Tallulah Heartbeat (Tallulah Cove Book 1)

by Casey Hagen

  He wanted to call Abby. More than anything else, he wanted to hear her voice. Calling as he made the drive was a bad idea, so five minutes later, when he pulled into Pastry Masters, he dialed her number. It went to voicemail.

  He left her a message and headed straight for the front door. He must have arrived at just the right time since there was only one person ahead of him. Already tucking their change into their pocket, the customer stepped off to the side, and Ben stepped up.

  He thought he ordered the right thing. He wasn’t sure. His own voice didn’t even register in his own ears with all the thoughts in a tangled mess in there.

  “That’ll be $12.47.”

  He gave the girl behind the counter a twenty. When she handed him the change, he dumped it into the tip jar.

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said absently while checking his phone.

  “Hey, Mommy, look. Over there. It’s my Ben!”

  Recognizing the voice, Ben looked over the tables to see Blake waving his hands at him. Kate and Abby sat on either side of him, surprised looks on their faces. Interesting. Small world, them knowing each other.

  “Well, hello, Blake.” He ruffled the boy’s hair and gave him a fist bump; something Blake had taught him a couple castle-builds ago. “Ladies. I didn’t know you two were friends.”

  “Uh—” Abby squeaked out.

  “Well…” Kate began.

  “They’re not friends, they’re sisters,” Blake proclaimed by thrusting his donut in the air. Cream slid out from the center, rolled over his hand, and landed with a splat on the edge of the table.

  “Oops. I’m sorry, Mommy,” Blake said.

  Only he wasn’t looking at Kate.

  He was looking right at Abby.

  Ben narrowed his eyes.

  No goddamned way.

  No. Fucking. Goddamned. Way.

  This was not happening right now. All that time they’d spent together and she’d never said one word about having a kid.

  This kid.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Mommy?” Ben said, giving Abby a hard look.

  He couldn’t say anything else. He couldn’t do anything else. White-hot rage filled him, and if he tried to say anything more, he’d lose his shit right here in fucking Pastry Masters and get his ass arrested.

  His faceless granddaughter popped into his mind.

  He’d hold his shit together. He didn’t know how, but he’d do it.

  All this time she’d had a son and hadn’t said one word about it. It’s not like he hadn’t made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear.

  He’d been crystal clear since day fucking one.

  Abby had been smoke and mirrors.

  All lies.

  “Was any of it true? Ken? The accide—”

  “Shhhh, damn it,” Kate said as she slapped her hands over Blake’s ears. “Look. I’ll stay here with him. You guys need to take this conversation somewhere else.”

  Ben shook his head, determined to get the fuck out of there. “No need for a conversation. Looks like I know everything I need to know.”

  “Ben, wait!” Abby grabbed his wrist.

  He yanked his arm free, grabbed his bag, grabbed his espresso, and headed for the door.

  “Ben, will you give me a damn minute? Please?”

  He pushed open the door and didn’t care if it swung back at her. It hurt to look at her. She stood there, pleading with him in the same pants she'd worn the night he met her. Fury twisted in his gut as he rounded on her. “You lied to me. There’s nothing else to be said.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear. Funny how familiar he was with all of her that morning while she slept in his arms, and now it was like looking at a stranger. She had this whole other life he knew nothing about.

  “I didn’t tell you about my son because why would you want to know? You have no interest in kids.”

  “I had a right to know before we became involved,” he growled.

  “We’ve spent a few evenings together; it’s not like we were getting ready to walk down the aisle.”

  Well, if that wasn’t a swift kick in the balls. “Last night was an important night. Apparently more important to me than you. I had every right to know about something like this before I fe—” he stopped. There was no way he was going to tell her he was in love with her. No way. He’d swallow that nugget of truth and bury the fucker in concrete so it never slipped out.

  Her eyes widened with words. When he didn’t finish his sentence, her gaze fell to the ground between them. She wiped at her cheeks, and he knew that she had started to cry.

  Fuck his goddamned heart for giving one shit.

  Her tear-filled eyes met his. “My job is to protect him first. You can’t understand that after giving up your own son for the same reason?”

  He took an angry step toward her and leaned into her face. “Don’t you dare compare what you did to me with what I did for my son.”

  She held her ground. “You’re just pissed off that I’m right. My sister told me about you and Blake. I didn’t know it was you. But she told me how you are with him.”

  He backed away when she reached for him. “Don’t go there, Abby.”

  “You know what the worst part of all of this is? I could meet a good man, he could play with my kid, be really good to him, even nice to me, and still he doesn’t have one damn shot at making me feel an ounce of how you make me feel. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

  He circled around to the driver’s side of his truck, Abby hot on his heels. “I don’t care what you do with it. You knew why this mattered so much. From the first few minutes of our meeting, you knew.” He yanked open his door and climbed in. He didn’t even put on his seat belt. He just wanted out of there.

  “Ben, I wanted a fair shot. You never would have given me one if you knew I had a son.”

  “You wanted a fair shot? It would have been nice if you’d given me one. At least I was honest. You don’t know what I would have said. I may have been interested enough in you to give it a chance, but I never got that opportunity because you stole it from me.” He slammed his door, forcing her to jump out of the way. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. We’re done.”

  He tore out of the parking lot, knocking his espresso onto the floor. He’d forgotten what bone-deep misery felt like. All those years he’d carried the sorrow of giving up his son. At least he thought he had. Turns out he hadn’t carried shit, because the pain coursing through him now was the closest thing to the agony he’d suffered then.

  He was bone-fucking-tired. Physically and emotionally. Just last night his life had been everything he could have hoped for, and now every last positive thing had crumbled to dust.

  Well, except for his granddaughter. That’s all he could do now, focus on her and pray she got well. And maybe, if things went well enough, he’d meet his son.

  He thought back to his last time on the beach with Blake.

  Before he could put the brakes on, his mind put all the fucking pieces together. What he might have had if this had all worked out the right way. What Abby stole by lying to him.

  He’d had a shot at a second son.

  A shot he could no longer risk taking.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ABBY FOUGHT THE TEARS. SHE had to go back inside, to her son. The last thing she needed was for him to see her falling apart. She had just told herself last night that she was screwing this up. She knew after their time on the beach that she needed to say something at some point. She couldn’t envision the right time, which was a clear indicator that the time had passed.

  She had waited too long.

  And now Ben hated her.

  She found Kate at the table, the mess cleaned up, everything thrown away, and Blake entertained with her tablet.

  “How did it go?”

  Unable to say the words without losing it, Abby bit her lip and shook her head.

  “Well, shit.”

>   “You said a bad word,” Blake said.

  “Yes, well, you just pretend you didn’t hear it. Don’t be a potty mouth like your auntie,” Kate said, pinching his cheek. “Now, why don’t you say goodbye to Mommy so she can go to work, and you and I will head to the park and burn off that army of sugar invading your tiny little body.”

  Blake giggled, hopped off his chair, and hugged Abby. “You look sad, Mommy.”

  “Maybe a little bit, baby. I’m sad I’ll miss the park,” Abby lied.

  “Ben didn’t say goodbye to me.”

  “Oh, sweetie, Ben was in a hurry. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.” She deserved a medal for how quickly the lies rolled off her tongue.

  If lying hadn’t been what got her into this mess in the first place, that is.

  Kate hugged her next, whispering in her ear, “I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t connect the dots.”

  Abby nodded into Kate’s hair.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Abby nodded again.

  “Are you full of shit right now?”

  Abby nodded but let out a laugh thick with tears. “He hates me,” she whispered.

  “Listen to me. Give him a day or two. He reacted. It happens. He’s human.”

  Abby pulled away and nodded. “Okay.”

  “He mattered more than you thought he would, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate squinted. “You know what, give him three days. He’s a guy; they’re an imperfect species. It’s all that testosterone.”

  Abby smiled and wiped away the tears.

  “Mommy, if missing the park makes you that sad, we don’t have to go,” Blake said with a worried frown as he looked back and forth between her and Kate.

  “You know what, baby?” she said, hugging him tight and kissing his forehead. “The only thing that could make me sadder about missing the park is if you missed it because you were worried about me. I expect to hear every detail when I get home.”

  He smiled up at her, so big his eyes squinted nearly shut.

  She could live without Ben. She didn’t want to, but she could do it.

  This kid of hers was the best thing she’d ever done. He was the very best of two people who loved each other—who loved and wanted him. If Ben didn’t want him, didn’t want them, then he was an idiot.

  An idiot she suspected she’d fallen in love with.

  Which made her…also an idiot.

  She went through the day on autopilot. She smiled when she should smile, asked patients the right questions, marked down the right information in the right records, but didn’t remember a single detail of it. Between the night she couldn’t forget, the fight, and working the long day after, all she wanted was to go home and collapse in bed.

  If she didn’t have a son to take care of, she’d be drowning her sorrows in wine and chocolate and griping to her sister.

  Some days it was almost impossible to be a good mother.

  She pulled into her drive, took a deep cleansing breath, and plastered a smile on her face. Blake had a story to tell, and she planned to be all ears.

  “I’m home,” she called.

  Kate came around the corner with a wicker picnic basket hanging on her arm. “Just in time for a picnic.”

  “It’s getting dark out.” Abby had no interest in going anywhere else. She just wanted her PJs, to hear this story from her son, and to bawl her eyes out. Immature of her to do, probably, but if she had to hold these feelings in much longer, she would lose her shit in an ugly way.

  “Ah, but the picnic is here, right in the center of your queen-size bed.” Kate flipped open the lid and held up a bottle of wine. “I even got your favorite.”

  That’s when Abby noticed she didn’t hear her son. “Wait, where’s Blake?”

  “With Grandma and Grandpa for the night. Be prepared, though. I asked on the fly, and although they were all too happy to take him, Mom was skeptical. I told her we had a double date. So, while we’re drinking this, we need to come up with a story. She’s going to want every last detail.”

  “No more lies,” Abby whispered and burst into tears.

  “Oh, honey… shit, you’ve been holding that in all day, haven’t you?” Kate wrapped an arm around her and led her down the hall. “Here, you stay there, and I’ll get you some comfortable clothes.”

  “Oh,” Kate said, popping up from where she crouched over Abby’s drawer. “Check your voicemail. Blake left you a message.”

  Abby dropped to her bedspread, brought up her voicemail, and grabbed a tissue. Sure enough, Blake’s voice came up, promising her the story from the park, but Grandma suggested he make it a picture book so he had to go so he could draw and color it. “I love you, Mommy,” his little voice said.

  She went to hang up but froze as the sound of the recording came up, saying, “Next new voicemail.”

  Oh no.

  “Abby, you’re not going to believe it. I’m a match! A great match! They want to set something up in the next week. Still no word on whether Chris wants to meet me, but that’s okay. Call me.”

  She clicked off the phone and let it slip from her fingers to the bed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I forgot that Ben left me a message.”

  Kate glared. “Before or after he acted like a boob?”

  “Before. He sounded so happy. Less than twelve hours ago, everything was okay.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. Unable to hold it all in any longer, she let them flow. Maybe then she’d get some relief.

  “Well, that’s not necessarily true. You were holding on to a secret. Not that I blame you. I would have done the same thing.” Kate cringed. “Actually, that may not be a ringing endorsement.”

  “I was greedy, and this is what I get.” Abby peeled off her work clothes, more than ready to shed the lingering scent of antiseptic. She took the soft cotton pajama bottoms and tank top from her sister and slipped them on. “I can’t win no matter what I do. I gave Ken everything he wanted and he’s dead. I put myself first with Ben, and it’s over.”

  Kate shot her a disbelieving look from her position on the bed, where she worked on emptying the picnic basket. “Sit your stubborn ass over here,” Kate said, patting the bed next to her.

  “Now take this glass of wine and zip your lip because I have something I want to say.”

  “I—”

  “Zip it! I’m your older sister. You have to respect your elders.”

  Abby smiled through her lingering tears. “I can’t believe I’m letting you order me around. I’m a mother, for Christ’s sake.”

  Kate turned to her on the bed. “All the more reason you need to listen to me. You’ve been carrying that guilt about Ken for too goddamned long now.” Kate handed Abby the box of tissues from the bedside table. “The thing is, sometimes I can see it on you. And that boy of yours is smart as a whip; it’s only a matter of time before he sees it on you, too.”

  Abby stiffened. “He hasn’t said anything, has he?”

  “No, but he’s starting to notice stuff. He didn’t necessarily buy your line about being sad about the park. I had to do some serious redirecting today. Look, you’ve tormented yourself for two years, and it’s enough now. Ken is responsible for his decisions. He was a grown man, and he worked hard for his money. He deserved to have fun. He deserved his bike. He deserved to ride free. He didn’t deserve to have some jackass pull out in front of him carelessly.”

  Abby gulped down half of her wine. “I miss him. I miss him so much.”

  “I know you do, honey.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Abby said, her voice cracking.

  “It never is.”

  “How did you get past it? Twice even.”

  “You’ll always carry a part of it. It’s part of you now, part of who you are as a woman. I imagine it’s easier for me because I don’t have a constant reminder running around.” Kate took hold of Abby’s chin and made her look her in the eye. “
You need to leave this where it lies…for Blake. If he sees you blaming everything bad in life on yourself, he’ll learn to do the same. Do you want him to put himself through the kind of suffering you have?”

  Abby had never seen it that way. Never thought in a million years that Blake would pick up on her guilt. He’d suspected she wasn’t honest with him today. If he knew she had lied to him, he’d be devastated.

  She would never lie to him again.

  Never.

  “Kate,” she rasped. “Do you think Ken forgives me?”

  “What?” Kate put her glass down and wrapped her arms around her sister. “You gave Ken his dreams. Yes, he had a short life, but in the time he lived, he had everything he wanted. You did that.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Abby asked, wiping her eyes.

  “Yes, I wasn’t nearly as nice to my husbands.”

  “I owe Ben an apology. Even if nothing comes of it, I need to say I’m sorry.” Abby blew her nose.

  “Let him cool off, and you can do just that. You never know. He may be rethinking the way he treated you.”

  “Right,” Abby said. “There was no room for argument with him. I never expected after everything that he could be so unyielding.”

  “You hurt him.”

  “I did,” she said, leaning her cheek against her sister’s.

  “Hurt heals. I think when he calms down, he’ll at least be open to listening. You’re new to this. This is the first man since Ken, and it’s not like there’s a manual for getting back on this particular horse.”

  “Can I use that line?”

  “Of course. It’s a great line.”

  Unfortunately, the man she stood off with this morning didn’t look much like a man who’d care.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SIX DAYS.

  It had been six long days.

  Ben had been without Abby that long before, but then, he knew he would eventually run into her.

  Now, Wednesday night, his body, his mind, his heart told him to go to the Little Laguna.

  His pride mocked him for being a pussy.

  It took three days for Millie to pry the events from the morning at Pastry Masters out of him, and when she did, she’d glared, called him a shithead wanker, and then she went on to list the multitude of ways he was being a shithead wanker.