Nick was headed her way, too.
Her stomach pitched.
If he’d had any sense, he’d have been moving in the opposite direction. Instead, he was coming right at her. Tasha pulled in a deep, cleansing breath and clung tightly to the hard ball of anger settled in her chest.
The big golden dog raced alongside Jonas as if there were a game in progress. She weaved back and forth in front of the boy as if she were trying to herd him, but Jonas kept coming, laughing out loud at the dog’s antics.
Tasha’s heart ached a little harder.
He was so at home here.
Nick’s long legs allowed him to reach her first, but she didn’t look at him. If she looked at him, she’d have to talk, and she was terrified that she’d start shouting instead.
“Tasha,” Nick said, refusing to be ignored, “I can explain.”
“I’m not interested.” Good. No shouts. No curses. Short and simple. She looked past him at the boy and dog hurrying toward her. “Come on, Jonas, we have to go.”
“Not yet,” the boy said as he raced up and slid to a stop just in front of her. While he talked, he kept one hand stroking the dog’s head, and the big animal’s whole body quivered in delight at the attention.
He should have a dog of his own, Tasha thought.
“Nana’s gonna give me some more of her cookies,” Jonas said. “She makes great cookies.”
Nana.
Oh God.
Tasha reached out and smoothed his hair back. She should have cut it, she told herself. All of these people. They’d think he didn’t have anyone taking care of him. They’d think she didn’t care. And oh Lord, she cared so much.
“Is it okay, Tasha?” Jonas practically bounced in place. “Can I go get the cookies?”
Everyone was watching her. She felt their gazes on her. If she grabbed him and ran, they’d all think she was nuts. A nut who didn’t care enough to give Jonas a haircut. Well, she wouldn’t give them any more ammunition to use against her.
“Fine.” She forced a smile that felt as though it would crack her face. “Go ahead, honey. Get the cookies. I’ll wait out front for you.”
“’Kay!” He was already turning and running back into the yard.
The big dog barked once as if saying hello. Everyone else started moving again. The older woman—Nana—headed toward Tasha, a welcoming smile on her face.
But Tasha couldn’t take much more. She was in no mood to make small talk and she didn’t want to see any more of the big family gathering. Turning her back, she started for the front of the house, to where she’d left the van parked. She’d just sit in her VW van, roll up the windows, lock the doors, and wait for Jonas.
She didn’t get two steps before Nick was beside her, taking her upper arm in a firm grip and holding on.
She yanked free and shot him a vicious glare. “Don’t touch me.”
“I know you’re pissed off, but—”
She kept walking. Couldn’t talk. Words gathered at the back of her throat, burning to be released. But she wouldn’t say anything here. Wouldn’t do the shouting that she so wanted to do. Because there were like a hundred Candellanos here and she was alone. Like always.
As she stalked toward the front of the house, she managed to nearly snarl, “And by the way, you don’t know anything about me. Nothing.”
“Whoa.” He kept pace with her, his long strides easily matching her anger-fueled steps. “Take it easy, Tasha.”
“Take it easy?” She whipped her hair back from her face and tore at it with impatient fingers when the wind kicked it back across her eyes. “You can say that to me?” She stopped, furious, and glared at him. “You take Jonas off for a day with your family and you don’t even tell me?”
“Jesus. I didn’t take him to South America.”
She stomped off again. “That’s not the point and you know it.”
“You’re right. I should have told you. But I figured you’d take it wrong. Clearly,” he added wryly, “I was wrong.”
Curling her fingers into a fist, she clenched it at her side and kept moving so she couldn’t give in to the urge to punch that smiling face of his. One step, two, three. She turned on him again and he stopped short to avoid crashing into her. “Damn it, you had no right.”
“It was a burger, Tasha, not a kidnapping.”
“Oh, it’s so much more than that,” she muttered, and whirled around again, unable to look into those brown eyes any longer. Her steps pounded against the grass. “This wasn’t lunch,” she said, not caring if he could hear her or not. “This was bringing Jonas into your family. And you pulled out all the stops, didn’t you? Introducing him to aunts and uncles and cousins and even a Nana for God’s sake.”
“Well, hell, somebody shoot me,” he said under his breath.
“Oh, don’t tempt me,” she shot back. Fear chewed at her stomach. She held one hand to it in an attempt to ease the churning there. It didn’t help. She kept walking, around the corner of the old house and into the teeth of the wind.
It slapped at her, stinging her cheeks, making her eyes water. The cold went bone deep. She shivered and felt as though she might never be warm again. Fear ran with her, pacing her steps, measuring her breaths. She was losing Jonas. Inch by inch, he was slipping away from her.
“Damn it, Tasha, stop.” Nick grabbed her again and this time, when she tried to yank free, he didn’t let her go.
“You stop, Nick.” She congratulated herself silently on keeping from screaming. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Too damn bad.”
She gave him a look that should have warned him off. “Don’t push me right now, football star.”
“Okay,” he muttered, tightening his grip on her arm, “that’s it.” He steered her away from the car and out onto the road in front of the house.
“Hey—” Tasha dug in her heels, but her old tennies slid on the damp grass. She had to walk. It was either that or fall on her ass and be dragged across the lawn.
“We’re going for a walk.” Nick kept moving, not even looking at her as he towed her along in his wake.
“Jonas will be waiting—”
“My mother’s feeding him. Trust me, it’ll be a while.”
“Let go.” She pulled hard, and he released her, but stepped in front of her when she tried to go back to the car.
“Move.”
“Not a chance.” He met her gaze and stared her down. “We’re talking. Now. We can do it in front of Jonas and my family, or we can take a walk.”
Tasha inhaled sharply, deeply, and shot a quick look at the big old house sitting surrounded by trees and permanence … and history … and, hell. Everything she didn’t have. Everything she could never give Jonas.
“Okay, fine,” she said, keeping her distance from the man she wanted to kick. “We’ll walk.”
Nick rubbed one hand across the back of his neck and studied her as she walked stiffly in front of him. Her spine was rigid, her chin lifted. Her black sweater was long, hitting her jean-clad legs at the middle of her thighs. Her hair shone like dark fire and flew about her head like flames lifting off a torch.
Fury radiated off of her, but there was more. Something else feeding the hostility that made her green eyes look glassy with the emotions rattling through her.
Heading down the road, Nick kept pace with her furious steps, letting her walk off some of her mad before they talked.
She started first. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“My mother found out about Jonas. She had to meet him.”
Tasha shook her head as she stared up at him. “Your mom found out? You didn’t tell her about him?”
He sighed. “No, I didn’t tell her.”
“Wow. Feel the warmth.”
“Damn it, Tasha, why in the hell would I bring my family into this before I find out if—”
“If you’re stuck?” she finished for him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You’re just not gonna cut me any breaks at all, are you?”
“Don’t you get it, Nick?” she countered, and planted both hands flat on his chest and shoved. He didn’t budge. “You’ve already got all the breaks. You’ve got money. You’ve got a family, stability. You can give Jonas everything. I can’t compete with that.”
“It’s not a competition, Tasha!”
“Of course it is.” She shoved him again, and this time he staggered backward a step or two. “And you’re winning. You don’t even want to win and you’re winning. How do I fight that?”
“Why do we have to fight at all?” he asked, stepping close to her again.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice dropping, the heat sliding from it. “But how could you?”
She turned and started walking again, as if needing to move. Nick measured his strides to hers. They walked past Carla’s house and the Garvey cottage on the point. The ocean roared, calling them on, and Nick led her off the road and down the cliff path, toward the beach.
Here there’d be no one to hear. No one to watch. They could talk or yell or … He must be a sick man. As mad as she was … as much as she looked like she could cheerfully punch him dead in the face, he wanted her so badly he could hardly breathe.
Definitely.
A sick, sick man.
She stumbled on the path and Nick grabbed her arm. This time she didn’t pull away but walked alongside him until they were on the sand. Then she stopped, and when he was sure she wouldn’t bolt, he let her go, reluctantly.
She stared out at the ocean for several long, quiet minutes. The ocean thundered around them. Seagulls dipped and danced in the wind currents above. The birds screeched endlessly, the sound piercing, lonely.
But Nick could give a shit about the damn birds. Instead he simply stared at Tasha.
When she’d appeared at his mother’s house, it was as if he’d conjured her with his thoughts. Although, Nick admitted silently, he’d been imagining her smiling and willing … not mad enough to melt steel with a glance.
She was breathtaking. Wild and fierce and so damn beautiful it nearly hurt to look at her. Her flame-colored hair whipped around her head in the wind, and when she turned to look at him, he saw pain in her eyes that damn near doubled him over.
Until she started talking.
“You had no right.”
“Tasha…”
“You don’t deserve Jonas,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “Where were you when his mom died and he went into the system, huh?”
“I didn’t—”
“You weren’t there when he used to cry himself to sleep at night. I was, though.” She sucked in air like a dying woman. “Me and Mimi. We were with him. We were the ones telling him that everything would be okay. That he was safe.…” Her voice broke and she hiccuped in a breath.
Nick watched helplessly while tears filled her eyes, but before he could reach for her or say anything, she was on a roll again.
She angrily swiped away a single stray tear. “You weren’t there, hero. And now it’s too late.”
“I didn’t know about him before,” Nick said, keeping a tight rein on his own anger. Fear and pain were driving her now, and to fight it with his rising temper wouldn’t do any good for anyone. But God, it took everything in him to keep from shouting right back at her.
In his family, shouting was something you did.
Shouting just meant you cared enough to argue.
Shouting, to an Italian, meant love.
Love?
That thought brought him up short.
She snorted a choked-out laugh. “You didn’t know about him. Now that’s something to be proud of.”
“Okay, enough.” He grabbed her, the fingers of both hands digging into her upper arms as he yanked her close. “I didn’t know about him. I admit it. And I can’t change that.” Would he, if he could? he asked himself silently. And when the answer to that question didn’t come, he pushed it aside to look at later. “But I’m here now. And if Jonas is my son, then I’m going to be a part of his life, whether you like it or not. And being a part of my life means being a part of my family.”
“Your family,” Tasha repeated. “Don’t you see what this does to Jonas? It pulls him closer to you. Makes him want it all even more than he already does.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“This.” She waved a hand, encompassing the beach, the ocean, the house on the cliffs, and the people in the yard. “The family. The big dog and the smiling kids and the barbecue in the middle of winter, for God’s sake.” She choked out a laugh that sounded as if it had hurt her. “He’s never had that.” She squirmed in his grasp but couldn’t get free, so she settled again and pinned him with a cold gaze. “He was an only child. Then his mother died. And he was alone. You don’t have any idea what alone is like, Nick. But I do. Alone is scary. Terrifying. And you look around and when all you can hear is the sound of your own heart beating … that’s when you notice all the families. Kids and dogs and moms and dads and even the damn TV work on you, reminding you you’re different.”
“Tasha…” Her eyes were wild and bright, and it felt as though she was slipping away from him.
“And you want it all so much, you can taste it. You want the big house and brothers and sisters and people who give a damn.” She dragged in a long deep breath. “But all you’ve really got is yourself, so you make do. And then somebody comes along and dangles the dream in front of you and it looks so close that maybe it’s okay to believe.”
She talked fast, as if she couldn’t stop the rush of words racing from her. And Christ, Nick wished she could. The images she created tore at him. He’d had the kind of life every kid should be able to claim while growing up. And Tasha—not to mention Jonas—had never known that kind of stability.
He wondered if she realized she was talking as much about herself as she was about Jonas. And Nick’s heart ached for the little girl she’d once been. “Tasha,” he said, his voice soft, soothing, “try to calm down.”
“I can’t.” She swallowed hard and stared up at him, her green eyes haunted again and filled with memories of pain that he knew he would never totally understand. “You’re dangling the dream in front of him, Nick, and he’s too little to know how to protect himself from the disappointment.”
“I’m not trying to hurt him,” Nick argued. “I wouldn’t do that. Not to him. Not to you.”
“Accidental pain aches every bit as much as intentional pain.”
She tried to pull free again, but it was no contest. Nick wasn’t about to let go of her now. If anything, he wanted to pull her closer, hold her tighter, soothe away the shadows in her eyes, and make sure they didn’t come back. Instead, he held her firmly, refusing to give ground, forcing her to look into his eyes.
“And if he’s not your son?” she asked finally. “Then what?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s time we found out one way or the other.” Might as well get it all out there where she could chew on him for everything at once. “Tasha, we’re going to do a DNA test.”
Something flashed across her eyes and was gone again before he could identify it. Fear?
“DNA,” she repeated hollowly.
“It’s the only way.” He stroked her arms, rubbing, soothing. But he sensed that she wasn’t going to be soothed. Not now, anyway. “It’s what we should have done two weeks ago.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, her voice disappearing again beneath the sounds around them. “At least then, we’ll know.”
“Exactly. Then we can decide from there.”
“And if you’re not his father?” she asked her question again, then answered it for him. “You disappear? Leaving me to sit with him while he cries again? Is that your plan, football star?”
He sighed. “Stop calling me that, damn it.”
“It’s who you are.”
“Who I was,”
he countered, and felt the solid truth of those words slam home. Damn, for the first time since having to retire, he’d actually put football in his past. Where it belonged.
It was as if a giant weight had just sloughed off his shoulders. Nick steadied himself and waited for the panic that was sure to follow. But it didn’t come. He was an ex– football player. And that was, very suddenly, okay.
His grip on her loosened a bit, temper sliding from him like air from a balloon with a slow leak. “Tasha, can’t we at least agree that we both want what’s best for Jonas?”
She looked up at him and shook her windblown hair back from her face. Her skin looked like the sheerest porcelain. White, creamy, the few golden freckles standing out like gold dust scattered in milk. But her eyes were haunted again and he felt the pull of them right down to the bottom of his soul.
She inhaled slowly, deeply, air shuddering into her lungs. When she spoke, her voice was nearly swallowed by the roar of the ocean and the howling wind.
“We want what’s best for him, Nick. We just don’t agree on what that is.”
“Maybe we won’t be able to figure that out right now, Tasha. But we have time. Time to work this through together.”
Together.
Tasha stared up at him and knew she’d lose in a battle with him. If it came down to a battle for custody, a rich man with an extended family would look like a straight flush—where an ex-runaway beautician with eight thousand bucks to her name wouldn’t even equal a pair of sixes. She couldn’t win. She couldn’t take him on and keep Jonas. She couldn’t fight the state and keep Jonas.
There was no win here for her.
And maybe, she thought, it was time to stop worrying about winning and time to consider that her losing Jonas might be the best thing for Jonas. Pain stabbed at her again, stealing her breath, tearing at her heart.
Her world had changed—and the old one was gone forever.
And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
* * *
“That hurt,” Jonas muttered the following afternoon as he and Nick left the small lab outside Chandler Community Hospital.
“No more than a hard tackle, though,” Nick said, “right?”
Loving You Page 21