Almost Perfect

by Susan Mallery

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. Abby doesn’t remember her.”

  “But you do.”

  Melissa nodded.

  Liz wondered about the woman her brother had married and where he’d been all this time. When had he come back to Fool’s Gold? Had it been when their mother had died? Liz suspected she’d left the house to him. But how had anyone known how to get in touch with him? Unless he’d been in touch with their mother and she hadn’t known.

  More questions for later, she told herself.

  Tyler clattered down the stairs. “No toilet paper,” he announced. “And there isn’t soap in the shower.”

  He sounded both shocked and delighted by the strangeness.

  Abby returned to the kitchen to say there wasn’t any laundry detergent, either.

  “I don’t know if my car’s big enough for all we’ll have to buy,” Liz teased brightly. “We may have to tie one of you on the roof of the car to make room.”

  Abby looked a little startled, but Tyler laughed. “I’ll do it. Tie me on the roof, Mom.”

  “Thank you for volunteering.”

  Abby glanced between them, then smiled shyly, as if getting the joke. “You could tie me, too.”

  “Why thank you,” Liz said, touching her cheek. “That’s very thoughtful of you. Okay—are we ready? I was thinking we’d have spaghetti for dinner. How does that sound?”

  “My favorite,” Tyler yelled.

  “Mine, too,” Abby said.

  “With garlic bread?” Melissa asked.

  “It wouldn’t be spaghetti if there wasn’t garlic bread,” Liz told her.

  Melissa grinned.

  ONE SHOPPING TRIP, A DINNER and shared kitchen cleanup later, Liz supervised the kids settling in for the evening. Melissa had one last assignment for school, while Abby and Tyler sat on the sofa downstairs to watch a movie.

  Liz poured herself a second glass of wine, then carried it out front. While her nieces were great, the situation was intense and she felt the need to be alone for a few minutes.

  She walked to the edge of the porch and sat with her feet on the second step. The night was clear, the stars much bigger and closer than they appeared in San Francisco. Here there weren’t big city lights to dilute the heavens. She could make out the mountains to the east, rising miles into the sky. The very tops seemed to almost brush the twinkling stars.

  The sound of the movie carried to her, a safe sound. Abby and Melissa were good kids dealing with an impossible situation. Her anger at the absent Bettina grew every second. How could an adult simply walk away from two girls like that? Even if she didn’t want them herself, she could have done something to make sure they were taken care of.

  Part of Liz wanted to call the police and report the woman, but she wouldn’t. Not until everything was straightened out. Getting social services involved at this point was a complication no one needed. Besides, she wanted to talk to Roy first.

  At dinner Melissa had mentioned her father was at Folsom. Despite the fact that Johnny Cash had made the place famous with a song, the facility was old and very much a prison. Liz had researched the prison for one of her books. She still had several contacts there which would mean getting in to see her brother would be relatively easy.

  But knowing that didn’t make the idea of seeing him after all this time anymore comfortable. What was she supposed to say?

  She shook off the question and returned her attention to the beautiful night. That was easier than thinking about the past, or hey, even the present. After all this time, she was back in Fool’s Gold. Who would have thought?

  The grocery shopping had been uneventful. Only one shopper had recognized her enough to call her by name. The older woman hadn’t been the least bit familiar to Liz, but she remembered enough of small-town life to pretend to be delighted at the meeting. The woman had commented on how nice it was that she’d come back for Roy’s girls.

  An innocent comment, Liz thought as she sipped her wine. There was no reason for her to want to snap at the other woman, ask her how it was possible that an entire town hadn’t noticed two girls living on their own. Of course this was the same town that had seen plenty of bruises on her arms and legs and no one had asked any questions back then, either.

  “Don’t go there,” she whispered. She was here to help Roy’s girls and get out as quickly as possible. Nothing else.

  She heard someone walking on the sidewalk. Instinctively, she stiffened before reminding herself that this was Fool’s Gold, and no one ever got mugged here. She looked up to see a man walking by. Only he didn’t keep walking. He stopped at her front gate and let himself in. The wineglass nearly slipped from her fingers as she watched Ethan Hendrix stroll toward her.

  “Hello, Liz.”

  He was as tall and handsome as she’d remembered. Broader and a little older, but only in that good way men age. It was too dark for her to make out his exact features, but if she had to guess, she would say he was happy to see her. At least he was smiling.

  She blinked, not sure he was real, but the image didn’t go away, which was confusing. Why would Ethan be pleased she was back in town?

  She clutched her wine in both hands. Standing up made the most sense and was also polite, but she wasn’t sure she could manage it. Her legs felt a little wobbly as she stared at the first man she’d ever loved. If she’d had another glass of wine, she probably would have admitted he was the only man she’d ever loved, but why go there now?

  “Ethan,” she said, startled to have his name on her lips after all this time. She’d yelled at him, cursed him, cried for him and begged—but only in her mind. In the past twelve years, she’d never once spoken his name. Except once…to his wife.

  “I thought I saw you earlier,” he revealed, moving closer and shoving his hands in his front pockets, a smile tugging at his lips. “At the race. I tried to get to you, but there was too much of a crowd. You’re back.” The smile turned into a grin. “You look good.”

  She looked what?

  Gathering all her strength, she set the glass on the porch, then pushed to her feet. After crossing her arms over her chest, she realized she still had to tilt her head slightly to meet his gaze. Time had not caused him to shrink.

  “It’s not what you think,” she began. “I’m not here to make trouble.”

  Confusion flickered across his face. “Why would you be?”

  “I’m here because of my brother and his daughters. This isn’t about anything between us.”

  The grin faded into a straight line. “About that,” he reflected, then shrugged. “I was a kid and a jerk. I’m sorry.”

  As apologies went, it wasn’t much of one. Not when compared to his incredible rejection of both her and their son, but Ethan had never been big on accepting responsibility for his relationships.

  For him, it was all about how things looked. After all, he was a Hendrix. A member of the founding family. Upholder of all things good and right. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks was good enough to sleep with, but a guy like Ethan would never want anything more.

  “Whatever,” she muttered. “I didn’t know my brother had moved back and I didn’t know about his daughters. Until Melissa wrote me. That’s why I’m here. It’ll be two weeks. Three at most. I’ll stay out of your way, just like you asked.” Commanded was more like it, but this didn’t seem like a good time to bring that up. She was tired and dealing with too much already. A fight with Ethan would only complicate the situation.

  She shook her head, her temper rising just a little. “But I will point out you don’t own the town, and you don’t have any right to tell me where I can or can’t be.”

  “I know,” he said, moving a step toward her. “Would it help if I said I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  The lazy smile returned. The one that always had the ability to make her stomach flip over a couple dozen times.

  “I wanted to welcome you back,” he continued. “A
nd tell you I think it’s great you’ve been successful with your books. Even though I’m not sure I like the part where you kill me over and over again.”

  Now he wasn’t the only one who was confused, she thought. He wanted to talk about her books?

  “You deserved it,” she retorted. “And technically I haven’t killed you at all.”

  “Then why do your victims always have a more than passing resemblance to me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Which was a lie.

  “Right.”

  The smile left again as he took another step toward her. A step that put him a little too close.

  “Eleven years ago I was a jerk,” he said. “I admit it and I’m sorry. That’s what I came by to say.”

  “What?” She dropped her hands to her hips and glared at him. “That’s it? After everything that happened the last time I came to town you want to talk about that?”

  His eyebrows drew together. “What last time?”

  “Five years ago, I came back to speak to you. Instead I had a very awkward conversation with your wife. You were out of town. Then I received your letter a few days later.”

  The frown deepened. “What?”

  She wanted to shriek. “I came here to talk to you. To tell you about Tyler. I saw Rayanne, who said you were out of town. About ten days later, I got a letter from you telling me you didn’t want anything to do with either of us. To stay away from Fool’s Gold and that if I came back, you’d make sure I regretted it.”

  The frown turned into an expression of dismissal. “I accept that what I did all those years ago was stupid and mean, and I’m sorry. As for this crap—don’t bring my wife into your stories.”

  She stiffened. “Stories? You think I’m lying? I spoke to your wife five years ago. You wrote me a letter. I still have it.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t write you a letter. You didn’t see—” He hesitated. “I don’t know if you saw Rayanne or not. I could have been traveling. I saw you in town earlier today, so I came by to say hello and apologize. That’s it.” His gaze sharpened. “Who’s Tyler? Your husband? You’re married?”

  Oh, God. Liz sank back on the step. Thoughts and memories flooded her, making it impossible to pick just one. The early past intruded first—reminding her how much she’d once loved Ethan. How he’d convinced her to trust him, had told her that he loved her. She’d given herself to him on a starry night, by the lake. Desperate emotion hadn’t been enough to make her first time not hurt, and he’d held her when she had cried.

  They’d planned on her joining him at his college, because being together in Fool’s Gold was impossible. Not that his family was especially rich, but because they were respectable. Something Liz Sutton could never be.

  She remembered him and his friends at the diner where she worked after school. How his friend Josh had mentioned seeing Ethan with her. As clearly as if it was happening right now, in front of her, she recalled Ethan’s discomfort. He’d said she was a piece of ass—but not anyone he could be interested in. He’d denied her, had denied them. She’d heard every word.

  Maybe if she’d been older she would have understood why he’d said what he did. Or if he’d been more mature or stronger, he could have stood up to his friends. Instead he had hurt her and she’d reacted. She’d walked over to the table, picked up the chocolate milk shake she’d brought him only minutes before and thrown it in his face. Then she’d walked out. She’d quit her job, packed a bag and run away to San Francisco.

  Three weeks later, she’d figured out she was pregnant.

  She’d returned to town, prepared to tell Ethan, only to find him in bed with someone else. She’d run again. This time she’d been determined to make it on her own. But five years ago, as Tyler had been getting ready to enter first grade, she’d decided to make another attempt to tell Ethan. Which had led to the conversation with his wife and the letter telling her that he didn’t want anything to do with her and his son.

  None of this made sense, she thought. Ethan was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He wouldn’t just forget about his own child. Unless he really hadn’t been told. Which meant his wife had kept the information of Liz’s visit from him.

  “Liz?” His voice was low. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” She pushed to her feet. “At the risk of repeating myself, Rayanne never told you that I came to see you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You never wrote me a letter.”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know about any of this?”

  “Any of what?” he asked.

  She sucked in a breath. She’d known there was a good chance she would run into Ethan again. Or his wife. Or both. But she’d never imagined anything like this.

  “I came back to see you five years ago,” she began. “No, I came back a few weeks after I left, but you were in bed with Pia.”

  “What?” He stiffened. “I didn’t…” He half turned away, then faced her again. “It’s not what you think.”

  “I thought you were both naked and in bed,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “It doesn’t matter. Screwing around with Pia isn’t the point.”

  “I didn’t screw around.”

  “No? Then your intense and meaningful relationship isn’t the point, either. I came back to tell you that I was pregnant. When I saw you in bed with Pia, I took off. I was too hurt, too angry. You’d denied me in public and then slept with one of the girls who delighted in tormenting me.”

  She squared her shoulders. “More irrelevance, right? The point is, I always wanted you to know. So I showed up here five years ago to tell you about Tyler. I spoke to Rayanne and told her. Then I got a letter from you saying you didn’t want anything to do with me or Tyler and to stay away from town.” A letter apparently written by Rayanne.

  Ethan stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. Emotions flashed across his face. Disbelief, confusion, anger.

  “Tyler isn’t your husband?”

  “He’s my son. Your son. He’s eleven. And he’s here.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ETHAN HEARD THE WORDS BUT THEY made no sense to him. Son? As in a kid? An eleven-year-old boy who was his?

  “You never told me.”

  The words came from him, although he couldn’t feel himself speaking. He was still trying to make sense of the information. A baby? No. Not a baby. A child. His child.

  “I did tell you,” Liz reiterated, putting her hands back on her hips, looking as if she was prepared to take him on. “I just explained that. I’ll admit I didn’t make much of an effort when I came back the first time, but the whole naked-in-bed-with-Pia was more than I could handle. I came back a second time.”

  “Stop.” He glared at her, anger growing. “You’re lying.”

  “I told you—I still have the letter. I can have my assistant send it overnight. It will be here day after tomorrow.”

  He knew there wasn’t a letter, mostly because he’d never written one.

  He turned and walked back to the gate, before facing the house again. Liz stood silhouetted in the glare of the porch light. He’d been so damned happy to see her. He’d wanted to come talk to her. Now this.

  “How the hell can you stand there and tell me I have an eleven-year-old son I’ve never known about?” He stalked toward her, fury growing. “You didn’t bother to tell me that you were pregnant? What gives you the right?” He swore.

  “I did try to tell you,” she countered. “You were too busy screwing Pia.”

  He grabbed her arm. “I don’t care if I was burning down the entire town. You were pregnant with my child, and I had the right to know.”

  She jerked free. He let her, mostly because of how he’d been raised. It was the right thing to do.

  “I cared,” she snapped. “I cared a lot. You were supposed to love me. You convinced me it was safe to love you back. You took my virginity, then let someone call me a wh
ore in front of all your friends.”

  “None of that matters.”

  “Of course it matters. It speaks to who you are as a person. It’s the reason I didn’t try very hard.”

  The unfairness of the accusation burned. “I was a kid,” he growled.

  “So was I. Eighteen, alone and pregnant. If you expect a break, then I get one, too.”

  “No. It’s not the same. He’s my child. You deliberately kept us apart for years.”

  Liz drew in a breath and nodded slowly. “I know. That’s why I came back to tell you five years ago.”

  He didn’t believe the bullshit story about talking to Rayanne. He didn’t care about anything except he had a son.

  He pushed past her and headed for the door. “I want to see him.”

  “No!” Liz grabbed his arm and held on with both hands. “Ethan, wait. Not like this. You can’t just walk in there and blurt it all out. He’s only eleven. You’ll scare him.”

  He could have kept walking. She didn’t have the physical strength to stop him, but as her words filtered through the haze of anger and resentment, he recognized that something—or someone—was more important than both of them.

  Tyler.

  He stopped.

  She released him, then came around so they were facing each other again. “I’m shocked, too. And sorry about all of this. I swear I thought you knew.”

  “I want to meet him.”

  “I agree. But we need a plan. He has to be prepared.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “You lost your right to decide what happens the day you chose to keep him from me.”

  She raised her chin. “That’s where you’re wrong. This isn’t a game. We’re talking about a child’s life. As for rights, I’m his mother and you’re not on his birth certificate.”

  He’d never wanted to hit a woman before. Never wanted to punish one. Intense rage grew until it nearly overwhelmed him.

  “I’m not saying I don’t want you to have a relationship with him,” she continued. “I do. That’s why I came back before. Of course I want that. I’m pissed, too. You said you loved me and yet you never bothered to look for me when I ran away. Based on what I saw with Pia, did you even miss me at all?”