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I’m a Lucas and Lucas women don’t back down.
I click the button in the intercom outside the gate. When a few minutes pass and no one answers, I start wringing my hands together. There’s no way to give Aden the truth if he won’t even see me.
“Mr. McIntyre is unavailable,” a voice comes across the speaker.
“I know he’s there,” I tell the unknown voice, and I do. White was able to find out that much for me. “I won’t take but a minute of his time, but I need to talk to him.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McIntyre has asked that you vacate the premises immediately. If not, then we are to escort you away,” the voice answers, and he says it with a steely determination that should scare me, but Ida Sue must be right. I do have my daddy’s blood inside of me, because all it does is piss me off.
“You tell Aden either he grows enough balls to come down here and tell me that himself or he’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
The speaker goes dead. I figure that’s it. There’s no way he’s going to see me. I’ll go back to Idaho and have my lawyer contact him, letting him know about my child. I may have started this relationship all wrong, and it may have begun on a lie, but that doesn’t change the fact that he or she is real. Aden deserves at least a chance to be in this baby’s life. If he doesn’t take it—then that’s on him. Ida Sue was right. I was a single parent with Jack and I can be for this child, too. I will make sure my children are loved and happy, I don’t need or want—
My ramblings are stopped when I see a golf cart come down the paved stone driveway. My stomach flutters with nerves, until the vehicle gets closer and I realize that it’s not Aden.
The gates open and he looks at me. He doesn’t say hi. He doesn’t smile. He just waits. I walk nervously toward him and look at him, trying to telepathically ask him if I’m supposed to get in.
Apparently this type of language works for him, because he nods, indicating I should. The minute I sit down he cuts the vehicle, pointing it toward a huge three story house. The closer we get, the bigger and more foreboding it looks…
And the more lost I feel.
fifty-five
aden
I’m standing at the front steps when Derek pulls up with her and drops her off. She looks good—better than I remember and that sucks. She’s wearing a loose fitting yellow sundress, which shouldn’t look sexy, yet somehow does. Her hair is down and has been brushed until it shines. She’s gained a little weight and it’s allowed her features to round out. I don’t think she’s ever looked prettier.
“You need to leave.”
“I will after I say what I came here to say.”
“We have nothing left to say to each other,” I answer, stubbornly—clinging to the small hope that if I can get her to leave quickly, I might survive this.
“Maybe you don’t, but I have things to say.”
“I don’t want to hear—”
“If you still want me to go when I’m finished, I’ll go. I’ll head back to Clancy and you’ll never see me again.”
“I can save you the time. I absolutely want you to go.”
“I see he’s back.”
“He?”
“The Aden who opened his mouth and the only thing that could be heard was anger.”
“You don’t get to pull that card, honey. You deserve everything I dish out at you and more.”
“Maybe, but the Aden I fell in love with would have at least given me the chance to talk.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. That Aden discovered the hard way what a lying, stealing, conniving little bitch you are.”
“You don’t really believe that,” she whispers, but finally I can see that she’s starting to face reality. Her face is white, her body shaking. Score one for me, I delivered the first blow and drew blood.
You would think I’d feel better about that.
“I don’t just believe it, I relive it, every damn day.”
“Then it’s over.”
“It was over two months ago when I walked out of that damn courthouse.”
“What about Jack?”
“What about him?”
“He misses you. We both do.”
“Jack doesn’t belong to me, and I sure as hell don’t want you.”
“You can just turn your back on Jack that easily?”
“I can,” I lie. I’m grieving after that little boy as much as I am his mother, there’s no way I’m telling Hope that, however.
“Then we both got fooled, because you really aren’t the man I loved.”
Loved. Past tense. Another fucking game? The truth? Does she even know the truth?
“Love. That’s rich coming out of your mouth. What would you know about love?”
“I know about the love of a parent, because I learned that from my father. I know about the love of being a mother, Jack taught me that and I learned what it meant to love another person so much that you ache when you are away from them. I know what it means to love someone so much that each breath you take is physically painful, because they aren’t beside you. I learned that from you.”
