Can't Stand the Heat? (16 page)

“Has it all been a game, Walker? Romancing me? Getting me to fall in…” She would not say that. Not tonight. Not ever. “Seeing how stupid with lust you could make me?”

“No! God, Jen. It’s not like that at all. I made a mistake. I’m trying to make it right.”

“You must have been laughing so hard at me.” Her skin crawled with humiliation.

She hadn’t realized how easily a heart could break.

“I
did
want you. Desperately. And I felt horrible afterward. Like I’d betrayed you.”

“Because you did! Why didn’t you tell me about your ‘mistake’ then? It was a big night for confession. You could have jumped in at any time.”

“Because I was a coward,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to face what I’d done.”

“So you set up this evening instead. Were you softening me up for the big revelation?”

When he didn’t deny it, a chill shuddered through her. She’d thought this date had been about romance. About falling in love. Instead, it had been about lies. “Were you, Walker?”

“Yes. No.” He shoved his hand into his hair. “I was trying to find some privacy to tell you what I’d done.”

“You let me seduce you again.” She buttoned the rest of her blouse with jerky movements. “Did you get a kick out of that? Poor Jen, she’s so desperate she can’t even see that I despise her. Did you enjoy that?”

“Of course I didn’t. I hate what I’ve done.”

His voice washed over her like ice. “Not enough to tell me before tonight. You used my feelings for you to manipulate me, Walker. And you used me to get close to Nick. I’ll never forgive you for that.”

The scent of him filled the small space, rewinding too many memories. The two of them on the front porch. Beneath the tree at the miniature golf course. Giggling together in her bed.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she fumbled with the door. When she finally got it open, she threw herself out of the Porsche.

“Get in the car, Jen. Let’s talk this out.”

“I can’t be in that car. That close to you.” Leaving the door hanging open, she began walking away. She’d left her shoes in there, the fancy, expensive heels she’d bought for tonight. She’d thought they were sexy.

Tiny stones in the grass bruised her feet, but she wasn’t about to ask him for her shoes. She’d asked him to make love with her.

And look how that had turned out.

If he touched her now, she’d probably punch him.

“I didn’t have to tell you, Jen,” he said, desperate to find the words that would force her to understand. “At least I told you what I’d done.”

“You think that makes it better? I trusted you, Walker. With my son.” She bit back a sob.

“Tell me what to do, Jen. Please.”

“Tell me what it says.”

“I don’t know.” He looked at the envelope in his hands. “I didn’t open it.” He put it in her hand and closed her fist around it.

Jen stood in the moonlight, staring at the envelope. She was beautiful. Strong. And so alone.

She’d left it in her purse because she didn’t want the boys or her parents to find it. Couldn’t bring herself to open it yet. What if Tony wasn’t Nick’s father? Would she tell Nick? Or Tony, for that matter?

And Walker. Walker had a right to know whether Nick was his son.

The boys were going to stay with Tony in Green Bay this weekend. She would have time to figure out what to do.

In the meantime, she had an hour before her sons got home from school. She’d already made sure they had everything they needed for their weekend away, and she was heading to the store she’d rented to work on her restaurant. Her mother had promised to see the boys off so Jen wouldn’t have to be there when Tony arrived.

Grabbing the bucket of cleaning products she’d gathered, she headed for the front door. Bottles of window spray and disinfecting soap gurgled, reminding her of all that needed to be done before she could open her business. Work was good. She could lose herself in the scrubbing, the polishing.

As she reached for the doorknob, the bell rang. She pulled the door open and saw her ex on the porch.

“Tony. What are you doing here so early?” Oh, God. She knew why he’d come.

“I wanted to talk to you. Alone. Before the boys got home from school.”

She could close the door in his face, tell him to go away. But that would just postpone the confrontation. “Fine. Come on in.”

He glanced at the bucket she held. “You in the middle of something?”

“I was going to work on the space I rented for my restaurant.”

“You finally pulled the trigger on that? Good for you.”

“Thanks.” She set the bucket down and pushed it to the side with her foot. “What’s up?”

“Walker Barnes. How did he know about your tattoo, Jen?

“It doesn’t matter. You and I are divorced.”

“Was it because you slept with him?”

“Not your business.” She headed back into the house.

Thank goodness.
Tony had assumed Walker knew about the tattoo because he’d seen it recently. Not back then.

She’d barely made it past the door when Tony took her wrist and turned her to face him. “He didn’t design that game in the last few weeks. That means he saw the tattoo in high school. Were you sleeping with him then? Is that why he changed my grades?”

“Does it matter? It was a long time ago.”

He held her gaze and dropped her wrist. “Yes, Jen, it matters. It matters a hell of a lot. It would explain some things to me.”

“Like what?”

“Like why everything was different after we got caught.”

“Of course it was different. You lost your scholarship, so you couldn’t go to college. I got pregnant, and we had to get married right away. When you signed up with that minor-league team, it meant you were on the road a lot. At training camps. We hardly saw each other.” She nudged the bucket with her toe, unable to look him in the eye. “Of course things were different.”

“I know I wasn’t a perfect husband. Or a perfect father. But I’ve always thought it was my fault, you know? We couldn’t go to college because I asked you to get Walker to change my grade, and I lost my scholarship. I wasn’t around much when Nick was a baby.” Tony clenched his jaw. “Maybe if there was a reason for the tension between you and me back then, I wouldn’t feel like such a failure as a husband and a father.”

“If you could blame Walker for it, you mean?”

“You don’t think you have any blame there? If you were having sex with Barnes? If you were screwing around on me, maybe everything that happened wasn’t my fault.”

Had Tony been carrying around this guilt ever since Nick was young? Jen wondered. So many repercussions from that one mistake.

“Sit down, Tony.” She waited until he’d settled on the couch. “No more lies. Yes, I slept with Walker. Once.”

He jumped up from the couch. “I knew it. You cheated on me with that son of a bitch!”

She closed her eyes. “I was flirting with him, trying to get him to hack into the computer. To change your grades. Teasing, joking. It went a little too far.”

“Is that what you call it? Going a little too far? For God’s sake, Jen. We were a couple. You said you loved me.”

“I did love you. I was desperate to help you. Even if it meant having sex with Walker. That’s why everything was different afterward. I betrayed you, and I…I had a hard time with the guilt. You should have told me, Jen. Back then.”

“Yes. I should have. But I was a corward.”

Tony looked out the window. “What about Nick? Is he mine? I can count, you know. He was born nine months later. I’ve been wondering about that since I figured out how Barnes knew about the tattoo.” He turned back to her. “That’s a crappy thing to wonder about.”

Her first instinct was to put him off. To avoid the confrontation. But she was done lying. “I’m not sure. I never doubted it. But Walker thinks Nick might be his.”

Tony shoved his hand through his hair. “What a frigging mess.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.” She hesitated. “If I had a DNA test, knew for sure who Nick’s biological father was, is it going to change how you feel about him?”

“Hell, Jen, I don’t know.” He walked across the living room, picked up the framed collection of Nick’s school pictures and stared at them for a long time.

Finally, he put them back on the bookshelf. “He’s my kid. He’ll always be my kid,” he said quietly. “Maybe it would explain why he hates sports. Even when he was little, he didn’t want to play baseball. Or anything else.”

“Nick has been difficult with you,” she said over the lump in her throat. “It’s his age. Nothing to do with you.”

“Hell, I know that.” He picked up one of Tommy’s baseballs from the end table and squeezed his hand around it, as she’d seen him do so many times. “I thought I was going to the show. The big leagues.” He mimed throwing a pitch. “That we’d always be in love. What a naive kid I was.”

“You would have made it to the big leagues if you hadn’t blown out your shoulder.”

He rolled it a couple of times and set the baseball down. “Maybe, maybe not.” He tried to smile. “I kill in the cops’ softball league in Green Bay, though.”

“You should take Tommy and Nick to one of your games this summer. They’ve never watched you pitch.”

“We’ll see.” He jiggled the change in his pocket as he stood by the door. “So what happens next? Do I need to give a blood sample or something?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

“Okay.” He picked up a picture of the two boys, studied it, then set it back in place. “I need to get out of here. Away. I’ll be back when the boys are home from school.”

“All right.” She put her hand on his arm as he started to leave. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m glad everything is out in the open. And I’m sorry you always felt as if our breakup was your fault. I was as much to blame as you were.”

He smiled wearily. “Maybe not quite as much. You didn’t have sex with Walker on the kitchen table in front of me.”

When she knocked, she heard the scrape of a chair across carpet. Footsteps. He opened the door.

“Jen. What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you, Walker. May I come in?”

He stood to the side and swung the door wider.

The room was spartan, but spotless. It held a double bed, a small table, two chairs and a television. Walker’s laptop was open on the table, with papers spread out next to it.

“You were working. I’m disturbing you.”

“Of course you’re not.” He closed the lid of the computer. “Do you want to sit down?”

“I don’t know.” She retreated as far from him as she could get. “I have some things I need to say. First of all, I want to apologize.”

He held up his hand. “No. You were right. It was a rotten thing to do to you, and I deserved all of your anger. Everything you said.”

Some of the tension left her shoulders. “I should have let you do the DNA test as soon as I saw those pictures of your father. I knew they looked like Nick. I was just…” She bit her lip, determined not to let him see her cry. “I didn’t want to face what I’d done. What we’d done. The possibility that Nick was your son. It was easier to deny everything.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Tony. He’s taking the boys to Green Bay for the weekend, and he came early to talk to me. He wanted to know about the tattoo. How you knew about it. So I told him. He asked me if Nick was his son.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know. But he has a right to find out. And so do you.” She pulled the envelope out of her purse. “So open this. I want to know, too.”

He rubbed his fingers on the cheap paper, picked at a spot on the flap where the glue was coming loose.

“I thought you’d tear it open,” Jen said.

He’d planned to. But if he opened this letter, and it said he wasn’t Nick’s father, that was the end. Jen would leave, and she wouldn’t come back.

He glanced at the dresser drawer where he’d stashed the Ernie Banks baseball card for Tommy and the new computer for Nick. All he’d leave behind were two
things
.

He didn’t want that. He wanted a life with Jen and Nick and Tommy. He wanted a family, with all the noise, messiness and turmoil that came along with it.

“What if I don’t open this?” he said, tossing it onto the bed. “What if I throw it away and promise not to ask you about testing again. Would you give me another chance, Jen? I know I screwed up. I want a chance to make it right.” He took a step closer to her. “I
need
a chance.”

She shook her head. “Tony needs to know, too. And so do I.”

Reaching in the envelope again, he slid his finger beneath the flap and pulled out the single piece of paper it contained. His heart pounded as he opened it. Scanned it.

Found his answer.