by Stacey Lynn
He swept the ball to his stomach and hugged it. “Yeah.”
He stepped away from me and there was something about the movement, quick, almost scared that grabbed my attention. “I didn’t catch your name yesterday, but I saw you. Do you remember? My name’s Jordan.”
“I know,” he repeated and shuffled his feet and looked at the house.
Oh-kay. He clearly wasn’t up for introducing himself. Maybe Destiny drove home the idea of not talking to strangers. I pointed my thumb at the door. “Mind if I go in? I need to talk to your mom.”
My throat clogged at that word again. Fucking hell. Ten years ago she walked away from me. I had no right to know anything about her life.
I lifted my hand. “We’ll talk later, yeah?”
He studied me for a bit before pushing the headphones back to the top of his head. “Whatever,” he said and turned back to the garage door.
It was difficult to pull my eyes off him. Something about him was so familiar. I shook it off and headed to the house. The ball once again was bounced on the asphalt driveway, and the sound of his footsteps followed me to the front door where I entered without knocking.
It was instinct. I’d given up knocking on this door when I was seventeen years old and even when I started hanging with Tillie, she only allowed me to do it once before scolding me for treating myself like a guest and not like someone who belonged.
I didn’t even think about it until I shut the door behind me and that voice, that beautiful, feminine voice I’d dreamed about for years filtered through the hallway. It was deeper now, stronger…but no less sexy.
“Wash your hands and get cleaned up, kiddo, breakfast is almost done.”
She shouted it over the hiss and pop of grease, bacon based on the smells.
My body locked and in the corner of my eye, I saw her kiddo.
Her son was dribbling, weaving and bobbing, tossing the ball between his legs like he’d been born with a ball in his hand.
“Hey kiddo! Breakfast is almost ready. Go wash up,” Destiny called again.
Her voice rang through the air in that lyrical way she always had. It took me a minute to stop myself from slamming my fist through the wall at how she could sound so fucking happy when I was a tangled ball of anger and frustration.
“It’s Jordan,” I clipped out. My jaw was so hard from holding back everything I was feeling I ached down my neck to my tense shoulders. I rolled them fruitlessly. Nothing would take away the stress in my shoulders until I gave Destiny a piece of my mind.
The air went electric as I announced myself. The bacon still popped but something thunked to the wood floor.
Then footsteps.
And then she was there. Destiny stood at the mouth of the kitchen, end of the hallway. Small white towel wrapped in her hands, her jaw slack. Her gaze flicked to the front windows off to my side and back. “What are you doing here? How’d you know we were here?”
There were four hotels in town. I owned the best one. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Besides, where else would she go? I ignored her question and stepped toward her. Trying as hard as I fucking could to keep my anger in check.
Destiny Jane Matsen was in front of me again. Beautiful. So damn pretty with her blonde hair piled high on her head, the dredges of yesterday’s mascara smeared beneath her eyes. That tiny freckle above her lip I used to kiss.
She stared at me like I was a ghost. Someone to be afraid of. Who could blame her after I’d been such a complete ass yesterday.
“I came to apologize for yesterday. I was a dick.”
She shrugged. “You were honest. Always were.” Bacon sizzled, and she cursed. “Shit. Hold on. Or…wait. Come in. I need to talk to you.”
We didn’t have shit to say to one another. I’d apologized. Done what I came for.
Somehow, my feet took me to the kitchen island where she flipped off the burner and plated the bacon.
“Listen, Destiny…”
Her shoulders jerked, and she shook her head. “I go by Jane now.”
I flinched. Couldn’t hide it. Jesus. Wouldn’t take an idiot to know why. Still, I hated she was using her middle name. Destined to be like her mama, the folks in town always said, my mom included. Destined for great, better things, Tillie had tried to teach her. When we were in love, I’d always told her she was destined to be mine.
“Listen, Jordan. I appreciate you stopping by. Your apologizing isn’t necessary. But, well, there’s something you need to know.”
She had turned to me and her ass was to the counter by the stove. She hadn’t stepped toward me and even though she was talking to me, her head was turned in the direction of the front of the house.
She cursed again and wiped her hands across her cheeks. “You’re going to hate me,” she muttered. “Hell, you already do, and I don’t blame you. But you’re going to hate me, Jordan. But don’t…whatever you do, please, hate me all you want but don’t take it out on him.”
What the fuck? I stepped toward her, but her hands flew up. “Des…Jane…whatever. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She looked at me. Tears in her green-blue eyes and it was the eyes. Something clicked as tears rolled down her cheeks and she sniffed.
Eyes.
The way Rebecca’s face had drained of color when she saw that photo and then disappeared.
Why I couldn’t take my eyes off that kid.
My body shook with the force of tornado strength winds as something foreign rolled through me. Something hot. Something heavy that made it difficult to breathe.
The way that kid looked at me and scowled. I know who you are.
“You are fucking shitting me, right now,” I finally choked out. “Tell me. Tell me that boy out there isn’t mine?” It came out as a yell, fiercer and harsher than I could ever remember screaming at anyone in my life.
That hot, heavy pulsing inside me raged like a wildfire through me and suddenly, something was in my hand. I flung it and pale green sea glass flew through the air and shattered.
She jumped and screeched, her eyes wild and chest rapidly rising and falling. She stared at the hole in the drywall, the glass on the floor.
I slammed my hand to the countertop. “Tell me, damn it!”
Her hands went to the side of her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Holy shit.” Rage flew through my veins and my hands went to my face. I scrubbed down to wash away the searing, aching pain constricting my chest and pounding against my skull. Madness. I was going mad. “You’re fucking kidding me. Right?”
She wasn’t. It was evident by the tortured expression twisting her features and in the tears streaming down her cheeks.
It all made sense. Every fucking thing.
And even in my fury, I still hated seeing her cry.
Jesus.
“Ten…ten fucking years.” I pressed my hands to the countertop. My knees shook. Shit. I could pass out. Breath wouldn’t come, and thoughts wouldn’t clear. Everything whirred in my brain like a train and my vision blurred. “You left and hid my kid from me?”
A tortured groan ripped from my throat. Good God, I’d never made such a sound in my life and it pierced my ears at the same time she flinched.
What in the hell did I do with this?
“Jordan—”
Her voice ripped from her throat was almost my undoing. I lifted a hand without lifting my head. “Give me a damn minute.”
“I’m sorry.” Her apology was so damn quiet, so sad. Another time, another place, I would have yanked her into my arms and threatened to kick whoever’s ass it was that made her sound like that.
But this was her own damn fault and the apology meant nothing.
I yanked out a chair at the small dining table and collapsed into it. My elbows hit the table, my head hit the palms of my hands.
Ten fucking years. My kid. Holy shit. I had a son. A fucking good-looking one at that, who handled a basketball like
he was born with it and she’d ripped all of that away from me. The ability to teach him how to play. To watch him walk. To send him off for school.
Grief for what I’d lost, what she’d stolen from me hit me hard and fast, unbearable no matter how hard I tried to beat it back.
The clamor of pots and pans echoed, but it felt like she was miles away, banging around in the kitchen, opening and closing the fridge. Outside, quieter, the bounce of the ball of asphalt and the slam of it as it hit the garage grabbed my attention.
A decade of memories I could have had with him—
Gone.
“Why? Why did you do this?”
“I don’t have a good answer anymore,” she said. No fucking shit she didn’t. “At the time, it made sense, Jordan. We were so young. And I was so scared.”
My fingertips pressed into my closed eyes so harshly I feared I’d pop them straight back to my brain. Scared? Young?
We’d planned everything. A family being one of them. It was all I wanted—her, kids, my life on the mound.
Fucking hell.
A violent shudder rolled down my spine, shaking my entire body, as I struggled for restraint.
With an inkling of control, I finally lifted my head, caught her at the counter, twisting that kitchen towel, tears streaming down her cheeks and some blonde hair stuck to the wetness there.
“Tell me everything. Now.”
“Tillie knew before I did. I threw up one morning, didn’t have a fever, and then after it was fine. I shrugged it off, but it happened the next day and when I got back home, Tillie handed me a test.” She shook her head, and I caught the pain in her eyes, reliving that, or what she’d taken from me. “She had a sister in Houston.”
Houston. A different kind of warmth hit my veins. I’d wondered. For years I wondered where she’d disappeared. Did everything I could to find her the first two when I could never get her out of my head. But she’d never had social media. Never found her name mentioned on an online search.
But she went by Jane. I’d never checked that.
I realized she’d kept talking while my mind wandered and I clued in when she said the word cruise.
“What?”
“She hated cruises,” she said. She dropped the towel to the counter and shook her head. “I lived with her sister, Suzie, when I left. Suzie had a two-bedroom apartment in Houston. And after…” Her eyes flicked to me and back to her knee. “Well, after, I stayed there. Tillie came down every year to see us. Always went on a cruise with Suzie out of Galveston so she wasn’t lying to folks back here. But she hated them.”
Hearing how Tillie kept up that charade sent my pulse thumping until I felt it in my neck.
“Came over here,” I said, trying as hard as I possibly could to keep all that anger controlled. “Almost two years I’ve been here, weekly, taking care of her lawn, grocery shopping for her, dinner…do you know how much it pisses me off to know how many times she lied right to my damn face when I asked about you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jordan. At the time, it seemed like the right thing. I was me.” She shrugged and let her shoulder fall. “I was me and everything I’d been raised with, all that shit from people around town, I couldn’t do that to my kid. And you were you. What would people have said, how would they have treated him…what would you have done if I had come to you and told you? Give up your scholarship for me? I’d never have been able to live that down.”
I sucked in a breath, the pain of her words ringing clear in her shaky voice.
“You should have asked me, damn it. You should have trusted me enough to work that out. We were leaving town anyway.”
“Yeah? Like you needed some pregnant girlfriend on a college campus while you were off living your dream. What did that leave for me? Following you around, going wherever you went, kid in tow? You think people wouldn’t have looked at you different? Treated you different? Treated you like trash because you showed up at college with knocked up trailer trash at your side? And what was I going to do? Go to school and raise a kid and be with you? Or was I just supposed to drop out?”
She pushed off the counter and flung her hair out of her face, swiping tears off her cheeks. Shoulders straightened, she pointed at me. “I get it. It was wrong. I could look back and tell you a thousand things I’d do differently. I’m sorry I kept him from you. I’m really, really fucking sorry, Jordan. But I’ve given that boy a good life. He has a great school and good friends, and he laughs, and he doesn’t have any of that shit following him. I gave him a life where he doesn’t have whispers following him, telling him the Matsens are nothing but trash and always will be.” Her pointed finger slammed into her chest. “I did that. I did that for him as much as it killed me. And Tillie told me to, so yeah, she lied to you too, but she did it because she also knew it was best for him.”
I popped out of my chair, the force knocking it back on its legs before it slammed back down to the wood floor. “Best for him? Best for him would have been knowing his dad. That’s what would have been best for him!”
My voice reached anger levels and at my shout, Destiny’s gaze went toward the front of the house. “We can’t do this. Not now. Toby’s outside and he’s had a hard enough few days, Jordan. Please, let’s take some time. Take some time to figure out what we want and then we’ll talk. But not like this. Not when we’re screaming at each other.”
Fuck that. If she thought I was going to calmly walk away, she was dead wrong. I knew what I wanted.
I wanted my damn kid. Something she said slammed into my chest, made it burn hot and fierce and my head whipped in the direction of the boy still playing ball. Toby.
Why did it feel so good to finally know his name? “Toby?” I croaked. “That’s his name?”
Her chin wobbled, and she nodded. “Tobias. Tobias Jordan.” A sob escaped her, and she covered her mouth.
My eyes burned at the same time my chest expanded. She’d given him my fucking name without any knowledge of his fucking father who would have moved heaven and earth to give him everything he needed. Including safety and peace.
“Shit, Des. I can’t fucking believe you right now.” I spun on my heels and put my back to her. The hits didn’t stop coming.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t need her worthless apologies. I needed ten years back with my kid. I opened my eyes to tell her that when my eyes caught on a box, taped and shoved in the corner. Then another. And another.
Holy shit. She was packing Tillie’s house.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, throwing my arm in the direction of the boxes.
Her brows furrowed. So I was a squirrel, changing the conversation.
“I’m packing her things and selling her house, Jordan.”
“And leaving? Back to Texas?” The fuck she was. “Are you kidding me?”
She focused on a spot on the far wall, unable to look at me. Her avoidance only pissed me off more. “We live in Texas, Jordan. Our lives are there. His school. My job. My—” She shook her head and stopped. “Please. Let’s take some time. We can figure out a way for you to see him. I promise. And he wants to meet you, I swear it.”
“You told him about me?”
For the first time since I’d walked into that house, my heart slowed. At least she’d been honest with him.
“Last night. He saw our prom photo and put two and two together at the funeral.”
Jesus. She’d lied to him, too. Who knew the woman, the girl I’d wanted to spend the rest of my life with, could end up being such a selfish, irresponsible bitch.
“You can see him. I promise,” she repeated, and my shoulders snapped back. Fucking hell.
“Yeah? And you think I trust that? You think I trust you won’t whisk him away before I ever get to meet him? You’re fucking lucky I haven’t already picked up the phone and called my lawyers. No one in their damn mind wouldn’t give me custody, at least partial, once they know you stole my kid from me.”
It was the wrong thing to say. My brain screamed at me to shut up as I was ranting, but all that anger I’d been holding onto flew out of my throat before I could think.
Destiny’s face went white as a sheet and she stumbled back, already lifting a hand, shaking her head, gasping like a fish for breath. “Get out,” she gasped. “Get the hell out of this house.”
She turned on her heel, rushed down the hall and a door slammed shut.
My hands flew to my head and I tugged on my hair. “Fuck!”
Six
Destiny
* * *
In the worst of the worst-case scenarios rushing my mind over the last week, that one was topping the list. And he’d flung that threat in my face without hesitating. I had no recourse. If Jordan meant it, if he followed through, I could lose Toby.
My entire body shivered, and my hands trembled while I splashed water on my face in the small half bathroom.
It reeked like gardenias. The scent of Tillie’s perfume overpowered the small room and stung my eyes almost as equally as that threat.
He could do it too. That’s what made it all so worse.
Jordan Marx, former Major League pitcher and who in the hell knew what he did now, but his family was a legend in this damn town. He could pull my ass in front of a judge tomorrow and win without a shred of evidence. All he needed was his name to declare it so and no judge in this county would deny him anything.
“Shit!” I slammed my hand to the counter, the sting of my palm on Formica ran up my arm.
This was why it’d been so much easier and safer to stay away. Why I desperately begged Tillie to move to Texas so we could all be together. It was wrong, and a declaration made of terror, but damn it, everything I’d said to Jordan was true, too.
I’d kept our son from having the same crappy life I’d had.
That, I wouldn’t apologize for.
A soft knock hit the door, and I swung toward it, almost expecting more ranting and threats. The ranting I deserved.