by Naomi West
The thing was, Brian had been so nice to me for the month that we'd dated, and he'd promised he would take care of Cole and me. He came from a family that had money, and he met me just when I was beginning to realize how much those diapers and early childcare bills were going to add up. And he'd been so sweet and charming for a while, such a perfect gentleman.
It was only about two months after our wedding that things started to go downhill, and fast. Of course, there had always been the little selfish things that he'd done, but I had written those off, reminding myself that he was an only child in a rich family; he was just used to getting his way and always being right.
But then he had started drinking more and more, and getting angrier and angrier. What had started out as mean teasing whenever he had one too many drinks of rum then just turned into meanness overall, and then turned into epic screaming matches that often ended in broken glasses or vases.
I still remembered the first time he had hit me. He didn't do it often, but when he was a certain level of drunk, and especially back before I'd been able to reign in my own temper, there had been quite a few black eyes.
I shook my head. “All the same ... I don't expect him to go quietly. And he...has a lot of money. He could hire a good attorney, someone who could…” I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Not that I don't think you're a good attorney, it's just that—”
Barry held up his hand, cutting off my babbling. “I understand what you're trying to say,” he said. He frowned a little, tugging at the edges of his mustache. “Well, you being the mother, I still think that we can get a judge to award you sole custody, especially since Brian's name isn't on the child's birth certificate. Of course, that case would look stronger if there were a father's name listed on the birth certificate...”
I glanced over at Tiffany, who was still giving me that same, encouraging look. “I might… well, I'm not sure I'll be able to do that, but I was recently in contact with Cole's father...” I trailed off. Of course, it didn't really count as being in contact with him when the man still didn't know that he was a father and when I still hadn't managed to call him. But maybe, given a little time, I'd be able to.
“These things move fast,” Barry reminded me. “If you're planning on getting Cole's father's name listed on his birth certificate, that's something you'll want to get started on sooner, rather than later—before they even think to try to sue us for sole custody. Otherwise, things are only going to get messier.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“So, if you just want to sign these, then...” Barry prompted.
“I have one last question,” I said, risking a quick look up at the man. I cleared my throat again. “What do I do if…” I swallowed hard. “See, the thing is, I don't expect Brian to really appreciate the fact that I'm divorcing him,” I said carefully. “So, what do I do if he gets upset?”
Barry shrugged. “Well, once you two have legal dealings with one another, you're not supposed to have any contact with one another without your attorneys being present,” he said. “So, unless you think Brian is going to come over to your house begging forgiveness—”
“More like come over to her house drunk and looking for a fight,” Tiffany muttered loudly.
Barry looked surprised and gave Tiffany a sharp look. “Ms. Talin, do you really believe that might be something he would do?”
“It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened,” I admitted. “Especially if he's been drinking, he has a tendency to be … I mean, usually he reigns it in if he knows that Cole is around, and I doubt he'd do anything at my parents' place, but … well, I just never really know with him.”
“In that case,” the attorney said grimly, reaching into his drawer and pulling out another sheet of paper, “I'd suggest filling out one of these before we serve him the divorce papers. This is a request for a restraining order. Of course, it may not do anything to stop him from coming after you, but at least if he does come after you, it'll help us ensure you get custody of Cole, and may even help us put him behind bars.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief and grabbed the paper from him. “That's good,” I said. As he had cautioned, I didn't think a piece of paper was really going to stop Brian, especially not if he was, as Tiffany had suggested, drunk and looking for a fight, but it at least gave me a little peace of mind that maybe the courts would be on my side, despite the fact that Brian could probably buy everyone in the justice system off if he really wanted to.
Twenty minutes later, Tiffany and I were back out in front of the building.
“See, doesn't that feel better?” Tiffany asked cheerfully, linking her arm with mine.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, and unexpectedly felt tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I bit my lower lip as it wobbled. And then, I totally burst into sobs.
“Hey, hey,” Tiffany said, pulling me into her arms. I expected her to ask what was wrong, but seemed to already understand, despite the fact that she had never gone through this herself. “Easy,” the other woman murmured, stroking her hair back.
I finally pulled away, taking another deep breath and putting on a brave smile. The papers were all signed, and it felt, at long last, as though I might one day be free of Brian again.
Chapter Six
Jake
One day, as I was out running errands — grocery store, post office, a little bit of business for the Devil's Route, just stuff like that — I finally ran into Halley. I heard her before I saw her; she was laughing at something, and the sound carried from the little outside café table that she was sat at. The next thing I noticed, of course, was that shock of red hair, which was absolutely unmistakable in a small town like this.
I swung my bike in a U-turn around the median and pulled up to the curb, stopping next to her table, with only some bushes dividing us.
“Hey, darling,” I drawled, before I had really processed what I was seeing.
She was having lunch with a little kid. My mind raced for a moment, wondering whose kid it was and why she was having lunch with the boy. I knew she didn't have any siblings, and I knew Tiffany didn't have any kids. But maybe she was babysitting?
That was the thought ran through my head until the boy turned to look at me with his pure, blue-green eyes. His black curls were a little longer than mine, and his cheeks were, of course, pudgier. Plus, he had her nose and her cute, heart-shaped face. But that kid…
I tried to mask my surprise; I wanted to process how I felt about this whole thing before I let on that I knew that he was mine. I had to wonder if Halley realized it. Maybe she thought the kid belonged to someone else and that was why she had never told me.
Or maybe she just thought I was some sort of deadbeat biker dude who couldn't pay his bills and didn't care to have a family.
The thought made my blood boil, but I took a deep breath to calm myself. It wasn't fair to her for me to get upset before I even knew what her reasons had been. For all I knew, she had only found out about the kid after she moved to Louisiana, and then what was she supposed to do, call me up on the phone number that she didn't have and tell me, oh hey, move to Louisiana to be with your kid? That wasn't the kind of thing you could discuss over the phone.
Halley had gone white as a sheet. “Hey,” she said, but it took her a few times before she managed to actually make the sound come out of her mouth.
“Mama, who's that guy?” the kid asked, staring openly at me.
“This is ... a friend of mine,” Halley said, clearly uncertain. “Um.”
I swung off my bike, parking it there but not bothering to pay for the meter since they were sitting right there. “You still haven't called me,” I reminded her. “So why don't I invite myself to lunch with you? My treat.”
Halley looked lost and uncertain, but she nodded and pushed out one of the extra chairs at their four-person table. “Okay,” she agreed.
I sat down and reached for the menu, but then I noticed how rigidly she w
as sitting, how uneasy she seemed. Jesus, she probably didn't know what to think, and as angry as I wanted to be, I could also tell that she was practically petrified that I might realize the kid was my son. I had to feel for her.
I reached over and caught her hand, lightly squeezing it. “Hey,” I told her, looking deep into her green eyes. “It's okay. Trust me.”
Halley gulped and nodded, even though she still clearly wanted to ask how much I realized about the kid. I didn't want to broach that subject in front of him, though; I recognized that she may not want to introduce me as a father to the kid when we weren't sure how long … well, I just wasn't really father material. Having grown up an orphan and then fucked my way through my teenage years and early 20s, I couldn't say that I really knew the first thing about having a kid.
“What's your name?” the kid asked me, putting his fingers in his mouth.
That seemed to jolt Halley, who quickly began to look normal again. “Hey, honey, remember, we don't want to put our fingers in our mouth like that, especially not right before we eat.”
“Sorry, Mama,” the kid said. But he kept his eyes trained on me. “What's your name?” he repeated.
“I'm Jake, buddy,” I told him, wondering if we were supposed to shake hands or something. Eventually, I decided against it. But I did reach over and tousle his hair a little. “What's your name?”
“I'm Cole,” the kid said proudly. “I'm eight!”
“Seven,” Halley corrected, and his face fell.
“I'm seven,” he mumbled, glancing over at his mom.
I couldn't help laughing, still unable to tear my eyes away from the kid. “So, you're in school?” I asked him. “And wow, you must have just moved back from Louisiana, right? How's your new school?”
“'S better than my last!” Cole told me excitedly. He went off on a whole explanation of how much nicer his new teacher was and all of the friends that he was meeting and the fact that they got to go outside “for, like, all of the day before they go inside for math!” and so on.
I realized I was still holding Halley's hand and I gave it a light squeeze, smiling over at her. She gave me a wan smile in return, but at least she didn't look ready to jump out of her skin anymore. I wanted her to be at ease, I realized. More than I wanted to be angry with her, I wanted her to be at ease.
But at the end of the lunch, I caught her wrist while Cole was in the bathroom. “We need to talk,” I told her, and she ducked her head, looking nervous and chagrined.
“I know,” she whispered.
“I'm not mad,” I clarified, just in case that was what she was worried about. “I just have a lot of questions. Why don't I take you out for drinks tomorrow night? Can you leave Cole with your parents and meet me downtown?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I echoed.
Chapter Seven
Halley
Tiffany practically squealed when I told her about the date, at least, until I told her about the whole lunch debacle. “Ouch,” she said fervently. “I mean, I did keep telling you that you should talk to him sooner rather than later or else you'd probably regret it.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, ducking my head a little. I bit my lower lip. “But he was surprisingly cool about it. I'm guessing he probably just didn't have time to process things really, but...”
“Well, it helps that he's not Brian, remember,” Tiffany said gently. “He's not apt to fly off the handle like—”
“I don't want to talk about Brian tonight,” I interrupted. I was nervous enough without thinking about what the consequences would be if my still-technically-husband someone found me there and out on a date with another man. Another attractive man…
“So what are you going to wear?” Tiffany asked excitedly. “Oh, this could be so good for you, hun. It's so exciting! What if you and Jake really hit it off? What if he wants to be around for you and Cole? What if—”
“Let's just figure out what I should wear,” I interrupted, opening my closet and staring at its contents. It was overwhelming at the moment, and I took a deep breath.
“Well, it's going to have to be something sexy, of course,” Tiffany said, tapping one long fingernail against her lips. “Because you're going to be telling Jake, 'hey, I'm a momma' — but you also kind of want to be telling him, 'hey, I'm a momma that you'd love to fuck'.”
I blushed brilliantly and folded my arms over my chest, feeling insecure. Tiffany just laughed at my antics. “Come on, Tiff,” I said. “Be serious.”
“I'm being totally serious!” she retorted. “Come on, no one could tell from looking at you that you had a kid. I mean, okay, your hips are wider now than they were when you were eighteen. But hey, so are mine, and I definitely did not have a kid, as far as I remember.” She grinned crookedly at me. “You've got a fantastic figure, and any guy would be lucky to have you, kid or no. This date's just perfect for you because he's the father of your kid and, let's face it, Jake Ryce is hot.”
I couldn't help grinning a little at that, some of her excitement wearing off on me the more she talked. “He is pretty hot, isn't he?” I sighed and stared at my closet. “But what should I wear?”
Tiffany reached in and pulled out a slinky, metallic silver dress. “What about this?” she asked. “The ruching will make your curves look–”
“No,” I said, before she could even finish. I held up a hand to halt her protests. “I have one rule for all of this, and that's that whatever it is that I'm wearing, I want it to be something that Cole could see me in, without me getting embarrassed or feeling like I was showing a little too much skin. I'm telling Jake that I'm a mom, and I want to look the part. Just a sexy mom, like you said.”
“What's wrong with this?” Tiffany asked, squinting at the dress. “I mean, it'll hug all your curves, sure, but—”
“My boobs would be practically falling out of that,” I told her frankly. “And it would barely cover my. ladybits down below.”
Tiffany laughed a little. “All right, fine,” she said. “But then I'm keeping it.”
“Fine by me,” I said.
“How did you even get something like that in your wardrobe?” she asked, already looking for the next option. “With as conservative as your parents are, I would have thought...”
“I honestly have no idea,” I said, laughing a little.
When I finally made it to the bar and laid eyes on Jake, I was glad that Tiffany had managed to doll me up into something sexy, because Jake was smoking hot that night, in a pair of black slacks and a navy blue shirt that really made his eyes pop. He had the sleeves of the shirt rolled up so that his tattoos were still on full display, and the whole effect was…
“Hey,” I said breathlessly, hopping up on the barstool next to him, still not able to peel my eyes away from him.
But he was eyeing me with just the same level of interest, his eyes skimming my curves, noting the way my silky red-and-white dotted shirt hugged my breasts and disappeared into the high-waisted black pencil skirt. I crossed my legs daintily, and he watched the movement with hunger, his eyes skimming my toned calves and the black stiletto heels that I had borrowed from Tiffany at the last minute.
“You look fucking amazing,” Jake said succinctly. “Like, my first instinct is to not even buy you a drink and instead just throw you over my shoulder and take you home with me.”
“That might be a little embarrassing for me. This skirt's pretty short,” I blurted out. Then, I blushed. Was that really the only thing about that image that I felt like protesting?
But it got a laugh out of Jake, and I wanted to make him laugh again and again. I grinned a little, ducking my head. But, it was time I came right out with the real reason we were meeting there. “I’m sure you've probably realized this, but Cole's your son.”
Jake stared at me for a long moment. “How?” he finally asked. “I mean, I used a condom, and you were on birth control, right? I mean, I know these things happen, but on a one-night stand? Are y
ou sure you're not mistaken?”
I couldn't meet his gaze. “I mean, if you want to know how much my luck sucks … that was my first time. And only time, until after I'd had Cole.”
Jake was gaping at me. “That was … you were a virgin?” he asked, but he didn't sound disgusted. Instead, he sounded kind of guilty. “Jesus, I didn't realize that or I never would have taken you home. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but, of all the people you could have had sex with, why the hell did you pick me to be your first? Some random stranger? Aren't you women supposed to...”
“The opportunity was there,” I said simply, shrugging a little and looking away from him. I tried for a bit of humor. “And in case you weren't aware, you're pretty damn attractive.”
Jake shook his head and suddenly made a motion to flag down the bartender. “I need a drink,” he told me.