The Father for Her Son Page 2

  “Troy, what are we going to do for money?” she’d asked. Her job working the cash register at a little deli barely had covered her own bills, and Troy hadn’t made much as a mechanic. “Babies are expensive.”

  “It’ll work out,” he’d said. “Something will turn up.” That had always been Troy’s philosophy in those days.

  Marlee had believed in that philosophy, too, and she’d trusted Troy to look after her. She’d begun to let herself get excited, looked forward to being a mom and wife—Mrs. Troy Denton.

  Then Troy had walked out the door and out of her life.

  When she hadn’t heard from him all the next day, she’d gone to his house in the evening to talk to him. His mother had met her at the door. Sue Denton had never been very friendly to Marlee, so the scowl on her face hadn’t been a surprise. But her words had been. “Troy ain’t coming back,” she’d said. “He made me promise not to tell you where to find him.” Then she’d shut the door in Marlee’s face.

  Marlee clutched her stomach now, feeling the same wrenching sickness she’d felt that horrible day at Troy’s mom’s. It hadn’t taken her long to discover what had happened to Troy. He had been arrested for taking part in a robbery in which a man had been shot.

  Marlee’s father had spent her whole life on the wrong side of the law. Frank Britton’s wrongdoings had hurt Marlee and her mom more than she could begin to describe. To know Troy was following in her father’s footsteps was the greatest betrayal she could imagine.

  But maybe that hurt would prove valuable now that Troy was back in her life. It would remind her to be on her guard. She didn’t want to risk losing Greg—or her own foolish heart—to him again.

  Just then, Greg looked up and spotted her. He grinned and waved, then raced for the slide at the end of the platform. Marlee met him in the hall outside his classroom. “Hi, Mom!” he called, and threw his arms around her.

  She returned the hug, then smoothed a lock of hair from his forehead. Greg had his father’s hair, thick and black and unruly. He looked up at her with his father’s eyes, the color of fudge and lively with intelligence. “How come you’re here early?” he asked.

  “Maybe I just wanted to see you.” She slipped her arm around his shoulders and they walked into the room side by side. “I got off a little early,” she said to Mrs. Ramirez, his teacher.

  “No, she wanted to see me,” Greg said. He raced for his locker.

  “Don’t forget your backpack,” Marlee called.

  “Here’s some information about our open house next week.” Mrs. Ramirez handed her a flyer. “We encourage all the parents to come. Grandparents, too.”

  Marlee nodded and stuffed the paper in her purse. She wouldn’t bother explaining to Mrs. Ramirez that Greg’s dad wouldn’t be coming to the open house. His grandparents wouldn’t, either. The teacher knew she was a single mom, but Marlee had deliberately kept other family details private, partly to avoid having Greg singled out as different. But it made her sad to think about their lack of family. And she didn’t have time for sadness. “Come on, Greg, let’s go.”

  On the drive home, Greg rattled on from the backseat about the fish in the aquarium at school and his friend Rachel’s new front tooth and the story Mrs. Ramirez had read. Marlee listened with half an ear and thought about the father-daughter dance the Girl Scouts had given when she was in the fifth grade. She’d been the only girl in her class without a father, or at least a grandfather or uncle, to attend.

  Plenty of mothers raise their children by themselves, she reminded herself. Things are different now than they were when I was a kid. She glanced in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Greg, his face animated as he relived the exciting moment when Rachel had succeeded in wiggling free her loose tooth. Marlee tried to be a good mother, but was that enough? Did Greg need a dad also?

  She hadn’t dated since Troy left. At first she’d been too busy trying to put food on the table and diapers in the cupboard. Later, she’d been too afraid of making the same mistake again. She’d convinced herself she was better off on her own.

  As she turned onto their street, Greg leaned forward in his seat. “Mom, who’s that at our house?”

  Marlee’s mouth went dry as she took in the gleaming chrome-and-black motorcycle parked at the curb. A black helmet rested on the saddle seat. Something moved in the shadows on the front steps and a familiar figure in a black leather jacket stepped into the light.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHO IS THAT, MOM?” Greg asked again, now leaning as far forward as his seat belt would allow.

  “A…a friend.” Marlee tried to keep her voice from shaking. Troy looked so out of place in front of the house. It was her house—her private sanctuary she never shared with anyone but Greg.

  Don’t let him get to you, she told herself as she parked the car in the driveway. Hear what he has to say and then he’ll go. This will be over with soon enough.

  Troy waited on the steps for them to get out of the car. He stood with his feet apart, thumbs hooked in his front pockets, like a gunfighter waiting to face an adversary at high noon. The arrogance of his stance annoyed Marlee.

  “Hello, Marlee. Hello, Greg.” Troy’s attention shifted to the boy. An expression of pure longing flashed across his face, quickly masked by a friendly, if cautious, smile.

  Greg looked at him quizzically. “How did you know my name?”

  Troy glanced at Marlee, a question in his eyes. She frowned and shook her head. He turned back to the boy, his smile slightly strained now. “Your mom told me.”

  “What’s your name?” Greg asked.

  Troy crouched down until he was level with his son. “I’m Troy.” He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Greg grinned and slid his small hand into Troy’s work-roughened palm. Marlee fought a sudden tightness in her throat and had to look away. But the image lingered in her mind of the man and the boy, like two figures carved from the same block of stone.

  “Is that your motorcycle?” Greg asked.

  Troy nodded. “She’s mine, all right.”

  “Would you take me for a ride?”

  “Greg!” Marlee scolded, horrified at the thought of her little boy on a motorcycle, much less with Troy.

  Troy chuckled and stood. “Not today. But maybe later I’ll let you sit on it with me.”

  “Wow! That’d be great!”

  “Greg, go inside and let me talk privately to Mr. Denton,” Marlee said.

  “Awwww, Mom!”

  “You heard me, young man. You can watch TV in the den for a while.”

  Greg gave Troy a pleading look, as if some instinct told him another male would take his side. “Better mind your mom,” Troy said.

  Greg shrugged, and headed for the house. Marlee waited until he was inside before she turned to the man beside her. “Troy, please. Don’t do this.”

  “I just want to talk, Marlee. To explain. Then if you still want me to leave, I will.”

  His words were humble, but his eyes held a challenge. You’re going to listen to me.

  Determined not to let him see how shaken she was, she started up the front steps, though she could still feel him watching her as she led the way into the house.

  She walked straight to the kitchen, where she dumped her purse on the counter. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked, taking a pitcher of tea out of the fridge.

  “Tea will be fine.” He sat down at the table and looked around. The rental house was small and old—not her dream home. She was saving for a better place, but in the meantime, she’d done her best to make this one comfortable. She’d decorated the room in country blue and white, complete with ruffled curtains on the windows and a wallpaper border of ribbon-trimmed geese. Troy’s masculinity was more overwhelming than ever in such surroundings.

  She set a glass of tea in front of him, then took a seat across the table. “Say what you’ve got to say, then leave.”

  He stared at the tabletop, his han
ds spread out flat in front of him. She studied his long, square-tipped fingers—mechanic’s fingers, crisscrossed with nicks and scars, strong enough to loosen stuck spark plugs or bend thick wire. But Marlee suddenly remembered how gentle those fingers could be, brushed across sensitive skin…

  She blinked, a blush warming her cheeks at the unwanted memories. Raising her eyes, she met Troy’s steady gaze. Her face grew hotter, and she feared he might read her thoughts.

  But he betrayed no emotion beyond grim determination. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  Marlee glanced toward the kitchen door, but there was no sign of Greg. The television blared reassuringly from the living room. “I didn’t think he needed to know.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was low, the words strained. “I ran out on you when you needed me most.” He curled his fingers into white-knuckled fists. “But you ran out on me, too. I think it’s time we called it even and did what’s best for Greg.”

  She flinched at the barely suppressed anger in his voice. Fine. He talked about doing what was best for Greg—why couldn’t he understand that she’d done what she had to do to protect her son? “Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why—when you had so much to lose?”

  “I did love you. I wanted a perfect life for us.” He pushed his chair abruptly away from the table, rattling the glasses and making her jump. “Then I went and screwed it up.”

  “You made a choice. You chose to break the law—to go after easy money. And it cost you everything. It cost us everything.” She remembered her anguish when she heard he’d been arrested. She’d thought he was a different kind of man. One she could trust. Learning the truth had broken her heart.

  He lowered his gaze, refusing to look at her. “I did my time. I paid my debt and I won’t do anything like that again.”

  He sounded sincere, but she’d heard that brand of sincerity before, from her own father, who broke every promise he made to go straight. “You say that now,” she stated. “But why should I believe it?”

  “Because whatever else I’ve done, I’ve never lied to you.” His voice and his expression were hard. “I’m not a liar.”

  “I didn’t think you were a thief, either.”

  Troy clenched his jaw, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the glass. Marlee sucked in a breath, a cold sliver of fear piercing her anger. But as she watched, he took a deep breath, and his shoulders relaxed.

  “I know I hurt you,” he said. “But I’m back now. And I’m going to make it up to you. I’ve never stopped thinking about you these seven years—wondering how you were doing. Wondering what the baby was like.”

  “He’s not a baby anymore.” It was a cruel thing to say, deliberately reminding him of what he’d missed. But she wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for the way he’d hurt her.

  “I’m going to take care of you now,” he said. “I’ve got it all planned out.”

  The Troy she’d known before had never planned anything. He took each day as it came. At the time, his laid-back approach had delighted her. But this man wasn’t laid-back in the least. He was all coiled tension. So certain and determined.

  But she could be determined, too. “Greg and I don’t need taking care of.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. He looked at her a long moment, as if searching for something in her expression. She wondered if she seemed different to him. She felt different—older, wiser, more self-sufficient and independent than she’d been years ago.

  His already determined expression hardened even more. “A boy needs a father.”

  “Not one who’s been in prison since before he was born!” Not a father like the one she’d grown up with.

  “I didn’t know my cousin was going to rob that liquor store,” Troy said.

  In those early days, Marlee had wanted to believe him. She’d somehow found the courage to go to the jail and visit him. She’d tried to stand by him despite her hurt and the fear that history was repeating itself. She’d worked so hard to make a life different from her mother’s, yet here she was, pledging herself to a man who might end up like her father.

  She’d remained strong until the end of the trial, when a jury found Troy guilty and sentenced him to prison. The evidence against him seemed so damning—how could he not have known what his cousin had planned? Troy admitted he’d approached his cousin about needing extra money for the baby—the fact that he’d broken the law for her somehow made the situation worse.

  She’d walked out of the courtroom that day intending to also walk away from the pain. She wouldn’t be the jailhouse widow her mother had been, and she refused to make her baby a convict’s child.

  “You knew the kind of man your cousin was,” she said now. “You made a choice. The wrong choice.”

  “I was stupid,” Troy said. “And I’ll never stop being sorry for what I put you through. Now that I’m out, I’m going to do right by you and Greg.”

  “My son isn’t going to grow up with a criminal for a father,” she insisted. “I want him to have a better life than I did.” Her father had seldom been around when she’d needed him, but his reputation had hung over the family like a black cloud. Everyone in their neighborhood knew Frank Britton, and they didn’t want their children playing with his.

  Her son shouldn’t have to deal with the stigma of a con—or even an ex-con—for a father.

  Troy slid out of the chair and stood. “I can’t change the past,” he said. “We’ve got to think about the future now, and what’s best for Greg.”

  Marlee stood, too, unwilling to give him the advantage of looming over her. “I won’t let you hurt him,” she said.

  “He’s my son. I have the right to see him.”

  Marlee froze at the words. “Is that a threat?” she asked.

  “I’ll do what I have to do,” he said. “I’ll take you to court if I need to.”

  The prospect of that kind of expense and the shame of having their history out in the open made her feel faint. “He doesn’t know anything about you,” she said. “What’s he going to think if you just drop into his life now after being gone so many years? How are you going to explain where you’ve been?”

  “We won’t tell him the whole story right away. It doesn’t matter where I’ve been, anyway. What matters is that I’m here now.”

  “No. You’ll confuse him.”

  “I’m his father!” His voice rose, sharp with anger. “How could you keep that from him?”

  She had no argument to combat that truth. No words that would make this situation—and Troy—go away.

  “You should get to know him first,” she said. “Then, when he’s more used to you, we can tell him.” Maybe.

  “I don’t like lying to him.”

  “And I won’t have him hurt by the truth.”

  He stood in front of her, towering over her. He was huge. The shoulders she’d so often rested her head on in the past now seemed more powerful, almost menacing. She missed the comfort she used to find in sharing her burdens with him. But she wasn’t that weak anymore. She didn’t need him.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. His grasp was heavy and warm; the heat seemed to travel down her arm to the rest of her body. “Do it for Greg,” he said.

  “I am thinking of Greg. He and I have a good life together. He’s happy. You’ll only upset him.”

  “A boy needs a father,” Troy insisted. “What are you going to do when he’s a teenager, asking about his father, and you have to tell him you sent me away? What will that do to him?”

  Marlee flinched. Was he right? Boys were different from girls, and already she worried Greg needed a male influence. One day, probably sooner rather than later, Greg would want to know about his father, the real story, not the reassurances that he didn’t have a father. He was still young enough to believe it, but as soon as he figured out biology, he’d realize a man had to have been involved.

  And here was Troy—refusing to give up or go away. He hadn’t said h
e’d make trouble if she didn’t let him see Greg, but the unspoken threat was there. She took a deep breath. “All right. But we’ll go slow. You can visit, but only if I’m here with you.” She looked him in the eye. “And you can’t tell him you’re his father. Not until I decide the time is right.”

  “I told you before—I’m not a liar. I won’t lie to my son.”

  “I’m not asking you to lie, just not tell the whole truth. Not until I’m sure he’s ready.”

  Anger flared in his eyes, but he quickly masked it. “If that’s the only way…”

  “It is.”

  He took a step back. “Mind if I show him my motorcycle?”

  Greg came tearing out of the den the minute Troy called his name. Marlee stayed on the front steps as Troy straddled the bike and helped Greg climb in front of him. Greg was all little-boy innocence, beaming with delight as he fiddled with controls and thumped his heels against the bike’s gas tank.

  An air of danger clung to Troy like the leather jacket that hugged his muscular back and shoulders. He stroked the gleaming machine the way a man might caress a beautiful woman—equal parts love, pride and possession. Marlee remembered again how his hands had stroked her with that same mastery.

  Greg said something that made Troy laugh, lighting his face with mirth. She gasped slightly and pressed one hand to her chest, as if to calm her rapid heartbeat. This was the Troy she’d missed, the laughing, handsome man she’d loved. It unnerved her to think he was still there inside this other man, the solemn fugitive who had betrayed her. It would be too easy to fall in love with this hidden Troy all over again.

  That love doesn’t exist anymore, she reminded herself. And she wasn’t about to rekindle it. She was strong enough now to resist that temptation. She wouldn’t allow him to break her heart twice.

  TROY OPENED the throttle wide and raced the motorcycle down the straightaway toward Lake Austin. The wind buffeted his helmet, almost drowning out the whine of the bike. If only he could drown out the voice in his head, the one that shouted he was a fool for coming back.