Back for Seconds (31 page)

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving him. He needs me.”

Xander sighed. “You’re always there for everyone else, Joely. Who’s there for you?”

Her eyes met his. “I guess that’d be you.”

He pulled her into his arms where she rested gratefully against his chest.

Mason Andrew Campbell was declared dead at 9:42 pm on December 30, 2013. Joely and Xander took Christopher home to Lillian’s house in Old Elmwood. All the kids made him feel at home, especially Hannah, who was so sad that one of her best friend’s daddies had died. She curled in his lap and he held her as he cried, missing both Mason and Lilah so much it made his heart feel like it might actually cave in.

The uphill climb got even steeper the next morning, when the Campbells’ lawyer told Christopher that Mason’s body was being transferred to Amarillo, where he would be buried in the family plot. “The family feels your presence at the service would be in exceptionally bad taste, given the circumstances.”

By the following Monday he was served papers that the Campbells were petitioning for full custody of Lilah, having taken out a restraining order against him because of his administering an illegal drug to a small child.

Not even an hour later Novanna stood facing off with her husband David in their home in west Abilene. “I’m going.”

“There are plenty of other lawyers in Amarillo. Why does it have to be you, Novi?”

“Because it does,” she snapped. How could they have been married for fifteen years and he not know this? It had been her duty to fight for civil rights whenever the occasion presented itself. She wasn’t going to let her new friend Christopher face these bigots on his own. He’d been through too much.

“You need to be here, fixing what is broken between us,” he told her. Their marriage had been on life support since she discovered Russell’s affair. She had completely shut him out, as if he had done anything wrong. He tried to tell her that it was Russell’s life and he didn’t want the job of policing it, which she argued was a cheap cop-out, that they both owed Joely the truth. The fact that he had known about the affair for months and didn’t tell anyone, even his own wife, was just guilt by association. He condoned it. He supported it. He had helped conceal it. And she still hadn’t been able to forgive him. She sure as hell hadn’t been able to trust him again, especially now that Jena’s friend Amy worked in his office.

“If we’re meant to last, we will,” she dismissed, putting him through yet another test without his even knowing it. “At least we’re both still alive.”

“You know, I think it’s ironic that you’d fight for someone else’s child when you won’t even consider starting a family of our own.”

Her eyes flashed to his. She said nothing further as she piled more clothes into the suitcase and left their home without saying another word.

She arrived at Lillian’s Place in time for the memorial that Lillian arranged for Mason. He was beloved by all at the restaurant, and everyone gathered to offer a brokenhearted goodbye, sharing stories through laughter and tears as they reminisced. By nightfall Christopher finally climbed into Novanna’s SUV, which was packed full of things to get them through the next few months. They both knew they were about to go to war, but both were determined. Christopher may have lost the love of his life, but he wasn’t going to lose their daughter too.

Since the restaurant had closed for the service, Lillian and Granny Faye took Nash and Hannah back to the house. Both Joely and Xander stayed behind to clean up. It was nearly ten before the last mournful volunteer left. Joely sank down into one of the booths and stared at the empty restaurant. Xander brought her a cup of tea and sat next to her.

“I remember when I first met Mason,” she said. She’d been crying all day but tears still managed to fall. “He was like this ray of light, sunshine top to bottom, with a smile for days. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Xander wrapped an arm around her and cuddled her close. “Me either,” he said softly. “It really does throw everything into focus, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. Their eyes met and held. “I lied to you, Xander,” she said at last. “When I told you I didn’t love you. I lied. I love you so much it hurts.”

He cupped her face with one hand. “I know,” he said with a smirk that made her chuckle in spite of herself. He caressed the curve of her face. “I never thought I’d love anyone the way I love you, Joely Morgan.” He rested his head on hers. “And I know why you lied.”

Her eyes widened. “You know?”

He nodded. “I figured it out when Kari kissed me on her birthday.”

Joely’s heart dropped. “What happened?”

“She thought that I had feelings for her and she acted on it. She had no idea that the reason I was there in her life at all was because of you. She still doesn’t know. I couldn’t put her through it any more than you could. Honestly it only made me love you more.”

“Is she okay?”

He offered a small shrugged. “As okay as anyone with a broken heart. You should know how that feels. You’ve been nursing one these last few weeks, same as me.”

The pain in his brown eyes touched her soul. She reached up to caress his face with one hand, which he turned into to kiss her palm softly. “Why does it have to be so complicated?” she sighed.

“Because life is complicated,” he answered, twisting a lock of hair in his fingers.

“So what do we do?” she whispered.

“We love each other while we can,” he said. His lips met hers at last. After all those weeks apart, she went up just like a Roman candle the minute he parted her lips with his tongue. Her arms circled around his neck, locking him tight in her embrace. “I want you, Joely,” he whispered against her mouth. “I want all of you. I want you. I want the kids. I want the whole complicated lot of it. All of the problems, all of the victories, every flaw and every mistake.”

“Xander,” she breathed as she clung to him, drowning in her own desire for him.

“Don’t tell me no,” he begged in a savage whisper. “Not now. It could all be gone tomorrow and I don’t think I could bear it if I lost you without loving you one last time.”

She shook her head as she looked deep into those eyes she loved so much. “I was just going to tell you to take me home.”

He growled against her as he kissed her again, deeper and harder this time. His hands ran liberally over her body, cupping her breast and squeezing it hard enough to make her groan. When he scooted out of the booth, he took her by the hand and pulled her behind him. They had a lot of time to make up. She followed him out the back door towards his car.

That was when they realized Kari’s car was parked right beside it. “Oh no,” Joely breathed as she darted back for the restaurant.

“Kari!” she called the minute she burst through the door. “Kari!”

Xander followed behind, calling out for her as well. “Kari!”

They hit every single light in the building. Finally Joely spotted her daughter, sitting on the floor behind the booth where she and Xander had been sitting. There were tears running down her face, indicating she had heard the entire conversation. Joely crashed down on her knees beside her. “Oh, honey.”

Xander raced up behind her and Kari’s tearful eyes met his. “So that’s why you couldn’t love me. You love her.”

He took a deep breath as he knelt down on the other side of her. “It wouldn’t have mattered either way, Kari,” he told her softly. “Love has no reason. It just happens. It just is.”

Kari turned to her mother. “And that was why you wouldn’t go back to Dad?”

Joely shook her head. “Your dad and I had been unhappy for a long, long time, baby. It’s not Jena’s fault. It’s not Xander’s fault. It was us. We didn’t work anymore.”

She glanced between her mother and Xander. “So how can you be sure this will work?”

Joely looked at Xander. “We can’t be. Not really.”

He took Joely’s hand in his. “But when you meet the right person, it’s worth the risk finding out.”

Joely turned to Kari. “The one thing I know for sure is that I love you, Kari. And I never want to do anything to hurt you. Ever. If you’re not all right with this…,” she started but then looked away quickly to hide her tears. She couldn’t say the words out loud. It would have killed her.

Kari looked up at Xander, who watched Joely closely, tears of his own brimming in those beautiful hazel eyes. She saw how tightly he held her mother’s hand, like he would have rather died than let her go. It reminded her instantly of Christopher, who had been so distraught to lose the person he loved most. That was the kind of love that Xander felt, and she had always known it deep down.

It was everything she had always dreamed he would feel… and it wasn’t for her. It was for her mother, the one person who had never abandoned her, who had always pushed her to be her best she could be, even when she hated her for it. Someone who had given everything she had to provide for her kids, barely missing a step when her husband had turned his back on her for someone new, someone even younger than Xander.

Suddenly she saw her through Xander’s eyes. No wonder he loved her. For the first time in her young life, Kari Elizabeth Morgan decided to do something for someone else, just because she knew it was the right thing to do, even if it hurt.

She placed her hand on theirs and squeezed tight. Both looked at her and she nodded through her tears. It was all the green light Xander needed. He swept them both into a powerful hug, alternately kissing Kari’s head and Joely’s mouth. He had gone around the world to find it, but he knew he was home at last. He wasn’t going to let either of them, any of them, any of it, go ever again.

For Joely it was the final piece of her puzzle. She didn’t have to wonder who she was anymore. She knew who she was. She was everything: a mother, a lover, a friend and a force.

She was a woman, one strong enough to finally embrace all the beautiful complexities that wonderful title involved.

END OF BOOK ONE

In the second book in Ginger Voight’s Lone Star Second Chances series, Novanna Barton-Lytle heads to Amarillo, Texas, to help Christopher Pruitt fight for his child against all the odds. Things take a turn for the worse when Lilah’s cancer returns while in her grandparents’ care. Chris finds solace and comfort through a handsome veteran doctor, whose fight to provide alternative health care for children bond the two men in ways neither of them see coming. It’s a fight both are committed to with everything they’ve got. This complex battle further strains Novanna’s relationship with her husband, David, who is left to his own devices during the long, lonely months without his wife while she’s off saving the world. In Abilene, Joely and Xander navigate their new relationship, which is fraught with all the complications that arise thanks to their age difference and her children. Will Kari ever trust enough to find love again? Or will she always harbor feelings for Xander Davy, the man her mother loves?

The saga continues in Ginger Voight’s upcoming book,
ROOM FOR SECONDS
, coming in 2015!

Ginger Voight is a screenwriter and bestselling author with more than twenty published titles in fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction works cover everything from travel to politics, while her works of fiction range from romance to the paranormal, as well as dark “ripped-from-the-headlines” topics, such as those featured in her book
Dirty Little Secrets
.

Ginger discovered her love for writing in the sixth grade, courtesy of a Halloween assignment. From then on, writing became a thing of solace, reflection, and security. When she found herself homeless in L.A. at the age of nineteen, she wrote her first novel in longhand on notebook paper while living out of her car.

In 1995, after she lost her nine-day-old son, she worked through her grief by writing the story that would eventually become
The Fullerton Family Saga
.
In 2011, she embarked on a new journey: to publish romance novels starring heroines who look like the average American woman. These “Rubenesque romances” have developed a following thanks to her bestselling
Groupie
series. Other titles, such as the highly-rated
Fierce
series,
tap into the American preoccupation with reality TV, giving her contemporary stories a current, pop-culture edge.

Ginger isn’t afraid to push the envelope with characters who are perfectly imperfect. Rich or poor, sweet or selfish, gay or straight, plus-size or svelte, her characters are beautifully flawed and three-dimensional. They populate her lavish fictional landscapes and teach us more about the real world in which we live, through their interactions with each other, and often through gut-wrenching angst. Ginger’s goal with every book is to give her readers a little bit more than they were expecting, with stories they’ll never forget.

For more, please visit
gingervoight.com
. Follow Ginger on Twitter (
twitter.com/gingervoight
) and “like” her author page on Facebook (
facebook.com/gingervoight
) for all the latest news on her public appearances and new releases.