by Dana Mason
“She crushed me.” He shook his head, grief clear in his eyes. “I was ready to start a family, excited even. We’re grownups, you know. Not like we were teenagers trying to be parents, but she only cared about herself.”
“That’s funny,” Ali said, her heart sinking at the irony.
“Funny ain’t the word I’d use.”
“Oh—no, I meant funny ironic.” She frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Why ironic?”
“When I got pregnant with Micah, Carl insisted I have an abortion.”
Johnny’s blood turned cold. He looked down at Micah and Micah’s interested face made him smile. “Pretend you didn’t hear that, little man,” he said making Ali laugh.
Micah grinned too and Ali said, “I can’t believe how happy he is with you.”
“I can’t believe what an ass Carl is. How could he not want to be a part of this little guy’s life.”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not even sure why we got married.” She bobbed her head from side to side, her eyes darting to the ceiling. “Well…actually I do. My mother pressured us. We both finally agreed to shut her up.”
“That is a pretty dumb reason to get married.”
“I know, story of my life.” Ali rolled her eyes. “My mother went on and on about how I cheated on Mark and the only right thing to do was to marry the man who I destroyed my marriage with. You know—to save face. She put such a heavy guilt trip on Carl, told him it was his fault, insisted Carl marry me since he caused my divorce.” Ali pushed the food around on her plate looking like she’d lost her appetite.
“How did you end up married to two completely different men?” Johnny asked.
“The truth is…I was pressured into marrying Mark too.”
Johnny narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t ready, but Mark somehow convinced me.” A faint smile crossed her face. “And my mother loved him. They ganged up on me.”
“You must have loved Mark though, you were married for a long time.”
“Yes, of course I did, and I’m not comparing him to Carl. Mark and I were best friends before we became a couple. I felt closer to him than my own sister…but I never felt…” Ali had a dreamy expression on her face. She pressed her hand to her chest with splayed fingers, but then her face relaxed and she blew out a long breath, frowning. “Forget it…”
He tried to picture her with Mark but couldn’t. They didn’t fit. Mark seemed made for Sarah. “You mean you didn’t have with Mark what he has with Sarah now.” Johnny thought he understood.
“Exactly. I loved him but not that ‘I’d die without you’ type of love.” She frowned again, her lids drooping. “I didn’t realize what was missing until I was with another man.”
“…fell in love with another man?”
“No, I mean, slept with another man. Mark was my first. When I slept with Carl everything hit home for me. Not because Carl is this spectacular lover, but…I realized that if I were truly in love with Mark, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep with another man. No matter how hard he tried to seduce me.”
“And the way Mark and Sarah fit together…seems you were right.”
“Yes, but Mark was still very hurt.” Ali closed her eyes and chuckled. “Sorry…it’s not funny, but I think about how hurt Mark was when we broke up, and compare it to how relieved Carl was when I threw him out of the house. I have to either laugh at it or cry about it.”
“Apparently you didn’t have that one-of-a-kind of love with Carl either.”
“No, clearly I didn’t.” She looked down. “I shouldn’t have let my mother get involved in my personal life. I shouldn’t have married Carl. What was I thinking getting involved—much less married so soon after my divorce?”
“Is that why you don’t want to see me?” he asked.
Ali nodded. “I need to get my life in order, Johnny…focus on my kids. Get my career back on track. When I got pregnant, I left the firm in San Francisco not knowing I wouldn’t have Carl here to financially support me. Fortunately the DA offered me a job in his office.”
“Bullshit, Ali. You can date and work.”
“I need to focus on my priorities, not my sex life.”
“And what about finding your great love?” Johnny looked away, hoping she wouldn’t see the hurt in his eyes.
“Ha—no. I’m two marriages and two kids past finding that now.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
She drew back. “Excuse me?”
“You’re only thirty-three years old. Life is just getting started.” Their eyes met this time and he couldn’t hide his annoyance. “You shouldn’t waste your time feeling sorry for yourself.”
Johnny cradled Micah who was getting fussy, and thought it might’ve been because he was projecting his feelings onto the baby. Ali reached out, but Johnny shook her off. “I got him. Does he need a bottle?” She nodded and got up to prepare it for him.
“I’m not being stupid,” Ali said. “I’m being smarter.”
“And what happens when this person comes around and you miss him because you’re ‘being smarter’?”
“There is nothing—and no one to miss. I pretended there was this fairytale life out there. That was my excuse to end my marriage to Mark, a real marriage with real problems, in a real life.”
“That’s crap.”
“Well, Mr. Smarty-Pants, what about your little girlfriend in Nashville? Did she fit into a fairytale?”
“She wasn’t the person I thought she was. I was blinded to her shallow selfishness. I could have gotten past selfish, but she betrayed me and all because she didn’t want to go to school pregnant.”
“Well…I can understand waiting to have a baby. I wanted to wait until I had my law degree before I had Jamie.”
“At thirty? And a semester from finishing her Master’s degree? No. We could have done it.” Johnny took the bottle Ali held out to him and cradled Micah, gently coaxing the bottle into his mouth. “She went behind my back to abort our baby, and then didn’t understand why it pissed me off.” He tried to keep his voice level, but it was damn hard. He scoffed and muttered, “As if second chances are a dime a dozen.”
“Sometimes they are.”
“And sometimes they aren’t,” Johnny said. “Sometimes we never get a second chance.”
“Did you come here to get away from her?”
“No. I came here to start over. I got the call from Brian Hammel…his call changed everything for me.”
Ali drew her eyebrows together. “Why?”
“I was bitter and hateful and mean. I’d planned to live alone for the rest of my life.”
“So how did Brian change that?”
“When Brian told me Sarah’s story, surviving what she’d been through. He lowered his head and said, “If Sarah can get past all that, I can get over what Lisa did to me.”
“Oh…so you’re in love with Sarah.”
“No. It’s more of a brotherly thing now. But, man, her history…and then being attacked…almost raped. She was pregnant and so in love with Mark and still fighting—after all that.”
Ali nodded. “It is an incredible story and it also proves second chances do come sometimes.”
“Nobody controls nature. Sarah is a perfect example of that. She was told she couldn’t get pregnant after having a horrific miscarriage. Now she’s having a baby. Lisa treated the gift of having a child with complete nonchalance. It’s done and can’t be undone. What if she can’t get pregnant again? What if that gift is taken from me? What if I don’t get another chance to have kids—she never considered me in the equation.”
“And Lisa is your ex?”
Johnny nodded and went back to his story. “If Sarah didn’t give up after everyth
ing she’d been through—why should I? Before Brian called, I was doing what you’re doing now, sitting around wallowing in self-pity because life hadn’t turned out how I wanted.” He dropped his head back on his shoulders and took a deep breath. Everything about this conversation pissed him off. He had no intentions of telling her any of this, but he pushed through anyway. “When I went to the wedding…they were so happy.” He shrugged. “I realized I could have what they have too.” His voice softened. “Then I met you again.”
“I’m taking responsibility for my actions, not wallowing in self-pity,” she said.
“How? By telling me you don’t want me?” He couldn’t keep the heat from his voice no matter how hard he tried. “Do you have any feelings for me at all?”
“This isn’t about you or about my feelings for you…I just can’t right now.”
“So your form of taking responsibility is turning me away to punish yourself?”
Chapter Five
Ali lowered her eyes. She didn’t want him to see the truth when he looked at her. Gosh and what would people say if she started seeing Johnny before finalizing her divorce? Regardless of her feelings, she needed to control herself, and not jump into another situation like she did with Carl. She shook her head at that. “It’s not punishment, just cautiousness. I’m doing what I think is best for my family.” She cleared her throat. “Can I ask you a question?”
He nodded dropping his head down to look at Micah.
“Did you know you were moving out here when we were together in Maui?”
“I had lunch with Brian and Julie in Hawaii after you left. I mentioned to him that I was thinking of leaving Nashville. He suggested Santa Rosa.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “My turn.”
Her heart did a little skip and she nodded in agreement.
“How did you feel when you got on that plane in Hawaii to go home?”
Ali propped her elbow on the table and rested her head in her hand. She remembered distinctly how she felt when she boarded her plane. The reminder made her stomach flip-flop. She’d never felt like that in her life. She’d only stayed in Hawaii for a couple of days. Johnny had begged her to stay for a few more, but at two months old, she couldn’t bear leaving Micah for that long. Johnny had another week before going home, but he insisted on taking her to the airport. Said he didn’t want her to go alone.
They’d stayed up all night, even watched the Maui sunrise together. The night reminded her of being a teenager, fighting sleep to stay on the phone with a boy…talking about everything, yet talking about nothing important. Simply being together was enough for them in the moment. It was such a great night. She’d never forget how she felt being there with him. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I answered your question, you answer mine.”
“Honestly.” Her voice lowered and her eyes focused on her plate. “Crazy…exhilarated, and scared, and free, and sad, and special, and miserable, and…loved…all at the same time.” Ali frowned and wanted to cry. She shook it off and stood to clear their plates, almost knocking her chair to the ground in her rush to get up. Their night together had been a wonderful break from her regular everyday troubles and her regular everyday life…but it wasn’t real life, and she couldn’t pretend differently. She was a wreck of a woman, with a new baby and a pending divorce.
“Ali,” he said as she stepped to the sink. “How about when you got home—when you got back to Santa Rosa?”
“Why do you want to know this? It doesn’t change anything.” she said, slamming the plates into the sink.
“Did you feel lost…lonely? Like you had just walked away from something you would never feel again?”
Ali looked up to find him standing right next to her. “How—”
“How did I know?” he asked before she could get her sentence out.
Ali stared at him not sure what to say. “How do you?”
“Because I felt exactly the same way. Watching you fly away killed me.” He leaned his hip on the kitchen counter, cradling the sleeping baby in his left arm. “When I got home to Nashville, I felt sick with it.”
Ali forced herself to focus with him standing so close. He’d trapped her with his mesmerizing blue eyes and thick lashes. His gaze pulled her in, held her there, and wouldn’t let go.
“A week after I got home from Hawaii, I got a call from Brian’s boss and knew what I wanted, where I wanted to be, and who I wanted to be with.”
Johnny reached his hand up and cupped her neck, pulling her closer, staring at her, his breath a whisper on her mouth…and she couldn’t pull away. He kissed her so gently and so tenderly, little electric pulses erupted throughout her body and she worried Johnny might feel it vibrating within her. Thankfully Micah made a space between them, because she didn’t think she could’ve kept her hands off him without a barrier.
As if on cue, Micah stirred in Johnny’s arms. Ali pulled away and the heated expression in Johnny’s eyes must have matched her own. To busy her hands, she reached for Micah.
“No, please don’t,” Johnny whispered, resting Micah’s head on his shoulder. He swayed around the kitchen with Micah and hummed while he bounced him.
A lump formed in her throat. He was the sweetest thing. She could have watched them all day if she hadn’t felt the regret of Micah’s father. How could one wholly unrelated man be so tender and caring with her baby when that baby’s own father ignored him? Unable to hold in her tears she quietly went to find the bathroom.
Ali waited for the moment to pass, her hand pressed to her mouth, urging the heat from his kiss to go away. Several minutes later, when she went back to the kitchen, Johnny’s eyes were still focused on Micah. She wasn’t sure he even noticed her absence.
He’ll be a great father one day. With the realization, she rubbed at the pain in her heart. He wasn’t here for her…she loved that he felt so attached to Micah, but she wouldn’t be with someone only because they loved her son. She rolled her eyes, reminding herself she didn’t want someone at all.
“Are you pursuing me because you want a replacement child?”
“What?” he said, his smile changing to a look of disgust.
She walked around the bar and leaned against the counter, facing him. “Why are you here? I don’t understand.”
“You’re clueless.”
She lifted her brow. “Did you call me clueless?”
Johnny walked toward her with both hands draped around Micah. “Yes, woman, I did.” He leaned in close. “You don’t realize the power you have.” He came closer, pinning her hips with his and leaning in, so close she inhaled and held her breath.
His lips brushed down her jaw line, setting her on fire and forcing her held breath out in a gushing exhale. She braced her hands on the counter, gripping it tightly—holding on to something to keep her hands off him.
He nibbled his way down along the line of her neck. “Maybe it’s this sweet cream skin.” He tucked his nose behind her ear making goose bumps erupt on her skin. “Or maybe it’s these silky strands of gardenia scented hair.” He rested a gentle kiss on her cheekbone. “Or maybe it’s these luscious, full, mouth-watering lips.” He took her mouth hard, leaning in even further, squeezing Micah between their bodies.
He pulled away slowly. “Just maybe,” he whispered to her lips, pulling away slightly to meet her eyes. “Just maybe it’s what I see every time I look into your beautiful golden brown eyes.”
Johnny’s sea-blue eyes were intense, mesmerizing…and locked on hers, holding her there until she could regain her senses. She ducked out from between him and the counter and paced away, fighting for fresh air. She rubbed a hand over her chest to ease her racing heart. No way would she survive in a relationship with him, hell he oozed sensuality…that kiss alone was nearly enough to melt her into a puddle on the floor. When she could hold a cohe
rent thought together, she turned and said, “It’s time for us to go.”
“No, don’t leave.”
Ali nodded. “I think it’s best.”
“I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” She looked at his hands. “And my lips,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“You have to stop, please…” She dropped back into her chair. “I don’t need any more grief in my life right now.”
“How am I causing you grief?” he said. “I’m actually pretty easy to get along with.”
“Not you, everyone else. I’m already considered a slut in this town. I don’t need to add fuel to the fire.”
His eye grew dark. “Who said that?”
“Nobody to my face, but everyone behind my back…it doesn’t matter.”
“I think you’re feeling a little self-conscious?”
“I’m feeling more than a little self-conscious.” She conceded with a half-hearted smile.
“Three guys in thirty-three years make you a slut?”
Ali widened her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I can do math. Good lord, woman. You said Mark was your first. Carl had to be your second. I find it unlikely you cheated more than once.”
Ali felt a little heat in her cheeks. He had easily summed up her life’s experience in so few words.
He ran a finger across her cheek bone. “I am quite happy to be one of the three.”
She leaned away, ignoring the tingling left behind by his touch. “I guess I’ve thrown mystery out the window.”
“True, you do suck at mysterious.” He chuckled, making Micah jump. “Oh, sorry, little guy.” He kissed the top of Micah’s fuzzy head.
Ali helped Johnny unpack the living room. After the sun set, they ate leftover Chinese food together on the couch and continued to talk about the house, their jobs, and her kids. She thought just maybe they could be friends. They’d had a nice evening and she stayed until she was yawning out her sentences.