Kimberly backed away. “Don’t try to talk me into this. You and Carter have already played too many games with her. I won’t help you play anymore.”
Kimberly was surprised by the sudden anger that took over her husband’s face.
“Are you going to help me or not?” he asked.
“How does this help you?”
“Help Carter, I mean.”
She nodded reluctantly. “You have to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Staying out all night with him,” she said. “You’re not single. You’re my husband.”
“But I’m not your child,” he said. “So don’t tell what I can and can’t do.”
“You don’t seem to have any problem doing that with me.”
With a sharp angry tone, he said, “I don’t need any more problems from you, Kimberly. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime. Do you understand me?”
Kimberly immediately thought of the pictures, and her heart sank. She didn’t answer him. She just turned and went back to bed. She couldn’t get to sleep for hours, thinking of who had sent her the pictures and what they wanted. Her life as Kimberly Chase, Janet notwithstanding, had been like a fairy tale up until the incident six months ago. And even as difficult as things were now, she could never have imagined being this lucky.
She’d almost forgotten about those two years that seemed to last a decade at the time. Two years of selling herself for food, being beaten and degraded for a roof to sleep under. Meeting Michael made it all go away. But she would never really be able to forget and she was afraid that whoever was behind this wasn’t just after money. They wanted to drag her back down into the gutter, the gutter where Janet had always told her she belonged.
“Cancel it,” Carter snapped into his Bluetooth as he parked his car surprisingly close to the Jackson home.
Surprisingly, because he had just driven by the house and witnessed the police presence around it, it seemed unlikely he would get this close. He hadn’t expected to find an open space only three homes down the road.
“I can’t keep canceling your appointments, Carter.” Patricia, his assistant who was usually calm even under the worst circumstances, sounded irritated. “When will you be in today?”
“I’ll be in by three,” he said, even though he didn’t think he would. “Clear everything until three.”
The office hadn’t been on his mind at all since he’d seen the picture of Avery. He’d tried to drink that ring on her finger out of his head, but it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t wait for Kimberly to get to Avery, as Michael suggested. He’d already waited six months and he wasn’t going to wait one more.
Carter had to squint to believe his eyes. Perfect timing couldn’t describe it as he saw a silver Honda drive past him with Avery in the passenger’s seat. She was looking down, but he knew it was her. He caught a quick glimpse of the man driving the car and already felt his anger rising.
The car pulled up to the house, blocking the driveway from the street, and Carter picked up his pace. He watched as Avery’s hand reached up and slid a few runaway strands of her hair behind her ear. He was always touched by the beauty of simplicity only she could pull off.
“Avery.” He waited for her to look up before he stopped. He wanted to take in every bit of her seeing him. Her beautiful, smooth chocolate skin was glowing. Her large, innocent eyes, button nose, and full lips all made up that face he had come to adore.
When she saw him, Avery felt as if the wind whipped through her, taking her breath with it as it left. She blinked, thinking she was hallucinating. She wasn’t. It was Carter in the flesh, and the first thought in her mind was . . . God, she still loved him. Her heart ached for him just at the sight and she hated herself for it.
His light brown eyes were piercing and her instinct, her heart saw his pain and wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, but Avery knew she had to keep her emotions in check. She looked ahead as Anthony, who had already gotten out of the car, was coming around the side. This was her husband and this was the man she loved now. This was . . .
Oh no, she thought. She was going to have to get out.
Seeing her like this, Carter was hit again by how much he missed every bit of her, and he wanted to, needed to hold her. He took a few more steps before noticing there was a world around them. And in that world, a man was walking in his direction.
“Can I help you?” Anthony asked, rushing to stand between Carter and the car.
Carter looked the man up and down with disdain, taking notice of the ring on his wedding finger. He was an older, safe-looking man, the kind that someone would expect to be a teacher. He was raisin brown with forgettable features, wire-rimmed glasses, and about ten extra pounds.
Carter wanted to blast him with his fists right away, but knew he couldn’t do that. Not in front of Avery at least. He knew how she felt about violence. Besides, this was about him and Avery. This little man didn’t matter and would soon be out of the picture.
“No, you can’t.” Carter stared him down. He would make him blink and the stage would be set. It was all just paperwork after that.
“You’re not welcome here,” Anthony offered.
Carter continued to stare without answering until Anthony blinked. Carter’s lips casually slipped into a victorious smile because he believed Anthony was smart enough to know what he’d just done.
“So you know who I am?” Carter asked calmly.
“Who you are isn’t important,” Anthony said.
“Then you don’t know who I am,” Carter answered with a smirk.
“Who I am is . . .” Anthony looked back as Avery began opening the door. “Honey, no.”
Carter cringed inside at the sound of that man calling Avery honey. He looked forward to the first chance he would get to beat the crap out of him. “What’s wrong, buddy? She’s not afraid. Are you?”
“I’m not afraid of you, you son of a bitch.” Anthony took a step forward, but stopped as Carter did the same. “You stay away from my wife.”
Before he could catch himself, Carter blinked and he knew the other man noticed. Just the sound of someone, anyone other than him, calling Avery his wife hit him in the gut like a sledgehammer.
“Please stop.” Avery took a deep breath, looking at both men, who seemed ready to pounce. Carter wasn’t going to leave. To avoid getting out would only work against them. She had to appear to have nothing to hide.
Anthony turned around and helped Avery out of the car. Carter, at first distracted by the sight of him touching Avery, was completely blown away when her full belly came into sight.
What the . . .
When he looked at her face, Avery was turned away from him, whispering something to Anthony, who was shaking his head defiantly. Carter looked back at her belly and it was as if a bolt of lightning had struck twice. She was pregnant.
“Av-ery.” Her name came out broken because Carter didn’t have a mind to keep up any pretense.
“Hold on.” Avery held up her hand to Carter.
She wasn’t sure she was strong enough for this, dealing with her emotions, her physical state, her attraction to him, and her concern for her husband. It was all too much, but she couldn’t have expected it to happen any other way.
“Please, Anthony.” She squeezed his hand, looking up at him. “I’m begging you.”
“No.” Anthony shut the car door, turning from Avery to Carter. “I’m staying right here.”
“What the hell is this?” Carter asked. “You’re—”
“I’m pregnant,” Avery said, hopeful he would act like a jerk so she could keep her wits together. This tortured baby boy look only made her weak.
“It’s not yours,” Anthony insisted.
Carter looked at him as if he were an annoying child. “Fuck you.”
“Carter!” Avery stepped forward, still holding Anthony’s hand. “Anthony is my husband. Don’t talk to him like that.”
Carter laughed because he couldn
’t think of any other way to respond. “What bullshit is this, Avery? You run away and then . . . you come back with . . . I want an explanation. I deserve an—”
“You don’t deserve anything!” Anthony yelled.
“Please.” Avery squeezed Anthony’s hand more firmly as Carter’s frown tightened. He would start a fight, she knew that much. “Anthony, for me.”
“He’s a bully, baby. Just like you said. He’ll only push you around if I—”
“I’m not asking you,” Avery said. “Let me talk to him. We’ve discussed this.”
Anthony huffed as if he could drop to the floor in a tantrum any second. He looked at Carter, who was still staring at Avery’s belly. Turning back to her, he sighed. “I’ll stand at the door. I won’t go inside without you.”
“Okay.” Avery smiled, raising her hand to his chest as she leaned forward.
Carter’s hands clenched into fists at his sides at seeing Anthony kiss Avery, his Avery, on the lips. He wasn’t having this. Whatever the hell was going on, this wasn’t going to continue.
As Anthony walked away, he continued to look back and Avery put on her best face. She wanted him to think she had everything under control, but she couldn’t fool him that easily. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t avoid it any longer. So, taking a deep breath, she turned back to Carter, reminding herself that stress was bad for the baby—her baby.
Carter took another step toward her, his hand reaching out.
“No.” Avery stepped back. “Don’t touch me, Carter.”
He stopped, the all too familiar pain rippling through his body at her rejection. How could she not miss him? How could she not want to hold him? He felt he was about to explode just being this close to her after all this time.
“Baby.” His voice was weak in a way only she had heard before. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me?”
Avery hadn’t expected the storm of emotion that whipped up inside her in response to the desperation in his voice. After everything he had done to her, to her family, how could she still love him? “You know why I left.”
“You didn’t have to disappear,” he said. “You didn’t have to—”
“I did,” she said. “And from the way you’ve acted with my family, I was right to.”
“I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t left,” Carter said. “You could have just told me—”
“You wouldn’t have left me alone,” she said. “You know that, so let’s skip this part.”
“The baby.” He looked at her belly and this time the shock he’d been feeling was leaving slight room for excitement. “That’s my baby. That’s why you left?”
“No, Carter.” Avery felt sick now that the lie had started. She would never get away with it, and there was a part of her that knew she didn’t really want to be the kind of woman that would get away with this. But for Anthony, she would try. “This is not your baby. I got pregnant after—”
“It is,” Carter insisted, because he refused to accept anything else. “It’s mine and you married some man to—”
“That is not some man.” Avery briefly glanced at Anthony, who was staring from the porch. “Anthony is my husband, I love him and this is his baby.”
“Bullshit.” Carter swallowed the pain in her words. “You love me, Avery. I know you wouldn’t—”
“It’s not yours,” she said. “I knew you’d think it was, but I’m only five months pregnant. It’s impossible.”
“What in the hell are you doing here?” Sean stormed over to his sister and Carter with a warning glare on his boyish face. As he waved over one of the officers standing on the inside of the garage, Sean said, “Haven’t you caused my family enough pain? My father is in the hospital and you—”
“I just want to talk to you.” Carter, ignoring the boy, focused on Avery, who was visibly shaken by the escalation of events. “Avery, you disappeared and I have to know—”
“Not now,” Avery said. “I need to focus on my father.”
“I know,” Carter said. “But we have to—”
She didn’t like that he kept looking at her stomach, but he was off his guard enough that she could control him. She had to use that to her advantage. “I’ll talk to you later, but you’ll have to go now.”
“When?” Carter asked as the cop approached.
“This man is leaving,” Sean said.
“Stop.” Avery stopped the officer from approaching Carter. “He can leave on his own, right?”
Carter didn’t know what to say or think. It wasn’t in his nature to take orders or do anything he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to walk away from Avery; he had just found her again after what seemed like much more than six months. He was so close to touching her, holding her. “When can I see you again?”
“I’ll call you next week,” she said, almost wanting to sigh at the fact that he didn’t protest.
He ran his hand across his mouth with a tortured frown on his face. “Don’t . . . please, Avery, don’t . . .”
“I won’t leave.” Her voice caught in her throat as she saw the fear in his eyes. Carter Chase was afraid and that was something she had only seen when she told him it was over. “I’m not leaving.”
As she turned and headed for the house, Carter looked away. He didn’t want to see her walk to that man; see him touch her and think of what that meant.
Anthony wrapped his arms around Avery as they entered the house, and she knew she was in trouble because she desperately wanted to look back. She had thought loving Anthony was enough, but was it? She wanted to run to her mother and ask her how it was possible to still care for Carter as much as her heart told her she did. But she couldn’t. Her mother had too much to deal with and Avery had to handle Carter on her own.
Carter headed back for his car, but didn’t drive off for another half hour. He was shaken, confused, happy, angry, and afraid of what it all meant. He had gotten used to being at a disadvantage when it came to Avery long ago, but this scared him.
Everything inside him told him that the baby was his. It had to be. He didn’t want to imagine Avery ever having sex with any other man, but he wasn’t a fool. He could see that as a possibility over the course of six months, considering how angry she was at him when she left. But he couldn’t imagine her marrying one and having his baby. She couldn’t, wouldn’t do that.
That was his baby and she was his woman.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Alicia said as she sat next to Leigh in the back office of the clinic. “You’re the one who didn’t want a signature stamp.”
“That’s so impersonal.” Leigh signed the final thank-you note. “Besides, Mother said it’s a breach of etiquette and she knows this game better than anyone.”
“She would know,” Alicia agreed.
“These people donate tens of thousands of dollars to the clinic.” Leigh handed Alicia the stack of cards. “The least they can get in return is a real, signed thank-you note.”
“All most of them want is the receipt for tax purposes.” Alicia grabbed the stack with one hand and a box of envelopes with the other. “I’ll get them out.”
“Wait.” Leigh looked down at her watch. “I can probably help you with that.”
“Your movie star is coming in five minutes.”
Lyndon was due at eight that morning, a time Leigh gave him to call his bluff. Movie stars don’t show up anywhere at eight in the morning. She was a little surprised he immediately agreed without even a hint at negotiating a later time. It was five minutes to eight now, and she had a feeling she would be waiting a while.
“Trust me,” Leigh said. “I have time to help you.”
“Then you should get out there.” Alicia nodded to the clinic. “It’s already starting to stack up.”
The clinic wasn’t big enough for separate rooms, so they did as best they could with partitions and spacing. It was important to Leigh that her patients have the privacy that everyone deserved, even if they didn’t have he
alth insurance.
Partitions with a blue sash flipped over the top meant someone had been checked in and was waiting to be seen, but it wasn’t an emergency. Red sashes meant emergency, and not seeing any of those, Leigh headed for the first blue sash she could find. First would be toward the front. She wasn’t expecting what she saw as soon as she entered.
“Hello, I’m Dr. . . .”
The patient sitting on the end of the bed was a young Hispanic boy not much older than thirteen, who was laughing so hard he looked as if he would fall over. His source of entertainment was none other than Lyndon Prior.
“Hey.” Laughing, Lyndon slapped the young boy on the back. “Now straighten up. The doctor’s here.”
The boy was waving his hands in an apology, seeming unable to stop laughing. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry. I just . . . This dude is so cool.”
Leigh didn’t crack a smile. If Lyndon thought this was how it was going to go, he could just turn tail and leave now. She reached for the clipboard. “You must be . . . Dusty?”
The boy cleared his throat, trying to sit up straight. He was wearing a Michael Jordan T-shirt over a pair of raggedy blue jean shorts. “That’s my name.”
“No last name?” Leigh asked, doing a quick survey of the board. She knew Lyndon was staring at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. This wasn’t a game.
“My name is Dusty,” the boy answered, his expression finally serious. “The lady at the home said I didn’t have to . . .”
“You don’t,” Leigh answered, looking up at him with a smile. She could see he was uncertain. “If you say your name is Dusty, then that’s what it is. Are you here alone?”
He nodded, looking over at Lyndon. “But I wish I had told some of the boys at the home, ’cause they won’t believe me. I need, like, a picture, or something. Lyndon Prior!”
Lyndon laughed with a shrug, but the second Leigh turned to him, he looked away.
“I’m gonna make you a deal,” Lyndon said. “This is real serious business, so if you don’t tell anyone I’m here, I’ll sign a picture for you. I have a ton in my car and I—”
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