Fuck you, Frank.
Jake was leaning against the counter when I returned to him. He had his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms folded in front of him and a huge, shit-eating grin on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nice song,” he teased.
I felt redness creep up my cheeks. “That’s Frank’s fault. Him and his goddamned record collection.” I laughed. “I’ve tried to just play her music at night, but she insists I sing to her.”
“Smart girl.”
“Spoiled girl.” I looked around at my bare living room, suddenly embarrassed by my lack of furniture. “I’d offer you a seat, but there aren’t any.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” he said, glancing around the empty space.
“The patio chairs are pretty much it for now, as far as furniture goes,” I said. Jake nodded. I noticed that as he interacted with me, his gaze never shifted from the door of Georgia’s room.
“How old is she?”
“Three,” I answered. I walked past him through the sliding glass doors. He followed me back out to the patio, and we returned to our chairs.
“Three, huh?” Jake eyed me skeptically and took a sip of his beer. His elbows rested on his knees. “And you’re bringing her up without her father?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “She doesn’t have one.” It was the truth. As much as I hated saying it, there would never be a father in my little girl’s life.
“I may not have done well in school,” Jake said, “but I remember sex-ed quite well, and I do recall that both a man and a woman are required to make one of those.” He gestured to the house with his beer.
“Making a child doesn’t make someone a father,” I told him. I wished my beer was scotch. This wasn’t a conversation beer could handle.
He shifted to reach into his pocket to retrieve his lighter, lit a cigarette and nodded. “Ain’t that the fucking truth?” He blew out the smoke and scratched the bridge of his nose. “You know, I didn’t even know you had a kid until I saw her run up to you during your eulogy today.” He shook his head. “It was the shock of my fucking life.” He ran a hand over his goatee again. The gesture was so familiar. It brought me a little comfort being in his presence after all these years. It reminded me of the Jake I’d fallen in love with. “I wish I would have known, Bee. I mean, she looks a little like my mom when she was her age. Aside from the red hair. That part is all you. Fucking amazing really.”
Jake kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. Between what Georgia had said about Daddy being home and my comments about fathers being more than a person who makes children, Jake somehow thought that Georgia was his.
“Oh wow. No, Jake.” I tried not to be shitty about it.
“No, Jake what?”
“No, Jake, she’s not yours.”
He sat still for a moment, letting it sink in a little. Then he stood, like he was preparing for war. Everything about his squared-off shoulders said he was ready for a fight. He roared a stream of profanity into the air and launched his beer into the river. Then, he turned around, and with one swipe of his arm flipped over the little metal table between us, sending it rolling onto the grass.
“Explain to me how she’s not mine, Abby.”
“She’s just not, okay?” I stood up and started to walk away, but in a few large strides he had closed the distance between us. The house stopped me from going any further. I turned and found him towering over me. He raised his arms and pressed his hands against the wall on each side of my head, his massive form caging me in. He pressed his chest into mine. I was surprised when he leaned into me and buried his face in my hair as he inhaled deeply.
He stood, breathing me in, until he remembered his anger. “Fuck, Bee!” His gaze met mine. His intoxicating smell filled my nostrils. I was turned on by it. There was no denying that. I’d never been attracted to anyone but Jake. Years, decades, even centuries could pass, and he would still be it for me. I would take him angry or sad, and there was definitely something madly hot in angry Jake at the moment. “Explain to me how your kid, who looks just like my mama, who is three fucking years old, isn’t my mine.”
“Why do you even care?” I snapped at him. I tried to move out from the cage of him, but he pressed his hips into me to keep me captive. I kept my expression hard, but the contact sent heat racing down my spine.
My face flushed.
“Just answer the fucking question,” he growled into my ear. His mouth was only a breath away. Part of me wanted to run my hands through his hair and part of me wanted to knee him in the crotch just to show him who I was now, how strong I’d become while he’d been gone.
I spoke slowly, and kept my voice from shaking. “You have blue eyes right?” He nodded. “And I have blue eyes right?” Confusion started to replace the lingering anger written on the lines in his forehead. “Did you see Georgia, Jake? Did you see the color of her eyes?”
“Green,” he whispered. His shoulders fell from their commanding stance and he backed away from me. He sank back into a chair and his face dropped into his hands. “And we used protection, so why would she fucking be mine.” He sounded defeated.
I realized how painful this was for him now. “I looked it up. Two people with blue eyes only make blue-eyed children,” I said softly. I remembered how, even a few months after her birth, I’d still held out hope that Georgia could have been Jake’s. When I looked online and found a genetics eye color chart that said otherwise, that hope died.
It was a horrible fucking day.
I leaned against the house and continued. “She found a picture of you. When I told her she didn’t have a daddy, she asked if she could pretend it was you. She loves that damn picture so much.” I wrung my hands nervously as I spoke. “I thought I’d never see you again, so I let her pretend. She has the picture hanging above her bed. She says ‘goodnight, Daddy’ to you every night and kisses the picture before she goes to sleep. It breaks my heart every fucking time.” I wiped at the tears I didn’t realize had sprung from my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I never thought…” I slid down the side of the house until my ass reached the concrete. I pulled my knees up to my chest.
When he lifted his face from his hands and looked up at me, the anger was back in full force. “So why hasn’t that cocksucker been a father to her? Why aren’t you guys together raising her? Where the fuck is that pretty-boy motherfucker?” A thick vein throbbed in his neck. His eyes were dark and wide, they shone with each angry word.
“Jake! You’re going to wake her up.”
“Fuck this shit.” He stood and started walking back into the darkness from where he’d appeared not long before.
“Wait!” I called after him. I stood up, but didn’t follow him. He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “You never answered my question. Why do you care who her father is? You were the one who didn’t believe in me, or in us. You were the one who left. So, why does it even matter to you now?”
I was sure I already knew. I just needed to hear him say it.
“Because—” He cut himself off and started walking again. Just when I thought it would remain a mystery forever, he stopped again, and turned to face me. “Because I wanted it to be me, Bee.”
With that, he disappeared behind the side of the house.
I fell. My ass crashed into the paver deck. I let my head fall back onto the siding of the house. “I did, too,” I whispered to no one. One tear fell, and then another, until I couldn’t control the flow. “I did, too.”
It was quiet a while before I pried myself up off the patio and headed back into the house. I checked on Georgia and found her still asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly, her doll still suffocated at her side. Our argument hadn’t woken her.
Had it been an argument, a fight?
It was the best fight I’ve ever had. Jake’s words from years ago played in my brain.
I made sure all of the doors were locked and went room to room to turn off the lights. It had been the longest day of my life. All I wanted to do was try and get some sleep, although I doubted it was even a possibility. My mind was still reeling over what he’d said. He’d been hoping he was Georgia's dad. The thought made my stomach turn and my heart flutter all at the same time.
Several times during the night, I contemplated telling Jake just how Owen came to be Georgia’s father. But then, I asked myself if his knowing the truth would change anything. I had no idea, and it just wasn’t me I had to think about anymore. I had a daughter by another man. Jake hadn’t trusted me or loved me enough to ignore the gossip four years ago, and according to the events of the evening, that hadn’t changed.
I reached for the switch under the kitchen cabinet to turn off the lights when my eyes landed on a newspaper clipping stuck to the top of the refrigerator. It hadn’t been there earlier in the day. The letter magnets Georgia liked to play with were pinning it to the front the fridge. Someone had spelled out the word LOVE with them. I didn’t even need to read the article. The headline was enough for me to know who left it, and why:
ONE-EYED MAN FOUND SHOT
AND DISMEMBERED IN SWAMP
I remembered his words from the one and only night we’d ever had sex, when I’d told him about the man who I’d stabbed in the eye with a shard of glass in my mother’s house: I need to know if you would like it if I put him to ground for you.
I had told him yes then.
I read the rest of the article and clutched it to my chest. After the initial shock of it all, a kind of warmth spread throughout my body, and I knew without question.
I would have said yes all over again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I HADN’T SEEN OR HEARD FROM JAKE since the night we argued. A few weeks passed, but I knew he was still in town. I’d seen his bike parked at the apartment occasionally. He never came to work at the shop. I wondered why he was still there. Frank was dead and buried. Reggie and I were keeping the shop running smoothly, but ultimately, we were waiting for Jake to decide what his plans were for Dunn’s Auto Repair.
I dropped off Georgia with Tess early one morning while it was still dark, so I could photograph the sunrise on the beach. Sunrises were my best sellers, and at the rate Georgia had been growing I was going to have to sell a ton of postcards just to keep her clothed.
It was a really clear morning, not a cloud in the sky. The waves were small. Seagulls flew over my head, on their way to the restaurants to steal bagels and eggs from the tourists dining outside. Conditions were perfect. I took some standing shots before lying on my stomach on the sand to make myself even with the horizon and taking a dozen or so more. Those always turned out to be my favorites, and it didn’t hurt that they were also the ones the tourists wanted to shell out three bucks for.
When I was satisfied that I’d gotten what I wanted, I tucked my camera back in its bag, shook the sand from my long skirt and fanned out the inside of my tank top. A shadow fell over me and an eerie sense of unease pricked the hairs on my arm. An icy hot panic coursed through my veins. I looked up just in time to see Owen standing over me, gazing down my top. His eyes looked clear and his hair was tucked into a backwards baseball cap. He was wearing a clean yellow t-shirt and board shorts. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought that he was just a cute, clean-cut local boy.
But I had known better.
And I’d known worse, too.
I didn’t say shit to him. I just started walking away. I saw the Chicken or The Egg Diner in the distance. Its beach side tables were already filled with patrons, but it was too far for them to hear me if I screamed, so I picked up my pace.
Owen followed me through the sand. “I just want to talk to you, Abby,” he said.
“You are not supposed to be near me!” I shouted without looking back. He was on my heels.
“I just want to talk about our daughter.”
I heard those words leave his mouth, and suddenly I didn’t give a fuck what he did to me. I stopped and turned on my heels, pressing my hand into his chest as he ran into me. I caught him by surprise, and he almost fell backwards.
“What the fuck did you say to me?” With adrenaline coursing through my veins I was no longer scared. He should’ve been scared of me, though.
“I want to know about our—”
“MY daughter, Owen—MY daughter. You have no rights, no claim—no nothing. You are a monster she never needs to know. Forget she fucking exists.”
Owen grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. A wave of nausea washed over me. I felt around the inside of my beach bag with my free hand. “I wasn’t going to be rough with you,” he spat, “but you seem to always bring out the best in me. I want to know her, Abby. She’s my flesh and blood, goddammit, and I’ve waited long enough!”
“You can wait in hell motherfucker.” I yanked my wrist from his grip, and just as he was reaching for me again the barrel of my .22 met his forehead.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, straightening up to full height. He lifted both of his hands like I was robbing him instead of protecting myself.
“I’m so not fucking kidding.” I kept the gun aimed at his head. I didn’t want to have to shoot twice.
“All I want is to get to know her,” Owen said.
“And all I want is to see parts of your head scattered across the beach.”
“You’d really shoot me?” Owen had the balls to look surprised, and even a little scared. It made me visualize the way his head would look as it exploded at point blank range. I may have laughed out loud.
It was fucking funny.
“If you ever come near me or my daughter, I swear to God I will lay you out, and you will never even see it coming. Consider this my nice warning. You won’t get it again.”
“Abby,” he pleaded. His whine made me want to kill him even more. I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. In fact, there wasn’t a single place in my heart that felt the least bit of remorse for Owen Fletcher. “Please.”
In one quick motion, Owen grabbed the barrel of my gun. I pulled the trigger, shooting into the sand. The gun fell from my grip, and Owen put his hand over my mouth. “You can’t keep her from me,” he whispered in my ear. “Besides, I know you’d never shoot me.”
“But, I will.” The cocking of a hammer brought my attention to where Jake stood. Even in the lightest light of day his normally sapphire eyes were as dark as night. His black t-shirt and jeans looked like hell against the heaven of the white sand. Owen released me instantly, and I instinctively ran to Jake. He took my hand and pulled me behind him. Protected by a wall of Jake.
I liked the thought of that. And the feeling.
“You again,” Owen said. He looked pissed, but also very, very afraid.
“Me again,” Jake said.
“I’d heard you were back.”
Jake turned to me, the gun still aimed at Owen. “Your call, baby.” He was asking me if Owen should die, right then and there. As tempted as I was to say yes, there was too much at risk.
I had my daughter to think of.
“Not today.” It was my honest answer. I had dreamed about Jake taking Owen down for so long. I savored the sight of Owen quivering while he stared down the barrel of that gun.
Owen kept his hands in the air. “You two are sick,” he said, as if he could read my mind.
Jake laughed out loud. “It took you this long to figure that out? You’re fucking dumber than I thought.” Jake tucked his gun in the back of his jeans and put his arm around me. “If I see you near her again, you’re fucking dead – my choice, not hers. Simple as that.” We turned toward the road and started walking. Jake turned to face Owen again. “And if you even think about going near Georgia, I won’t just kill you. I’ll cut you into pieces and scatter your parts.”
We left Owen shaking in the sand. I may have just had a confrontation with my walking nightmare, but all I could concentrate on was the feeling of Jake’s arm around me and his lips in my hair when he kissed my head reassuringly.
When we got to his bike, he handed me his helmet as if we’d done that very same thing every day for the last four years. I got on behind him, hugging him tightly as we sped down the road. It felt good to touch him. It had been so long. The vibrations of the bike had a way of making me remember that I was still alive. Through the good and the bad, and between all the very blurred lines in between, Jake had always made me feel that way.
I knew we would never be able to make us work. That knowledge didn’t stop me from finally admitting that I was still madly in love with the killer in my grasp.