Holding her hand over the mouthpiece, she called her daughter’s name. Paige bounded around the corner, holding up a scrap of black lace. “Look what I found in Uncle Kieran’s room, Mama.”
“Oh God.” As Paige came closer, Wynne realized she was holding a pair of woman’s thong underwear. “Give that to me, please.” Her daughter dutifully deposited the undies into Wynne’s hand. “Your father is on the phone for you.”
“Yay!” Paige clapped her hands together and snatched the cordless from Wynne’s hand. “Hi, Daddy.” She giggled at something Derek said. “Yep. Uh-huh. Yep, she is.” Paige’s eyes settled on Wynne tellingly.
“What?” Wynne asked, trying to hold the thong as far away from her body as possible. Her brother was such an obnoxious male pig.
“You gotta leave,” Paige ordered with a dimple revealing grin. “It’s a secret.”
Great. Her four-year-old was keeping secrets from her.
“Fine,” she muttered, leaving the room to look for a trash can. After Paige got off the phone, Wynne planned to call Kieran and tell him exactly what she thought about his little underwear collection. She could only hope there weren’t more thongs stuffed underneath the mattress or in his underwear drawer.
The moving guys tramped a steady path through the foyer, carrying assorted pieces of furniture and boxes, dismantled pieces of Kieran’s life in Dallas. Wynne could only imagine the sordid parties he had held here in his cavernous, multimillion-dollar mansion. Easily three times the size of her shop and apartment combined, the house boasted a giant kitchen with marble countertops, two ovens that had probably never even been used, a master bath bigger than Wynne’s bedroom, a game room and a small indoor pool.
Her mother sailed around the corner, ordering a pair of movers who carried a sofa between them. “Don’t bump it into the walls. Make sure you put it in the truck very gently. It’s leather, you know.” She caught sight of Wynne and stopped, giving the poor moving men a break. “How’s it coming in the living room?”
“Great except for these.” Wynne held up the offending thong, making a face.
“Oh my God.” Eileen pressed a hand to her throat. “Those aren’t Kieran’s, are they?”
Wynne burst out laughing. “In a way, Mom. I’m sure he won them from the original owner fair and square.”
“Oh.” Her mother flashed her an embarrassed look. “I guess I don’t like to think of my little boy running around with thong-wearing…”
“Bimbos?”
Eileen grimaced. “Unfortunately, that does appear to be your brother’s woman of choice.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Thoughts of Kieran and Trina Wade swirled through her mind again, inciting nausea.
“What do you mean?”
Wynne tossed the thong into a nearby trash bag and waited until the moving guys cleared the room. “Nothing.” No need to go into the yucky details. There was something faintly incestuous about the whole situation. “Just that Kieran is far from being an angel.”
“I know that.” Her mother tilted her head to the side and studied her. “He’s actually a lot like Derek Shaw.”
“Mom, don’t start in on this.”
“I’m glad you decided to come to Dallas with me. You really needed some time away from that man.”
“Mom.” Wynne rolled her eyes. “Derek is nothing like Kieran.” Kieran was every woman’s worst nightmare, a hell-raising bad boy who had the money and the looks to get any woman he wanted. Derek, on the other hand, had morals and maturity. He had made mistakes in his life, yes, but he had learned from them. Derek was reformed. Kieran was irredeemable.
“I know you don’t want to see it, honey.” Eileen put a hand on Wynne’s arm. “And believe me, I don’t like having to put your brother in this category, but at some point, you have to see the truth. Some men will always be users. They use women until they’re tired of them, and then they throw them away. Your father did the same thing. It shouldn’t surprise me that your brother turned into one, or that you would fall for one.”
“Derek isn’t a user.” She couldn’t check the impulse to defend Derek. “He’s nothing like my father. When he found out about Paige, he gave up everything to stay in Atlantic and be a father to her. Jerry ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.”
Eileen frowned. “It’s only been a few weeks, sweetheart. Who’s to say that he won’t get tired of playing dad next week, and just leave?”
Wynne had been asking herself the same question. But Derek continued to give her the same answer. “He’s not going to leave, Mom.” She wished she could make her voice sound certain. Hadn’t she been encouraging him to leave, to go back to his old life?
“We’ll see.” Eileen’s tone made it clear that she expected Derek to hightail it before Wynne even made the flight back to Maryland.
“Mama.” Paige emerged from the living room, skipping in excitement. Her blonde curls bounced around her pink cheeks and her blue eyes, so much like her father’s, glowed. “Daddy got a new job.”
All the air rushed from her lungs. “What?”
“Daddy told me he got a new job,” Paige repeated. “He said it’ll be a fun job and that I can come and visit him whenever I want to.”
The sun shining in the skylight suddenly seemed unnaturally bright. Paige moved toward her in slow motion, her shimmering princess shoes blurred. Eileen directed an I-told-you-so look her way. Wynne couldn’t breathe.
After promising again and again that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d ended his acting career forever, Derek was moving back to LA. To make matters worse, he just blithely announced the news to their four-year-old daughter as if LA were ten minutes down the road instead of on the other side of the continent. Paige had no idea. Humming a song from one of her princess movies, she skipped around in innocent circles.
She knew it was ridiculous to feel this way, but she’d wanted to believe his assertions, even as she encouraged him to take the movie role. She wanted him to want to stay, and now, he had just successfully demolished any faith she had ever had in him, and broken her heart in the process. Paige would be devastated when she realized her daddy was gone. How could she break that kind of news to her daughter? How could she tell her daughter that the father she barely knew had returned to his life and left her behind? Wynne knew all too well the role of unwanted, left-behind daughter. She certainly didn’t want Paige to have to suffer through a similar fate.
Damn him.
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Her mother’s soft voice interrupted Wynne’s shattered musings. “At least this happened sooner rather than later.”
“At least.” Wynne’s voice was wooden. Dead. She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples.
“Why don’t you take a break from packing?”
She shifted her gaze to her mother’s face, blinking slowly. “Strange. I’ve been so convinced all along that this would happen, that he would go back to his real life and forget all about us. I shouldn’t be surprised he proved me right. This shouldn’t hurt so much.”
“Mama, when can we go home?” Paige pulled on Wynne’s hand, drawing her attention downward. “I miss Daddy.”
She opened her mouth to attempt an explanation. Allowing Paige to believe Derek would be waiting for them when they returned home would be cruel. But no sound emerged from her mouth other than a half sob. She pressed her hand over her lips, dismayed by her lack of control. Dismayed by her emotional response to Derek’s “new job.”
“At the end of the week,” Eileen answered for her, giving Wynne a pointed look.
Paige started to cry, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “But I want to see Daddy now.”
“Oh God.” Wynne pressed into her temples more firmly. “Now really isn’t the time for a temper tantrum, Paige.”
“I want my daddy.”
“Paige, knock it off right now.” Wynne didn’t realize she’d shouted until she saw the shock on her daughter’s face right before it crumple
d with hurt. Paige’s cries became louder and she clutched Eileen’s leg.
“I’m sorry, sweet pea.” Instantly regretting snapping at Paige, Wynne sank to her knees. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
“You’re a big meanie,” Paige accused, mid-cry. “I want my daddy!”
“Fine.” She rose, feeling totally incompetent in her role as mother. Her daughter was upset, and she couldn’t comfort her. Paige wanted her daddy, not her mother. But Daddy was no longer within Paige’s reach. “I’m going to go for a walk. Can you watch her for me, Mom?”
“Are you sure you should go like this?” Eileen’s worried gaze met hers.
“I’ll be fine. I just need to get outside in the fresh air and be by myself.” She shook her head. “I need to think.”
The walk hadn’t helped. Her shoes gave her an enormous blister on her right heel, and halfway through her return trip, the sky turned an ominous gray. She had to run the last four blocks in the rain, and when she reached Kieran’s house, she looked like a castaway washing up on a deserted island. By the time she stepped in the front door, her mother had the car keys in her hand, preparing to drive the rental up and down the streets until she found Wynne.
“Thank God you’re home.” Eileen frowned at her, kicking her mom gear into high. “You’re going to get sick, you know. You never take your vitamins and you’re soaked.”
“I’m fine.” At least getting caught in the rain had washed away evidence of her bout of crying. “Where’s Paige?”
“She’s coloring in the living room. I think she’s still upset with you for yelling at her. All the pictures are for Derek.”
“Great.” Wynne felt the energy sap from her body. Despite the warmth of the day, she shivered. “What am I going to tell her, Mom? How can I get a four-year-old to understand her father isn’t going to be around to be a father?”
Eileen brushed a wet hank of hair from Wynne’s forehead. “You raised her for four years without him. He’s a novelty for her now, but she’ll forget about him soon enough.”
“I don’t think that’s true. You haven’t seen them together, not really. They play tea party and dress-up, and he tells her stories. He’s been an amazing father, and she eats it up, every second of it. If he just disappears, it will break her heart.”
“And yours.”
Wynne looked away. “I’m her mother. If she’s heartbroken, I will be too.”
“Yes, but it’s not just about that.” Eileen stepped back into her line of vision, frowning knowingly. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“No. Yes.” She sighed as the tears started burning her eyes again. “Oh Mom. What am I going to do? I knew this would happen all along and I thought I was ready for it. I thought I could handle him leaving.”
“You can handle it, Wynne.”
Her mother was right, of course. She could handle Derek’s abrupt defection. But she’d spent her entire life “handling” things. Not having a father in her life, Kieran practically raising her while Eileen worked two jobs to support them, having a daughter on her own. She had handled all those things.
And Wynne didn’t want to handle the next load of crap life passed her way. She didn’t want to see Derek’s face on glossy magazine covers and posters outside the movie theater instead of in her kitchen. Nights of burnt chocolate-chip cookies, princess movies, and lovemaking would haunt her now. It wouldn’t be so hard to move on if he hadn’t been so…everything she wanted in a man. But had it all been a front? Another role for him to play?
She thought again of the way he’d begged her to stay with him before she left for Dallas. Clearly, his feelings for her—whatever they had been—evaporated in the face of the chance to have his career back again. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted? Wasn’t that what she’d told him, that only a fool would give up his acting career? She could still hear his response. I won’t change my mind. I know what I want.
But he had changed his mind, and in only a day’s time.
“I think this is really for the best.” Eileen folded her into a comforting, motherly hug. “He just isn’t stable father material. Why don’t you try dating again when we get back home?”
Wynne made a face that her mother couldn’t see. “I don’t think so, Mom.” Trying to swap another man for Derek would be like eating a carrot instead of a slice of decadent chocolate cake. No comparison.
“Just a thought. There are plenty of good men out there, you know. You deserve someone who really cares about you.”
“I can’t go back to dating so soon.” Wynne shook her head. “I’m not ready.”
“You might change your mind once you’ve had time to clear your head.” Eileen pulled away, her gaze searching Wynne’s. “Things will be very different in a week or two.”
Right. She’d be lucky if she’d ever recover from this. A week or two definitely wouldn’t make a bit of difference. But she didn’t want to argue with her mother, so she forced a strained smile to her lips and extricated herself from the embrace completely. “Thanks for being here for me, Mom.”
Eileen smiled sadly, making the fine age lines bracketing her mouth deepen and become more prominent. “This will be for the best, honey. You’ll see.”
Wynne had left town on a Sunday. By that night, Derek missed both her and Paige more than he missed whiskey burning a fire in his gut. By Monday, the silence in his hotel room when he slipped into bed forced him to turn on the TV. He ground his teeth and suffered through an all-night marathon of Trout Fishing with Kyle—the other option was an infomercial for a rotisserie—because the silence reminded him of how damn lonely his life felt without Wynne and Paige in it. Tuesday morning, he walked past Wynne’s flower shop just because it somehow, ridiculously, made him feel closer to her.
At least he could have phone conversations with his daughter, but he wished he could say the same for Wynne. Communication of any sort with her ended abruptly on Wednesday. It became pretty damn clear she was ducking his calls, especially since her mother smugly informed him Wynne was “out” every time he asked for her.
But he refused to give up. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—lose her. Before Wynne and Paige had come into his life, he’d been at the crucial sink-or-swim phase of recovery, and he’d been about to sink. They meant everything to him, and their current absence only solidified that even more.
He realized he needed to finally sever the unhealthy cord between his new life and his old life before he could ask Wynne to move forward with him. Hell, he knew he made for sorry-ass husband material. First of all, he was still married for chrissakes, not to mention that his soon-to-be-ex-wife had followed him to town like a bad smell. He was also a recovering alcoholic and would be for the rest of his life. Then there was the matter of his lack of career. Basically, things didn’t look good for him, and before he could even expect to have a speck of a chance with Wynne, he had to clean up the crap that was his old life.
Tuesday afternoon, he made a couple of purchases. Big purchases. He bought the town’s old theater, with settlement set for a month forward since the owner was eager to unload. Because he’d been limited to walking the streets of Atlantic, he also decided to buy a car. Which led to his trip to New York and his third purchase, a diamond-and-emerald engagement ring. The diamonds formed a flower. He couldn’t have found a more perfect ring if he’d designed it himself, and the emeralds created leaves at the base that matched her eyes.
And on Wednesday, he and his real estate agent Dora Willet—the charming, forty-something mom of two boys and the daughter of Nosey Nadine the town gossip—put in an offer for the Victorian house. He’d made his decision.
That night, he was in the midst of watching Sports Center when someone knocked at his door. He wanted it to be Wynne home early, and he didn’t want it to be Trina ready to hump him into taking her back. But the vociferousness of the knock made him realize it wasn’t either woman.
Even so, he was shocked as hell when he opened the door and found Kil
ler Carter standing there. It didn’t look as if the guy was in ass-kicking mode, though, so Derek stepped back.
“Come in, Kieran. Great game last night, by the way. Kick-ass fight with Snyder too.” The Sea Dogs had beaten the Flyers in an upset, three to two in overtime. Kieran had gotten a game misconduct early in the second period for jumping off the bench to take out Snyder in response to a cheap shot he’d given to the Sea Dogs goalie.
“Snyder’s an old pansy ass.” Kieran grunted as he stepped inside Derek’s hotel room. “Look, I’ll just get to the point. What’s going on between you and my sister?”
Killer had come here to kick his butt after all. Derek strode to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, wishing for something with proof instead of something that flowed from a spring. He tore off the cap and took a healthy swig, taking his time forming a response.
“To be honest with you Kieran, I’m not sure.”
Kieran started pacing up and down the room, apparently doing a warm-up before he moved in for the kill. “I got the impression that the two of you were together.”
“We were.”
“Then why the hell is she cleaning up my junk in Dallas instead of being here?”
Derek leaned his hip against the wall and skewered Wynne’s brother with a glare. “That’s not really any of your business.”
Kieran stopped in his tracks, a knowing grin curving his lips. “Did she dump your ass?”
“No.” Derek’s denial didn’t even convince him, though. Maybe she had dumped his ass—they’d fought, she’d boarded a plane to Dallas, and now she refused to even speak to him.
“You deserve it.” Kieran eyed him as if he were deciding where to deck him first. “She’s too damn good for you.”
“You’re right. She is too damn good for me.” Derek paused to take another swallow from his water bottle.
Kieran looked surprised at Derek’s admission. “What?”
Win My Love (Love's Second Chance Book 3) Page 17