Come Home to Me

by Brenda Novak

  “You don’t have to be like your mother if you don’t want to be,” he told her. “You have control of your life. Look what you’ve been able to do in just twenty-four months. Imagine what you could do with more time.”

  But giving up Aaron had been harder than giving up drugs. “We’ve slept together since I’ve been home,” she blurted out. “I haven’t been with anyone since Arizona. But I didn’t last a week back in Whiskey Creek, not with Aaron around.”

  He didn’t respond right away.

  “Dylan?”

  After a muttered curse, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone so stuck on another person, which makes me mad at him.”

  “He’s not trying to hurt me. It’s just... I don’t know. We seem to be...sexually addicted to each other.”

  “Then he needs to exercise some restraint.”

  “We both do. But I’ve tried to stay away from him. My stubborn heart won’t let him go.”

  “Stubborn is right,” he said. “Does Cheyenne know about the two of you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I won’t tell her.”

  Presley could hear Cheyenne complaining in the background.

  “It’ll be my revenge secret,” Dylan joked.

  Presley hardly felt like laughing. “I wish you could tell me how to get over him,” she said.

  “You just got to make up your mind, little sister. Demand that whatever man you get with gives you his whole heart. And if he doesn’t? He’s not worth your time.”

  “I don’t think I have the confidence,” she admitted.

  “That’s your background talking,” he said. “Don’t listen. It’s lied to you before. You’re worthy of any man.”

  Her sister was back on the line. “What did you tell him?” she asked. There was a bit of a ruckus, as if they were wrestling over the phone. But Presley wasn’t paying much attention. Make up your mind.... Somehow she’d let her old doubts and insecurities creep up on her again, and it had happened so quickly and smoothly that she hadn’t even noticed.

  “You’re right,” she said.

  “Who’s right?” Cheyenne asked.

  “Dylan.”

  “About what?”

  Presley stood up. “I have a choice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I can choose what I’ll accept and what I won’t.”

  It was Dylan’s voice she heard next.

  “Now you’ve got it,” he said.

  20

  After she’d waited anxiously for nearly twenty-four hours, Presley’s phone rang at seven-forty the next evening, and the caller ID identified Aaron’s number. She hadn’t known when she’d hear from him, but she’d assumed he’d contact her at some point. He’d had a day or so to mull over the fact that he was a father. Now he was apparently ready to discuss the situation.

  Presley preferred not to handle such a sensitive issue while she was at work. She had a client who would be showing up in less than ten minutes, expecting an hour-long, full-body massage, so she had limited time. It wouldn’t be professional to greet her client with red, swollen eyes—which would happen if she started crying during her conversation with Aaron. But she was so anxious to learn her fate, and so afraid that any misstep might antagonize him further, that she couldn’t help answering.

  “Hello?” Hearing the breathy quality of her own voice, she wondered if he could tell how terrified she was. But he gave no indication. He didn’t even respond. “Hello? Aaron?”

  “I’m here.” Finally he spoke, but his voice was flat and hard.

  She rubbed the sudden chill bumps from her arms. “Why wouldn’t you answer? Couldn’t you hear me?”

  “I heard you just fine. I wasn’t sure if I was actually ready to have this conversation.”

  “You’re still angry.”

  “Don’t I have a right to be?”

  “You do. But...I did what I thought was best, Aaron. What I thought you’d want.”

  “You decided what to do with our baby without even asking me.”

  “Once you knew, there’d be no going back. I saved you from having to decide! I let you go on your way unfettered and unbothered!”

  “That’s bullshit,” he snapped. “You didn’t keep Wyatt a secret for my sake. You did it for your own.”

  She threw a nervous glance at the clock. She didn’t have time to let this blow up in her face. “Look, I’m sorry. But we’re here now. So what do you want to do?”

  “You think I can get over it that easily? Maybe I could if you were really sorry, but you’re not. You’re only sorry I found out. It’s not as if you were going to tell me.”

  What could she say? She’d expected this. Some might even claim she deserved it. But she’d been in such a dark place when she first learned about her pregnancy, with her mother dying, and her own addiction and her confidence so low. There had seemed like only one way out after she’d decided to keep the baby—and that was to go away, start over. She doubted she would’ve been capable of putting herself back together if she’d stayed in contact with Aaron, even if it was just to have his help with Wyatt. He was too much of a temptation for her. “Probably not,” she said.

  “And then you had sex with me, knowing we already had one child together!” he said, pointing out how that made the whole thing worse. “I could’ve gotten you pregnant again.”

  “The fact that pregnancy can result from sex is a surprise to you? You’re saying I owed you some...some sort of disclaimer? ‘I already have a child by you so you’d better move on.’ I don’t remember inviting you over in the first place. The whole encounter was an...accident, a slip-up.”

  “You wanted it as badly as I did.”

  “Old emotions and desire got ahead of us. But it’s in the past now, and it doesn’t pertain to this.”

  “How do I know that? You could’ve been lying when you took that pregnancy test. You wouldn’t let me in the damn bathroom.”

  “Stop it! You’re acting like I’ve been trying to have your babies. Wyatt was an accident, Aaron. Just like that broken rubber we had recently. I got pregnant in spite of birth control, and I certainly haven’t been knocking on your door, asking for more babies since. Do you think it was easy having a baby on my own? You know where I started out, how little I had to work with.”

  “That’s your fault!” he nearly shouted. “It didn’t have to be so hard. I would’ve helped you.”

  She lowered her voice. “You would’ve told me to get an abortion.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  “Maybe I didn’t want to hear that, okay?” she went on. “Maybe I decided, since I was very likely the only one of us who wanted the baby, that I should be responsible for him.”

  “That’s what enrages me! How do you know what I would’ve done? You never gave me the chance to decide for myself.”

  “Am I wrong about how you would’ve reacted? Would you have been excited? Would you have said you were ready to become a parent?”

  “I probably wouldn’t have said I was ‘excited.’ But I wasn’t any less ready than you were, and you managed it. I wouldn’t have forced you to get an abortion, so quit making it sound like I wouldn’t have taken your feelings into consideration.”

  “You wanted me out of your life! The night my mother died, you told me to go home and you shut the door in my face as I stood crying. You think I was going to tell you about the baby after that? Hell, no! You would’ve assumed I was trying to trap you, or rope you into being part of my life. I chose not to become a debt, an obligation. Don’t you get that?”

  “I get that you knew I didn’t want you, so you weren’t going to let me have him.”

  Those words hit her like a physical blow. She’d always intuitively understood that Aaron didn’t return her fe
elings, but he’d never spelled it out quite so bluntly. Stunned that this acknowledgment could still bring her pain, even after all the time they’d been apart, she opened her mouth to refute the accusation. That had nothing to do with the reason she’d gone away and decided to raise Wyatt on her own.

  But then she caught herself. She’d just told him to be honest. Maybe she should do the same. That might not have been the reason when she left, but what about since then? What about after she returned to Whiskey Creek? Now that she had Wyatt and loved him so deeply, she didn’t want to be the only one Aaron couldn’t love. She also didn’t want to compete with someone like Aaron, someone so charismatic, for her son’s love.

  “That wasn’t how it all started,” she said softly. “But...it might be why I continued to keep the secret.”

  The way she’d suddenly stopped protesting and acknowledged that he could be right seemed to take the fire from his anger. “Wait, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that to be as harsh as it sounded.”

  She saw her client pull to the curb outside and knew she had to somehow find the strength and mental fortitude to get to work. And she wasn’t going to do that by continuing to talk to Aaron. “Of course you did. But I need to go. I’ll give you visitation rights, if that’s what you want. Just text me if you’d like to take Wyatt some weekend. I’d rather we communicated that way from now on,” she said and greeted her client while disconnecting.

  * * *

  Aaron dropped his phone on the couch, fell back against its cushions and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he’d just done, but he knew it wasn’t good. He felt sick inside, as if he’d taken something beautiful and smashed it on the ground. Presley had always struggled with her self-esteem. Now that she’d finally developed some, he hadn’t meant to knock her flat by making it sound so unbelievable that he could ever love her. Over the course of her life, there’d been enough people tearing her down. He’d prided himself on being different, on being able to see who she really was. That was why he’d reached out to her that day at Sexy Sadie’s; that was how he’d come to know there was a lot to admire. He liked how unpretentious she was, how grateful for the slightest kindness, how flexible and easy to please. He also enjoyed her street smarts and her sense of humor.

  So why had he just cut her to the quick?

  Because he’d been angry and frustrated and he’d let his temper get the best of him. Again. “Shit!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Aaron opened his eyes to see that Grady had walked in. “Nothing.”

  “Is it what we talked about yesterday? Wyatt?”

  His brother had cornered him at work early this morning to ask if the rumors about Wyatt were true. Aaron had admitted they were. Then he’d heard from his other brothers, who were shocked but tentatively excited. Dylan was the only one who hadn’t made a big deal about his having a kid. He’d understood that Aaron needed some space to cope with such a bombshell.

  “Yes.”

  “Won’t she let you see him?”

  It wasn’t that. Presley had offered visitation rights. She’d told him to text her if he wanted to arrange a time to see Wyatt. But that was as upsetting as all the rest of it. She’d just taken another giant step away from him.

  “We’ll see. I’m going to ask if I can have him tomorrow.”

  “You think she’ll agree to that?”

  “Why not? I’m off work. And she’s had him for eighteen months. I should have the chance to get acquainted.”

  Grady rubbed his hands together in eagerness. “That means we’ll be able to get acquainted, too. I can’t wait. Dylan says he’s cute.”

  “You haven’t seen him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He’s definitely cute.”

  His brother said something else, but Aaron didn’t hear him and he didn’t stop to find out what it was. He scooped his keys off the kitchen counter, hurried out to his truck and drove over to Presley’s. To hell with texting; they lived in the same small town.

  No one answered the door, so he decided to try the studio.

  She was in the middle of giving a massage when he walked in. There was a sign on the door that said Massage in Session. A paper clock hung below, indicating the time she’d be available. It read nine.

  He checked his watch. He’d have to wait forty-five minutes, but he wasn’t going to leave and come back. If he missed her, she’d very likely go to Cheyenne’s, because Cheyenne probably had Wyatt. And once Presley went there, he’d have to wait even longer to speak to her in private. So he sat in the reception area until he heard the door open. Then he stood.

  The moment she saw him, she tensed up. It looked like she’d been crying, which made him feel even worse.

  “I have a client here,” she whispered, her words rushed as if she feared he’d start an argument before they were alone.

  Hoping to ease her anxiety, he nodded and sat down again and, before long, Joe DeMarco, who owned the Gas-N-Go along with his father, appeared. Although Aaron didn’t know him well, they’d seen each other around town plenty of times.

  Joe said hello before paying Presley. Then he thanked her for the massage and walked out.

  As soon as he was gone, Aaron tried to approach her again. “I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t mean to be such an ass on the phone.” He tried to draw her to him, to soften her up so he could fix the damage he’d caused, but she jumped out of reach as if he intended to slug her instead.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Like I told you, there’s probably some truth to what you said. I’ve never known exactly what makes me do what I do. Anyway, I can’t change the past. So I’m going to stay focused on building a good future.”

  “You’re well on your way. I admire you for the changes you’ve made.”

  She didn’t seem to take that compliment to heart. She certainly didn’t thank him. Maybe she thought he was just trying to be nice to compensate for how he’d acted before. “I have a long way to go, but at least I’ve started. One day at a time, right?”

  “That’s all anyone can do.”

  “So...back to Wyatt,” she said. “We’ll get a paternity test. I wouldn’t want to move forward without proof, any more than you would. But then you’re going to be faced with a choice, so you might as well be thinking about it now. Like most fathers in this situation, you can choose to pay child support and have visitations, or you can choose to sign away your rights and never hear from us again.”

  He felt some of his anger return. “You’re still pushing for that?”

  “It should be an attractive option. I can’t guarantee that Wyatt won’t try to contact you when he’s older, of course. But I can take certain steps to make that unlikely.”

  He already knew he wasn’t interested in bowing out. He was, however, curious about what she’d just said. “And those steps would include...”

  “Being careful not to reveal your name or any other details about you.”

  “God,” he muttered.

  She lifted her chin. “I’m just saying it’s up to you. I’ve never tried to force you into anything. And I’m not trying now.”

  “But it’s perfectly clear what you’d prefer.”

  “I’m looking down the road, trying to imagine what the future might be like for both of us when we eventually find partners. If we do...” she added.

  He didn’t like what she’d said. Neither did he like that she sounded so remote. Her response frightened him. It showed him that he no longer held much power where she was concerned. And now she had his son.

  “I know you’ve been generous with your love and kindness from the beginning, Pres. That’s just who you are. I also know you didn’t get pregnant on purpose. I feel bad that you had to go through it all on your own. Chances are that I’ve been reacting out of guilt as
much as anything else. I should never have let our relationship develop into what it did.” He sighed. “Everyone seems to think I was using you. That was never my intent, but...maybe I was doing it and then justifying it by telling myself I was giving you what you wanted.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “You were giving me what I wanted. No question about that.”

  And yet she didn’t seem interested anymore. Somehow, he’d taken it for granted that he’d always be able to have her if he wanted her. “There were enough good things about what we had that I let it go, I guess.”

  “That’s understandable, since I made it so easy for you.”

  She had a way of looking at the harsh truth without flinching. He’d always admired that, too. “But I should never have been as oblivious as I was those last few weeks,” he said. “I basically turned a blind eye to what was happening with your mother, tried to ignore it. And after that, once I learned you were having a baby, I should’ve wondered about it more than I did. If we hadn’t been so careful about birth control, I think I would have.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back. “You know, or probably guessed from the parts of my ordeal you heard about from Chey or Dylan, that I ran into some...problems with other men after I left, even if you never learned all the details,” she said, and immediately winced as if she was shying away from the memories even as she spoke. “The timing was only off by a month or so, and you weren’t marking the days of my pregnancy off on a calendar.”

  “We both made mistakes. I say we let the past go and focus on what’s best for Wyatt from here on out. Can you do that?”

  She managed a weak smile. “Of course. So...do you want me to figure out how to get a paternity test?”

  “I will. But I already believe Wyatt’s mine, and that means I want to be part of his life. As tempting as you’ve tried to make it sound to walk away, I could never do it.”

  For a second, she looked like he’d just shot her. Then she rallied, but he knew she was barely holding herself together. “Okay.”