The Story Of Us: A Secret Baby Romance (Serenity House Book 1)

by Molly O'Keefe

  Uncle Milo had been a pro working with local police. Within ten minutes Milo could get any man or woman with a badge to promise to call Milo with whatever information he’d been after. And they’d do it, too.

  Milo had been like that. A box of pastries, a couple stories about the wife and grandkids he didn’t have and people would do just about anything for the guy.

  J.D. had not inherited that talent.

  Milo was fond of saying that J.D. had more of his father in him than was good for anyone. That he’d said it with such affection was the only reason J.D. hadn’t tried to beat an apology from him.

  “I’ll teach you how to get past it,” Milo had said, that morning a million years ago standing in the parking lot outside of Wilhelm Juvenile Detention Facility. “You don’t have to be like your dad.”

  J.D. hadn’t believed Milo at the time, having just done eighteen months for assault. But no one else had been waiting for him in that parking lot.

  Milo took J.D. in when no one else would. Milo shared his condo, his life and his livelihood with his sister’s boy and never asked for anything in return.

  J.D. wondered now, climbing the steps to Sam’s apartment, his sleeping bag under his arm, what Uncle Milo would have thought about Sam. And Spencer. And what J.D. was doing about them.

  He wouldn’t be proud, that’s for sure.

  He shook his head, hoping to clear his thoughts. Having Uncle Milo in his head made him morose. And remembering juvie and his father made it hard for him to breathe.

  The door at the top of the steps creaked slightly and he braced himself for the scent of roses and the haunting ghostlike images of Sam that he saw wherever he looked.

  He wasn’t prepared to see the real thing.

  Sam sat in her rocking chair, the sulfuric smell of anger surrounding her like a cloak.

  Light from the moon took shards from the darkness, jagged slices of light that revealed her hands, clenched in fists. Her bare feet. Her eyes filled with loathing.

  “What’s your name, you bastard,” she hissed.

  Her anger was a match to his and he had to look away, walk away. Stepping to the couch, he deliberately untied his sleeping bag, unfolding it out over the cushions with a snap.

  “What is your name?” she asked again.

  He could feel her over his shoulder. He could smell her, touch her if he wanted to. If he wanted to, he could grab her, wrap his fingers in her hair and kiss her until all the anger that crashed up against his control turned to something else. Something thicker and hotter and a hell of a lot safer.

  But he was never going to touch Sam again.

  “One answer,” she said, grabbing on to his shoulder and tugging. He let himself get spun. Her whole body thrummed with emotion like a string pulled too tight and moments away from breaking. “One miserable scrap of truth, J.D., for all the times I slept with you.”

  The shadows in the room couldn’t hide her shame, and something that might have been guilt, might have been regret, flickered over his conscience.

  He never wanted her to be ashamed.

  “It doesn’t matter, Sam.” He sighed. “Let it go.”

  “I can’t, J.D.,” she said, her voice rich with sarcasm. “Because our son is downstairs. Our son. The boy I made with you. And I put the name Jonathon David on the birth certificate because that is who I thought you were.”

  He said nothing, wishing he hadn’t been thinking of the past, because he felt drained. Where his outrage should have been there was only emptiness. A great big nothing at the center of him.

  “Who is the liar, now?” she asked. “Is there any part of you that was real?”

  Too much, he almost said, despite how hard he tried to keep things separate.

  “I didn’t lie to you about my name,” he said, remembering that morning in bed years ago. She’d lain against him, her breasts against his chest, her leg thrown across his, the sunlight turning her hair to fire and tried to guess what the letters J.D. stood for. When she guessed Jonathon David, he didn’t say no. “I just didn’t tell you the truth.”

  “And you called me a coward,” she spat. “Why?” Her eyes suddenly flooded with a misery that he could feel like a punch in the gut. “Why did you have to lie to me?”

  He could only stare at her, feeling her pain and his own combined. A sickening mix.

  “I never wanted you to be hurt,” he said, his voice thick.

  She laughed wildly. “That’s why you lied? To prevent me from being hurt?”

  “You don’t know who I am,” he whispered, thinking of his work. His father. Juvie. The blood on his hands. The blood in his veins.

  “Yeah,” she said, grim as stone. “So I’ve learned.”

  “I didn’t want you to find—” He stopped himself, jabbed his fingers through his hair. All the rules he’d made for himself were being broken, destroyed, his secrets spilling out like brains on his bedroom floor.

  “Find you?” she asked, incredulous. “You gave me your cell-phone number. I could find you anytime I wanted.”

  “Drop it, Sam,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t let it go. You’re in my house. You’re in my head. You’re a liar and a coward and I can’t forgive myself for the way I felt about you.”

  Her words echoed around the silent room.

  But still he didn’t say anything.

  Her eyes filled with tears that she quickly blinked away and for some stupid reason he wanted to stroke her face, that smooth silky skin of her cheek, and tell her that it was better this way. That she’d get over it. Move on.

  “You’re a bastard,” she spat. “Whatever your name is.”

  She walked away, head held high, an outraged queen.

  And because he’d never meant to hurt her or make her ashamed of what had been between them and couldn’t stand, even considering what she’d done, to hurt her this way now, he opened his mouth and did something stupid.

  “Jakos Diavoletes,” he said and she stopped and turned, a slice of moonlight across her lips. Her eyes in darkness. “That’s my name. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to find out about me.”

  “Find out what?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” he asked.

  “J.D.?” She shook her head, as if she didn’t understand and he turned away, raw and naked.

  “You got what you wanted,” he said. “Now go to bed.”

  He kicked off his shoes, pulled his shirt over his head and still she stayed. Still she watched. The air was so hot it might have been on fire. His skin soaked up her gaze and desire pounded through his blood in a sudden rampage. He wanted to push her against the wall, shove himself into her, bury his confusion and hurt into the welcoming center of her body.

  And she wanted him; he could feel her craving, her weak-kneed lust from across the room. Hell, he’d be able to feel her across the state.

  “Was there something else you wanted?” he asked, his voice a mocking invitation.

  She stepped forward, the light falling across her face, her eyes revealed and he was hard in a heartbeat. Her hot gaze raked him from head to foot, destroyed him and he wanted to forget what she’d done and who he was and push her down on the floor.

  For a moment it seemed as though she was going to take another step toward him. And if she did, he’d take that as an equal interest in his floor fantasy and screw his promise to never touch her again.

  Come on, something dark in him whispered, something that wanted him to lose all control and take these crushing feelings he had out on her gorgeous and willing body. One more step, baby.

  He lifted his hand, stroked his chest, the flat plane of his stomach. His fingers, numb and thick, pulled the button on his jeans.

  “It won’t work,” she said, her voice a dry gasp.

  “It already is,” he said, laughing at her. At him. At the whole damn situation. He was sleeping on the couch, for chrissake, and they wan
ted each other so bad all it would take was a touch and they’d be in pieces.

  She flinched at his laughter and the moment was over, the heat between them turning frosty.

  “I never really knew you at all, did I?” she asked, her voice unbearably sad, her eyes decades older.

  “It’s not your fault,” he told her. “You knew what I wanted you to know.”

  “Which was nothing,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t true. She knew more about him than most people. But the important things, he’d kept hidden.

  “Which was nothing,” he agreed and she turned, walking through light only to end up back in the darkness.

  8

  Usually Sam loved mornings. She woke with the sunrise, filled with an enthusiasm, a clearheaded, goal-oriented joy in the day. In living. Working.

  She’d been told by more than one roommate that all of this was incredibly annoying.

  J.D. at one point, his head buried under a pillow, had said that all morning people should be shot. At dawn.

  The thought of J.D. galvanized her and she flipped her ladybug sheets off her body, ready, if not willing, to get on with the day.

  It was still early yet, so she knew he’d be sleeping. All naked and stretched out on her couch, his skin the color of caramel in the dawn light.

  Last night had been dangerous; the coiled tension between them had turned quickly into lust. And she’d been filled with a need to make him pay for his lies with his body.

  Stupid. Reckless. A little creepy. But there you have it. Had she not been so terribly saddened by the truth of how little she meant to him, she might have taken him up on that blatant invitation in his eyes.

  Find out what about him? she wondered, now remembering his stupid rationale for lying to her about his name. What, exactly, was he so afraid she’d find?

  His address, she guessed. He worried she’d show up on his door one day, expecting more from him than he’d ever been willing to give.

  Well, despite last night and the moments of lunacy in the moonlight, he had nothing to worry about. There was nothing she wanted from him anymore.

  She pulled on a pair of yoga sweats and a short-sleeved T-shirt, scraped her hair into a ponytail and took a deep breath before opening her door, bracing herself for all that skin on her couch.

  But her couch was empty.

  His sleeping bag was rolled up on the floor.

  And J.D. was nowhere to be found.

  She shut down the curiosity and decided to count her blessings. She didn’t have to see him, and that was reason enough to be happy. She thought about making coffee in her own apartment and decided not to press her luck. If he was in the bathroom, or perhaps out for a run only to return, she’d rather be out of here.

  Stepping lightly down the steps not wanting to wake anyone who might still be sleeping, she crept into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee.

  She swung open the door to the common room intending to get the newspapers they had delivered only to be brought up short by the sight of Spence sitting cross-legged on the couch.

  Daisy the vicious guard dog flopped over on her back beside him, her pink belly exposed. The couches were forbidden territory for sure and as soon as Daisy saw Sam she jumped down and curled up on the floor at Spence’s feet.

  “Hi,” he said, flipping his notebook closed as if caught doing something he shouldn’t.

  Spence’s red hair was a wild mess on his head, creases from his sheets lined his cheek and his Baltimore Zoo T-shirt was still a size too big for him.

  But he was beautiful. So beautiful her heart hurt.

  “Hi,” she answered, rubbing her sternum. “What-cha doing?”

  He shrugged and toyed with the metal coil of his notebook.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “Sleeping,” he said. “She sleeps a lot.”

  Classic sign of depression, she thought, feeling another surge of sympathy for Jennifer and Spence.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  “I had a banana.”

  “Thirsty?”

  He pointed to a glass of milk sitting on a coaster on the table next to him.

  She was all out of motherly type questions to ask the boy. He was fed. Watered. She didn’t want to go for a walk and wasn’t about to ask him if he wanted to.

  Good God, Sam, he’s not a pet, she chastised herself.

  “You, ah…” She looked at his notebook. “Think of more questions you wanted to ask me?”

  His lip kicked in a smile and she was stupidly glad to be the reason it was there. “Sort of.”

  “Well, all right,” she said. “Let me get some coffee and I’m all yours.”

  She turned, intending to come back with her mug, and was surprised when he followed her, pulling himself up to the kitchen table like he was at home.

  “Fire away,” she told him.

  “Have you always lived here?” he asked and while she knew she shouldn’t be stunned by the kid’s questions after the oral medical exam from yesterday, the question still seemed to come from left field.

  “No,” she answered, taking a seat across from him. “I came to work here after I graduated from college in Asheville and I lived in an apartment about thirty minutes away from here just outside of Raleigh.”

  “I like Asheville. We used to go there for vacations.”

  “I like it, too,” she said.

  “Did you go to the concerts in the park?”

  “Whenever I could.”

  They grinned at each other and she could almost see him in that park, one of those kids running wild or dancing on the grass during big band night. Although, she had to amend the vision. Spence, as he was now, didn’t look like a wild runner, or a dancer. She hoped, she really did, that before all of this with his father happened he’d been one of those kids, flopped out on blankets under the stars.

  “So when did you move here?”

  “When the last director retired,” she said. “A little over ten years ago.”

  “Do you like it here?” he asked, tilting his head in that totally J.D. way.

  “I love it here,” she said honestly. “This is my home.”

  “Did you grow up in a place like this?” he asked.

  She shook her head, catching on to his line of questioning. “Nope,” she said. “I grew up in Texas. It was really normal. I had a mom and a dad and a cousin who I played with. But my boyfriend from high school went to school in Asheville, so I followed him out here.”

  “Is his name Jonathon David?” Spence asked, his eyes big in his little head. Sam shook her head, wishing the question wasn’t so sad. Wishing the whole situation wasn’t so impossible.

  No, she wanted to say. Your dad is here somewhere. He’s just too scared and too stubborn to understand that you need him. That this is important.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” she said. “We broke up pretty soon after I moved out here.”

  Spence chewed on his lip and wrote some things down. Sam had to stop herself from craning her neck to see what he’d written.

  The muffled sound of a cell phone ringing brought Spence’s head up. “That’s my mom’s phone,” he said, looking toward the hallway like an expectant puppy. But when Jennifer didn’t appear, his bright eyes and smile faded.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Sam asked, slowly spinning her mug on the table.

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Is your mom okay?”

  The kitchen was so silent she could hear Daisy breathing under the table. “She’s better than she was,” he finally said.

  “What was she like before?”

  “She didn’t get out of bed.” His voice was so small in the empty kitchen. And he somehow looked both younger and older than his nine years. She wondered when was the last time he’d had fun.

  “What happened to your dad?” she asked, watching him, absorbing him and wishing she could reach out for him.

  “He died. He was sick for a long time…” His voice cracked
and Sam thought she might cry. Might just splinter under the weight of the boy’s unexpressed grief. “In the hospital and then he died.”

  “And that’s when your mom stopped getting out of bed?”

  Spence nodded, his gaze again riveted to his notebook, and she had the impression of a bomb about to go off. He was too still. Too quiet. Too controlled. He was nine, for crying out loud. Then she realized how many hours Spence must have sat in a hospital room. In waiting rooms. Told to be quiet. Be still. Be careful.

  He needed time to run around. Be loud. Remember what nine-year-olds were supposed to do.

  “Yesterday she laughed,” he said. “I thought that was a good thing.”

  “It is a good thing,” she said emphatically, and his gaze darted up and met hers gratefully.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And she ate dinner last night.”

  “A lot of it,” Sam said, exaggerating slightly.

  “And we read to each other before bed. Like we used to.”

  “Wow.” Sam nodded. “Sounds like you’re doing all the right things, Spence. You’re taking really good care of her.”

  And bingo.

  Spence smiled. His whole face illuminated from the bones to his curls to the sheet crease on his skin, as if joy and relief just poured out of him.

  “Do you have any more questions?” she asked, gesturing to his notebook.

  He shut the cover and pulled it in closer, shaking his head. “Maybe later.”

  “Okay.” Sam checked her watch. It was Sunday. Nothing much going on on Sundays. J.D. was around somewhere, and so was a mafia princess. But she wasn’t going to think about those things right now. “You want to play a game?”

  “What kind of game?” Spence asked, watching her from beneath red-gold eyelashes.

  “Well, I haven’t played UNO in a while and I—”

  “UNO’s my favorite,” Spence said.

  “Mine, too,” she said, smiling broadly. Life was strange, she thought. So much was wrong in her world. But because this boy was here, with his questions and seriousness, his beautiful eyes and terrible sadness, everything seemed somehow okay. Somehow manageable. Somehow better.