by Claire Adams
I finished strapping Kadie into her car seat and then walked around to get in on the driver’s side.
Alex had seen us. There was no way he couldn’t have. I wondered what he thought. Did he know that Kadie was my daughter? Did he see the resemblance to himself?
Maybe I’d get lucky, and he’d think I was married to someone else. I lifted my hand. No ring, though.
I chuckled to myself as I wondered if I should get a fake ring.
How pathetic. I needed to confront him and be honest. The longer I delayed, the more painful it’d be for everyone involved, including Kadie.
I moved my hand to start the car. Someone knocked on my window, and I jumped in my seat, my heart pounding.
“Good Lord!” I said. I blinked and looked out the window.
I cursed under my breath. Alex stood there, an apologetic look on his face. That’s what I got for waiting too long.
Rolling down my window, I took him in. He was in tight blue jeans and a T-shirt. The clothes highlighted those muscles I’d loved feeling three years before, especially that firm ass. My hands twitched to touch it again.
I almost licked my lips, remembering how his mouth tasted that night. Would it be the same, or did he taste different?
How would he feel inside me? Stretching me and pounding me?
What the hell was I even thinking? I squeezed my legs together. My body was a damn traitor. This was not the way I wanted to feel when talking to Alex Kline.
He was too damn handsome. Why did he have to be so handsome?
Once the window was down, he leaned over. “Hey.”
I nodded, not trusting my own voice. I’d thought a little bit about when I was going to confront him, but I always imagined I’d be the one going to him, not the other way around.
“I was wondering if we could maybe catch up,” he said.
“Catch up?” I managed to say, my voice squeaking a little.
“Yeah. There are some things I need to talk to you about.” His mouth twitched slightly.
“Like what?”
His gaze flicked to Kadie. “Just some things. It’s not something we can really go into here.”
“So, uh, what then?” I nodded toward Kadie. “As you can see, I don’t have a free schedule anymore.”
Kadie waved at Alex. “Hey, mister.”
Alex chuckled and waved back. “She’s cute.”
“Thank you,” I managed. My palms were starting to sweat now.
“How about you let me put my number in your phone? You can call me, and we can set up a time to meet that works for you.”
I stared into those gray eyes of his, looking for some sign that he was joking. Another exchange of numbers.
It took all my self-control not to laugh in his face or, for that matter, burst into tears.
Maybe he was making fun of me, reminding me of how he’d played me before. I couldn’t be sure. I just wanted him to go away.
I grabbed my phone and handed it to him. He put in his number and handed it back. I returned it to my purse.
“Okay, I see you’re busy,” he said. “So talk to you later. Bye.” He turned and walked off, his boots clopping against the ground.
“He was nice,” Kadie said. She giggled.
I took several deep breaths.
Warmth pulsed through my center. A memory surfaced of his fingers slamming into me followed by his thick rod.
I groaned. A few minutes of talking with him and that stupid night years before was flashing before my eyes.
What was wrong with me? Was it just because I’d not slept with any other man since then?
“Get a grip,” I murmured.
“What, Mama?”
“Nothing, sweetie.”
Yes. I needed to get a grip. My daughter deserved better than a woman who couldn’t get over a one-night stand from years before.
“Let’s go home, sweetie.” I started the car.
Chapter 10
Alex
As I headed back to Carl’s ranch in his truck, my mind was racing faster than me down the bumpy country road. How had everything ended up so complicated so quickly? Livingston was supposed to be the place I would find a simpler way to live.
I’d just gone to town hall to pick up a few forms, but Joe had mentioned me coming over to his place for dinner sometime. I mumbled something about giving him a call, but I wasn’t sure. I was still barely comfortable around Carl, and he’d given me a job and a place to live.
The whole thing was kind of weird. I mean, I could tell Joe was trying to be nice, but it was also like he was pissed at me for something. Just something about his face and his body language.
The question was what? Hell if I knew. Lord knew there were a lot of possible reasons for the people I’d left behind in town to be mad at me. Being gone for 13 years except at the reunion? Not talking to anyone but Carl?
It didn’t really matter, and I wasn’t annoyed with the idea Joe might be mad at me. I’d drawn into myself for my own reasons, but to everyone else, it must have seemed selfish.
Maybe he even knew about the one-night stand I’d had with Aspyn and didn’t approve. The more I thought about it, the more likely that seemed.
He was a responsible guy, the mayor of Livingston. A married guy with kids like him probably thought I was one step above a drifter with the way I’d been living my life. I couldn’t even say he was wrong.
It wasn’t like I had an excuse for not talking to anyone. Yeah, my dad died, but I wasn’t a little kid. I should have manned up more and dealt with it, reached out to people, let them know I still gave a damn, both about my life and theirs.
I gritted my teeth as I took a corner harder than I should. For a second, I thought I was going to lose control of the truck.
I just kept fucking things up no matter what I did. Because I couldn’t man up and deal with my problems head-on. That’s why I had to go hide on Carl’s ranch instead of settling down and being happy for five damn minutes.
Happy with someone like Aspyn.
Damn it. I wanted her even more than I had at the reunion. Just seeing her again brought back everything: her laugh, her smile, her taste.
Yeah, including a little lust. My cock stirred at the memory of her moaning as I pounded her. We’d connected that night, body and soul. Ten years of longing smashed into one fantastic night that I’d never be able to forget.
Now the connection was all gone. Thrown away and scattered in the wind.
“Fuck,” I screamed, slamming my hand on the wheel.
It was nobody’s fault but my own, no matter how much I wanted to blame someone else. I knew that. I just didn’t want to accept it.
The harsh truth was I’d been offered a golden chance the night of the reunion. We’d connected. We’d slept together, for crying out loud.
Then I had my accident, and I let it destroy me. My body might have taken a while to heal, but my mind was still healing.
My phone being wrecked was an excuse, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t have reached out to Carl to give Aspyn my new number. Maybe if I’d called her from the hospital and explained things, then she would have understood. Or even after the hospital. Then, maybe, just maybe.
Maybe what? We’d be married, and the kid would be mine instead?
I scoffed. Fat damn chance.
Seeing that little girl had blown past all the calm I thought I’d had. Of course, Aspyn had moved on. A beautiful woman like her had no reason not to move on. What was she supposed to do? Wait around for another 10 years until I strolled back into town?
My hands tightened around the steering wheel until it creaked. I should have been a real man. A real man wouldn’t have pussed out because he’d gotten hurt and didn’t want to look weak in front of his woman. The joke was on me. I’d been a damn coward, and I’d lost my chance.
It was too damn late. I had to give Aspyn up. She had another man and his child now.
That’s what I should have been telling myself, but I c
ouldn’t bring myself to do that.
I couldn’t give her up. Not entirely. It was dumb. I knew that.
We’d been friends as teenagers, and we’d slept together once. It’s not like I had any rights to her, but I also knew there was no way I could stay in Livingston without at least hanging out with her again. At least as a friend.
But now, some other man was in the picture, her husband or at least her baby daddy.
That was going to make being friends with her again hard. If not impossible.
Dark thoughts filled my head. How did I know he was even a good guy? What if he wasn’t treating her well?
And no one told me. I get Joe not bringing it up in the middle of our awkward meeting, but what about Carl? I was living on his ranch, and he didn’t think to give me a little warning about something like Aspyn having a kid.
Maybe Aspyn’s new guy was an ass after all, and Carl worried I’d rush over to his house and pound his face in for not doing something about him.
No. That didn’t make any sense. There was no way Joe, Perri, and Carl wouldn’t have Aspyn’s back if someone asshole was mistreating her. There was something else. Something I wasn’t seeing.
I took a deep breath and then barked out a laugh. The whole reason I’d come back to Livingston was to get my head back on straight. Now, I was more screwed up than before I’d come.
I shook my head. I needed to stop bitching and live with the truth. We all had to live with our choices. Maybe it was too late. I’d just have to suck it up.
* * *
Carl was feeding the pigs with the help of a part-timer when I got back. He’d told me his name, but I honestly couldn’t remember it. I hopped out of the truck and thought about what I wanted to say to my friend.
I didn’t want a fight. I also didn’t know if I should have been more pissed at myself or Carl, but I did want some answers about Aspyn and that little girl. Hell, I didn’t only want answers. I needed some answers if I was going to have any piece of mind.
Carl finished talking with the other man and sauntered my way, a bright smile on his face.
My stomach knotted. I didn’t want to screw up Carl’s happiness just because I wasn’t feeling great.
He already seemed less stressed because I’d showed up and was helping him. I didn’t want to screw up the one friendship I was sure of, but there was no way he didn’t have some info on Aspyn and her kid.
I tossed him his keys. He snatched them out of the air.
“I was worried last week because several of the pigs caught a little virus,” Carl said. “But now they seem a lot better. Guess I’m due a little good luck, so not gonna complain. Even if other things are off.”
“What other things?”
He shrugged. “Perri’s pissed at me.”
“Why?”
Carl blinked a few times and then frowned. “You know how chicks can be, bro, am I right?” He let out a little chuckle. It sounded a little forced.
“Yeah, I guess.” I rubbed the back of my neck, unsure of what else to say. “She’ll come around.”
“Yeah, she always does.” He cleared his throat. “So, did you get everything you needed at town hall?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Joe helped me out, even inviting me to the dinner.”
A surprised look passed over Carl’s face. “Really? Good. I know it’s gonna be weird for the others to get used to you being back, but glad to hear it.”
“I also ran into Aspyn. We talked for a sec, but you know, she had things to do.”
The surprise on Carl’s face turned into something else. Fear. I was sure of it.
“O-oh? Yeah, guess that makes sense,” he said, scrubbing his face. “Both Perri and her work there, after all. I should have thou—I mean, how’s she doing?”
I stared at Carl, narrowing my eyes. He was acting squirrelly. Now I knew something weird was going on.
For a second, I even wondered if the little girl was Carl’s kid, but the idea almost made me laugh out loud once I thought about it. Aspyn had never been into Carl, and he obviously only had eyes for Perri. Plus, it’s not like he’d send his daughter and woman away just to keep me comfortable.
That still didn’t help me figure out what he was hiding. It was time to push on through and get to the truth.
“She was there with her kid,” I said flatly.
Carl paled and swallowed. “Huh. Guess she was working a bit late or something.” He shrugged. “Well, I got some stuff to take care of.” He spun around and hurried off.
“Where you going?” I called to him.
“I told you. I have stuff to take care of,” he yelled over his shoulder.
I gritted my teeth and curled my hands into fists, anger coursing through my veins. I’d not said crap other than to say Aspyn was there with her kid. I didn’t understand why Carl was acting like that.
Storming off toward the cabin, I wondered if returning to Livingston had been a huge mistake after all.
* * *
Lying in bed that night, I couldn’t think about anything other than Carl. Ever since I’d arrived in town, he’d been acting strange, including him starting to say things and then stopping. And the way he turned white at the mention of Aspyn’s kid was beyond weird.
Why would act that way? Just because he was too chickenshit to tell me the woman I’d wanted for a good chunk of my life had moved on because I couldn’t pick up a phone?
No. Carl wasn’t like that. He wasn’t some touchy-feely guy. He was a Tennessee rancher for chrissake, not some top-knot boy from New York.
Something else was there right in front of me, waiting for me to see it. I just wasn’t understanding what it was.
I thought back to the kid. The little girl couldn’t have been much more than 2 years old from what I saw, not that I was an expert on rug rats.
I sat up in bed, my heart racing and palms sweaty. Two years old? Two years plus nine months was almost three years. And if she were just a few months over that, the numbers lined up exactly.
“No,” said. “It couldn’t be. No way.”
The kid didn’t look much like me, but that didn’t mean much because she looked a lot like Aspyn. Plenty of kids ended up looking closer to one parent than the other.
Maybe I was wrong. Aspyn had been on the pill. She wouldn’t lie about something like that.
No. It wouldn’t make sense for her to lie, but the pill wasn’t foolproof.
I ran my hands through my hair and took deep breaths. Crap.
If Aspyn’s daughter was my kid, that might explain why Carl was acting like a nervous little snake. The only thing I didn’t get was why he hadn’t mentioned it to me before. Even if we’d not been talking as much, we’d talked more than once in the last three years. He’d had so many chances to mention it, but he hadn’t.
The more I thought about everything, the less sense it made.
That night three years ago had been amazing: more than amazing. Even three years later, it remained seared into my mind and heart. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was part of what had brought me back to Livingston.
But then the accident had messed me up, and I’d never talked to Aspyn again, half-convinced she wouldn’t want me.
Cowardice? Yeah. Maybe I didn’t want to lose the only thing I’d ever truly wanted, but the numbers didn’t lie.
There was a good chance the little girl was mine.
Chapter 11
Aspyn
I glanced at the time on my computer. Noon. Normally, that was the time we’d hit lunch, but on Fridays, it meant it was time to go home.
Joe had pitched it to us as a way to promote work-life balance, but then he’d turned around and pitched it to the voters as a way to save some money in the town budget. I would have been more pissed, but he took the same cut, so it was hard to say much.
What could I really say? The man loved Livingston, and Joe was right. There was only so much work for us to do in a small town.
I couldn’t compla
in. I made enough to take care of myself and my little girl.
I stretched and rose. “Quitting time.”
Perri grinned and looked over at me. “Heading over to your mama’s place?”
“Yeah. I am.” I frowned at her. “And you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of a free woman for this weekend.”
“What about Carl?”
She shook her head. “That man betrayed you.”
“He didn’t betray me.” I sighed. “Come on, Perri. Make up with Carl. The last thing I want is for everyone to be fighting. That’s not going to make me happy, and he’s a good guy.”
Perri tapped her lip, thinking it over for an uncomfortably long time before letting out a sigh. “Okay, okay. I will, but only because you asked me to. But I’m gonna make it clear that he’s on notice. Sisters before misters.”
We both burst out into laughter.
Joe poked his head out of his office. “I’m going to finish up in a little bit, so don’t worry about locking everything up.”
“You sure, Joe?” I said.
He nodded. “Get going.”
I waved to him and then gave Perri a quick hug before strolling to the front door. I pushed opened the door and headed to my car, my pulse suddenly racing.
Alex had surprised me in the parking lot last time. I glanced around and then up the street. No sign of him. Of course, I had no plan if I did see him other than pretend I didn’t and run to my car.
After a good 20 seconds of Alex patrol, relief settled over me, and I headed to my car. I needed to get over to my mama’s sooner than later.
She ran a daycare center out of her house. As a retired teacher, it was an easy sell to the neighborhood, and she never had a shortage of kids. Mama needed a little bit to help her with her bills. It wasn’t like the local teachers’ pensions were a lot.
She’d gotten the idea when I got pregnant. She’d been looking into something part-time, like a retail job, but the daycare helped her make money and provided a way to help me out.
She’d given me a place I knew my daughter would be safe all day when I went to work. And the truth was, I couldn’t afford daycare otherwise.