by Ann Jacobs
It hurt like hell to stand and steady himself against the car with one hand while groping for his crutches with the other. Dragging himself along the sidewalk, Gray wondered—not for the first time—if it was worth the torture he suffered, using braces and crutches to create an illusion of mobility the wheelchair couldn’t match.
When Andi opened the screen door and stood back to let him in, he noticed her hands were shaking. “Come on in.”
“Where is Brett?”
“In the den, watching Saturday cartoons on TV. Come on inside, and I’ll call him.”
“Wait. I’d rather not have my son remember his first meeting with me as one that interrupted his time with the Road Runner.” He’d also prefer that his son not see him for the first time while he was dragging himself toward the first available chair, struggling with every step.
When he stepped inside, one crutch tip slid on the polished hardwood floor. He pitched forward, but caught himself in time to keep from sprawling on his face.
Andi grabbed his arm, as if she thought she’d be able to hold him up. “Sorry. The floor’s slippery. How can I help?”
“I’m okay.” He caught himself before he could say anything else that sounded as defensive as he felt.
“Then let’s go in the kitchen. We might as well have lunch now. Brett talked me into fixing him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an hour ago, so he’s not likely to want to eat again any time soon.”
Gray needed to sit before he fell. “All right,” he said as he followed Andi down a narrow hallway.
He lowered himself onto the straight chair Andi pulled away from a glass-topped kitchen table and unlocked the braces so he could bend his knees. While Andi took a dish from the refrigerator and set it in the microwave, he tried to will away the pain. Looking at her helped. A lot.
“Is lasagna okay?” she asked.
“Sounds good.”
Gray’s appetite had made a full recovery since he’d left the hospital. Looking at Andi and remembering how she’d begged him to fuck her after he’d cuffed her to her bed had him hard as stone, as if there were a chance in hell she’d invite him back into that bed.
“Gray?”
“I’m sorry.” Was her pussy as tight and wet as he remembered?
“Do you like Caesar salad?”
What he’d like was to fuck her. She had no right to look as good now as she had eight years ago, or to look at him as though she might want sex with him, too. “Yeah. Just set it in front of me, and I’ll eat it. I assume you’re still with the prosecutor’s office.”
She nodded. “I’m chief assistant to the state attorney now, probably because I’m the only one who’s stuck it out so long. Somehow I’ve resisted the urge to switch over to criminal defense.”
“Congratulations.” If any woman could succeed in the dog-eat-dog world of criminal law, Gray imagined it would be Andi. “I’m just about to start my own law career now. Hopefully I remember enough to avoid making a complete fool of myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Smiling, Andi reached into a cabinet and retrieved a box of croutons. “Tony mentioned that we’re likely going to be clashing with one another in court every now and then.”
Gray shrugged. “Criminal law seemed appropriate. The DEA gave me plenty of opportunity to understand the criminal mind. Not to mention the years I spent as a guest at the headquarters of a Colombian drug cartel.”
“Why not prosecution, then?” When she grinned, he noticed tiny lines that crinkled at the corners of her eyes.
“In my condition? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Not at all.”
Gray shook his head. “Unlike prosecutors, defense attorneys plan their outings to the jail, and they generally don’t trek out to crime scenes for firsthand looks at evidence. I’ll have law clerks and junior associates to do the grunt work, chase down witnesses, and so on. And private investigators to sniff out leads. Besides, my grandfather didn’t found the state attorney’s office.”
As though she hadn’t noticed before, she glanced at his legs. “Gray, I don’t know what to say.” Her eyes clouded over, her lower lip trembled.
“Don’t pity me. For God’s sake, don’t. I can’t stand it, not from my son’s mother.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “Pity? Why would I pity you? You’ve survived horrors I imagine would kill most people. You’ve stepped into a job with a top law firm. Besides, you’d probably survive quite nicely even if you decided to become a beach bum. I’d say you’re fairly lucky, on balance.”
Did she mean it? Gray saw no evidence to the contrary. “Speaking of money, I want to make things right, reimburse you for the child support I haven’t been paying all along.”
“I’ve been looking out for Brett all his life. I don’t want your money.” She set a plate down in front of him, not quite hard enough for it to bounce, then handed him a napkin wrapped around some silverware. Glaring, she set down her own plate and silverware and sat at the other side of the table.
“You’ll get it anyhow,” he muttered, making a mental note to see someone in the family law division of the firm and arrange to provide financially for his son.
Andi hardly ate a bite, but he wolfed down everything on his plate. The food tasted great, despite the tension he’d unwittingly caused by bringing up the subject of his son’s support. Gray enjoyed the sweetened iced tea, its contrast with the tangy flavors in the salad. Not so different from the conflicting emotions he read in her.
His meal finished, he watched her push food around on her plate. When she set her fork down, he cleared his throat. “That was good. Now tell me what’s on your mind?”
Andi looked at him the way he imagined she’d zero in on a juror. “As I said before, I don’t hold you responsible for Brett. I made the decision to have him, so he’s my responsibility. You aren’t obligated to do anything unless you want to.”
When he leaned forward to put those wants and fears into words, pain pierced the side of his head without warning. Nauseating in its intensity, the pain radiated from the mass of scar tissue beneath his eye patch. A reminder that there were activities beyond his ability to handle now. He reached up and rubbed the tortured flesh.
“Gray, are you all right?”
“No, damn it. I’m nowhere near all right, although they tell me this is about as good as I’m likely to get. I owe you the truth. I want my son. I want to be his father. I’m just not sure my being here’s what’s best for Brett.”
Chapter Three
“Look at me. I’m half blind. I can barely drag my legs around. A kid deserves a dad who can play ball with him, traipse around Disney World, take him fishing. I can’t. Not now. Probably not ever. Maybe Brett would be better off not knowing me.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
When her eyelids fluttered, he wondered if she was blinking back tears. God, but he hated that the strongest emotion he seemed to elicit from women was pity.
Still, he owed Andi the whole truth. “There’s something else. I’m in no condition to take responsibility for a kid. Pain hits me without warning, and sometimes I can’t function. If Brett were alone with me when it hits me the way it just did, he could…”
He closed his eye against the picture of an active boy being left to his own devices in all kinds of dangerous situations. “He could get hurt. It’s up to you, whether you want Brett to have me in his life.”
She reached over, took his hand. “You can give our son all the fathering he needs. No, you can’t run, and you can’t play rough games with him. You may need to have another adult around when he’s with you. But Brett needs his father, and there’s a lot you two can do together, including fishing. I bet you could manage Disney World, too, if you’d use a wheelchair the way you were doing last night.”
Gray hated that damn chair and all it stood for. Hated the way strangers stared when they saw him in it. “I don’t want him to think of me as a cripple.”
“He won�
�t if you don’t think of yourself that way.”
She’d always had a smart mouth. That was one of the first things he’d noticed about her. “I hope you’re right. I’ve got doubts, lots of them, but I’ll give being Brett’s dad the best I’ve got.”
“That’s all I can ask for.” She glanced at the clock above the stove. “Brett should be surfacing any minute now.”
“Did he know I was coming?”
Andi smiled. “Yes.”
“How’d he take the news that his old man isn’t dead after all?” When Gray tried to imagine a seven-year-old’s emotional reaction to that sort of a revelation, he came up blank.
“He looked awestruck. To be honest, I’m not sure he quite believed me. I’ve never talked a lot about you to him before.”
“Why not?”
Planting clenched fists against her hips, Andi glared at him. “Damn it, Gray, I thought you were dead. I filled him in on everything I knew about you, which wasn’t much. What good would it have done him to make an icon of the father I thought he never was going to know? It wasn’t as if he had your family to keep your memory alive.”
“Sorry. This coming back from the grave’s a little daunting.” More than a little. When Gray looked out the bay window at a small bike, it struck him. He’d missed so much. His son’s first step. His first wobbly ride on the two-wheeler.
When she met his gaze, Andi’s expression softened. “For me, too. And for Brett, I imagine.”
“I hope the way I look doesn’t scare him off.” Gray closed his eye, unwilling to risk stirring the emotion he’d see in her eyes.
“Damn it, can’t you forget yourself for a minute? Anticipate meeting your son? This isn’t just about you.”
Gray looked so stricken, Andi wished she could take back her angry words.
Then Brett bounded into the kitchen, skidding to a halt.
Gray’s gaze locked on the boy. A smile lit his face, turned his expression of despair to one of pure happiness that instantly choked Andi’s heart in her throat.
Brett hung back for a moment, his wide-eyed gaze focused on the black patch covering Gray’s damaged eye. Gray’s smile wavered, as though he sensed the boy’s hesitation.
Then Brett grinned. “Are you my dad?”
Gray let out the breath he’d apparently been holding, stuck out his hand, and smiled. A huge smile this time, one that deepened the creases around his mouth. “Yeah. Come on over here and let me get a good look at you.”
Such mundane words, but they conveyed so much emotion. Andi wiped the tears from her eyes.
She watched Brett climb onto Gray’s lap as though he’d been doing it for years. A sob of joy came from somewhere deep inside her when she watched Gray put his arms around their son. The scene she’d dreamed of yet never dared think she might ever see.
Brett started to snuggle up against Gray’s cheek, then pulled back. “Mommy said you got hurt.”
“Yes, I got hurt, but I’m pretty much okay now. I won’t break.”
Brett hesitated, then reached up with one hand and touched his dad’s scarred cheek. Andi sensed the questions Brett apparently didn’t know how to ask. Questions she’d be hard pressed to answer.
How on earth would Gray manage to explain how he’d been locked up but wasn’t a criminal? How could he tell his son he’d been held hostage by demented South American drug lords? Andi couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d survived the unimaginable physical and mental torture they’d inflicted, much less how he’d describe his experiences to a seven-year-old.
“Are you going to stay here now?” Brett asked.
A simple question, one Andi would never have guessed would come before the rest.
Gray’s arms tightened around Brett’s skinny shoulders. “Yes. It’s way past time for us to get to know each other.” When Brett shifted on his lap, Andi saw Gray wince, but otherwise he gave no indication holding his son gave him anything but pleasure.
It struck her how Brett and Gray shared strong chins and deep-set eyes more smoky than blue, as well as the shocks of wavy blond hair with cowlicks in almost the same places on the crowns of their heads.
The resilience of kids!
Andi wished she could take Gray’s return from the dead with the degree of equanimity Brett managed without any apparent effort.
“How’d you get hurt?” Brett asked, his gaze on the crutches Gray had set in the corner beside his chair.
Gray shifted Brett onto his other knee. “I fell while some soldiers were helping me get out from where the bad guys had been holding me.”
Brett’s eyes widened. “You broke your legs?”
“One leg. Mostly, it was my back that got hurt.”
“Then why do you need those?”
With patience that surprised Andi, Gray explained where he’d been and how he’d gotten the injuries even a child couldn’t fail to notice. She was sure he downplayed the gory truth, because the way he explained it to Brett, he sounded almost as if his ordeal had been a great adventure.
“Are you gonna get any better?” Brett asked.
“Some. Maybe. I won’t ever get around as well as you, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. I could be much worse off than I am.” When he looked at Brett, his joy seemed genuine.
“Why have you got that patch over your eye?”
“My eye got hurt, so they had to take it out. I decided to wear the patch instead of a fake eye because the patch covers up some pretty bad scars.”
Andi wasn’t certain she liked for Gray to flaunt his scars like medals of valor, but Brett seemed to think the scar and patch were cool.
Brett grinned. “Sure. Mom, I’m getting hungry again.”
She looked at her watch. They’d spent the entire afternoon together. Time had gotten away from her. “It is getting close to dinnertime.”
“I’d better go, then.”
“You’re not going to stay here with us?” Brett asked.
“Not now, buddy. I’ve got to get home and get ready for my new job on Monday.” Gray paused, as though he hated disappointing his son. “We’re going to see lots of each other, though. How about coming to see me next weekend? My place is on the beach.”
“Cool. Mom, can we?”
Andi looked from father to son, then nodded. “If you’re good all week long.”
“I will be.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll spend next weekend together.” Gray reached down and straightened first one leg, then the other. After locking his braces, he placed his crutches carefully and heaved himself out of the chair. Brett watched, wide eyed, as Gray made his way very slowly through the house.
Andi rushed ahead to hold the front door open. “Gray, you’re welcome to stay,” she said when he paused on the porch.
“I can’t, but thanks anyway. He’s a great kid, Andi. Could I talk you into bringing him to stay at the beach for a few days?”
“Your place?”
“Yeah. Walk me to the car?”
She figured she’d better. He looked as if he might keel over. “Brett, go in the house and get ready for dinner.” She didn’t imagine Gray was anxious for the boy to watch him make his way down the sidewalk.
“‘Bye, Dad. Come back soon.”
“I will.” After he watched Brett go back inside, Gray made his way to his car.
“I’d rather have you come here. You could stay in the guest room.” Or with her. All that had happened in the past eight years hadn’t altered the chemistry that had sizzled between them from the start.
Gray took her hand and rubbed his thumb along the creases of her palm. “Think, Andi. There are some things I can’t do, others I can manage only if I’ve got access to facilities that have been modified to fit my needs. For example, if I’m going to drive, I’ve got to have a car like this, with automatic everything and hand controls. My depth perception’s nil, so I haven’t tried driving after dark.”
Andi’s cheek
s heated. She should have thought before opening her big mouth. She also ought to have realized last night why he hadn’t jumped at the opportunity of coming here right then. “I’ll be glad to drop Brett off—”
“Whoa, there. You’ll have to stay, too. Well, you really don’t. I can hire someone to make sure Brett doesn’t drown when we’re on the beach. But you’re welcome. I’d like to spend time with you, too. I imagine it will be easier for him, at least the first few times he stays with me, if you come with him.”
It was pure instinct that made her bend and brush her lips across Gray’s cheek, over the scar that disappeared beneath the patch. “I’d like to spend time with both of you, too. We’ll come over after I get off work on Friday.”
“Good. When can I call and talk with Brett?”
“Anytime.” She laughed. “Well, anytime before his bedtime, which is usually around eight o’clock.”
He squeezed her hand then released it. “Until Friday, then. Thanks, Andi. For everything.”
Andi wasn’t about to let him go like that. Not when every cell in her body ached for more than that tame sisterly kiss. Bending, she took his mouth, ran her tongue along the seam of his lips until he took over control, thrust his tongue deep in her throat. It was his kiss now, his hands holding her face to his. A hello kiss, much like the goodbye tongue-fucking he’d left her with so long ago.
Confused, she pulled away. It was now, not then, and she’d just made a prize fool of herself. “Well, Gray, that was just as good as I remembered,” she said, making an effort at levity. “We’ll see you on Friday.”
When she stepped back, he started the car. For a long time she followed his car with her gaze, remembering…and wanting. Wanting a man the way she hadn’t wanted one for eight long years.
“Mom, I like Daddy. Why wouldn’t he stay with us?” Brett asked when Andi finally went back inside.
She reached down and tousled her son’s blond curls. “I imagine he had things he had to do. He’s invited us to spend next weekend with him at the beach, so you’ll get to spend some more time with him.”