Loving Pierce (Heart & Soul Series Book 4)

by Elizabeth Lennox

  Kaitlin watched his features, trying to memorize them in case he told her that they were finished. “This morning,” she started off, “you seemed…distant.”

  He leaned back on the other side of the booth, looking at her carefully. “I need a favor.”

  Kaitlin swallowed. This was the end, she thought. He was going to tell her that he needed to stop seeing her. That they would…

  “Would you come with me to visit my mother?”

  Ummm…huh? That was so far from what she’d expected him to say that it took her a while to interpret the words. “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  He reached across the table, taking her hand in his. “I know this is an imposition. But…I had an investigator track down my mother. She lives in Detroit and I’d like to…visit her.”

  “Wow!” she whispered, her fingers tightening around his. “Why haven’t you visited her before now?”

  He stared at her for long moment, obviously searching for the right words. “It was never the right time,” he finally admitted.

  Kaitlin blinked. “And now is the right time?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think so.”

  Licking her lips, she contemplated the idea. But before she could answer, the pretty waitress arrived, placing an enormous basket of fried pickles in front of her. “Dig in, darling,” she said and poured a cup of coffee for Pierce. “Can I get you anything, good lookin’?”

  Pierce eyed the basket, then up at Kaitlin, a small smile forming. When he turned to the waitress, he said, “I’ll have two eggs over easy, pancakes, a side of bacon, and a side of sausage, with a large glass of orange juice please.”

  The woman’s smile widened and she winked at Pierce. “You got it!”

  Kaitlin stared at Pierce, shocked. The man worked hard, exercised harder and rarely ate bad foods. But here he was, ordering a massive dose of cholesterol!

  And then he did something even more shocking! He grabbed the fork and stabbed one of her fried pickles, popping it into his mouth. “These are great, but you need mustard on them.”

  For the next half hour, she ate fried pickles and questioned him about his mother, about where she lived, what he knew about her. But he never replied to her original question about why he hadn’t gone to visit his mother before now.

  When her questions petered out, she fiddled with her fork. “When would you want to do this?” she asked, holding her breath for some reason.

  He hesitated for a moment, and blurted, “Would this afternoon be too soon? I know that you have a writing schedule, so if you …”

  “NO!” she gasped, excited. “This afternoon would be great! I can call the airlines and…” she stopped when he looked at her as if she were crazy. “Right. Private plane and all.” She laughed, so relieved that he wasn’t leaving her that she could barely breathe. Of course, that still didn’t mean he wouldn’t leave her once this adventure was over. She knew that it was bad when she was forming sentences with double negatives, but at least she had a few more days with Pierce. A few more days to convince him that…well, she wasn’t sure what she needed to convince him of.

  Chapter 9

  Pierce took Kaitlin’s hand as they walked across the tarmac to the waiting limousine. He wasn’t sure what to expect, not having called the woman who had given birth to him.

  Kaitlin gripped his hand tightly and he appreciated her support.

  “Why now?” she asked.

  He looked down at her, but couldn’t answer the question. “I don’t know.”

  And that seemed to be enough for her. Why, he couldn’t figure. It wasn’t an answer. If he’d asked any of his employees a question and received that answer, he wouldn’t have accepted it. Pierce dealt in facts and logic. These emotions…they had never been necessary in his life. In fact, he’d worked hard to eliminate emotions from his decisions. There were business people who ran their worlds based off gut instinct. He thought that was pointless and irresponsible. He was data driven. Data was logical and consistent. Data changed, and when that happened, he changed course, but he only changed decisions based off new data.

  So, why the hell was he here now? Why was he driving through the streets of Detroit, heading towards a woman who had walked out of his life decades ago? No data. He’d received no new information that would indicate a change in his life’s plan to go on with his life without this woman’s influence.

  So, why was he here?

  His eyes shifted to Kaitlin and he knew that he was here because of her. Because of those three damn words she kept saying to him. Words he’d rejected six months ago. Words that he craved hearing over and over again. This past week, he’d done everything he could imagine in order to keep her by his side. Keep her close so that he could keep hearing those damn words.

  He should leave, Pierce thought. He should turn the damn car around, tell his pilot to fly Kaitlin home, drive back to his headquarters, and lose himself in work. This trip to visit a woman who had walked out of his life was ridiculous.

  So why didn’t he do it?

  Pierce didn’t know. He wasn’t acting on data and facts now. In fact, he reached over and took her hand, needing to touch her. Needing this small connection with her.

  “You okay?” she asked softly.

  Was he okay? “I’m fine,” he replied, squeezing her fingers and glancing at her briefly before turning to focus on the road once again.

  He turned when the GPS told him to turn. Right. Left. Right again. And there it was. The SUV rolled to a stop in front of a small house at the end of a cul-de-sac. There were pretty flowers underneath all of the bushes, a tree on either side of the sidewalk that led to the front door. Quaint, he thought.

  And small! Why was his mother living in a place this size?

  “Is this it?” Kaitlin asked.

  Pierce double-checked the address on the file his investigator had given him. “This is it.”

  For a long moment, he just sat there, staring at the house. It was pretty. Memories of his mother flashed through his mind. She’d been pretty, he remembered. And smelled good.

  “Let’s do this,” he announced, and stepped out of the SUV. Walking around, he took Kaitlin’s hand again. He still didn’t know why, but he felt better with her soft fingers laced with his.

  They were half way up the sidewalk when the front door swung open. An older woman, possibly in her late fifties or early sixties, stood in the doorway. Pierce noticed tears in her eyes and stopped.

  “Pierce?” she whispered, stepping down the steps. “Is that you? Is it really you?”

  That voice! Memories of that voice washed over him. Stories. Sitting on her lap while she sang to him. Rocking chairs and laughter in the kitchen.

  “Please!” she said again, moving several steps closer. “Tell me that you don’t hate me! Tell me that you’re okay and that you’re happy and…” she stopped, looking at Kaitlin. “You love him? You’re kind to him?”

  Pierce wasn’t sure what to say. Thankfully, Kaitlin stepped forward, extending her free hand. “I’m Kaitlin Hawley,” she announced. “You’re Pierce’s mother?”

  “Yes!” she laughed and cried, one hand flying up to cover a sob as she looked up at Pierce. “Yes! I’ve read everything I could find about you! I read about how you took over that old hotel down in Antigua. I know it was an absolute mess and the reviews were miserable! You turned it around and now it’s one of the most beautiful places on the island! And I read about how you took over that place in San Diego! The one where the movie star used to stay? Oh, that was a bad place too. Every place you’ve bought, you’ve been able to turn it around and make it into a success!” She laughed, clapping her hands together. “You have no idea how proud I am of you, Pierce!”

  Pierce couldn’t move. Her words…they didn’t make sense. “Why?” he asked softly, even though he wanted to roar with frustration. Feelings…emotions were hitting him and, because he was used to logic, Pierce wasn’t sure how to handle the overload.

  “Oh, g
oodness! Please! Come inside! Please!” she turned, leading the way into her small house. But every few steps, she’d turn around, looking up at Pierce with a teary smile. It was almost as if she needed to see if he was real and he was actually following her inside.

  When she closed the door to her house, she led the way into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea or coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

  Kaitlin looked up at him, but he wasn’t able to speak.

  “We’d love some coffee,” Kaitlin answered for both of them.

  His mother…those words sounded odd, almost alien, even in his thoughts. She seemed nervous.

  Rushing to one of the cabinets, she pulled down three mugs, pouring coffee into each. He noticed that her hands shook and she still kept stealing peeks at him, almost spilling the coffee during one of her glances.

  She tried to carry the mugs over to the table, but her hands were shaking too much. Kaitlin grabbed both mugs, giving the woman a smile of thanks as she sat down at the small kitchen table. “I got them,” Kaitlin assured her.

  His mother flushed and smiled her thanks. “I’m Roslyn,” she said to Kaitlin. “And you’re Kaitlin Hawley. I’d never read any of your books until Pierce started dating you. But since then, I’ve read every single one of them.”

  He watched as Kaitlin’s eyes widened in surprise and started to say something, but Pierce needed data. “Why?”

  Roslyn blinked, startled by his question. She folded her hands together, nodding slowly. “You need an explanation, don’t you?”

  “That would be helpful.” He stood there staring at her, anger…fury…welling up inside of him. Anger unlike anything he’d ever experienced. An emotion he damn well didn’t like. This ranked right up there with the day he’d walked away from Kaitlin six months ago. After that moment, he’d vowed never to feel anything like that again.

  Slowly, his mother sank down into a chair, her shaking fingers wrapping around the mug. “I loved you, Pierce. Before I say anything else, I want you to know that I loved you! I still love you more than anything or anyone in this world.”

  “All evidence to the contrary,” he snapped.

  Kaitlin’s worried gaze moved to his face, softening as she watched him. Could she see the anger and confusion? Did she understand what he was going through? Immediately, Kaitlin stood up and came to his side, slipping her fingers through his. Instantly, he felt better, his body warmer now that she was touching him.

  She even leaned a shoulder against his arm as she turned back to face the woman who had given birth to him, then abandoned him to the misery of growing up with a bitter, resentful alcoholic.

  “Please,” Kaitlin soothed. “Tell us what happened.”

  Us, he thought. Us? He’d never been an “Us”. It has always been him. Alone. Taking on the world and all of its challenges on his own. He liked the idea of being an “Us”. He liked it a lot!

  “Well, I met your father and,” she chuckled softly, looking out into her small backyard, which was full of well-tended flowers. “And I fell in love. Hard. Fast! Your father,” she shook her head, sighing slightly. “He was amazing. He had so much charisma and charm. He just…swept me off my feet!” She sighed, her fingers tightening around her mug. “We married about two months after we met. I loved him so much.” Roslyn sighed and gazed into the depths of her coffee, momentarily lost in her memories. “I got pregnant and, honestly, I didn’t think that life could be more perfect.” She looked up at Pierce. “You were the most amazing baby, Pierce! Everything about you was just…perfect! You walked sooner than most, your vocabulary surprised even the pediatrician.”

  Pierce felt Kaitlin’s hand tighten around his and he wanted to laugh, although the anger suppressed everything.

  “But your father…” she sighed. “Something happened at work. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. I just know that it was bad. I don’t know if it was a drop in sales or what. But he started drinking. And he’d get angry in the evenings. Then the accusations started.” She sniffed. “He said I was having an affair. If a man even came close, your father thought I was flirting with him. It was horrible.”

  Kaitlin leaned in closer and he released her hand, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to pull her in close.

  “And so you left.”

  Roslyn’s eyes widened. “No! Good grief no!” She stood up, about to step closer but the look in his eyes stopped her. “Absolutely not! No, Pierce! Your father took you away from me! He filed for divorce, saying that I cheated on him. And in the divorce, he won sole custody.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks with quick, angry motions. “He claimed I was jobless and unemployable. And the judge was a friend of his. I had a bad attorney at the time, so I couldn’t fight for custody then. But after the divorce, I got a job and hired another lawyer. Six of them, over the years. I battled so hard for just visitation, but every time, your father came back with more accusations.” She shook her head. “I never won! But I kept up with you over the years. And I wrote to you!” She walked over to the closet and pulled out a box. Reverently sliding off the top, she lifted a huge packet of letters wrapped with a rubber band. “Here! I wrote to you all the time! Sometimes stories, or just letting you know how much I missed you and loved you! At first, I wrote to you every day, but your father intercepted the letters and sent them back to me.” She showed him the return to sender stamps. “So I stopped for a few years, only sending you birthday cards. But even those were returned to me. When you grew to be a teenager, I started writing again, every single day.” She sobbed. “Your horrible father intercepted every damn letter!”

  Kaitlin looked up at him. She nudged him slightly, but Pierce looked perplexedly down at her, not sure what to say or do.

  “Read them. Look at the letters, Pierce.”

  He pulled his eyes away from her compassion, staring at the box that overflowed with letters and cards, some colorful, others obviously just handwritten letters. Dropping his arm from around her shoulders, he walked over to the box. Lifting one pack up, he stared. There were about twenty letters bundled in his hand, all of them dated about ten years ago. Each with a return to sender stamp. These had been addressed to his headquarters office. “Why didn’t I get these?” he asked.

  Roslyn sniffed slightly. “I asked your assistant. She said that she never received them. I don’t know, Pierce.”

  He knew why. Suddenly, Pierce understood why he’d found his father in the mail room one time. It had been years ago and Pierce had just assumed that his father had been trying to evaluate the staff. But now…looking at the letters, he understood.

  Clearing his throat, Pierce turned to look at his mother. “He told me that you only married him for his money.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, fighting tears. “I loved him. I mean, I hate him now because he wouldn’t let me see you. But back then, I loved him. I loved him so much. But I loved you more. Maybe…” she wiped more tears. “Maybe that’s what got to him. He knew that I loved you more. But it wasn’t more, exactly. It was just…different. A mother’s love is unending. Unconditional. He knew that. But I loved him just as much, although I loved him as a husband.”

  “He…”

  “He lied,” Kaitlin announced. “He lied, Pierce.” She placed a comforting hand on his back. “Even I could see that your father was a mean, bitter man who had lost his world and lived in a bitter haze.”

  “He’s a drunk,” Pierce announced. “A drunk that I enable.”

  Kaitlin put a hand on his arm, tightening her fingers. “Why don’t you sit down and talk with your mother? Let’s hear the whole story.”

  He looked down at her, then into the hopeful eyes of his mother. “Fine. Let’s talk.” He saw the relief on her features and some of the tightness in his chest eased.

  For the next several hours, she talked and he listened. His mother brought out photo albums filled to bursting with pictures of him from magazines and newspaper clippings, press releases, stock market filings…apparentl
y, Roslyn had bought up thousands of shares in his company. According to the statements, she was a wealthy woman, although one wouldn’t know it from her house. It was neat and tidy, but small. Nothing in this house indicated that she was worth millions!

  Around dinnertime, the front door opened. “Ros! A big SUV has been sitting in front of your house all day. You okay?” a woman called from the foyer.

  When the stranger stepped into the family room, she stopped, her mouth falling open as she stared at Pierce and Katelin. “Oh my! You’re Pierce Rossen, aren’t you! Finally!” She laughed, clapping her hands in delight. “Son, your mother brags about you so often, one starts to think you could fly and shoot laser beams through your eyes!”

  Pierce glanced at Kaitlin, her eyes shining with amusement, but she maintained a polite smile. Tonight, he thought. Tonight, he would take her into his arms and hold her. Then his world would make sense again.

  The newcomer stepped deeper into the house, gathering Roslyn into her arms. “Oh, Ros! This is a good day! You always said he would come, but we were starting to wonder, honey!”

  Roslyn beamed, her face red with happiness and unshed tears. “You can stay for dinner, right? I’m a good cook.”

  Pierce wasn’t sure what to say. Thankfully, Kaitlin was there and she took over. “We’d love to stay for dinner. Thank you for inviting us.”

  Roslyn jumped up, beaming. “Excellent! I’ll just…I have some stuff in the freezer that I made for another event. I’ll just pull it out and heat it up.”

  The other woman nodded. “I’m staying too!” She settled herself into one of the chairs. “So…” and the questions started again.

  By the time the lasagna was out of the oven, several other neighbors had come over, each carrying something to contribute to the dinner meal, and all eager to meet the man Roslyn had bragged about for so long.

  Later that night, when Roslyn closed the door on the last guest, she smiled up at Pierce. “I have a spare bedroom. Would you...” she cleared her throat. “Would you stay?”