Cheap Shot (19 page)

“It’s no secret that I love your daughter.”

“Really?” he asked, folding his hands over
his stomach. “I think it’s actually a pretty well-guarded secret. Isn’t that
the reason y’all broke up, because you were so emotionally inept you couldn’t
admit you had feelings for her?”

Jaxon couldn’t deny his words stung, but
they were true. “Things were different then.”

“Is that so?” he asked, fixing Jaxon with a
steely gaze.

Sela’s father was an intimidating man. He
was a criminal attorney with a record that would make most of his peers drool
with envy, so Jaxon wasn’t stupid enough to try to evade the truth. He met
Gordon’s gaze directly, though it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
“I’d never met anyone like Sela. With other women, it had been easy to avoid
anything serious.”

“If you’re trying to make a case for
yourself,” Gordon said, reaching for his bourbon, “I’d suggest you leave your
other dalliances out of the mix. We all know you’re a player. I don’t need to
be reminded.”

Jaxon supposed he had that cheap shot
coming. If someone like him had professed his love for his baby girl, he would
have been skeptical too. “I was, you’re right. But that ended when I met Sela.
Even after we broke up… I mean, I dated.” Jaxon cleared his throat when Gordon
clenched his fist. “I’m not going to pretend I’ve been a monk for the past
year, but—”

“Where the hell are you going with this,
Davis?” Gordon demanded.

Shame and humiliation washed over Jaxon.
What was he thinking, talking to Sela’s father about his sex life? “I’m sorry.
I’m trying to be straight with you. I want you to know that while I sure as
hell am not perfect, my feelings for your daughter are real.”

Gordon eased back in his seat. “Go on.”

“I was a fool not to realize a long time
ago that she’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Being raw and
vulnerable was his only hope of winning Gordon over. “I should have told her
how much she meant to me when I had the chance.”

“Yes, you should have,” Gordon said,
sipping his drink before adding, “You could have saved her a lot of pain if you
had. When y’all broke up, she was a wreck. I’d never seen her like that, and
all I could think about was hunting you down. I had dreams about putting a
bullet in you, just to show you how much you’d hurt my baby.”

Jaxon swallowed. “Wow, that’s intense
hatred.”

“Yes, it is.” He swirled the liquid in his
glass. “I’ve always been wrapped up in my career. I wasn’t the parent my girls
needed when they were growing up. I didn’t ask them about their day or show up
at their dance recitals. I didn’t have time for that.” He threw back the rest
of his drink and closed his eyes. “I always thought I’d have more time.”

Jaxon was stunned. The last thing he’d
expected was for Gordon to open up to him.

“But the years slipped away. In the blink
of an eye, they were all grown up. I wanted to go back, to make up for all the
years I lost. I guess I tried to hold on a little too tight. I tried to control
their lives, their choices, and they resented me for it.”

“Sela loves you,” Jaxon said, feeling the
surprising urge to ease his pain. “She knows how much you love her. It makes
her crazy that you don’t always support her decisions, but that doesn’t mean
you can’t start over, change things.”

“Do you know why I was so adamant about her
being a lawyer?”

“No.”

“For one, she was smart as hell. She always
got straight As without breaking a sweat.”

Jaxon smiled. “I wish I’d known her in
school. I could’ve used a tutor like that.”

Gordon covered his mouth with his hand
before pulling it away. “I wanted us to work side by side. I thought we could
get closer if we shared a passion for something, if we were working together
toward a common goal.”

Jaxon finally understood that Gordon’s
motives for refusing to support his daughter may not have been as ruthless as
he’d assumed. “Did you ever tell Sela how you felt?”

“I couldn’t.” He looked down and swiped a
piece of lint off his linen pants. “We didn’t have that kind of relationship. I
love my girls more than anything, but it’s not easy for me to say those words.
I didn’t grow up in a touchy-feely family. We never talked about feelings.”

“I understand. My family was the same way.”

Gordon met Jaxon’s eyes. “I’m sorry about
what happened to your father. I had no right to stand in judgement of what he
did. That’s not my place.”

“Thanks.” It was hard for Jaxon to admit
Gordon’s opinion mattered, but it did. “I appreciate that.”

Gordon shook his head, looking mystified.
“Don’t make me like you.”

Jaxon chuckled. That was the last thing
Gordon would ever want to admit. “I’m not expecting a miracle, but maybe
someday, when I’ve proven to you there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”

“Maybe,” Gordon conceded. “But you have a
long way to go.”

“Understood.” Jaxon swallowed. He had to
spit the words out before he choked on them. “I’d like to marry Sela.”

“Is that so?” Gordon leaned forward,
setting his glass on the table beside him. “What makes you think she wants to
marry you? You haven’t been back together more than a minute.”

Looking him in the eye, Jaxon said, “She
loves me. You know that as well as I do.”

Gordon took a deep breath, the muscle in
his jaw twitching. “I’d like to deny that, but I can’t. I see it when she looks
at you, the way she lights up when you’re around. I haven’t seen her look that
way in a long time, probably since she met you. But that light went out long
before you broke up with her a year ago. Her mama asked her one day what was
wrong, and she said you’d never love her the way she loved you, that you
weren’t capable.”

Jaxon wrapped his hands around the chair’s
armrests as the urge to defend himself came and went. “She was right. I wasn’t
capable then.”

“What’s changed?”

“I got help.” Jaxon had only talked to a
few people about his therapy, and he never thought he’d count Gordon among the
people he confided in. “I went into therapy, figured out why it was so hard for
me to love someone or let someone love me.”

Gordon looked at him a long time, obviously
trying to gauge whether he was being sincere. “And it’s helped?”

Jaxon swallowed his pride. “I’m sitting
here in front of you today, admitting that I made mistakes and asking your
forgiveness for hurting your daughter. I couldn’t have done that a year ago. My
ego wouldn’t have allowed me to, so yeah, I’d say it’s helped.”

“Maybe it has.”

Jaxon noted that Gordon hadn’t accepted his
apology, but he hadn’t really expected it to be that easy. Gordon was a
skeptic. Forgiveness would come with time, if at all. “I’ve told Sela I love
her, admitted my mistakes, and asked her forgiveness. If that doesn’t prove I’m
not the same man I was before, I don’t know what else I can do.”

“You’re doing it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re sitting here, talking to me like a
man, telling me why you think you’ve earned the right to love my daughter.
That’s all a father can ask for, Jaxon.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to give us
your blessing?” Jaxon held his breath, his heart sinking when Gordon’s wary
look made him think they were taking a step back. “I can’t promise I won’t make
a mistake or two in the future, but I’ll never run from them again. I’ll man up
and be the husband she deserves.” When Gordon still didn’t look convinced,
Jaxon said, “I’ll be her best friend, her rock.”

Gordon closed his eyes as a slight smile
curved his lips. “I guess that’s all I can ask.” Offering his hand, he said,
“You have my blessing.”

Fear ripped through Sela when she saw
her father and Jaxon step out of the gazebo. If her father had pulled Jaxon
aside to warn him off, Sela would never forgive him. She’d come there because
she wanted her parents to see how wonderful Jaxon was. She’d believed they were
making headway, but Jaxon’s grim expression had her second-guessing everything.

Without a word, Jaxon reached for her hand.
She thought he was going to lead her away from the group, or worse, tell her he
couldn’t see her anymore. Sela looked at her father, hoping she would get a
hint as to what was going on, but he had his poker face firmly in place.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

Jaxon sighed as he held her hand. Everyone
stopped talking, watching them intently. Andrea’s eyes zeroed in on her
husband, silently asking what was about to happen. Gordon just shook his head,
gesturing toward his daughter.

Jaxon said, “The first time you told me you
loved me, I felt like I was ten feet tall, but when I couldn’t say the words
back, I felt like a coward.”

Sela couldn’t believe Jaxon was airing
details of their relationship in front of her family. “Jax, we don’t have to do
this here.”

“Yes, I do.” He caught Kiki’s eye and
smiled when she gave him a thumb’s up. “I loved you so much I could barely
breathe when I looked at you. It scared the hell out of me. I thought if I
loved you that much after just a few months, what would it be like after fifty
years? How would I ever let you go when the time came?”

Sela didn’t know where he was going with
this or why he was saying these things in front of her family, but she was
determined to listen with her guard down and her heart open.

“I learned about love and loss when I was
too young to deal with it. I learned to equate love with pain. I didn’t know
anything else. Love had never been a positive experience for me.”

Holding his hands tighter, she said softly,
“I understand.” She sensed those were the only words he needed to hear.

“So when I met you, I was still equating
love with pain. I loved you so much, so I believed the pain would be unbearable
when you left me. So I pushed you away. I thought it would hurt less if I had
less time invested in the relationship.” He rolled his eyes. “Obviously I’m an
idiot.”

Sela could have sworn she saw her mother
swipe a tear from under her oversized sunglasses.

“I don’t want to live my life waiting for
the other shoe to drop anymore,” Jaxon said. “I want to believe in you and in
us.”

“I want that too,” Sela said, trying to
fight back the emotion welling up inside her. Her family wasn’t big on public
displays of emotion, so she wasn’t used to crying in front of them.

Jaxon dropped down on one knee as he
reached into his pocket, producing the same ring he’d presented to her days before.
“I know I’ll love you forever, Sela, and I want to believe you’re going to love
me forever.”

“I am.” She choked back a sob as she
covered her mouth with her hand. She no longer cared about the people
surrounding them or whether her tears made anyone else uncomfortable. The only
thing that mattered was the beautiful man kneeling before her, offering her his
heart.

“I know there will be obstacles, but we’re
strong enough to face them together. Nothing an no one can tear us apart,
unless we let them.”

Sela glanced at her father, who smiled and
winked. Was it possible that the two most important men in her life had called
a truce because of their love for her?

“If a person is incredibly lucky, they find
a love like ours once in a lifetime, Sela. Fate gave me another chance to get
this right, and I don’t want to waste another second. Please, say you’ll marry
me.”

Sela closed her eyes as tears rolled down
her cheeks. She savored the words she’d been waiting to hear for so long. The
last time, they’d been tainted by a lie, but this time she saw his actions were
prompted by his love for her, and that made forgiveness effortless. “Yes, Jax,
yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

With a whoop that made everyone laugh, he
jumped up and swept Sela off her feet, swinging her in a circle as he kissed
her.

“Thank you for giving me back my life,” he
whispered, setting her down gently as he touched his forehead to hers.

*   *   *

Sela was surprised when her father took her
hand and led her into the gazebo as soon as the excitement died down.

“I just wanted to have a little private
time with you,” he said, gesturing to the spot beside him on the rattan
loveseat.

Apprehensive about what he might say or do
to ruin her moment of happiness, she hesitated. “If you’re going to try to talk
me out of marrying Jaxon, you’re wasting your breath, Daddy. I love him—”

“I’m not.” He reached for her hand.
“Please, just trust me.”

Trust.
It
wasn’t a word she normally associated with her father. He’d never been the
first person she thought to call when she was in trouble because he was always
too busy with work to come to her rescue. Even when she’d been a stupid kid who
drank too much at a party, she’d hitched a ride with a friend’s parents instead
of calling her own.

They sat in silence for a minute before he
sighed, cutting into the quiet like a knife. “I know we’ve never been… close.”

The word seemed to pain him, but Sela
wondered if that was just wishful thinking on her part. Her hands traveled to
the wide gold band decorating her father’s tanned hand. Her parents hadn’t been
a good example of marriage. She had always thought that they’d only stayed
together because getting divorced would be too messy and expensive. She didn’t
want her marriage to be like that. At the end of their lives, she wanted to be
as in love with Jaxon as she was today.

“That’s not the way I wanted it. I was like
every other little girl. I wanted my daddy to be proud of me. I spent half my
life trying to make you proud.” She cleared her throat, trying to push the
words past the pain. “It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized the only person
I could please was myself.”

“You pleased me too,” he said, reaching for
her hand. “Whether or not that was your intent, you did.”

Sela looked at his hand covering hers.
Other than a perfunctory peck to thank her for a gift, her father had never
reached out to her. She wanted to tell him it was too late to mend their broken
fences, but she wasn’t ready to give up hope that they could have a
relationship. He was still her father. She loved him, in spite of the voice in
her head that told her her affection was wasted on him.

“I watched some of my friends and
associates struggle with their troubled teens. Those kids came from good
families. They had every advantage, no excuse to wander down the wrong path,
yet they did,” Gordon said.

“Why are you telling me this?” Her father
never told a story unless there was a point. He didn’t believe in small talk.

“I always thought how lucky I was that my
girls never got into that kind of trouble.” He squeezed her hand. “You always
had a good head on your shoulders. No drugs, alcohol, unplanned pregnancies.
You always made the dean’s list.”

Sela didn’t know why her father was
rehashing the past. She owned her accomplishments; they weren’t his to boast
about. “That was a lifetime ago. Why bring it up now?”

“Your sister was always the free spirit,”
he said with a smirk, as though there was nothing she could say or do to
silence him. “But you were the good girl. The smart one. I knew you were going
places.”

“I’ve carved my own path.” She watched his
thumb rub the back of her hand. “I’m happy and excited about the future. I
wouldn’t have felt that way if I’d pursued law.”

He perched his sunglasses on top of his
head so she could see his eyes. “I know that now. Your life wasn’t mine to
live. You have every right to make your own choices, and for what it’s worth,
I’m proud of you. I’m happy that you stood up to us, and pursued something you
love.”

Her breath got trapped in her throat as she
stared into his glistening eyes. Who was this man, and what he done with her
arrogant, opinionated, ornery father?

He chuckled as though he could read her
thoughts. “I know it’s hard to believe an old dog like me can change, but I
have.” He shrugged. “Maybe because I realize I’m not invincible. Just like
everyone else, the day will come when I have to answer to my Maker.”

Trepidation washed over her. In spite of
their differences, she wasn’t ready to lose her father. “Are you sick? Is that
why you’re telling me this now?”

“No,” he said, smiling as he patted her
hand. “I’m fine. Your mother’s fine. It’s just that today is a big day for you,
a turning point, and I want you to know that I approve of the direction your
life is taking.”

She bit back the urge to tell him she
didn’t need his approval, but he was trying to extend an olive branch, and she
didn’t have the heart to snap it. “You approve? Does that mean you approve of
me and Jaxon as well?” When his eyes shifted to the crowd around the pool, she
said, “Because he’s going to be my husband whether you like it or not. If you
want to have a relationship with me, I suggest you figure out a way to accept
him.” She was giving him an ultimatum, but instead of feeling empowered, she
felt vulnerable. She didn’t want to lose her family, but she couldn’t lose
Jaxon.

He met her eyes. “He and I talked earlier.
I think I understand him a little better than I did before.”

“Does that mean we have your blessing?”

Gordon chuckled. “Funny, you’re the second
person who’s asked me that today.”

Sela was stunned to learn Jaxon had reached
out to her father before he’d proposed to her. She’d never pegged him for a
traditional guy, but obviously he thought that eating a little crow was a small
price to pay if it meant he could help heal her relationship with her parents.
God, she loved that man. “Jaxon asked for your blessing?”

“He did.” Gordon nodded. “I thought that
took a lot of guts. I didn’t know he had it in him.”

Sela bristled. “You don’t know him then.
He’s a strong, courageous man who never backs down from a challenge. He’s been
through hell and never had anyone to support him until now. I’m going to be his
rock, just like he’ll be mine.” She was telling her father Jaxon was the only
one she needed in her corner, but she hoped he would realize there would always
be room for him too.

Gordon smiled. “That’s the best portrayal
of marriage I’ve heard in a long time.”

She couldn’t be certain he wasn’t
patronizing her, so she opted to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I’m not
entering into this lightly. I’ve considered what life with Jax would be like,
and I’ve experienced life without him. I don’t want to live without him. It’s
as simple as that. I can help him wrestle his demons. I can live with his
little idiosyncrasies. I just want to be his wife.”

“So long as you realize you can’t change
him. If he’s serious about changing, that’s his job, not yours.”

“Then you think he is capable of changing?”

“I think he already has,” Gordon said, his
eyes traveling to Jaxon, who was lounging by the pool chatting with Chad. “He’s
not the same man you brought home a couple of years ago. He’s different, more
mature. I think losing you changed him.”

Sela had never expected to hear her father
admit Jaxon was capable of change. Once he’d deemed someone unworthy, Gordon
rarely changed his mind. “I think so too.”

Gordon’s eyes traveled to the large diamond
sparkling on her left hand. “Almost losing you changed me too.”

She leaned into his shoulder. “I’ll always
be your daughter, no matter what happens. But the kind of relationship we have
now is up to you.”

He gently pushed her sunglasses up on her
head so he could see her eyes. “Since you seem so sure your fiancé is capable
of chance, maybe you could give your old man the same chance?”

“You want to prove to me that you’ve
changed?” Sela was shocked. She’d never expected to hear her father admit he
needed to change.

“Yes.” He kissed her forehead. “I know
you’re all grown up now and you don’t need your daddy to fight your battles for
you, but the way I see it, you can never have too many people who love and
support you.”

“So that means you’re willing to support my
marriage?” She needed to hear him say those words before she could agree to
give their relationship another chance.

“I’m willing to support whatever choices
you make.” His lips twisted as though he was wrestling with some inner turmoil.
“And I think…” He sighed, a body-wracking sound that sounded too dramatic. “
He
might actually be good for you.”

Sela grinned. “He brings out the best in
me. He makes me stronger. You’ll see.”

“As long as he encourages you to practice
forgiveness, especially where your hard-headed old man is concerned, he’s okay
in my books.”