Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1)

by Lori Handeland

  She had every right to hate him. He hated himself. The fact that he hadn’t known what a mess he’d left behind didn’t make his leaving any less an act of cowardice.

  Garrett had believed himself incapable of loving her the way she needed to be loved. He’d feared the disillusionment in her eyes when she realized he wasn’t the man she’d hoped for. He’d believed that in leaving he was doing the right thing, the only thing he could do. What he hadn’t realized was that for Livy, leaving was the worst thing.

  “Now you know what it was like for me when you left. I’m not proud of how much I needed you. How completely destroyed I was to lose you.”

  “You sound embarrassed.”

  “I am. I was. I trusted you. Foolishly, and I paid the price. You were a weakness. One I won’t repeat.”

  “Love is a weakness? I’d heard it was strength.”

  She made a derisive sound. “I love Max. He’s my weakness. He’s the only person whose loss would destroy me. I can’t afford to love anyone else the way I loved you. I don’t have the strength anymore.”

  He hadn’t seen this much emotion from Livy since he’d returned. Though she didn’t want him to touch her, he had to.

  Garrett knelt next to her chair. Warily she stared at him; he could almost see her shrinking back against the wood.

  “After what you just told me, I think you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

  She shook her head; her hair tumbled across her cheek. Garrett brushed it away, and when his fingers slid along her skin she shivered. His body shuddered in response, and he gritted his teeth against the shaft of lust that spiked through him. No matter the inappropriateness, the incongruity of wanting her always, he couldn’t help that he did.

  “You protected Max from the world, from himself, from me. You did whatever you had to do for him. I’d thank you, but I have no right.”

  He tucked her hair behind her ear and lowered his hand toward his side. She shifted, most likely uncomfortable on the hard wooden seat, and his fingertips grazed her thigh. The heat of her skin scalded through two layers of cotton.

  He froze. So did she. When their eyes met, he saw his desire mirrored in her. Still, he knew better than to take what had not been offered. Slowly, carefully, he removed his hand. But she caught him before he could escape.

  “Garrett?” she whispered. “Why is it still the way it always was?”

  If it was exactly the same, she’d be calling him J.J. He took an instant to be glad she wasn’t. If she thought him that boy yet, he’d never get past all the mistakes he’d made to become this man.

  “Is it the same?”

  She pressed the palm of his hand to the inside of her thigh. “Isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah” slipped past his lips before he could stop it. At least she smiled, so he didn’t feel too much like an adolescent.

  He wasn’t sure what she wanted; was afraid to go too fast, make a bigger mistake than ever before. But touching her felt too good to stop, so he let the warmth of her skin soothe him, even as the possibilities awakened.

  Staring into her eyes, he was compelled to tell her a little of his heart. “You consumed me then. You consume me now. I can’t think past the memories of you that I can’t even have.”

  She slid forward. His fingers were suddenly full of nightgown, and her knee was bare. He felt like a kid, uncertain where to put his hands, where to look, what to do.

  Looping her arms around his neck, she urged him closer, so that he knelt between her legs; her thighs skimmed his hips and their faces were mere inches apart. “Tell me,” she murmured, and her breath brushed his chin.

  “Huh?”

  She worked her fingers against the length of his hair. “About those memories of me.”

  He closed his eyes, focused on the brain in his head, and not the one farther down that seemed to have a mind of its own right now. “This chair. I see you here with Max. It’s the middle of the night, and you’re rocking him. Then he starts to cry.”

  He opened his eyes and found her staring at him in wonder, so he continued. “You’ve got a gown like this, with buttons down the front, so you open them, but only so far.” Hesitantly, he reached forward and pressed one finger to a point just above her belly.

  The muscles of her stomach jumped, and she made a sound deep in her throat that tugged at him much lower.

  “And you open the gown, then you feed him from your breast.” He lifted his eyes and caught hers. “It’s the most beautiful memory that I don’t have.”

  Her breath came as fast and hard as his own. Holding his gaze, she removed her hands from his neck and pushed aside her robe, then unfastened her gown. Silky white skin appeared between the buttons.

  “To here?”

  He reached out, popped one more button. “More like…here.”

  She opened her arms, inviting him back. Though this time it wasn’t love for her, it was for him, and he could deny her nothing, because he’d denied her everything before.

  *

  Livy wanted Garrett still and she was tired of fighting it. Why should she? She was an adult. So was he. They’d had a child together. Why put off the inevitable?

  Though she’d had a quick, breathy fantasy of tumbling him onto the carpet and having sex right there, he was having none of it. In fact, he took his sweet time kissing her, touching her face, murmuring her name. He was different, yet somehow the same.

  His large, gentle hands along her back soothed, even as his lips enticed. Cool air caressed her skin through the gap in her gown. The same air chilled her knees and the contrast of that chill with the heat of him made her shudder.

  His mouth moved away and she pulled it right back. In the past they’d often “made out” for hours until both of them were so enflamed with the possibilities they couldn’t think straight. Right now, she did not want to think.

  He suckled her lips, played a bit with her tongue. His strong hands warmed her knees, then his thumbs discovered the muscles of her inner thighs. She’d never known how responsive those muscles could be until they leaped and quivered beneath his touch.

  He’d learned new tricks in the years he’d been gone. She could care less where or how; she only cared that he had. His clever fingers shimmied under the lace of her panties, ran along the line of skin where her hip and her leg joined. His thumbs tested the curves of her hipbones, before he somehow divested her of her underwear while she was enjoying what his mouth did to her ear.

  Her robe hung off her arms, and she shrugged it aside impatiently, the movement only making the gap in her gown gape wider. The buttons tugged beneath her breasts, tight, uncomfortable, and she raised her hand to release them, but his were already there. The front opened and his palm skimmed over her. Once, his hands had scraped along her skin and she’d loved the contrast of rough upon soft.

  Now those hands had healed, and while they weren’t soft, they weren’t rough, either. Still, they made her arch, offering more, offering all that she had. When the chair rocked, the softness of her slid against the hardness of him.

  Her gasp became a moan of arousal when he lifted the weight of a breast and closed his mouth over the peak. Gently he rolled her nipple with his tongue as he rocked the chair, rocked them both.

  Desperate for more, she reached for his buckle, but there wasn’t one. His black cotton trousers opened easily, and she touched him now the way she’d touched him then.

  He raised his dark head, and their eyes met. She saw something in his gaze she’d never seen there before, and she hesitated. His lips tilted and he stilled her hand.

  “Wait,” he said, then fumbled about.

  Her body aflame, she wanted to scream, I’ve been waiting nine years.

  But when he produced a condom, sheathed himself, then leaned over and gently kissed her lips, she had to smile, too.

  “Once bitten,” she whispered.

  “Twice shy.”

  This time when she guided him to her, he went with a sigh that sh
ivered over her damp skin. He bent his head, nuzzling her breast, and his hair drifted and tickled along her neck, adding sensation upon sensation.

  They rocked together fast and frantic, then slower, easier, until they both struggled for control—it was too good to end too soon. But at last he suckled once, pushed against her, tight and hard, then went still. The pulse and release, so deep, so strong, caused answering waves in her that seemed to reach all the way back in time.

  Before she’d caught her breath, he rearranged their clothes, lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her gently on top, then followed her down. When the bed creaked, he laughed.

  “What?”

  “I have fond memories of that creak.”

  She was amazed to find herself smiling, when before those memories had only made her want to cry. “Me, too.”

  “Why don’t we make some more?”

  He parted her gown, lowered his head to her quivering belly, placing an openmouthed kiss just below her navel. When he looked up the length of her body, the sight of that familiar face brought a rush of memories and the echo of fierce emotions.

  Perhaps replacing old painful thoughts with new and ardent ones would heal her lingering pain. Maybe to exorcise J.J., she merely needed to work Garrett out of her system. What could it hurt?

  “Why don’t we?” she asked, and tossed her gown to the floor with the rest of her clothes.

  Then she made short work of the rest of his.

  Chapter 14

  Livy awoke alone, and for a moment it was a long-ago summer night and J.J. had just snuck out the back way, then across the yard to his own room. He’d call her soon and they’d talk before they fell asleep.

  Then a cool, autumn-scented breeze through the window brought her back to the present only seconds before Max’s sleepy murmur made her remember what she had just done.

  In the past nine years she’d rarely had sex, and she’d never much liked it. Livy had come to believe the lack was in her, but in the space of a single instant in Garrett’s arms, she’d understood that the lack had merely been of him.

  The knowledge frightened her, because not only were the sexual feelings the same, but he was the same, despite a change in name. Be he J. J. Garrett or Garrett Stark, he wouldn’t stay. He wasn’t capable of it.

  This time he’d been careful. She would be careful, too. She’d guard her heart, which shouldn’t be that hard. She wanted him still because they’d never finished what they’d started. What they’d had was left undone. They’d finish it on her terms this time.

  A shuffle in the hallway made her scramble for her robe. If Max came in with a nightmare he’d wonder why her clothes were all over the floor. But when she found her robe, it was tangled in Garrett’s shirt. He must not have left as she’d thought.

  She stepped through the door and saw him standing, barefoot and bare chested, in the doorway to Max’s room. Concerned that Max had needed her and she’d slept through his call, Livy hurried to join Garrett. But he merely stared, transfixed at the sight of his son fast asleep.

  The love on his face was so plain and so true a little part of Livy’s heart broke off at the sight. She had never considered that a father might love his child with the same unconscious devotion a mother would.

  Just because Livy had carried him and borne him did not make Max any less his father’s child. Genetics stated half and half. Still, she’d been unwilling to give up any part of Max at all. But that expression on Garrett’s face made sharing Max a little less hard than it had been yesterday.

  Garrett glanced her way, then back at Max, as if he couldn’t keep his eyes from the sight. When she leaned in the doorway, he took her hand, and she let him.

  The night hovered around them, blue-black and cool, the sound of their son’s gentle snore a music that connected them by more than their hands, more than a past, more than any future they might imagine. Embarrassment over what had happened between them seemed silly when they shared a son.

  The moment was peaceful, pure and lovely. Livy found herself wishing for more of them.

  “He’s magic,” Garrett whispered. “A miracle I don’t deserve.”

  Once, she would have agreed, but now she knew the truth. “Nobody deserves a gift like Max.”

  “Is that why you protect him so hard?”

  Her peace fled on the silent night. She might have had a few warm feelings about Garrett after spending some quality time in bed with him, but that didn’t mean he could tell her how to raise her son, even if Max was his son, too.

  She’d been listening to everyone’s opinion on her overprotectiveness since Max had made his appearance in this world. Rosie, Kim, doctors, nurses, even Klein thought she hovered. Too bad. If hovering kept Max safe, she’d hover until she crashed. Unfortunately, hovering hadn’t seemed to do much good, as the size of Max’s medical file could attest.

  Livy tugged free of Garrett’s hand and went back to her room. After a last, lingering glance at Max, he followed. She shut the door behind him and placed her back against the wood.

  “I protect Max because I know how easily life can be snatched away.”

  Garrett picked up his shirt from the floor. “You can’t control fate.”

  “Watch me.”

  As he shrugged into the garment, Livy found herself distracted by the play of muscles across his lean chest. She’d always been partial to a tall, runner’s physique—a bias courtesy of this very man—so she moved across the room and sat on the bed in an attempt to put a distance between herself and temptation.

  Socks in hand, he sat at her side. When her hip rolled into his, she gritted her teeth against the lust such a simple movement caused. Getting Garrett out of her system was one thing. Becoming a nymphomaniac was another. How could she be annoyed with him and aroused by him at the same time?

  Livy went to stand in front of the window, pointedly ignoring the rocking chair. Garrett draped his socks over one knee and contemplated her face, reminding her of one of the reasons she had loved him. When he listened, he listened with all that he had. For a young girl who had gone from being the apple of her father’s eye to the ignored child of the town eccentric, such attention had made her feel important, special and cared for. But Livy knew better than to fall for the same trick twice.

  “And I have no business prying. You’re right.” He shrugged and returned his attention to his socks. “It’s just…I was the same way as a kid. Tripped up every step, fell down every hill, broken this, sprained that.”

  “And what did your parents do?”

  “My mother left when I was two.”

  Livy had never heard a word about his mother, but she hadn’t expected to hear this. “I’m sorry.”

  “She chose to leave, so I can understand some of your anger at me. I’ve felt a certain anger toward her myself on occasion. But for the most part, when I think of my mother I have little recollection of her.”

  A wave of sympathy washed over Livy at the thought of a little boy all alone. “And your father, what did he do?”

  Garrett continued to stare at his socks, as if seeing into the past. “Told me what a klutz I was. Tried to make me a man.”

  “He what?”

  He glanced up, and though his eyes were still cloudy with the memories, his face had gone hard. “My father was a high-powered, corporate attorney.”

  That explains his distaste for my profession.

  “I was an embarrassment to him. Never good enough, never right enough, never smart enough, never athletic enough.”

  “You were a child. You were exactly the way you were supposed to be.”

  “Tell James, Sr. He wasn’t impressed.”

  “Let me get this straight—your father told you that you didn’t measure up?”

  “Every day of my life. Until I left.”

  “What does he say now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t talk to him?”

  “I gave up trying to pl
ease Daddy the day I caught a bus out of town. I’m not saying I don’t hear his voice now and again.” His mouth twisted in selfmockery. “ ‘J.J., everything you touch, you break. Everything you care about, you crush. When things matter the most, you fail.’”

  Horrified, Livy could only stare at him. No wonder he had always seemed haunted. Even when he’d laughed, there’d been shadows in his eyes. He had drawn her in that way. His loneliness had called to her own. Maybe it was better that she had not known the reasons for Garrett’s inner turmoil, because she only would have loved him more.

  Livy had lived a golden childhood. Though Rosie didn’t approve of her job, her demeanor or her mothering skills, Livy had always known her mother loved her. Still, she could understand Garrett’s fear of never being enough for anyone.

  “In my work I’ve discovered a lot of men who don’t deserve to be fathers. Yours is one of them.”

  Garrett shrugged. “He was right about some things. I do have a habit of running when things get tough and failing under pressure.”

  “When have you failed?”

  “I failed you. I failed my son. Right now, I’m supposed to be done with the book of a lifetime and I haven’t even started. Looks like my father wasn’t so dumb after all.”

  “If you let his voice continue to haunt you, he’s won.”

  “He won years ago. When a beautiful girl told me she loved me and I couldn’t love her back. I knew I’d never be good enough, or right enough, or just…” He spread his beautiful hands wide. “Enough for her. So I ran.”

  He was repeating the same words his father had always said to him. Did he know how affected he’d been by the emotional abuse of his childhood? When had he come to believe he wasn’t enough for anyone, even himself?

  “You’re here now,” she said gently.

  “I believe you told me now is too late.”

  A lot of things she’d said in anger were sounding a bit bitchy coming back at her. Rosie thought Livy believed the worst of people. In her job, that usually saved time. But maybe she’d allowed her past and her work to dictate too much. She couldn’t say she forgave Garrett; that would be a lie and she’d lied enough already. But she could give him his chance with Max unfettered. The two of them deserved it.