Fixation (Magnetic Desires Book 3) (13 page)

Lola

"You’re finally awake?" Mellie dropped her book and got to her feet as I entered the living room. "Mike said you might need some help."

"What did he tell you?" I tried to hide my hands but she captured one and held it up to examine it. I winced as she gently prodded the bandage.  

"He told me you hurt yourself." Her keen gaze travelled up to lock with mine. "This was him wasn’t it? Tia’s father?"

My tongue sat thick in my mouth. "It wasn’t his fault."

She dropped my wrist and breezed past me into the kitchen. "How many times are you going to say that, Lolly?" Picking up a knife, she waved it in my direction. "You can’t let him anywhere near her. You realize that, don’t you?"

My heart ached. I hadn’t told him. The one thing he needed to know and I’d kept it from him, hoping things between us would get better. How was I supposed to tell him now? He hated me enough to punish me by taking her. Mellie made sandwiches and I plopped onto a stool. "I still haven’t told him."

"And you’re not going to." Cleaving the sandwiches in half, she glared at me.

Mellie’s mothering instinct was in full swing, and having her in my baby's corner gave me strength. "I don’t know."

She pushed the plate in front of me. "You can feed yourself, right?"

Nodding, I picked at the bread.

She poured coffee and rested her elbows on the bench, clutching her cup. I relaxed when she didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but the silence didn’t last. "He might have been a great guy when you were together back then. I don’t know. Your taste has never been that great. But this… you have to quit while you’re ahead, and you have to keep that girl of ours safe."

"I know." Discarding the plate, I wandered into the living room. Nausea ruined my desire to eat. Mellie wasn’t right. She couldn’t be.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" she asked as I plunked down on the couch and tucked my knees under my chin.

My head felt heavy. I wanted to shut my eyes and block out my life for however long it took to forget him. "I’m tired. I’ll probably fall asleep during it."

"No problem, I’ll pick." She browsed Mike’s DVD collection. "Are you happy here, Lolly?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, living here? Do you think we should start searching for a house together? I feel bad I couldn’t have you move in with me."

"I know it’s been a huge adjustment, my being back, and I didn’t blame you for wanting to have your own space. I should probably find my own place soon. We're probably driving Mike nuts."

"No. Mike adores having you here. He does better having people to take care of."

"Yeah, but it has to be weird doesn’t it?"

"Why?"

"You and he—"

The sound of a motorbike pulling up in front of the house distracted me. I’d woken to a screen full of missed calls and text messages, but I hadn’t listened or read them, leaving my phone by the bed. The bike sounded like his and my pulse sped a little faster at the idea. I didn’t know how he’d found out where I lived but I couldn’t have him here. The doorbell rang. "Shit."

Mellie glanced up at me from the DVD case she’d been reading. "Do you want me to get that?"

"Can’t we pretend we’re not home?" I folded into myself tighter.

She frowned, and I felt compelled to answer. "It’s him. It’s Leo."

"What do you think he wants?"

"I don’t know," I choked out. "Tia will be home soon. He can’t be here. What if he realizes? What if he wants to take her?"

Mellie slid the DVD back onto the shelf and patted my shoulder as she marched past. The doorbell rang again. "I've got this."

Craning my neck, I listened to them on the doorstep.

"What do you want?" Mellie growled.

"I just want to talk to your sister for a minute." He spoke softly, and I got up to move closer.

Mellie stood in the doorway her arms folded over her chest, her legs spread in a defiant stance. "I don’t think so."

"She's my wife." The snarl in his voice was broken, the harshness edged with pleading.

"Lola's my sister." Mellie stepped out onto the verandah and raised her voice. "And you better believe you’ll be getting divorce papers before the week is through. She’s not your fucking property to treat however you want."

I moved closer, wanting to go to him, to do what I could to ease the pain in his voice.

"I want to make sure she’s all right."

"She’ll be fine once she gets rid of you. My sister always did have lousy taste in men."

Not with him. My bad taste had ended with him. When he responded I couldn’t make out more than the murmur of his reply.  

"Fuck off, dickweed." I didn’t need to see Mellie to know she stood there with her middle finger raised in the air, glaring at him.

Slinking to the window, I watched him march back down the path. He glanced back, and I sobbed as I planted my feet firmly and refused to give in to the urge to go to him.

"Come away from the window, Lolly." Mellie wrapped her arm around me and pulled me back to the couch, taking a seat beside me. "Let the past lie."

That was the problem. My past had been full of lies. But what we’d had was the only truth I’d been certain of. It’d kept me going all these years. Without him, I wasn’t me. I was no more than a lost soul drifting through an empty life.

Leo

I stomped back down the driveway. She didn’t want to see me and I couldn’t blame her. After all, she’d been trying to tell me what had happened, and when I’d finally allowed her to open up, I threw it back in her face. My skin bristled as anger surged through me, making me want to lash out, but it was no longer directed at her.

"You’re a fucking idiot," I muttered to myself, and slammed my fist into the brick fence. Clasping my hand at the pain that shuddered through me, my anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. I had no one to blame but myself for this mess; not only these past few weeks with her but before that. It was my fault Brady had gotten his hooks into her again. It was my fault she’d been subjected to the man she feared most.

My knuckles were grazed and blood seeped through cracks in the skin but I hadn’t done much damage, not like I’d done to her. I fought down the nausea that rose at how I’d failed her. What else had she survived these past six years that I had no idea about?
How could I have been so stupid?
I’d told her I’d kill for her, and instead I’d left her unprotected. Instead of pushing her not to go to Brady, I should have listened to her when she had reservations about making him wait. She’d given in to me, that first day when I’d dragged her along to the courthouse. She’d married me because she loved me, not because of some sick game, as I’d led myself to believe over the years.

When she disappeared, I should have searched harder and never stopped until I found her.  I gave up on her when I should have been tearing the world apart looking for her.  Shoving my hand through my hair, I picked up my helmet.

"Leo?"

I glanced up to see Mike striding towards me, a small child skipping beside him. Her russet hair swung in two braids against her shoulders. She regarded my bike with a mixture of apprehension and excitement while she tugged on Mike’s arm and hurried him on, pointing at my motorcycle. "Uncle Mike, he only has two wheels."

He let her go, and she rushed forward to stand in front of me, her hands behind her back as she dragged her bottom lip beneath her teeth. She lifted her pale blue eyes to me, and a lump formed in my throat. If she’d been a photograph, she would have been in the albums my mother kept at the bottom of her bookcase. Part of me wanted to go straight to Mom’s house and immerse myself in those albums, drawing comparisons between the pictures of us as kids and the child who approached me, her final steps hesitant. She twisted to and fro at the hips, unable to hold her youthful energy in check, and smiled, the hint of dimples appearing in her cheeks. "Hello?"

"Hello." Speaking was almost impossible. I cleared my throat. "What’s your name?"

"Tia Barclay. What’s yours?"

I gulped, my heart skidding to a screeching halt. "Leo Barclay."

"We have the same last name." She beamed, her eyes round like a doll’s.

"W-we do," I agreed, frozen to the spot. Thoughts formed in broken fragments, rising up fast and petering out before I could grasp hold of them.

"Tia, can you go inside and see if your mom needs help with anything?" Mike patted her back, ushering her away before I could ask the questions I knew I would have once the shock wore off.  

"Is she? She’s my…" I couldn’t form a sentence. My brain had curdled at the revelation that I’d done more damage than I could have even known. My knees buckled and I leaned heavily against the bike. I’d get down on my knees and beg Mike for the information if I had to.

"Yeah." Mike folded his arms across his chest.

It was true. I had a daughter. I counted it out in my head, and on my fingers. "She’s five?"

"She is, about six months back." His jaw was clenched, his body angled between me and the house, blocking my path to my wife, my daughter.

I jumped up, but he planted his feet a little wider and leaned into my space, forcing me back.

"Lola didn’t tell me." Raising my palms to him, I hoped he would realize I wasn’t the threat he was treating me as.

"Are you surprised?" He raised an eyebrow. "You weren’t interested in listening to her. You were too busy hurting her, or was it seeking revenge for some misguided belief she betrayed you?"

"I didn’t mean…fuck." Slumping back, I scraped my hand over my face. "I didn’t mean to hurt her last night, not like that. Oh God, she’s not going to forgive me."

Mike relaxed. "I don’t think you meant to hurt her as bad as you did and neither does she, but she didn’t deserve any of it, Leo. You should have protected her from Brady. You knew about him and you left her with him for six fucking years."

"I tried to find her." Glaring, I scuffed my boot on the ground. It would be a long time before I stopped beating myself up over this, but hearing him say what I thought pushed the pain deeper. I appealed to the man who’d made it his place to protect my wife from pricks like me. "I have to make things right. For her, for my...daughter."

Mike shifted where he stood, his gaze boring into me, before he let out a breath. "When I first found Lola, when I first brought her home, she didn’t sleep. She had these nightmares. Even after she stopped waking up screaming, she still had them. Can you imagine how hard it was for her to dream of Brady every damn time she closed her eyes?"

"Shit." Shoving my hand through my hair, my gaze dove to my feet. I struggled to inhale. My organs seemed to be outside of me.

"You don’t know. None of us do. But how about this? Do you know when she stopped having them?"

His gaze was questioning, a small smirk tugging up one corner of his mouth as though he expected me to know the answer, but he didn’t give me time to tell him I had no fucking idea.

"She stopped having them the night of your brother’s engagement party."

The night I’d marked her and told her Mike wouldn’t want her after I was done with her. I’d been an asshole.

Mike cut through the memory. "You fucked up and she’s struggling right now. Seeing you is only going to make that harder. You need to give her some time."

"How much time?" It had already been too long. Too many years. Too much shit between us. I didn’t want to wait, not that I knew how to fix things between us. I’d already missed out on so much of my daughter's life.

"Go home. Wait. Lola will let you know when she’s ready to talk." Mike stepped back, and I swung my leg over the bike. I didn’t have a choice.

"And, one last thing." He trapped me in his steely gaze, making me feel like an insect he wanted to crush under his shoe. "I build houses with concrete slabs. The next time you think you might hurt her, remember that."

"I’ll deserve it." Yanking my helmet over my head, I pulled the visor down and kicked the bike to life before tearing away from the house.

Lola

"Mommy, guess what?" Tia came bounding into the room. "Guess what!"

I cringed. The timing of Leo’s visit and her excitement sent a cold shiver over my skin. I knew what she was going to tell me before she clambered up to perch on the arm of the couch. "What, baby?"  

"The man out there with Uncle Mike has the same last name as us."

Mellie snagged her from her perch. "Careful, princess, your mom’s a bit fragile at the moment. Why don’t you come in the kitchen with me and I’ll make you a snack."

"Okay, Auntie Mellie." She took the hand Mellie offered and followed her into the kitchen.

Laying my head on the arm of the couch, I listened to the clatter and cheerful conversation coming from the kitchen. If Tia knew her last name was the same as Leo’s, then so did he.

I’d wanted to tell him. Had planned to prepare them both, but now... I sat bolt upright and strained my ears for any sign he was barging his way up to the house to demand to spend time with his daughter, or worse. My head swam a little and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, blocking out the sounds I was listening for. Letting the air burst from my lungs, I drew in another breath. The rumble of his motorcycle had me up off the couch and crossing to the window.

Mike stood on the pavement, his head tilted in the direction Leo had ridden off in. Turning toward the house, he scrubbed his hand over his jaw and strode up the path.

I beat him to the front door. "Does he know?"

He nodded. "Yes, he knows."

"What happened? What did he say? Is he going to—"

"Slow down." Grasping my elbow, he led me back inside. "He’s not going to do anything."

"What do you mean he’s not going to do anything? He doesn’t want anything to do with his own daughter?"

"That’s not what I said."

"Then what?" Throwing my hands up, I winced as I collided with the wall. My universe centered around how Leo had reacted to Tia. He’d destroyed any hope I had for us, but if he ripped her away from me, I would have nothing left.

"Lola, calm down. Where’s Tia?"

"With Mellie in the kitchen. Talk to me."

"I convinced him to give you some time and told him you’d find him when you were ready to talk." He ushered me toward the kitchen. "We’ll talk more when we don’t have to worry about young ears hearing things you’re not ready to tell her yet."

Halting, I backed into his chest, and he steadied me with his hands to my elbows.

"How am I supposed to do that?" I squeaked.

A deep chuckle reverberated through his chest and he pushed me forward. "Later."

Stepping past me, he sauntered into the kitchen and ruffled Tia’s hair. "Have you got homework, princess?"

Hanging back, I watched my family as they went about everyday things. I’d longed for Tia to have this in her life, wished it with every fiber of my being. I’d missed the grumble of my father’s voice while he helped me with my homework. And how mother would set two chairs beside her while preparing dinner, so Mellie and I could peel carrots and potatoes, even when we’d been too young to manage it.

Leaning against the wall, I exhaled. Mellie glanced up at me from where she bent over the counter studying what Tia was doing. I wondered if she knew what I was thinking. Mike had said she didn’t speak to our parents, but I hadn’t questioned her about it. Had she chosen to leave, or had she too stood on the landing at the top of the stairs while our father paced in front of our mother and swore that one more incident and he’d kick her out of the house? I’d run to my room, packed a bag, and have been heading in the wrong direction ever since.

I could run now. Take Tia and leave. I thought I was done with running. Finally, we had a home, but I couldn’t trust Leo not to try and take my baby from me. The past few weeks had proven I didn’t know who he had become, if I had known him at all.

Mellie skirted the bench to grasp my wrist and pull me out of the kitchen while Mike settled next to Tia. "Don’t you dare even think about running away again."

"I wouldn’t—"

"You can’t fool me, little sister." Mellie ground out between her teeth the title she reserved for our most serious conversations. She’d come into the world three minutes before me and for some reason she liked to remind me of that when she believed she was right. "You’re thinking it, but you are not uprooting my niece and taking off. Tia loves it here and you…" she wagged her finger in my face, "...you finally have a life."

She was right. I couldn’t uproot Tia because I was scared of what Leo might do. I pulled her in for a hug. "I’m not going anywhere."

Satisfied, she stalked back into the kitchen. "I wouldn’t forgive you a second time."

As much as I wasn't surprised by her anger, even understood it, it set my teeth on edge. The walls closed in on me, my chest constricting until I could barely breathe. I’d known it would be hard to put my life back together, but I hadn’t been prepared for it to fall apart so spectacularly. Bolting from the house, the screen door banging behind, I took off up the path. No, I wasn’t going to run, but I was sure as hell going to take a long walk in the hopes of finding some peace.

***

My stomach grumbled as I made my way back to the house an hour later. The smell of roasting meat had scented the air, calling me back. I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter to my body as I climbed the stairs. Opening the door, I was greeted by a wall of heat that seeped into my chilled skin. I shucked my shoes and wandered toward the noise in the kitchen. Mellie glanced up and gave me a tight smile but the tension in her shoulders had melted. Mike manhandled a joint of meat on to a chopping board and began to carve it. "Tia’s washing up for dinner. Are you okay?"

I nodded and took a seat at the counter. "It all got to be too much."

"You don’t have to worry about Leo. He’s not going to try and take her away from you. He just...wants to get to know her." Mike pushed the meat onto a platter.

I picked at the cuticles around my nails. "Good."

Mellie picked up the platter and headed into the dining room, leaving us alone.

Mike scooped vegetables from a pan into a dish. "Mellie doesn’t like it does she? That you’re thinking about letting him in."

"No." I checked the tape on my palms. "She’s worried."
He’ll hurt Tia.

Leaning over the counter, he forced my chin up with his fingers. "He won’t hurt her, you know."

"I know." I worried the inside of my lip with my teeth.

Mike went back to fixing dinner, pouring gravy into a boat. "So… he’s going to wait, until you tell him he can see her. But, I wouldn’t wait too long. He won’t stay away forever."

"Just until I can work out how to tell Tia." Pushing off the stool, I followed Mike into the dining room where Mellie and Tia waited for us.

No, I wouldn’t give him any reason to take her away from me, but telling her she had a father and that he wanted to be part of her life wasn’t going to be easy.