by Janice Lynn
“There’s no need,” he assured, mouthing “sorry” to Bud and Agnes. “What can I do for you?”
“I...I want to see you.”
His heart leapt, but he kept his expression neutral under Agnes’s eagle eyes. Not that she knew who he was talking to, but somehow she’d always had a way of figuring things out.
“What’s changed?” he asked. After all, she’d left without saying goodbye to him.
“I’d rather not say over the phone.”
“You’re in Atlanta?” He was going for nonchalant, partly because of Agnes’s hawk eyes and partly because he didn’t want to sound overly eager to Chrissie.
Regardless of his efforts, Agnes was looking more and more interested in his conversation. He’d really rather not have to explain his phone call and have her asking questions he probably wouldn’t be able to answer.
“No, I’m in Chattanooga, but...”
“You expect me to drive there?”
“Would you?” She sounded hopeful. “That would definitely be easier given the circumstances.”
What circumstances? Part of Trace wanted to agree, but the curious stares of the couple across the table from him had him holding his guns.
“I’m a busy man.” He was coming off as a jerk. Then again, he hadn’t been the one to drive away without so much as a see ya. A little anger and bitterness was to be expected, surely?
“I know,” she admitted, sounding remorseful and making him feel every bit the prize jerk he was being.
“I wasn’t sure if you were still in the States,” she continued. “Are you?”
“I’m in Atlanta still.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“Why are you calling?” he asked, because she was definitely stalling by talking in circles.
“I had a baby.”
No longer caring that Agnes and Bud were listening in on every word he said, Trace frowned at her blurted-out shocker.
“That’s impossible. It’s only been a week.”
If he’d thought about his response, he’d have known that was not what she meant but her comment had caught him so off guard he hadn’t been thinking. Maybe he hadn’t been breathing either because he felt light-headed.
“Not now,” she clarified, her voice shaky. “I... I had a baby before coming to Atlanta this time, Trace.”
Chrissie had a baby. She’d been curvier than before, but he’d just figured she’d put on a few pounds. Definitely, he’d never suspected she’d given birth. He didn’t recall any noticeable stretch marks on her belly, but then, not all women got many stretch marks. Plus, he’d been so paranoid about his own scars that he might not have noticed.
Or so caught up in his physical need that he might not have noticed because he’d wanted her something fierce. They’d taken things slower in his tent, but they’d been in the dark and had needed to feel their way.
Chrissie had a baby.
Chrissie was a mother.
His brain reeled at the implications.
“That’s why you just left? Because you have a baby?”
Agnes’s eyes were saucers now and Bud was likely going to have bruises from how she was elbowing him.
“Yes.” Chrissie sounded flustered.
“I don’t understand why that meant you couldn’t say goodbye to me.”
“You and I have a baby, Trace.” She enunciated each word with great clarity. “A three-year-old son.”
She kept talking, but her language might as well have been foreign because Trace couldn’t make out her words, just bits and pieces of sounds that echoed through his mind.
You and I have a baby. A three-year-old son.
He was her baby’s father?
He was a father?
She was lying.
They didn’t have a son.
He didn’t have a child.
Only it was possible...
CHAPTER TEN
CHRISSIE HAD WORKED five twelve-hour shifts straight and was exhausted when she picked Joss up from her mother’s that evening. Still, she put on a happy face for him, fed him, then gave him his bath.
Three bedtime stories and lots of giggles later she put him to bed, then went to shower.
When her phone rang, she figured it was Savannah to check on her after her mini-meltdown at work that day. Calling Trace and blurting out the truth wasn’t exactly what she’d planned, at least, not over the phone. She could hardly believe that she’d let a patient get to her that intensely. She’d call Savannah back when she got out of the shower.
Letting the hot water sluice over her body and wash away the day’s grime, she wished she could as easily wash away the stress. If only it were that easy.
A downpour wouldn’t wash away her day’s stresses. Not today. Stress she’d caused herself by calling Trace. Why had she called him?
Because a pitiful man sitting over his unconscious son’s body had gotten to her as she’d listened to his story. Bits and pieces of that story had resonated a little too close. Had reinforced what had been eating at her from the moment she’d laid eyes on Trace again.
She had to tell him about Joss. Not to was wrong. She hadn’t needed to hear the man’s words to know that. But maybe she’d needed to hear them to make her get beyond the past and act.
Because she was scared. And selfish.
When she got out of the shower, the number showing on the cell phone wasn’t Savannah’s.
It was the number she’d programmed into her phone after Alexis had given it to her. The number she had called earlier that day because she’d gotten so emotionally tangled up that the need to call him had about done her in.
Trace’s number.
He’d called.
Her phone vibrated in her hand and played a series of musical notes.
Correction. He was calling. Trace was calling.
With shaky fingers, she slid her fingertip across the phone screen to answer the call. “Hello.”
“Chrissie.”
“Trace.” Their one word responses couldn’t go on, so she added, “Good to hear from you.”
“Is it?”
She winced. Not quite sure how to take his comment, she opted to ignore it. It was good to hear from him compared to not hearing from him, but she didn’t really know what to say.
“Why are you calling, Trace?”
“You thought I wouldn’t after the bombshell you dropped?”
Heat crawled up Chrissie’s neck.
“You got off the phone with me rather abruptly. I wasn’t sure what to expect.” Ha. He’d essentially hung up on her, leaving her a bumbling mess that Savannah had found crying in the empty patient room she’d called him from.
Ugh. How she hated the tangled mess she found herself in. Stupid conscience. Stupid her for going to Atlanta. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Everything had been just fine until she’d seen Trace again. She’d been happy, content with her life with Joss. Then she’d had to go and mess everything up by going back to the place where it all started.
The moment she’d seen Trace she should have left.
Only part of her acknowledged she’d gone to Atlanta with the hopes of possibly seeing him again.
Which meant what exactly?
She’d brought this mess tumbling down upon herself for sure.
“I needed to process what you said.”
That she could understand. She hadn’t meant to tell him over the phone. She’d meant to set up a time they could meet, talk, that she could tell him about Joss, show him a picture, let him decide how he wanted to proceed with becoming a part of Joss’s life.
If he wanted to be a part of Joss’s life.
“Have you?” she whispered, her voice twisting up in
her throat.
His sigh was palpable across the phone. “As much as I can.”
Chrissie shifted the phone to her opposite hand and pulled a baggy T-shirt over her wet head, thinking that might help her feel less uncomfortable talking to him. Getting dressed sure couldn’t hurt, because standing wrapped only in a towel was doing nothing for her nerves.
His silence wasn’t, either.
“And?” she finally asked, pulling on a pair of panties, and carrying her towel back to the bathroom and hanging it over the side of the tub.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Trace had concluded, but was ready to prepare for whatever the near future was about to bring, because obviously she’d reached a point where she was no longer able to deal with her guilty conscience.
“I want to meet him.”
She wasn’t sure if the noise that escaped her was a sigh in relief or a whimper of despair. Maybe a deformed bit of both.
She went into her living room, sat on her sofa, and hugged her knees up to her. “When?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“You heard me.”
“I... He’s asleep.” Not that that made any sense, but it was what she said. Her head was being bombarded with so many thoughts that nothing made sense. Maybe it never would again.
“Maybe asleep is better.”
“You’re in Atlanta.”
“I’m not.”
He wasn’t in Atlanta. Her breath came in rapid little breaths she had to consciously stop by inhaling a deep, slow one.
“You’re here.” It wasn’t a question. Trace was there. In Tennessee. In Chattanooga.
“Parked at a gas station. I want to come to your house.”
Trace was here! She gripped her phone tighter.
“I just got out of the shower. I’m not even dressed.” Panties and an oversized T-shirt didn’t count. Not where Trace was concerned. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I’m not coming to see you, Chrissie,” he reminded her. “I want to see the boy.”
The boy? Probably because of her already raw nerves, but his calling Joss “the boy” irritated.
“His name is Joss,” she reminded him with enough force to make her point. “I told you that.”
“Joss,” he said. “I want to see Joss.”
“I...” She took a deep breath. “Okay, fine. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll let you in. Be quiet, though, because he really is asleep.”
She gave him the address, then hung up and pulled on a pair of sweats, put her bra back on beneath her shirt so she didn’t feel so exposed, and was combing through her damp hair when she heard his car in her driveway.
Five minutes. Ugh. Of course he’d come straight there, even though she’d asked for fifteen minutes. Maybe he’d sit and wait the extra ten minutes she’d asked for—minutes in which she’d planned to do a quick run-through clean of her house.
No such luck.
Within seconds, he was knocking on her front door.
Her heart skipped a couple of beats and her head spun.
Trace was at her house. Knew about Joss. Was about to see their son for the first time.
A wave of intense protectiveness swept over her, making her question every move she’d made that had led up to this moment. Making her wonder if she should snatch up her son and run.
Good grief. Where had that thought come from? She was not like her father. She’d never do that.
Only, hadn’t she already kept their son away from Trace?
Remorse and guilt flooded her as she opened her front door and saw the pale, almost ill-looking man standing on her porch.
What had she done?
* * *
Sorrow lit in Chrissie’s eyes, but at the moment Trace didn’t care.
She’d called him with some trumped-up story about having had his son.
How was that even possible?
He knew how, but that he could have fathered a son and not known for years just seemed unfathomable. That she would have kept that from him was unfathomable.
He still wasn’t sure he believed her.
And if the truth was that he had fathered her son?
Well, she’d be a wealthy lady because his parents would be thrilled to hand her over whatever she wanted in exchange for her precious offspring.
Not that he’d let them.
Not that he thought Chrissie the gold-digger type anyway.
Then again, maybe he’d been overseas too long.
His head hurt. His neck and shoulder muscles ached with the tension that had struck him from the moment she’d uttered her life-shattering revelation.
He didn’t know what he’d do if she’d told the truth. What he’d say. At the moment, he just wanted to get past the woman in the doorway and to the child she was claiming was his.
He’d look at the boy and know, wouldn’t he?
Surely a father would look at his child and inherently know “that’s mine.”
“I asked for fifteen minutes,” Chrissie said, crossing her arms across her chest. She’d been telling the truth about just getting out of the shower. Her hair was damp, her skin still had that just-washed glow, and the scent of her shampoo permeated his senses despite his state of mind.
Yeah, she’d asked for fifteen minutes, but he’d not been able to wait. Funny, but for four years he hadn’t known the kid existed, and now that he did he hadn’t been able to delay another ten minutes.
She shouldn’t have asked him to. Not after having already made him wait so long to see what she claimed belonged to him.
“Where is he?”
“Asleep. I told you—”
“I want to see him.” He was being blunt, was being rude, even, with his brusqueness, but if Chrissie had given birth to his son and not told him, then he hated to consider the ramifications.
She didn’t move out of the doorway, just stared at him with a mixture of fear, uncertainty, and protectiveness.
“What are you planning to do?”
Good question and not one he knew the answer to. Just that he needed to see the child and he hadn’t been able to wait.
“I won’t let you hurt him, Trace.”
Trace clenched his fingers into his palms. “Seriously? You think I drove all this way to hurt a kid? Just what kind of opinion do you have of me, Chrissie?”
Remorse softened her expression a little.
“The kind that meant you kept my son from me for four years?”
His voice rose in pitch and she shushed him, making his insides bristle further.
“Please don’t wake him. He doesn’t know about you. He wouldn’t understand if he woke and you were here.”
“He normally sleeps through when you have male company?” Yeah, he was being a sarcastic jerk, but he wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have male company.”
“Right.”
She held her stance. “The only guy in my life is Joss and he’s three years old and asleep in his bed. There’s not been anyone else, not since you.”
His gaze narrowed. “Since four years ago?”
“If you mean, have I gone on dates, then yes, Trace, I have gone on a few. If you mean, have I had sex with anyone besides you in the past four years, then the answer is no, I haven’t.”
He found that difficult to believe. She was a sensual woman, so responsive and passionate. But he didn’t want to think about that, or whether or not she’d been with anyone other than him. At the moment, his priorities lay elsewhere.
“Your sleeping habits over the past four years really aren’t my business.” Yet the thought that she’d not been with anyone since him did please him, as craz
y as that was. Then again, at the moment, everything, every thought, felt crazy. “Where is his room?”
Chrissie’s lower lip disappeared between her teeth at his question. She stepped aside, allowing him to enter the house.
“I’ll show you.”
Taking note of the photos on the walls of a healthy, blond-haired little boy who had no issues smiling for a camera, Trace followed Chrissie to the short hallway and into a room lit only by a superhero nightlight.
A curled-up little body lay in a plastic car bed with a mattress in the center. The bed sat low to the floor and Trace knelt beside it, focusing through the low light on the tow-headed child.
The sleeping boy faced where Trace knelt and he could make out his features. Trace sensed Chrissie beside him, could sense her nervousness, but didn’t look her way. What did she think he was going to do? Grab the kid and run?
Long lashes fanned across the boy’s cheeks and he had a full lower lip that made him think of Chrissie’s pouty mouth.
Was the boy his?
Trace’s blood felt like acid as it moved through him. Shouldn’t he know? Shouldn’t he be able to immediately tell?
He reached out to touch him and Chrissie moved to stop him. He cut his gaze toward her and his look must have said everything, because she backed away without a word.
Trace touched Joss.
His son?
Hadn’t he known when he’d seen the eyes staring back at him from the photos on Chrissie’s walls?
Hard emotions slammed into him.
He was touching his son.
Joss was his.
He gently cupped the boy’s head in his palm in a caress and trembled at the enormity of the moment.
This was his son. He was touching a living, breathing human child he’d helped make.
Next to him, Chrissie made a noise and he realized she was crying. Louder than she should be if they were not to wake the boy. He gave her a look that said to stop, but that only made things worse as she broke into a full-out sob.
The little boy shifted in his sleep, moving against Trace’s hand.
With one last stroke of his fingertips across the soft blond hair, Trace stood, grabbed Chrissie’s wrist, and pulled her from the room.
