Touch Series (Contemporary Romance)

by Lucia Jordan

  Guilt ate into him, familiar as his own scent. He was the reason his father lay in that bed: incontinent and mostly senseless. It had been his gun that had fired the bullet.

  Sighing he turned away and headed into the kitchen to make himself a solitary and silent dinner.

  **

  Kelly ignored him when he walked past her office. Or at least, she tried to. She didn’t lift her head from the file on her desk but she was aware of him anyway. The day passed, she went to lunch instead of eating it at her desk and when she left her office at five he was already gone.

  Michael had to rush home to relieve Janet, having his night nurse quit was a tough blow and it left him having to take care of his father’s physical needs as well as dealing with the mountain of work he had brought home with him. By the time he managed to get things done it was almost three in the morning and he was too tired to do anything other than stumble off to bed. He felt a pang as he realized he hadn’t spoken to Kelly all day but he decided not to call her due to the late hour.

  “I’ll see her first thing in the morning,” he yawned out to the ceiling and promptly fell asleep.

  **

  Kelly avoided him all day. By the time he understood that she was deliberately avoiding him it was time for him to get home. He had a woman coming in who was skilled in home care and he had to relieve Janet again. He decided that Kelly was likely to be just as upset at his early departure as the evening before.

  He didn’t have time to deal with a pouting woman he decided as he strode out of the office, she would just have to get over it. Lolita had always been sullen and angry and demanding when he didn’t have time for her, she had created huge scenes that had embarrassed him and everyone else within ten feet, he didn’t want that kind of drama again and if Kelly did behave like that, she could take it elsewhere.

  His fatigue fed that irritation even further the next day when he summoned her to his office and she came in just to give him a cold stare and ask, “How can I help you sir?”

  “I need the Brandonbrock files.” He did, actually, but that had not been why he had summoned her. He had wanted to apologize to her for his absence and ask if she wanted to go for dinner later but her attitude rankled him.

  “Fine,” she said and walked out. Ten minutes later she reappeared, handing the files over with a thump and a glare.

  “Shut the door,” he said and she did but not quietly. ”I don’t know what’s bothering you but if you wish to talk about it instead of sulking and stomping around it would be preferable.”

  “You are seeing someone else and I’m not in the mood to be used by another lying cheating asshole, thank you very much.”

  Michael actually blinked. The words took him so much by surprise he wasn’t sure that he had even heard them correctly. “Excuse me?”

  The coldness of his words should have warned her but she was too angry to take heed. “I saw you with that blonde heifer from the party…’

  “Heifer?” Humor rose up but anger beat it back down. “First I haven’t got a clue…oh wait…Lolita? She lives a building or two down and she did stop me on the sidewalk…wait, why were you at my building?’

  It was her turn to stare in bemusement. What could she say, I was spying on you? Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she stuttered out a string of syllables that almost resembled words. Then she recovered to ask, “Why were you kissing her?”

  “Kissing her?” His mind blanked then he remembered the way Lolita had clung to him. “I didn’t kiss her. I’m sorry if you thought I did but I’m not going to listen to accusations from you.”

  He had no idea that those words echoes with familiarity as Greg had used the same when she had confronted him about his cheating and he could see the almost instant effect they had on her. She drew herself up tall and straight and said, in a voice cold enough to freeze ice water, “I see. I have work to do so if you will excuse me…”

  She didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, she simply walked out. His door closed behind her gently and she stood there, trying to keep the smile on her face even while her eyes were threatening to tear up.

  She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe him so badly but the past was already looming over her. The hurt and anger were too close to the surface and she couldn’t apologize, couldn’t see a way past it all.

  In her own office she closed the door and pulled the blind. She sat at her desk, crying silently for a very long time. When the tears dried up, she wiped her eyes and went back to work, losing herself in facts and figures, things that were always absolutely true and totally safe.

  **

  Several days passed. Neither of them spoke. Kelly grew more convinced of his wrongdoing every day. He always left early and looked drawn and tired at the office. His handsome face was always stamped with dark circles and his clothes had begun to loosen a bit. He got to work earlier every day and shut his door immediately. She would see him walking down the aisles dealing with other employees and issues or swinging into his car or stepping out of his office to tell his secretary to order lunch again but she never spoke and neither did he.

  Walking into a small café for dinner one evening Kelly saw Lolita and just as she turned to walk back out the other woman hailed her over to the table she sat at. Unable to pretend she hadn’t seen her Kelly took a chair and instantly Lolita asked, “How’s Michael?”

  “Working hard as usual.” Kelly refused to say anything else. Instead she picked up the menu and stared at it. She didn’t know why, she could not have eaten anything anyway.

  “That’s what broke us up.” Lolita said, leaning forward and speaking in a low and confidential whisper. At the look of wonder on Kelly’s face she added, “Oh he didn’t tell you.”

  It wasn’t a question and she didn’t pretend to think it was. “Why would he have?”

  The barb struck home. Lolita’s smile turned brittle. “I suppose he wouldn’t just because he’s like that, so secretive. I hated that almost as much as I hated his constant inability to be there when I needed him. If it wasn’t work it was his father. You do know he’s totally bedridden?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Oh yes. He shot himself. He’s a gambler, you see. Michael could have paid his debts off but chose not to. Nobody knows why he didn’t since he certainly does have the money.

  “He’s a cruel man but women like us, we like that. Tell me, has he taken you back to the party yet or is he just tying you to the bedposts?”

  There was malice glowing in Lolita’s eyes and it sickened Kelly. She moved to stand and Lolita’s incredibly long red nails came out and clenched down on her arm with enough force that small crescent shaped welts appeared.

  “Listen to me.” Lolita said as all the false sweetness stripped from her voice. “Michael would have married me if it hadn’t been for that damn father of his shooting himself like that. We were meant to be together and no silly little girl like you is going to stop me from getting him back.”

  “You’re a psycho,” Kelly cried. She snatched her arm away and a small trail of blood oozed from one of the cuts Lolita’s claws had left in her flesh.

  She fled out of the café, oblivious to the stares and hushed whispers.

  **

  She lay in bed, sleepless and confused. She had never felt the emotions she felt with Michael with anyone else. Yes, he had tied her to the bedposts, and face down over her tiny kitchen table too.

  She didn’t know if it was just the sex or if there was something else, some kind of real attachment to him, but she didn’t want to end up dealing with another broken heart.

  Not that it mattered, she thought, she had totally blown it by accusing him of cheating on her with Lolita.

  After her encounter with that woman she was fairly certain he had been telling the truth. Her arm ached and she wondered if she should go get some rabies shots or, at the very least, a tetanus shot just in case.

  Rolling over on her belly she felt a yearning
ache in her entire being. It was a primal and powerful longing, one that was so strong it made tears spill down her face and a low moan break from her throat. She ached for his touch, for his kisses but more- she ached for his presence.

  Giving up on sleep she went into the kitchen and made a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of hot cocoa. Sitting at the table she had once been fucked across staring at those two childhood treats made her tears rise again.

  He had made her feel safe. That had been what had drawn her to him, what made her miss him so then. In his arms she had felt safer than she had ever felt in her entire life.

  She closed her eyes, remembering the day she had packed her bags to go to college. A huge weight had fallen off of her shoulders with each piece of clothing she had folded into the battered old suitcase.

  Mrs. Parker, the last of her foster mothers, had stood in the doorway watching her, her face creased into a frown. “Are you sure you want to see him?”

  The ‘him’ she had been referring to was Kelly’s father. He had been released from prison the week before and had called, wanting to see his daughter before she headed two thousand miles away to school.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  “I won’t, but thank you.”

  She had finished packing her clothes. Zipping the suitcase shut she walked into the living room, her face composed into a pleasant mask. Her father had stood up and she had been shocked by how much shorter and heavier he had become. It took her a moment to realize he had not shrunk but that she had grown.

  His eyes were the same though, greedy brown orbs darting over every object in the room assessing its value. He measured her quickly and then sat back down, his own mouth shoved into what he probably thought was a charming smile.

  “You’ve grown up.”

  “It’s been five years, of course I have.”

  She kept her tone neutral and he didn’t flinch but she knew that that was due to his own lack of parental conscience than anything else. “What did you want to see me about?”

  “I heard you were leaving for college. Your mom told me.”

  “You’ve been to see her?”

  “Of course,” his chest swelled out. “She’s my girl. Your mom and me, we love each other. We’re always going to. They can’t split us up.”

  “Somebody should have years ago. You’re a pair of o-dependent addicts. Nothing about that is healthy.”

  He recoiled. “Well, someone’s been going to therapy.”

  “Yes,” she stood up. “I also went to see Mom and I should have known when she asked me if the Parker’s were giving me any of the money they get for taking care of me. She was asking because you would come around here wanting a piece of it.”

  “That’s a nice way to talk to your father!” he said, but under his anger she could hear a resigned defeat.

  “You’re not a father. You never were.”

  Sitting at her table Kelly pressed the mug of tea to her lips to try to remove the bad taste the memory left in her mouth. She knew exactly why she had put up with Greg, because in some way she had hoped for the one thing her parents had had, a love for each other that was totally unconditional and unbreakable.

  Michael though… she didn’t want that. She liked the danger and the excitement yes but what she wanted was the safety he brought along with that.

  “I’m in love with him.”

  Princess gave her a look that said quite clearly he thought she had lost her mind.

  Touch Book 3: Broken Promise

  Michael spent a sleepless night trying to sort out how he felt about Kelly. He enjoyed her company immensely, she was strong and determined and open to anything he wanted to try but the jealousy and the temper tantrum she had thrown had not set well with him.

  Lying there in his bed he asked himself some hard questions- was he simply shying away because of his experience with Lolita? Was he being too hasty in his judgment of Kelly’s behavior? Should he have told her about his father?

  That last one was a hard one. Lolita had known about it because her uncle was a shady character heavily involved in the loansharking business. He had warned his niece that the man she was dating had let his own father suffer rather than pay off his debts…

  That thought brought anger as well as remorse. Nobody knew what it had been like to be caretaker to his father all those years. He had spent most of his college career alternating between playing the serious student and gambling in the back rooms in order to keep his father afloat. When he couldn’t win enough to offset his father’s losses he often had to fight it out with toughs. Or run numbers to pay off high debts.

  If any of that got out it could wreck the career he had worked so hard to attain, the reputation he had earned through work and dedication. By the time he had been out of college he had known he could not continue on that path and so he had cut ties with his father for a few years but, like a bad penny, Oliver Adam’s had shown up on his doorstep, terrified and shaking and in a world of trouble.

  He had needed twenty grand and Michael had given it to him despite the fact that that money had been carefully hoarded and was slated to go toward the purchase of an apartment, the very apartment he now owned. That debt had set him back a year.

  Fourteen months later he had gotten a huge promotion that saw him making a hundred thousand a year more than he had the year before and once more his father showed up in need of a quick cash flow.

  That pattern had repeated over and over again and when he had finally gotten exhausted and drawn a line in the sand the results had been disastrous. He knew he should have said no the very first time, it would have saved them both a lot of heartache in the end.

  He hadn’t been able to say no, however. His feelings for his father had always been complicated. Part of him had been caught up in Oliver’s charismatic charm, remembered the baseball games he had taken him to and the fact that he had always provided for him no matter the cost.

  Michael had seen his father come home rolling drunk and broke but with a smile on his face, “It was a good game,” he would slur out. “You can’t win if you don’t play son and even if you lose at least you got the memory of a damn good time in your pocket. What else are you going to take out of here when you die?”

  “Nothing,” Michael would answer, torn between admiration for that go-to-hell attitude and resentment at the knowledge that it would be another week of canned beans and cheap red hot dogs at the Adam’s dinner table.

  That was if they even had a table to sit down at for dinner. There had been far too many interim homes, places they lived in with women and their children. Michael had always felt like the interloper in those houses, the kid nobody wanted to bother with. None of the other kids wanted a new brother, especially one who was doomed not to last. All the other kids had to do was take one look at his father to know that Oliver Adams wasn’t the sticking around kind.

  Michael clearly recalled the large red haired woman that they had lived with for a year and her constant and shrill demands for his father’s attention and time. When his father’s charms had run their course she had tossed all of their possessions out into the street. He had come home from school to find his father perched atop a dingy stack of duffel bags and torn trash bags half-filled with clothes and other possession, calmly smoking a cigarette.

  “Never date a screamer Michael,” he had said, squinting through the smoke, “Unless they are screamers in bed that is.”

  He had laughed at his own joke even as a car loaded down with the woman who had tossed them out and all of her other kids pulled up at the curb. The kids hung out the windows, ice cream dripping down their hands, wide eyes staring as their mother leaped from the car and started shrieking at them to get the hell out of her life and off her fucking lawn.

  “See what I mean Michael?”

  “Yes sir, I do see.” Michael had replied while he tried to heft two bags onto his back.

  He rolled back over
, his eyes narrowed in thought. He had hated that house, with its smell of cooking cabbage and sex. He had hated her weeping tantrums and screams, those things had made him feel trapped and what was more, they had made him pity his father for having to put up with that just to take care of his son.

  A revelation struck home, he had spent a lifetime avoiding women he thought were too shrill or demonstrative or demanding. Lolita had helped add an even more bitter taste in his mouth with her behaviors and he was seeing behavior in Kelly that was, in all actuality, not so unreasonable at all. She wasn’t a shrew or a screamer, she was simply a woman who spoke her mind and she had that right.

  “Shit,” he said succinctly to the walls of his bedroom.

  He knew, and had known for quite some time, that it was guilt and shame that kept him from telling women he dated about his father. He didn’t want the inevitable conversations, didn’t want to explain that Oliver had known when he picked up that gun that Michael didn’t keep the pistol loaded at home. What neither of them had known was that he had forgotten to check the chamber after returning home from the firing range and there was a bullet in there after all.

  Oliver had intended to make a grand gesture designed to force his son into compliance and had ended up paralyzed, most of his face gone as well as his ability to speak. His brain was mostly intact though and Michael could not imagine his suffering, didn’t want to and it was that, coupled with his guilt, that kept him caring for the man who had destroyed himself: the man who was his father and that he still, despite it all, loved very much.

  He wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t raw and hurting over the way things had turned out for his father, between them. He couldn’t take that to other people though, he’d never met anyone he could trust enough to actually talk to about it. His childhood had been a series of failures and losses, small terrors and larger ones and he knew of nobody who would understand that.

  Besides, he wasn’t a child anymore and there was only so much he could blame on those years without hating the man who lay all but insensate in the other bedroom.