Crossing Hathaway (20 page)

“Yeah, no problem.” My shoulders relaxed as I took a step toward the door.

“Strange he hasn’t called much in the last week. He must really be busy.”

I didn’t turn to look at him out of fear of what my face might show. “Yeah, must be.”
Busy doing the naked tango with me.

After spending a few minutes listening to Mom sob through the phone, ensuring I’d talk to Dad later that night, I picked up my toolkit and locked my laptop. When I turned, I found Jeremy and Paul staring at me from where they stood near the door.

Confused, I raised my palms. “What?”

Paul squinted at me. “You look different.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy added while his gaze roamed from my feet to my face, “you kind of look like a girl.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, I guess.” Avoiding their questioning gazes, I strode past them and headed to the quality department to fix their printer, hoping to avoid any more nosy questions.

The day passed in a blur of broken monitors, coffee spilled in keyboards, and the usual idiot user problems where the only real error was the one that existed between their ears. At four thirty, I returned to the twentieth floor to pick up my chauffeur for the night.

Brent sat at his desk. When his gaze landed on me, a bright grin ate up the bottom half of his face. “How was your day yesterday?”

“Shut up,” I said, though my annoyed smirk ruined the effect.

He bounded around his desk and hugged me, his silver bracelets jangling. After a few seconds, I pried him off.

“So…?” Brent raised an eyebrow at me.

I edged closer to Ben’s door. “So, what?”

“Get much sleep?” An exaggerated wink preceded Brent’s giggle.

I held my hand up. “I’m so not having this conversation with you. A proper lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

He snorted, bent over, and patted his hands against his thighs. “You’re about as close to being a proper lady as I am to being straight. Now spill it.”

His theatrics and insane energy made me laugh and shake my head. “Maybe later—if you’re good. I’m meeting my dad at a coffee shop tonight.”

“Oh.” Brent rubbed my arm, his amusement disappearing behind a solemn mask. “I hope everything’s okay.”

“Just ducky.” I smiled and hugged him before ducking into Ben’s office. He lounged on the black sofa with his head propped up on his arm, his shirt unbuttoned and gaping open to reveal my favorite playground.

The sight of him left me slack-jawed with the mental capacity of a bull moose in heat, and everything I’d intended to say evaporated.

“Good day at work?” he asked. “How did your talk with Cameron go?”

My gaze traveled a lazy path to his face. “I’m sorry?” I gave myself a mental shake and shouted at my crotch to stop with the twitching and drooling. “Did you say something?”

Ben snickered and unfastened another button one-handed, slid his hand inside, and rubbed his delicious feast of a stomach. “Come here.”

My feet carried me forward but the shouts of my voice of reason broke through our mating dance. I groaned and averted my eyes. “Nice try, Ben. You know damn well how it went with Cameron, and I’m still going to see Dad.”

He uttered a frustrated grunt. “Why does it have to be now? Why not next week, after—”

“I’ve been beaten and left for dead by Richard?” I fisted fingers into my hair and reined in my voice a little. “Because that’s what’ll happen if we don’t get him first.” Determined, I sat on the edge of the sofa as he pulled himself up to make room for me. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you come with me? I could use the moral support.”

Silence. Ben dropped his head forward.

Although I suspected he couldn’t help it, I was still disappointed. With a sigh, I walked to the door. “I’m ready to leave whenever your driver gets here. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait!”

My hand grasped the knob but I didn’t turn it. “Yeah?” The word came out sharper than I intended.

“I want to come with you, but…”

I glanced over my shoulder. Ben stared at me with sad eyes.

“You’re not ready. I get it.” Whirling around, I touched my lips to his. “It’s okay. I’ll see you later.”

“You’re still coming back here, right?”

I fidgeted with the buttons on his shirt. “I’m not going to promise, Ben. Who knows, my dad might need a place to crash.”

Ben held me against him with an iron grip. “I’m sorry about all of this, that I’ve put you in danger. It kills me.”

With fingers tangled in his hair, I stared deeply at him and found a sorrow that stabbed pain through my heart. I traced his upper lip with my tongue and drew it into my mouth before releasing him. “It’s not your fault Richard’s a sociopath.”

He nodded. “Hurry back.”

A half hour later, one of Ben’s guards, Eddy, let me out at the All Night Café around the corner from my apartment building. The scrawny man parked right in front to wait for me.

Dad sat on the stairs in his blue coveralls, his worn, green ball cap in his hands. His shoulders slumped forward, his stare downcast. Salt and pepper hair stood out all over his head as it always did after a day’s work at his garage.

I strode along the sidewalk and started up the steps toward the Café with its red and green neon casting a rainbow into the dark night. “Hey, Dad.”

He nodded without looking at me. “Who’s he?” He shoved a thumb at Eddy in the car. “And why is your face all done up like a tramp?”

“It’s not—” A bitter sound rushed past my lips, and I threw a hand up and stared into the sky until the rage drained enough for me to speak without screaming. “What do you want from me, Dad?”

He grunted. “Told ya. To talk.”

I leaned toward him and spoke in a gruff whisper. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t turn around and leave you sitting here on your sorry ass.”

His fingers gripped his hat and pulled it to his chest. “Your mother said she wouldn’t take me back until I told you … stuff.”

My heart plopped into my shoes, and I swallowed past the huge lump forming in my throat. “So you’re here to tell me why you hate me so much?”

His wide eyes fixed on me. “I don’t—” Like a guppy out of water, his mouth opened and closed a few times before he dropped his gaze. “I don’t hate you.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” I walked up the steps. “You have fifteen minutes. Let’s get this over with. I have somewhere I need to be.”

The door gave a jingle when I heaved it open. I met with a wall of stench, grease, sweet pastries, and stale coffee.
Yum
. A few people dotted the stools along the counter, and some of the booths were occupied. A Goth couple in the corner. A man with enough chains around his neck to sink him to the bottom of the ocean, who stuffed his face full of poutine. An Indian woman nattered away at three rambunctious children on their way to the washroom. The hum of conversation buzzed in my ears.

Dad came in after me, clearing his throat. “You in some kinda trouble?”

I plunked my butt down in a faded red vinyl booth and linked my fingers on the table. “Even if I was, it’s none of your damn business.”

He slid in on the opposite side of the sticky table and raised a finger to the waitress. His stained fingers picked at a loose thread on the front. “Your mother told me what you said when she gave you that letter, what you’ve been thinking about yourself.” His glance held unease, fear even. Good. “You read it yet?”

Yeah, like I’d tell him. “You have ten minutes left. What happened the night you went to tell Gram and Gramps about my adoption?”

Giving a slow blink, he nodded, lips turned down at the corners. “Your mother told you I couldn’t—it was my fault we couldn’t…” His stare darted to the window and back to a napkin he’d begun ripping to shreds.

“Yeah, and I was the consolation prize.” The words bit into my soul like a swarm of fire ants. I grabbed my own napkin from the dispenser and tore into it instead of him.

“No.” He rubbed his forehead with a shaking hand. “I mourned the child we couldn’t have for years. It damn near killed me.”

The waitress came with a pot of coffee but I waved her away and refocused on Dad. “Am I supposed to apologize for that?”

“No!” He stared forward and gestured with his hand. “When we got the call about you, it was like a second chance, as if that child was reborn.”

I blurted out a hysterical laugh. “You had a piss-poor way of showing your joy, Dad.”

“I went to see my folks to tell them how excited I was, that I was finally going to have the family I dreamed of, but only my dad was there.” Dad rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “He told me I shouldn’t get attached to you.”

My heart hurt at the pain in his eyes. “Why would he say that?”

He steadied his quivering chin, his chest heaving. “He said all adopted children eventually hate the ones who adopt them and search out their birth parents. He said if I thought it was hard to lose a child I’d never seen, try loving one for years and having her ripped away.” Tears dribbled from his eyes. “I-I just couldn’t bear that pain again.”

I leaned across the table, clasping his hands in mine. “You made Mom keep that letter from me, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “She kept trying to change my mind about it, and she took the blame so you wouldn’t hate me worse. I thought if you knew your birth mother didn’t want to give you up, you’d leave us for sure.”

I sat back, thoughts lost in chaos. My voice came out sounding soft and distant. “But—you treated me as though you never wanted me, made me feel useless and stupid. You’re telling me you did that to protect your own heart in the remote case that I someday might meet my birth mother?” I pressed fingers against my temples to ease the beginnings of a headache. Anger jacked up my voice. “That doesn’t make any sense, Dad. Even if my birth mother could have made some legal claim to me—which she couldn’t—she’s a stranger, and you and Mom were my family. And making me feel like shit my entire life wouldn’t exactly entice me to stay if leaving had been an option.”

“Your mother keeps telling me I’ve been a fool.”

“Do you believe her now?”

Dad looked away and pulled his hat down over his wild hair. “I’ve said my piece.” Shoulders hunched, he got up and went for the door.

“What?” I climbed to my feet, tears gathering against my lashes. “That’s it? No revelation that maybe you were wrong? That you’ve been a coward? No ‘I’m so sorry for making your life miserable, Evangeline’? There has to be more to this story you’re not telling me.”

Every eye in the room turned on me as he opened the door with a jingle, went out, and shut it behind him without sparing me so much as a glance.

I flopped down in the booth, avoiding the curious onlookers. Stupid rubberneckers. A sob bubbled up my throat and tears broke over the dam. I put my face in my hands, my chest aching from the pain in my heart. What he’d said made no sense to me. His father tells him to not get attached to me, and he just buys it lock stock? Just like that? No, there had to be something more. Dad wasn’t a stupid man to think I’d just up and leave them because I’d found out I’d been adopted.

After a few minutes, I wiped the wetness from my face and went outside into the chilled spring night. I stared up at the sky, wishing I could see the twinkle of stars beyond the light pollution of the city. Before descending the steps, I drew in the damp night air to calm me further. Movement across the street drew my gaze.

A man leaned against the lamppost. Familiar. Arrogant even in silhouette. Richard raised his hand in a wave. “Ticktock, Evangeline,” he shouted.

The muscles in my legs cramped and my heart jammed sideways in my throat.
Shit.
How had he known where I’d be? Was he following me? Uneasy and, if I had to admit, completely freaked out, I bolted down the steps and climbed into the car beside Ben’s guard.

“Everything all right, Ms. Ross?” Eddy asked.

I pinned my fingers between my legs so they wouldn’t shake. “Yeah, just fine.” For my own sake, I needed help to think it through. Richard had to have a weakness, and I knew just the person who might give me the epiphany I needed.

“I’ll take you back to Mr. Hathaway then.”

“No!” I reined in my voice. “There’s another stop we need to make first.”

With Eddy beside me, I knocked on the front door to Brent’s house.

He appeared a moment later in a robe, his platinum locks damp. “Eva!” His smile eased the tightness in my chest. He stepped out farther and peered at the security guard. “Oh hell, what’s happened?”

“Nothing really, but I need to talk to you. Nobody knows I’m here other than him, I promise.”

Although his shoulders hunched and his fingers fisted in his robe, he nodded and stepped aside.

Over my shoulder, I caught Eddy’s gaze. “I’ll be right back.”

He tipped his hat at me, a hearty smile on his face. “I’ll be here, ma’am.”

Brent led me into his red living room and sat on an ivory sofa. I sat next to him and stared at my friend with his knees drawn up to his chest. “You need to tell me what happened between you and Richard.”

His blond brows pressed together. “What? Now?”

“I’m running out of time, Brent. Richard was outside the coffee shop where I met my dad. Somehow he knows where I go and what I do, and it scares the hell out of me.”

He expelled a long sigh. “I’m mortified by the whole thing, and besides, he’ll kill me if he finds out I told you.” Caught in a shiver, he turned his head to face me, resting his ear against his knees.

“I’m certainly not going to tell him. Come on, please, Brent? I need your help to figure this out.”

A moment of silence passed before he hopped up from the couch. “Oh fine. But I need some wine to calm my nerves first—lots of it, like a whole magnum of Shiraz.” Was I the only one who knew nothing about wine? He went to the door, turned. “Shall I bring two glasses?”

“Yes, please. Just remember we have to go to work in the morning.”

A few minutes went by before Brent returned with a giant bottle of wine sporting a black label and two wide-mouth glasses. I held the glasses while he poured. We sipped in silence for a while—well, he gulped his down in seconds and poured another while I sipped mine. His hands trembled. The red liquid sloshed in his glass.