Loving Lies (20 page)

“Daddy has you, Son.” He rubbed at the little boy's fragile back, his big hands appearing large against such a tiny body. “It's okay, Son. Daddy has you.”

“Jessie.” Jazz knelt beside her, pushing back at her hair as she stared at Slade and his child. “Are you okay, Jessie? Your cheek is bleeding.”

She reached up, touched her cheek absently. She barely remembered the duck that had been unfortunate enough to be in her way as she dove in after the little boy. But it didn't hurt. Nothing could hurt enough to still the pain raging in her soul.

Slade's child.

He was rocking the baby, a tiny scrap of skinny arms and legs that gasped and gripped at the broad shoulders of the man holding him. His daddy.

He whimpered, “Daddy…I just wanted the duckie…” He coughed, strangling on water before his air pipes cleared again. “The duckie, Daddy…” Sobs were muted, the terror fading as his daddy rocked him, clutched him to him, whispering senseless, comforting “daddy” things into his ear.

“Jessie?” Jazz turned her face to him, his deep blue eyes compassionate. “Are you okay, sweet pea?”

She rose shakily to her feet, stumbling away from him, pushing at his hands as he tried to right her.

Slade's child, and he hadn't told her. He hadn't told her when he ran away with Amy, leaving Jessie to grieve, to ache, to pray for a miracle and a child that would ease her pain. He had given that child to Amy instead.

“Jessie.” Jazz's voice was soft, brimming with understanding. “Come here, girl. Let me make sure you're okay.”

Let him hold her there until Slade could breathe, could realize what had happened. Let him do as he had done in another fashion, save her for Slade. She shook her head, slapping at his hands as she moved away from him. She jerked her wrap from the deck, pulling it on, feeling the keys that rattled in the pocket.

She held her hand out in denial to Jazz as he reached for her again.

“No.” Her voice was raspy, the tears she held inside smothering her as she moved quickly past them all. “Just…no.”

She had to get away. She had to escape Slade and his buddies, the men who watched out for each other, no matter what. What was the pact? Jazz had told her once. The Three Musketeers thing? She couldn't remember, but as she raced for her car she didn't care.

He hadn't told her. He had left, letting her believe he loved another woman, that she wasn't mature enough, wasn't woman enough to hold him. And he had returned, hiding the truth from her, hiding the child from her. Why? Because he didn't trust her. Because he still saw her as that useless, immature child he obviously thought she was. A good fuck, but not good enough to trust. Not good enough to have his baby, despite his proclamation before.

She jabbed the key into the lock, her hands shaking so hard now it was all she could do to unlock the door. The interior was stifling, almost as smothering as the agony twisted inside her.

The sobs tore from her chest as she locked the door behind her, letting the heated recesses of the vehicle enclose her. She couldn't… Sob's ripped through as her vision became cloudy with her tears. What had she done?

Chapter Nineteen

 

Too stupid to live.

Jessie drove the car without a thought to where she was heading, her heart and her mind a morass of emotions, a shattered cauldron of the past and the present, dreams both broken and barely formed. She couldn't erase the memory from her mind of Slade's face as he held that child. Stark white, his eyes so dark they looked smoke-black, tears filling them, the whites bloodshot from the water and his horror.

His two hands had covered the child's back, it was so small. His chest heaving, strangled breaths filled with tears tearing from his chest as he continued to run his hands over his child's body, assuring himself he was okay. That no bones were broken. That he was breathing. That he was indeed safe. He was indeed alive.

The love she had glimpsed in Slade's face had been like a bolt of lightning ripping through her mind, ripping away the excuses she consoled herself with, and making her admit to her own failures, her own immaturity.

“It's okay, baby, Daddy has you. Daddy will take care of you…Daddy's got you, baby…”

Daddy. The love Slade felt for that child was clear in his voice, on his face. It twisted his expression into lines of horror and rage as he fought to force the water from the small lungs, begging God, praying for his life.

She didn't know what to do. Where to go. What to think or to feel.

She couldn't go to Jazz. The boys' club was intact, she had learned that the moment she realized Slade had returned. The son of a bitch had given her to Jazz, left another man to watch over her, to
protect
her as though she were a witless child.

Jazz and Zack were out of the question. Where did that leave her?

Her sisters lived states away and her mother was sunning on the beach in Florida. Where
she
should be, Jessie thought. She could be lying on the beach, soaking up the rays with no little men's club in sight. She could have had lovers, real lovers. Men who wanted her because she deserved to be wanted, not because they were a pseudo stand-in determined to save her nonexistent virtue for the bastard who left her for another woman.

No, not another woman. She knew better. Now.

He had left her for the child. Amy must have been pregnant when he married her, there was no other explanation. Slade would have never left a child of his to be raised by others, no matter what he had to give up for it. He would have sacrificed anything for that baby. And Jessie knew Amy. The other woman had been calculating, manipulative. A true bitch with a mean streak a mile long. Hell, she was just like her cousin, Clarissa, the principal from hell.

Another woman had borne the child Jessie had prayed for. It ripped through her, ripped inside her. The baby she had prayed to be carrying five years before, and Amy had borne it instead.

She wiped at the tears falling down her face, hating herself for crying, for hurting. For being so damned shocked. He
had
loved her. She had known then, just as she knew now. She hadn't been wrong about the emotion she had seen in Slade's eyes, in his face. Not then and not now. It was the reason she had given into him so easily when he returned to claim her. It was also the reason she had fought asking him why. Why had he left her? Why hadn't he explained how he could have loved her and walked away? Because she had known only one thing would force Slade to make such a decision.

He had been raised without a family, without security. Shuttled from one foster home to another nearly all his life, Slade had never known permanence, he had never known security. Zack had told her once that Slade had sworn he would never allow a child of his to live such a life. That he would not let his baby go without his name, or his protection. She had pushed aside the obvious message in what he was saying. She had ignored the lifeline he had thrown to her soul.

Just as she had ignored what her soul had tried to tell her from that first night. Slade wasn't like most men. His own personal desires or hungers would never dictate to his sense of responsibility or what he knew was right or wrong.

Take my heart with you, baby girl. It follows you…always…

It hadn't been a dream. That night in Jazz's RV, she had been certain she was dreaming that Slade touched her, that his voice had flowed around her, broken, filled with regret and love. She hadn't been dreaming, he had been there, his hands brushing back her hair, his lips caressing the tattoo, then the shell of her ear.

Take care of her, Jazz…
His voice had been ragged when he whispered those words.

The scattered words that had made no sense for the past five years now fell into place. She hadn't been able to make sense of the dream because it hadn't been a dream. Just as she hadn't been able to understand why she hadn't tried to love anyone else. For years she had drifted in this little pocket, staying in the center of Slade's friends, feeding from the smallest bit of information she heard about him. Her heart leaping when she heard he was coming home, her soul rousing in joy when she saw him again the first time. And through it all, she had refused to understand why he had left.

She had been too immature. Her own pain, her own desperation to feel Slade's arms around her again had been all that mattered. She had convinced herself he hadn't loved her yet she had never been able let him go. She had let herself believe he loved another woman, that he chose a woman who would fit into the life he obviously wanted better than she would. She had let herself believe she had failed him with her youth. It hadn't been her youth that had failed him. It had been something much deeper, much more important. She had failed to believe in him, when she had known to the bottom of her soul that Slade would not have betrayed her without paying the cost himself.

What had she done?

She guided the vehicle onto the main road, her hands curled around the wheel with desperate fingers. Slade hadn't failed her.

She had failed Slade.

 

 

 

Slade cradled Cody close to his chest as he found the strength in his weakened legs to straighten and watch as Jessie headed away from the parking lot. He had seen her face, the hollow shock, the blinding pain that had sent her running from him. God, he just couldn't stop hurting her, could he?

“I'm sorry, Daddy.” Cody sniffed against his chest, his thin little arms latched around his neck as he still shook in fear.

“Come on, little guy.” Slade's voice was rough, raw from the enraged howl that had torn free of his throat when he saw who Jessie carried in her arms from the murky waters as he pulled her to the surface. “Let's get you dry.”

He pressed Cody's head to his chest, moving quickly for the office building and Jazz's apartment on the main floor as Jazz and Zack flanked him. If it hadn't been for the opened deck doors they would have never heard Jessie's screams, or the hysterical terror in her voice. He could have lost his child and the woman he loved in the dark waters of that lake, and never known until it was too late.

“Cody, where's Gramma, baby?” He sat his son on the kitchen counter, pushing back the unruly dark brown hair as he gazed into the turquoise eyes still filled with tears and fear.

“Gramma said go here…” Cody whimpered. “To your office. I just wanted to pet the duckies first, Daddy.” He gazed imploringly back at his daddy. “I couldn't breathe, Daddy.” His eyes were still wild with terror.

Slade felt rage consume him. A blinding, overwhelming murderous rage as his head swung to Zack.

“I called the sheriff.” Zack's arms were crossed over his chest. “This was criminal, Slade. Let them deal with her. Never let the crazy bitch around him again. But you won't go after her yourself.”

Slade flattened his lips as Cody's sobs began to jerk his little body. God damn. He was just a baby. Too small for his age, all skinny arms and legs and big blue eyes. He was gasping for breath right now, on the edge of hyperventilation. Cody had suffered from it for years, his fears often throwing him into complete panic, even before Amy's death.

“Settle down, baby.” Slade took the towel from Jazz, wrapping it around Cody's shivering body and rubbing his hands over him firmly. “It's okay, little man. No blood, no tears. Remember? Are you bleeding?”

The words nearly choked him, ripped his heart from his body and left it bleeding on the floor. He shouldn't have to encourage his son to be strong, to fight the inability to breathe, to push back his fears.

“No blood…Daddy…” Cody hiccupped wildly.

“Then you're okay, right? Nothing to be scared of, little man. It's all okay now.”

Cody nodded fiercely against his chest, though it was still several moments before he could fight past the panic raging through his little body.

“That's a good boy,” Slade crooned.

Cody's breathing began to even out, the lessons his father had taught him for the past years taking over automatically. He had fought to teach his son, even at an early age, to think. To use his head, not his fears. Doing that now sucked.

Cody stared up at him trustingly, his eyes still swimming with tears but the beginning stages of hyperventilation were slowly easing.

“Grammy left you here, Cody?” Slade fought to keep his voice gentle. “Where was Grampa?”

“We was gonna buy ice creams and chips.” Cody's lower lip puckered out in a pout. “Grampa didn't want any. Gramma wanted to ask you something, but when you came out of the other door, she got really mad and wouldn't take me. She said you would take me, Daddy.”

Glenna had seen him leaving Jessie's apartment. Her spite and unreasonable anger toward Jessie and Slade over Amy's death had nearly killed his son. Sweet God, if it hadn't been for Jessie, for her quick thinking, Cody would have died.

Slade was a breath away from murder and he knew it. He had never, ever physically hurt a woman in his life, but Glenna Jennings was close, so fucking close to feeling his fingers around her throat that he feared he would leave her dead before he released her.

“Come on, Cody boy. How about we get you all dried up. I think Daddy needs a drink.” Jazz moved beside them slowly, holding his arms out for the boy as Slade fought back the fury building in his gut.

“Are you tirsty, Daddy?” The childish lisp was accompanied by innocent eyes slowly drying of tears.

“Yeah. Daddy's thirsty, little man.” He let Jazz lift him from the counter.

“We'll have to wash those clothes, little soldier,” Jazz boomed as he turned away, holding Cody high on his chest. “Good thing Uncle Jazz has friends with kids. We just might be able to find you some skivvies.”

The forced cheerfulness of Jazz's voice drove home to Slade the fact that he wasn't shaking alone. As Cody disappeared down the short hallway, Slade turned to Zack, the panic still beating like a runaway drum through his veins.