by S Doyle
He might have done all those things, but then he would have welcomed her back with all the love in his heart. He wouldn’t have felt the rage I did. He wouldn’t have immediately felt the need to even the score for what she put him through. No, George would have just been hysterically happy to know she was alive and safe.
Was the kid with her? Or would she have left him behind with the nanny?
Your kid. He’s your kid!
I shook my head. For weeks, I hadn’t thought about them. For weeks, I had pushed every single one of Ash’s words to the back of my brain. Into a box that was closed, so I didn’t have to deal with it.
Now, there was nothing to do but open that box. To remember that when she’d left, pregnant with my kid, she’d done so thinking she might never see me again. She thought she’d been making yet another sacrifice for me.
Fuck that.
I opened my truck and walked toward the cabin, with all the hurt and pain swirling around my gut, but I realized then, the anger was gone.
Ash had done what she’d done to protect her child. My child. She’d cleverly escaped the clutches of two powerful, criminal men. Each of whom had inflicted violence on her at some point.
There were times I spent so much of my energy hurting, it was easy to miss how hurt she must have been, too.
No mother, a loveless father who had sold her off like she was chattel. Men who had hit her and threatened her. All she’d had was me. Who’d spent so much of my time resisting everything she wanted to give me.
George, too. She’d had him. And, because of what Dean and I had accomplished, at least I’d been able to give her real father, the one who loved her, back to her.
I opened the door, not quite prepared for the scene in front of me. George was bouncing the kid on his knees while Ash sat next to him on the couch. All eyes landed on me as soon as I walked inside.
Ash stood immediately, almost like she was getting ready to run again, but this time she stayed put.
“Marc,” George whispered, his eyes never leaving Daniel. “Look at this miracle.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the kid or Ash’s resurrection. Probably both. Because they were both a miracle.
“I drove here last night. As soon as I heard the news,” Ash said. I could feel her nervousness. “You swung and didn’t miss. Thank you.”
“I wasn’t going to miss,” I told her. Not when her life was at stake. The kid’s, too.
“He’s gone. So, I’m done hiding.”
“You going to take your name back?” I asked. I don’t know why that was the first thing I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s a point. Everything is in my new name. Besides, it makes sense for Campbell to be my family name.”
She reached for George’s hand, and he took it and squeezed.
“You’ll always be mine, Peanut. I just wish…”
“I know. I’m sorry it had to be that way. I’m sorry I had to hurt both of you. I could say it a hundred more times if you want, but it wouldn’t change anything, and I can’t regret it. I couldn’t take any chances. Not with Daniel.”
“I hate you were alone when you gave birth,” George muttered. “You must have been scared out of your mind.”
“I had good care,” she said. “It was okay.”
The kid started wiggling in his arms, and George set him on the floor so he could pretend to stand even though he was holding onto George’s knees. The whole time he was blabbering as if trying to communicate some important fact. Didn’t matter it wasn’t coming out in English.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was starting to realize he looked like me. His eyes, his nose. There was no doubt he was mine—not that Ash would lie about something like that.
Faking her death, sure.
I waited a second for the anger to come back, but it didn’t. Instead, I was thinking about her alone and in pain, giving birth to our son, while I was doing time in prison. Hell of a father I was. Someday he was going to know that story. Would he forgive me?
Or maybe not. Maybe her plan was still to cut me out of his life.
“We should get going,” she said, eventually. I had barely said anything since arriving. Instead I just stood there, staring at her and the kid. At George, who was clearly beside himself with glee. Not only had Ash come back from the dead, she’d done so bringing him a grandson.
“No, you just got here,” George protested. “We have so much catching up to do. I need to know every minute of this baby’s life since he was born.”
Ash smiled as she picked up her son. “Let me give you the highlights. A lot of nursing, sleeping, pooping, not sleeping and stubbornness. Oh, and belly laughs that will make you cry tears of joy at how happy he is.” She looked at me then. “And he likes trains. I forgot to tell you that before. I should have… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re a family again. So we’ll get to see each other whenever we want. But I told you about the bakery. I need to get back to it.”
“You did. I don’t know what surprised me more. Your sudden rebirth, or the fact you can bake now.”
Ash smiled, but I could see it was forced. She was still nervous. Because of me.
Hell, I was nervous because of me. Because I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do now.
“The car’s packed. We should hit the road.”
I watched her pick up some baby bag and lift it over her shoulder. Then she moved through the cabin, careful to avoid me. Or at least, that’s what I thought. I followed her out the door and watched as she buckled the kid into the car seat. This time her hands weren’t shaking. She looked like a pro at it, whereas I wouldn’t know one buckle from another.
I should get a car seat and practice.
Once the kid was secure, she turned and gave me a tight smile, then, looking over my shoulder, she waved to George. Before I could say or do anything, I was watching them drive off again.
I felt a heavy pat on my shoulder. “I know, son. I know. Takes a little getting used to, but you will. Guess I’ll be selling this place and heading to Florida.”
I turned around. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if my family is going to be in Florida, then that’s where I’m going to be, too. A ten-hour drive is too long. I hate the thought of her in the car that long with the baby. Especially on her own. Anyway, you’ll all be down there, only makes sense I move closer to you.”
“I’m not going to Florida.”
The words left my mouth, but I didn’t even know if they were true. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. For years now, my life had been mixed up in Ash drama. What she was doing and sacrificing for me. What I was doing and sacrificing for her.
Now, it was over. She was safe. Her father and husband were gone. She had no legal trouble, as long as the paperwork she’d used to establish her new identity was solid.
I didn’t know if it was, because I didn’t know how she’d done it. I hadn’t even asked. And how had she gotten the money? All her father’s money was gone. What little there was left ,was staring at me in the form of an F150 truck.
Fuck. I would have to sell it. Give her what little of her inheritance there was left. For her and her kid.
Your kid. He’s your kid!
“What are you talking about?” George asked, a tone in his voice I’d never heard. “Of course you’re going to Florida. You understand that’s your son she walked out the door with?”
“It’s complicated.”
I walked away from him, back inside the cabin. The place I came to when I thought of home. I’d considered continuing on to Florida, but I didn’t have any sense of my welcome. Those words, the ones I’d put inside the box and hadn’t looked at very closely, came out and stung me.
“I want you to remember that, Marc. I want you to think hard about how you swore you could never love me.”
“We’re poisoned, Marc. It’s neither of our faults, but it’s there. I can’t have that for my baby. I w
on’t. I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t wrong. Things had never been easy for us. When I think about how we were growing up? How I’d treated her? Like a punching bag, who could take every blow I dealt because she never wavered in her affection for me.
Now, she had someone else to bestow affection on and why wouldn’t she choose him? He would never be as mean to her as I was. As cruel.
He would only love her.
I made my way toward the fridge and pulled out a beer. The thought of getting drunk suddenly seemed like a great idea. An escape from my brain filled with so much crap.
I sat on the couch, popped the top and sucked it back.
I startled when the door was slammed shut, hard. Glancing up at George’s face, I thought, for the first time, this was the guy who used to steal cars. This was the guy who went to prison, who joined the army.
Not the docile driver/butler of a rich dude, the category where I’d always put him before. This man was a badass.
“Don’t you walk away from me when we’re having a conversation,” he shouted. “Not with some lame-ass excuse. We’re not talking about some high-school girlfriend. We’re talking about Ashleigh.”
“I know who we’re talking about. You weren’t there when I found her in Florida. She doesn’t want me anymore.”
“What a pile of horseshit,” he said, his hands on his hips, more ornery than I’d ever known him to be. “That girl has loved you her whole life. The two of you have a son together. You’ve got to make this right. You don’t have any other option.”
I took another sip of my beer and shook my head. “I don’t know if I can. Everything I’ve done and said to her over the years, it’s like suddenly she believes it all now, when she never did before.”
“Then start with I’m sorry, and go from there.”
I looked at George. “Hey, I’m not the one who followed me around like a puppy dog. I’m not the one who pushed me into taking her to the prom. It’s not my fault her father was a prick, but I sure as hell paid for it. To get her out of Switzerland. To try to save her from a sociopath. I pushed through college in three years, worked my ass off, only to end up in fucking jail trying to do the right thing. For her!”
“Are you done?” George asked.
I was. Because, hearing myself, I wanted to kick my own ass. Those things that happened to me hadn’t been Ash’s fault. Everything I did had been my choice. Including fucking her in Vegas without a condom.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I began.
“No, you don’t,” he said, cutting me off. “You think I’m going to tell you to pull your head out of your ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself. But that would be too fucking obvious.”
My head snapped back. I’d been with George since I was twelve years old, and I don’t ever remember him using that word. Not once.
“The only thing I need to remind you of is that you have a son. A son! A living, breathing DNA copy of yourself. I know, because I held you for the first time when you were exactly that age. If I had any impact in the raising of you, which I know there was very little, then I sure as hell didn’t raise someone who would skip out on his family.”
“I told you. She doesn’t want me!” I shouted at him, feeling how strange those words sounded coming from me. Because that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want me, it was that she’d stopped believing in us.
“Then make her want you again!”
Was it that easy? Was that all I had to do to get her back? Prove to her that none of what had been done to me was her fault. That we weren’t doomed or poisoned or whatever the hell she thought.
He must have seen the dazed expression on my face, because he lost his righteousness.
“You’re in shock, son,” George said, coming over to sit by me on the couch. “I know, because I am, too. But it’s over now. You have to wake up. Ashleigh isn’t dead and you have a son.”
Ash wasn’t dead and I had a son.
It was like hearing George say it, suddenly made it real. For weeks I’d been focused on taking Sanderson down. Removing him as a threat once and for all.
I wouldn’t let myself think about Ash, about the baby. Certainly not what she’d said about us in Florida, because it all seemed like too much to handle. I had to compartmentalize, if only to stay sane.
Now here I was, sitting on the couch, and it just occurred to me. She’d left. She was taking the kid, going back to her life in Florida, and she thought that was going to be it?
That we were done?
Oh, hell no, we weren’t done.
I set the beer on the table and got up, heading to the room where I’d stayed when I was here before. George followed me and watched, as I started shoving everything I owned into a duffel bag.
“There you are,” he said softly.
“I have a fucking kid!” I exploded.
“I know.”
“Ash is fucking alive and she fucking runs a bakery!”
“Crazy, isn’t it?” George muttered.
I stopped as it all started to overwhelm me. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking. George was right. It was like I’d put myself in some self-induced coma because I couldn’t handle either reality. That she was alive. Or that she’d had my kid.
I turned to him. “I’m going to Florida to get my family back.”
He nodded. “I’ll be down there as soon as I can sell this place. Good luck.”
I tossed the duffel bag over my shoulder. The same words I’d told Benfield. He’d said he didn’t need luck because he was a billionaire.
Neither did I. Because I knew a fundamental truth. Ashleigh Landen was mine. She had been since I was twelve years old.
I didn’t need luck. I had her love.
Three days later
Ashleigh
I was in the back of the bakery, icing the cake I’d made for a custom order. A regular was hosting a birthday party for his wife and asked if I would do the cake.
My choice. Anything I wanted to bake. So I’d gone a little crazy with a new red velvet recipe I’d found online. For so long, I’d stuck to Helga’s play book because that’s what I knew. It was only recently, I started to have the confidence in my own skills to branch out.
I smiled at the results of my effort. “Not bad,” I said to myself.
I heard the bell over the door chime, and listened as Candy greeted the customer.
“You’re back,” she said. “Looks like we’ve got a new regular.”
I didn’t hear the customer’s response, but Candy replied, “Yeah, sure, she’s just in the kitchen.”
The door to my work area swung open and Candy popped her head inside. “Hey, Marie, hot guy from a couple of weeks ago is back and wants to chat with the baker.”
Hot guy from a couple of weeks ago?
A tingle of anticipation rippled through me, and I fought against it. He wasn’t coming. I’d all but told him I didn’t want him in my life. He had to hate me for everything I’d done. There was no reason for him to come.
Then why did I have the weird hope he would behave the way he’d always behaved when it came to me, and do his own thing, despite what I’d said?
This is why I hadn’t left. Why I couldn’t make myself run away again.
I brushed off my apron, although it was fairly clean, and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I’d recently changed the color back to blond. It made me feel more like myself when I looked in the mirror.
I swung open the door, and there he was. Candy wasn’t wrong. He was a hot guy. My son was going to grow up to look just like him.
“Hi,” he said gruffly. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“Wait,” Candy said, looking between us. “Do you two already know each other?”
“We knew each other once upon a time,” I told her. “Can you handle the store for me?”
“Yes,” she piped up quickly. “No problem.”
I followed Marc outside. It was another beautiful, balmy, fa
ll Florida day. Without discussing it, we wandered across the street to the park. The place of our reunion. The place where he’d met his son for the first time.
I hadn’t even let him hold him. I hadn’t asked him if he wanted to.
By default, we sat on the same park bench. There were a hundred things I wanted to ask him. But I didn’t know how to start. Maybe the first one was the most obvious.
“You changed your hair back,” he said finally, to break the silence.
“I wanted to look like me again,” I replied. Then I cut to the chase. “Why are you here?”
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, his hands clasped together, his elbows on his knees.
“Not my place, really, to tell you.”
“Daniel, Danny, he’s good?” he asked.
“He’s great.” I beamed. That was always an easy question to answer. “Teething, which hurts my heart because I know it’s uncomfortable, but other than that, he’s a happy baby.”
Marc dropped his head and I had this crazy urge to run my hand over his back and tell him it was going to be okay. Only I didn’t know what okay looked like.
“Ash, I don’t know how this works. I don’t know how to quantify how fucked up our situation is, but he’s my son. I can’t walk away from that.”
It both thrilled and hurt me to hear him say that. That he was here, that he wasn’t going to walk away from us completely. For Daniel, though. Not for me.
“Okay,” I said slowly. Not sure how to navigate this, either. “What does that mean?”
“It means I want to know him. I want him to know me. It means I want to take responsibility for him.”
“He’s my responsibility,” I snapped. Then I had to take a deep breath, and release it. “Sorry, I get a little defensive when it comes to him because it’s only been me from the beginning. I had a hard time even letting Sandra hold him at first.”
“That makes sense. You were on the run, you were trying to protect him. Your instincts are probably not to let me in. I get that, too. You said we were poisoned and you didn’t want that to affect him. I don’t want that, either.”