Almost Perfect (3 page)

An innocent comment, Liz thought as she sipped her wine. There was no reason for her to want to snap at the other woman, ask her how it was possible that an entire town hadn't noticed two girls living on their own. Of course this was the same town that had seen plenty of bruises on her arms and legs and no one had asked any questions back then, either.

“Don't go there,” she whispered. She was here to help Roy's girls and get out as quickly as possible. Nothing else.

She heard someone walking on the sidewalk. Instinctively, she stiffened before reminding herself that this was Fool's Gold, and no one ever got mugged here. She looked up to see a man walking by. Only he didn't
keep walking. He stopped at her front gate and let himself in. The wineglass nearly slipped from her fingers as she watched Ethan Hendrix stroll toward her.

“Hello, Liz.”

He was as tall and handsome as she'd remembered. Broader and a little older, but only in that good way men age. It was too dark for her to make out his exact features, but if she had to guess, she would say he was happy to see her. At least he was smiling.

She blinked, not sure he was real, but the image didn't go away, which was confusing. Why would Ethan be pleased she was back in town?

She clutched her wine in both hands. Standing up made the most sense and was also polite, but she wasn't sure she could manage it. Her legs felt a little wobbly as she stared at the first man she'd ever loved. If she'd had another glass of wine, she probably would have admitted he was the only man she'd ever loved, but why go there now?

“Ethan,” she said, startled to have his name on her lips after all this time. She'd yelled at him, cursed him, cried for him and begged—but only in her mind. In the past twelve years, she'd never once spoken his name. Except once…to his wife.

“I thought I saw you earlier,” he revealed, moving closer and shoving his hands in his front pockets, a smile tugging at his lips. “At the race. I tried to get to you, but there was too much of a crowd. You're back.” The smile turned into a grin. “You look good.”

She looked what?

Gathering all her strength, she set the glass on the porch, then pushed to her feet. After crossing her arms over her chest, she realized she still had to tilt her head slightly to meet his gaze. Time had not caused him to shrink.

“It's not what you think,” she began. “I'm not here to make trouble.”

Confusion flickered across his face. “Why would you be?”

“I'm here because of my brother and his daughters. This isn't about anything between us.”

The grin faded into a straight line. “About that,” he reflected, then shrugged. “I was a kid and a jerk. I'm sorry.”

As apologies went, it wasn't much of one. Not when compared to his incredible rejection of both her and their son, but Ethan had never been big on accepting responsibility for his relationships.

For him, it was all about how things looked. After all, he was a Hendrix. A member of the founding family. Upholder of all things good and right. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks was good enough to sleep with, but a guy like Ethan would never want anything more.

“Whatever,” she muttered. “I didn't know my brother had moved back and I didn't know about his daughters. Until Melissa wrote me. That's why I'm here. It'll be two weeks. Three at most. I'll stay out of
your way, just like you asked.” Commanded was more like it, but this didn't seem like a good time to bring that up. She was tired and dealing with too much already. A fight with Ethan would only complicate the situation.

She shook her head, her temper rising just a little. “But I will point out you don't own the town, and you don't have any right to tell me where I can or can't be.”

“I know,” he said, moving a step toward her. “Would it help if I said I have no idea what you're talking about?”

The lazy smile returned. The one that always had the ability to make her stomach flip over a couple dozen times.

“I wanted to welcome you back,” he continued. “And tell you I think it's great you've been successful with your books. Even though I'm not sure I like the part where you kill me over and over again.”

Now he wasn't the only one who was confused, she thought. He wanted to talk about her
books?

“You deserved it,” she retorted. “And technically I haven't killed you at all.”

“Then why do your victims always have a more than passing resemblance to me?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Which was a lie.

“Right.”

The smile left again as he took another step toward her. A step that put him a little too close.

“Eleven years ago I was a jerk,” he said. “I admit it and I'm sorry. That's what I came by to say.”

“What?” She dropped her hands to her hips and glared at him. “That's it? After everything that happened the last time I came to town you want to talk about
that?
”

His eyebrows drew together. “What last time?”

“Five years ago, I came back to speak to you. Instead I had a very awkward conversation with your wife. You were out of town. Then I received your letter a few days later.”

The frown deepened. “What?”

She wanted to shriek. “I came here to talk to you. To tell you about Tyler. I saw Rayanne, who said you were out of town. About ten days later, I got a letter from you telling me you didn't want anything to do with either of us. To stay away from Fool's Gold and that if I came back, you'd make sure I regretted it.”

The frown turned into an expression of dismissal. “I accept that what I did all those years ago was stupid and mean, and I'm sorry. As for this crap—don't bring my wife into your stories.”

She stiffened. “Stories? You think I'm lying? I spoke to your wife five years ago. You wrote me a letter. I still have it.”

He shook his head. “I didn't write you a letter. You didn't see—” He hesitated. “I don't know if you saw Rayanne or not. I could have been traveling. I saw you in town earlier today, so I came by to say hello and apologize. That's it.” His gaze sharpened. “Who's Tyler? Your husband? You're married?”

Oh, God. Liz sank back on the step. Thoughts and
memories flooded her, making it impossible to pick just one. The early past intruded first—reminding her how much she'd once loved Ethan. How he'd convinced her to trust him, had told her that he loved her. She'd given herself to him on a starry night, by the lake. Desperate emotion hadn't been enough to make her first time not hurt, and he'd held her when she had cried.

They'd planned on her joining him at his college, because being together in Fool's Gold was impossible. Not that his family was especially rich, but because they were respectable. Something Liz Sutton could never be.

She remembered him and his friends at the diner where she worked after school. How his friend Josh had mentioned seeing Ethan with her. As clearly as if it was happening right now, in front of her, she recalled Ethan's discomfort. He'd said she was a piece of ass—but not anyone he could be interested in. He'd denied her, had denied
them.
She'd heard every word.

Maybe if she'd been older she would have understood why he'd said what he did. Or if he'd been more mature or stronger, he could have stood up to his friends. Instead he had hurt her and she'd reacted. She'd walked over to the table, picked up the chocolate milk shake she'd brought him only minutes before and thrown it in his face. Then she'd walked out. She'd quit her job, packed a bag and run away to San Francisco.

Three weeks later, she'd figured out she was pregnant.

She'd returned to town, prepared to tell Ethan, only
to find him in bed with someone else. She'd run again. This time she'd been determined to make it on her own. But five years ago, as Tyler had been getting ready to enter first grade, she'd decided to make another attempt to tell Ethan. Which had led to the conversation with his wife and the letter telling her that he didn't want anything to do with her and his son.

None of this made sense, she thought. Ethan was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He wouldn't just forget about his own child. Unless he really hadn't been told. Which meant his wife had kept the information of Liz's visit from him.

“Liz?” His voice was low. “What's going on?”

“I don't know.” She pushed to her feet. “At the risk of repeating myself, Rayanne never told you that I came to see you?”

“That's right.”

“You never wrote me a letter.”

“No.”

“So you don't know about any of this?”

“Any of what?” he asked.

She sucked in a breath. She'd known there was a good chance she would run into Ethan again. Or his wife. Or both. But she'd never imagined anything like this.

“I came back to see you five years ago,” she began. “No, I came back a few weeks after I left, but you were in bed with Pia.”

“What?” He stiffened. “I didn't…” He half turned away, then faced her again. “It's not what you think.”

“I thought you were both naked and in bed,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “It doesn't matter. Screwing around with Pia isn't the point.”

“I didn't screw around.”

“No? Then your intense and meaningful relationship isn't the point, either. I came back to tell you that I was pregnant. When I saw you in bed with Pia, I took off. I was too hurt, too angry. You'd denied me in public and then slept with one of the girls who delighted in tormenting me.”

She squared her shoulders. “More irrelevance, right? The point is, I always wanted you to know. So I showed up here five years ago to tell you about Tyler. I spoke to Rayanne and told her. Then I got a letter from you saying you didn't want anything to do with me or Tyler and to stay away from town.” A letter apparently written by Rayanne.

Ethan stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. Emotions flashed across his face. Disbelief, confusion, anger.

“Tyler isn't your husband?”

“He's my son. Your son. He's eleven. And he's here.”

E
THAN HEARD THE WORDS BUT THEY
made no sense to him. Son? As in a kid? An eleven-year-old boy who was his?

“You never told me.”

The words came from him, although he couldn't feel himself speaking. He was still trying to make sense of the information. A baby? No. Not a baby. A child. His child.

“I did tell you,” Liz reiterated, putting her hands back on her hips, looking as if she was prepared to take him on. “I just explained that. I'll admit I didn't make much of an effort when I came back the first time, but the whole naked-in-bed-with-Pia was more than I could handle. I came back a second time.”

“Stop.” He glared at her, anger growing. “You're lying.”

“I told you—I still have the letter. I can have my assistant send it overnight. It will be here day after tomorrow.”

He knew there wasn't a letter, mostly because he'd never written one.

He turned and walked back to the gate, before facing the house again. Liz stood silhouetted in the glare of the porch light. He'd been so damned happy to see her. He'd wanted to come talk to her. Now this.

“How the hell can you stand there and tell me I have an eleven-year-old son I've never known about?” He stalked toward her, fury growing. “You didn't bother to tell me that you were pregnant? What gives you the right?” He swore.

“I did try to tell you,” she countered. “You were too busy screwing Pia.”

He grabbed her arm. “I don't care if I was burning down the entire town. You were pregnant with my child, and I had the right to know.”

She jerked free. He let her, mostly because of how he'd been raised. It was the right thing to do.

“I cared,” she snapped. “I cared a lot. You were supposed to love me. You convinced me it was safe to love you back. You took my virginity, then let someone call me a whore in front of all your friends.”

“None of that matters.”

“Of course it matters. It speaks to who you are as a person. It's the reason I didn't try very hard.”

The unfairness of the accusation burned. “I was a kid,” he growled.

“So was I. Eighteen, alone and pregnant. If you expect a break, then I get one, too.”

“No. It's not the same. He's my child. You deliberately kept us apart for years.”

Liz drew in a breath and nodded slowly. “I know. That's why I came back to tell you five years ago.”

He didn't believe the bullshit story about talking to Rayanne. He didn't care about anything except he had a son.

He pushed past her and headed for the door. “I want to see him.”

“No!” Liz grabbed his arm and held on with both hands. “Ethan, wait. Not like this. You can't just walk in there and blurt it all out. He's only eleven. You'll scare him.”

He could have kept walking. She didn't have the physical strength to stop him, but as her words filtered through the haze of anger and resentment, he recognized that something—or someone—was more important than both of them.

Tyler.

He stopped.

She released him, then came around so they were facing each other again. “I'm shocked, too. And sorry about all of this. I swear I thought you knew.”

“I want to meet him.”

“I agree. But we need a plan. He has to be prepared.”

He narrowed his gaze. “You lost your right to decide what happens the day you chose to keep him from me.”

She raised her chin. “That's where you're wrong. This isn't a game. We're talking about a child's life. As for rights, I'm his mother and you're not on his birth certificate.”

He'd never wanted to hit a woman before. Never wanted to punish one. Intense rage grew until it nearly overwhelmed him.

“I'm not saying I don't want you to have a relationship with him,” she continued. “I do. That's why I came back before. Of course I want that. I'm pissed, too. You said you loved me and yet you never bothered to look for me when I ran away. Based on what I saw with Pia, did you even miss me at all?”

“What does that matter?” He swore again, then took a step back. “You stole eleven years from me, Liz. Stole time and memories I can never get back. Do you really think hurt feelings from high school come close to measuring up to that?”

“I'll accept responsibility for the first few years,” she told him. “But not the last five. Why do you refuse to believe me? I was here. I spoke to Rayanne. I'll show you the letter as soon as it gets here. In the meantime, go talk to your wife.”

He stared at her. Of course. She wouldn't know. “Rayanne is dead.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. I'm sorry.”

He glanced up at the house, wanting nothing more than to break in and take what was his. He might loathe Liz with every part of him, but she was right about one thing—Tyler was the only one who mattered in this situation. Bursting in and grabbing him would only terrify the kid. Ethan wanted a better start than that.

Not that he should have to worry about that, he
thought grimly. If he'd known about Tyler, he would have been there from the beginning. Been a father.

“I'll be by tomorrow after work,” he said quietly. “I want to meet him then.” He met her gaze. “No excuses.”

She nodded. “I'll tell him tomorrow, prepare him.”

“Going to make me an asshole?”

“Of course not.”

“What have you told him before now?”

“Nothing. I wouldn't lie to him. I told him there were things I wouldn't talk about. He doesn't always like that answer, but he accepts it.”

Because he didn't have a choice, Ethan thought, still fighting fury. Liz had controlled the situation, done whatever she wanted. Well, that was about to change. He would make sure of it.

“You'll be here?” he asked, not putting it past her to leave town. What was different was this time he
would
follow, chasing her to the ends of the earth, if necessary. She'd already stolen too much from him.

“I'll be here,” she said. “I swear.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “Because your word means something?”

She dug in her jeans front pocket and pulled out her car keys. “Want to hang on to these? Will that make you feel better?”

It might, but it wasn't necessary. “I have your license number. If you try to sneak away, I'll have you hauled back for kidnapping.”

An empty threat. If she was telling the truth—if he
really wasn't on Tyler's birth certificate—then his rights were probably limited. But if she pushed him, he would do everything in his power to make it happen. Tyler was his son—and Ethan took care of what was his.

A voice in the back of his head whispered if he'd been as willing to claim Liz, none of this would have happened. He would have known about Tyler from the beginning.

A fact that might be true, he told himself, but didn't erase what she'd done.

“Ethan, please.” She gazed into his eyes. “We have to work together. Make this right for Tyler.”

“I agree, but don't expect me to ever understand or forgive you, Liz. You played God with my life and my son's life. I hope there's a special place in hell for you.”

She flinched as if he'd hit her. He didn't care. Instead he walked toward the sidewalk, stopping when he reached the gate. “I'll be back tomorrow at six. Don't make things worse than they are.”

And then he was gone.

 

L
IZ REACHED FOR HER COFFEE
. She usually tried to limit herself to one or two cups a day, but after a sleepless night, she had a feeling she was going to exceed her limit before noon.

She'd been an idiot. She accepted that. What she really didn't like was the reality that she'd been thoughtless and cruel—characteristics she would have claimed weren't a part of who she was.

Ethan's parting shot—that she'd played God with both him and her son—had been a direct hit. One she'd been unable to forget. Guilt was powerful. Despite the fact that she'd come back to tell him everything five years ago, he'd still lost the first six years of Tyler's life.

The time couldn't be made up, as he'd said more than once. And she regretted that. But now everything was worse. Apparently Rayanne hadn't told Ethan about Liz coming to town at all. There hadn't been a second rejection, this time of both her and her son. Not that it mattered. Ethan obviously didn't believe her. Still, she would call Peggy and have the letter sent overnight. An easy solution to only part of the problem. If only she could explain away the first six years as easily.

She heard footsteps on the stairs and got the milk out of the refrigerator. She'd already put a couple boxes of cereal on the table, along with bowls and spoons.

Melissa entered the kitchen first, her jeans and T-shirt clean from the loads of laundry Liz had finished the evening before, her hair shiny and bouncy. She moved to the table.

“Good morning,” Liz said, forcing herself to smile. Her trouble with Ethan had nothing to do with the girls.

“Hi.” Melissa moved to the table but didn't sit down. “You're still here.”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Melissa shrugged as she pulled out a chair. “You didn't sleep upstairs. In my dad's room.”

The thought of sleeping in the same bed as her
brother and her mother before him had totally creeped her out. Which wasn't the point. Obviously Melissa had gotten up to check on her.

“Sometimes I like to work at night,” she detailed, which was true but not the reason she'd chosen the sofa in the living room over the bed in the master bedroom. “Being downstairs seemed easier.”

“I thought you'd left.”

Melissa didn't look at her as she spoke.

Liz crossed to her and put her hand on the teenager's shoulders. “I'm not abandoning you or Abby. I know it's going to take a while for you to believe me, but you can trust me.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” Liz declared firmly. “We're going to figure this out together. You don't have a cell phone, do you?”

Melissa shook her head.

“We'll get you one after school and program my number in. Then you can always get me. Would that help?”

Melissa brightened. “I'd be able to call my friends, right?”

“Yes.”

“And text?”

Liz smiled. “As long as you promise to stop before your thumbs fall off.”

“I can do that.” The teen pulled a box of breakfast cereal toward her.

“Then we have a deal.”

Abby burst into the room and ran over to Liz, then hugged her. “Do I have to go to school?”

“Yes. You have, what? Three days left? You'll survive.”

Abby grinned. “I knew you'd say that.”

“But you thought you'd ask anyway?”

“Uh-huh.”

The girl sat across from her sister and reached for the cereal.

It didn't take either of them long to eat breakfast. After they put their bowls in the sink, Liz reached for her purse. “We didn't get anything for lunch, so do you mind buying?”

The sisters looked at each other, then laughed.

“We can buy lunch,” Melissa agreed happily. “That would be, like, totally great.”

Liz wondered how long they'd been going without lunch. Couldn't they have gone into a free lunch program? Of course that would have meant someone knowing there was a problem in the first place.

She handed them each ten dollars, then walked them out to the gate. They waved and promised to be home right after school.

“We can bake cookies before dinner,” she yelled after them.

When they'd turned the corner, she headed back into the house and made a note of the cell phone errand and started a second grocery list that included ingredients
for chocolate chip cookies. Once that was done, she called Peggy to have her overnight Ethan's letter, along with some notes she'd left behind.

When she hung up, there was plenty of thunking from upstairs, telling her Tyler was up and making his way to the shower. She paced nervously until he came downstairs and she was forced to act normal, then she chatted with him through his breakfast.

“I thought we'd make cookies later,” she told him, as he finished up his cereal. “When your cousins get home from school.”

He grinned. “Sweet.”

“Is that about the cookies, or the fact that they still have school and you don't?”

He laughed. “Both.”

He got up and carried his bowl to the sink. After rinsing it, he looked for a dishwasher, then frowned when he didn't find one.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked.

“Stack it in the sink,” she instructed, thinking if this were a made-for-TV moment, she would be smoking and looking for her morning shot of Jack Daniels. “We're going to be washing dishes the old-fashioned way. By hand.”

He looked confused, as if the concept was impossible to imagine. Liz agreed with him, but wasn't willing to buy one for the few weeks they would be in town. At least there was a microwave. A true necessity, she thought. Popcorn was required for movie night.

“What are we going to do today?” he asked, returning to the table.

“I thought we'd take a walk through town,” she offered, studying his familiar features and wondering if anyone who saw him would guess the truth. To her he looked exactly like Ethan, but that could just be because she was looking for certain features. “Then you can play Xbox while I work.”

His dark eyes crinkled. “I love summer vacation.”

“I'm sure you do. But you aren't going to spend three months getting great at your favorite game.” Once they were back in San Francisco, there would be classes and a couple of weeks at camp. Maybe there was a day program here she could get him in. And the girls, too, she thought. Although Melissa might be too old.

“How about two months?” Tyler suggested, wiggling his eyebrows. “And twenty-nine days.”