He recalled her greenish blue eyes, now focused on the water and the setting sun. They’d reflected sadness and empathy when she saw him for the first time today. Not the passion he’d foolishly hoped to see when he heard the muffled sound of her name through the solid wood of his front door.
Slowly, as if deep in thought, she moved away from the window and sat on the opposite end of the sectional. With long painted nails, she tapped out a cadence on the glass-topped cocktail table.
“Where exactly do you live?”
She reached for a pen and pad Gray had left in the middle of the table but said nothing. He met her gaze, gave her what he hoped would pass for a reassuring smile. As if she had to do it before she changed her mind, she scribbled an address and phone number on the paper.
Gray tensed. Why, if the prospect of letting him see his son made Andi uneasy, had she come here? Had she expected to find him whole, eight years older but basically the same man who’d fucked her brains out in another lifetime, while they’d watched the same sun disappear beneath the same watery horizon?
“Why did you tell me about our child now?”
She said nothing but stared out the window toward the water again.
When Gray had practically given up hope that she’d reply, she met his gaze. “This afternoon I found out you weren’t dead. That you’d come back. You have rights—”
“Stop.” Gray held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear about legalities. He needed to know—what? “Thank you for coming. I realize you could have kept this to yourself.”
Her expression turned solemn. “I couldn’t have kept quiet and lived with myself. You don’t have to do anything. I don’t expect anything from you. Brett and I have gotten along fine, just the two of us.”
“I want to. It’s just, hell, I don’t know.”
“This has to have come as a shock.”
“Definitely.” Now she probably thought he was trying to slither out of his responsibilities. Why couldn’t he get across what he was feeling? “A good kind of shock, though.”
“You’re certain?”
“Definitely. The best kind.” Except, maybe, her climbing all over him the minute he’d opened her door as though nothing had changed between them. Her hesitant smile made him want to reassure her. “I’m anxious to meet our son. I’m glad you chose to have him—and to tell me about him.”
“I’m glad I had him, too. Even though I never planned to be a single mom, I can’t imagine life without Brett. You’re going to love him.” Once Andi started talking, the words tumbled from her mouth.
He remembered her spirited monologue when they’d first met, when her focus had been on an interesting case she was prosecuting. Now it was on her son.
Their son. Suddenly anxious to diffuse the feelings that threatened to overcome him, Gray picked up the paper, glanced at the address. “This is not too far from where I grew up.”
She nodded, as if she remembered him mentioning that before. “Do you need directions?”
“I can find it.” Old Hyde Park, not too far from the bridge to
“We’ll be home all day. Come any time it’s convenient.”
He bristled, then made himself smile. The shrink had been right, telling him he’d have to get used to people going out of their way to accommodate him.
At least Andi didn’t cringe when she looked at him, the way some women did. That was something, though he wasn’t certain whether her acceptance of his altered appearance signaled genuine kindness or a good lawyer’s ability to mask reactions she didn’t want him to see.
“How about
?”
“Make it
. We’ll have lunch. I’m glad you came back. That you didn’t die the way they told me. I’m just sorry you’ve had to go through so much.” Andi stood and picked up her oversize handbag. “I’ve got to go now.”
After she left, Gray moved over by the window and watched the sun’s reflection on the water. What would his son be like? How would the boy feel about having a dad after being told all his life that his father was dead?
When he looked down at the bright plaid stadium blanket he’d thrown across his practically useless legs, he wanted to scream. Some fine excuse for a father he’d be.
* * * * *
When Gray pulled up in Andi’s driveway a little before
the next day, she was waiting on the porch. Her white shorts and the red print shirt she’d tied loosely beneath her breasts sent blood slamming into his cock the way it hadn’t for longer than he cared to remember. Andi Young was one hot package, too sexy for a guy who couldn’t walk by himself, never mind satisfy all a red-blooded woman’s carnal needs.
Anyway, he was here to meet his son. He winced at the sensations he felt when he lifted his legs from the car to the gravel driveway and locked the braces. The metal parts bit into the flesh on his thighs. Ironic, he thought, that he’d been left with the ability to feel pain when he couldn’t make his legs follow his brain’s commands.
It hurt like hell to stand and steady himself against the car with one hand while groping for his crutches with the other. Dragging himself along the sidewalk, Gray wondered—not for the first time—if it was worth the torture he suffered, using braces and crutches to create an illusion of mobility the wheelchair couldn’t match.
When Andi opened the screen door and stood back to let him in, he noticed her hands were shaking. “Come on in.”
“Where is Brett?”
“In the den, watching Saturday cartoons on TV. Come on inside, and I’ll call him.”
“Wait. I’d rather not have my son remember his first meeting with me as one that interrupted his time with the Road Runner.” He’d also prefer that his son not see him for the first time while he was dragging himself toward the first available chair, struggling with every step.
When he stepped inside, one crutch tip slid on the polished hardwood floor. He pitched forward, but caught himself in time to keep from sprawling on his face.
Andi grabbed his arm, as if she thought she’d be able to hold him up. “Sorry. The floor’s slippery. How can I help?”
“I’m okay.” He caught himself before he could say anything else that sounded as defensive as he felt.
“Then let’s go in the kitchen. We might as well have lunch now. Brett talked me into fixing him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an hour ago, so he’s not likely to want to eat again any time soon.”
Gray needed to sit before he fell. “All right,” he said as he followed Andi down a narrow hallway.
He lowered himself onto the straight chair Andi pulled away from a glass-topped kitchen table and unlocked the braces so he could bend his knees. While Andi took a dish from the refrigerator and set it in the microwave, he tried to will away the pain. Looking at her helped. A lot.
“Is lasagna okay?” she asked.
“Sounds good.”
Gray’s appetite had made a full recovery since he’d left the hospital. Looking at Andi and remembering how she’d begged him to fuck her after he’d cuffed her to her bed had him hard as stone, as if there were a chance in hell she’d invite him back into that bed.
“Gray?”
“I’m sorry.” Was her pussy as tight and wet as he remembered?
“Do you like Caesar salad?”
What he’d like was to fuck her. She had no right to look as good now as she had eight years ago, or to look at him as though she might want sex with him, too. “Yeah. Just set it in front of me, and I’ll eat it. I assume you’re still with the prosecutor’s office.”
She nodded. “I’m chief assistant to the state attorney now, probably because I’m the only one who’s stuck it out so long. Somehow I’ve resisted the urge to switch over to criminal defense.”
“Congratulations.” If any woman could succeed in the dog-eat-dog world of criminal law, Gray imagined it would be Andi. “I’m just about to start my own law career now. Hopefully I remember enough to avoid making a complete fool of myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Smiling, Andi reached into a cabinet and retrieved a box of croutons. “Tony mentioned that we’re likely going to be clashing with one another in court every now and then.”
Gray shrugged. “Criminal law seemed appropriate. The DEA gave me plenty of opportunity to understand the criminal mind. Not to mention the years I spent as a guest at the headquarters of a Colombian drug cartel.”
“Why not prosecution, then?” When she grinned, he noticed tiny lines that crinkled at the corners of her eyes.
“In my condition? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Not at all.”
Gray shook his head. “Unlike prosecutors, defense attorneys plan their outings to the jail, and they generally don’t trek out to crime scenes for firsthand looks at evidence. I’ll have law clerks and junior associates to do the grunt work, chase down witnesses, and so on. And private investigators to sniff out leads. Besides, my grandfather didn’t found the state attorney’s office.”
As though she hadn’t noticed before, she glanced at his legs. “Gray, I don’t know what to say.” Her eyes clouded over, her lower lip trembled.
“Don’t pity me. For God’s sake, don’t. I can’t stand it, not from my son’s mother.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “Pity? Why would I pity you? You’ve survived horrors I imagine would kill most people. You’ve stepped into a job with a top law firm. Besides, you’d probably survive quite nicely even if you decided to become a beach bum. I’d say you’re fairly lucky, on balance.”
Did she mean it? Gray saw no evidence to the contrary. “Speaking of money, I want to make things right, reimburse you for the child support I haven’t been paying all along.”
“I’ve been looking out for Brett all his life. I don’t want your money.” She set a plate down in front of him, not quite hard enough for it to bounce, then handed him a napkin wrapped around some silverware. Glaring, she set down her own plate and silverware and sat at the other side of the table.
“You’ll get it anyhow,” he muttered, making a mental note to see someone in the family law division of the firm and arrange to provide financially for his son.
Andi hardly ate a bite, but he wolfed down everything on his plate. The food tasted great, despite the tension he’d unwittingly caused by bringing up the subject of his son’s support. Gray enjoyed the sweetened iced tea, its contrast with the tangy flavors in the salad. Not so different from the conflicting emotions he read in her.
His meal finished, he watched her push food around on her plate. When she set her fork down, he cleared his throat. “That was good. Now tell me what’s on your mind?”
Andi looked at him the way he imagined she’d zero in on a juror. “As I said before, I don’t hold you responsible for Brett. I made the decision to have him, so he’s my responsibility. You aren’t obligated to do anything unless you want to.”
When he leaned forward to put those wants and fears into words, pain pierced the side of his head without warning. Nauseating in its intensity, the pain radiated from the mass of scar tissue beneath his eye patch. A reminder that there were activities beyond his ability to handle now. He reached up and rubbed the tortured flesh.
“Gray, are you all right?”
“No, damn it. I’m nowhere near all right, although they tell me this is about as good as I’m likely to get. I owe you the truth. I want my son. I want to be his father. I’m just not sure my being here’s what’s best for Brett.”
Chapter Three
“Look at me. I’m half blind. I can barely drag my legs around. A kid deserves a dad who can play ball with him, traipse around Disney World, take him fishing. I can’t. Not now. Probably not ever. Maybe Brett would be better off not knowing me.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
When her eyelids fluttered, he wondered if she was blinking back tears. God, but he hated that the strongest emotion he seemed to elicit from women was pity.
Still, he owed Andi the whole truth. “There’s something else. I’m in no condition to take responsibility for a kid. Pain hits me without warning, and sometimes I can’t function. If Brett were alone with me when it hits me the way it just did, he could…”
He closed his eye against the picture of an active boy being left to his own devices in all kinds of dangerous situations. “He could get hurt. It’s up to you, whether you want Brett to have me in his life.”
She reached over, took his hand. “You can give our son all the fathering he needs. No, you can’t run, and you can’t play rough games with him. You may need to have another adult around when he’s with you. But Brett needs his father, and there’s a lot you two can do together, including fishing. I bet you could manage Disney World, too, if you’d use a wheelchair the way you were doing last night.”
Gray hated that damn chair and all it stood for. Hated the way strangers stared when they saw him in it. “I don’t want him to think of me as a cripple.”
“He won’t if you don’t think of yourself that way.”
She’d always had a smart mouth. That was one of the first things he’d noticed about her. “I hope you’re right. I’ve got doubts, lots of them, but I’ll give being Brett’s dad the best I’ve got.”
“That’s all I can ask for.” She glanced at the clock above the stove. “Brett should be surfacing any minute now.”
“Did he know I was coming?”
Andi smiled. “Yes.”
“How’d he take the news that his old man isn’t dead after all?” When Gray tried to imagine a seven-year-old’s emotional reaction to that sort of a revelation, he came up blank.
“He looked awestruck. To be honest, I’m not sure he quite believed me. I’ve never talked a lot about you to him before.”
“Why not?”
Planting clenched fists against her hips, Andi glared at him. “Damn it, Gray, I thought you were dead. I filled him in on everything I knew about you, which wasn’t much. What good would it have done him to make an icon of the father I thought he never was going to know? It wasn’t as if he had your family to keep your memory alive.”
“Sorry. This coming back from the grave’s a little daunting.” More than a little. When Gray looked out the bay window at a small bike, it struck him. He’d missed so much. His son’s first step. His first wobbly ride on the two-wheeler.