by Susan Ward
What the fuck was that?
She concentrated on bandaging my hand.
I held her in the heavy pressure of my gaze.
“Are you going to tell me or not? What’s a BTN?”
“It’s just a stupid term girls use. It stands for better than nothing. The guy you hang out with when you don’t have a real boyfriend.”
I couldn’t see her face as she finished with my hand, but I tried to study her anyway. I couldn’t understand how a girl like her could let herself be used by any man, let alone the guy I’d punched at the bar. BTN. Nope, it didn’t mean a guy better than nothing. It meant a girl believing for some reason she had to settle for less.
“I don’t want you ever seeing him again,” I told her, surprising myself even more than her.
She rolled her eyes and ignored my inappropriate high-handed behavior. “I don’t think there is much chance of that after tonight.”
“Good. He’s not someone you should be mixed up with.”
She lifted her eyes to mine, surprised and confused. “What do you care?”
Her voice was so quiet it made my heart clench.
“I care, Linda.”
She stepped into my arms and kissed my chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ruined our lovely evening. I’m sorry you hurt your hand because of my crazy life. I make everything shitty. Everything a mess…”
I stood up.
“Don’t apologize, Linda. Take me to bed and make up for it.” A glib and charming response I should never have said to her, because Linda took the words literally, and worse, I let her.
The way she made love to me was glorious, but it was another mistake I made that day because, for a few hours longer, it kept me from figuring out why I was holding onto her and why she was miraculous.
Maybe that’s why I woke up shortly after we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, naked and sweaty and sex-drained, to slip from the bed and go out onto the patio to wait for the dawn.
Twenty-four hours of sobriety realigned all things into perspective for me, even if I wasn’t quite sure how I’d done it this time or that it would last. But getting through the first day not taking a drink—one day at a time, remember?—hadn’t seemed possible before this mysterious girl drifted into my life.
Walter’s last phone conversation replayed in my head, and I hated now that I could hear it clearly that I knew he was right. I couldn’t fault him for taking Chrissie, but that didn’t mean I would let him keep her.
I went into the house, grabbed the cordless phone, and returned to my lounge chair. It was early, but he rose early, too, and if I called him now it would mean Chrissie wouldn’t hear us if this went badly.
I dialed the number, hit speaker, and listened to it ring.
“Good morning, Walter. It’s me,” I said nervously into the receiver.
A long pause. “Jack?”
The way he said that made me tense; he was wondering if I was dialing while drunk again.
I laughed. “Yes, since I’m pretty sure we’re the only two awake at this hour in southern California. I thought we should talk and clear the air.”
Another unpleasant stretch of silence.
I tried to organize my words into something that would cool down the situation between us and not further inflame it.
“I don’t want a court battle with you, Walter. Lena would have hated that. I’m open to discuss anything you want that you think will make this situation better for all of us.”
“There’s no point in discussing anything if you’re not sober or can’t give me assurances you’ll stay that way.”
Rigid.
Intractable.
Regrettably right.
More regrettably wrong with his request.
“I’m sober today,” I told him gravely, “and that’s all I can say. One day at a time, Walter. It worked for Lena and me. It worked for nine years. Maybe it can work for the family.”
We had a reasonable discussion as he outlined what he thought was in Chrissie’s best interest. Not taking her from me since she’d suffered enough loss already. Putting her in boarding school so she’d have more contact with kids and I’d have time to work on me.
Pretty simple plan.
I hated it.
But trying to negotiate with Walter only heated up the debate. “Jack, if you can’t see that you need to do this for Chrissie, then your being sober doesn’t change a thing. I won’t bring her back and I’ll file suit for custody. It’s the right thing.”
“I don’t care what you think, Walter. You are not taking my daughter away.”
“She’s not doing well, Jack. I don’t know why you can’t see it. She won’t talk about that night. She needs to talk. You need to get her into counseling.”
I sank my fingers into my hair, clutching until it was painful to keep the lid on my temper. “I know my daughter, Walter. When she’s ready to talk, she’ll let it out. She was very close to her brother. It is not in her interest to force her to relive his death. I won’t do that to my girl. We all deal with things differently.”
“I don’t want to fight you in court. You know that.”
“Then stop, Walter. For all our sakes. Stop. Lena wouldn’t want this. It needs to stop.”
“She’s my granddaughter. All I have left. I love her. I’m doing what I think is right.”
“I know you love her, Walter. I know this isn’t about you and me. I know you want what’s best for Chrissie, but taking her to live with you isn’t the answer.”
“Will you at least consider boarding school instead of a private tutor at home?” Walter said in weary determination. “It’s not good for her to be that isolated. It might help for her to be around other girls.”
Fuck.
“I’m not promising anything, but I’ll consider it,” I forced myself to say.
“It would be better all around.”
He clicked off his phone. A stalemate. Better than where we were two days ago, because at least we talking and focusing on Chrissie instead of unresolved issues between us.
I clicked off the phone and stared out at the ocean, willing for some kind of sign to tell me how to get through this.
“You’re a wonderful man. There isn’t a court on earth who would take your daughter away from you,” I heard Linda say behind me.
Oh crap. How long had she been listening?
I turned to look at her. “How would you know? You haven’t any idea what kind of father I am. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Linda.”
Linda shrugged.
“Who hasn’t? But I know a good man from a bad man. I know a good father from a bad father. There is one thing I know, Jackson Parker. It’s men.”
Her words were a hint of something Lena would say blended with who Linda was.
A good father from a bad father.
I’d figured out enough on my own about her to know in her eyes my just being a father to Chrissie meant I was a good one.
I was far from that.
I pulled her down in front of me on the chaise and surrounded her with my arms and legs.
“Why don’t you come back to bed, Jack?”
“Can we just sit here and wait for the dawn?”
She nodded, and I buried my lips in her hair and adjusted her body against me. “I’m so glad I found you,” I said, and I was. Linda was kind and strong and calming like Lena had been.
She looked over her shoulder and made a face. “Wrong. I found you.”
I laughed since I’d forgotten she had her own brand of capriciousness, too.
Staring into her dark brown eyes, I made another decision, out of nowhere, that surprised me yet again. “Don’t go back to LA yet. Without you, I wouldn’t be making it through this week half as well as I am.”
“You want me to stay?”
“More than you know.”
“Then I’ll stay. As long as you need me to.”
She turned to face me and wrapped me tightly in her arms, gently stroking and kissing my hair,
and I suddenly knew what it was that made me want to be with this girl.
Maybe it was wrong.
Unfair to her.
But I let her stay with me anyway.
I don’t care how old the man is. All men at times, no matter who they are, just need to be held and surrounded by a woman. There was no safer place on earth than in a woman’s arms. And Linda, at twenty-one, understood that. No woman could hold a man the way she held me that night if she hadn’t understood that.
Chapter Forty-One
A week later, I was still sober, we were still together, and the only thing that troubled me ever—and only briefly—was I still didn’t really understand why she was with me.
In the last seven days she’d told me enough to know she had quite a life in LA. School. A job. A mother she looked out for. No father ever in the picture. And a few things I hadn’t expected.
Linda was honest about her past when I asked her how she knew so much about music, the recording industry, and things about me I’d never told her. She’d had quite a few relationships with musicians—hell, she knew the inside gossip on the LA scene better than I did—and of the two of us, I was sure I was the one least bothered by it.
No matter what she told me about herself, nothing made me think any less about her. She was a stunning girl. Her looks could open any door. She was young. Hell, I’d done my share of things and was definitely no one to judge anyone anything they did.
I could tell she felt badly about some of the things she shared with me, that it was part of why she viewed herself so harshly, and I tried to do everything I could to help her see herself differently. Like I saw her. One incredible young woman.
After finishing our weekly shopping at the farmers’ market, we were driving toward Hope Ranch and I asked, “Do you want to stop on the pier for a drink before we head back to the house?”
“No. I just want to go home.”
Her cheeks colored and she turned her face to stare out the window, flustered and troubled. Yep, I noted the error of saying home, and pretended I didn’t because I felt good that she’d called it that. I didn’t question it because I didn’t want her to.
We drove for a while in silence, and I took quick glances at her. I could feel something building in her with each mile, and then worried her misspeak might have gotten her thinking it was time for her to go back to LA.
She angled her body to face me and I tensed.
“Do you know a drummer named Brian Cray?”
Relief shot through my veins. Not a brush-off as I’d been expecting. “That’s a name you don’t hear very often in the real world. Of course I know him. Everyone in the industry knows Brian. Why?”
My mood plummeted from the sudden seriousness on her face.
“You’re not going to tell me you’ve been involved with him, are you?” I teased then kicked myself for having said that because of how her expression changed.
Her reaction took me completely by surprise. Hell, I’d always teased her about the musicians she knew, though mostly in the vein that it sounded like she knew more than I did and never in a sexual context.
Not smart, Jack, not smart.
As I tried to figure out what I was seeing on her face, I realized we were in a situation that was even less funny than my joke had been.
She shook her head and almost looked like she was bracing herself for something.
“No. My name is Linda Cray.”
Oh fuck. Why Linda was with me suddenly made sense. No guy on earth was lucky enough to find a girl like her the way I had.
I pulled the car over onto the side of the road, searching for anything in her expression to tell me that what I suspected was wrong. That our meeting had been by chance. That it wasn’t some kind of game to get close to me. And worse, that it was a lie that she cared for me.
Her expression was tight and unrevealing.
Damn.
Nothing.
“Oh fuck. Is that why you’re with me? Is that what this is about? Jesus Christ, you’re his daughter, aren’t you?”
She struggled to open the car. “I need to get out. I need air.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you explain every part of this to me.”
Her cheeks burned. “Explain what?”
“On the beach. Was that an accident or some kind of setup to get close to me? How long have you been playing me?”
“Playing you?” Her brown eyes grew enormous. “I wasn’t playing you! Playing you for what?”
“You are a beautiful woman. You can have any man you want. You’re only here with me because you want something from me. Isn’t that how girls like you work?”
“Girls like me?”
“Groupie. All the musicians you’ve been with. It’s almost your profession. Do you really attend USC, or is that just something to spice up your narrative? How long have you been playing me?”
I waited, wanting desperately for her to deny it.
Instead she stared down at her lap and said, “It didn’t start that way. Not in the beginning. I just found you on the beach. I didn’t even know for sure who you were until later…”
“How much later?”
Her face snapped up and her eyes met mine directly. “Inside the house. When I saw Lily.”
I leaned back in my seat, my emotions careening out of control because for the second time in my life a woman I cared about had made me Jack the fool.
Fuck.
My accusations shot out of me before I checked them. “So you decided to stick around, play attentive, accommodating girlfriend. You want me to tell you where your father is! You’ve been trading your body to find your father. Trading favors for help, so to speak.”
I knew I shouldn’t have said that, that it was cruel and crass and wrong, even before she slapped my face and sprang from the car.
I watched her run into the field I’d parked next to and sink to the ground with her back toward me, and I could tell by her posture she was crying.
After only a handful of minutes, my anger was gone and I felt like an ass. We were all with someone for our own reasons—even me. I felt like a shit having drunk in for a week what she gave me and reacting like that over something she wanted from me.
That moment in the car with her was among my worst ever, and that was saying a lot. It was made even more repulsive to realize I’d probably been no better than every other jerk she’d ever known. And, fuck, no matter how it started, I was happy that it did because miraculous girls were hard to find.
I climbed from the car, trying to sort through the debris to figure out a way to hit the reset button. I stopped next to her and it broke my heart she wouldn’t look at me.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me truth about everything?” I asked softly.
She dropped her face into her hands and cried louder.
“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I didn’t play you. Well, not after the first day because everything changed. At least for me it changed. I’m in love with you, so if you’re going to tell me off, can you please do it quickly and go away?”
God, in all moments, even that one, she was an honest soul. I stepped around her body to stand in front of her. “If you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen.”
Her face snapped up, her glassy eyes assessing my face.
“I don’t know if I want to tell you anything.”
I sank down in the dirt beside her and took her in my arms. “It’s going to be OK. Nothing is ever as terrible as we think it is.”
Tentatively, she glanced up at me. “If you believe that, you’re lucky. Everything always proves to be more terrible than I think it is.”
I laughed and then pouted. “In all moments a wisecrack. It’s all going to be OK. You’ve got to start having faith in something at some point in your life. Why not now?”
She shook her head as she dissected my face as if unsure I was being straight with her, then she made a little snort sound and laid
her cheeks against my shirt. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. I may not like how we started, but I sure like where we are,” I said gently, trying to calm her. She looked so broken and dismayed when she peeked up at me. Even strong girls reached a limit, and only a fool could have walked away from her then. “Why don’t we go home and figure this out together?”
“I’d rather go home to bed,” she teased softly.
I smiled—always a quip and never what I expected. “You haven’t figured out my code yet. I didn’t say we’d start with figuring this out together.”
She made a soggy laugh. I dropped a kiss on her nose, sprang to my feet, and held out a hand. “Come.”
She stared at my fingers for the longest time before she took them. But as we walked back to the car, I wrapped an arm around her waist and held her to me.
I opened her car door and kissed her cheek. “I want to go home, make love to you, and then finally meet Linda Cray.”
Her eyes alertly searched my face, and then she did something I would never forget. She leaned forward and put a kiss on the top of my hand curled over the car door.
In my head flashed my first kiss with Lena, how it had been like this, with the car door between us, and how powerful that had been. This was something very different and no less powerful—gentle and unsure and hopeful.
Linda was scared shitless by what was happening between us. I could tell it wasn’t something she had experienced before, and she fought so hard not to show both her fear and her heart.
“How do you do? I’m Linda Cray,” she whispered on her husky voice, not even able to hold my gaze all the way through it.
The way she said that melted my heart, partly because it was hard for her to trust anyone, partly because she trusted me, and partly because—
I stared at her and spoke a truth I hadn’t even admitted to myself until that moment. “I’m Jackson Parker, and I am in love with you.”
Chapter Forty-Two
My first affair with Linda lasted thirteen days before she walked out on me from a series of events I thought were unrelated to me, but of course, they weren’t.
When we went home after the incident in the car, she told me the parts of her history she hadn’t shared with me before she asked me to help her find Brian Cray.