Annabeth shouldn’t be living like this.
His son shouldn’t be living like this.
When he’d made the decision to let her go, he had believed it would be for the best. That she would be better without him, and the burden of loving him. Now, he felt like he’d saddled her with an even bigger burden – raising their child alone, without the means to do so easily.
Mentally, he was calculating just how quickly he could purchase a home nearby in her name. The Robinson name talked in the south, and he would do whatever he could to fix her situation, immediately.
“Oh, and I should warn you, Kirk.” She screwed up her nose in a way that made Kirk want to kiss her soundly. “He’s in a foul mood this afternoon. I’m sorry in advance for any naughty behavior. Although,” she smiled sweetly up at him, “I am certain this naughtiness comes from you.”
His chuckle was like warm butter on her body. She could have melted into him. “I think you’re probably right. Though I do remember a certain senior who put dishwashing liquid and blue food coloring in the town fountain.”
Her cheeks glowed. “Hey,” she whispered, staring up in his eyes, “That’s a secret you’re meant to take to the grave with you.”
He looked around. No one was watching. He pulled her against him. He couldn’t help it. Ever since they’d made love, he’d been barely able to function. Her body felt so good pressed to his. He wrapped his hands around her waist and kissed her forehead. “I’ll keep your secret, Miss Sparks, but it might cost you.”
“Oh?” She could hardly speak through the racing of her heart. “What’s the price?”
“I’m sure I can think of something,” he teased, but his expression was earnest. He wanted to kiss her so bad it hurt. He couldn’t, though. If he kissed her, he’d want – no, need – so much more. And he was about to meet his son for the first time. Other things had to take precedence over what his desire craved.
“Well,” she cleared her throat. “When you do, you just be sure to let me know.”
He wanted so much to make things right. But how could he? Not after what he’d done. He sighed. “Let’s go find this son of mine.”
“Kirk , just remember, we’ll keep it light this time. Don’t go telling him anything. Okay?”
“Of course, Beth. You think I’m just going to blurt out that I’m his daddy?”
“No, but… just watch it.”
He followed her inside, his body awash with sensations.
“Wade, honey. I need you to come here now.” When the room remained still and silent, she threw Kirk an apologetic glance. “Timeout and no drumstick unless you are here in three seconds, young man.”
A sound of a door creaking open. Annabeth grinned. Foot falls on the floorboards. And then Wade, walking petulantly into the room. His annoyance had made him stomp. His face was crinkled into disapproval. And he’d dug out a long forgotten pacifier and wedged it into his mouth, presumably to further infuriate his mother.
“Honey, this is the friend I was telling you about.”
Beside her, Kirk was deathly still, but she didn’t realize. She was focused on trying to coax Wade to speak. Of course, like any child who wanted to aggravate a parent, he did the exact opposite of what she’d requested.
“Can you say hi, darling?”
More silence.
Kirk looked at the small child, and all of his anxiety and desire evaporated. Rage, white hot and fierce, burned into him. For this child Annabeth was trying to pass off as his was no older than two. Kirk’s face was pale beneath his tan, as he realized that not only was he not a father, but the woman he thought he had once loved was capable of such deceitful treachery. And for what? Money? He looked around the cheery but decrepit room, and his frown deepened.
His eyes dropped back to the toddler, who was staring dejectedly out of the window.
No way could this be his son.
Without a word, he spun on his heel and strode from the house, towards his car. If Annabeth had wanted to pay him back, then she’d chosen a pretty damned near perfect way. His disappointment and sense of loss were enormous.
“Where’s he going?” Wade asked, as the front door slammed. “I wanted to show him my trains.”
Annabeth looked at her son in complete confusion. “Stay here, honey. I’ll be right back.” She ran from the house. By the time she had burst through the front door, Kirk was already behind his steering wheel again.
“Hey!” She had to run to catch him, just as he started the engine. “Where the heck are you tearing off to?”
His face could have frozen a fire. “I’m leaving, Annabeth.”
“But… I don’t understand?”
His eyes raked over her face, trying to make sense of what she’d become. “How dare you?” He muttered, his eyes like ice chips.
“I don’t… what happened?” Her fingers were shaking so she linked them together behind her back.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what? Kirk, what’s going on?”
“How dare you try to pass that child off as mine? Did you think I wouldn’t notice that he’s barely out of diapers? My God, Annabeth. Was this about revenge? Did you want to hurt me like I hurt you?”
She shook her head, emotion making it difficult to think and speak. “No, you’ve got it wrong.”
“I thought I knew you. I thought I knew you better than anyone else in the world.” A muscle flexed in his jaw.
“You do.” Barely a whisper.
“I haven’t seen you in five years. That boy is … he’s almost a baby. Did you truly think I wouldn’t realize? He’s not even speaking, Annabeth.”
Something like a knife had lodged in between Annabeth’s ribs. She shook her head, feeling dizzy and faint at the same time. She opened her mouth to explain. She should have told him at the bar, but instead, she’d told him how Wade likes his PB & J on rye bread, oddly, because with everything else, it had to be white and soft. Kirk swore and revved the engine.
“Get out of my way, Annabeth. So help me God, you don’t want to argue with me right now.”
“Kirk,” she snapped angrily, but she took a step back from the car on instinct. And he floored the accelerator, driving off in a cloud of dust. She watched him go, her heart shredding into pieces, sweat beetling her brow. He had left. Again.
Another lesson Annabeth had learned, in her tenure as a single parent, was how to control her emotions for the sake of her child. And so she took a deep, steadying breath, pushed her desperation deep down into her body for later attention, and went back inside.
“Kirk had to go, sweetie. But the good news?” She asked brightly, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. “You get both drumsticks.”
CHAPTER SIX
The gold gilt box drew her gaze every few minutes. It had been two days with no sign of Kirk. No word of the apology she knew he owed her. No opportunity to explain about Wade’s stunted growth and his stubborn temperament that had rendered him willfully speechless in front of their guest.
“You’re not even listening,” Dan pointed out with a melodramatic huff.
“Sorry,” she winced. “I was miles away.”
He leaned forward, his eyes scanning her face. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” She forced a smile to her face. “Fine.”
“I diagnose a lie,” he teased, offering her his bowl of fries.
She shook her head, and moved down the bar to serve a group of construction workers who were finishing up repairs on the local railway tracks. “This round’s on the house, guys. Couldn’t make ends meet in this town without the tracks.”
The gesture earned her a whooping round of celebration that made her laugh.
“So what is it?” Dan wasn’t going to be put off.
Annabeth flicked her eyes to the box again. She was going to take it to Kirk as soon as she could get out of The Whistlestop. It was a Friday night, though, and she knew it would be late. But that didn’t matter. She’d waited a very long
time to show him what a jackass he was. The moment was finally upon her. Well, almost.
“Let me guess,” Dan continued. “Your problem is about six and a half feet tall, body of a commando, looks like he should be on a billboard in Hollywood rather than down here in the cotton fields?”
She kept her face as blank as possible. “He’s a problem all right,” she muttered, trying to sound light hearted.
“It would appear the rest of Clearview disagrees with you.”
“Oh?”
“Hmm. I thought everyone was cold on him, the first night he swaggered back in town. Now, he’s the poster child for the long lost golden boy. Everyone who walked in my door today was talking about the return of Kirk Robinson.” He watched her carefully for anything her reactions might betray about her feelings. “Must have been quite the hometown hero, huh?”
“You could say that.” She gave in to temptation and snaffled a single chip from his bowl. “You know the kind of guy. High school quarterback. Handsome. More money than he knew what to do with. Popular as they come. Smart, too. And his parents raised him right, made him a gentleman.” For the most part, she tacked on silently, thinking she’d been the one person in town who hadn’t seen the benefits of his courtesy and old-fashioned manners.
“But you don’t like him.” A statement. Her emotional state was obvious.
She searched for the right words. “We have… history. I’ll be glad when he leaves town.”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” She leaned forward, her heart hammering against her breast.
“Robinson construction has just announced plans to rebuild the old pier. Just as it was. Without the tendency to wash out to sea, though.”
Heart fluttering so fast she thought she might faint, Annabeth narrowed her gaze. “And? What does that mean?”
“Word on the street, or my patient’s seat, at least, is that Kirk Robinson is planning to stick around to see it gets done right.”
It took her utmost concentration not to react. That soaring feeling in her soul was the most ridiculous, shaming emotional response to the news she’d just heard. No way would this decision have anything to do with her. Likely, the plans had been in the pipeline for years. His decision to oversee it could have been made months ago. Or it could have been his return home, and the feelings it had stirred for the town he’d once loved. If he cared about her at all anymore, he would have tried to set things right. He would have given her a chance to explain about Wade.
It didn’t take long for the bar to fill up. The group of construction workers were the loudest of the lot, singing happily along to any hit that came on the juke box. Annabeth didn’t mind. Their voices weren’t the worst she’d heard, and at least they helped to drown out her own thoughts. She had a full team behind the bar, which left her time to chat to the locals just as she liked to. Just as Horace always did. Her dad would be back soon, and then life could return to its normal pace. She thought guiltily of the manuscript she should have sent back the week earlier. Her publishers were being good about waiting, but Annabeth didn’t want to stuff this up. She’d waited years for a big break and now she’d got it. It was the kind of thing that should have absorbed her concentration completely. Not Kirk Robinson.
She looked up distractedly, a smile on her face as she listened to the swirl of conversation. It jarred the second her eyes landed on the man himself. As if her thoughts had conjured him up, he entered the bar, looking as devastatingly attractive as ever, in a simple black t-shirt and jeans. Her body seemed to reverberate on a different frequency. Her blood was rushing through her veins so fast that she could hear it in her ears, even over the din of Small Town Saturday Night.
“Excuse me,” with monumental effort, she kept her voice level, her expression normal. “I’m going to be right back, okay?”
Meghan, one of the staff they’d hired to see them through summer smiled cheerily. “No worries, boss.”
Annabeth walked quickly through the bar, too quickly for Kirk to keep up. Doctor Dan had been right. Whatever ill will people might have felt towards Kirk for breaking Annabeth’s heart, it appeared to now be forgiven. Kirk could barely move for the people wanting to stop and chat to him. He watched, frustration keen in his gut, as Annabeth’s blonde head bobbed away from him, and disappeared from view.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d come.
He’d been trying to make sense of what had happened, but every question he had just spawned a hundred more in his mind. Why would she lie to him? She’d seemed so upset the day she’d told him ‘the truth’ about ‘their son’. Was it regret? Regret that she’d got pregnant to another man? A man who’d deserted her and left her to raise the baby? It didn’t make sense.
Finally, he made it to the bar. Cam and Rosie hadn’t arrived yet, but he ordered three beers anyway.
“I’m surprised your ears haven’t burned off, all the talk I’ve heard about you lately.”
Kirk raised an eyebrow and turned in the direction of the genial voice. Beside him was the man who’d been dancing with Annabeth. The man who was a friend of hers. The town doctor, he seemed to remember.
“Kirk Robinson,” he said, his palm outstretched.
“I know. You’re quite the local celebrity.” Dan shook Kirk’s hand. “Dan Spencer.”
He’d seen her leave, but there was a childish part of him that wanted to stake a claim. To leave no doubts as to who Annabeth belonged to. “Beth here?”
Dan nodded towards the door. “Ran out of here like a cat on a hot tin roof as soon as you walked in.” The doctor regarded Kirk thoughtfully over the rim of his beer glass. “Must be quite some history between y’all for you to upset her like that. Annabeth’s been through a lot and I’ve never seen her with so much as a single feather ruffled.”
Something rolled in his gut. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” What did he mean? Been through what? He was too proud to ask. To admit, even to himself, that everyone else knew more about Annabeth Sparks these days than he did.
“She’s a great girl.” Dan was just making conversation. He’d tried to get Annabeth to go out with him a couple of years after he’d arrived in Clearview. She wasn’t interested in him then, and she wasn’t now. She wasn’t interested in anyone, as far as he could tell. But the way the tall, muscular stranger next to him tensed told him all he needed to know. Their business was not in the past. It was unfolding around them.
Kirk was saved from making a reply by Cam and Rosie’s arrival. He performed introductions distractedly, handing their drinks over.
“We have a problem,” Cam cut straight to the chase.
“Oh?” Kirk raised a brow in silent query.
Rosie, her beautiful face scrunched up in angst, shook her head. “I got the call this afternoon, and I don’t know what to do, because it’s not like we have a heap of options down here. Oh, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. La Cachette is the most beautiful place to have a wedding, but it’s so out of the way. So when someone pulls out of the wedding, we don’t exactly have our pick of replacements.”
“Who pulled out?” Kirk was all business. This is where he excelled. Emotional stuff he struggled with, but with any logistical problem, he could work out how to get A to Z and back again, through water, fire and war zones.
“The photographer,” Cam muttered. It had been a sore point for the groom all along, but Rosie had been determined to hire the renowned fashion snapper.
“You need a photographer?” Dan interrupted. The trio had been so caught up in their conversation they’d forgotten he was there.
“This wasn’t just a photographer,” Rosie wailed, wiping at her eyes angrily. “It was Sven Jagenson. The best photographer in the world!”
“Well,” Dan leaned forward, his face set in the expression he used to cajole recalcitrant seven year olds to submit to an ear exam. “I don’t know if that’s quite right. You see, I happen to know we have the best photographer in the world right here in Mobile Co
unty.”
Kirk knew where the doc was going. There was only one photographer in Mobile County.
“You mean Emma Whittaker?”
“The very one.” He looked past Kirk, a smile creasing his face. “Hey, Annabeth. Can you get that best friend of yours on the phone? These folk need to talk to her about a last-minute booking.”
Annabeth’s face was pale. Her eyes dull. Kirk noticed every tiny thing about her appearance. He had been so angry with her. For days he’d nursed a rage that was as volatile as a volcano. But seeing her now, it all went up in smoke. He smiled. She looked away, deliberately focusing only on Dan.
“Emma’s booked solid, Dan. You know that.”
“Naw, come on. Look how upset the bride is. Surely Em could work something out.”
Annabeth flicked her eyes to the stunning creature standing between Cam and Kirk. The woman was obviously holding on by a thread. She recognized the emotion. She was feeling the very same thing.
“Fine. I’ll call her.” She reached backwards and grabbed the phone off the wall, and dialed Emma’s number. It was too noisy to hear in the bar, so she slipped through the back, into her dad’s office.
Emma took so long to answer than Annabeth had been just about to hang up.
“Oh, I don’t know, Beth. Do you really want me to help them out?” She asked, when Annabeth had relayed the request.
Annabeth slumped against the wall, her eyes squeezed shut.
“No.” It was a whisper in the dark. “But you should. Just because Kirk’s a bastard doesn’t mean you should take it out on the poor bride. She looks devastated.”
“Should be, marrying into that family,” Emma swore loyally.
Annabeth’s smile was a shadow. “Oh, Em. You’re a sweetie. They’re not all bad. You even used to like Kirk, once upon a time.”
“Ancient history,” Emma announced resolutely. “How did he go with Wade, anyway? Are you guys on your way to a happy family reunion?”
Raising the Soldier's Son: So what if they share a history? That's in the past. And it's staying there. (Hometown Hero Series Book 3) Page 7