CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
INSTEAD OF DRIVING ME HOME Jake took me back to the clearing among the orange trees where he’d revealed his last secret to me, the place where he had buried both the body of his childhood friend and his stillborn daughter.
We didn’t speak when he parked the bike or when he led me through the narrow path to the clearing. When we got to the spot under the same tree where he made his darkest confessions to me years ago, he pulled me down onto his lap and buried his face in my neck. His heart was beating so quickly. His breath was short and came in spurts. After what seemed like a silent eternity, he finally spoke.
“Bee, what happened between you and Owen, and why the fuck were you trying to shoot him on the beach?”
That question held so much more than words.
“Pass,” I said, using the same rules of the game we used to play. I had a daughter to protect now. Jake knowing about Owen raping me would just make matters worse. “Why are you still here?” I asked him.
“What?” Jake asked. Confusion marring his beautiful face.
I thought the question was pretty obvious. “Why are you here with me? Why did you help me on the beach? Why are you even talking to me? I would hate me if I were you.”
He looked at me just the way he used to: past my eyes and into the broken soul beneath. He brushed some stray hairs from my face and cupped my cheek in his palm.
“Pass,” he said.
“Well,” I laughed. “Looks like we’re back to square one.”
“We can just play again then,” Jake said. “Four years adds a lot of new secrets, don’t you think?” That was an understatement. “We’ll start small.” He reached for the pendant on my neck and ran his fingers over the ornate metal that held his initials hidden within the design. “Why do you still wear this?”
That was one I could answer easily. “I’ve tried to take it off. Several times. I even went a whole day without it once, but when I got home I went right for the dresser and put it back on, I didn’t even stop to think about it. I haven’t taken it off since.” Jake lifted it and pressed his lips to my skin underneath. My breath hitched at the feeling of his warm soft lips on my chest. “My turn.” He nodded and pulled his lips from me, creating an empty feeling. “Why were you at the beach today?”
“I was looking for you.” It was a simple statement, and he didn’t explain any further. He was just looking for me, and he seemed satisfied with that answer. “See? We’re doing good already.” He nudged my shoulder and smiled up at me. I rested my head on his shoulder.
He had destroyed what I believed then was the greatest thing that ever happened to me in just a few short words four years ago. He must have hated me still for what he believed to be my betrayal. I couldn’t just bring him into my life, even if he wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore. And I didn’t want to hurt him. We’d almost healed each other once, and the pain of being almost healed is worse than the pain of being broken to begin with. And Georgia needed a mom who wasn’t an emotional mess. She also didn’t need someone in her life who would eventually resent her very being. That girl deserved the world, and I fully intended to give it to her. “What are we doing, Jake?”
He kissed my collarbone and blew out a long held breath onto my skin.
“Pass.”
***
I slept in the next morning. Even after the confrontation with Owen, my time with Jake had lifted some of the thickness that had hung around since he’d left. Just his presence seemed to make things lighter. It was funny to think that someone so emotionally heavy on my heart could actually make things lighter.
Georgia must have slept in, too, because it was already seven–thirty, and she hadn’t come into my room to ask for her usual Saturday morning pancakes. When I went to wake up the sleepy head, she wasn’t in her bed. I started to panic but when I got to the kitchen there was a fresh pot of coffee on the counter and a sticky note on the pot written in adult handwriting in crayon: We’re out back. With a smiley face drawn under it.
Tess had a key to the house. Maybe, she came over before her shift.
I’d called Bethany the night before to let her know that if she wanted a shot at knowing Georgia she’d better keep Owen on a leash. He hadn’t bothered me in years, and I expected her to help keep it that way.
I left out the part about putting a gun to his head.
She told me she would handle it. That’s all I needed to know.
I’d poured my coffee and almost choked on the first sip when I saw what was happening outside my window. Jake was sitting on the seawall with my daughter, laughing and helping her bait her hook on a little pink fishing pole. He was still wearing his signature black, but was dressed down in a wife-beater and black board shorts that stopped right below his knees. There was a tattoo I had never seen before peeking out from the underside of his bicep. He was too far away for me to make out the design. His blonde hair was pulled back in a small bun at the nape of his neck. He was even wearing black flip flops instead of his usual boots.
I was going to need a lot more coffee.
Jake spotted me first. Then, Georgia followed his gaze. “Mama, Mama!” She put her little pink pole on the ground and ran to me. Jake stood and walked behind her. “Da—I mean Jake, made me pancakes and showed me how to catch blue crab off the seawall. He’s taking us fishing today!” She jumped in the air and clapped. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have sworn she was hopped up on caffeine.
Jake approached us cautiously. “Georgia, what did I tell you has to happen first?” he asked her.
She looked down at her feet. “Mama has to say yes.”
“That’s right: Mama has to say yes.” He winked at me then dropped his gaze to where my tank top clung to my breasts. I wasn’t wearing a bra. He looked again to the tattoos down my arm, and his smile turned into a smirk. “So Mama?” he asked. “What’ll it be? You down for some fishing?”
I knew what he was doing. I couldn’t say no to Georgia, especially when he’d already gotten her hopes up. “I don’t know,” I teased Georgia as she looked up at me, a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. “I suppose we can go.” She jumped and squealed. “But first, I need to know something.” She held her breath. “Are there any pancakes left?”
“Mama, we made you some!” she exclaimed. She grabbed my hand and dragged me back into the house. How had I slept through the noise of them making pancakes in a kitchen that shared a wall with my bedroom?
After she showed me where the plate that they had made for me was, she ran back outside with Jake. I didn’t know if I was ready to spend time with him and my daughter together, and I didn’t know what kind of game he was playing. But, I would’ve hated to see the look of disappointment on my little girl’s face, so I went along with it.
And the pancakes were so damn good.
***
By the time I’d finished eating and put a swimsuit on under my shorts and tank top, Georgia and Jake were waiting for me in a blue boat tied to the seawall. “Hurry, Mama! Jake is gonna take us to catch big fishies.”
I had drunk two cups of coffee by then and was fully awake. I saw now that my daughter was decked out head-to-toe in pink fishing gear. She was wearing a pink visor that said “Fisher Girl.” Her shirt looked like a miniature version of the collared shirts worn by fishing guides. And though I’d braided her hair the night before, it was now in a bun at the base of her neck...in the same style as Jake’s hair.
I gave him the evil eye and he just shrugged. “I went to pick up some stuff and they had the cutest shit for little girls.” He quickly realized his error. “I mean stuff.”
“Mama says shit all the time,” Georgia said.
“Thanks, baby.” My three year old had just thrown me under the bus, and Jake couldn’t have looked more amused by it. “I like your bun,” I told her as Jake offered me his hand and helped me into the boat.
“Daddy did it for me.”
My stomach dropped.
Jake stepped up to her and whispered in her ear. She smiled even brighter and corrected herself. “I mean, Jake did it for me.”
“Oh, did he?” I laughed. “I think you missed your calling as a hair dresser, Jake.”
“Oh, I have many many talents, Bee.” He winked at me, and I blushed like a twelve year old girl.
The rest of the day played like a scene in a movie. Jake took us to a few fishing holes were he baited Georgia’s hook and then only pretended to bait ours so she caught all the fish. She’d caught three snapper, two trout, a Spanish mackerel, and a very impressive red fish.
Jake brought sandwiches for lunch and was a very attentive teacher. He taught her how to keep the tip of the rod up to reel the fish in and stood behind her with his arms around her when she had a bite so the fighting fish wouldn’t drag her little body into the water. Her excitement at each catch was clearly visible. After Jake unhooked each fish, he would ask her what its name should be before throwing it back.
By the end of the day, she had caught at least three Eltons.
When we finally made it back into the house, the sun was already setting and Georgia was sleeping on my lap, her grip still tight around her pink pole. She had missed her afternoon nap, but it was worth it. She would be talking about this day for a long time.
She didn’t even wake up when I cleaned her up, changed her into her pajamas and put her to bed.
By the time I got back outside, Jake was propped up in a patio chair with a cigarette in his mouth and a beer in his hand. “Hey,” I said, taking a seat.
“Hey,” he said back. He looked content, relaxed even.
“How did you get in this morning?” I asked him. It had been bugging me all day.
“If I tell you, that counts as a secret,” he said.
“Okay, fine. It’s a secret,” I agreed.
“I rang the doorbell. Georgia answered and let me in. You were still sleeping, so we made breakfast.” He laughed. It was so much simpler than I thought.
Jake reached out a hand to me, and I took it instinctively. Then, he pulled me from my chair and into his lap; he wrapped his arms around me. My head fell onto his chest. “Can we do all our secrets right now, Bee?” He smoothed my hair. “Let’s just get everything out there all at once. We won’t even think about the answers. We’ll just say them.”
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea.” Actually, it was a horrible fucking idea.
“You go first,” he offered. “Ask whatever, and I’ll answer.” Okay, that intrigued me. So, I started.
“Why are you here?”
“Pass, until you answer your questions.”
“This isn’t starting out well.”
“Just ask,” he pushed.
“What have you been doing since you left?”
“Same as I did before, except I got some bigger contracts, higher profile stuff. I consider myself officially retired now, though.”
“What is your new tattoo?”
He shifted and pulled his shirt to the side revealing an intricate design on the inside of his bicep. “It’s not really new,” he said. The design was the same as my necklace, except there were no initials in the design.
“It’s beautiful.” I traced the design with my fingers. “Does it mean anything?”
“Pass.”
“We aren’t going to get very far this way.” I laughed.
“No, I guess not,” he admitted. “Ask me one more. Promise I’ll answer this one.”
So I asked him the question that had been in my mind every day since he’d left.
“Did you ever think of me while you were gone?”
Jake took a deep drag of his cigarette. “Every second of every goddamned day, Bee.” He blew the smoke out into the night.
Jake lifted my chin with his fingers and pressed his soft lips to mine. My entire being reacted to him. Tingles and fire and the sweetest burning. His lips were warm and reassuring. Lips I could lose—and have lost—myself in.
I couldn’t do it again.
I pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have Georgia to think of.” I stood up. “I don’t know what you want Jake. I don’t know why you’re here, I don’t want you to get to know Georgia and make her love you and then leave because I know what that feels like and I’d rather spare her that torture.”
“I don’t want to leave, Bee,” he said quietly.
“Maybe not now. But you might want to eventually, and I don’t want to put her through that.”
Jake stood and grabbed my wrist. “I don’t want to put either of you through anything.”
I was tired of beating around the bush. I was tired of the secrets.
“But what happens when you get tired of looking at those beautiful green eyes,” I asked him. “What happens when you start to resent her because you wish they were blue instead?”
“Abby, I fucking love you. What don’t you understand about that?”
The word love caught me with my mouth open, and I couldn’t close it.
“You love me?”
“Yes, I fucking love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. But it’s not just you. It’s her, too. I love you both. The second I saw her run to you in the church, I knew she was my daughter.”
“But she’s not your daughter.”
Jake grunted. “You’re not understanding me here. I know I didn’t contribute to her physically.” He paced around the deck. “That’s okay with me.”
“You could change your mind though.”
“The night I came here and she called me her daddy was the best night of my life, no matter how it ended. When she crawled up into my lap, when she wouldn’t let go of my hand... it was love at first sight.”
Suddenly, I understood. The night she crawled onto his lap, the reason why they couldn’t let go of each other. It was love at first sight. That was why he’d gotten so mad when I told him he wasn’t her father.
“So, you really think you can just forget everything that happened between us and start over from scratch?” I asked.
“No, I don’t want to start over from scratch. I want to start from now.”
“How can you want that, after what happened the day you left, after what you said to me?”
“You’re asking how I can forget that you fucked that son of a bitch?”
I cringed. But I still couldn’t tell him the truth. “Yes.”
“I don’t care.” Jake held my face and looked right into my eyes. “I don’t fucking care. I should have stayed. We should have talked about it. I left you for work after the greatest night of my life with no return date. It wasn’t fair, and neither were my accusations. You refusing to talk about what happened, and then you with him on the beach… it made me realize there might be more to the story. But, I don’t have to know it all right now. Does it make me sick to my stomach to think about him touching you? Yes. But the real question is, can we move forward from here? That answer is yes, too. For me, anyway. For four years, all I thought about was coming back to you, but my stupid pride kept me from doing it. I needed the excuse of my father dying before even attempting it. I was such a fucking coward. And you were here the whole time, raising Georgia on your own. Being so brave.”
“It hurt so much when you left, Jake. If there’s a chance that you’ll do that again, well...I can’t have my baby hurt like that, too. I won’t do that to her.” The tears started to fall again. I was going to run out of them soon.
“She won’t hurt, Bee. She’ll be ours. We’ll be a family. I promise I won’t resent her. It’s not even possible. I love her so much.”
“But, you could resent me.”
He eyed me skeptically. “Bee, it’s hard to explain the way I feel. I feel connected, to you and to Georgia, in a way that doesn’t make any of that shit matter anymore. Was I hurt? You better fucking believe it. Do I still have an itchy trigger finger around that son of a bitch? Yes, and that will probably never go away. But, I know I can be good here, with you and her, and that we can find happiness...at least, as much as fucks-ups like us are