Her Reason to Stay Read online

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want my son to see you here, and he might wake up.”

  “I’m not suggesting a sleepover,” she said.

  “I don’t want to confuse him.”

  Raina had said he was overprotective. “Maybe you could come outside to talk to me.”

  “I was thinking dinner, or at least comfortable chairs,” he said.

  “I’m not sure we’ll need that.”

  “I’m damn near seduced already. Come on over. You can have Will’s tire swing and I’ll sit on our oak tree’s roots.”

  “I don’t have your address.”

  “I’ll talk you here. Where are you now?”

  “I’m getting close to the square. Going up to Raina’s seemed to take longer than coming down.”

  “Have you been thinking about this afternoon?”

  The kiss. “I guess I haven’t thought of much else. That’s why I need to tell you some things.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  She didn’t blame a single father whose ex-wife had nearly neglected their son to death for putting up his guard. “I’ll tell you in a few minutes.”

  “I remember the curve of your waist,” he said. “I can still feel it against my palms. Wanting you is so intense I feel as if I’ve recognized you even though we don’t know each other very well. I never believed I’d feel this way.”

  She concentrated on breathing and avoiding the poles along the road. “I’m almost at the square.”

  “Take the first red light after the square. Turn left. I like the way you taste, too, Daphne.”

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “I like the way your voice goes husky when you look at me.”

  “How many times has that happened?”

  “The other day, when I saw you on the bench. Today, when I kissed you. You know I want more from you. I want to touch all of you. Now.”

  “I’m turning left.”

  “You should be on Bryerly. I’m in the yard.”

  He walked into the pooled illumination of a streetlight. Daphne parked at the first open spot on the street. Her heart raced as she walked toward him. He came out of the streetlight. There was no mistaking the desire in his eyes.

  He caught her close. She ducked away from his mouth, but his lips trailed across her cheek. He kissed the pulse beneath her jawline.

  “People might be watching,” she said.

  “Come through here.”

  A wooden gate opened in the brick wall that surrounded his house. A brief walkway took them to the back, where a rope swing shone in the moonlight and an oak’s thick trunk stood guard over the otherwise empty lawn.

  “I wasn’t kidding,” he said. “There’s no place to sit.”

  “Over there.” She pointed to the steps on a brick patio just outside his backdoor.

  “They’ll be chilly now that it’s dark.”

  She sat but found she didn’t know how to start her second confession of the day.

  “What do you want to tell me?” Patrick asked.

  “About my past.”

  “Is it any of my business?”

  “Don’t get scared. I’m not suggesting a lifetime commitment, but Raina told me about your ex-wife.”

  “I wish she hadn’t.”

  “You’ll understand if you let me finish.” But the lighted windows above her presented a moment of justified procrastination. “What if Will wakes up?”

  Patrick pulled a monitor from his jacket pocket. “I’ll hear him.”

  “He can’t hear us?” The last thing that little boy needed was the story of another woman who couldn’t resist the allure of oblivion.

  “No.” Patrick speared his fingers through her hair. “What can you have to tell me? You know I looked you up. I found your record in track and a news story about a bike accident when you broke your wrist.”

  “I never broke my wrist.” Normally, she’d have objected to anyone snooping, but she understood that Patrick was being cautious.

  “I found the wrong Daphne Soder?”

  She nodded and he sat beside her, stretching his legs in front of him. She looked up, drawn to the glitter in his eyes. As cool air swirled between them, she felt more detached from him than she had since he’d touched her arm in his office lobby

  “You found a nice innocuous girl with my name, but I’m not like her.”

  He stared at his feet. Somewhere, a horn honked. Her heart tight with regret, Daphne wished she was sitting in this same spot, next to Patrick, hearing about his day, telling him about the things she’d done. Nice things that hadn’t hurt anyone.

  He lifted his head, “What did you do, Daphne?”

  “Telling you seems premature and extreme. We don’t know each other well, but Raina and I talked tonight and something she said convinced me to tell you.”

  “I don’t need to be massaged. Just give me the truth.”

  “It started—I don’t remember when…” She spoke slowly. Life drained from his expression with each word. He didn’t interrupt, but he didn’t have to. He never moved a muscle, but she felt him pulling away all the same. She finally finished with the meeting at the church.

  “After I talked to Raina, I wanted to tell you before someone who saw me there mentioned it.”

  He nodded, his mouth a thin line.

  “You knew I couldn’t afford to bring another addict into my son’s life.”

  “I guessed you might feel that way. I’m not an addict,” she said. “But the feelings between us are strong, and I didn’t want you to confuse me for someone safe like Raina, for instance.”

  “You know that my son nearly died because I was blind to my wife’s problems.”

  “That’s why I came tonight. To tell you about mine.” She stood. “I need to move. I already know what you’re going to decide.”

  “He’s my son, Daphne, just a baby, and he can’t decide whether being with you might be worth the risk. Hell, I can’t decide that, even though I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.” He stood, as well, and pulled her into his arms. He was warmth in a world that felt ice-coated, and he was life on a night when she’d finally begun to believe she had a right to live. He turned her in his arms, and her legs slid between his. Their thighs met and she wouldn’t have said no if he’d lowered her to the ground. She couldn’t speak for wanting him. “But I can’t believe these feelings last because they seem so overwhelming.”

  “Then why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice hoarse. He was also aroused. He’d left her in no doubt. “You’re saying goodbye, but your body…”

  “Wants a woman it cannot have.”

  She turned toward the glow of the streetlight on his brick wall. “I have to go.”

  “What did you think I would say?” He grabbed the rope swing as if he wanted to pull her back but didn’t dare. “I want to pretend it doesn’t matter and I’ll trust that you won’t drink.”

  “But I’m damaged goods?” She pushed his hand away. “There was a time when I would have agreed. Hell, maybe that was this morning, but I’ve been working since the day I was arrested on trying to do the right thing. I may be damaged, but I haven’t touched a drop since I climbed out of that car. I work hard at staying sober.”

  “And what about the day something makes you feel bad enough to drink again? Something that acts like whatever triggered you before?”

  “I can’t think that way.” Raina and her talk of penance put some steel in Daphne’s backbone. “The things that triggered my thirst were guilt and living without love. Raina said tonight that I was trying to do Milton Stegwell’s time. Well, I’ve done more than he ever will, and I finally believe I’m worthy of love. I might make mistakes again, but one of them won’t be choosing a man who believes the worst about me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I know.” She stopped at his gate. “You just have to prepare yourself for the chance that it might happen. I understan
d it’s because of Will. I don’t even blame you. But that fear of yours makes you the wrong man for me. I need trust and you can’t give that.”

  She’d made her stand, grabbed at a future she deserved. All her life she’d assumed that kind of future was closed off to the little orphan who’d never been loved. Tonight, that girl had begun to heal herself after a long battle.

  And, as she slammed the gate, she tried to convince herself that Patrick was a fool for losing his chance with her. Still, deep inside, she suspected she might have done the same thing if Will were her child.

  WILL SWUNG from Patrick’s hand as they walked Gloria out to the car on Mother’s Day morning. “Ooh, Grandma, can we get a hamburger for lunch?”

  “Sure. We’ll go to Draper’s Diner,” she said.

  Edna Draper had been Patrick’s babysitter when he was Will’s age. She’d opened the diner after her husband’s untimely death had forced her to make up for the deficit in his company’s pension plan. Mrs. Draper’s food was good, the ingredients hand-chosen, organic and healthy.

  “See, Dad? I told you Grandma wouldn’t mind.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want something fancier?” Patrick asked.

  “Edna needs her friends to drop in today. She opens because none of her children live in town anymore.”

  Patrick helped Will fasten his seat belt and then checked the booster seat to make sure it was secure. “Today is Raina’s first Mother’s Day alone.”

  His mother immediately rummaged in her purse and pulled out a fancy cell phone that made Patrick’s look like something out of Alexander Graham Bell’s lab. She punched in a single number and waited.

  Nothing appeared to happen.

  “She’s not answering,” Gloria said.

  “Should we go by the house?”

  His mother paused to consider. Then she flipped the phone shut. “She’s a big girl. She may have made other plans, and she doesn’t need us nursemaiding her the way her parents did.”

  They could call Daphne. The thought passed through his mind, but he discarded it with an eye on his son in the rearview mirror.

  “Can I play your phone game, Grandma?” Will strained to reach it, sticking out his feet. He was getting so tall his toes brushed the back of Patrick’s seat. He wouldn’t need the booster much longer. “Fix it for me.”

  She set up the game and passed her phone back to him. “Things are looking better around here,” she said.

  Will hit the buttons without a care about anything except winning. Patrick had to believe he’d made the right decision. The status quo was the best environment for his son.

  But then he remembered Daphne in his arms, her hands clinging to his shoulders, her slender hips cradling him until she’d pulled abruptly away.

  The wheels were coming off that bus he and Will often sang about. He glanced at his mother, trying not to see Daphne last night, proud and furious, walking out of his life.

  “You sure about the hamburger?” She’d recently become vegetarian except for the meals she cooked for him and Will.

  “I talked to Edna about her menu. She’s put in a wonderful stir-fry for me.”

  “You have pull.”

  “I like that smile on you.”

  “Feels kind of funny.” He rubbed his chin, hating that his mother had noticed the change in him since the final episode with Lisa. “Will could use a dad who smiles.”

  “Will bounces back.” His mother folded her hands on her lap. “You’re doing a good job with him, but I worry about you.”

  “Mom,” he said, glancing pointedly into the rearview.

  His mother nodded. “I’ll keep quiet for now, but something’s made you more edgy than usual this morning. A mother knows.”

  Startled by her directness, he laughed. “Where is the reserved woman who raised me without addressing a problem head-on?”

  “She got wiser. The world is different, and there’s one subject I wish I had addressed with you, over and over.”

  After the divorce he’d discovered she’d never been sure of Lisa. “I’m fine,” he said, and he did feel better. He’d chosen wrong again, even letting himself begin to fall for Daphne, but at least he knew that he was capable of caring. That gave him hope.

  “As I said, we’ll talk later.” She pointed through the windshield. “Look at the crowd today.”

  Draper’s parking had spilled into Emily’s Doll Hospital’s lot next door. Emily had closed for Mother’s Day. Patrick got out and went to help Will, but the back door opened and his son jumped onto the pavement, still involved with his game.

  “When did you learn to undo the seatbelt?”

  “Dad,” Will said in the same don’t-bug-me tone Patrick had used to ease his mother out of his private thoughts.

  “Why don’t you put that away for now?” Patrick touched his mother’s phone.

  Gloria stopped at the corner of Emily’s store. “He can hold on to it. Look at this line.”

  It wound out of the restaurant’s doorway and stopped at Emily’s row of comfy rockers. Patrick’s stomach growled. He and Will laughed. “You didn’t slip any of your homemade bread into your purse, did you, Mother?”

  “My word.”

  Her answer indicated that she wasn’t paying attention. Then he saw the two women who’d provoked it. Raina and Daphne, looking identical except for their clothing. Daphne wore jeans and a pale peach T-shirt that glowed against her skin and hugged her breasts before it flared to her hips. Raina had on the usual suit, this time in lime green.

  They stood, smiling at each other, shyly, like new friends feeling their way. Resenting his illogical annoyance that Raina—not he—was with Daphne, he maneuvered Will in front of him, resting his hands on his boy’s shoulders. The morning breeze pushed Daphne’s T-shirt against her, outlining her body with loving, invisible fingers.

  “Mom, did I tell you Miriam wants her store re-decorated?”

  “Does she?”

  She sounded so excited he felt guilty. “Sorry, bad joke.” Unsettled, remembering the thrust of Daphne’s sweet, round breasts against his chest, he’d searched for something to say. “I told her you were apprenticing on my house and she said she’d bar her doors if she saw you coming.”

  “She’s smarter than that. I’ll drop by and show her what I can do.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “It’s a good idea, though, and it takes my mind off wanting to grill you about those young girls.”

  “Women,” he said, looking away from the glint of a gold medal in the dark vee between Daphne’s breasts. He’d never had the chance to kiss her there. He never would.

  She turned her head slightly. Her eyes widened, and then a smile touched her mouth. A slight smile that undid his determination.

  He felt himself smile back, breathing around an ache that squeezed his chest. He’d done everything the right way with Lisa. Would finding a different way with Daphne be so wrong? If Will never knew her, he couldn’t be hurt.

  Patrick wiped moist palms down the legs of his jeans. What if he hurt Daphne because he was so desperate to be with her?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DAPHNE TRIED not to bring up the subject of Patrick while she and Raina shared their meal. And she was successful until a lull in conversation made her speak.

  “His son looks healthy.” Daphne turned quickly to look without getting caught. The little boy was still playing a game on a cell phone. His blond hair looked almost white against Patrick’s dark blue shirt. He was leaning against his father, and they both seemed intent on the phone’s keyboard.

  But Daphne had a feeling Patrick was aware of her, too.

  “Why did you smile at him?” Raina asked. “You shouldn’t let him off the hook. He’s my best friend, and I’d like to take a swing at him.”

  Daphne stopped in midbite. “That’s exactly what I don’t want,” she said. Spinach salad dropped off her fork. “Coming between you two would make me feel worse than having to face him all ov
er again.”

  “He’s a defense attorney. He’s seen a lot and he knows people can change. I’m disappointed in him.”

  “But this could affect his child.” Daphne shrugged. “He can’t help the way he feels, and I understand why he’s wary. I thought you would be, too.”

  “You’re too good to be true.”

  “I have a talent for knowing the way people think. You’re not concerned that the people who know you in this town—and that would be everyone—will look at you differently because of me?”

  “I don’t want to care.” She said it so low Daphne had to lean forward. “Explain to me.” Raina sipped her soup from her spoon in perfect, delicate silence. “You told me the truth. You care about Patrick and you faced him with all your worst secrets, even though you knew your relationship—”

  “It was too new for that.” And she’d destroyed it.

  “How do you manage to stop caring what people think of you?”

  “So you do care, Raina?”

  “Sure. My parents wanted certain things for me, and I don’t want to let their memory down.”

  “What if I make things difficult for you? You have to know some people will look down their noses at me, especially when someone else sees me going down those stairs at the church. Did you just pretend it wouldn’t matter?”

  Raina shook her head. “You moved here with the stuff in your car and the clothes on your back, and you were willing to leave when I didn’t greet you with open arms. You’ve done everything for yourself, without the help of parents or friends. Even the system that should have protected you put you in danger. You have courage.”

  “I understand fear. I didn’t want to be in more danger, so I avoided it. Even when I came here, I planned to depart if you didn’t want a twin. But you marched straight across your kitchen when I needed you most, and you put your arms around a perfect stranger who happened to be your sister.”

  “I guess if we take turns being strong, we’ll make a good team.” Raina speared some field greens with an innocent smile on her face. “And Patrick? Did you tell him he already mattered to you?”

  “That’s exactly the kind of risk you’d take, but I couldn’t. I gave him the facts, and they were too much for him.”