threw an arm over her shoulders and leered. “I wanna be close.”
Even the casua
l touch sent her heart skipping. She shrugged away, laughing. “That’s awfully close, you might capsize us.”
He grinned. “Don’t you want me to do most of the work?”
“Sure.”
They geared up. The girl directed them to the kayak, making a point to walk behind Alec and watch him from behind, but she resumed a more professional approach once Kate glared at her and coughed twice.
Alec took one end of the kayak, Kate the other, and they carried it to the water. It was heavier than it looked and their height difference made it difficult to carry. Kate laughed aloud at the picture they must present.
The girl explained the rules of the slough again, lingering next to Alec. “This is a protected area. Give the wildlife a wide berth. We close in less than four hours so don’t get so far out that you can’t get it back in time. Be aware the tide is going out and you cannot bring the kayak into the open ocean.”
“Got it,” Alec said, dismissively.
The girl reluctantly turned back toward the store.
Kate helped Alec push the boat into the murky water. Her white bare feet froze immediately. She narrowly avoided stepping on a jellyfish. With a shriek, she scrambled into the boat.
Behind her he shouted with laughter, but continued pushing until the bottom floated. She turned to watch him hop into the rear seat. Pushing her paddle down to the sandy, muddy bottom, she propelled them farther into the water.
She peered over the side, then drew back with a shudder. “Look at all the jellyfish.”
“Mmmm.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see him trying to hide a huge grin.
She cocked her head. “Are they in the ocean now?”
“I haven’t seen any. They must like this water better. Warmer, right?
Kate adjusted her position on the plastic seat, carefully. “They totally creep me out.”
“No. Really? It’s funny to see you be such a girl about something.”
She turned again to look at him, affronted.
“Where to?”
Kate squinted, peering further into the slough. “I see a raft of sea otters.”
Alec gave her some pointers on paddling. Doing it correctly wasn’t as simple as it seemed. His technique was far superior to hers.
They drifted over by the otters; the current taking them further into the slough.
Kate tossed a glance at him over her shoulder. “So, tell me about your family.”
“My family? Ha. You want to open that can of worms?”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah. My parents were lousy. My dad screwed around on my mom. She didn’t seem to care as long as she could shop. She buys stuff constantly.” He gave a bitter laugh.
“They sound bad,” she admitted “but not — ”
“Not awful?”
“Yeah.”
“After Bliss became successful, I sent them plenty of money. Lots of money. Apparently it wasn’t enough. They sent my brother out to stay with me when I was pretty far gone. He stole a bunch of stuff.”
She gasped.
“He stole my checkbook, forged my name, took titles to my vehicles and wrecked some, sold others — ”
“Your brother and your parents stole from you?” Her voice rose, incredulous.
“Happens a lot in the business. Everyone wants a piece. I’m lucky. Reeking Bliss still pays tremendous royalties, so my parasites, such as they were, didn’t make much of a dent, long term. They scavenged maybe a million.”
She sucked in a breath, craning her neck to stare back at him. “They stole a million dollars?”
“You have to understand. I was out of it. Really out of it. I had good people in my life, but they were no match for all the bad shit going on. People, substances. And no one cannibalizes like the relatives. I see it all the time.”
She rested her paddle across her legs, twisting back to examine him. “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”
“Don’t feel too bad for me. I was lucky enough to grow up next to the most generous, kind-hearted people in the world, the Thatchers. They did a much better job raising me than my parents did. I’ve considered myself an honorary Thatcher since I was twelve. Dave Thatcher is still a good friend. He lives in LA near me and still talks to me despite all the bad things that happened. I get dinner with his wife and kids every few weeks. It’s good.”
He splashed her with the paddle. She gave a low scream and the closest sea otters dove underwater in obvious disapproval.
“Let’s go irritate the sea lions over there.” He gave a few long pulls with the oar, directing them toward the channel where the current was strongest. She added her efforts.
“Your turn,” he said, quietly.
The slough water murky but calm. She paddled aimlessly.
“My mom was an awesome mom, a real class-room volunteering-cookie-baking-all-out-for-the-holidays kind of mom. And tough. You could see that when she got sick.” Kate stopped paddling. “Tougher than I thought, actually. After she died, I found out that she was stronger than I ever gave her credit for.”
“When did she get sick?”
“She was first diagnosed when I was almost fifteen and Emma was seven, almost eight. She had a routine mammogram and they found a lump. You probably can guess how it went from there. Mastectomy, chemotherapy, remission, but it kept coming back. She was sick for a long time.” She trailed her fingers in the water, then yanked them out.
Jellyfish.
He muttered, “I’m so sorry.”
She twisted around and gave him a wan smile.
“We all figured she’d come through it, at first. I remember Roy and Diana used to say — ”
“Roy and Diana?”
“Family friends. They helped us a lot those years.”
The sea lions on the pier moaned at one another and jockeyed for position. A cold wet sea lion jumped out of the water onto a warm, dry pile of his sleeping brethren. They roared and snapped their displeasure.
“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I mean it was, but it wasn’t, know what I mean? I didn’t have much of a social life, but that was okay. After the cancer came back, Mom couldn’t really take care of much — from Emma to errands, I was pretty busy.”
“You had to grow up fast.”
“Yeah. Right up until the end she thought, or at least pretended, it was a fight she could win.”
“So she had hope right until the end? Not a bad thing.”
“No, but her denial was hard on us. I was barely eighteen and afraid to bring up practical matters about the future without her. There were a lot of things I didn’t know that I should have before she died. I had some idea of our finances of course, but there were other issues.”
He nodded. “And your dad? Did he come to help?”
Kate took a deep shuddering breath. “No.”
When the silence had gone on a while, Alec finally asked, “Why not?”
“He left when I was seven.”
“He didn’t come take care of you when she died?”
Lost in their discussion, they hadn’t notice the current was taking them too close to the small dock at the edge of the slough. They gasped when a sea lion surfaced a foot in front of the kayak. She helped him paddle away and they were silent for a few minutes.
“So?”
Kate pressed her lips together. She was hoping he had forgotten the question.
“We didn’t want him to. My mom refused to let me contact him before she died.”
“Did your mom tell you why?”
“No.”
“Did you ever find out?” he asked.
“Yeah. Diana told me. Well, Diana was with me when Mom’s attorney told me.”
He gave a long, low whistle.
; She turned to look at him. He had stopped paddling. “Yeah. Diana and Aldrich had a file with the divorce paperwork … and other stuff. My father, he is … ” she paused. Unsure of what to say or how to say it. She never talked about her father. Why was she telling him? Because he wouldn’t be shocked. He’d experienced his own family trauma.
“A deadbeat?” he prompted.
Kate stiffened. “No. A criminal.”
“What was in the file?” he asked, sharply.
She groaned inwardly. Of course he would pick up on that. He was an attorney after all.
“Divorce documents, other papers,” she hedged.
“And?” he asked.
She could feel his gaze boring into her back. They were drifting in the current now, toward the middle of the slough.
She sat stiffly, paddle across her lap. “Police reports.”
He cursed. “Kate, look at me.”
She turned, and found his concerned gaze on her.
“Was there abuse?”
She couldn’t suppress the quaver in her voice. “My mom was abused. Emotionally throughout, but only physically at the end. She got pregnant the summer after high school and I think he blamed her and me for ruining his chances to finish college.”
Kate gazed out over the water, her vision tear-blurred, throat thick. “Diana told me she finally got a restraining order after he threw me across a room. I was trying to separate them.”
He sighed. “God, Kate. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I had a mild concussion. The police got child protective services involved. My mom got into therapy. There was a restraining order put in place. The Morgans stepped in to help. It’s a small town and my dad was persona non grata in it long before … that. Other people came forward, filed charges. Embezzlement, con stuff.”
“Good.”
“Yes. They threatened my dad with prison if he didn’t sign off on the divorce and leave, permanently.”
“Aldrich and Diana?”
“No. The chief of police, my mom, pretty much everyone. Diana told me mom was finally done with him. Mom was lucky to have people willing to stick their necks out to get him out of her life. He could have gone to prison but who knows how long he would’ve been in? He signed the documents and we haven’t seen him since. Emma was born after he left.”
