“Okay, Olivia. We’re almost ready. I just need to braid my hair.”
“I’ll do it for you,” he heard himself say. What was he doing? How much more difficult was he going to make this on himself?
“Who taught you to braid hair?” Faith asked as he closed the distance between them.
“Taryn gave me a crash course,” he admitted as he took the rubber band she held out to him. Her hair was as soft as he’d imagined. As he divided the long strands into sections, he noticed that except for a scattering of freckles and a small velvet mole on the back of her neck, her skin was flawless. He wondered how it would feel against his lips. All he had to do was bend down a few inches to find out. A prickling sensation skittered over him. “All done,” he managed to get out as he stepped away.
“Thanks, Landris.”
He nodded and turned his attention to Olivia. “Have fun swimming, cupcake.”
Back in the house, he swiped another cookie and grabbed his phone. There were two missed calls and a message from Penelope. If he hadn’t been so distracted by Faith, he’d have remembered to take the phone outside with him. As he listened to Penelope’s message, the frown on his face deepened. She wasn’t coming back. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t expect Faith to keep coming over. She had a job and a life of her own.
He went to his office and sat down, his mind going in ten different directions. Where was he going to find someone at such short notice? He could call an agency, but the person they sent would be a stranger. Penelope had been a friend of the family. Maybe Eric and Julie could suggest someone.
The ringing of his phone startled him. It was his attorney. He’d spent many hours in the air-conditioned office overlooking the Savannah River in downtown Augusta. It seemed absurd that two people who’d stood in a church and vowed to love and cherish each other until death parted them could have sunk to the level where they only spoke through attorneys. What had happened to him and Bristol? At what point had he begun to lose her? What had he done to turn her love for him into hate? Or had she never loved him at all?
Landris leaned back in the leather chair and prepared himself for another dose of bad news. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Franklin.”
“Hello, Landris. I’m afraid it is bad news. Bristol still refuses to give up custody. Given the circumstances, there’s not much we can do from a legal standpoint. She is the child’s mother.”
“Only in a biological sense.”
“In the state of Georgia, that’s enough. Unless you’re prepared to take her to court, you have no recourse under the terms of your divorce settlement.”
“She doesn’t want to give up her bargaining chip. She knows I’ll do anything to avoid this mess becoming public knowledge. Not for myself, but for Olivia’s sake. She’s too young to understand now; but that won’t always be the case.”
“I understand your concern; it’s a delicate situation.”
“What took so long to get a reply?”
“Apparently she’s been out of the country.”
Landris snorted. “I guess she’s been visiting her chateau in Switzerland again.”
“We’ll bring up the custody issue again after the first of the year. Who knows, she might change her mind.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t make any difference to the state of Georgia if I got married.”
“Not for the custody issue, but you’d probably be a lot happier.”
“Would I? It didn’t turn out so well for me before.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist. I doubt you’ll make the same mistake twice.”
“I certainly hope not. Thanks for trying, Franklin.”
Landris let the phone drop to the desk and rested his head in his hands. Why did he keep setting himself up for disappointment? Bristol was never going to give him the means to erase her from Olivia’s life. She had him right where she wanted him.
Rage surged through him, increasing the pounding in his head. If he was going to get any work done, he’d have to take something. A search of the drawers in his desk produced an empty bottle of Advil. A similar search of the medicine cabinet in the hall bathroom gave him what he needed. When he returned to his office, he glanced through the window to check the progress of the swimming lesson. Faith and Olivia were sitting side-by-side on the edge of the pool. His eyes narrowed at the sight of their heads close together, the one so bright and the other so dark.
A possible solution to his problem had been right in front of him for weeks now. He had a child who needed a mother. Faith wanted children; he knew she couldn’t have any in the normal way. He could give her a daughter, but would she be willing to marry without love in order to have a child? The other part of the equation was Landris himself. Asking someone who had so much love to give to marry someone like him seemed wrong. He was broken inside, and he wasn’t sure anything could fix him. Was it fair to ask Faith to enter into a marriage that would be nothing like her first?
Thinking about doing something crazy like this and actually doing it were two different things. He’d reconciled himself to living without love. In marrying Faith, he was essentially asking her to do the same. Her comments about Ian ran through his mind. Could her lack of success with the other men she’d dated be because she believed falling in love with someone else was being disloyal to Ian? He thought of his grandmother who’d lost her husband when she was in her early thirties. She’d gone on to raise three children alone in a time when it was more challenging than it was today. Maybe some people only love once.
If he was going to go forward with the idea of asking Faith to marry him, he would have to divulge the truth about Bristol. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Telling that sordid story meant reliving it all over again as well as exposing himself and Olivia. That’s the part he didn’t like: revealing her vulnerability and his humiliation. And it could all be for nothing. What if after hearing about his first marriage and considering how little he had to offer, Faith decided to refuse him?
* * * * *
The front door opened and closed. Landris was home! Faith’s heart flapped in her chest like a bird trying to break free from a cage. She’d tried not to fall in love with him, knowing all the while that love doesn’t work that way. The heart doesn’t listen to prudence or reason. It acts instinctively, and sometimes blindly, offering that which it can’t afford to lose. She knew that the friendship growing between them was the most she could expect from him, but that didn’t mean in the deep recesses of her heart, she didn’t hope for more. Such was the nature of love, to hang on even when the odds were so far out of favor.
His footsteps were getting closer. He was in the kitchen now. Closing her laptop, she set it on the coffee table, folded her hands in her lap and willed herself to relax. Her rapid pulse and sweaty palms were more indicative of a parting of three weeks instead of the three days she’d gone without seeing him. When he strolled into the family room, her eyes roved his face, noting the fatigue mixed with anxiety etched across his features. The latter had become more and more noticeable in the last week. More than anything, she wished she was in a position to do something about it. If they were closer, she could ask him what was bothering him while she rubbed the tension from his shoulders.
He smiled tiredly as he sat down beside her. “Sorry I’m so late. The last game went into extra innings. On top of that, I wasn’t paying attention and got off on the wrong exit. I ended up going about twenty miles before I figured out I wasn’t on the way home.”
“I’ve done that before. It’s so annoying. How was your trip otherwise?”
“The scouting part went so well that I think I’m going to pass on the tournament next week. The same group of players will be there. I’ve seen what I need to see of them.”
“How do you decide which players have what it takes? It seems very subjective to me.”
“Some of it is subjective. There’s a set of metrics that all scouts use; they vary depending on whether the player is a pitcher or a hitter.
Those measures include tangibles such as player stats, physical attributes, speed, mechanics, knowledge of the game, etc. But those things seldom tell the whole story. That’s where watching a player in a game comes in. How does he handle pressure? Does he throw the bat when he strikes out? Does he show emotion when he gives up a homerun or gets behind in the count? Can he get a hit when his team is behind? When those intangibles are mixed in with the other things, you get a pretty good idea of how well a player will do at the next level.”
“It’s like what you said about chess. You’re more or less looking for patterns and making a prediction.”
“Exactly. There are some players whose stats aren’t that great, but when the game is on the line, they will do what it takes to win.”
“Olivia will love having you home next week.”
He removed his phone from his pocket and sat it on the table. “She’ll go from missing me to missing you.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I think it is. She’s come to love you.”
“I love her, too,” she admitted.
“I thought so, and I’m glad. Olivia is growing up; she needs a female’s perspective on things. Her mother - and I use that term loosely because she’s a mother in name only - isn’t interested in doing it. Penelope was the next best thing; a family friend I could trust. But even that has come to an end. She won’t be coming back to St. Marys.”
Now she knew why he’d been looking so worried. “I can be here as much as you need me to be.”
His glanced locked with hers. “I was hoping you’d say that. It makes me think I might have a chance.”
“A chance of what?”
“Of getting you to consider being here all the time. In other words, to marry me.”
Faith felt the color draining from her face. Had she heard him right? “I don’t understand. Is this a joke?”
Landris shook his head. “I wouldn’t kid around about something as serious as marriage. I realize I’m trading on your affection for Olivia, but I’m doing it with the best of motives. I’m a father fighting for the happiness of a child. I don’t want Olivia to grow up without a mother, and I couldn’t find anyone better to be her mother than you.”
She knew how much he didn’t want to remarry. He’s overwhelmed by the situation. He hasn’t thought about the ramifications of doing something like this. “I appreciate the fact that you’re willing to marry for Olivia, but what happens if in a few months or years down the road you meet someone else and fall in love?”
He reached over and touched her arm. “It says a lot about you that your first concern is for me. That quality of selflessness is rare, and it deserves an honest answer. I’m no longer interested in love. You need to understand that. I admire and respect you immensely. I can give you a child who loves you and financial security. I believe we could have a good life together. Balanced against what you had before, it’s not a good bargain. It’s nothing close to what you deserve or what you could potentially have with someone else.”
Faith’s brows went up. “It sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of it.”
He moved his hand down her arm to clasp her fingers. “I’m doing my best not to mislead you. I’ve already gone through one divorce. I’d like to avoid a second one. Before we go any further down this road, there’s something else you need to know. It has to do with Olivia.”
He stopped as if to gather his thoughts, an inscrutable look settling on his face. The pressure on her fingers increased to the point where it was painful, but Faith sat silent. She knew Landris wasn’t aware of it.
“Olivia isn’t my biological daughter. Bristol kept that fact from me until after our divorce was final because the man she had an affair with and later married didn’t want children. She needed me to agree to have physical custody, meaning that Olivia would live with me.” As if realizing that he was clutching her fingers too tightly, he loosened his hold. “It just goes to show how little she knew me. I would have fought to keep Olivia no matter what. I loved her from the moment I saw her image on the ultrasound. It doesn’t matter to me that we don’t share the same genes.”
Faith sat as if turned to stone, unable to believe what she was hearing. How could any woman behave this way to her husband and child? And who would blame Landris for not being willing to risk his heart again? He’d been treated with contempt and malice by the one person he trusted the most. In similar fashion, Olivia had been deemed an inconvenience to a selfish woman’s plans.
“I’m so sorry, Landris.” The words were woefully inadequate to convey her anger with the woman who masterminded the destruction of a family and equally insufficient to reveal the extent of the compassion gripping her.
“I’ve never told anyone with the exception of my attorney what I just told you; not even my family knows. I couldn’t take the chance of it reaching Olivia’s ears. It would only hurt her more than she’s been hurt already. Bristol and I share legal custody of Olivia, but at any time, she can prove that I’m not the father. It could put my custody of Olivia in jeopardy. I don’t have to tell you what that would do to me.”
“Would she do that?”
The eyes he raised to meet hers were dark with pain. “I don’t know. I do know that she enjoys having something she can hold over me. She doesn’t want Olivia, but she doesn’t want to give her up either. I’d like to tell you that I emerged from this experience a better man. I didn’t. Bristol’s deception and betrayal was more than a rejection of me as a husband; it was also a reflection of how little she valued Olivia and me as human beings. We continue to be pawns in a woman’s bitter game. I went from blaming Bristol to blaming myself. The only thing that kept me going was Olivia. She gave me a reason to live. I’m content with that; I don’t want anything else.”
Landris was making it clear - in the kindest way possible - that he didn’t need her sympathy or anything else. His only interest in her was as a mother for Olivia, and he was assuming she was equally indifferent to him as anything other than Olivia’s father. Out of nowhere came the memory of his fingers running through her hair and brushing against her skin. If she told him that she loved him, would he walk out of her life and take Olivia with him? And if she didn’t tell him, how long would it be before he found out the truth?
The other thing he was either ignoring or had forgotten was that Faith couldn’t have children. If he married her, he would never father a child of his own.
“I don’t know how important this is to you, but I can’t give you any more children.”
“That’s not a problem, Faith. Like I said, I’m content with Olivia. The other thing I should have mentioned is your job. I don’t expect you to give up your career. You can be a professor and a mother.”
“This is a lot to process. I’ll need some time to think about it.”
“You mean you’ll consider it? I didn’t think I’d get this far.”
“You thought I would refuse?”
He shifted away from her, a frown forming on his brow. “I’m fully aware of how much I’m asking of you and how little I’m offering in return.”
What he didn’t know was how she felt about him; if anything, that was the reason she should refuse. But love seldom counts the costs. Instead it turns common sense on its head, making it possible to consider doing things that are the opposite of what logic would suggest.
She reached for her laptop. “I’ll let you know my answer tomorrow.”
He looked surprised by this. “So soon? I don’t know whether that’s a good sign or not. I’m thinking of taking Olivia to get a kitten in the morning. I know she’d like you to come, too.”
“Is that more incentive?”
“I’m doing everything I can think of. Can you be ready by ten?”
“Ten is fine.”
“Thank you, Faith, for hearing me out.”
“You’re welcome. Goodnight, Landris.”
As she drove home, Faith couldn’t help remembering another night eight years a
go: the sliver of moon in the sky, the salty breeze stirring her hair, and Ian’s kisses hinting of what was to come. There was no comparison between the two proposals just as there would be no comparison between the two marriages.
Loving someone requires sacrifice and carries the potential to be hurt. There has to be some element of risk for so great a reward. She wanted to be part of Landris’s life; she wished it was within her power to make him forget the pain and disappointment of the past. Here was a chance to do it, if she chose to take it. His words about not being interested in love didn’t surprise her nor did she doubt that he believed those words to be true. She also knew that marriage was difficult enough when the two people involved loved each other. How successful would it be when only one partner loved?
The optimist in her wanted to believe it wouldn’t always be that way. There was a chance - albeit a very small one - that Landris might come to love her. If it didn’t happen, she wouldn’t be any worse off than she was now. That wouldn’t be the case for Landris. If she married him, she would be the means of separating him from someone he could love. Would that be something he would come to resent?
On the other hand, if she refused, she wasn’t just saying no to him; she was also saying no to Olivia. Could she turn down the chance to be with the two people who’d become so important to her?
* * * * *
Landris rolled over and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. Four-thirty. Only twenty minutes since the last time he checked. Why couldn’t he sleep? Lifting the blanket enough to get out of bed, he arranged it over Olivia and went downstairs to the family room.
He hadn’t been this uptight when he asked Bristol to marry him. Then again, they’d been in love and were planning a future together. He’d known what her answer would be. The situation with Faith was different. It wasn’t their love for each other but their love for someone else that would bring them together. As such, it wouldn’t be a normal marriage. That could pose a problem given that they’d both had normal marriages before.
They hadn’t discussed the possibility of a physical relationship, and Landris had no intention of bringing it up. Intimacy was a precursor to love. He respected Faith too much to offer her anything less. That didn’t mean he wasn’t attracted to her. Far from it. He was thirty-four not eighty. He knew having her living with him in the house was going to challenge his endurance and self-control. Had he solved one problem only to create another?
Love of a Lifetime: A Sweet Contemporary Romance (Finding Love Book 3) Page 11