by Jessie Lane
Pointing a trembling finger at her I roared, “You, BITCH! You’d better start fucking talking, ‘cause I swear to God, if what comes out of your mouth doesn’t somehow make this understandable for me, I’m going to haul your ass into court and nail it to the goddamn wall!”
Belle looked up, avoiding eye contact with me and searched for Seth with her eyes. After finding him, her eyes filled with fresh tears as she crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture—shoulders hunched, curling in on herself, trembling from head to toe like she expected me to lash out at her physically as well as verbally.
Keeping her eyes on the game in front of her, she started to speak in a small voice, “He’s fourteen. He was born May 30, 1997 in Austin, Texas.”
A slightly disbelieving laugh slipped out of her before she continued. Wasn’t that just a giant ass joke, too? What did she have to be surprised about? Surprised that her deceitfulness had caught up with her? Shouldn’t I be the one making that kind of disillusioned laugh because I was the one who’d just found out that I had a fourteen-year-old son who I’d never met?
“I told you what happened the day your momma gave me that letter where you broke up with me. I was coming over to beg them to let me live with them, ‘cause you and I both know that if my daddy had found me after what I’d done to him…” She shook her head, looking to be lost for words. “I was sporting a multitude of bruises from his drunken rage the night before, Bobby. He would have beat me half to death this time if I’d tried to go back and I just couldn’t take it anymore. The thing is, I didn’t get a chance to ask your parents about staying before your momma handed me that letter.”
She kept her eyes averted and shrugged her shoulders.
“After I read it, well, I couldn’t bring myself to tell your parents what happened with my dad or ask for their help. You’d just got done telling me that you didn’t want us anymore. Didn’t want our forever. I knew I couldn’t stay with your parents now and I damn well couldn’t stay with my father anymore, so I left. I didn’t realize I was pregnant until a couple of months after arriving here in Texas.”
Numb. I was utterly numb. Running my hands unthinkingly through my hair, I heard my own voice waiver as I asked, “How could this have happened, Belle? I thought you were protected.”
She dropped her head until her chin touched her chest. “Remember me being sick a little over a week before you left? Apparently, those antibiotics the doctor put me on canceled out the birth control I was taking.”
I looked from her to the field where Seth—my son—was playing quarterback. Seth launched the ball down the field to where one of his teammates ran it for a touchdown. Belle’s voice cut through the awe that I was experiencing while watching what felt like a flashback from my high school days.
“He’s just like you. Looks like you. Excels at everything he does, just like you did. The only things he got from me are my temper and green eyes. The boy blows up worse than fireworks on the Fourth of July. It’s a heck of a thing to watch. He’s been hell on wheels from the moment he took his first step.” Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, “He’s the only reason I survived you leaving me. Seeing him every day, with your face, your nose, your… everything… Well, he made me feel like I still had a piece of you all this time. Just like you used to promise me I would.”
Clenching my jaw against the pain I heard in her voice, I shook my head in denial. With what her home life had been like, it wasn’t as big of a surprise to me as it should have been that she’d felt like I’d thrown her away for good after that dumb ass letter. Still, it didn’t change the fact that what she’d done was wrong. It didn’t stop the hurt that was burning deep into my body like a vat of emotional acid.
“You didn’t have the right to do this to me.” The voice inside my head screamed, she didn’t have the right to do that to the love that we’d shared, but I didn’t let it out. Pointing a finger that was still trembling with my anger towards the football field, I told her, “You didn’t have a right to do this to him. Did you hate me so much that you would do something as despicable as keep us apart? Did it make you feel better to know that you’d pulled the ultimate act of revenge by keeping me away from my own flesh and blood?” I roared.
Somewhere in my head, the sympathetic conscience my parents had raised me with told me that she’d had it hard on her own—I should give her a break—but my overwhelming anger voided those thoughts out. She’d kept my child from me. ME. One of the few people in our whole town who had watched over her, who’d protected her from the dangers at home. I’d been the one she’d given her virginity to, along with the first ‘I love you’ she’d spoken out loud to someone other than her dead mother and her best friend. How dare she keep my only child from knowing his father?
Because you were the one who left her when she needed you the most.
The fury pulsing through my veins made the urge I’d had earlier to wrap my large hands around her delicate throat as punishment, stronger. That way I could squeeze the life out of her as literally as she’d just metaphorically done to me. The battered heart in my chest reminded me that I could never bring myself to actually hurt her. No matter how mad I got, I’d always love her. Or at least, the girl she’d once been to me. Didn’t that just seem like a cruel fucking joke that karma had played on me? Here I’d been pining away and looking for the girl I’d loved with every fiber of my being and, when I finally found her, it was to find out that she’d hurt me worse than anyone could have ever done.
Declan and Riley had been right that first day I’d talked to her outside of our headquarters meeting room. My angel was gone. The woman she’d become was proving too hard to love. Whose fault was it that she’d become this way? The mother who hadn’t had the backbone to stand up to the man she’d essentially let kill her? The father who was supposed to love his daughter and instead treated her like something he’d found distasteful on the bottom of his boot? Or the boy who’d told her that love wasn’t a fairytale, but something truly real? The boy who had then left her alone, unprotected and apparently, pregnant. Goddamn, my own throat felt like it was being strangled by invisible hands of self-contempt.
“You should have told me, Belle,” I finally ground out.
Running hands roughly through her hair she sighed in frustration. “So, I could spend the rest of our lives wondering if you’d stayed with me because you loved me or because I trapped you by being pregnant? Look, Bobby, I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked as more tears started to slide down her cheeks. “Really, sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. This past week has made me realize that I was wrong for keeping him from you, but look at all of this from where I was sitting. You didn’t want me anymore and I was used to not being wanted.” She turned her tear-laden face back towards me. The breath hitching violently in her chest as if she was incapable of taking a solid breath.
“Do you honestly think I would load you down with a woman you didn’t want because you got me pregnant? Sure, I was mad at first. Determined that Seth and I would make it on our own and we have. It’s been hard at times, but we pulled through. Then, as time went on, the anger turned into regret. You don’t think I don’t feel guilty anytime he asked why the other kids had a father around and he didn’t? It’s been rough on that boy, not having his daddy. I did my best to fill both roles, but it wasn’t the same. Thing is, he’s so strong that he never complained. Always told me how lucky he was to have a mom that loved him as much as I do. Those times were the worst. What a hypocrite I was to stand there and let him hug me while saying that, right? The woman who was supposed to make all the right decisions in his life had made the biggest mistake of all. How was I supposed to go about fixing that? It took everything I had not to break down and call you or your momma; that way he could have y’all in his life, too.”
Both of her hands buried into her hair, fisting the strands as she pleaded, “But there was a problem with that. I’d had to practically run for my life, Bobby! If my father had fou
nd me, there was no telling what he would have done to me. I had a son to think about! A child to protect from the monster who had made my life hell. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t know if he’d had those cops he’d been talking to that day press some kind of charges on me. What would Seth and I have done if my father had me charged with something ridiculous like attempted murder for attacking him with that whisky bottle?”
She was ranting almost hysterically now. “Then, I would think about the fact that you had probably moved on with your life. Maybe met someone. Married. Had kids or whatever! My brain just couldn’t wrap around messing up your life. That train of thought would just lead me to the fact that I wanted you to be happy wherever you were. How afraid I was that we might mess that up. So I stayed away.”
Belle’s voice was choked as she finally lost what was left of her control and dropped to her knees with body-racking sobs. Her hands dropping out of her hair so that she could beat a fist against her heart. “I’m s-s-so sorry, B-Bobby.”
Silence settled around the two of us as she kneeled there in the grass. Still numb and now unsure of what to do, I stood in front of her as she cried so hard that I wondered if she would be physically sick. Some small part of me said that I should hold her while she was like this; offer some kind of comfort, some forgiveness. Instead of offering any of those things, I stood there, watching an older version of the girl who’d once been my everything, try to force herself to stop crying. Trying to get her erratic breathing under control.
Unable to look at her any longer, my attention turned blindly to the game. Fourth quarter had started, I realized numbly. Seth’s team had a solid lead by twenty-one points. Soon the game would be over. Everyone would leave to head home with their loved ones and I couldn’t help thinking that Belle would leave with Seth. Taking him to a home that I’d never been a part of, invited to, or even welcome at. It tore me up inside to realize all that I’d missed in their lives. The day Seth was born. His first steps. His first words. I’d missed my son’s first everything.
Her small voice cut through my thoughts, “What do we do now, Bobby? I don’t expect you to drop your life for a kid you’ve never known about. I’ll do whatever it is you want me to, just please don’t take my baby away from me.”
My head was filled with a million things I couldn’t possibly process at the moment. The only thought I could latch onto was that hell would freeze over before Belle kept me away from my son a minute more than was necessary.
With a voice sounding just one octave above ice, I answered her, “You’re not keeping me from him. That’s my boy out there and I’ll be damned if he won’t know his father from here on out.”
I watched the tears continue to stream down her face, although silently now, as she nodded her head in acceptance. “Okay, Bobby.” She hesitated. “But can we hold off on telling him tonight? Maybe you can come by the house tomorrow so we can talk to him then? He’s going to be exhausted by the time we finally get home.”
I stood there, my heart hammering away in my chest. “I’ll be there tomorrow morning. Text me your address so I can use the GPS to find you. And I swear, by all that’s Holy, your ass better be at that house with my boy tomorrow. If I get there and find out that you’ve run off on me again, I will hunt you down to the ends of this earth and you will pay in ways that you will never recover from. You get me?”
She nodded back woodenly.
Unable to look at her a moment longer, I turned my gaze back to the boys on the field. Contemplating how one person could feel so many different things at the same time? I was furious that she’d kept the knowledge of Seth from me. I was also suddenly terrified at the idea of being a father. A father to a teenage son no less. That period in a boy’s life when they had more hormones than common sense.
If I weren’t so disgusted with her, I could almost respect her for being so gung-ho about raising our boy alone, with no help except—presumably—for Miss Reba, one frail woman suffering from cancer. The thing was that the two of them should have never been alone; they should have been with me. They were supposed to be my family and she had denied me of that.
Where would this lead them all now? Suddenly Seth was going to have a father in his life; one who hadn’t been around all this time. Would he be mad at me because I hadn’t been there for him? Or would he understand that I couldn’t make up for the past, but I would always be a solid presence in his future?
The rustle of movement told me that Belle had stood up to wipe the grass from the legs of her jeans. “I’ll text you the address, Bobby. We’ll see you in the morning. I’ve got to get back to the team now, but you’re more than welcome to finish watching the game. You might enjoy seeing how much Seth is just like you on the field.” Without saying another word, she walked quietly away. Leaving me to my sullen solitude.
Minutes passed before a set of heavier footsteps walked up to me. I knew, without looking up, that it was Declan.
“You okay, man?”
Eyes now glued to Seth on the field, I stood there considering the question. There was no easy way to answer it. “That’s my boy out there, Declan. My son.”
Declan considered him. “Yeah, I already guessed that since he looks like a little Bobby, mini-me. That’s a pretty big bombshell to drop on a guy’s lap. How’re you handling it so far?”
Shaking my head, I looked up at the stars to consider how I wanted to voice the screaming thoughts in my head.
“How could she not tell me, Declan? How could she carry him in her body—under the heart she swore was mine—then give birth to our son, raise him, and never even let me know? What kind of fuckin’ person does that?” I growled, my throat and eyes clogged with unshed tears.
A few silent minutes passed before Declan cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable. “Can I speak freely with you, man?” I nodded. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can see why she would have. I don’t agree with it, but I can see the misguided why of it. You told me you broke up with her, right? Well, I’m guessing that she hated the thought of what you might say when she felt you didn’t want her. She was young, scared, and not sure what to do. So she did what her less than wise teenage brain felt was best at the time.” At the cold look I shot him, he held up his hands to hold me off. “I’m not saying I agree with what she did, or that it was right, but I could damn sure understand why she did it, if I put myself in her shoes at the time. Is she going to let you be a part of his life now?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “I’m supposed to head over there tomorrow morning so we can talk to him.” A million scenarios ran through my head on how that might go. For the first time in years, I was scared of an unknown situation. You could send me alone into a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and I wouldn’t blink an eye at the mission, but having to face one fourteen-year-old boy had my stomach in knots. “Do you think he’ll like me, Declan?”
Declan punched me in the arm. “Are you kidding me, man? Once he gets to know you, I’ll bet he’ll love the hell out of you. Congratulations, man! You’ve got a kid and you didn’t even have to change a shitty diaper.”
I barked a surprised laugh and then looked over at Declan. “Yeah, I’ve got a kid. Who would have thought I’d ever be a dad? Believe it or not, though, I would have given anything to change that shitty diaper. What kind of dad is this going to make me after I’ve missed so much in his life?”
Declan snorted. “Wait. You’ll see. You’re going to be the best dad because you won’t take a minute with him for granted, but more importantly, I’ll be the awesome Uncle Declan. Can I teach him how to shoot a sniper rifle?”
I laughed at the idiot next to me while watching my son’s team win the game. Belle was right, Seth looked a lot like me playing on the field and, even though I was still upset, the future suddenly looked a little brighter than it had in a long time. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents. They were going to be ecstatic over Seth. Life might end up being pretty damn good after all, even if Belle was no longer wh
ere I’d originally pictured her in it. It was amazing how your heart could feel so full and yet shattered at the same time.
Chapter Ten
Annabelle
My room was pitch-black when the shrill ring of the cell phone woke me. Since I’d left my curtains and blinds open to let the natural sunlight in during the day, I knew this meant it was still dark outside, too. Blindly reaching out, I patted around on the top of my nightstand until I found the monstrosity making that horrible noise, groaned when I saw that it was only three o’clock in the morning, and flipped it open.
“Is somebody dying? If not, I might kill them for waking me…”
Boyd’s baritone sounded like gravel, presumably since he had been woken up at an ungodly hour, too. “Yeah, ‘cause waking you up is exactly what I want to do after you punched me in the nose last night. Get up, Annabelle. We’ve got to head in to Alamo Heights. The DEA just called our Special Agent in Charge a few moments ago. They found several crates of assault rifles and hand guns at a bust they just conducted. The SAC wants us up there five minutes ago. It looks like this could be related to the big hit we’ve been expecting.”
I groaned. “Ah, shit. Okay, I’ll be out of the house in fifteen minutes. Where do you want me to meet you?”
“Meet me at the hotel. I’m calling Commander Wall next. See if a couple of the EX Ops guys can go with us so we have some additional input from them at the scene.”
There was another reason to groan. The idea of seeing Bobby so soon after last night was torture. I’d rather have a hot branding iron poked in my eye.
“Got it. See you then.”
Hanging up my cell, I pulled myself out of the bed, quickly dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans, combat boots, a black t-shirt and my black ATF windbreaker, and then I headed to the bathroom to take care of personal concerns. Minutes later, with a fresh face, brushed teeth and my hair pulled back in a ponytail, I stopped in the kitchen to leave Seth a note as to where I was headed. Before walking out the door, I holstered my service weapon and my badge to my waist. With one last check of the house to make sure I had everything I needed and that all of the entrances to the house were locked and secure, I was gone.