Hard loving man

by Lorraine Heath

  “But you want me,” he insisted. “I see it in the way you look at me during class when everyone else is working on an assignment.”

  “My personal feelings are of no consequence. I’m here as a teacher, not as a potential lover.”

  “Lover. I like the sound of that. You think I’m hot.”

  “As long as you’re my student—”

  “I’ll drop out of school tomorrow,” he promised her.

  “I’d never be interested in a quitter, in someone who didn’t bother to finish high school.”

  He studied her. The determination in her eyes, the defiant angle of her jaw. He felt he’d somehow been manipulated.

  “Are you saying the only chance I have of getting you into bed is if I finish school and graduate?”

  “I’m saying if you don’t, then there’s no chance at all.”

  Chapter 6

  “Dad, I’m home!”

  Jack jerked awake, his neck stiff, his body cramped. He heard the back door slam, the sound of pounding feet moving through the house.

  Sitting in his recliner, he looked to the side. Jason rounded the corner and came into the living room wearing a wide grin. He stumbled to an abrupt halt.

  “Dad, you look like hell.”

  “Hey, bud, let’s watch the h word.” Yawning, he scratched his chest. “Do your old man a big favor, would you? Go back to the kitchen, and turn on the coffeemaker.”

  “Already done.” Jason dropped his backpack, which contained his overnight away-from-home survival-gear, hopped onto the couch, grabbed the remote off the small table beside it, unmuted the television, and switched the channel to the Cartoon Network.

  “So, how was the sleepover?” Jack asked.

  “Awesome. We had a Star Wars marathon. I like The Empire Strikes Back best. No Jar-Jar.”

  “Star Wars, the way it was meant to be. You had breakfast?”

  “ Hamilton made doughnuts. She lets us put as much icing on them as we want. They’re the best.”

  “You’re supposed to eat healthier when you’re with her.”

  “She made us take a Flintstones vitamin.”

  “I’m talking vegetables, fruits, green stuff.”

  Jason grinned and cast a sly glance his way. “She said you’d say that. She put green food coloring in the icing so I could tell you that I’d eaten green stuff.”

  Reaching over, he ruffled his fingers through Jason’s hair, hair so blond it was almost white. “My son is involved in a conspiracy to deceive me into believing I can trust the lady next door to take good care of him.”

  “She does take good care of me.”

  “I know. Don’t know what we’d do without her.”

  With another yawn, Jack got up, went into the kitchen, and poured himself a cup of coffee. His breakfast. If Jason was hungry, Jack would whip them both up some oatmeal. But when it was just him, cooking seemed like far too much trouble. Good thing he had the kid. He might starve to death otherwise.

  He ambled back into the living room. The Cartoon Network had been replaced by a video game. The good guys were splattering the bad guys, or maybe it was the bad guys getting the kills. Jack could never be certain.

  “Hey, Dad, guess what?” Jason asked, his eyes never wavering from the television.

  “What?”

  “Me and Riker—”

  “Riker and I,” Jack reprimanded gently before taking a sip of his coffee. Kelley had influenced him in more ways than he cared to admit. Jason’s teachers were always complimenting Jack on his son’s vocabulary, reading level, and writing skills.

  Jason scrunched up his face but finally continued. “Riker and I checked the calendar. It’ll be our weekend with Hamilton when the county fair is going on. Will you switch weekends with her? Please?”

  He paused the game and looked at Jack with imploring, hard-to-resist dark eyes. Jack could see a lot of Stephanie in the boy. He couldn’t make up his mind if that was good or bad.

  “Please,” Jason prodded again.

  “She likes the county fair. She’ll take you.”

  “Yeah, but she worries too much. She thinks the rides are dangerous because they cart them from town to town and have to take them down and put them up so fast. She only lets us on the kiddie rides, and this year me and Riker”—he grimaced—“I mean, Riker and I want to ride the big roller coaster. We’re tall enough. We measured. Please switch with her. ’Cuz she’ll never, ever, not in a million years, let us ride the big coaster.”

  That was a fact. Serena worried more than any woman he’d ever met.

  “I’ll think about switching weekends.”

  “Awesome!” He unpaused the game.

  “If you keep your room clean until then,” Jack added.

  “Ah, Dad.”

  “Hey, all good things come with a price.”

  “How ’bout if I keep it sorta clean?”

  “I don’t negotiate with kids, you know that. It’s my way or the highway.”

  Settling into his recliner, he watched the enthusiasm on Jason’s face as he fired away, his fingers and thumbs working the controls at amazing speed. If nothing else, video games seemed to improve manual dexterity.

  He supposed, considering his line of work, he should dissuade him from playing violent games, but Jack had never adopted the view that watching violence created violence. His approach when it came to raising Jason was to expose him to all things and teach him to deal with them. He wanted Jason prepared to meet obstacles head-on, on his own terms. Much as Jack had done, with more success than Jack had managed.

  He’d never expected to love the kid as much as he did. When Stephanie had told him he’d gotten her pregnant, he hadn’t believed her. Sure, following the prom, like half the kids who’d gone, they’d headed out to the creek for a little necking session, a session that had eventually gone further than Jack had intended. He and Kelley had fought that night. Jack had been looking for solace with Stephanie. He’d always had the feeling she’d been looking for something, too. He’d always had the uneasy feeling that whatever she’d been searching for, she hadn’t found it—at least not with him.

  Unfortunately, she’d been sixteen, a month away from seventeen. Her father had threatened Jack with arrest for statutory rape. Jack had been too unfamiliar with the law to realize the charges probably wouldn’t hold up in court. Stephanie had been as willing and eager as he had been.

  But it hadn’t been the threats that finally made him buckle under the pressure and marry the girl. It had been Kelley.

  The deep disappointment and immense sorrow he’d seen in Kelley’s eyes when he’d told her Stephanie was claiming the kid was his had torn at his gut. He’d used a condom. No way was the kid his.

  Kelley couldn’t understand what it was to be a nineteen-year-old male with raging hormones. She’d thought something special was developing between them, had expected him to be true to her, even though she’d never committed to him, had never guaranteed there’d be anything between them once he graduated. She’d only promised there wouldn’t be anything if he didn’t get his diploma.

  Standing in her living room, he’d known he’d lost her. He’d seen the tears welling in her eyes and knew, no matter what he did, for them it was over.

  “You have to marry her, Jack. You have to. You owe it to her and the baby.”

  “It’s not mine, I’m telling you. I’ll have some test done—”

  “Don’t you dare!” she’d yelled. “Don’t you dare insult her like that. Don’t you dare smear her name or her reputation any more than you already have. I won’t stand for it.”

  He’d stared at her, wondering if he even knew her. He certainly didn’t understand her. He’d expected her to be upset about the situation. He hadn’t expected her to go ballistic in defending Stephanie.

  “You want me to marry her?” he asked, dumb-founded.

  “I want you to do right by her and the child. She’s terrified, Jack. You have no idea what it’s like to be a pre
gnant teenager, to have to tell your parents news that you know will break their hearts. And then to have the father of your child ducking responsibility by shifting the blame…” She shook her head as though deeply disappointed in him. “You’re better than that, Jack.”

  “What about us?” he asked.

  “Whether you marry her or not, we’re over. Because I’d never be involved with a married man, and I’d certainly never care for a man who wouldn’t live up to his responsibility.”

  Now he was the one who was terrified. The thought of losing Kelley almost brought him to his knees. He plowed his hands through his hair, desperate to find an answer. “Okay. Okay. I’ll marry her. I’ll do right by her. But will you wait for me? I mean, after the kid’s born, after I’ve given him my name, I could get a divorce.”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “I won’t be the reason your marriage doesn’t work. For her sake and the child’s, you have to make it work. You owe them.”

  He was nineteen, facing obligations he’d never expected to have—not even when he was old. And if he turned away from that obligation, he knew Kelley’s disappointment in him would grow. She’d think she was the reason he hadn’t done right by Stephanie.

  If he did marry Stephanie, Kelley would be hurt—but he’d already hurt her by not keeping his pants zipped. At least, marriage had the advantage of lessening her disappointment in him.

  So, he’d chosen the option he wanted least. Because of Stephanie’s parents’ respected standing in the community, they had a large church wedding, albeit a hastily arranged one. Two days later, he’d enlisted in the army because he needed a way to support his wife, and he couldn’t stomach his interfering in-laws.

  He’d said good-bye to Kelley, never expecting to see her again. He’d left Hopeful, never expecting to return.

  Now, here he was. Back in town with the one woman he’d never been able to forget.

  Sitting in bed, glaring at the hodgepodge of empty boxes in her bedroom, Kelley was beginning to wish she’d taken a different tack with Madison. Moving was such a chore.

  She’d been unprepared for the number of houses available for rent in a town this small. They’d spent yesterday afternoon inspecting one house after another, with Madison and her disagreeing on the silliest of things: a bathroom that was too small, the absence of a pantry, hideous tile.

  They’d finally come to an agreement regarding a one-story, three-bedroom house in an older neighborhood where huge oak and sycamore trees provided shade. The third bedroom was the mother-in-law room on the far side of the house. Madison was thrilled with the prospect of having more privacy, even if she hated the wallpaper in the bathroom. Kelley had some reservations about Madison living in the room on that side of the house instead of the one down the hall from the master bedroom—the room Kelley planned to take—because Madison could sneak out so easily without being heard.

  How was Kelley to have known that as a child got older, dealing with her became more difficult? She’d always thought babies required the most time and attention. Somehow, Madison required more.

  After they’d taken care of all the paperwork for the house, they’d gone on a scavenger hunt for empty boxes. They’d hit pay dirt at an office supply store that specialized in printing services. Once they’d carted the boxes home, Madison had immediately begun to pack up her things. Kelley couldn’t quite work up the enthusiasm to get started.

  Leaning back against the headboard, with her coffee mug in hand, she was still putting off the inevitable, dreading the process of boxing everything back up and moving it across town, then unpacking everything. It seemed to take forever to make a place feel lived in, to give it that welcoming sense of home.

  That was probably the reason she’d taken Jack up on his kind offer. She couldn’t afford a moving company, and she simply wanted to get this relocation done as quickly as possible.

  Lambert, true to Jack’s word, had not only negotiated to get them a bargain on the house but had taken the matter of Kelley’s lease up with the apartment manager. Although the month was half over, with Lambert’s steely gray gaze honed in on him, he’d agreed to wave the thirty-day notification policy. Kelley and Madison could move out any time before the end of the month.

  Unlike Madison, Kelley saw little point in starting the laborious packing process immediately if Jack wasn’t available until the end of the month. She didn’t relish the thought of living out of boxes. Besides, it never failed. As soon as she decided she didn’t need something and packed it away, she’d discover an urgent need for it and have to hunt through the boxes to find it. Even when she tried labeling boxes as she went, she never seemed able to find what she needed. Packing in a rush and not being without anything for any length of time appealed to her greatly.

  Still, she had no idea what Jack’s schedule was. She set her mug aside, popped her knuckles, picked up the phone, glanced at his business card on her nightstand, and punched in his number.

  Jack’s phone rang three times before he answered.

  “Hello?”

  Okay, so that youthful voice didn’t belong to Jack. Until this moment, his son had been an abstract image in her mind. Still an infant needing to be cuddled and held tightly. She hadn’t considered that he’d actually grown over the years, and a part of her wished she’d seen him when he was newly born, wished she’d seen the expression on Jack’s face when he’d first gazed at his son.

  Had his chest swelled with pride, with love, with hope? What had he felt when he’d held his son, when he’d looked into the eyes of the woman who’d given him a child?

  “Hello?” the boy said again. “I can hear you breathing, so I know you’re there.”

  “Yes, I’m here. I got distracted. I’m sorry.” She chastised herself for babbling. “Is Jack…your dad there?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Just a minute.”

  She smiled at the seriousness in his voice. Jack was raising him to have manners. She hadn’t expected that. But then he could have knocked her over with a soft breath when he’d announced that the boy was living with him. How could Stephanie have abandoned her child so completely when she had Jack to lean on?

  As Jack had mentioned, no one had expected the marriage to work out, but Kelley had naively expected it to last awhile, at least until the baby no longer needed the stability both parents could offer. As she was coming to learn, though, children always needed stability. Even after they grew up. In a sense, maybe they needed it more then.

  For some reason, she’d thought Jack’s son would follow in his father’s footsteps and be a hell-raiser. She had a difficult time thinking of Jack as a father, but to envision him as a good father…a warm sense of contentment settled near her heart. When he’d spoken of his son, she’d definitely heard fatherly devotion reflected in his voice.

  With the phone pressed to her ear, she thought she detected the sound of a rushing waterfall in the back-ground.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Phone.”

  The cascading water fell into silence, soon replaced by the crackle of plastic and the sliding of metal against metal. Her heart pounded with the realization that Jack was in the shower. Naked. She imagined the water dripping from his hair onto his bare broad shoulders. The drops rolling down his lean torso, along his chest, across the flat planes of his stomach, falling ever lower.

  “Morgan,” he said brusquely.

  She took a deep breath that only served to make her realize she was quivering. “Hi, Jack.”

  “Kelley?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

  “That’s all right. What’s wrong?”

  Other than the fact that she was talking to a naked man…absolutely nothing.

  “Nothing’s wrong. You were right about Lambert. She was a jewel. She found us a house over on Elmwood Lane

  .”

  “Great. When did you want to move?”

  “That depends on your schedule. I was thinking maybe
next Saturday.”

  “That’ll work. What time did you want to get started?”

  “I was thinking…” She couldn’t think. She kept envisioning him standing there, feet spread wide apart, with water glistening on his chest. He hadn’t had hair dotting his chest when he was younger. Did he now?

  “You were thinking?” he prodded.

  “Yes, yes. I was thinking next Saturday might work.” I was thinking how warm your skin was, how it would feel to kiss the droplets away.

  “Right, we already established that. What time next Saturday?”

  “What time?”

  “When do you want me to get there?”

  “Whatever works best for you.”

  “How about ten? Some of the guys I’m going to bring with me aren’t early birds.”

  “Ten is good.”

  “Are you all right? You sound kinda funny.”

  “I’m fine. I just have a lot on my mind.” Like the vision of your perfect body unclothed. “I assume that was your son who brought you the phone.”

  “Yeah. We never know when the call might be an emergency, so Jason is good about answering it and not hesitating to disturb me.”

  Jason. His son’s name was Jason. She hadn’t known. The child was becoming more concrete, more real, more a part of Jack’s life.

  “At this precise moment, I’m standing in the shower,” he added, his voice growing gravelly, more seductive, more intimate, as he shared the last bit of information with her.

  “I figured.” She feared that she was failing miserably at sounding completely nonchalant, as though she often spoke to men when they were taking a shower. “I heard the water running before you turned it off.”

  “Usually, when I’m naked talking to a woman, she’s naked, too. Are you naked, Kelley?”

  She didn’t like the spark of jealousy that hit her along with the image of a naked woman rubbing her soap-slicked body over Jack’s. Nor was she particularly pleased with the unexpected rush of heat that washed through her with the thought of that woman being her.

  She was suddenly hot enough to contemplate removing her nightgown. She usually didn’t get dressed for the day until after her first cup of coffee. She needed the caffeine kick to get started. And right now, she needed a mental kick to get past the slow-motion visions unsettling her.