by KB Winters
“Now,” I sighed, “I need to know. The kid looks a lot like me but I’m fucking going out of my mind. Is he mine, or isn’t he? Why do I even give a fuck? Obviously, she doesn’t want me involved, doesn’t think I’m father material, so does it even matter? Do I even wanna do that to a kid? Get him all fucked up over who’s his daddy?”
“Wow.” Cash leaned back on the desk, legs crossed at the ankle with a smug fucking look on his face.
“What?”
“I knew you got a lot of pussy Baz, but I didn’t think you were one.”
I froze and glared at him. “Careful motherfucker. I can still kick your ass.” I was itching for a fight and Cash’s pretty little face would be the perfect punching bag.
And then the bastard chuckled. “I’ll give you one punch because honestly, a long-lost kid is some big shit, but then I’d have to pound your skanky ass into the ground old man. Minx likes my face just the way it is.” He batted his eyelashes like a broad and goddammit I laughed.
“You are one crazy son of a bitch.”
His smile stayed in place but those pretty boy eyes were deadly serious. “Give me an hour and her social and I’ll see whose name is on the kid’s birth certificate.”
“I don’t have it, but she’s staying in Cherie’s old place and she ended up in Connecticut. I have no fucking clue where she was when she had him.” If he was mine, that was just one more goddamn thing I didn’t know.
“Chill. I’ll get back with you at the end of the day.”
I gave a short nod. “Fine. Let’s get ready for the kiddies then. You can meet Jack.”
***
Trina was avoiding me and I had a feeling that the little blonde headed boy with the big green eyes who hadn’t left my side in two weeks was why. Jack though, was great. He had a shit ton of energy, asked plenty of good questions and quickly picked up the basics of auto mechanics. His hunger for male attention just confirmed that he hadn’t enough of it in his short life. The boy had to be mine no matter what Trina wanted me to believe. And now that Cash was looking into it for me, we could finally have that talk.
Cash had taken over the class, but I decided to stick around anyway because I wanted to ambush Trina before she could whisk Jack away. The little guy would be my ally even if he didn’t know it just yet. Waiting outside the community center, twenty minutes had come and gone and still Trina hadn’t shown up. “Where do you think your mom is?”
Jack shrugged. “She probably got lost in her work. She’ll be really sorry when she remembers.” His words were so matter of fact it kind of threw me.
“You don’t mind?”
“Nah. Mom’s great and usually when she gets like this I end up staying up late or watchin’ something I’m not supposed to.” His mischievous grin reminded me so much of my kid sister for a moment I had to take a step back.
My kid. Shit that was a huge responsibility and I wasn’t sure, even now, if I was ready for it. “Come on then, I’ll give you a ride home.”
Jack grinned when I set my helmet on his head, laughing when I picked him up and set him on the back of the bike. “I’m not gonna go fast but I still want you to hang on tight, all right?”
He frowned. “You’re not gonna go fast?”
“Nah. Your mom would kick my ass.” She might try, anyway.
He laughed. “She would yell at you until you wanted to cry but she wouldn’t hurt you. Mom says violence isn’t the answer unless you’re defending yourself.”
I bit back a response to that and hopped on, starting the engine and then we were off. I took the shortest route to the same house where my sister Cherie used to live before moving to Canada with the former CAOS president, Roddick.
It was fucking surreal. Coming here after the place sat empty for so long, now though it was kind of ironic that my past came back to this house. I cut the engine and helped Jack down. The kid had so much energy, bounding up the steps and pulling me inside.
“Mom! Mom! You forgot me again.” His voice carried through the silent house and I wondered if Trina was even there. But Jack stopped outside the door and knocked. “This is her office. I’m not allowed in here except for emergencies.” But I could tell the kid was impatient from his tapping foot to his huffing breath and he knocked again. “Mom!”
She pulled the door open with a sleepy-eyed frown. “Did class finish early?”
“Nope. You zoned out. Again.”
And just like that, tears welled in her eyes and she dropped down and wrapped the boy in a tight hug. “Oh God, sweetie I’m so sorry. Zelda called earlier and started making some changes to the story and I got wrapped up. Forgive me?” She smiled but it was uncertain.
It was clear to me Jack had been the man of the house for a long time as he touched Trina’s face. “Of course, Mom. No big deal.”
Then her gaze turned to me. “Thank you, Baz.”
“No problem, Sweetness.”
With his free hand, Jack grabbed mine. It was so damned tiny; how did kids ever survive this small? “Can Baz stay for dinner?”
Damn! I loved this kid. I didn’t even have to con my way into an invitation. Trina stared, preparing to say no and I lifted my brows in defiance. The rejection was poised on those lush lips of hers but suddenly she softened, her body relaxed as she nodded. “Baz would you like to join us for dinner?”
“Sure thing, Sweetness. Sounds fun.”
“It is,” Jack insisted excitedly, jumping up and down. “Mom is the best cook and I’m gonna be even better, won’t I?”
Trina nodded and gave him an indulgent smile. “I sure hope so then these old bones can let you do all the cooking,” she ruffled his hair. “How does lasagna sound?”
Jack gasped. “Oh Baz you are so lucky. I love lasagna!”
Seeing Trina as a mother was a trip. I still wanted to see her as the young girl who’d been head over heels for me but she was older. Wiser. A mother through and through. I couldn’t shake the anger in me that Jack had been without me all these years, but now wasn’t the time to deal with that. Later we would have a chance to talk. I would make sure of it. “What do you need me to do,” I asked when we all stepped inside the kitchen.
Trina stood still for just a moment, back facing me and Jack then she turned and began to move. “Jack, you shred the cheddars and Baz you can break up the tomatoes,” she ordered and set us both up on the table with everything we needed. “I’ll chop and sauté the onions, peppers and meat. Got it?”
“Got it,” Jack shouted back.
“Got it sweetness.”
Jack frowned. “Why do you call her that?”
“I used to know your mom a long time ago and that’s what I called her. Because she was so sweet.”
Jack laughed, picking up fingers of shredded cheese and sneaking it into his mouth. “Sweetness.”
Damn it kind of hurt to watch them like this. They joked and worked together like a team that had been together for a while. It pissed me off but fuck it also made me feel warm inside. I just wanted to know why.
Thirty minutes later the lasagna was assembled and in the oven and we had time to kill. It was the perfect time to talk. Then the phone rang and Trina stiffened, distress written all over her face. Her posture. She bypassed the phone in the kitchen and ducked into the living room.
Jack rolled his eyes with a groan. “I’ll bet that’s Jensen. Again.”
A boyfriend? More importantly one Jack didn’t like, was interesting. And unlike Trina. “Who’s Jensen?”
Jack sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Mom dated him for a while but he didn’t like me all that much so she got rid of him but he won’t stop calling or showing up. He’s in jail for stealing from his company, but he still calls.” He leaned towards me, gaze on the doorway so I knew what he had to say would be juicy. “We moved away because he’s getting out soon but I think that’s him again.”
Shit. I wanted to ask another question. Hell, another fifty questions but the phone slammed down and soon Tr
ina walked back in stiffly with a too bright smile slapped on. “Okay who’s ready for salad?”
“Make the dressing creamy and we have a deal,” I told her, enjoying the grateful smile she sent my way. Damn the woman could still knock me on my ass with a look. Big blue eyes as deep as the Pacific with a smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose that gave her a deceptive innocence.
She frowned. “No can do. Only healthy homemade vinaigrette in this house.” She pointed at Jack when he groaned, drawing a smile from him. “It’ll be delicious or you can eat your salad dry.”
“Don’t do it,” Jack whispered with a grave expression on his face.
I could only laugh. Otherwise I might yell at Trina for all she’d deprived me of by leaving. By not bothering to inform me she was having my baby. “Fine. Vinaigrette it is.”
She flashed a smile and set a big wooden bowl in the center of the table while Jack grabbed bowls and silverware. “Dig in boys.”
Shit this was nice. A family dinner. The last time I’d sat down for one of those, I wasn’t much older than Jack and damnit! I missed it. Even with just a few people there were several conversations going on at once about Jack’s classes, a planned trip to Arizona and school shopping. How they kept track of them amazed me. Left me envious and I fucking hated pointless emotions like that.
But all throughout dinner envy was the only thing I felt while they laughed and planned and walked down Memory Lane. “Baz do you have a girlfriend?”
“Why kid, you interested?”
Jack laughed and rolled his eyes, a move I was coming to associate with him. “Not like that. So, do you?”
“Not at the moment.” The truth was, I never had girlfriends. I had women I fucked. The lucky ones got fucked more than once, but not too often or they started to get ideas. I didn’t need or want an old lady and the pass-arounds were looking to get promoted to old lady. No thank you.
“Mom doesn’t have a boyfriend either,” he replied with a cheeky tomato sauce smile as he devoured his second piece of lasagna.
“Jack that’s enough,” she told him. “Baz and I knew each other long ago and that’s it.”
“But-,”
“No buts young man.”
Wow, Trina really was. A. Fucking. Mom.
Jack huffed out his displeasure and turned to me. “Can I ask you another question Baz?”
“Sure kiddo, what is it?”
“Are you my dad?”
Well.
Fuck.
I never expected that.
***
“You have to tell him Trina.” After Jack dropped his little bomb on dinner, dessert was eaten mostly in silence. Trina looked worried and Jack just looked pissed off while I simply enjoyed a slice of German chocolate cake.
“I’ll tell him when I’m ready Baz and not a minute before.” She walked out of the kitchen and took a seat on a plush blue sofa with a view out the front window.
“It’s not about you Trina. It’s about Jack. Why not tell him what all three of us already knows is true?”
“You don’t know what it means to tell him Baz. Right now you’re just some cool guy who’s nice to him but once he knows for sure, he’ll have expectations. He’s never had a father before, or a father figure. He’ll expect you to spend time with him, to be there for him.”
“And you don’t think I’ll do that?”
“How in the hell should I know? I don’t know you anymore.”
I stood just a few feet away from her, my hands fisted on my hips and glared down at her. “But you knew me eleven years ago when you never bothered to fucking tell me you were pregnant. Or that you had my baby!”
Trina was cool as fuck. One leg crossed over the other at the knee, hands folded in her lap. “You should’ve thought about that before you put your needs above ours.”
“You know I’m not like that.”
She stood up, we were face to face and she poked at my chest. “You made this choice, Baz, not me.”
I barked out an angry laugh. “Oh please. Obviously you’re back here because you couldn’t find someone else to play daddy to my son.”
In a split second, her hand flew out and she smacked my face hard enough to sting and shocked the shit out of me. Apparently, Sweetness had grown some claws.
“I didn’t come back for you Baz, trust me. I had no idea whether you were dead or alive!”
“What the fuck do you mean by that? You knew where I was. You could have told me.”
“Yeah well I didn’t. I loved you Baz. I wanted you, but all you wanted was your precious fucking club.”
That wasn’t true at all. The truth was, her leaving had ripped me wide open and after seeing her again, I wasn’t sure I’d fully recovered. But right now, she wouldn’t be able to hear it. “So that meant I didn’t get to know my son?”
“I thought about telling you but I was busy. Earning the money I needed to take care of my son.” She sighed and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Then I called once and some woman answered and I knew it was better that you didn’t know. I figured you’d be married or dead soon and there was no point in breaking my son’s heart.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means he was better off not knowing you at all than knowing you and losing you.”
“Stop saying that!” I hadn’t meant to roar or get in her face but goddammit it, she was pissing me off. “I’m still here. Not married. Not dead. So you better find a way to tell Jack that he’s my son.”
“I will,” she answered, her chin tilted defiantly. “When I’m ready. DNA doesn’t give you a say here Baz and I won’t let you come in and dictate things.”
I grabbed her wrists and pulled her in close. “Soon,” I growled, inhaling that sweet scent that was all Trina. Then I did the thing I’d been dreaming of doing since I saw her in Black Betty. Hell, since I stormed out of our apartment eleven years ago. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her. Licking her lips until she opened them, tasting every inch of her like the hungry, greedy bastard I was.
She moaned into my mouth and I deepened the kiss, sliding my hands through her hair and down her back until they settled on her ass. Goddamn that was one fine ass. More than a handful. The perfect cushion for fucking her from behind. For smacking and leaving a red print of my hand. Fuck yeah, she felt so damn good all I wanted to do was sink my cock deep inside her.
Too damn soon she pushed me back. “I can’t go there with you again Baz. I’ll talk to Jack, soon, and then we can talk about what’s next.”
I wanted to toss her over my shoulder and lose myself in her sweet curvy body for the rest of the night. Instead I stepped back and nodded. “Then I’ll see you later, Sweetness.”
I kissed her again and left.
Chapter Four
Trina
Damn Baz and those panty scorching, bone melting kisses and damn me for allowing him to do it.
Days later, my mouth still tingled from his kiss, his handprint still burned on my ass. Why, after all this time, did Baz still have the power to turn me inside out? To electrify my senses? Of all the billions of men in the world, it had to be him who kept me so hot and bothered that I couldn’t sleep.
The only upside to my sleeplessness was that those waking hours were spent in my office, typing until my fingers cramped and my back was stiff. I made good progress on the second half of Sins of the Hourglass and I was pretty confident I had the beginnings of an outline for the next book. So even after kissing me like an oaf, claiming I came back to Brently because of him and trying to push me to tell Jack about him, I couldn’t even be mad at him.
The fucker.
What I could stay mad about was the fact the hero in my story had suddenly begun to look and act like the fair haired bad boy who’d stolen—and then broken—my heart more than a decade ago.
“Shit!” There was another thing to blame on Baz, burnt eggs. I tossed them in the garbage and started over. “Jack, it’s time for breakfa
st!”
The sound of his growing feet smacked against the floor, until he stopped at the table and then dropped into his seat. “What are we having?”
“Eggs, bacon and toast because we have to get a move on buddy.” Eventually I’d have to talk to him about Baz but I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“Fine.” He piled his plate with bacon and eggs, taking just one slice of toast until I gave him the look. “Fine,” he groaned and took another slice. The little stinker had something on his mind so I took a small bite and waited until he was ready. “I’ve seen the pictures of you guys Mom.”
And there we were. “Pictures?”
“Of you and Baz together. Hugging and kissing and stuff. You were a couple.”
I nodded because there would be no point in hiding that much. “Yes, we were.” How Baz and I could be boiled down to a word as simple as couple seemed unbelievable, but that’s what we were. Two people who used to know each other.
“So, he is my dad?”
I sighed. “We’ll talk about this tonight at dinner, okay?”
He wasn’t happy but nodded anyway. “Whatever.”
I let it stand, because he wanted to know and he deserved to know the truth and I promised myself as I drove him to the community center, I’d gather up my courage and we’d have the conversation.
Tonight.
After dropping him off, I stopped to get groceries along with a few other items for my next blog post. Days like this made me wish I had a few friends to lounge with in the yard, maybe throw some burgers and steaks on the grill. Instead, I had to work. My novel wasn’t going to write itself.
I put the groceries away and headed to my office when I heard the mailman. I doubted there was any good news in there but I’d rather have bad news while Jack was away.
As usual there were tons of coupons, the local newspaper and a postcard. Fuck. From Jensen. All it said was, “See you soon,” in his prissy little scrawl that made me want to break something. “Fuck! Shit! Goddamn you Jensen!” I wouldn’t let that bastard ruin my new life. I would fight back.