“Jonas…” The redhead spoke up and her voice was flat, even.
“Tasha, come on. He’s my dad,” the boy pleaded.
Jesus. There was that word again. Nick could see she didn’t like it any more than he did. All she wanted was for him to disappear. Well, hey, honey, he thought. That makes two of us.
“Just let me talk to the boy,” he said tightly. “What could it hurt?”
She sucked in a gulp of air and folded both arms across her chest. He could almost see thoughts racing through her mind, and none of them were making her happy. That fabulous mouth of hers flattened into a grim slash and her eyes narrowed as she considered him. Then her gaze shifted to the boy and Nick watched her features soften until her beauty was ripe enough to steal his breath. Whatever she thought of him, Nick told himself, she loved that kid.
Another long minute passed in anxious silence and Nick damn near felt the boy’s excitement rippling off of him in thick waves. Tasha must have sensed it, too, and obviously didn’t have the heart to squash it.
“Okay,” she said, and Jonas practically danced in place. “Fifteen minutes,” she added quickly, which earned her a whine from Jonas and a grateful sigh from Nick.
Hell, he wanted to talk to the kid, but fifteen minutes was more than enough time. What he had to say could be summed up pretty quickly. All he had to do was explain how being a fan was one thing, but making up stories was something else. Once that was done, he’d give the kid the stuff he’d left out in the car; then he’d be gone. And he could get back to rebuilding his life. To getting onto a track that would lead him somewhere beyond the dead end he’d found himself in when his career ended.
“C’mon…” The kid paused as if not quite sure what to call him, then settled for, “Nick. I’ll show you my room.”
The boy sprinted ahead of Nick and shot up the stairs, making enough noise, as he went, for ten kids. Nick’s gaze shifted from the kid to the redhead, and when he met those green eyes of hers, he damn near took a step backward. He caught himself just in time.
“If you hurt him,” she threatened, “I swear I’ll—”
He shot a quick look at the stairs to make sure the kid was out of earshot. Then he took a step toward her and snapped, “Christ, what do you think I am?”
“Don’t you get it, football hero?” she asked quietly, her voice filled with ice. “This isn’t about you.”
God damn it. Was she blind or something? His life was riding on this. Sure, he didn’t want to see the kid crushed, but none of this had been his idea. A spurt of something dark and dangerous shot through him, and Nick’s head snapped back as he stared at her. “You know, lady, you and I need to—”
“We don’t need to do anything.” She cut him off cleanly. Her eyes flashed green fire and Nick could have sworn she singed him from across the room. “Jonas is waiting for you. Take your fifteen minutes, then I want you out of here.”
She turned her back and walked away. Nick watched her go as ribbons of fury snaked through him. Hell, he’d never been thrown out of anywhere as often as this redhead was pitching him out of her house. And damn it, that kind of shit just didn’t happen to Nick Candellano.
Couldn’t she see he was trying to do the right thing here? Okay, so what if his main concern wasn’t the kid? He hadn’t started this and he almost shouted that after her. But he figured she wouldn’t care, wouldn’t stop to fight it out with him, and that was something he wasn’t used to. In his family, people chose sides and jumped into the battle. They didn’t fire a shot and walk away. They stuck around until everyone was battered and bloody—figuratively speaking, of course—and the argument was finished.
“Hey, Nick…” Jonas’s voice hurtled at him from the top of the stairs. Nick had to remind himself that he wasn’t here to convince the redhead that he was a great guy. Though it went against the grain to have any woman give him the brush-off, he was here to get the kid off his ass. Gently, of course, but definitely off.
“Yeah,” he called back, his gaze still locked on the doorway through which Tasha had disappeared. “Coming.”
Then he pushed her out of his thoughts and turned for the stairs. Ready to tackle the biggest game of his career.
* * *
Tasha grabbed the kitchen timer and carried it into the dining room. Her knees felt weak, so she pulled a chair out, its legs scraping against the wood floor with a screech. Plopping down into it, she set the timer for fifteen minutes, then put it down on the table in front of her. Fifteen and not one minute more.
The whir of the timer sounded like a drunken bee, buzzing through her brain. Her head pounded, her heart raced. In memory, she saw his eyes again. Nick’s eyes. Dark and deep. And she shivered. He threatened everything she held dear just by being here. Yet at the same time, he touched something inside her that had been cold and empty for way too long.
Her gaze locked on the open doorway between the dining room and the living room. From where she sat, she could just see the bottom step of the staircase, but in her mind’s eye she saw Jonas’s bedroom—and Nick Candellano invading her world.
* * *
“Come on,” Jonas said from the last doorway on the left.
Nick walked slowly, checking the place out as he went. The old house had seen better days. Fifty years ago, the house was probably a beauty. But now, like an old woman, the Victorian’s beauty was more memory than reality. The stair runner was threadbare; some of the wallpaper at the head of the stairs was peeling away at the baseboard. The wood floors were old and scarred but clean, and his footsteps seemed to echo down the long hallway.
“This is my room,” Jonas was saying as Nick got closer.
He tried not to notice the excited gleam in the kid’s eyes. Tried not to feel anything as he stepped past the boy who might be his son, into the bedroom.
Nick took a deep breath and instantly regretted it.
Like every kid, Jonas was a slob.
The room was big. As big as the room Nick had once shared with his twin brother, Paul. A dresser stood on one side of the room, crowded on either side by stuffed bookcases. Two walls had windows that overlooked the side and backyards and let in enough sunlight to display the mess in all its glory. A single bed was dead center of the room and surrounded by discarded books and piles of—judging by the smell of sweat—dirty clothes. The walls were decorated with sports posters. Baseball players hung alongside basketball stars and hockey players. There were two of Nick in his playing days, and it felt a little weird to stare up into his own eyes.
Hell, he even remembered the days those pictures had been taken. Flying high on his own success, Nick had been on top of the world. Everything rolling his way, a part of him had been sure that the ride would last forever. At the top of his game, he had money, fans, women, and everything else he’d ever wanted.
Now all he was, was another guy on a fading poster. And the hard truth of that rattled around inside him like a handful of BBs. Cold, hard little pellets of truth, hammering at his guts, tearing away what he’d once been and leaving him damn uncertain about a future that wasn’t looking any too bright.
Finally, though, he shifted his gaze from his past and looked at the kid wandering around the room. Jonas stopped beside a small collection of football trophies. Hell, Nick had dozens just like them, stuffed in a closet at his mother’s house.
The boy’s fingers danced across the cold metal surface of one as he said, “I got these. I play football, too. Just like you.”
“Yeah?” Okay, safe territory. Talk football. Good a segue as anything, right? “What position do you play?”
“Tight end,” Jonas said, one corner of his mouth lifting into a proud smile.
“Yeah?” Hey. The kid was a running back. Just like the old man? Nope, he thought. Don’t go there. “You any good?”
“I’m fast,” Jonas said with a hard nod. “Just like you.”
“Great.” Ah, Christ. “I’ll have to come see you play sometime.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah?” The boy stepped closer, eagerness etched into his features and a brilliant light shining in his dark brown eyes. “You will? When? We have a game on Saturday and—”
The kid kept talking. Words flying out of his mouth like bullets from a machine gun. And every word hit Nick like a fist. Jesus. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? He makes an idle comment and the kid takes it like a solemn vow. I’m an idiot. Nick scraped one hand across his face and tried to ignore the shaft of guilt that stabbed at him. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling and Christ knew he didn’t experience it often. Purposely. Nick lived his life looking out for Nick Candellano. It was easy. It was safe. Start worrying about the rest of the world and you ended up getting sucked into all kinds of shit.
“We’ll see…” Nick hedged, and winced just a bit. Hell, his parents used to say that to them all the time when they didn’t want to say no and hear the whining, but weren’t prepared to say yes, either.
Jonas probably recognized the stalling tactic for what it was, because some of the shine left his eyes. But to give the kid credit, he smiled again quickly and walked to a paper-littered desk in the far corner.
Nick sat down on the edge of the bed and braced his forearms on his thighs. Watching the kid, he tried to come up with just the right words to burst the boy’s balloon. While he thought about it, Jonas picked up a silver-edged framed photo and walked toward him.
The boy smiled at the picture, then turned it around to Nick. Holding it proudly, he said, “See? This is my mom. That’s how I knew you were my dad. ’Cause she told me about you.”
Nick swallowed hard and accepted the picture. The frame felt cold and stiff in his hands, and as he stared down into the smiling face of an attractive smiling brunette, he searched his memory desperately. But Jonas was eleven now. And that was a hell of a long time to try to remember a single face out of what had been, at the time, dozens of women.
Nick felt the kid’s expectations as if they were a living thing in the room with him and the boy. Jonas was practically vibrating with excitement and Nick found himself almost … almost wanting to be able to say, Yes. I remember her. I loved her a lot and I’m your long-lost dad. Everything’s going to be great.
Hell, it would be better than the truth. Because the truth was going to kill the kid.
Nick didn’t know the woman’s face. He didn’t remember her. She was pretty, but a lot of women were pretty. They’d all been pretty back then. For all he knew, he had slept with her, but he was damned if he’d made her pregnant.
He’d been too careful.
Hadn’t he?
“You remember my mom, right?” Jonas asked after a long, painful moment of silence had crawled past.
Damn it. What the hell could he possibly say to this kid? That he’d boinked so many women he couldn’t possibly pick one from the crowd at this late date? Could he really tell Jonas that his mother hadn’t been memorable enough to etch herself into Nick’s brain? That she’d been nothing more than a quick diversion?
And what if he hadn’t been as careful as he’d been saying? What if after hours of drinking and partying, the condom had been forgotten? What if it just plain hadn’t worked? What then? Then, he thought, he might actually be staring at his son, and could he really tell his own flesh and blood what a shit he was?
Shame slapped at him and it was such a new experience, it nearly took his breath away.
“You remember, right?”
“Jonas…”
The boy must have read something in Nick’s features because he started talking fast again. Words tumbled out of his mouth in a wild rush, as if chasing each other in a desperate bid to keep Nick from speaking and ruining everything.
“Her name was Margie,” Jonas said. “Margie Baker. And she was really pretty. She had a nice laugh and she told me … she told me that you were my dad, and my mom never lied to me.” He shook his head fiercely, sending that brown hair of his into a dance across and into his eyes. “Never once. Ever.”
Nick sighed and avoided what felt like a punishing stare from the woman in the photograph. “Look, Jonas, I—”
“No. You do remember her. I know you do. Margie. Margie Baker.”
Jesus.
“You have to remember her, ’cause I’m the only one who does and you’re my dad so you have to, too.”
Nick took a deep breath to steady the well of pity he hadn’t expected to feel so deeply. Every self-defense mechanism inside him was screaming at him to tell the kid the truth and make his getaway. Sure, the boy would be hurt, but was that Nick’s fault? No. Jonas’s mother had started all this when she’d pulled Nick’s name out of a hat and labeled him Daddy Dearest.
Yet her memory was cherished and Jonas was now looking at Nick like he’d just crawled out from under a rock. He wasn’t used to that, damn it. People liked Nick Candellano. Admired him. Looked up to him.
Damn it all to hell, he missed that. He missed being sought after. Being hounded for autographs. Being the target of paparazzi whenever he went to some five-star party. He’d lost so much in the last couple of months. Football, the one thing he’d ever been good at. His career. The future he’d mapped out for himself. Everything. Gone.
Regret pooled in his mouth and he had to choke it down. Do yourself a favor, Nick. Tell the kid the hard truth and get the hell outta Dodge. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look into the eyes of one of his last remaining fans and let that go, too.
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe I did know her.”
Jonas smiled.
And Nick felt like a hero again.
CHAPTER 8
“I knew it.” Nodding, Jonas snatched the photo from Nick and hugged it to his narrow chest, folding his arms over it protectively. His smile widened. “I knew it. My mom never lied to me. Never.”
Oh, man. Almost from the moment the words had left his mouth, Nick had regretted the impulse to keep the kid’s hopes alive. He hadn’t done the boy any favors. And he’d only made things worse for himself. Well, hell. A full day’s work in less than thirty seconds.
“Jonas…”
“I knew you’d remember.” The boy looked so earnest, so determined to force memory into life, Nick almost ached for him. But Jonas wasn’t finished. “You had to—’cause my mom was really pretty. And nice. And she loved you.” Despite a trembling smile, tears sprang up to fill his eyes and Jonas freed one hand long enough to swipe them away.
He didn’t know what to do, damn it. Nick was no good with kids. Not one-on-one. Talking to a group of them he was fine—he could joke and talk about football—but dealing with one little boy’s misery was just beyond him.
Maybe he should have done it Jackson’s way after all. Maybe he never should have come here. Wasn’t he just making this a bigger mess than it had been to begin with? Making it harder for the kid to ultimately let go of his fantasy?
But he knew damn well that a DNA test would never have convinced Jonas anyway. An adult would take the results of a test and accept them at face value. But Jonas was just a kid. He wouldn’t care what a test had to say one way or the other. He’d put his faith in his mother’s word—because that was all of her he had left.
And who the hell was Nick to take that from him?
“She was pretty, huh?”
Hope and pride and fear mingled together in the boy’s big brown eyes and stirred something inside Nick he’d never felt before. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but it was damned uncomfortable.
Nick stood up, feeling the need to move, even if it was only to walk around the cluttered room. His gaze drifted across the dirty laundry, ripped-up sneakers, and crumpled papers dotting the floor surrounding a trash can. Cleats coated with dried mud lay at the foot of the bed, and Jonas’s football pads had been tossed onto the floor of the closet. His clean football uniform was folded on a chair and his helmet lay on the floor nearby. It all reminded Nick so much of his own room when he was a boy. Between his own sports stuff and Paul’s boy-gen
ius chemistry sets, they’d hardly had room to walk.
But there was a difference between the Candellano boys’ room and Jonas’s. In the Candellano house, Nick’s parents had always been close by. He’d grown up surrounded by security and love, and he’d never had to doubt who he belonged to.
Jonas … all he had was the currently missing foster mother and the ferocious gorgeous redhead downstairs. The poor kid was clinging to the memory of his mother and to the dream of the father he wanted.
What a joke. If Jonas only knew him better, he’d see that Nick was nobody’s idea of a dad. The kind of man Jonas wanted, needed, for a father was the kind who would have told him the truth instead of dodging it to make himself feel better. Nick scraped one hand across the back of his neck. He had to say something. He just wasn’t sure what. Turning to look at the boy, he said, “Jonas—”
“Your time’s up.”
Nick and Jonas both turned to look at Tasha, standing in the open doorway. Arms folded across her chest, she stood there like a guardian angel—all she needed was a sword and a shield. Her hair looked wild, as if she’d been running nervous fingers through it. Her eyes were wide and worried, and Nick was pretty sure if he listened hard enough, he’d be able to hear her heart pounding like a bass drum in a parade. “What?”
“Your fifteen minutes are up,” she said, meeting his gaze and silently daring him to argue. “It’s time for you to go.”
“Tasha…” Jonas scooted away from the bed and took a step or two toward Nick. “He just got here.”
She stared at the boy for a long minute and Nick knew the instant she noticed Jonas’s teary eyes. Her face went cold and hard, and when she shifted her gaze to look at him again, Nick had a strange urge to cross himself. Jesus. Mother bears had nothing on this woman.
“Leave,” she said tightly.
“I’m going.” He’d had his fifteen minutes, and absolutely nothing had been solved. Everything was still up in the air, the kid was still convinced he was his father, and Nick had deliberately dropped his opportunity to say, “No, I’m not.”
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