by Mj Fields
“Lucas...” I start.
“Luke, let’s not do this tonight,” he says, sounding defeated.
“I think it’s important,” I tell him then take a drink.
“Luke—”
“This isn’t about me and your daughter, our past, or how Chance came about. This isn’t about what a dick I was to her, and how lucky I am that she is who she is or I may not have ever had the opportunity to meet Chance or Hope. This is about where I have been, what I have been doing, and how fucked up she’s going to be by that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lucas snaps. Fuck, he even shows teeth.
“The man who killed Thomas is behind bars,” I tell him.
“What?” he gasps.
I nod. “Don’t ask how. Just know that he is. Also know it’ll be on the news tomorrow. She’s gonna see it, or hear about it.”
“That’s good. She’ll be glad. Fuck, she’ll throw a party,” Lucas says, still in a disbelieving tone.
“Don’t want her to know, but Casey knew him. She saw the accident—hid it.” I pause and take a deep breath. “She was given a plea deal and probably won’t do jail time, but over my dead fucking body. If that happens, you two better make sure that bitch is never around my kids or Ava again.”
Dad and Lucas look at me oddly.
“What?”
“You said your kids, as in plural.” Dad chuckles, and I nod, letting him know it was no mistake. “That’s my boy.”
“I also said Thomas’s killer was caught, and Ava’s driver knew.”
“How the fuck did you manage that?” Lucas asks.
“Made a promise to a little girl.” I take another drink. This is one of those conversations I hate, the ones that might get too fucking deep.
“Hope?” Lucas asks.
I nod.
He nods back. “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. Just want you to know Ava is gonna have a hard time with that.”
“It’ll hurt, but she’s stronger than you think,” Lucas says.
I say nothing, not a damn word. I don’t get how they could miss the boat with her. She’s not strong when it comes to herself. She’s going to be a mess, a fucking mess, and that’s going to be a bitch to deal with. She has now exposed herself in a way Ava Links doesn’t like to be exposed. She’s vulnerable, scared, and she has legitimate reasons to be.
I made a promise to a little girl. I promised to pick her every time. I fucked up once, and she will never forget that.
“I think we need to move the troops back upstate first thing in the morning. When the news hits, she’s not gonna want to leave her fortress.”
***
Everyone is up and out of the house by eight o’clock in the morning. I suspect both Mom and Tessa know about Samuel Leighton, the man who killed Thomas, but they aren’t saying shit.
Meanwhile, Ava is running on directives, not saying much, and doing what is expected of her. As glad as I am about that, I like to see her with some fight. I understand, though. She’s in her own head, trying to do what everyone wants her to do. She feels she has let them down, and in doing so, she let herself down. I hate that she is beating herself up, but the selfish prick in me knows it will get her home. Then, God willing, I will make it right.
I’m not really thrilled that Lucas insisted he drive with Ava and the kids. I’m even less thrilled when she nods in agreement. At least we are heading home.
My leg is swollen up pretty badly, so Jackson drives my truck. Riley rides shotgun while I stretch out in the backseat, trying to get some sleep.
“I can’t believe he can sleep like that,” Riley says with a laugh.
“I can’t believe he’s a dad,” Jackson counters with a grin in his voice.
“He probably can’t, either.” Riley chuckles.
“Well, I’m sure he had his suspicions. Bet that hurt like hell, too.”
I clear my throat, letting them know I am awake so they will shut the hell up.
“You wanna talk about it?” Riley asks, looking back.
“What is, is. Wouldn’t change it.”
“Okay, Luke.” She laughs. “Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
After that, I sleep the entire ride home, and when Jackson turns off my truck, I sit up to find we are in the driveway.
I immediately look over toward the Links’ house and see Ava getting out of her father’s vehicle. Her shoulders are slumped, and she looks spent. She doesn’t look over here. I wish she would so I could get a read on what she needs from me now.
When Lucas puts his arm around her and walks her into the house behind Logan and Tessa, who are carrying the car seats, I already feel a divide.
“Ready to go in?” Riley asks, looking over at the house, too.
I shake my head as we get out of the truck. “I need to go get a new phone.”
“Now?” Mom asks from behind me.
I nod. “Yeah. See you guys a little later.” I get in the driver’s seat and pull out.
Two seconds later, I pull in to her driveway, put the vehicle in park, and get out, walking urgently to their door.
When Lucas answers my knock, he tells me, “She saw it on her phone’s newsfeed.”
“She okay?”
He shakes his head. “She’s feeding the kids and putting them down for a nap. Didn’t want any help.”
“Where is she?”
“Luke, she wants to be alone.”
“With all due respect, she doesn’t get to be.”
“Luke—”
I ignore him, walking past him and making my way up the stairs. When I walk into her room, she isn’t there.
“You may think you know her,” Lucas begins, having followed me up, “but she’s my little girl, and she says what she needs. And if she says—”
“She doesn’t know what she needs, Lucas.”
“Now you listen to me—”
“Dad?” I hear Ava call him.
I walk toward her voice, down the hall to her parents’ old room, where she is standing in the doorway, holding Chance.
“You and I need to talk,” I tell her.
“Luke, not now, okay?” Her voice is strong, but her eyes all but plead with me to turn around and walk away.
I shake my head and try to come up with a reason to be here that’s not related to the issue at hand.
“I’d like to feed Chance.”
“He’s fed.”
“Then I’ll feed Hope.”
“She’s all set.”
“Then you...you need to eat.”
“Luke, please.”
I hold my hands out for Chance. “Let me rock him. You go eat.”
“Luke...” she sighs then looks at her father. “Dad, will you give us a few minutes, please?”
I don’t look at him. It’s not about him. It’s not about anything but Ava and her not fucking hiding anymore.
He walks down the stairs, and I walk around her and into the room.
There are two cribs, and one rocking chair.
One.
Immediately, I feel that bringing her home was a bad idea. She is strong—she is—but she won’t do this alone, and I won’t be pushed away by overbearing fathers and too many well-meaning people. Therefore, I say the only thing I can that will keep her fighting.
“Ava, you can’t keep me away from him.”
She stiffens and looks at me, anger replacing sadness in the blink of an eye.
Fuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I will never leave. - C. Quiroz
AVA
You can’t keep me away from him? What hidden meaning is behind those words? Did he push to get me here, and could all of those things he promised be lies? Will he try to take Chance from me now?
“Ava...” He holds his hands out for my son, and all I can think about is every other weekend, every other holiday, my children being torn apart, and my heart...my already fragile heart shatters once again.
“Get a lawyer,” I grit out.
“Excuse me?” he asks in apparent shock.
“Get a lawyer. Until then...”
“You need a fight, Ava?” he asks. “You need something to do so you don’t have to face what happened? I get that, but I am not your enemy. Jesus Christ, Ava, just let me hold him so you can—”
“Get a lawyer and leave.”
The words coming out of my mouth make no sense to me. I don’t want a legal battle with him. I know the laws, and I know he has rights to him. Nevertheless, I can’t not fight for my children; what kind of mother would that make me?
“Ava, I’m not getting a goddamned lawyer.”
“Okay, Luke, let’s give her some time,” Tessa says from beside him.
“Tessa, this is not any of your—”
“Luke Lane, I’m not asking. I’m telling,” Tessa says, which shocks the hell out of me. He’s her family, her godson, and she’s taking my side?
He looks at me, his eyes pleading. “What did I do?”
I take in a deep, shaky breath. I want to tell him that it’s not what he did; it’s what he will do.
“I found the man who killed—”
“Luke, come on,” Tessa says as I close the door behind me, leaving them out in the hall.
I look at Hope, who is sleeping blissfully unaware of what I have done to her. I look at Chance as he looks at me...unaffected for now. I feel like I have been punched in the gut, like I may get sick or lose it at any moment.
Luke found him? Luke did that for me? For us? This is too much. It’s all too much. I can’t handle it all right now.
I pull up my shirt, and Chance latches on. Then I sit and feed him until he falls asleep. After I put him in his crib, I walk downstairs to find Tessa, Dad, and Logan in the kitchen, whispering. I know it’s about me, and I have to remind myself that they love me. Regardless, just the thought of people talking about me makes me want to run away, run back to the city, to Brooklyn. But Brooklyn isn’t home anymore.
She ruined that.
I found out from a news report that Casey knew who killed T. She knew and didn’t say a word to me. She knew, and I trusted her. I trusted her...and she knew. She drove us, me and my kids. She stayed with us. She...I don’t even know what to think, except I am a fool, a fucking fool. And now I have no idea what I am doing; what I am going to do. I don’t know who or what is real. I don’t know who or what to believe, or trust, or how the fuck I am going to protect my babies from...everything.
“You hungry?” Dad asks, breaking the silence.
“No. I’m going for a walk. Can you make sure they’re...they’re okay?”
“You want company?” Logan asks, walking over to get his shoes.
“No. No, I want to be alone.”
“Okay.” He nods. “Okay.”
I push my feet into my boots that are in the closet by the door, throw on one of Logan’s sweatshirts, and then start for the door.
“Ava,” Dad stops me. “Hat and mittens; it’s cold out.”
I nod and robotically reach in the basket hanging in the closet and grab them.
Outside, I look toward Luke’s house, the path that I usually take. I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want him to see me, so I go the other way.
It’s cold, nearly dark, and I have never felt more like running away. Except, for the first time since I held them, I don’t want to take my babies with me.
I’m their mother—I should protect them—yet I let people...her into my life.
From conception, I have fucked them up. From birth, I lied about them. For the past few months, I hid them under the belief I was protecting them. Meanwhile, I allowed a stranger, a fucking stranger who knew who killed the man I love, the man who loved me, into their everyday life.
I am not a mother; I am a mess. And they...God, those beautiful babies deserve so much more than I ever was or could ever be.
A horn blows from behind me, and I realize I’m not on the side of the road. I’m walking right down the middle.
For a moment, I don’t want to move. I want this all to end. I want to leave them to someone deserving.
“Ava!”
A door slams, and I look over.
Luke. Always Luke.
“Leave me alone!” I yell.
“Not a fucking chance!” he yells back as he hoists me up and all but throws me in his truck.
“You win! Okay? You win!” I yell. “I was Thomas’s toy! I’m a big fat fucking liar! I trusted people I shouldn’t have! Sometimes, I forget to fucking shower! I can’t even eat half the time! I’m a fucking mess, and they deserve better than me! You’re the hero, Luke, so take him...take them both. Just leave me alone. You win!” I try to get out the passenger side door, but he pulls me back in.
“That’s enough! Goddammit, Ava, that’s enough!”
“I hate you! I hate you so much!” I sob out, my throat hoarse from crying, from yelling.
I do hate him. I hate him for being everything I knew he was. And I hate him for being good and bad, wrapped up in one Luke fucking Lane.
He grips my arms and pulls me closer, saying nothing, not one fucking thing. Then...“It was an accident.”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
“It was an accident, Ava, and she didn’t know what to do. She knew the guy. He was her fucking pimp, and he was coming after her for money. He was coming after her and not you, not Thomas, not the kids. It was a horrible fucking accident, and they are both paying the price for it now.”
I cover my ears, not wanting to hear any more. Still, he doesn’t shut up. He doesn’t, and I hate him even more than I did moments ago.
“She was wrong, so fucking wrong, and I could have handled it in a much different way, but I thought you would be more upset if I had. He...Well, he is a piece of shit, and I wanted to kill him, but then...” He stops when my mouth gapes open. “People like him don’t deserve to breathe, Ava. People like him prey on girls like her, girls like you, girls who are so trusting they get sucked into situations that they can’t control, and then they lose themselves.
“You were not his toy. He did love you. It’s obvious in that fucking book—all those things he wrote about you, and you wrote about him.”
“You read my book!” I am so angry he looked at it, read it. That book is mine, mine and Thomas’s. How dare he!
“Ava, I notice shit, okay? If you want a tit for tat, you read my letters.”
“My letters.” I poke myself in the chest. “Mine.”
“Yeah, Ava, I know where they came from.”
I don’t know what his point is.
“Let me go.”
“Never, Ava.”
“Fuck you and your never! Let me go, dammit! Don’t you see what you do to me? You make me hate myself. You make me feel like I am nothing. You make me want to run and never come back. You make me want to disappear!”
“I get that. I get that more than you can even imagine, but I made a promise to a girl, and I won’t break my promise.”
“She’s a few months old; she’ll never know. You’ll be a man of your word, Luke, keeping all your promises and never lying to a fucking soul. You can keep on being her hero.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not months old anymore, and she sure does know damn well I lied. I’m just hoping she’ll let me be the hero she always thought I was.”
“Don’t you dare,” I sneer.
“You knew, Ava. You knew how I felt, and dammit—”
“Don’t. Do not placate me.”
He smiles sadly at me. “Look at me. I fucked up. I did. You didn’t. It was me, Ava. I pushed you away because I was so fucking stupid. Had I not, none of what you are going through, what you have been through—”
“No.” I push him hard and get out of the truck quickly.
“Dammit, Ava, I have been in love with you since before I knew what love was! You’ve had me from the beginning, and I will make you remember why,” he says as his footsteps m
ove closer to me. “Please, blue eyes, please let me love you.”
I don’t turn around. I can’t look at him.
Luke Lane just told me he loves me, yet it doesn’t feel like I dreamed it would. In fact, it makes me sick.
“You can see him when you want. Just make sure you call, because I don’t want to see you.”
“Ava, I can’t change a thing. Wish I could. And I know goddamned well you love me, too!”
I walk through the snow covered field away from him and toward home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Yep, you’re right. - C. Dee
AVA
Every day since the day Luke Lane told me he loves me, I have hated myself more and more. He comes here twice a day. Logan hangs out with him and the kids while I stay in this fucking room, a room where my parents lied to each other for years and years about loving each other. And for what? For Logan and I.
I will not ever allow that.
Never.
I haven’t left the house; haven’t had to. Diapers and groceries appear. Hell, dinners are cooked and delivered. And people walk around me like they are on eggshells, which is all fine by me. Let them do what makes them happy. Let them give and give and give, and pretend it will make one bit of difference in this world.
It won’t.
I have been there, and look at me now.
The truth about love is, it changes. People change, love fades, givers give, and takers take. There is no balance. Like I said in my and Thomas’s book, Our love is forever, Thomas Hardy. Yours, mine, and our children’s...forever. And like I know in my heart, the only real love is that of a mother and child.
There is a knock on the bedroom door, and without a “Come in,” it opens.
Luke is standing there, with Chance in his arms.
I say nothing. I simply look away.
“We need to discuss Christmas. You can’t hole up in here, Ava, and I won’t miss their first Christmas, either.”
“You can take him. When you’re done, bring him back.” I say it without emotion, nice and evenly toned. You see, I knew this was coming, I knew it, and it’s better. I prepared myself for it.
“Them.”
I look up at him and shake my head.
His face turns nearly purple. He looks like he may explode. “What the hell happened? We were doing so damn well before I left at your request.”