by Nikki Duncan
“The song?”
“Started as just a song.”
“Josh.” Kell employed a tone that could have put Ward Cleaver to shame when he was calling the Beav out on something. Oddly, though they were the same age and had known each other forever, the tone worked.
“Yes. Okay. She’s part of it.”
“Most all of it I’m thinking, because you never write lyrics like that. In fact, I’ve watched you turn away some great stuff along the same lines.”
“I never felt a connection to them.”
Kell smiled with the arrogance that said he knew all too well why Aimee had stayed with Josh. It awakened an unsettling thought. An unavoidable one. Kell jerked his head toward the dispersing crowd. “Go. Make your plea. Get your tune-up.”
As easily as that his friend had settled back into his joking self. “How does that attitude help you get any?”
“Women expect it from us stars.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.”
Kell grinned the slow and borderline-lecherous smile he used to get women to drop their panties. “They expect that too.”
Josh laughed, knowing Kell was right about the women who followed them around. More often than not they were looking for a claim to fame at a band member or singer’s expense. Kell just gave them what they wanted. So had Josh for too long.
“Good luck.”
“Good luck?” Josh asked.
“With Aimee.” Kell didn’t joke or force truths. He simply offered quiet support.
Josh shook his head as he headed down the stairs. Rounding the table where Hauk, Vic and Sophie were helping unhook and roll up wires, Josh considered not stopping. His mother would fillet him with her dullest blade if she caught him leaving others to do his work without proper acknowledgement.
“Hey, guys. Thanks for helping tonight.”
“Are you kidding? Getting you here for that festival is what got us together.” Vic grinned a brilliant smile.
Hauk simply shrugged. “You could say we owe you.”
“Friends should never owe each other. Let’s call it even.” Josh squeezed Sophie’s shoulder gently. He’d immediately fallen for the girl during his first trip. “And I want to take you all to dinner before I leave town.”
“Sure thing.” Hauk nodded toward the spot Aimee had been standing in. “If you’re looking to warm up tonight though you may want to try the pub.” He leaned in and spoke quietly. “The apartment upstairs might be more comfortable than your bus. And it won’t have listening ears on the other side of the walls like Byron’s.”
“Thanks, man.”
It took another thirty minutes to get through the lingering crowd. Apparently the people of Whispering Cove didn’t care about a little thing like below-zero temps and impending snowfalls.
Taking Hauk’s advice, he headed to the bar. Instead of going through the front, though, he circled to the back and went in through the kitchen. He liked people, most of the time. Tonight he only wanted to see one.
He was nearing the top step to the apartment door above Hauk’s when it opened. “Goodnight, Aimee.”
Carmen met Josh’s gaze and nodded. She left the door open as she moved toward the stairs. She stopped on the step above him and stared straight into his eyes. “Why now, Josh?”
“Her.”
Carmen laid a hand on his shoulder and tapped her index finger as if she was thinking. “She’s got more to lose than before. Don’t hurt her.”
He hadn’t been warned about hurting a woman since high school, but Carmen’s last three words before leaving him standing alone smacked him back to those days. With the reversion his nerves bounded back like they had each time he’d knocked on a date’s door for the first time. Unlike all those times, something told him he was about to face a defining moment.
The living space was larger than he’d expected, and more modern. Cream-colored walls, mahogany furniture with teal and deep purple accents gave the place a bright and welcoming feeling. A tree, large and sparsely decorated with white ornaments, stood in one corner. A few gifts wrapped in purple foil paper spoke of love and home.
Aimee’s touch brought the place to life. On the table beside the sofa was a framed picture of a dark-haired baby girl holding a guitar-shaped rattle.
Josh’s stomach contracted. Had Aimee been holding her child? Was that what she’d meant when she said she wasn’t the same? And what Carmen had meant by Aimee having more to lose?
Chills skidded down his spine as warmth whirled through the room a second before Aimee stepped in from the hallway and stumbled to a halt.
“Josh.”
“Aims.” She’d shed the heavy warm wear she’d sported and now only wore a robe over lime green pajama pants and a corresponding tank top. It was tough to tell with the flowing blouse and bulk of winter clothes he’d seen her in, but her curves seemed to be more substantial than before. The difference was subtle, but he’d seen the same changes before.
“What took you so long?”
“An inherent inability to tell people to shove off. How’d you know I would come here?”
“An inherent inability to forget your stubborn streak.”
“Hauk suggested I would find some quiet here. I’m good at math.”
She snorted the tiny snort that would precede an all out laugh if something struck her funny enough. “Quiet is harder to come by around here than people might think.”
“It’s quiet now.” Unless she told him to leave he was staying. Capturing her gaze with his, the way they had at the concert, he closed the distance separating them. The muscles at the side of her throat throbbed as she swallowed, but she didn’t back down.
She didn’t act shy or hesitant. She met his eyes directly and there was no sign of insecurity when she spoke. She’d changed, morphed into a more confident woman. Damn if it didn’t make her sexier.
“If there’s such a thing as good luck, it will stay this way all night.” She checked her watch and smiled. “My money says I have two hours at most.”
“It was good luck that had you knocking on my trailer door all those months ago.” Narrowing his eyes, he stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind him. “And as I recall, things stay pretty quiet around here after dark. What’s changed?”
She opened and then closed her mouth as if she had something to say but decided against it. It was another change in her. Granted he hadn’t known her long, but it didn’t take long to know if a person was prone to speaking their mind or keeping their thoughts to themselves. She was the speaking up kind. Or she had been.
“Everything.” She motioned to the sofa. “Do you want to sit?”
Not really. “Sure.”
“We need to talk.”
Josh paused in the act of pulling his coat off and looked toward Aimee. Poised for something he couldn’t put his finger on, she stood motionless with her hands now dangling by her sides. “That sounds ominous.”
“Guess it depends on your viewpoint.”
His gaze landed on the baby picture. His stomach knotted again only this time it didn’t release. It was her baby, he could tell by the curve of her cheekbone and the arch of her brow. The upper heart shape to her mouth.
He looked back to Aimee who pointed toward the couch.
Encouragement to stay came from the reminder that she hadn’t asked him to leave and she didn’t look as though the idea of spending time with him bothered her. Curiosity was the biggest encouragement, though.
After setting his coat, gloves, hat and scarf on the chair, Josh moved to the sofa. He didn’t sit all the way at one end, but neither did he sit in the middle.
It was a small living room with little furniture—most of the space was taken up by the kitchen and dining area—so his stuff on the chair meant she would have to join him on the couch. Or move his stuff. Either way he would have an idea of how she felt about him.
Aimee sat on the sofa almost halfway between him and the opposite end.
He could touch her with a small stretch, but she was otherwise just out of reach.
“You’re different, Aims.”
“I told you everything has changed. Me, my life.”
“Did you get married?”
“No.”
“Engaged?” He rarely pursued single mothers, would never pursue a married woman, and had a general rule to avoid the complication of an engaged one. For Aimee, he’d break some rules.
“No.”
“Good.” Relief buoyed his hopes. Happiness hurried his pulse.
“That doesn’t make this simple.”
“Does that mean there’s a this?” He waved the first two fingers of his right hand between them. “An us?”
“Josh.”
Rather than give her a chance to make more arguments, he swiftly closed the distance between them and pressed his mouth to hers. Desperation born of too long without a woman fueled his need to taste her. Unwillingness to push her too far kept him from touching her or pressing his body to hers.
Holding himself off her with his hands braced on either side of her on the sofa, he kept the kiss light, easy and flirtatious. It was everything their time together had been, but beneath the past’s flavor was a note of anticipated tension.
Aimee’s fingers curled into the knit of his sweater so the tips of her nails scraped along the sensitive flesh of his sides. Her tongue teased his and she released a tiny moan. Her moans were as easily read as sheet music. This one, the one that came early on in a kiss, said only moments existed before she grabbed him and pulled him closer.
Aimee’s claim that things were more complicated ceased to exist with her lips moving beneath his and her fingers rubbing against his waist. She arched her back, molding herself more fully to him, and the idea of restraint became a concept he wasn’t interested in indulging.
His life was on the road. Hers was in Whispering Cove. He romanced the idea of staying, but the crowds on the road fed a part of his soul he couldn’t afford to let starve. A piece of him had stayed behind with Aimee, a piece he’d missed more and more. He wanted to give her more than another fling, he just wasn’t sure he could.
“Josh.” She sank away, gasping. “We can’t do this. It’s not right.”
“It felt right a second ago.” Poised over her, his biceps and shoulders burning with the force of holding himself off her, he searched the depths of her gaze. Arousal darkened the green of her eyes, but concern and worry clouded them.
“Yeah.” Pleasure curled her lips into the tiniest hint of a smile. It did nothing to change the look in her eyes.
She wanted to talk. He was going to have to indulge her. “What do we need to talk about?”
“About… Something’s happened since the last time we were together.”
That statement sounded more ominous than we need to talk. Releasing a breath, he eased back and promised himself he could handle whatever weighed so heavily on her mind. Somehow he knew it ran deeper than announcing she had a kid.
Chapter Four
Aimee struggled against the instinct to put more space between them. She’d never liked the idea of telling Josh about Kendall over the phone, but suddenly she wondered if it would have been easier. She wouldn’t have been able to see the judgment cross his face. She wouldn’t have been in the same room when he accused her of being like every other woman who tried to trap him into a relationship with lies of a baby.
She could start with telling him what efforts she’d made in contacting him. They’d seemed like enough at the time. In the moment of truth nothing she’d done was enough. She shouldn’t have stopped trying until she’d spoken with him, told him.
It was too late to change what she had or hadn’t done. The best she could offer was upfront honesty.
“I have a daughter.”
His gaze flicked to the picture. “She’s cute.”
“You have a daughter.” Aimee put the slightest stress on “you”. Rehearsing how this would go hadn’t been enough.
He straightened and sat slightly back. Leeriness crept into his watchful eyes as he studied the picture of Kendall. “What?”
“We have a daughter. She’s five months old.” Now that she’d begun, the impulse to spill every detailed thought and feeling from the last fourteen months rushed through her veins. He didn’t need to know about her feelings, though. He needed time to process his own.
“How? We used protection. I always use protection.”
“And I was on the pill. Some would argue she was just meant to be.” It sounded so lame spoken. Maybe it was because he hadn’t moved. He hadn’t blinked or jerked or flinched. He hadn’t leapt off the couch with accusations flying. His chest barely moved with the motion of his breaths.
His stillness was more worrisome than any outburst.
“Carmen carried her upstairs last night. You were holding her at the concert. I almost thought she was Carmen’s.”
Aimee nodded, but kept the conversation focused on Kendall. “She loves your music. Your voice.”
“She tell you that?”
“Sort of.” Aimee smiled. “Lullabies are wasted on her. Only your songs soothe her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Last night? Before?”
“I wanted to tell you last night, but she was waiting to eat and I wanted us to have more privacy than the bar’s kitchen.”
“So why not before? You had my number. You could have called.” He still hadn’t moved. Even his voice was perfectly modulated with a chilly calm. He was a passionate man. She would have laid big odds that he’d pace, curse, fling harsh words.
“I called. I left messages. I even went to a concert and tried to get backstage to see you.” She shrugged, keeping the justifications for not trying harder to herself. “I remembered what you said about women trying to trap you, so I told myself when you didn’t call back and when I wasn’t allowed to see you—”
“That I would think the same about you.”
She shrugged again. There were no words to make the situation okay, so she wouldn’t try. “Would you like to see her?”
That got him to move—if a jagged inhale and no exhale could be considered moving. Then his right index finger began tapping his knee. The second moved in, picking up an alternating rhythm. His middle finger followed and then his pinky until he was steadily drumming his knee. He stared at the picture.
The silence droned with certainty that when he did speak it would be to say he had no interest in seeing their daughter. That he didn’t even believe Kendall was his.
Aimee had told herself she could handle his rejection, but suddenly she wasn’t sure she could. Then she thought again that he might not reject Kendall. He might decide he wanted her. Wanted her so much he would fight for custody.
The thought of losing her baby shafted through her heart. It was an agony she had to find a way to avoid. Desperation tumbled from every word she spoke.
“She’s sleeping, but I can wake her up for you if you want.”
Fear-fed anxiety had her vowing to be flexible and open with anything he wanted. Self-preservation had her wondering if she should speak to Andie. Her friend didn’t normally practice family law, but she’d have some ideas on Aimee’s chances of winning a custody battle.
He had more money, but she had a permanent address. He could buy the best nannies, but she had a support system that included close friends, family and other kids. Damn. She didn’t want it to come to a court battle.
“No.” The single syllable slapped harshly. He immediately nodded and lightened the sting with a softer, “Don’t wake her. I would like to see her, though.”
Aimee nodded and led the way to Kendall’s room. Each step required more energy to put one foot in front of the other. Her muscles grew heavier with dread the closer they got to Kendall’s room.
In the room, Aimee turned on the guitar-shaped lamp that sported a pick-shaped shade. The soft glow of a light showed off the non-traditional decorations she’d chosen for their
daughter’s room. Instead of teddy bears or ducks she’d stenciled musical instruments and notes on the walls. The mobile dancing over the crib held guitars and picks that matched the lamp. The bedding was the cover art from Josh’s favorite album.
Josh looked around. His throat bobbed in a swallow, but he said nothing. Not knowing what he was thinking had the heaviness in her legs spreading. With it came a pressing need to fill the silence.
“I wanted her to know you.”
He nodded once and moved to the side of the crib. The instinct to protect her daughter reared. Clasping her hands in front of her, Aimee forced herself to stand back.
“She has your eyes. They were dark blue when she was born, but they’ve darkened.”
Minutes passed in aching slowness as he studied their daughter without making a move to touch the crib or Kendall. And still he didn’t give a voice to any of the thoughts in his head.
“I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
Aimee’s increasing anxiety bubbled in her stomach, but unlike butterflies it felt more like Edward Scissorhands had been set loose. Each bubble was being popped with sharp accuracy that turned into a shredding lance.
“We can do a paternity test if you want.”
She’d told him when he was there he’d only been her second lover, and the first one had been before she and Carmen aged out of foster care. He couldn’t even be counted as a lover, so there’d really only ever been Josh.
“I named her Kendall.”
He flinched so violently that it propelled him back a step. Still he said nothing, which had the need to fill the silence growing. Maybe I’ve been regretting that.
His words from the night before drifted back. She had little doubt his only regret now was having met her in the first place.
“I’m not asking for anything. If you don’t want to be involved I understand.” She wouldn’t like it, she hoped he wanted to know Kendall, hoped he was better than her parents had been, but she would understand if he couldn’t be.
Shaking his head, Josh turned and walked out of Kendall’s room. He didn’t touch the crib or look at Aimee as he passed. He kept every damn thought and emotion bottled so tightly she worried what—who—would be broken when the cork was released.