by Claire Adams
“No. It’s not the ‘50s. I can handle a kid as a single mother.”
“Yeah. Not saying that, but I was wondering who the dad is.”
A faint frown appeared on her face. “It’s not important. He’s not in the picture.” Her eyes narrowed. “He made his choice, so it’s better for everyone that he’s not in the picture.”
Was she talking about me? It was hard for me to think otherwise when she was looking right at me, but it’s not like there was anyone else there.
“Oh, okay. Just wanted to know.” I shrugged. If I was too afraid to ask her, I couldn’t get pissed if she didn’t tell me.
Aspyn glanced down at her watch. “Look, are we done here? I stopped by. We talked, and I get it, but I have to get changed before church.”
“Yeah, I guess we’re done. I’ve said what I wanted to say.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Alex. I don’t want to run you out of town or anything, but it’s gonna take me time to get used to you being back.”
I gave her a shallow nod. “Fair enough.”
She dropped a few bills for her coffee and stood. Without even a wave, she walked out of the restaurant. I watched her, lost in thought.
Aspyn hadn’t given me a name. Livingston wasn’t a big place, and it wasn’t like Aspyn hung out with a bunch of different people. If I’d known the guy, it seemed like she would have told me his name.
Unless it was me. I didn’t have to be some cop to think she was acting strangely. The minute I brought up her kid, she suddenly had to go.
She was hiding something. At least the dad’s name. It’s not like I had a right to know if it wasn’t me, but this talk had made things worse.
Chapter 13
Aspyn
“As always, we have coffee in the lobby,” our pastor said. “But I must apologize. There was a little mix-up, so no donuts today, but I can assure you, we will have donuts next Sunday.”
A few chuckles broke out along with a few grumbles. I wondered if a few people were only showing up to church for free donuts. Whatever it took to get them in the pews, I supposed. The noise focused me back on the present instead of the thoughts I’d been lost in for the last couple of hours.
I’d spent the entire church service not thinking about the sermon but thinking about the stupid man who’d just come back into town. Alex Kline.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? I’d hoped meeting with him would at least let me relax a little, but if anything, it’d made things worse.
I rubbed my hands together nervously and rose from my pew. Because I had to run home and change my clothes, I’d come in late, so I hadn’t been able to sit next to Mama.
Kadie hopped to the floor, taking my hand. She’d always been such a good girl in church, even when she was a baby. Sure, she’d made a minor commotion when I entered, rising and heading back to sit with me, but that was more my fault for being late and having Mama go ahead to the service with her.
“No donuts, Mama?” Kadie said.
“Sorry, sweetie,” I said. “No donuts. Maybe next week.”
She nodded and grinned. “I need to go potty.”
“Okay, sweetie. Let’s go.”
After I’d taken her to do her business, we made our way back through the lingering crowds to the lobby.
Mama was there sipping on some coffee. I probably didn’t need more coffee, given how shot my nerves were, but I poured myself a cup and took a sip of the hot brew. Maybe we didn’t have any donuts, but the coffee was still good.
She looked over at me. “Are you okay, honey?” Must have been the expression on my face. She glanced around and then leaned in to whisper. “I get that it was a long sermon, but no pastor can get up there every Sunday and always deliver an interesting sermon.” She shrugged and shot a sad look toward our pastor across the room. “He does try though, bless his heart.”
“No, no,” I said, waving a hand. “It was great.” At least I hoped. “Just a lot on my mind. I was having some trouble concentrating on the sermon.”
“Uh-huh.” My mama leveled a gaze at me. “A lot on your mind, huh? I think you mean Alex Kline’s on your mind.” She clucked her tongue.
She always had been able to see right through me.
I winced and then spotted Perri across the room. “Mama, can you watch Kadie for a second?”
“Sure, honey. Take all the time you need.”
Kadie smiled at her nana and took her hand. I gulped down more coffee and walked toward my friend, hoping she’d be able to say something that would make me feel better about the whole situation.
I’d hoped the meeting with Alex would make everything easier by killing all the annoying feelings that had been distracting me, but instead, every muscle in my body was tense. The whole thing had ended up even more painful than I’d thought it would be, even though I’d planned everything I wanted to say Saturday night. Fat lot of good it had done me.
I didn’t even know if I’d really gotten my message to Alex across, but I was beginning to realize, maybe because I was in church, that it might not even be the most important thing.
I sighed. Maybe he took the hint not to ask about Kadie anymore, but the problem was that I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Might have helped if I’d paid attention in church today. Then again, maybe the sermon wasn’t even related.
I searched my memory, trying to remember what the pastor had spoken about. I remembered him mentioning something about stadiums and then something about 2 Corinthians. That didn’t really narrow it down.
Not that I needed a sermon to feel guilty for what I’d done.
A single question had haunted me before, but since meeting with Alex that morning, it’d become an obsession. Was I right to keep Alex from his own kid?
Years ago, when I’d first made the decision, it’d made sense. I thought he was a selfish playboy, and I thought that’d meant he’d be a bad father, but I hadn’t known about the accident. He hadn’t purposefully abandoned me. He’d made that clear.
I furrowed my brow. No. That wasn’t all true. He hadn’t purposefully ghosted me at first. And it wasn’t like I’d had the baby right away. I could understand him not calling me in the hospital and maybe forgive him for that, but it was hard to understand why he couldn’t have bothered to pick up a phone in the months and years after.
What was his excuse? Oh, yeah, it would have been “weird.” That sounded a lot like he didn’t want to deal with me being upset. If he cared for me, he could have contacted me and tried to make his case, not show up three years and give me some half-assed excuse about it being weird.
My head ached a little. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I sighed. That’s why I needed to talk to Perri. I needed someone on my side to work this through.
My mama was on my side, but she was also older than me and didn’t have the same history with Alex as a friend. This had all started in high school, and so I needed a high school friend to help me think it through.
I closed on Perri. “Hey, can we talk for a sec?”
“Sure.” She took a final sip of her drink. “All done anyway. What did you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to talk in private,” I said quietly. “It’s about some important and private stuff.”
The last thing I wanted was for a church gossip to overhear this. I’d already caused enough stir when I’d had Kadie.
Perri blinked and nodded once, gesturing to a hallway with no one in it. We both tossed our cups into a nearby trash can and headed into the hallway.
“What is it?” Perri said after checking to see if the coast was clear.
“I talked with Alex this morning,” I said softly.
Perri nodded slowly. “Oh?”
“I’ve been running into him, and he kept saying how he wanted to talk to me, so I figured I’d sit down with him and let him say what he wanted to say.” I shrugged.
“And what was that?”
“He talked about the accide
nt and about not meaning to ghost me. But then I talked to him about not calling after that. I think that was fair, right?”
“Asking him why he didn’t call you after you got out of the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
Perri nodded once, a determined look on her face. “Totally fair. So, what did he say?”
“Nothing really. He talked about it being so long that it’d be weird.” I let out a long sigh. “He apologized, I mumbled a bit at him, and then I ran home to get ready for church.”
Perri stared at me for a long while. “What’s on your mind?”
A painting of Jesus on the wall of the hallway caught my eye, and I winced. Of course, he was watching. He always was. “I don’t know if I did the right thing. I feel guilty for hiding such a big secret. I thought it was for the best, but now I don’t know. I think I might have done the wrong thing.”
Perri blew out a breath and nodded. “I hate to say it, but I think Carl was right.”
“Carl?”
“He really was hell-bent.” Perri winced and glanced over at the picture of Jesus. She cleared her throat. “He was the one who said from the beginning that you should tell Alex. I guess honesty really is the best policy.”
“What about all that stuff about him betraying me?”
She shrugged. “You were right before. Carl is the only one who was doing the good Christian thing throughout all of this and saying we should be honest. Alex didn’t call. You kept his kid from him, and Joe and I both helped you.” She pursed her lips. “Just don’t tell him I said any of this. The last thing he needs is to get cockier.”
I groaned as I thought over everything Perri had told me. Honesty. It sounded so simple when she said it, but being honest when you knew it could cause pain was hard. The only question was, whose pain was I worried about: Alex’s or my own?
After all the anguish, all the struggle, the answer was obvious. Painfully obvious, even.
After sparing a quick look around to make sure no one else was there but Jesus, I said, “I have to tell Alex, don’t I?”
“Yeah. I think you should.” Perri gave me a sympathetic look and nodded once. “It’s gonna hurt, but now that he’s back, I think it’s gonna hurt more if you don’t tell him sooner than later. Joe and I were wrong. Carl was right.” She grimaced at the last sentence.
I leaned against the wall, a hand on my face. All my stability gone in a few days.
Things had been good. I had everything handled with my life and daughter. Then Alex had come back and wrecked everything.
No. Perri was right. I wanted to blame him for everything, but we’d both played our parts.
I complained about him not calling me, but I’d gone out of my way to not contact him either. Carl had wanted to tell him and knew how to get ahold of him. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, then Alex would have known way sooner. Maybe, just maybe, we could have salvaged something before all this anger had piled on top of me.
“Thanks, Perri,” I said softly. “For everything.”
I embraced her, and she hugged me and patted my back.
With a final smile, I headed into the lobby to find Mama. “I have to make a call really quickly, and then I’ll be right back.”
My mama nodded, and I strode into the parking lot. A good minute of walking found me a nice corner behind a tree where no one else was around.
It was time to make things right and act instead of reacting. I dialed Alex’s number.
He answered on the first ring.
“I want to talk to you again,” I said.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “You got me. So talk.”
“No, not over the phone. This is important. I want to talk to you face-to-face.”
The beats of silence ticked by. “Maybe later tonight?”
“No, I have to do things with Mama and Kadie. How about Monday? I go to lunch at noon. We can chat in the conference room at town hall. No one has it reserved.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then.”
I hung up.
“Lord, give me strength,” I whispered. It was already past noon, so in less than 24 hours, I would finally tell him the truth.
I wasn’t sure if he knew or not. Sometimes, I suspected he did, but he hadn’t pushed as much as someone who thought he had a kid would.
No. The more I thought about it, the less I thought Carl had told him. The guy had his faults, but he never went back on his word. At least, I hoped.
I sighed. I was the one who had put him in the awkward position of having to keep something from another friend.
It didn’t matter. The secret would be out soon enough. Now it was a question of what would happen after that.
Chapter 14
Alex
As I drove toward town hall Monday, I realized I was going to need my own truck soon. It was one thing to live in the cabin and get work from Carl but another to be taking his truck all the time. I had the money. Just because I wanted to stay at his ranch didn’t mean I needed to be a total bum.
My gaze drifted to a brown sack sitting in the passenger’s seat. Nothing fancy. Just some coffee and a snack from the coffee shop.
When I thought about it, I realized it was kind of dumb to bring coffee to someone who worked in an office. But at least the muffin and apple would be a nice little meal. Or so I hoped.
Shit. I wasn’t sure. She’d told me to stop over at lunch, but I didn’t know what that really meant. I couldn’t even guess what she wanted to talk about. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like it’d be all that fun from her tone on the phone.
Maybe she wanted to tell me to get the hell out of town and never come back, that she hated me and wanted to spit in my face for avoiding her.
I didn’t know what else I could say. I’d gotten everything out Sunday morning, and she’d made her feelings clear. I hadn’t expected much more but knew it could be much worse.
But now I was getting more. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but it was hard not to. She’d had time to think over everything I told her. I’d been honest about my screw-ups.
Isn’t that what women wanted? Honesty? A willingness to change, and all that crap?
I pulled Carl’s truck into the parking lot of town hall. Aspyn’s car was parked there, the car seat obvious in the back. That at least meant she hadn’t run off to avoid meeting me. The idea that she might have occurred to me more than once.
I opened the door and stepped out of the truck. My heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t really say what I was feeling, some mix of fear and hope. Whatever was about to happen, it was probably going to be big.
As I walked toward the front door to town hall, I glanced at her car again. I thought over the whole idea of her running away. I had no right to think she would be the one to run away. I was the one who’d run away, from town, my pain, from her.
She’d stayed. She’d tried to call me. I’d never called back, even if I had my reasons. Or excuses, whatever someone wanted to call them.
I opened the door and stepped inside, my heart sinking. Perri was there chatting with Joe, but no Aspyn.
Perri looked over at me and gave me a guarded smile. Did she know what was going on? Joe gave me a friendly nod.
“Is Aspyn not here?” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“She’s in the ladies’ room,” Perri said. “She said for you to go to the conference room when you showed up.” She gestured.
I offered them both a nod and headed to the conference room. I sat in a nicely cushioned rolling chair at the huge brown table dominating the room. After placing the bag right in front of me, I placed my hands on the table.
About a minute later, the door opened, and Aspyn had stepped in. Her hair was up, and she was in a dark, thigh-length skirt and a cream blouse. Beautiful as always.
Her purse hung over her shoulder. Maybe she planned for us to go out after all?
My gaze dropped to my hands. Dirt
and dust covered them. Just like it did the rest of my clothes and shoes. I’d been a lot dirtier in my life and didn’t mind, but it was hard not to think about Aspyn’s look. So clean, perfect, professional.
I lowered my hands under the table to grip the armrests tightly. Damn it. She looked hot as hell in her jeans and a T-shirt, but in her work look, she was even hotter. Maybe I was crazy, but the light makeup and outfit worked perfectly to scream that she was a beautiful woman.
One I’d made sweet love to. One I still wanted, body and soul.
I swallowed. No. I couldn’t think that way, no matter how much I wanted to cross the table and kiss her.
What the hell was even going on? I was supposed to making my peace with the idea she might not ever be my friend again, and now suddenly I wondered what it’d be like to close the door, bend her over the table, and fuck her right there in the conference room like some sort of office porno.
My cock hardened at the thought, and I grunted. I needed to concentrate on earning the woman’s trust back. Obviously, she wasn’t ready to push me away entirely because she’d called me, but I could screw that up if I couldn’t concentrate.
Aspyn sat across the table and folded her hands in front of her. She took a deep breath. She looked like she was going to say something, but then stopped and glanced at the bag.
“What’s with the bag?”
I pushed it toward her. “A muffin, an apple, and some coffee. I wasn’t sure if we’d be going somewhere.”
Aspyn opened the bag. A soft smile appeared on her face. “That’s thoughtful.” She chuckled. “You know, I hadn’t even thought about that. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Her smile filled me true warmth, and not just the lust that my lower half kept obsessing over.
Then her smile slid away, and my stomach tightened. Maybe she’d called me over to let me have it again.
I didn’t care. Every time I saw her again or spoke to her, I remembered not just three years ago, but all those years of longing, wanting.
Friendship wasn’t enough. I craved more. And I was about to find out if that was even a possibility.