“Yeah, I know. He was with me,” I spit out, venom coating every word, ire rising heavy in my chest.
She sets a hand on her hip and juts her tits out like a shield, putting those fake melons on display like a stripper standing in front of man holding up a handful of twenties.
“So, you’re the homewrecker.”
Homewrecker.
Homewrecker?
Home. Wrecker?
I open my mouth but no words come out. The woman sizes me up from my loose flowy skirt to the tank and cardigan I’m wearing. She notices my scarred hand and her eyes squint enough to punch me out of my funk.
“Who the hell are you?” I demand.
She crosses her arms, pushing her tits up to maximum height, and leans into the doorjamb. “I’m Misty. The lady of the house and the mother of his child.”
Lady of the house.
Mother of his…
Just as the words hit me like a sledgehammer to the face, Carson comes around the corner from the hallway that leads to his bedroom. He’s wearing a pair of pajama pants and nothing else. His hair is also mussed, but that’s not what freezes me to the concrete where I’m standing. No, it’s the blond-haired, blue-eyed toddler cuddled against my man’s chest that makes ice coat my heart and soul.
“Carson…” I whisper, my eyes glued to the child with the most startlingly familiar baby blues. I’d know those eyes anywhere. I’ve looked into them countless times and confessed my love. Did so again just this morning as I bared my body and soul to him.
“Misty, hold her.” He hands the toddler over to Misty as if he’s a professional at caring for a child.
Carson, with a baby.
His baby.
Her baby.
Not mine.
I step back and stumble down the stairs, shaking my head. “No, no, no. This can’t be. What is happening?” I put both hands into my hair and turn around, not capable of looking at the visual of the three of them together, one happy family.
Carson’s arms come around me from behind. “Kathleen, it’s not what it looks like.” His voice is desperate against my ear.
The words rip through my consciousness, bringing out the lioness ready to kill.
I spin around in his arms and back up so he can’t touch me. “Then what is it, Carson?” I point to the entryway, where, thankfully, the door is shut and Misty and their baby are no longer visible. “You have a family! A fucking family. My God…I can’t even…” My footing falters as I head toward my car, but I catch myself. No fucking way am I staying here.
Carson is one step ahead, even in his bare feet. “They are not my family… Well, technically Cora is. But you don’t understand. I need to explain.” He holds on to my biceps, keeping me in place.
“No, you need to let me go!” I yell directly in his face.
He overpowers me in a few steps, pushing me back against my car, towering over me and caging me in. “I’ll never let you go again. Didn’t we decide that just this morning? It’s us. Together. Facing all odds.”
I swallow and my eyes fill with tears. “That was before…before I found out your fucking secret. How long have you been cheating on her? And my God. Blond hair, brown eyes? You’ve definitely got a type!” I sob and push against him.
“Yeah, I do have a type. You. Only you. I’m not with Misty.”
I lean harder against the car behind me, not wanting any part of him touching me. It’s too much. Too everything. “Really? She’s wearing a nightie in your house and holding your daughter. My God, Carson. You have a daughter. Not our daughter. Your daughter!” The emotions come barreling out in a heap of sadness and loss. “You. Have. A. Child!” I choke on the words, each one of them shredding my very soul to pieces.
Carson cups my head and holds my chin so I can’t move away. I’m forced to watch his beautiful blue eyes swirl with regret. “Yes. I do. And I just found out about it less than a month ago.”
I sniff and wipe at my nose, not understanding what he’s saying. “What?”
“Will you talk to me? Let me get some clothes on. Come in and talk? Please.”
I jerk my head back. “With that woman here? Prancing around like your wife? I don’t think so.”
He sighs and leans his forehead against mine. “She’s not my wife. She’s not anything other than the mother of my child. I swear it. I’ll explain everything, if you’ll just come in.”
I shake my head, my heart breaking with every breath.
“Please. Please. Don’t push me away. Not after this morning. Last night. Last week. Kat, baby, I’m begging you to hear me. See me. Trust me.”
Trust me.
That’s what he said when he left my apartment this morning and ran home to this woman and his daughter.
I close my eyes, a traitorous tear slipping down. Carson’s lip covers my cheek and kisses it away. I moan in agony at his touch, the simple press of his lips to my flesh. I want nothing more than to drown in him. Hug him and make it all go away…but I can’t.
“I’ll take all your tears. Happy or sad. They’re mine. You’re mine. And I’m yours. Don’t throw us away before I’ve had a chance to explain.”
“Carson.”
“No, Kathleen. I’m not letting you leave here, leave me, until you’ve heard every word of what I have to say. You owe me that. Please.”
And I do owe him that. I pushed him away two years ago with everything I had in me. If anything, I deserve to sit through what I can only imagine is going to be a horrifying tale of him falling in and out of love with another woman before coming back to me.
I can’t control my lip trembling or the tears from falling at the sheer visual that image presents. My worst nightmare come to life…and I’ve seen a lot of shit. Went through more with my soul sisters. But this? This has the power to destroy me forever.
“Trust me.” He whispers the words against my lips. “Just trust me.” He presses his lips to mine, and I can’t help but kiss him back. I’m incapable of not reacting to his touch, and with this kiss, he pours himself into it unlike any other. His lips, teeth, and tongue are ravenous, desperate. I’m no better. Kissing him as though it’s our last, like we might never see one another again, and depending on what he has to say, that could very well be the truth.
When we both can’t breathe, he pulls away, sucking in air, his bare chest moving rapidly against my palm where I’ve laid it over his heart. His skin is cold to the touch, and I realize he must be freezing, standing out in the chilly midmorning air with no shoes, socks, or shirt to ward off the cold.
“You need to go inside. You’re freezing.”
“I’d stand in a fucking ice storm in Alaska if it meant I’d come out of it with you by my side.”
“Carson.” I lean forward and wrap my arms around his bulk.
He burrows his face into my neck. “Will you come inside? Let me explain?”
I can’t deny him this one request. He needs it. Hell, I need it, or I won’t be able to move on one way or the other. I nod against his chest.
“Okay. Come on. We’ll talk.”
He leads me into the house and walks me directly into his room. He grabs a T-shirt out of his drawer and tugs it over his head. “Can you wait here a moment?” His eyes are pleading, one hand holding onto the doorknob as he waits for my acquiescence.
I nod, standing in the center of a room I haven’t been in for over two years. It looks exactly the same. Except there are subtle differences. On the nightstand I see a pink sippy cup and a pacifier. A baby towel is haphazardly tossed on the bed.
Needing to see the truth for myself, I walk into his open closet. Not one stitch of women’s clothing hangs there. No petite shoes line the rack next to his. I scrunch up my nose in surprise. The bathroom is my next destination.
I enter the bathroom and open the shower door. The only thing different in the shower than his shampoo, conditioner, and men’s soap is a big yellow bottle of baby wash. No frilly, girly-smelling shower gels anywhere in sight. I
go over to the sink and notice the second sink is bare. There is one extra toothbrush in his holder, but it’s tiny and glittery purple with itty bitty bristles. It’s his daughter’s.
Leaving the bathroom, I set about making his bed, satisfaction filling my heart when I notice only one side of the bed is disheveled. I fold the baby towel and set it on the counter in the bathroom when Carson returns.
“Okay, we won’t be interrupted. Cora’s temperature broke and Misty has her in her room.”
“So, she does live here?”
He sighs and pushes a hand through his wheat-colored hair, the layers falling in perfect formation along the sides of his sculpted handsome face. It would be a lot easier to hate him if he weren’t so damn good-looking.
Carson takes a seat in the chair opposite the bed, opening his knees wide and leaning his elbows on them. He clasps his hands in front of his chest. “Yeah, she does. For now. Her place burned down to the ground a couple weeks ago.”
Fire. Fucking fire. The root of all evil. A chill ripples down my arms and the ghost ache throbs against my nerve endings. I rub my arm but stay silent.
“Let me go back to the beginning. That last night when you pushed me away just over two years ago, I couldn’t take it. I was drowning in my grief. I didn’t want things to end between us, but you were unreachable. I’d begged you, and you still pushed me away. For the last time.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving up and down slowly, mesmerizing me from my seat across from him. “Do you remember that, Kat? You tore my fucking heart out, stepped on it, and tossed our love in the trash.”
And the pesky tears come back. With him, I’m a ball of tears and emotion. Usually I’m able to be strong, but the past two weeks? Not so much. He’s consumed everything in me, including my emotions. “I remember,” I return quietly, clasping my fingers in my lap and twisting them around and around one another.
“Well, that night, I lost all reason. I went to a shithole bar and drank my weight in whiskey. Misty was the waitress there. In my drunken haze, she looked so much like you. I don’t know… Fuck. I just wanted you so bad. Wanted to be with you more than anything. I lost control.” He looks up and his blue eyes are dark, filled with remorse.
The tears fall, and I let them. “Continue.” I need to hear it. What I did to this beautiful man. How I broke him.
“The next morning, I woke up and she was gone. I was so far gone I didn’t even care that I’d had a one-night stand and couldn’t even remember the woman’s name. I called Chase. He picked me up, took me home, nursed me back to myself, and that was it. Until a month ago, when I walked into that same bar for a beer. A simple fucking drink, and my life changed again.”
I close my eyes and imagine how that must have hit him. To find out he had a daughter he never knew about. My God.
“Misty approached me and told me about Cora.”
“And you believed her?” I can’t imagine he’d take something so life-altering at face value.
He shook his head. “No. Not even close. I chewed on the info for a week. Then had a friend of mine do a paternity test. The test proved my paternity. But that was before I’d seen her. She looks exactly like Chloe as a baby. I mean, spitting image.”
“And she has your eyes.”
He closes said eyes and nods. “Yeah. She does.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choke down the dry lump forming in my throat.
Carson stands up and paces the room. “Kat, I’d just met my daughter for the first time a few days after I saw you at Chase and Gillian’s for breakfast. Then, when we had our night after the pub, shit, I was so confused. I still am. That morning was the morning the fire burned down Misty’s apartment and I truly met Cora face-to-face. They had nowhere else to go. And I haven’t been there. My daughter is eighteen months old, Kat, and I wasn’t there.”
I stand up and go to him, wrapping my arms around his tension-filled form. He embraces me and holds me close, holds me like he’s never going to let me go. “I can’t be a shit father. I’m so scared of fucking this up. Her…and you. I just want to find a way to make this all work. I love you, Kathleen, but I love Cora too.”
“Of course you do.” I cup both his cheeks. “Hey, I’d never make you choose between me and your daughter. Me and Misty? Yes…”
He tugs me against his chest and curls a hand into my hair. “There is no you or Misty. Never has been. That night was a mistake. A fucking drunken, emotional mistake. But it doesn’t change the fact I got Cora out of the mistake, and I’m not sorry about her. She’s perfect, Kat. You’ll see. I just know you’ll fall in love with her if you give her a chance. Give us a chance.”
Tears slip down my cheeks at the sheer anguish in his tone. This big, strong man in front of me is broken. Confused. Afraid. Hurt. Like me, he doesn’t know what to do or how to hold on to what he wants. Which is me. I can see it in every fleck of aqua in his eyes, in every breath he takes, and in the way he’s holding me as though I’ll disappear at any moment.
“I’d like to get to know Cora. But I don’t know how we move forward. You have a daughter who needs you. Apparently a woman who needs you too. Where do I fit in?” I swallow my own desperation and personal desires.
He leans his head against mine. “We’re going to figure it out. People have mixed families all the time. Look at you and your soul sisters. You’re not related by blood but by choice. And they are just as important to you as any true family. More so because you chose them. Right?”
I think about Maria, Gigi, and Bree and know with my whole heart he’s right. They are my family, my sisters. I’d never forsake them or their children because we didn’t share a blood bond.
“No, you’re right.”
His eyes lighten, and he smiles. “See? It can be done. I just need to work through this situation with Misty. Get her set up with a new job and a place of her own. Then, of course, I’ll have to work out custody. I need you with me, Kat. I need your love and support. Can you do that? I know it’s asking a lot. It’s asking for the world, but I don’t know any other way. I love you. I love you so goddamned much, and the only other woman I’ve ever said those words to died when I was a child. Don’t leave me like she did. I couldn’t survive it.”
The truth in his statement rips into my gut, leaving a gaping wound in its wake. “Baby…” I whisper, cupping his cheek. “Is that why you never told me you loved me before? Because you thought I’d leave?” My heart beats so hard I fear it will break a rib.
“You did leave, Kat. I showed you I loved you in every way that mattered, and you still pushed me away.”
I let all the air leave my lungs and close my eyes. Everything he’s admitting is true. All the times he doted on me, made love to me as though I was his universe, tried to take care of me after the fire. All of it was him showing his love in countless ways, and all I did was set it aside like it meant nothing.
“I’m sorry. Carson, I don’t know how to make it right. I wasn’t in my right mind. I didn’t know how to be me anymore. It’s taken me years to get back to this place.”
He breathes heavily against my body, holding me close. “Then you understand what it’s like to have your entire existence flipped upside down. That’s where I’m at right now. I have a daughter, Kat. A fucking kid who needs me and loves me. Jesus Christ. I love her. Ever since I took her into my arms, I’ve loved her. The only problem is she’s not our child. I’d always believed it would be me and you.”
“Me too,” I admit shakily.
“She has a lot of love in her. I can see it in her eyes. She’s a Davis. Do you think you could let her into your heart? Share in this experience with me? Stumble through it together?”
“Together?” I look up at him using the same words we’d promised one another just this morning.
“I need you. I need you so fucking much. I don’t want to do this alone. I don’t know if I can.” He lays himself wide open, spilling out his insecurities.
The answer within me fills
me up to bursting. I don’t want to live my life without him anymore. I’m not sure, after having him the last two weeks, I could go back to being without him. So, he has a daughter. A perfect little bundle of love he’s obviously smitten with. I love children. Love my nieces and nephew, and they love me. I could love Cora. She’s half Carson. It will be easy. However, I do not feel the same will occur with her mother.
Misty.
That’s a person who needs to be set straight.
Firming up my spine and wiping away my tears, I consider Carson’s soulful eyes. “I’m with you. I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together.”
“Really? You’re not going to disappear on me?” He smiles softly.
I shake my head. “No, I’m not. I want to be with you. I never stopped loving you, Carson, and I don’t know that I ever could. Cora is a part of you, which is enough for me. I already love her because I love you.”
Carson closes his eyes. His shoulders slump, and he curls both hands around my hips and smashes me against him. “I love you. Jesus Christ, thank you. Thank you for giving us a chance. A real chance.”
For a few minutes, we lightly kiss and touch one another tenderly, reminding ourselves of our commitment.
I scratch my nails down Carson’s scalp the way I know he loves. He groans and pushes his hips against me automatically, his length hardening by the second. I allow myself a minute of feminine pride at his response to my nearness and touch before I back away.
He pouts.
“We have to figure out how to handle Misty. She called me a homewrecker when she answered the door.”
He growls and fists his hands at his side. “Not acceptable. She’s not allowed to talk to you like that. Not to mention the inaccuracy of her accusation.”
“Be that as it may, Carson, she wants you. Thinks she has some kind of claim on you because you’re the father of her child. I kind of get it in a way. I’d be possessive as hell if you were the father of my child.”
Fate: A Trinity Novel: Book Five Page 15
