“You don’t love me anymore because I did the best I could for Jeb?” she asked. Couldn’t he try understanding why she’d done what she’d done? Just a little bit?
“It isn’t just Jeb,” he denied. “It’s all the time you’ve been accusing me of not being able to give up my dream, and implying how selfish that was, you’ve been living yours.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your dream is to always have everything exactly as you want it, so no one can ever hurt you again like you were hurt when you were a kid. You broke off our engagement because compromising was out of the question. You decided I shouldn’t know about Jeb or have a part in his life. You decided that marrying Clay would let you be a mother again. You decided that you would make sure I left town before anyone could get to me about Jeb—and when I didn’t conveniently leave, you decided to marry me and get me out of here—”
“That’s not why I wanted to marry you,” she protested, but it didn’t lessen the hardness of his eyes, the same eyes that had looked at her with such love in the truck not an hour before.
“Okay, maybe you did fall in love with me again. I’ll give you that. But it all comes down to you being just as bad as me when it comes to having what makes you feel secure, Tess. We’re two selfish people, and Jeb was the one who ended up missing out.”
Again, Griff was totally, absolutely correct, and Tessa couldn’t say a word.
The phone rang, startling them both. She wasn’t sure whether it was a welcome interruption or not, or if there was even anything more to be said between them that could be interrupted. Doubting she could talk to anyone at this point without shedding tears, she let the machine pick it up.
It was Clay. His voice was low, and he sounded the way she felt. Horrible. “Damn, I hate leaving messages like this on answering machines. Look, we’re at home…”
With a single look at her, Griff strode over and picked up the phone. He wanted to find out about his son, who was going to become the first priority in his life.
“How is Jeb?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders to try to work the tension out of them.
“Upset. Tell Tessa he wants to talk to her tomorrow.”
Griff did that, then gave his attention back to Clay.
“I’m surprised you’re talking to me,” his brother said slowly.
“It’s not easy,” Griff admitted. “You could have told me back then, Clay.”
Clay took a minute to answer. “No, I couldn’t have. Lindy had just found out she could never have any children of our own when Tessa turned up on our doorstep, pregnant, wanting us to adopt Jeb. I would have done anything to make the woman I loved happy, Griff. Anything.”
That was Clay’s way of pointing out Griff had failed miserably in that aspect. His shoulders tightened right back up.
“Anyway, we can work out whatever has to be worked out tomorrow.” Clay paused. “I was really calling to tell you it might be best if you stayed elsewhere tonight instead of coming back here to sleep. Jeb’s terrified you’re going to take him away from me.”
Hell. Every inch of Griff wanted to slam down the phone, drive over to Clay’s and tell his son how happy and proud he was to be his father. Birth father. But Jeb was afraid of him. He wanted to punch something.
“When can I talk to him?”
“Let me see how he is when he wakes up tomorrow morning.” Again, Clay hesitated. “Are you going to fight for custody, Griff?”
“I’ll let you know.” He supposed that was rude, but he wasn’t in a polite mood. He put the phone down in its cradle and let his hand rest on top of it, as though it was a direct connection to his son. But that was stupid. He had no connection to his son. None. He never had.
“Are you going over there now?” Tessa’s soft voice came from behind him.
Griff shook his head, his back to her. He had no urge to turn and look at Tessa. He was afraid of what he might say. But he needed her to know what her silence had caused.
“Jeb’s scared of me now. Thinks I might try to take him away from his—” he couldn’t say it “—from Clay.”
“I’m so sorry, Griff,” she told him, her voice filled with such grief that his anger at the situation started to ease out of him. He finally got enough control to turn and look at her.
She was miserable, he could tell by the way she was huddled up in her chair, feet under her, her fingers clenching her skirt. Damn it, he still loved her. He did, but the situation was impossible.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, even though some part of him didn’t want to leave her alone. When a tear slid down her cheek, he gritted his jaw. “I have to. If I stay here, I won’t think all of this through clearly, and it’s too important to mess up.”
She nodded. “It is. We both have a lot of things to think over.”
Tessa watched him hesitate as though he was about to add something else, but then he abruptly turned and left, walking through the door and shutting it behind him. She couldn’t cry at his parting, not with her knowing unlike all the rest of the times someone she’d loved had left her…this time she had no one to blame but herself.
Griff went to his parents’ house. They were still up, his father pacing the kitchen and his mother keeping the coffeepot warm. He took a beer instead, hoping alcohol would ease the ache inside of him, but it didn’t. Deep down, he’d known it wouldn’t, and he let the almost full bottle sit in front of him on the table.
He listened to his mom and dad talk about how wonderful Jeb was, and what a good job Clay and Lindy had done raising him, and he bit back his own thoughts. It wasn’t until his mother put her warm hand on his shoulder and told him she was sorry things had worked out this way for him that he even moved, and then only to swig his beer. He was frozen. For the first time in his life, he honestly did not know what the next step in his life would be.
“Tessa has to love Jeb a whole lot, Griff, to give him up the way she did so that he could have the kind of life she’d only dreamed of.”
“I would have come back and married her.” He gazed down at the brown bottle in front of him, working his lower lip with his teeth.
“Yeah, you would have,” Jacques said from across the table, “because I raised my sons to be honorable. But you would have given up everything you’d worked for, and you and Tessa might have ended up fighting over you having to give up the job you loved, and probably over money, too, and the two of you would have been miserable, the way your mom and I were miserable until we finally figured out how to work out our money problems. Did you really want that kind of childhood for Jeb?”
Griff gave his father a long look. He had a point. Not only about how miserable he might have been staying here, but also, had he quit the Academy and come home when Tessa had Jeb, he would have had to serve at least two years active duty as an enlisted airman. He knew some airmen now with families who were struggling with money. “That’s what you two were always fighting about, money?”
His parents nodded simultaneously.
Griff thought back. He’d remembered one time when he’d been little, in the local grocery, when he and Clay had taken ice-cream bars, opened them and eaten half, and his mother had found them and blushed bright red when she didn’t have the whole dollar plus change to give the owner of the store. The man had understood and let her pay it later, and his mother had hustled them home, then sat down on the chair outside of the kitchen and cried with frustration. And Tessa had told him of a couple of the times when she’d been a kid that her family had skipped out of a house in the middle of the night because there was no money to pay the rent. He’d known she’d had it hard, but remembering his mother’s pain that day made her childhood pain and worry really hit home. He never wanted his child, or a wife, to have to go through something like that—and neither had Tessa. So she’d given Jeb to the two people she knew who weren’t struggling, who would love him with all their hearts, and who had promised to live close enough by that she could alwa
ys be a part of Jeb’s life.
He lifted the bottle. “So I understand why she did what she did. That still doesn’t give me any answers about what to do about Jeb.”
“Oh, in your heart, I think you already know what to do about Jeb,” his mother told him, carrying her cold coffee to the sink. “The question is probably more like what you’re going to do about Tessa.”
And, Griff thought, getting up to drain his beer and throw the bottle into the trash, it was a damned good one.
Chapter Ten
As Griff parked his truck in front of his brother’s home the next morning, Tessa was already there, getting out of her car. At the sight of her, deep regret that things had turned out the way they had filled him. But regret was the only reaction to her he was currently allowing himself. If he acknowledged any feelings beyond that, he wouldn’t be able to handle what he’d planned.
She stopped midstride, her eyes widening as she gazed at him. She lifted her hands and interlaced her fingers tightly, as though she might be praying—Griff wasn’t sure.
“Does Clay know you’re coming?” she asked. Her soft, shaky voice and apologetic eyes went into the deep parts of his heart and tugged at his emotions. He steeled himself so he wouldn’t bend. But good Lord above, he loved her—and always would.
“No, he doesn’t. But I won’t be here that long, so I don’t think he’ll protest.”
It ought to have been the cue for Tessa to start up the steps, but she didn’t. She stayed where she was, her gaze going back and forth between the house and him.
“You can go inside, Tess,” he said, gentling his voice. “I’m not fixin’ to yell and scream in there. I wouldn’t do that to Jeb.” Or to her, he added silently.
She shook her head in denial. “I never thought you would. It’s not that.”
His trouble was, Griff thought, that no matter what had happened concerning their son, he still cared too much about her. He ought to pass by her, go in himself, get the meeting with his brother and Jeb over with, and leave. But he couldn’t, not with Tessa standing there like a doe in headlights.
“What’s keeping you from going in?” he asked.
She swallowed, wet her lips and took a deep breath. “I’m a little shook up. The last time I faced Jeb as his mother, he was a newborn. I held him in my arms at the hospital and told him why I was giving him to Clay and Lindy. That it would be the best thing for all of us. And now I’m about to face him again, and tell him I think I made a bad mistake, and that everything he’s going through now is my fault, and how sorry I am—” Her voice broke.
“Don’t do that,” Griff heard himself saying gruffly. “Don’t tell Jeb you made a bad mistake. You didn’t.” Walking to her, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her against him. It felt so good he didn’t want to part from her, but he knew he had to. His son was his first priority, he repeated silently.
Stepping back, he indicated the front door with a nod of his head. “C’mon. I want you to hear what I have to say to Jeb.”
Clay answered the door. Griff thought he didn’t look happy to see him, but it didn’t matter. Jeb was Griff’s blood, and Clay seemed to realize that, because he let him in without a protest.
“Just keep a distance unless Jeb initiates otherwise,” was all he said.
That seemed fair. Clay led him into the living room, where the child was on the couch, watching cartoons, and Griff could sense Tessa following behind him, but hanging back, watching. He barely kept himself from glancing back at her, not knowing if she would encourage or discourage him, and not wanting it to be the latter.
“Hey, Jeb,” Griff said. He hated the way Jeb gazed up at him, his dark eyes full of suspicion. He should have given anything to avoid that ever happening, but he hadn’t, so he stood there and kept his distance while he drank in the sight of his son.
Getting up, Jeb walked over to Clay and slipped underneath the protection of his arm. Clay’s hand curled around Jeb’s shoulders in a gesture as natural as time.
“He’s my dad,” Jeb said, pointing up at Clay.
That hurt. Bad. And that made him even more determined to finish what he’d come to do. Griff dropped onto the nearby easy chair.
“I know, Jeb. Clay is your father.” He paused for a second, watching Jeb’s expression change, ever so slightly, to one of relief. Good. “I just came to tell you that I’m sorry for what happened in the past, but you can be certain I would never take you away from your dad. So please don’t worry. In fact, I don’t want you to be afraid of that, so I’m still heading back into flying for the Air Force, probably overseas if I can get it. I won’t be around much for a few years, and everything’s going back to normal for you starting today—” he took a deep breath “—except that Tessa will be staying here to be your mom. Please do that for me, at least—let her. She wants to be your mom so bad.”
Jeb looked over to Tessa, then back to Griff, but didn’t respond to Griff’s plea. “Do I call you Uncle Griff, like before?”
“You call me whatever you want, Jeb.” He could do that much for his son; he’d do anything for him, including letting him have the father he knew and loved, even if it tore him up inside. “I love you and your mom, Jeb, and I always will. Please remember that.”
Jeb nodded solemnly. That said, Griff looked up at Clay. “I’ll get my stuff out of my room, and then I’ll be going to Mom and Dad’s to say goodbye and leaving from there.” Without waiting for an assent, he headed down the hall.
Clay followed, filling the doorway as Griff finished packing the last couple of items he hadn’t already packed the day before in preparation for his honeymoon. Griff zipped up his suitcase and straightened, waiting for Clay to speak.
“Thank you, Griff.”
Clay’s words were so heartfelt, Griff couldn’t be angry with him for keeping Jeb a secret. He understood. “I would have rather this worked out differently, but since it didn’t, I’m glad you’re here for him. Just keep taking as good care of him as you have been, y’hear?”
“Of course.”
Griff could have sworn Clay had tears in his eyes. But his brother had never cried, not in all the years he’d been around him, so he doubted he would now. Good thing, because if he had broken down, Griff would have cried right along with him.
Damn, but he had to get out of here. It would be easier hundreds of miles away for a while, with an ocean between himself and the two people he loved most in the world—Tessa and Jeb. It had to be easier, because he didn’t know what would happen to him if it wasn’t. Striding out of the room with his suitcase, he didn’t look back.
The sound of the front door shutting went right through Tessa, and she winced. Griff was leaving her behind, and she really wanted to go, but her heart and her mind were both telling her not to leave her baby.
Sitting down on the sofa, she reached out her arms for Jeb, praying that he wouldn’t run from the room, too. He considered her for a minute with a sad face, then launched himself into her lap. His arms reached around her neck and he held her fiercely, much as she’d seen him hug Lindy before she died. Tessa’s eyes clouded up.
“Why didn’t you keep me?” Jeb asked against her neck.
The lump of emotion in her throat made it difficult to talk. “I knew I could not give you both a mom and a dad, and I wanted you to have the wonderful childhood I never had. I knew Clay and your mom could give that to you. I gave you up because I loved you so much, Jeb, that I couldn’t make any other choice. But please, please don’t ever blame Griff for this. He never knew anything about you, and that was my fault.”
Jeb pulled back and his eyes regarded her solemnly. “Is this one of those things I’ll understand when I get bigger?”
She found herself half smiling, half crying, as she tried not to laugh. “I hope you will, but don’t worry if you don’t. Even adults don’t always understand things sometimes. All you really have to know now is that we all love you so much it hurts.”
“Is that why you’re cr
ying?”
This time she did laugh. “I’m crying because I always wanted you to have a father and a mother, and I’m sad that you don’t. But I’m going to stay here in Claiborne Landing instead of marrying Griff and going with him so that I can be your mother. Is that okay?”
“Depends.” Jeb climbed off her lap and sat down beside her. “Are you fixin’ to marry my dad again?”
He meant Clay. “Oh, no, honey. After all that’s happened, I think that would be a bad idea. I’m just hoping to be there for you whenever you need a mom, like at school stuff you do, maybe keep you with me sometimes during the week, and generally take care of you as much as I can.” She ought to have talked that over with Clay first, but she didn’t think he would mind. She just knew she couldn’t have a pretend marriage, to anyone. She loved Griff too much. “What do you think?”
He was quiet for so long her heart began to pick up its beat. She rested her fingers against her chest, trying to calm herself down. Jeb didn’t want her. Good Lord, her own baby didn’t want her. Her heart twisted.
“Jeb?” she whispered.
“It’s okay if you stay. But maybe you should go with Uncle Griff.”
She blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Why?”
“Uncle Griff doesn’t have anybody to love him. He needs you.”
That was so true. That was so horribly, miserably true. Griff would be totally alone, probably wary to come back here lest he upset Jeb, and that broke her heart. “But Jeb, you need me, too.”
He grinned. “I got my daddy, and he’s got me. It’s okay if you go. I might even come visit you when I get older. Like next year.”
She had to smile back at him at that, but she still wasn’t convinced that it was a good thing for her to go. Jeb was so little. He needed a mother’s love whether he realized it or not. “Yes, visiting Griff would be wonderful. But that would depend on what your dad says.”
“I might find the time to travel in about a half year or so,” Clay said from the doorway, startling Tessa. She looked up and met his eyes, but as usual, his face didn’t reflect whatever he was thinking. She wondered how long he’d been listening. “I could bring Jeb to visit the two of you, if that’s what he wants.”
Kidnapping His Bride (Silhouette Romance) Page 14