“He gets the standard three percent if he does that.” Kandace turned toward the front door. “Have fun, boys.”
Andrew rolled the dice, then moved his car to land on St. Charles Place.
Lucas held out his hand. “Pay up.”
“Or I put you to bed before Santa gets here.”
“I’m ten. I don’t believe in Santa.”
Lucas was starting to loosen up around him. Andrew saw the trepidation still, but they had time. “You left milk and cookies out.”
“So I could sneak out here and eat them after you passed out. Pay up.”
Andrew counted out the rent for the hotel-laden square. He couldn’t believe he was losing at Monopoly, to a ten-year-old. Pride bristled inside. “You’re not eating all those alone. You’re sharing.”
“All right.” Lucas grabbed the plate off the counter, a second one from the cupboard, and separated one cookie from the stack. He handed it over.
“Thanks. So generous.”
Lucas held up the stack of fake money. “You’re short on your rent. Extra cookies are for people who pay the bills.”
“I need a little more time. I’m almost at Go.”
“It’s on the other side of the board.”
Andrew laughed. “All right. You win. Do you want to play again?”
“You’re not tired of getting your butt kicked?”
“Incredibly.”
Lucas sank into his seat, grin fading into a more contemplative look. He took a bite of cookie and chewed slowly, swallowing before he spoke. “Where’s my biological mom?”
Andrew was grateful to hear the question phrased this way, rather than real mom. That didn’t mean he looked forward to sharing the truth. Was there a delicate way to put she didn’t want you? Especially to a kid who was recovering from a brainwashing that told him he was worthless. “She decided you needed a better life than she could give you, and she asked Kandace to take on her role.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I didn’t know before you were born. Your birth mother didn’t tell me she was expecting. I found out when Kandace called me, and by then, I was in another continent. She’d always wanted kids and couldn’t have them, and she was going to be so much better at raising you than I would be.”
“So why change your mind now?”
Andrew sighed. “Wouldn’t you rather find out now, than ten or twenty years down the line? If you think the resentment is bad today...”
“I don’t resent you,” Lucas said, “but I do wonder why she didn’t want me and neither do you.”
“I want to be able to call you my son. I don’t always make the right decisions, but I thought I was doing what was best for you.” The words echoed in Andrew’s head. Not that this was the same as the situation with Susan. Lucas had been an infant; choices had to be made on his behalf. But Susan... Andrew shook away the thought. The conversation at hand was too important to be distracted from. “I’m here now. We can’t go back, but I’m hoping we can move forward.”
“I guess.” Lucas shrugged. Instead of laying out the board again, he started putting the pieces away. “When is Susan coming to visit again?”
“You know what? Let’s go watch It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“You told Mom you hate that movie.”
He did. It was sappy and sugary and everything he usually wanted to avoid thinking about. “I exaggerated.”
“You do that a lot. But okay.” They finished, put the box back in its closet, and settled on the couch, to watch TV.
Next thing Andrew knew, someone was shaking him awake. “Come on. It’s present time,” Lucas said.
Andrew forced his eyes open, to find a clock. “It’s five in the morning.”
“Welcome to parenthood.” Kandace sat in the chair across from him, a dry smile on her face.
For a while, Andrew watched them open presents, until a pile of colored paper littered the floor, replacing the pretty boxes that had been under the tree. He enjoyed watching every single minute of it. A year ago, he wouldn’t have thought this possible.
The scene wasn’t complete, though. A longing he refused to name chomped behind his ribs, begging for attention. How long until that feeling faded?
By ten, Lucas was asleep again, curled up in in a different chair, wrapped in a new bathrobe, and hugging the toy he insisted he was too old for.
“I’m going out for a little bit.” Andrew needed to clear his head. See if he could shake this lingering... whatever.
“Dinner’s at four.”
“Got it. I’ll be back.”
He didn’t know where he was headed, but the lack of traffic in town was nice. The occasional car passed on a cross street, and that was it. There were a few more vehicles on the freeway, heading into the mountains. People coming or going over the pass, to see family.
Mercy and Ian’s home was only a few blocks away. Andrew’s brain screamed for him to turn around and go back to Kandace’s. His brain hadn’t been his best ally lately. Maybe it was time he let his heart have a say. He pointed the SUV toward their place.
No cars sat in the driveway, but they were most likely in the garage. He steeled himself to have the door slammed in his face, and made his way to the house. Christmas lights twinkled through slits in the curtains, but no other light or movement caught his eye. He knocked and waited.
Then he rang the bell.
Then hammered the side of his fist against the door.
They might be avoiding him, but it wasn’t like Mercy or Ian. No one was home. The acceptance filled him with a heavy disappointment. Now what?
Get in the car and drive again. It was better than sitting on the front porch of an empty home, freezing his ass off.
He didn’t realize what his destination was, until he turned down a familiar side street. It led to the clearing where he took Susan the other day. Had it been two weeks? It seemed so long ago.
Someone had beaten him there. A familiar battered Honda sat near the tree line. It was Mercy’s car, but the woman standing near the guardrail—blue hair barely brushing her ears, with dark roots showing through—definitely wasn’t Mercy.
Susan.
His heart slammed into his ribs, thudding so hard it rattled his skull. This was either his second chance or fate’s way of fucking with him a little more before it ripped him apart. He hesitated. Could he do this? He had to. He didn’t deserve another chance to make things good with her, but he wasn’t going to waste it.
Susan didn’t move when he pulled in. Didn’t look up when he parked. Kept her gaze fixed on whatever held her attention when he got out of the SUV.
Please, God, let me get this right.
SUSAN WAS LOST IN THOUGHT. Spending Christmas with Mercy for the first time in ten years was wonderful. Mercy tried one more time to get Susan to join them at Liz’s, but Susan wasn’t part of that circle. It didn’t feel right to join in. It hurt to not have the rest of the family here, but not so much she could forgive what Dad said. She’d called her brothers and sister, and all made it clear she wasn’t welcome in their lives or around their children. After the way they treated Mercy, Susan wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
And she wasn’t going to call Andrew, as much as she wanted to. Did she have a problem with him seeing other people if they dated? She’d picked it all apart until her mind chased in circles. She loved his stories. Hearing about the things he’d done was a massive turn-on. Seeing it might not be the same. There was no jealousy over his past, but there was a little envy she hadn’t experienced those things. She didn’t care he’d gone and picked up Rissa; it bothered her that he kept it a secret. That it happened the same night he turned Susan down. That he used it as an excuse to push her away instead of owning up to his real feelings.
All that pondering brought her back here, in spite of herself. She was vaguely aware of the tires crunching behind her and a car door opening and closing, but her thoughts had greater hold
of her than the world around her did.
Her heart skipped when the soft strains of a song reached her ears, delivered in a seductive tenor. “Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs are second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in.”
The song was from My Fair Lady. The voice was Andrew’s. She knew it without looking. She stared into the canyon below, unsure what she was supposed to say. She was torn between kissing him and telling him to go to Hell. Either way, she’d make a fool of herself.
“I don’t get any applause?” he asked.
She crossed her arms, more to keep herself in check than anything.
“One of the things I love most about this place is the solitude. If you want that, tell me and I’ll leave.” The playfulness faded from his voice, but the kindness lingered.
She clenched her jaw and dug her fingers into her arms, to keep from reacting.
“I’ll go away anyway, if you’re not going to look at me. But I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking first.” He paused for several seconds. “No answer? That’s fair. I’ve never met anyone like you. From that very first night, you looked past everything I am, to peer into my soul. Which is really kind of terrifying. I’ve got a lot of shadows and skeletons lurking in there. It never mattered how much you saw; you didn’t flinch. You wanted to know more, but not to judge.”
A raw sensation clawed at her throat, and she wanted to ask what his point was. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
“I know that’s who you are. You didn’t do that for me, because I’m special,” he said.
She choked back the but you are that struggled to be heard.
He sighed. “We made a connection, and it goes deeper than friendship and sex. It’s exactly what you said the other day, and that’s how I know I’m not the only one who feels it.”
That snapped her control. She whirled and stalked toward him. “Of course I feel that way. You don’t have to be a good guesser, to figure it out. I told you, and you pushed me out anyway. Wrapped the rejection in the same stupid bullshit everyone feeds me—it’s for your own good. When I called you on it, you lied to my face and told me you didn’t care.
“And I know you lied, because that’s the one thing you do that I’ll never be okay with. I don’t care who you’ve slept with. I don’t care whose pictures you drool over, or if you jerk off five times a day to your own porn or financial statements. Hell, somewhere down the line, if there was an us, I might be all right with us exploring with other people.
“But you know what’s not all right? That you shut me out every time you’re afraid of getting hurt, and then you blame it on me. Like I’m the one who can’t handle it. You’re the one not coping. And yeah—okay—caring about the people around you takes time to figure out, when you’ve ignored it your whole life. There’s no magic switch to flip that says, I’m no longer emotionally repressed. But you’re not trying. You’re happy shoving all that guilt into a tiny little box, where it devours you.”
She resisted the urge to draw in a large breath when the rant was finished. “You quit drinking. You gave up the painkillers. Your new addiction is self-martyrdom.”
“And you,” he said.
She ground her teeth together. “Wrong. This isn’t where you get to be cute and seductive, so I forget what I’m talking about. I love you, and that might be stupid of me, and it’s probably not fair, since you warned me not to fall. Perhaps in a few weeks or months or years, ’it’ll fade into less than a sharp stabbing pain in my heart that makes it hard to focus on anything else, and I’ll find someone new. You were right about one thing—I do deserve better. Better than an asshole who feels the same way about me but refuses to let himself admit it, because ow that hurts.”
He stared at her. Could he hear her heart hammering? Tears pricked her eyelids again. She’d exposed her soul, and she got nothing in response. Was he prepping another joke tucked inside a weak compliment?
“You’re right.” When he spoke, relief crashed through her. “About all of it. You nailed it. Except I haven’t jerked off five times a day since I was a teenager. Dick gets raw.”
She raised her brows and pursed her lips. She hated that he went for the crude punchline, but adored it at the same time, because he was still him.
He moved closer, and stopped inches away. His heat radiated toward her, carrying his comforting scent.
She could touch his face without stretching. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and clenched her hands by her sides until her knuckles ached.
He didn’t reach for her. “I shouldn’t have turned this all back on you. I’ve known so many people in my life, and you’re one of the few who has any idea what she wants. You seize it. You don’t back down. And you don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have it, no matter how many I care about you excuses they wrap it in. Because, if they get it—if they get you—they won’t ask you to stop. I didn’t want to see how I feel about you. Admitting it’s there opens me up, and I don’t like being exposed. Not like this, anyway.” The corners of his mouth twitched.
She had to fight her smile.
He cupped her cheek and dragged his thumb along her skin. The shock and warmth made her gasp. He stroked tiny circles. “Give us a chance—give me another chance—and it’ll be worth it. For me, as much as it is for you. Because what you’re most right about is that I do love you. I don’t know where it came from, but fuck if the feeling isn’t going away. Not that I want it to. I miss you when I can’t touch you or see you, or simply hear your voice.”
This time, she didn’t fight the desire to kiss him. She sought out his lips with hers, tentative and soft. He tightened his grip on the back of her neck and held her close, claiming her mouth. She whimpered against him, slid her hands beneath his jacket, and molded her body to his. He wrapped an arm around her waist, drew his fingers up her back under her sweater, and kissed her again and again. When he broke away, her lips were swollen, and her head was light, and she loved it.
“You’re still an asshole,” she said.
“I always will be.” He traced a finger over her bottom lip. “So my sister is making dinner. If Thanksgiving is any indication, she’ll make way too much for three people, and it’ll be amazing. That is, if you’re free.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
He nodded at the car. “Loaner?”
“Ian has been pestering Mercy to upgrade for months. He bought her a car for Christmas, so I got this one.”
“It was a piece of junk when she bought it.”
“Don’t insult the Honda,” Susan said in warning. “It’s mine, and I may not have completely earned it, but I love it.”
He grinned and kissed her again. “Yes, ma’am. Think it’ll hold out on the drive to Salt Lake?”
“It depends. Do you plan on finding another excuse to tell me off, so I’m stranded down there if I don’t bring my own ride?”
ANDREW COULDN’T IGNORE his hurt at the comment, but he deserved it. “No. In fact, it’s going to be tough to let you out of my sight for the next couple of days.” Or weeks. Or months.
“I’ll drop the car off at Mercy’s and ride down with you. Are you flying home after Christmas?”
“Yes.” Inspiration struck. It was time to push his luck a little further.
Her face fell. “You decided not to stay with Lucas after all?”
He kissed the corners of her mouth and then her pouty bottom lip. “Exactly the opposite.”
“Which means...?”
He told her about the house he’ made the offer on, and that he’d return to Georgia to collect some of his stuff, then come back here. He watched her smile slip back on as he spoke. He loved this look and the way her eyes lit up. “And my question is—what are you doing next week?”
“Sitting around the house, staring at the wall?”
“Fly back with me. We’ll load up a U-Haul. Take our time driving back here. Test out a couple of hotel rooms along the way. If you’re going to expa
nd your horizons, hotel sex is in a category of its own.”
“Because you’re never sure how many other people have screwed on those sheets?” she asked flatly.
He saw the teasing underneath. He leaned close to her ear and murmured, “And everyone who hears you screaming when you come knows exactly what you’re doing. So when you run into the guy next door in the hall, the next morning, you can wink and smile and say you hope he slept well the night before.”
She smacked his arm. “Is that supposed to be alluring?”
“Tell me it’s not.”
“In a twisted kind of way, it is.” She kissed him again. This felt right and amazing.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes. It sounds like a blast.”
“Dinner awaits, my lady.” He gestured to her car. She turned away, and he pulled her back in for one more kiss. “And cream pie for dessert.”
She flushed and melted against him. “You’re horrible.”
“And you love it.”
A default text chime clashed with the peace of the clearing, and Susan reached for her purse.
“Are you really going to get that?” He tried to keep the playful tone.
“If it’s Mercy—and it will be; she’s the only one who has this number—she’ll worry if I don’t answer.”
He could tell she was pleased to say that. “You should answer, in that case,” he said.
She pulled up the note on her phone, and her frown grew as she read.
“What’s up?”
“Making sure you’re all right,” she read aloud. “Dad left a message with Ian. He wants to talk to you.”
Andrew couldn’t find a response.
“Tell him he has my email address.” She talked as she typed.
It was as good a response as any. “You okay?” He ran a hand along her arm, to grasp her hand.
“I will be. I just... What do I say to him?”
Andrew had a list of suggestions. “I can’t tell you that. But whatever it is, it’ll be the right thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Susan gripped Andrew’s hand more tightly and pulled him into Mercy’s house. He tried to tell himself what happened next wasn’t a big deal, but it would hurt if things didn’t go well. Not just him—he was more worried about the impact it would have on Susan.
The Virgin and the Kingpin Page 18
