Raising the Soldier's Son: So what if they share a history? That's in the past. And it's staying there. (Hometown Hero Series Book 3)

by Clare Connelly

  Wade’s face lit up. “Really? Can I, mama?”

  Annabeth threw Kirk a furious glance. “Maybe another time.”

  “No, now is fine, Wade. Go back up the stairs and wait for us a moment.”

  Wade skipped towards the house, leaving Annabeth fuming in his wake.

  “How dare you undermine me to our child?” She demanded, anger like an actual physical force inside of her.

  “I have told you already, Annabeth, that I’m prepared to ignore the matter of custody only so long as you are reasonable. So be reasonable.”

  He was going to keep hitting her over the head with that, and she was helpless to argue. Because the one thing she couldn’t do was lose Wade.

  “Fine.” Her voice was just a whisper into the warm summer’s afternoon. “We’ll keep the house.”

  Kirk had won the battle, but he was definitely losing the war. He walked behind her. “Do you like it?”

  She eyed him reproachfully. “It’s the nicest house I’ve ever been bullied into accepting.”

  He smiled, despite the seriousness of her accusation. “Come see inside.”

  “No thanks.”

  He swallowed an oath. “Oh, Beth, come on!”

  She glared up at him and lowered her voice, making sure Wade wouldn’t hear her. “You can pull my strings, Kirk, because you’re holding something over my head that would make me do almost anything you ask. But you can’t expect me to enjoy it.”

  Her breasts were heaving with her indignant rage. His gaze lowered to them, the tanned cleavage displayed by the singlet she wore. “I know what you enjoy, Annabeth.”

  His voice was thick with emotions, and it stirred Annabeth’s body to a fever pitch. “Don’t,” she whispered harshly, but inside, she was shaking.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, Annabeth. About your body, and the way it makes mine ache with need. I’ve never known anything like it.”

  Her lips twisted with bitterness. “Not even with the woman you left me for?” Her tone dripped with saccharine sweetness.

  “Not with anyone,” he promised, lacing his fingers through hers and pulling her hand to his mouth. “Beth, have dinner with me tonight.”

  Her pulse was hammering inside her wrist. “No,” she shook her head. “I can’t.” She wouldn’t. She was only a dinner or two away from forgetting her anger and falling right back in love with him. And she couldn’t.

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Both,” she said seriously. “I’m working, Kirk. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  He scowled. “Then at least come and see the house.”

  “No.” She looked away, out to the never-ending expanse of ocean. “I’ll wait by the car.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said with a dismissive nod, turning and heading up the stairs. She watched him go, wondering if she was imagining that his movements seemed stiff somehow, his gait slow, as he reached Wade and put an arm around the little boy’s shoulders.

  She shrugged, moving back to the car. Kirk Robinson was a lot of things, but physically less than perfect, in any way, was not one of them. He’d always been the most macho of men, even in high school. She remembered the first time she’d really spoken him. She’d been trying out for the cheerleading squad, and he’d been finishing practice. The star quarterback, and she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off him.

  It had just been a friendship, at first. Though Annabeth’s attraction was unmistakable, Kirk had been careful not to encourage her. Their age difference had been difficult for him to accept, but when Beth was a senior, he had known he loved her. Or so he’d said, she thought bitterly, walking past the car to the dunes beyond.

  She sank down onto her haunches and picked some sand up in the palm of her hands. It floated away, into the distance, much as the past had. Those high school years, when she’d been happy and care free, and the future lay before her like a bright adventure, were forever gone. Fragments of her past, that she’d never be able to click back into place. She rested her arms on her knees and leaned her head forward, shutting her eyes and listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

  Kirk was trying to do the right thing. She knew that. His technique was appalling, but then, he’d always been goal orientated. That was a crucial ingredient to his success in life. As a business man, she didn’t doubt that it served him well. He saw a problem, decided on a solution, and took whatever means he deemed necessary to achieve his goal.

  But she wasn’t just some problem he could buy off.

  Their situation had no easy solution.

  Certainly not one that houses and cars and money in the bank could fix.

  She looked up at the house, her mind heavy, her heart even more so.

  It was stunning, she thought grudgingly. Far better for Wade than the tip she’d called home for the last few years. Disloyalty to Horace reared its head. Her dad had helped her however he could, but running the bar was expensive. His financial means were limited.

  Besides, Annabeth’s book advance would go a long way to building her own future. Without Horace, and without Kirk. And it was hers. All hers. Her blood, sweat, sleepless nights and tears.

  Her life had finally been getting back on track, but now, she didn’t know which way was up.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she scooped it out of her pocket.

  “Hey, Em,” she smiled, thrilled to hear from her friend.

  “Hi. I just wanted to check the timing for tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Annabeth asked, snapping the head off a long reed of grass.

  “The Harvest Festival?” Emma prompted, askance that anyone could forget an event of such unparalleled success.

  “Oh, right!” She laughed, shaking her head. “I’d just lost track of dates. Don’t worry, I’m still set. Cassandra’s minding Wade.”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up around six?”

  “Sure, sounds good,” she said with a smile. “How’s A.J?”

  The silence crackled with barely concealed excitement. “Oh, he’s sooo good.”

  Annabeth laughed. “I’ll bet.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Emma said with a smile.

  Annabeth disconnected the call, wishing she could summon half as much happiness into her voice. But it was thoroughly pleasing to see Emma so happy. She’d always had an eye for hopeless men, in the past. If a man was emotionally volatile, aggressive, jobless, friendless and penniless, Emma had a nose for them. For the first time in their long friendship, Emma was in love with a man who deserved her. A.J was kind, handsome, successful, caring, and he doted on Emma. It was a perfect match.

  “Mama, you gotta come see my room,” Wade called, waving his small hand excitedly in the air.

  With a frustrated oath, Annabeth pushed to her feet and made her way back to the house.

  “You told him?” She accused Kirk sotto voce as she approached them.

  His expression was unrepentant. “I thought you might back out.”

  “No,” she said, a false smile pinned to her face. “I don’t say I’ll do something and then change my mind. That’s more your style.”

  His eyes flashed with warning. “Come inside. Make Wade happy.”

  She followed behind him, a truculent mask on her features. How did he always manage to make her feel childish and silly? She flicked her hair over her shoulder, wishing things were easier between them. But they never would be again. Too much water had flown beneath their bridge.

  “I know what makes my son happy,” she whispered, as she pushed past him into the house. She stopped dead in her tracks, and turned a slow circle on the spot. The house was incomparably beautiful.

  She stopped, her eyes landing on Kirk.

  “Do you like it?”

  She swallowed, and shrugged. “I’ve hardly seen it.” She’d seen enough. The wide, blonde floorboards, polished to a sheen, the buttery walls, the high ceilings, the view from every window.

  “Th
en come and have a proper look,” he urged, putting his hand in the small of her back and propelling her forward. Wade had run off again, up the stairs and along the landing. “His bedroom,” Kirk said quietly.

  “You shouldn’t have told him, Kirk. You can’t make unilateral decisions like this.”

  His brow creased. “The decision had already been made.”

  “Yes,” she hissed, rubbing her fingers against her temples. “Between us. But there’s things like timing to consider.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” she walked ahead of him, absentmindedly brushing a finger along the pristine white dado rail. “You can’t just spring something like this on a four year old.”

  “Hey, mama! You gotta check this out!” An excited cry from high up above. When she looked towards him, the smugness on Kirk’s face made her simmering blood reach boiling point.

  “He seems just fine, to me.”

  “You’re trying to buy his affection, and I don’t like it.”

  Kirk grabbed her hand, pulling her to a stop. “Hey,” he urged quietly, using his other hand to angle her chin, so that she had no option but to meet his wounded stare. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Oh, no?” She sucked in a deep breath, as the full power of his touch made her body quiver. Her feelings were reverberating all over the place. She felt lost and confused, and desperately hungry, and so, so tired all of a sudden.

  “No. I want to help you. Does that make me some kind of monster?”

  “I don’t think you’re a monster,” she whispered, biting down on her lower lip. “I think you want to assuage your guilt, by buying me things. That maybe if you buy us a car, and a house, and put ridiculous sums of money in the bank, it won’t matter that you dumped me without a backwards glance. That you stranded a twenty year old pregnant and alone.”

  He dipped his head, wishing he could argue with her words. “Yes,” he agreed, his voice thick with feeling. “You’re right. But it’s not because I want to assuage my guilt. I am guilty, of all that. Wanting to atone is not the same as trying to erase. I can’t undo the past, Annabeth, but do you really find it strange that I want to build a better future?”

  She fluttered down her eyelids, her lashes were just dark fans against her pale cheeks. “There’s no future for you and me, Kirk. I accepted that a long time ago.”

  “But the other night…”

  “Was just sex,” she whispered, shrugging away from him. “It shouldn’t have happened. Where you and I are concerned, those feelings just don’t seem to go away, though. But it can’t happen again. It’s too important to Wade that we get this right. He’s more important than a fun roll down memory lane.”

  Kirk nodded slowly. Though her words were anathema to him, he acknowledged the sense of what she said. For now.

  “But the house, and the car?”

  “Unnecessarily generous,” she said crisply. “But I don’t want to argue with you about it anymore.”

  He let out a sigh of relief. “I just want the best for Wade, and you, Annabeth. I don’t like to think of you struggling.”

  For some reason, his statement fanned her temper. “And without you, we were struggling?”

  He lifted his eyes heavenward, praying for patience. “Any single parent would struggle. You’re working in a bar, you’re exhausted, you’re living in a house that looks about ready to fall apart in the next storm we get. Yeah, I think you’re struggling, and there’s no shame in admitting it, and asking for help.”

  Her snort was enraged. “You’re so fricking patronizing,” she fumed, pushing her finger into his chest as she spoke. “I’ll have you know, I have a book deal that will go a long way to setting Wade and me up. Without your help. What do you say to that?”

  He wasn’t often surprised, but his jaw practically hit the polished hardwood floors now. He recovered quickly.“I’m thrilled for you, Annabeth.”

  She crossed her arms again. “But you didn’t think I had any future other than The Whistlestop?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with working in The Whistlestop,” he said in a raised whisper. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I was simply thinking it mightn’t pay that well.”

  “None of that is your concern. I told you that Wade and I manage fine, and I meant it.”

  “This is a ridiculous argument,” he snapped, impatiently thrusting his thumbs through his belt loops. “Book deal or no, I’m going to help with the financial costs of raising Wade. Starting right now.”

  “Fine.” She muttered. “Just don’t go around thinking you’ve saved me from a swamp of poverty. We were doing just fine without you in our lives, Kirk Robinson, and we’d be doing fine still, if you hadn’t shoved your big head back where it’s not wanted.”

  He groaned, shaking his head from side to side. But ridiculously, he smiled. “You’re so Goddamned independent, Beth. I’d forgotten that about you. I’d forgotten how much I love sparring with you.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem, Kirk. I never did like our fights.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She tilted her head, angling her face so that she could watch a shrimp trawler coming in for the day. Under her sea-blue gaze, they emptied the nets onto the boxes on the net. Such a large haul for a rickety old boat.

  “I’m going to go see what Wade’s doing,” she said quietly, without looking back at Kirk. She couldn’t. As she walked through the house he’d bought her, it hit her how completely perfect it was for her. How thoroughly beautiful, and comfortable. How much she should love the idea of living in that home. Only she didn’t. Because she would be there without Kirk, and that prospect loomed before her now like an enormous, terrifying, future.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “He’s been back such a short time, and already I can’t imagine living without him. Am I crazy?” She pleaded to Emma over a pitcher of beer. The plastic cups were small, so they were on their third each.

  Emma rolled her eyes impatiently. “Yes. You’ve lived without him before. You can do it again. You’ll probably have to do it again.”

  “I mean it,” Annabeth complained with a shake of her head. Her long blonde hair, worn loose down her back, fluffed around her pretty face. “I was happy. I had finally got to a place where I didn’t think about him every day.”

  Emma’s disapproval was expressed in every taut line of her body. “Kirk’s a jerk, babe. You know that he’s just going to get you hooked, then up and leave again.”

  “No,” Annabeth had to yell to be heard above the music, and the dancing. “I think this time he’s setting up shop for good. You should see him and Wade together. They’re so alike, it breaks my heart.”

  “Being good with Wade doesn’t mean he’s good for you. Mark my words, Beth, he’ll break your heart if you let him.”

  Emma’s opinion was firm. It wasn’t until she kept voicing it over and over again that Annabeth realized how much she was hoping for something else from her best friend. Tacit approval. A wink of forgiveness for Kirk’s past misdeeds.

  Anything that would allow her to think her desire for him was normal, and reasonable, rather than a force of nature too great to resist, and too crazy to obey.

  “Hey!” Emma stuck her hand in the air and waved it around excitedly. The sequence of bangles she wore jingled and jangled against her slender arms.

  “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” A.J’s unmistakable drawl arrived just as he did. He wrapped his arms around Emma’s waist and lifted her clear off the ground. He was the perfect picture of a country singer, with his black jeans, button down shirt and Stetson hat. “I’ve been all over the fair, you two are the prettiest girls here by far. Can I buy you dinner?”

  Annabeth looked from A.J to Emma and winked. “Nah, y’all go ahead. I get the feeling I’d be a third wheel.”

  Emma started to deny it but A.J’s broad smile was all the confirmation Annabeth needed. “I’ll meet you back here before A.J goes on.”

  She didn’t wait for
Emma’s response. The crowd was practically heaving; it felt like the whole town had shown up, and dragged six cousins each for good measure. The festival was one of the best nights of the year. When she’d been a little girl, Horace had brought her along, and she’d danced with him all night, standing on his feet and absorbing by osmosis the culture of this small town by the sea. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep and he’d carried her on his shoulder while he chatted to the locals and caught up on business. The festival had grown with Annabeth. Now, it was no longer a small, local affair. She looked at the fairground section – with the Ferris wheel and other carnival rides, and smiled nostalgically.

  “How long’s it been since you’ve gone on one of those?”

  She almost jumped out of her skin when Kirk whispered into her ear from behind.

  “Kirk?” She spun around, her heart jackhammering in her chest as she stared at his square, stubble-roughened jaw.

  “Come on. Have a ride with me.” He ran his hand down one of her bare arms, and took her hand in his. A thousand nerve endings quivered with pleasure at the simplest of touches.

  “I…” she traced her lower lip with her tongue. For once, she wished her brain would take charge of her behavior. But her body, her desperate, hungry, needy body, fuelled by beer and sexual thirst, was leaning towards him.

  He groaned, as, in the middle of a hectic crowd, he pressed a single, soft kiss against her hair. “Come on, Beth. Just for tonight, don’t argue with me over everything.”

  Annabeth felt like she was standing on a precipice. She could take a step back, and stay on flat, safe, boring land. Or she could leap off without looking, and know what it felt like to fly through the air.

  She’d played it safe for years.

  She nodded. “Okay. But only if I can buy the tickets.”

  He laughed with genuine pleasure and hooked his arm around her waist. “Lead the way, darling’.”

  She weaved through the crowd slowly. She was in no rush. The sky was heavy with stars, the music pumping, the town was fat with cheer and happiness, and it was contagious. Annabeth smiled shyly at Kirk, the man who had always held her heart firmly in his large, confident hands.