Barefoot in the Sand (18 page)

“What upsets me is the ideas that are being planted in Ashley’s brain. Ideas that will never happen.”

“You never know what’s going to happen.”

“But I know what
isn’t
going to happen: You and I are
not getting back together to live happily ever after as Ashley Armstrong’s married parents.”

“Married?” he choked softly. “You know I don’t believe in marriage.”

Oh, yes. That she knew for sure and certain. “I know you don’t believe in marriage,” she replied. “I think that’s why we’re in this situation to begin with. I
do
believe in marriage.”

“Then why aren’t you married?”

She should have seen that coming. “Because I haven’t met a man I think would be an ideal partner, a perfect father to Ashley, and a great husband.”

He finished an apple and put it on her cutting board, the sweet smell making her want a bite of one of her slices. “Maybe you’ve already found that man.”

She looked up at him. “Clay?”

He let out a sharp laugh. “I meant me.”

“You?” A thousand responses warred for air time, but she glommed on to the easiest one. “You just said you don’t believe in marriage.”

“And you think that twenty-something longhair with a tattoo does?”

“Now you sound like a parent.”

“Well, I am a parent, and my daughter’s well-being is at stake.”

What was he saying? “You think Clay could hurt her?”

“I think Clay could hurt you. It’s obvious what he wants, drawing naked pictures, bringing beer over to your house, rolling around on the hammock.”

It was so obvious she couldn’t argue the point. “He’s going to work for me. He’s doing the work pro bono.”

“Oh, he’ll get paid all right.”

She turned to him, lifting the knife from the apple just
enough to make her point. “Watch it,” she said. “You’re over the line.”

He held up both hands and took a step back. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just jealous.”

Jealous? “All right, then, color me confused. I mean, how can you be jealous? Why? You’ve been gone for a lifetime. Suddenly you care who I’m involved with? About Ashley’s well-being?”

“I’ve always cared about Ashley’s well-being.”

She focused on the blade, sliding it through the apple and letting it thunk to the board. “Then you had a lousy way of showing it,” she said. “Or are we supposed to just erase the years, like your absence didn’t hurt her?”

There was no answer from him as he worked his magic on one more apple, flipping the fruit like a seasoned pro baseball player handling the game ball.

“I screwed up,” he finally said.

The apology didn’t feel good, but it didn’t hurt, either. In fact, when Lacey looked up at him, met the eyes that had once melted her, she felt… nothing at all.

Well, maybe a little relief
because
she felt nothing. But she wasn’t inclined to let him off the hook that easily.

“Yes, you screwed up, David. There were too many Christmases and birthdays with not even a phone call.”

“But I could make it up to you,” he said. “If you’d let me.”

“No, thanks.”

“Lacey, I screwed up the past. Let me change our future.”

“
We
don’t have a future,” she said. “There is no ‘our’ in our future, David. There is a daughter, yes, and I have never, ever tried to deny you the opportunity to know her. Not doing so has been your choice.”

“I know—”

“From the beginning,” she interjected, dark emotions building inside of her, words she’d wanted to say for years finally getting a voice. “You made that choice from the day I told you I was pregnant, as I recall.”

Again, silence.

“And we both know what you wanted me to do.”
Take care of it, Lace. It’s legal
. She could still hear his voice.

“That would have been a grievous error,” he said.

“No shit, Sherlock.” She spat the cliché, not caring if it made her sound more like Ashley than a rational adult.

“And you’ve done a marvelous job with her.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she said. “I’ve done all I could and it hasn’t been easy.”

“She’s a lovely young lady.”

Lacey snorted softly. “Most of the time, yes. But she’s also a teenage hormone factory at the moment, given to drama and self-absorption. More than anything, she’s a girl searching to fill a great big hole in her life that happens when you are raised by a single parent.”

“Which brings us right back to why I’m here.”

Suddenly she suspected she knew exactly why he was there. “Is it possible, David, that you’re here to fill a hole in your life, not hers?”

“Anything’s possible, Lace,” he said as gave her the last apple, then nudged her out of the way. “Let me.” He took the knife, gave his shoulders a little flex and started slicing like a human food processor.

“Holy shit,” Lacey murmured, rearing back in surprise. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

He grinned at her. “All over the world.”

She leaned over, propped her chin on her elbows, and
watched him work, unable to hide her admiration. David Fox was once the man of her dreams and she’d loved him with everything she had.

And he’d crushed that love with a hiking boot.

But the act of baking late at night, talking and sharing and not being alone, the comfort of it, pulled at her heart. Not that she wanted David Fox to fill that role, but, Lord, she wanted someone.

And her most recent find had just hours ago admitted that he’d been so burned by love he only wanted sex.
Lacey, girl, you sure can pick ’em
.

“I’ll start the compote,” she said, pushing off to grab a bowl and the sugar.

“You know, Lacey,” he said, letting her take over and start sugaring the apples. “One of the reasons I’m here is because I had an epiphany a while ago.”

She looked up from the bowl, some sugary apples slipping through her fingers. “An epiphany?”

He leaned back against the edge of the counter, crossing his arms, his expression distant. “I was in Bolivia hiking the salt flats. We left late in the day and ended up having to spend the night in this little village, if you can even call it that, across the border in Chile. There was no hotel, no nothing. We stayed with locals, in a hut. They cooked the most amazing food, and the stars that night? You’ve never seen anything like it.”

No, she hadn’t, and probably never would. Bolivia held no interest for her. Which was why they were so wrong for each other.

“The next morning,” he continued, “just before sunrise, I saw the woman who lived in our hut—a girl, really, barely twenty—outside nursing her baby.” He gave her an
expectant stare, like she should react to the monumental power of his story.

She didn’t. “And?”

“The moment was suspended in time, like God’s tableau. A young mother, her black hair falling over her face, her breast giving sustenance to an infant who clung to her with two tiny hands.” He held up his own hands as though clutching a breast, which struck her as melodramatic and bizarre, but Lacey just listened.

“And it hit me, Lacey. This girl was just about your age when you had Ashley. That thought just speared me in the gut like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

She layered the apple mixture over the baking pan, furious that her hands shook a little. But how could they not? It had taken him fourteen years to figure all this out?

“What exactly got you, David? The fact that you ditched me for sheep in Argentina or the fact that the last time you saw your own daughter she was a year old?”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her from the apples to face him. “The raw power of procreation.”

She wiggled out of his touch, an old fury bubbling up.
Little late to figure that out, Daddio
. “It is powerful.”

“No, no, Lacey, it’s
everything
. It’s all that matters. It’s the reason we are alive, not to see the seven or seven
ty
wonders of the world. Every single person on this earth is a wonder, and what we need to do—what
I
need to do—is… is…” He balled up his fists like he was grabbing something. “Seize the life we made. That’s why I came here.”

“To seize Ashley?” Her heart skipped. “You can’t take her.”

“I don’t want to take her, Lace,” he assured her, putting his hands on her shoulders again, too tight for her to
escape. “I want to be with her, near her, to have a father-daughter relationship with her. You never said I couldn’t.”

No, she hadn’t. But she never thought there was a remote possibility of it happening, either.

“When I looked at that young mother, so connected and alive because of the life she created, I knew that what I’m doing with my life is meaningless. Even the chef’s work, which I love, doesn’t fill a hole in me. Everything is meaningless without that connection to another human that is part of you.”

“I was just thinking that,” she admitted. “Although not quite so eloquently.”

“Of course you were, because family
is all there is
, Lacey.” He pounded his fist on the counter with each word, making the pronouncement like he’d invented the concept. “Nothing else matters. Nothing.”

So now he wanted her family? No, not happening. “Family is important,” she said, choosing each word carefully. “So why don’t you go see yours in New York? They matter, too.”
Plus, added benefit, they’re a thousand miles away
.

He gripped her shoulders again, doing his damnedest to inch her closer. “Anyway, I’m not talking about that family. I’m talking about our family.”

Our
. That word again. “We don’t have a family, David. We have a child and two separate lives.”

“But why?”

“Why?” Was he serious? “Because you had to go to Patagonia. And Namibia. And Botswana. And—”

“Shhh.” He put his fingers over her lips, another intimate breach of personal space.

“Don’t shush me,” she ordered.
And don’t touch lips that hours ago were kissing another man
.

“Then don’t say things that don’t matter anymore. I went. I’m done. I’m back. Why can’t it be that simple?”

“Because it isn’t simple at all. For one thing, you can’t come ‘back’ to a place where you’ve never lived or spent more than a week. This is my home, not yours. And she’s…”
My daughter
.

But she couldn’t say that. She was his daughter, too. Biologically, anyway.

“I had another epiphany in that little village, watching that girl.”

Watching that girl’s breast, more likely. “Which was?”

“I’m still in love with you.” His voice was husky. “In fact I never stopped—”

“Well, stop now.” She put up both hands in the international sign for shut-the-hell-up. “You aren’t in love with me. You don’t even know me anymore.”

He gave her a patient smile. “And I’m here to rectify that. And I know this: I loved you once.” The words, a direct hit at her heart, left her speechless. “And I think—I
think
—I could love you again.”

She stared at him. He reached for her, but she grabbed the baking sheet and whipped around to the oven.

He was next to her in a second, opening the oven door for her. “I believe that deep down, in your heart of hearts, you feel the same.”

She stuffed the sheet onto the rack. “Then you’d be wrong.”

“Now I am, maybe. But if I’m here long enough, you might change your mind.”

How he could he not get this? She felt nothing for him. But there was no way to convince him of that right
now. Instead, she closed the oven door and stepped away from him.

“However long you’re here, David, I don’t want you to make promises to Ashley. Do you understand? I will not have her getting hurt.”

“And what about promises to you?”

“You can’t hurt me anymore, David,” she said simply. “But I admit you can annoy the hell out of me.”

“That’s a start.”

How could he be so dense? No, he wasn’t dense. He was David. And he’d never had any trouble with her in the past; she’d gone along with his every idea except that she terminate her pregnancy. That one, thank God, she’d stood her ground on.

And she would with this, too.

“Look, this is my life and my family and my dreams, and, I’m sorry, but you are fourteen years too late and not invited to be part of it. Can I make myself any clearer,
Fox
?”

“You’re clear,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Perhaps you’re forgetting how I love a challenge. I live for a challenge. I can climb Kilimanjaro and I can change your mind.”

No, he couldn’t. She started to wipe the counter with long, sure swipes. “I’m going to read while the dough chills and these apples cook.”

“We could watch the movie,” he suggested.

No, they couldn’t. “I’ll pass. You should go to bed. Surely you have jet lag or something.”

He just laughed. “All right. But I have to tell you one more thing because I believe in total honesty and having all my cards showing.”