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“No.”
I couldn’t tell him that the seductiveness of his voice had given me the shivers and right now all I could think of was getting him naked. There was so much history between us. I lifted my face up seeking his face, gazing into his warmly colored eyes and thought, God he is still so beautiful. I wanted to touch the hard plane of his jaw but didn’t. His jaw covered in shadow again. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t stop touching him if I did.
“Kerry, I need to sort through some things. Kat needs her chance to finish high school. She’s tied for valedictorian you know.”
“Let me tell you a secret our daughter told me. She cares more about your happiness than whether or not she makes valedictorian.”
“She told you that?” I was surprised. Keegan had shared more with Kerry than I knew. “What else has she told you?”
Kerry looked away from me unsure of betraying his daughter’s trust. “She told me that James is verbally abusive to you.” He appeared angry. The set of his jaw. The hardness of his eyes told me so. “She told me that she hates the fact that the sparkle has gone out of your eyes.” He was gazing at me again. “She watches you closely you know. She sees you cringe and withdraw into yourself when he comes home from work. She says you delay going to bed with him. You hang out in her room or in the family room reading some nights till one or two in the morning just to avoid him.”
“She told you all that,” I said sadly. I had hurt Keegan more than I had realized. While she was hiding away in her room I was hiding right along with her. “God, I’m a horrible mother.”
“You’re not a horrible mother. She loves you with all her heart,” Kerry told me. “Gabby I told Kat that she could live with me if things got too bad and you wouldn’t leave.”
I pulled away from Kerry, horrified and angry at his admission. I said, “How could you do that to me?” I slapped at his chest not hard but still he flinched.
“I wouldn’t do anything without discussing it with you but I gave her an option…an out. She’s hurting because you are hurting,” Kerry declared. “Gab, she told me she would never leave you. She’s afraid for you. I left it alone after that. I just wanted her to know she always had somewhere to go. She hates your husband.”
Sadly, I looked away from Kerry. “I am a bad mother,” I told him.
Kerry pulled me back into his arms. “Absolutely not. That kid is the greatest and it’s all because of you.”
“Thank you,” I told him sniffing against his shirt.
His words of approval meant more than I could imagine. Then, I was looking up into his eyes again. Those eyes had always drawn me in. They had been what attracted me from the start. The eyes were always my downfall. In James. In Kerry. All of Kerry’s feelings were there for me to see. So long ago that I shouldn’t still remember how vividly I had been able to see the love he had for me in his eyes then and now. Kerry was looking down at me. The feeling of being in his arms felt natural even though it had been seventeen years.
“You know Gabby, Keegan has always told my mother everything about you…every haircut, every date, everything you did that was good or bad.”
Puzzled, I asked, “Why?”
He chuckled deep in his chest. “Maybe because Mom would tell me about your life, trying to get to me. Did you know that along with the stories about my childhood Mom kept Keegan up to date about my life? I thought Mom was delirious from the medicine but Kat hoped that someday you and I would get back together. Kat confirmed this for me. She didn’t know me physically…but she felt she knew me through my mother. Mom encouraged those feelings in her. I think your mother did too.”
Slightly I pulled out of his embrace so that I could see his face more clearly. He was serious. Kerry pushed the hair out of my eyes. His hand brushing gently against my cheek caused a spark of warmth to fill my body.
“I questioned Yancy about her tea dates with Esther. At first she said they talked about Keegan.”
“They talked about how to get us back together. My mother told me,” he clarified.
“Yancy wouldn’t admit it but I guessed there was more.” A bird flew out of the tree next to the porch startling me. I jumped in his arms and they tightened around me securely. Comforting me.
“I will protect you Gabby,” he said softly.
“What do you want?” I asked unable to stop myself.
“I told you I stood outside the church the day you got married and wanted to stop you but thought I had no right. I wish that I had tried now,” he answered huskily. “Kat was right when she said we were both stupid.”
“I wish that you had tried too,” I answered honestly.
Kerry’s head moved closer to mine. My eyes instinctively closed as I waited for his lips to touch mine a familiar kiss my heart longed for. My body longing for his touch. Softly, his lips caressed my own for a brief moment.
“We can’t do this. I don’t want Keegan to catch us.”
He was right. I didn’t want him to be right but he was. I wanted Kerry’s lips back on mine. I wanted to feel him inside me.
“I need to go inside,” he said almost desperately.
Reluctantly he rose from the swing and walked to the front door leaving me behind feeling things I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
