“You never have.” Her father took another sip of water. “Why start now?”
“Why here? Why would you come here to open a business?” Her mother’s open mouth looked like one of those gaping fish at the fish market in Boston.
“Because I love it here. This is my home, my town. I love every inch of it. Every building, every grain of sand. Also, I’m going to have a baby. I want to raise him here—in a small town where community still matters.”
She’d lost them at baby. They stared at her in shock.
“You’re what?” The glass in her dad’s hand shook even more violently until he positioned it next to his plate.
“I’m going to have a baby. I’m three months along already,” Violet said, not nearly as calm as she sounded. Under the tablecloth, she twisted her cloth napkin into a rope.
“We didn’t even know you had a boyfriend,” her mother said.
“He wasn’t a boyfriend. He was married and wants nothing to do with the baby or me.” How had that just come out of her mouth? She hadn’t planned to say that part.
“A married man? Violet?” Her mother’s voice had risen a good octave and a half.
Violet lifted her chin and spoke silently to herself. Don’t back down. This is your life. You’re almost twenty-five years old. You can do this. They do not define your worth. Not anymore. “It was a terrible mistake. A foolish mistake. I fell in love with the wrong man. However, I have every intention of doing the right thing. I’ll be having the baby and taking care of him without a partner.”
Her father blew from his chair like a volcano. “What will our friends think?”
“Why does it matter?” Violet placed her hand on her belly.
From across the table, her mother wept into her napkin.
“A lot of women have babies on their own,” Violet said.
“Whores. People from Hollyweird. Not decent women.” He slammed his fist on the surface of the buffet. One of her mother’s china cups fell from its hanger and smashed into pieces.
Violet’s legs barely held her as she leapt to her feet. “You have no idea what it means to be decent. You’re cold and rigid and overly critical of everyone, especially me. I’ve never felt loved by you. I’m just a trinket to parade around at church. Look at my pretty little girl with the bows in her hair. Be seen not heard because a woman can’t possibly have anything worthwhile to say. Do you know how exhausting it was to be perfect all the time?”
He roared and slammed his fist on the wall this time. “You’re hardly perfect. You never have been. You’re in love with failure and boy howdy you sure love to embarrass me. Is it fun, little girl, to make a mockery of your father? Everything I believe in you’ve scoffed at and ridiculed—in love with the counter culture just to hurt me. Everything foreign and degenerate. Yoga like the Orientals. Environmental sciences like the tree huggers.”
“Dad!”
“My own daughter’s a whore, Rose. How do you like that?”
“I’m a grown woman, not a teenager. Get over it.” Violet crossed her arms over her chest, mostly to stop shaking.
“You’re not my daughter,” he said.
Just like that, she filled with a calm assurance. She would no longer tolerate his presence in her life. Her voice, hoarse from rage, no longer shook. “You’re an ignorant bigot. I should feel sorry for you but I’m too disgusted by you to have one ounce of pity left. All my life I’ve felt terrible about myself because of you. I’m done. Consider this the last time we will ever see each other.”
“Good,” he said.
“Great.” Violet left the dining room and walked up to her childhood bedroom and grabbed her suitcase.
Like Kara did years later, Violet had rented a cold, depressing room in an old Victorian in the middle of town. When Dakota was just a week old, her mother had come for a visit. They were flying to South America in the morning. They might never come back, depending on her father’s health. They would keep the house in Cliffside Bay for now, in case they wanted to move back. Please, move into the house. Your father doesn’t have to know. But you can’t live here. Not with my grandson.
She’d taken her up on the offer. In hindsight, perhaps she shouldn’t have. Living in her father’s home wasn’t exactly being on her own two feet like she’d so brazenly sworn she would be.
She rolled over and pulled the covers up to her neck and gave herself a little lecture.
It doesn’t matter now. I’m here. I have a job. Dakota is fine. I don’t need their house and I don’t need them. Kyle and Mollie need me. I’ll focus on them and Dakota and all will be well.
Chapter Five
Kyle
* * *
FOR KYLE, THE days passed in a blur. Violet and her insistence on routine had proven to be just what Mollie needed. She was on a predictable schedule and only waking up twice during the night. Mel reported that she woke at one and four, drank her bottle, and then went right back to sleep. In the evenings after he returned home from work, he held Mollie or played with Dakota before the children were fed, bathed, and put to bed. When all had been accomplished, Kyle and Violet would order dinner and eat together at the table by the window. Was this what family life was like? If so, it wasn’t so bad.
Not that it was real. They might seem to be happily playing house, but it was a business arrangement. One that his daughter needed desperately. He must keep that forefront in his thoughts. Violet was his nanny. She was also a friend. A good one, as it turned out. Alarmingly, neither of those facts deterred him from thinking about her in ways he shouldn’t. After their exchange that second night, he knew he’d ventured into treacherous territory. After days of analysis spent in his car with country music blaring, he came to a disturbing conclusion. He was in trouble, plain and simple. Like in a country song, he wanted the girl he couldn’t have.
Violet Ellis made him ache with desire. He longed to sweep her into his arms and take her to his bed and do things to her she’d never forget. Never in his adult life had he wanted a woman more. And yet, it was more than just lust. With her, his carefully built armor disappeared. There were no pretensions between them. They understood each other on a level he’d never experienced with a woman. Ever. Which made him more than a little nervous. For once, he needed to do the right thing and keep his hands to himself. For Mollie’s sake. And, frankly, for Violet’s sake. All she needed was for him to hurt her. After everything she’d gone through with her parents and that louse Lund, she didn’t need him messing with her mind. Which he would, eventually. He wrecked lives. That was his deal. Violet needed a strong, whole man who would make her laugh and provide her the family she so deserved.
Not him. Not Pig.
Fortunately, his baby daughter was quite the distraction from his self-destructive ways. Mollie appeared to be thriving. She was chubby and energetic, and a keen eater. Still, Kyle worried. He spent many minutes staring at her, looking for any cracks in her seemingly perfect health. Once a week, he took her into see Doctor Jackson Waller, who reassured him the baby was not only healthy but thriving. The price for these visits? Major ribbing from Jackson and the other Dogs. They’d started calling him Helicopter, which was not as funny as he would have once thought.
One night in early November, Kyle put the baby down in her crib when his phone buzzed with a text from Mel.
I have food poisoning. Can’t make it tonight.
The long night stretched before him. No Mel meant no sleep for him.
“What is it?” Violet asked as she came into the living room. She’d changed from jeans and a sweater into leggings and a t-shirt. He pulled his gaze from her thighs. Get your mind out of the gutter.
“Mel has food poisoning,” he said.
An expression of irritation crossed her features. “Right. The old food poisoning excuse.”
“It could be true,” he said.
“She’s twenty-two years old. I’ll bet money someone sees her dancing at The Oar later.”
“If that’s tru
e, I’ll fire her.”
“Anyway, we’ll take shifts,” she said. “Mollie’s only waking up at one a.m. and four a.m. We can both take one feeding.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“I wake up every time I hear Mollie cry. It’s a mom thing.”
“The mysterious world of women,” he said.
They were interrupted by room service bringing their dinner.
Violet was quiet as they ate, obviously preoccupied.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah. I heard my parents are back in town. They haven’t called.”
“Screw them.”
She smiled and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “I wish Dakota had family besides me. That’s all.”
“And the rejection hurts.”
“That too.”
He reached across the table and placed his fingers lightly on her forearm. “It’s their loss.”
“When I told them I was pregnant, he called me a whore and said that was the last time he ever wanted to see me.”
“Would you say your life is better or worse without them in it?” he asked.
“Better, I suppose. Even though my dad’s voice still echoes in my head.”
“I’m not really in the position to give advice about anything emotional, but it seems to me that good riddance might be the way to describe it.”
They were finished with their meals by then. He went to the bar and pulled out a bottle of red wine. “If you’re taking a night shift, then the least I can do is pour you a nice glass of wine.”
She grinned. “I accept.” Sighing with obvious pleasure, she folded into her usual position on the couch. She was like a pretzel the way she could bend those legs into every position. This morning he had caught her doing her morning yoga routine. Downward Dog would stick with him for a long while.
He opened the bottle and poured two glasses. When he turned back to look at her, Violet was twisting her hair into a bun on top of her head.
Don’t put it up. He loved it when her hair cascaded around her shoulders. It was all he could do not to wrap his hands in the strands and kiss his way up her long neck until he reached her mouth.
“What?” she asked.
He jumped. “Nothing.”
“You were staring at me.”
“I was?”
“You were,” she said.
Their gazes remained locked for a second too long.
“It’s your hair,” he said, finally. “I love when you wear it down. That’s what I was thinking about.”
She flushed and smoothed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, well, thanks. I thought maybe I had kale in my teeth.”
He crossed the room and handed her a glass of wine and fell into his end of the couch with his.
“No kale.”
“Other than you,” she said.
He laughed. “It’s going to break my heart when he can say my name right,” he said.
She didn’t smile. Strange. She always smiled when they talked about Dakota.
He’d obviously made her feel uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird.” Why had he said it? Just confirming what she already thinks about me. She continued to watch him with a wary look in her eyes. “We’re living so closely together. It’s impossible not to notice every little thing about you.”
“Like whether my hair is up or down?”
He nodded. “That and other things.” He noticed it all. When she changed clothes; what she looked like in the morning with her face puffy from sleep; the way her honey hair shone in the patch of sun by the window yesterday when he came home from work; the expression on her face when she held Mollie. He cataloged it all, like a scrapbook in his mind.
“What else?” She gazed at him with her clear brown eyes.
He drank from his glass, biding time so he could think how to answer. A quip to make her laugh and deter from this line of questioning? But no, the truth came out of his stupid mouth. “You glow.”
“Glow?”
“Your skin, hair, personality. You’re the epitome of vitality. It must be all that yoga.” He was almost dizzy. The wine had gone to his head. Or was it the woman sitting across from him?
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I haven’t had a compliment like that for a long time. Maybe ever.”
“Even from a guy you can’t stand?” He winked and grinned to lighten the mood. So much for a relaxing evening. Good job, dummy.
Still no smile. She moistened her lip with the tip of her tongue. “I can stand you.”
“I’m tolerable,” he said.
“More than tolerable. I’ve enjoyed these past few weeks a little too much.”
He turned from her to look out at the view. Mist hovered outside the window, blocking the lights of town. “I look forward to coming home to you guys more than I should.” Why had he said it? So stupid.
She downed the rest of her wine. Her eyes glittered in the dim room, somewhere between trapped and wild. “I get it now—why women fall at your feet.”
“You do?”
“You’re not as loathsome as I once thought.”
He grinned and cocked his head to the side. “How nice of you to notice.”
“But you’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“As in, I’m lonely.”
He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. All he had to do was grab her into his arms and haul her into the bedroom. He could make her forget everything but the moment. No, he couldn’t do it to her. Not to Violet.
“You can do so much better.” He smiled to take the edge from his tone. His dry lips stretched painfully against his teeth. What did she see when she stared at him that way? Could she see through it all to the essence of his soul?
“Sometimes when I look at you, I can see the little boy you must have been.” She held her wine glass with one hand wrapped around its foot. Precarious. It might fall from her grasp and smash into a thousand pieces on the marble floor.
“You wouldn’t recognize me,” he said.
“Your eyes. They’d be the same.”
He studied his glass. “Pig.” The word bounced to the tune of the country song playing softly in the background. Pig. Pig. Pig.
“What did you say?”
He thought about getting up and leaving the room. There was no need to hash out his pathetic past. Not even with Violet.
“That’s what the kids in school called me. Pig.”
Her mouth dropped open in obvious horror. “Kids can be so mean.”
“Our trailer was on a little piece of land next to the Keller’s pig farm. The stench from the animals could be smelled from the road. My bus stop was at the end of their driveway, so when I got on the bus the first day of school, everyone assumed I lived there.”
“Because of that they called you Pig? That’s awful.” Violet’s eyes snapped with anger.
“It wasn’t because of that. I smelled.” The words caught in the back of his throat. He ground his teeth together, waiting until he could gather himself enough to tell her the rest. “More often than not, our utilities were turned off because my dad hadn’t paid the bills. No hot water. No washing machine. Dirty clothes and dirty bodies smell.” The bitterness of those days filled his mouth with the stench that had once lived on his body. No amount of money could wash the shame of those times. “We wore our dirty clothes over and over. Baths were once a week, at best. We perpetually had lice.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He picked at a bit of rough skin on his thumb. “It was a long time ago.”
“I had lice once. It happens to everyone. My mother was mortified.”
“My mother left us when I was ten. Got into the car with some guy she’d met and took off.”
“Just left? And never came back?”
“That’s why…with Mollie…I have to do this right.”
“You are.” Her gentle tone should soothe him, but an image of t
he yard in front of their trailer flashed before his eyes. Several abandoned toilets, a decaying truck, and trash piled high and wide had made it look like the local dump.
“You’ve probably never known people like us.” Kyle described his yard and their trailer. He almost flinched as he watched her expression change from concern to comprehension. Like putting a puzzle together. The story of Kyle. Would she be disgusted by his story? By him?
“After you left home, you focused on never being that boy again.” Not a question, but a statement.
“That’s right.”
“You went to USC on a scholarship?” she asked. “And the rest was history, as they say.”
“There was a counselor at the high school who encouraged me. She paid the fee to apply out of her own pocket. Between financial aid and scholarships, I had a full ride.” He ran his hand through his hair and breathed in the scent of the wine. The scent of wealth. He had wealth now. No one could ever call him Pig again. Why then, did he still feel like that little boy who walked onto the bus that first day?
You stink.
“And you found the Dogs there,” she said.
“That’s right. We were in the same dorm suite and became tight friends almost immediately. Can you imagine a more mismatched pair?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I weighed a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. My clothes were hardly better than rags. I couldn’t look a woman in the eye.”
Her gaze swept over his large, muscular frame. “Really? That doesn’t seem possible.”
“The Dogs helped change all that. Brody took me to the gym with him. Taught me how to bulk up. He must have told his parents I didn’t have much money for eating because suddenly he had twice as much money on his food card. Zane taught me manners and how to charm women. I watched Jackson to learn how to listen to people. That’s been the number one secret to my business success, actually.” His voice had thickened, remembering those first months of burgeoning friendship with Brody, Jackson, and Zane. “I never thought I’d have friends like them.”
“You’ve left Pig behind.” She gestured around the room. “Look at what you’ve done.”
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