Monique took a deep breath. This was the opening she’d been waiting for. “I’m sorry, Dillon. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders, causing the material of his shirt to stretch taut across his broad chest. “Like I told you before, that’s the past. We have to live in the present.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is. Thinking about it, regretting your actions, won’t change anything. We were young and thought we were in love. We were wrong. We weren’t the first teenage lovers to learn that, and we certainly weren’t the last.”
She sucked in her breath at the dispassion in his words. Was he saying he’d never really loved her? “I think it’s more complicated than that.”
“Only because you want it to be. What do you want anyway, Monique? Why did you come back here? I know that when you left you had no plans to return. Why this sudden case of conscience?”
Was she that obvious? “What makes you think I’ve had a ‘sudden case of conscience,’ as you put it?”
He propped his fishing pole on the bank and leaned back on his elbows. “The last time I saw you—before yesterday—was ten years ago, and I haven’t heard anything from you in all that time. Not a single word. It was as if you forgot everybody and everything. You just disappeared.”
Dillon’s words were controlled, softly spoken. If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she would have thought he was unaffected by his accusation. But she knew him—even after all the time that had passed—and she knew his anger was rising with his every word. How could she make him understand the choice she’d made back then? One unwise decision had mushroomed into a lie that now affected many innocent lives. “It was more complicated than that, Dillon” was all she could say.
“I bet it was,” he said, his words laced with sarcasm. “I bet it was real complicated when you packed up and slipped out of town leaving only that ‘I’m gone’ letter behind.” He focused his eyes on his fishing pole. “I was a fool. I actually thought you loved me, and all the while you were just passing time until you could make your grand getaway from Elberton. I never meant anything to you.”
It’s not true, she wanted to say. I loved you with all my heart. But she couldn’t start a conversation now that they couldn’t finish. “We need to talk, Dillon.” She glanced back at the sleeping Calvin. “In private.”
“You aren’t listening to me, are you, Monique? The past is best left in the past. Talking about it will only bring back memories better left buried.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let this go. We have to talk. I have to talk. There are some things you should know.”
“I don’t—”
She placed a hand on his knee. “Please, Dillon, do this for me. Just hear me out. This is something I need to do.”
He pushed her hand away, knowing he wasn’t immune to her touch, then leaned toward her until his nose was within inches of hers. “And why should I give a damn about what you need? The only reason you’re here now is because Calvin has found something in you he likes. If it were left up to me, we’d only see each other when necessary. And I’ve lived without you long enough to know it would never be necessary for me to see you.”
Monique opened her mouth to speak, but Calvin stirred from his sleep. She lowered her voice. “We’re going to talk, Dillon. Sooner or later, we’re going to talk.”
“Hot date?” Donald asked after using his key to unlock Dillon’s front door. Dillon noticed a smudge of red against the side of his brother’s mouth. Lipstick, what else? His brother still had on his police uniform, but the lipstick said he’d made a stop since ending his shift. “Must have come up suddenly if you need me to baby-sit.”
Dillon didn’t bother to comment on the lipstick or to answer his brother’s question. He went back to his bedroom to get his shirt. Too bad Donald followed him.
“Calvin asleep?” Donald asked, now leaning against the cedar chest near Dillon’s bedroom door.
“Out like a light. He won’t wake up until morning. Fishing tired him out.”
His brother grinned and Dillon turned away. That grin could only mean bad things for him.
“So I heard,” Donald said. “Another threesome, was it?”
Small-town living, Dillon thought. Some people needed to get a life. “She went with us.”
“You invited her again?”
Dillon looked up at his brother. The grin was still there right along with that stupid smudge of lipstick. “Look, I asked you to sit with Calvin, not come here and give me the third degree.” He quickly fastened the buttons on his shirt and tucked it into his jeans. No need to dress up. This wasn’t a date.
“Nice-smelling cologne you have on,” Donald commented. Dillon didn’t have to look at his brother to know that he was still wearing that foolish grin. “Must be serious.”
Dillon frowned at his brother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Donald lifted both hands as if to ward off any blows. “Nothing, bro. No need to get all huffy on me. I didn’t mean anything by the comment.” He dropped his gaze as if hurt by Dillon’s question. “I was just thinking that this must be some special lady for you to go see her on such short notice. You don’t usually leave the house after Calvin’s asleep.”
Dillon grimaced as he watched his brother fake being hurt. Donald had been playing these games since they were children. He wondered when his younger brother would grow up and stop kidding around. “Forget it, Donald. I’m not falling for that ‘you hurt my feelings’ routine.” He strode out of the bedroom past his brother. “You know the drill,” he said as he opened the front door. “And don’t set up house in my bedroom. I’ll be back soon.” He stepped through the door and out of the house.
“Not if you’re lucky,” Donald muttered.
Dillon stopped and looked back at his brother. “What did you say?” he asked, though he’d heard clearly.
Donald coughed what had to be the worst pretend cough Dillon had ever heard. “I said be careful.”
Dillon stared at his brother for a long second before shaking his head. “I won’t be long. Don’t wreck my house before I get back. And wipe that stupid lipstick off your face.”
Dillon closed the door and quickly crossed his wide porch to the steps. He bought this house after he’d been awarded full custody of Calvin, thinking the boy needed a house with a porch and his own yard instead of a couple of rooms in an apartment building. His mother had wanted him and Calvin to move back home, but Dillon didn’t like the idea of a twenty-eight-year-old man with a son moving back in with his parents. So, he’d found the house instead. With his mother’s help—and that of a few of the single young ladies in Elberton—his three-bedroom single-level house was now home for him and Calvin. His mother came over twice a week to make sure they had food and clean clothes. Other than that, he and Calvin roughed it.
Dillon climbed into the cab of the red pickup he’d bought a couple of months ago. Though he much preferred basic black, he’d given in to his son’s preference and gotten the red. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to see a genuine smile on Calvin’s face. As he’d told Monique earlier, the smile she put on the boy’s face was the only reason she was in his life now instead of on the periphery of it.
He was still trying to figure out what about her caused Calvin to respond the way he did. If the boy were a teenager, he would guess he was responding to Monique as a member of the opposite sex, but four-year-old Calvin wouldn’t know opposite sex from a hole in the wall. So what was it about Monique that made his son happy?
Dillon didn’t want to think about the ways she’d made him happy in the past, but the thoughts came anyway. As he let those memories surround him, he realized that back then he’d been a lot like Calvin was now. Monique didn’t have to do anything to make him happy; just her presence did it for him. He couldn’t explain it then and he couldn’t explain it now. His feelings for Monique didn’t come from reason. Reason would have told him that he and Moniq
ue were too different in temperament to have a lasting relationship. Monique had been hotheaded then, almost to the point of being cruel. But there was something about her, something fragile and pure that was in contradiction with her volatility, something that touched him as he’d never been touched before. Or since.
She was different now, though. He could tell her brashness was gone, but he didn’t know what had replaced it. He didn’t intend to find out, either. No, he’d been Monique’s victim once. As his mother always said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” No, he wasn’t about to be the fool twice.
He ignored the quiet voice from inside himself that asked, “Then why are you driving over to see her?”
Chapter Three
“Good night, sweetheart. I love you.” Monique whispered the words over the phone to her son whom she missed desperately.
“Night, Mom.” Glenn yawned, then added, “Love you, too.”
Sadness settled around Monique as she hung up the phone. Her baby was growing up. It’s not fair, she thought, he’s only nine years old. He needed to remain her baby for a while longer. For her sake.
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Only nine o’clock and she was already in bed. Too bad she wasn’t sleepy. Though sleep would be preferable to its alternative: hours and hours of thinking about Dillon and what could have been.
She wondered what he was doing now. She supposed he’d put Calvin to bed and was getting ready for bed himself, but she couldn’t be sure. Maybe he had a date. She’d assumed he wasn’t seriously involved with anyone since both times she’d seen him and Calvin they’d been alone. And as much as Calvin talked, had there been a woman in their lives, she was sure the boy would have mentioned her by now.
No, Calvin made Monique feel as though she were the woman in their lives. And she liked the feeling even though she knew it was only a dream. A dream she’d been having in one form or another since her teenage days when she and Dillon had planned for marriage and a family with four children—two boys and two girls. She’d even started picking out names for them, but Dillon had convinced her to save some of the fun until after they were married and she was pregnant.
The bittersweet memory of that long-ago time soothed her. Those nights of loving talks had been some of the most important nights of her life. They’d helped her get through hardships no teenager should have had to face. And after she’d made the decision that had forever relegated her dreams to the realm of fantasy, those memories had sustained her.
If she could do it all over again, she thought, she’d—
A rap at her front door brought her out of her imaginings. Who could that be? she wondered. It wasn’t as if she’d been in contact with anyone other than Dillon and Calvin, and she hadn’t even told them that she was staying in one of the one-bedroom rental units above the furniture store.
But this was Elberton and there weren’t that many choices for temporary living. She got up from the bed, slipped on her robe and slid her feet into her house shoes, then rushed to the door. By the time she reached it, the knocks had turned to pounding. “Just a minute,” she yelled in impatience. “You don’t have to break down the door.”
She raised herself up on her toes and peeked out the peephole. The sight made her breath catch in her throat. It was Dillon. And he looked anxious. And gorgeous. And all he was doing was leaning against her wall. She lowered herself, pulled her robe tighter around her, brushed her hand across her head, then took a deep breath. You can handle this, she told herself as she pulled the door open.
“Dillon,” she said, and felt like a fool. He knew who he was.
He moved away from the door frame and stood to his full six-foot height. “You said you wanted to talk. I’m here. Talk.”
So much for pleasantries, she thought. She stepped back. “We’d better do this inside.”
He strode past her and she closed her eyes and savored the masculine scent of his cologne. He even smelled strong. Her eyes shot open. What the heck was she doing?
She followed Dillon into the living area and invited him to sit on the sofa. She sat in the chair next to it.
“So talk,” he said again.
She had no doubt he just wanted to get the task done so he could go home and get on with his life. It wasn’t going to be that easy, though. For either of them. “Would you like something to drink? I have soda or I could put on a pot of coffee?”
Dillon shook his head, his eyes pinned to hers. He refused to let his gaze drop from her face, though he wanted more than anything to know if she were naked beneath her robe. He’d seen the slope of her breasts when she opened the door, so he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra. And when she’d sat down, her robe had gaped open, giving him a view of her nice firm thighs. If she had on a nightgown, it was a skimpy one. “I didn’t come here for refreshments. You said we needed to talk. So talk.”
She tried to ignore the pain his disinterest caused her. “What made you come?” she asked.
He allowed his eyes to drop to her chest for a quick moment. “I felt I owed you. Calvin likes you a lot and you’ve been nice to him. I felt I owed you for being nice to my boy.”
So he was here out of his sense of gratitude. So like the honorable Dillon she’d always known. He should change his name to “Do the Right Thing” Dillon.
“You don’t owe me for being nice to Calvin. He’s a sweet little boy and I like him a lot. I enjoy being around him.”
He folded his arms across his chest and flattened his lips in a tight line. Why did she have to be so beautiful? Why did he have to notice? “What did you want to talk about? I don’t have all night.”
The coldness of his words wrapped around her heart and she shivered. “Do you hate me so much that you can’t bear to be alone with me?”
He dropped his eyes from hers and breathed a deep breath. “I don’t hate you, Monique. I stopped hating you years ago.”
“You act as though you still hate me,” she said, not believing his words. “Your body language says you’re angry and closed.”
“I’m not angry,” he repeated, dropping his folded arms. “I’m just curious about your reasons for coming back to Elberton.” And concerned that you still have the power to affect my senses, he added to himself.
“You don’t buy that I came back for the job at the school?”
His lips now turned in a solid smirk. “I’ve seen your résumé. You could have written a ticket for any job you wanted in any place that you wanted. What I don’t know is why you picked Elberton.”
“It’s my home,” she said, stalling for time.
“Yeah, right Look, Monique, like I said, I don’t have all night. If you’ve got something you want to say, say it. I didn’t come here for small talk.”
Well, she guessed he’d told her. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Dillon. I’m so sorry.”
He rubbed his large hands down his thighs and sighed again. “You’ve said that three times now. You have nothing to be sorry for. We were kids. Kids can’t be held responsible for their actions. You’re a parent. You should know that.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know that. What we had was more than kid stuff, Dillon. At least, it was for me.”
He blinked. She waited for him to say something but the single blink was his only response.
“I loved you, Dillon. With all of my heart I loved you.”
His ears burned with her words. “How can you say that to me, Monique?” he asked, his voice dangerously low and controlled. “How can you say you loved me after the way you ended our relationship?”
“You don’t understand, Dillon—”
“Damn right, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how a woman can love a man one day, skip out of town on him the next and then be married and pregnant with another’s man baby a few months later. Damn straight, I don’t understand.”
Though Monique had known her actions would hurt Dillon, she hadn’t realized until now how cold-blooded
they had seemed to him. Hearing him describe what had happened made her actions seem indefensible, even to her. “I know I hurt you—”
“Hurt me?” He shook his head, his lips twisted in a snarl. “Do you know how many nights I lay awake wondering if you’d been sneaking around behind my back while I was playing knight in shining armor and protecting your virtue?”
“I wasn’t sneaking around behind your back, Dillon,” Monique said softly. “I never slept with anyone but you.”
He laughed, a harsh sound that rang in her ears like the howl of a wounded animal. “Look, I may not have learned much about women over the years, but my understanding of basic biology is clear. You were pregnant with his baby, Monique. How did you manage that without sleeping with him?”
His pain became her pain. He was angry, but more important to her was the pain and the hurt that she heard in his voice. He’d loved her and she’d tossed his love back in his face. “It wasn’t his baby.” There. She’d said it.
Dillon’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t his baby?” he repeated.
She shook her head slowly, waiting for understanding to appear in his eyes.
“You’re lying,” he said. “You’re lying.”
She knew he understood. She could see it in his eyes, along with the disbelief. “I lied then, Dillon, but I’m not lying now. Though Charles raised Glenn as his own, you’re his biological father.”
His heart slammed around in his chest, and his breathing became difficult. “What did you say?” he asked. She couldn’t have said what he thought she’d said. Maybe he’d misunderstood her or missed something in the conversation. He’d been having a difficult time concentrating on her words with her dressed in that robe.
“I was pregnant with your son, not Charles’s.”
He shook his head to clear his mind and his ears. “My son?”
She nodded and nervously ran her hand through her hair. He wondered if it was as soft as he remembered. Stupid thought, given what she’d just told him, but a much easier thought to entertain than the news that she’d given his son to another man. He looked at this woman he’d loved with all his heart and wondered if he’d ever really known her. “Why should I believe you?”
Second Chance Dad Page 3
