“Hi.”
Max stared back and forth between the two of them and his bright eyes sharpened. “Can Garrett have some wine?”
She raised a brow. “Would you like some?”
Garrett’s Poe imitation had stopped as soon as he’d begun watching Max. He hadn’t had a drink since, hadn’t even wanted one beyond the Kool-Aid or milk he’d shared with his son. But right now, wine and Livy sounded like a very good idea.
“Sure.” He sat in the chair next to hers.
“I’ll get it,” Max announced, and stumbled into the house.
“Wait, I’ll-—” Livy started to get up.
Garrett put his hand on her arm. “Let him.”
“But he’ll break the glass or spill the wine.”
“Let him,” he repeated.
“Drop the bottle…cut his foot, his hand, an artery.”
Garrett laughed. “He’ll be fine. He hasn’t broken anything—not a glass, bottle, table or himself in weeks.”
She settled back and swirled her wine around and around in the glass. “I’m grateful, Garrett.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re good for him. He’s safe with you. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
“I just let him be a kid. And while he’s being one, I get to be one, too.”
“You can’t imagine the terrible things I fear for him.”
“I can’t? You haven’t read my books.”
She smiled.
“Maybe you should do what Max and I do. Imagine the worst thing that could possibly occur. Then figure out exactly what you’d do if the worst thing happened. You feel more in control then. Not so much at the mercy of fate, even if you are.”
“I like control.”
Garrett’s lips twitched. “I didn’t notice.”
It was an indication of the change in their relationship that she merely wrinkled her nose at his sarcasm and did not throw her wine in his face.
“The worst thing.” She sipped her wine, staring at the descending night. “Losing Max— in any way. That’s the worst.”
“And what can you do about that?”
“Protect him always, the best that I can.”
“Which is what you’re doing. So relax. Live a little. Kick back.”
“I thought I was.”
She’d taken off her shoes and her stockings, but she still wore the business suit. Why did that turn him on? Maybe because she’d unbuttoned the blouse, and he could see a tiny V of flesh between the panels of prissy white cotton. Or because he knew just how soft the skin beneath that skirt would be if he ran his fingers under the hem and—
“Here, Garrett.”
Lust dissolved in the space of an instant. Max stood at his elbow, plastic juice cup filled to the brim with blood red wine. Tongue between his teeth, he concentrated on the ripples each step made in the tiny lake at the top of the cup.
“Thanks, pal.” Garrett took the cup and brought his mouth over to sip out the excess. “Great idea for a container. Now I won’t have to worry about breaking a glass outside and getting your mom mad at me.
Max grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
“Good thought.”
“Excellent choice,” Livy agreed.
Max practically preened beneath their combined praise. Garrett’s and Livy’s eyes met, and they shared a smile. He was so in love with her, Garrett could barely keep it to himself, and so terrified he’d blow it he could barely think straight in her presence.
He’d tried to show her how he felt with his body, hoping for a miracle, praying she’d love him again. But so far, all she’d asked of him had been his help with Max and his presence in her bed.
He ought to be ecstatic. What man wouldn’t be? He had his son during the day and the woman of his dreams most nights. No strings. But Garrett wanted more. He wanted Livy, Max and himself to be a family. He wasn’t exactly sure, though, how to go about that. Maybe by acting like a family?
Garrett sat up so fast he almost spilled his wine.
Max giggled. “You’re going to get in trouble.”
Most likely. Garrett took a healthy gulp as he refined his spectacular idea. “I heard there’s a crab boil at Old Fort Jackson tomorrow.”
He could tell by the way Livy’s brows knitted that she was going to say no. Then Max jumped up and down. “I’ve never gone to a crab boil, and I love Old Fort Jackson. Remember, Mom, how they fire that cannon sometimes? We haven’t done anything fun in forever. Can we go? All of us together?”
Livy’s brow smoothed and her eyes filled with a love so deep and pure Garrett’s own eyes watered.
“Why not?” She upended her wineglass, draining the contents.
For a minute Garrett thought she might smash the glass against a nearby tree, just as all the legends said those Bonaventure ghosts did. Behavior like that would be so un-Livy he wasn’t sure what he’d do. But instead, she smiled at him almost the way she used to and murmured, “Let’s live a little.”
*
Even though rain was predicted at some point, Saturday dawned bright and warm—a perfect Savannah autumn day.
Garrett picked up Livy and Max as promised in the early afternoon. His car was a surprise—a family-man minivan that did not fit the image of the J.J. she’d known or the Garrett he’d become. A lot of things about him did not fit her image, and it was those things that were causing her to lose sleep at night, even more than the lovemaking she’d begun to crave.
“Interesting car.” Livy buckled her seat belt before glancing over her shoulder to make sure Max had done the same.
“Garrett, your seat belt,” Max urged. “You don’t want to know what you’d look like if you went through the windshield.”
Garrett raised an eyebrow at Livy, then pulled what appeared to be a virgin seat belt across his chest. He didn’t even have to say what he was thinking. She knew.
Max sounded like a nervous little old man. Once, Livy would have hoped that his parroting of her dire predictions meant he’d take proper care of himself. Now she knew that Max and care did not go together in the same sentence, and there was little she could do about it.
Her son’s chatter, about his stories and the monsters he had foiled within them, filled the silence on the trip to the fort.
Situated three miles outside of Savannah, Fort Jackson was the oldest standing fort in Georgia and had once been the headquarters of all river batteries. The brick structure was surrounded by a tidal moat, making it appear even more ancient than it was.
After Garrett parked the van, the three of them walked about. Max bounced here and there, so excited he couldn’t keep still, while Livy and Garrett trailed behind. Livy felt so at ease with Garrett she finally gave in to the urge to slide her hand into his.
They ate crab until they nearly burst, then Max trotted toward a band that played in the distance—old music, tunes she didn’t recognize but liked just the same. As she and Garrett wandered along an ancient stone wall in the wake of their son, she got an inkling of what it might feel like to be a family, and she wanted it so badly she ached, not only for Max but for herself.
To add to her confusion, the promised rain poured down as if from nowhere. The scene looked like something out of a silent movie. People fled in every direction at high speed as the band continued to play.
Livy started forward, planning to take Max’s hand and lead him back to the van. But Garrett stopped her, one hand on her arm, one word whispered low. “Look.”
Max, being Max, began to dance, and though the blasted voice that had been with her since Max had been laid in her arms—a helpless bundle given over to her protection—whispered, He’s going to slip on the stone and spill his brains out on the street, she kept her mouth shut and watched the magic of her son dancing in rain.
Then Garrett joined him. Hand in hand, they did a jig—the same crazy two-step—then laughed and threw back their heads to drink of the water pouring from the sky.
&n
bsp; The band played faster, the musicians laughing, too, at the wonder of Max. Livy hugged herself against the chill of the rain as it drenched her to the skin. She shivered as Garrett’s shirt became plastered to his chest, the curves and dips she’d touched with her fingers, tasted with her tongue, both familiar and enticingly new.
The song ended. The fort was deserted and rain came down in sheets. With no reason to run, as they were already soaked, the three of them meandered toward the minivan. Somehow the afternoon had given way to dusk. The streetlights came to life, capturing Livy and Garrett in a starburst, and suddenly it was another night, another storm, another streetlight.
Garrett kissed her, just as he had all those years ago. That night she’d snuck out, gone walking with J.J., and the storm had caught them unaware. Soaked and laughing, he’d twirled her to face him underneath a streetlight, then he’d kissed her until she could think of nothing but that mouth, those hands, his body. They’d tumbled into the garden, fallen on the wet summer grass, and he’d become her first right there beneath the sky as the rain flowed over them both.
Unable to stop the tide of memories, the wash of feelings, she let go of everything she’d held back, even when he was deep inside her. Her tears mixed with the raindrops that ran down her cheeks as she realized she still loved him as much now as she had then.
Maybe he’d changed, but she didn’t think he’d changed enough, and that meant he would leave.
Chapter 16
Max might be a kid but he wasn’t dumb. Something was going on with Garrett and his mom. He just couldn’t figure out what.
Sometimes his mom seemed to not like Garrett at all; then other times, right now, for instance, she seemed to like him a whole lot.
He’d never seen anyone kiss that way, not even on television. If he didn’t know better he’d think his mom and Garrett had done a lot of kissing before.
A few people walked by and smiled, which made Max smile, too. Garrett and his mom acted as if there was no one else in the world but them, standing there kissin’ in the rain under the light. If Max were a girl he might think it was romantic.
Max rolled his eyes and made a gagging noise, even though no one was watching. It was the principle. Kissing was yucky!
Almost as if she’d heard him, his mom shoved Garrett away and stared at him with wide eyes. She looked scared, and Max didn’t like that, so he inched forward, ready to step between the two of them and… Well, he wasn’t sure what. Detective Klein would know. Max would have to figure it out as he went along, just like Indiana Jones.
Then Garrett did something that made Max stop in his tracks. He reached out and ran a thumb down her cheek, along one of the raindrops that looked like a tear but couldn’t be because his mom only cried when Max got hurt. Her face got all funny, then Max wanted to cry himself and he didn’t know why.
“Hush,” Garret whispered, and Max’s mom’s bottom lip wobbled.
“Hey!” he shouted, and both of them jumped apart as if lightning had struck nearby.
All of a sudden everything was the same again, and Max wondered if he’d really seen something weird, or if he’d seen that kiss at all. His mom grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the car, and nobody talked about anything but crabs and rainstorms.
Max was thinkin’ all the way home. He’d been hopin’ and prayin’ and even writin’ a story about Garrett bein’ his dad. If Garrett fell in love with Max’s mom, the dream would come true. Max was so scared he’d jinx it by wantin’ it so bad he could barely keep still. Luckily, his mom thought he had ants in his pants because he was all wet.
Even if Max hadn’t liked Garrett bunches, he’d still consider asking him to be his dad, because he couldn’t remember the last time his mom had smiled with her mouth so that the happy reached all the way to her eyes. As much as he wanted Garrett to be his dad, Max wanted his mom to be happy. And he’d never, ever, known his mom kiss anyone except him, so Garrett must be special.
“Mom?” he interrupted in the middle of a chatty sentence about crab cakes. She talked a lot when she was nervous. “Now that you’ve kissed Garrett, shouldn’t you get married before the baby comes?”
Her face turned white, which made Max start to babble. “Because Joey Caldwell’s sister kissed a boy and then she had baby.”
He glanced at Garrett, who looked like he was grinding his teeth the way Mom always did when she was really mad, and Max figured he’d somehow stumbled hip-deep in dog do.
“I don’t think you should play at Joey’s anymore,” his mom said.
“I don’t. He’s one of the mean kids.”
“Good. Just because I kissed Mr. Stark doesn’t mean I’m having a baby. There’s a bit more to it than that.”
Garrett snorted, which earned him a glare that Max was glad he hadn’t gotten.
“We’ll talk about the particulars of babies later. In private.”
Then she and Mr. Stark glanced at each other and the look in their eyes made him frown.
Something was going on with his mom and Garrett Stark. He just couldn’t figure out what.
*
Garrett waited downstairs while Livy gave Max a bath and put the boy to bed. He’d found an extra pair of shorts in his car—he always kept something for emergencies—but there’d been no shirt. So he’d looped the towel Livy had tossed him around his neck and waited for her to come back.
Quicker than he’d expected, her footsteps descended. She stopped dead when she spotted him in front of the fireplace, and her gaze skirted over, then away from, his chest. Her obvious attraction stirred Garrett. At least they had sex, if nothing else. He should accept that and be happy, but he couldn’t. Not anymore.
“That was quick.”
She sat on the couch. “The excitement, the chill, then the warm bath. He was asleep as soon as I poured him into bed.”
Livy rubbed her arms as if she were just as chilled. Her hair was still damp. She’d scooped it off her neck in a ponytail, though several tendrils escaped to frame her face and dust her neck. She wore a flannel nightshirt that reached past her knees and fuzzy slippers he wanted to feel against his calves.
Garrett had it bad. Why did he keep fighting it?
He sat next to her on the couch, and when she would have scooted away, he tugged her close. “Lean on me, Livy. I won’t mind.”
“I haven’t leaned on anyone for a long time.”
“Just because you haven’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”
“What if I lean on you and you move away? I’ll fall again.”
He let her go because she kept trying to get free, even though his arms felt empty without her. “Is that what you’re so afraid of? That you’ll need me and I’ll be gone?”
She shrugged but didn’t answer.
“You don’t trust me, and I can’t blame you, even though it pisses me off. You share Max, you share your body, but you share none of yourself.”
“I’m no good at that.”
“You could be if you tried.”
“Maybe I should.” She pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of her nightshirt “Read this. Max gave it to me before he fell asleep. It’s one of his fear series.”
Garrett glanced at the neat but childish handwriting: ‘“What I Want More than Christmas.’” He raised his gaze. “Catchy title.”
Livy motioned for him to continue reading:
The boy named Max was scared of one thing more than anything else. He was afraid he’d never have a dad because he wasn’t good enough for one. He was a bad boy, though he didn’t try to be. No matter what he did he broke things, and sometimes even himself. He couldn’t say he was surprised when no dad seemed to want him.
But one day a man came to Savannah and he was so much like the perfect dad Max couldn’t believe his luck. And all he wanted, even more than Christmas, was for Garrett Stark to be his real daddy. So he believed it with all his heart and he wished for it, too. He even prayed a bit. And what he wanted the most happened.
Garrett’s eyes burned, so he blinked at the paper a while as if he were still reading, until the burning went away.
“What makes me the perfect dad?”
“Who could be more perfect than you, since you are?”
“Probably anyone.”
“Why would you say that?” She threw up her hands. “You’ve been nothing but wonderful with him since you got here. You want me to talk to you—talk to me, Garrett.”
“I can’t write,” he blurted.
There. He’d actually said it to another human being and not just an empty room. Amazingly, the world did not stop turning.
“Since when?”
“Since before I came here.”
“So why did you come here?”
“I thought maybe this place, where it all started for me, would help.”
“You came here for the book.”
“Even if I did, it didn’t do any good.”
“Ever have this problem before?”
“Not this bad. But then, I always—” He stopped.
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you do when you can’t write?”
He didn’t want to tell her. But he didn’t want to lie, either. There had been enough of that already.
“I move on. New book, new town. If the town’s wrong, the book won’t come. So I move. It’s always worked before.”
“But not this time.”
“There’s something. I keep hearing a story, but I can’t quite get it. My mind’s too full of Max. Too full of you. And the longer I’m here, the less I care about the book. The more I know of Max, the less I care about a career that was once everything to me—and I’m scared.”
Livy stared at him as if she hadn’t seen him before, as if she wasn’t sure she was seeing him correctly now. “Why is that?”
“Because if I fail at the only thing I’ve ever been able to do right how can I expect to be a decent father? Something I have no example of, no experience at, no calling for whatsoever.”
“Pretty much like every father or mother ever made.”
True enough. What was she getting at?
“You love him.”
“More than I ever thought I could love anyone. And if you think it’s better that he never know the truth, I’ll agree, and I’ll leave if you think I should. I’ll never come back. I’ll never bother either of you again.” He held her gaze, fought not to bemoan all he’d said, all he’d volunteered to give up.
Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) Page 18