“Yeah.” He struggled with the straps for a moment. One arm went in, but the other was a bit more difficult. She didn’t offer to help—he was the kind of kid who got annoyed if someone intervened when he really wanted to do something himself.
Finally, he got his arm through the second strap and adjusted the bag on his shoulders.
Alyssa smiled. “Got it?”
“Yeah.”
Grant opened the door as they were coming up the porch steps, and he knelt to hug Nate. “Hey, bud. How was your week?”
“Good.” Nate hugged him, then pulled back and grinned. “Can we watch Cars again tonight?”
“Of course.” Grant patted Nate’s arm. “Why don’t you go put your stuff in your room, and then we’ll sit down and watch it after I talk to your mom for a bit.”
“Okay!” Nate trotted down the hall, backpack bouncing on his back as he did.
Grant chuckled as he stood. “He still isn’t tired of that one, is he?”
Alyssa laughed, but it took effort. “I don’t think he’ll ever get tired of Cars.”
“Probably not.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “You want a cup of coffee?”
“Not tonight.” She sighed. “I really should get home.”
He studied her and cocked his head. “Something wrong? You seem a little out of sorts tonight.”
She swallowed the emotions trying to rise in her throat. Goddammit, why couldn’t she keep it together?
He stepped closer and touched her shoulder. “Lyss, what’s wrong?”
Alyssa sniffed. “Just…it’s been a rough week.”
“You want to talk about it?”
No. I want to forget it ever happened. I want to forget all about Shane McNeill.
“Come on. You look like you need to talk. I know you.”
She managed a quiet laugh. “You can still read me, can’t you?”
“Absolutely.” He gently nudged her toward the kitchen. “Let’s sit down and have a drink.” He paused. “Actually, do you mind if I have a smoke?”
“Sure.”
“Meet me out on the deck.”
As she headed down the hall, he went the other direction, and she heard him said, “Nate, Mom and I are stepping out onto the patio. Stay in the living room, please.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Once Grant had Nate situated in the living room where they could keep an eye on him, he joined Alyssa and pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket. He cupped his hand around the end of his cigarette, flicked the lighter and took a drag.
Alyssa rested her hands on the railing, trying not to think about how much this reminded her of standing out on the boat with Shane that first night. “So, things with Shane didn’t work out.”
Grant lowered his cigarette. “You told him?”
Closing her eyes, she nodded slowly.
“I’m guessing he didn’t take it well.”
“As well as anyone ever does.”
He laughed bitterly. “That bad, huh?”
“Yeah.” She ran a hand through her hair. “The thing is, he’s got a past too.”
“What kind of past?”
She turned to him. “The felony kind.”
Grant’s eyes got huge. “No shit? What’d he do?”
“Armed robbery, apparently. He didn’t go into much detail.” She ran a hand through her hair and exhaled sharply. “We didn’t get that far.”
“Seems like kind of an important thing to—” He paused, then opened the sliding glass door and, holding his cigarette away so the smoke didn’t blow in the house, leaned inside. “Nate, what did I say about the DVDs? Put them back on the shelf, please.”
“Sorry, Dad,” came the quiet voice from inside.
Grant watched him for a moment, making sure their son obeyed and started putting the DVDs away. Apparently satisfied Nate was doing what he was supposed to, Grant closed the door. “Anyway. It seems like it’s kind of important to know what kind of felon you’re dealing with.”
“Seems like kind of a moot point.” She hugged herself tight in spite of the warm evening. “I don’t really want to be with someone who’s…you know.”
“What did he think of your past?” Grant asked softly.
“Oh, he was thoroughly impressed,” she grumbled.
Grant blew out some smoke. “And I take it you’re not impressed with that reaction?”
“Of course not.”
He gave her a knowing look. “So, are you pissed off because he won’t look past an irreversible mistake you made years ago, or because he waited too long to tell you about the irreversible mistake he made years ago that he’ll never be able to change?”
Guilt twisted in her belly.
He raised his eyebrows.
“God damn it,” she muttered. “I hate it when you make sense.”
He laughed dryly. “I know you do. But you deserve it for all the times you’ve made sense and talked me out of staying with crazy girls just because they were good in bed.”
“Fair enough, fair enough.” She rested her hands on the railing and glanced past him to quickly check on Nate. Then she returned her attention to Grant. “But we are talking about a felon here. I mean, on the one hand, he’s always been gentle unless I’ve asked him not to be. He’s never been violent or even raised his voice.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “But every time I think about trying to go back to the way things were, I think of those women who go back to the men who beat them.” Dropping her hand, she looked at Grant. “Which is stupid, since he’s never laid a hand on me unless I asked him to.”
“It’s reasonable.” He took another deep drag off his cigarette. “You have to protect yourself. And Nate.”
Alyssa nodded. “Exactly. But, the thing is, before he told me what he did, we had this amazing connection. We did some of the things I’d only ever done with you.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and shifted her weight. “And now I can’t decide if I was stupid to trust him that much, or if I’m stupid to think I shouldn’t trust him now.”
“Well, think about it. Has he ever made you feel threatened? In the present, I mean?”
She swallowed hard and avoided his eyes. “To be honest, I haven’t felt that safe with someone since…”
“Since what?”
Taking a deep breath, Alyssa met his gaze. “Since I was with you.”
Grant flinched. “A connection like that is hard to find, you know.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“So if you’ve got it with this guy, then—”
“Grant, he’s a convicted felon.”
“And you’re an adulterer.”
She gritted her teeth. “Was an adulterer.”
His eyebrow rose.
Alyssa grimaced and looked away. “Okay, point taken. But how can I be sure I’m safe with him?”
“How can he be sure you won’t cheat on him?”
She winced.
“I’m not suggesting you will,” Grant said gently. “But the reason you and I have both been alone all this time is because no one is willing to take a gamble on someone who’s fucked up the way we did. Maybe this guy is someone who’ll give you a shot if you’ll give him one.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Assuming he will give me a shot.”
“Maybe he won’t. But it sounds like you had a really good thing going with him before you both showed your cards. If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to give up on it.”
“I guess it’s worth a try.”
“Of course it is. I mean, I know he’s done some shit he’s not proud of, but you and I have too. And neither of us has gotten anywhere with anyone, but maybe you’ve still got a shot with this guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s got a past too. Maybe if you two
can sit down and talk, really get everything out in the open, you can both put it behind you because you both understand what it’s like to have something like that following you around.”
“Maybe,” she whispered. “I hope so.”
Grant put out his cigarette, and then reached for her and hugged her tight. “Good luck, Alyssa. I hope things work out with him.” He kissed the top of her head. “You deserve somebody who’ll make you happy.” Drawing back, he met her gaze and quietly added, “And he probably does too.”
Alyssa chewed her lip.
“Just talk to him.” Grant hugged her again. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes and held him tight. “And thanks for the pep talk.”
“Any time. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Somehow I think I’ll need it.
Chapter Twenty
Shane had no idea what to expect when her car pulled up in front of the house.
She’d texted him this evening and said she wanted to talk, and he’d decided against his better judgment to agree to it if only because he couldn’t think of any other means of putting his mind at ease. And it wasn’t like he was going to get any less sleep than he had recently.
On his way to the door to meet her, he tried not to think about the last few times he’d had conversations about his past with women he’d attempted to date. Yeah, maybe Julie and Deborah had overreacted, and maybe threatening him with restraining orders had been more than a little over the top, but that didn’t mean Alyssa wasn’t here to tell him the same things.
“Come near me again,” Deborah had snarled, “and I will see you in court.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Julie had screamed. “Did you think I’d be happy to find out I just spent the last month with a criminal?”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath. Presumably, if Alyssa felt threatened by him, she would do this over the phone or via e-mail rather than face-to-face. Or at least on neutral ground. Maybe out in public somewhere.
But here she was.
And here we go.
He pulled open the door, and she stopped on the welcome mat. Their eyes met over the threshold—her expression offered nothing.
Shane stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. She hesitated for a split second, but then came inside. As he closed the door, he asked, “Do you, uh, want a cup of coffee or something?”
Alyssa shook her head. “No, thank you.”
He was tempted, but his nerves were already shot and he was already jittery, so coffee was a bad idea. Instead, he led her into the living room, and they sat an uncomfortably comfortable distance apart—an arm’s-length worth of breathing room, but way too much space between two people who’d struggled from day one to pull apart for more than a minute or so at a time.
Sitting here with her, and yet so far away from her, Shane could still see himself in bed with her. Tangled up with her, losing his breath and his mind, holding her against him and moving inside her—it hurt like hell for those thoughts to feel more like fantasies now than memories. Something he wanted so bad he could taste—and feel and hear—it, but could never have in a million years. It hurt like hell to be so in love with someone who could barely stand to be in the same room with him now.
“So,” he said quietly, “where do we start?”
Alyssa stared at the coffee table for a moment, then turned toward him. “I think…” She wrung her hands in her lap. “I think maybe we need to talk more about…about what we’ve both done in the past. Just put it all out there on the table and be open about it.”
He gnawed his thumbnail. “Do you think that’ll change anything?”
She looked in his eyes. “Maybe?”
“I suppose it won’t make things worse.”
“No, probably not.”
They held each other’s gaze for a moment.
Finally, she took a deep breath and sat a bit straighter. “I, um, I guess I can start.”
“Sure. Okay.”
She chewed her lip. “I know people say once a cheater, always a cheater, but…” She shook her head. “Even if I could convince myself that it was okay to cheat, which I can’t, there’s no way in hell I could go through the aftermath again. I hurt way, way too many people.”
Shane studied her, not quite sure what to say. Then, “How did things end up between you and your son’s father?” He hoped the question didn’t sound like an accusation—with a child together, Alyssa and the man she’d cheated with were still part of each other’s lives, and he wasn’t sure just how big a part.
Alyssa swallowed, some color blooming in her cheeks. “We tried to make it work. Especially because of the baby. But the damage was done. We both felt so fucking guilty about what happened, and it fell apart before either of our divorces were final. We could barely even talk to each other for a solid year, which was hell when we were dealing with our divorces and a new baby.”
“What about now?”
“We’re better now. A lot better.” She ran a hand through her hair and released a breath. “That first year was pretty rough. We resented each other so much because of our divorces, and life was just such a mess, but we finally sat down and talked, and we decided we should focus on doing the best we could for the baby.” Meeting Shane’s eyes, she added, “And we’re okay now. There’s no way we could ever go back, but we’re good friends.”
“That’s good,” Shane said softly. “Probably makes things easier for your son, too.”
“It does.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and rubbing her forehead with one hand. “My ex-husband and I actually buried the hatchet a year or so ago too, but the relationship’s definitely over. There’s no going back after something like that.”
She went quiet, and this time, Shane definitely didn’t know what to say.
After a while, she went on. “I don’t have any excuses for it.” She sniffed, quickly wiping her eyes. “It was a stupid thing to do, and a lot of people got hurt. I love my son more than life itself, but I’m not going to pretend I don’t regret how he came to be.”
“It was a mistake.” He reached across the void and took her hand, the warm contact startling both of them. “We’ve all made them and have to live with the consequences. Believe me, I know.”
She looked in his eyes. “Yeah, I guess you probably get that more than most people I’ve tried to talk to. Which is why I shouldn’t have been such a bitch about your past.”
“You came back to talk,” he whispered. “That’s…that’s more than most people are willing to give me.”
“Me too.”
He took a breath. “Why did you do it? I mean, were you and your husband unhappy, or…?”
Alyssa ran a hand through her hair. “There were plenty of reasons, and none of them justify anything.”
“Humor me.”
She swallowed. “Ken and I had been drifting apart. Looking back, I think we were perfectly happy, but it wasn’t all sparks and fireworks anymore. So I was bored.” Wincing, Alyssa sat back. “And then I met Grant, and…” She sighed. “To be honest, I never felt that way about Ken. Not even in the beginning. We just had this connection. If I’d been smart, I’d have avoided him, but we danced around it for a few weeks and finally gave in. And once we’d slept together…”
“It’s okay.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m not judging. Just curious.”
She held his gaze, as if she was searching him for a reason to believe him or not. After a while, she gently withdrew her hand and folded her arms across her stomach. “The thing is, when I hooked up with Grant, I found things I hadn’t realized I was missing.” She glanced at him. “All the kinky stuff? I learned that from being with him. His wife wasn’t into it at all, and Ken…well, I’ll never know if he might’ve bee
n interested, because I stupidly decided to explore it with Grant instead of with him. The sex was amazing. The kink was addictive. Right or wrong, I was… I don’t even know if I was in love with Grant. And then I got pregnant.”
Shane swallowed but didn’t speak.
“I knew the baby was Grant’s,” Alyssa went on. “My husband, he suspected I’d been cheating on him again, and after he caught on that I was pregnant, he wanted to be sure, so he followed me one night. And he caught us.” Alyssa lowered her gaze. “And that was all she wrote. He filed for divorce the next day, signed away his rights to Nate—”
“I thought Nate wasn’t his.”
“No, but in the eyes of the law, a baby is biologically the child of a woman’s husband until proven otherwise. I think…I think he just wanted to make sure the judge, the lawyers and I all knew he wanted nothing to do with the baby. And looking back, I can’t really say I blame him.”
“Wow…”
Alyssa took a deep breath and slowly lifted her gaze to look him in the eye. “I’m not excusing any of it. It was a huge mistake. A series of huge mistakes.” Rubbing her neck, she went on, “But I can’t change it. And the fact is, Grant and I will always be part of each other’s lives because of our son. But that relationship? It’s over.” She released a long, ragged breath, and then turned to him. “There isn’t much more I can say. Like I said, I have no excuses. I know it was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time. I can’t change the fact that it happened, but there’s no way in hell I’d do it again.”
He’d heard serial cheaters claim they’d cheated their last, just like he’d heard abusers say they’d abused their last, and it was all bullshit. But…he believed her. Every word. He felt the sincerity in her words just like he felt in his own when he insisted his law-breaking days were over. And speaking of those days…
“Well.” He shifted uncomfortably. “You showed me yours. Guess I should show you mine. More of mine, I mean.”
She locked eyes with him and swallowed hard, her features taut and her shoulders rigid. “Okay.”
He tried to ignore the tightening knot in his stomach and figure out where the hell to start. After a moment, he pulled his hair back a little. “Remember this scar?”
I'll Show You Mine Page 16