Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel (42 page)

Belinda. The caller ID said
BELINDA
. “Hello?”

“I have her, Carter. She came here.”

He ran out the door and sped to Belinda’s house, his heart pounding out of his chest. Ruby had left him. She had walked out on him at night. All the crazy possibilities had run through his head, all the things that could have happened to her on her short three-block trip to Belinda’s house, and he knew he couldn’t blame anybody else for any of them. This was his fault. He made his little girl run away.

The door opened as soon as he pulled into her driveway. He jumped out of the car and ran up to Belinda. For a moment he just stared. Her skin was pale, her eyes were red. Her face was splotchy. He had done this to her. He had hurt her.

“She’s on the couch.”

She stepped aside, letting him in to see that his daughter was okay. She was sound asleep. Curled up in a little ball, her hand tucked beneath her chin. His heart almost exploded in that moment.

He had to touch her, to make sure she was real, and there, and okay. She didn’t stir. She had to be exhausted. She looked as weary as he felt.

“She looks so peaceful. I don’t want to move her.”

“Can I keep her tonight, Carter? Please. It’s been a week. I miss her. I need to see her.”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He looked up at her and saw the tears swimming in her eyes. “Of course you can keep her.”

He dropped to his knees before her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and buried his face in her stomach.

“We have to do something about this, Carter. This is serious. She ran away. She could have been hurt. Anything could have happened to her.”

“I know. It’s my fault. I’m sorry, Bell. I’m sorry. I know you love her. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. I was an asshole. Come home. Please come home.”

She was silent for a long time. He looked up at her ready to repeat his plea, but she opened her mouth. “I can’t. I’ll come and get her in the afternoons. You can pick her up at my store.”

“Okay,” he agreed even though he didn’t want to. But if he wanted her back he was just going to have to give her some space.

*   *   *

A month had gone by. Summer arrived and with it school came to an end. Carter had kept his promise to Belinda. He had let her take Ruby in the afternoons, and now that school was over she spent three days a week at camp and the other two with Belinda.

“I’m going to go to a sleepover this weekend.” Ruby told her. They were snuggled together on the couch in her office at Size Me Up. Business had slowed down at the store a bit and she was able to spend a lot of time with Ruby during the days she had her.

She would help her hang up clothes and put out shoes and even though most of the time she wasn’t very helpful, Belinda enjoyed having her in the store. Truthfully, sitting with her and doing nothing was her favorite way to spend their time together.

“A sleepover? How exciting! Are you going to gab about boys and eat popcorn and slow dance with each other?”

“What? No. We are going to play Just Dance on the Wii and listen to Justin Bieber songs.”

Belinda sighed. “Oh, Bieber. How have you brainwashed this generation with your crappy pop songs. Now, the Backstreet Boys … They were a great boy band. I still have their first album.”

Ruby frowned at her. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Belinda.”

“I know, baby. You’re five.”

“Hey, Ruby.” Ellis walked into her office. “Your daddy is here.”

“Oh.” The disappointment was clear in her face. It mirrored Belinda’s own.

“Good-bye, baby doll.” She lifted herself off the couch, Ruby still in her arms, and squeezed the girl tightly. “I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to wait to see me. You could come home with me and Daddy tonight. We could have dinner and watch TV like we used to.”

The invitation as sweet as it was also was like a hot knife in her gut. It was hard to let Ruby go over and over again. It couldn’t go on like this forever. It wasn’t fair to Ruby.

“I’m sorry, kid, but I can’t come over for dinner.”

“Maybe another time?”

She couldn’t tell her that that wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t want to crush her hope. “Maybe another time.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Belinda.”

“For what?”

“For running into the parking lot. For Daddy being mean to you and sending you away.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Ruby. You have to stop thinking that. You have to stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t make him send me away.”

“I’m still sorry.” She kissed Belinda’s cheek and wiggled out of her arms. Then she was gone, off to spend the rest of the night with her father.

“Belinda,” Ellis said softly. She had just witnessed the whole thing, but without speaking. Belinda didn’t think she could take it if she had. She came and wrapped her arms around her, and that’s all it took for the tears to come.

“Bell…” She didn’t know when Carter walked in, but his arms replaced Ellis’s and soon she was crying into his chest. She didn’t miss him any less as time went by. She missed him more. She hurt more. “I love you. I’m sorry, you know I am. Just come back.”

She looked up at him, unable to speak, just shaking her head because words were too hard.

“I know I was wrong. I know I was an asshole. I know you should be mad at me.” She saw anger flash in his eyes. “But you are taking this too far. I was in a bad place. You have to understand that. But you won’t even let me make it up to you, because it’s always easier for you to just run. I love you. I want you in my life and in my home. I want you to be the mother of my child, my children. And I’m sorry I hurt you. All I can promise you is that I’ll try to be a better man. I’ll try to be a man who deserves you, but you’ve got to meet me halfway.” He took a step away from her.

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can do this anymore. I’m not going to let Ruby keep getting hurt by us. I’m not going to watch her heart get broken every other day just because you can’t forgive me. I’m going to have to walk away this time. For good. I can’t keep on seeing my kid so hurt.”

*   *   *

“Hey, Lancaster!” he heard behind him. “Hey, dumb-ass!” Ellis caught up to him, grabbing his arm and forcing him around. “What the hell is your problem? You go and break her heart, not once but twice, and you give her an ultimatum? Are you insane?”

“It wasn’t an ultimatum. I can’t live like this anymore. It’s bad enough that I can barely function when she’s gone, but Ruby is a wreck. You’ll know when your kid is born. You’ll see how hard it is to watch them in pain and be powerless to fix it.”

“Do you want Belinda back because you love her or because she makes life easier for your kid?”

“I’m in love with her! I moved all the way across the damn country to be with her. I married her after knowing her a month. I fell in love with her at first sight. She’s my best friend, and if she doesn’t take me back I can’t stay here. I can’t be in this town and walk through the streets and see her and not hurt. And neither can my kid.”

“Okay,” Ellis said. “Then you’ve really got to go for it with her.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got to romance her. Wine and dine her. Get her a ring so big she can barely hold up her hand. Words are cheap, my friend. This time you’ve got to pay in actions.”

*   *   *

“Hey, Junior.” Her father showed up at her store the next weekend while she was working in the front.

“Hey, Papa Bear.” She leaned in and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. This display of affection was off for them. She couldn’t remember the last time he had done more than ruffle her hair, but she was grateful for it. She needed this hug very much. “What are you doing here? I hope it’s to tell me that you’re going to take me out for double bacon cheeseburgers.”

“I will if you want. I’ll even spring for dessert. But I’m here to tell you that I think it’s time you go back to your husband.”

“What? I thought you would be on my side. I thought you wanted to break his legs.”

“He hurt you, Belinda. I know that, but he’s a good man. He loves you and he loves his kid and he’ll make you a good husband. I think it’s time you go back because you’re miserable without him and because you love him. People search their whole lives to find a love like the one you have with him. I know you were hurt, but it’s time to let that go. It’s time you really let yourself be loved again.”

“You called me Belinda.”

“I did. You’re a woman now. Maybe I should start calling you by your real name.”

“Please don’t.” She hugged him again. “Nobody else calls me Junior.”

“So are you going to think about it? Are you going to think about going back to Carter?”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes.

“No?” Disappointment crossed his face.

“No, I already thought about. I’m going back. I was going to tell him tonight.”

“Why wait? Go now. Your mother and I … The only thing we ever really wanted for you is for you to be happy. Please be happy, Belinda. You don’t know what kind of guilt there is being a parent. When you’re miserable we feel like it’s our fault even when we weren’t the cause of it. I wish this kind of torture on you one day.”

“I think I already know. I feel that way about Ruby. I never knew love could hurt so much.”

“Go get them back, Junior. Go get your family.”

She took her father’s advice, going straight to Carter’s office—but when she walked in it was empty. Like really empty. His desk was too neat. Not a coffee cup in sight, not a plan out. Not even Ruby’s things were around. She stood in the empty room for a moment, her brain unable to come to terms with what she was seeing.

“He left for the airport a few minutes ago. He came to bring Ruby to tell me good-bye.”

She turned around to face Steven. “Good-bye? They’re leaving?”

“They left, Belinda. You might be able to catch them. I don’t think the flight leaves for another hour or so.”

She pushed past Steven and out of the building. He’d said he was going to leave but she didn’t think he would. She didn’t think he would actually go, that he would take Ruby, take her kid, take her heart with him.

She could kill him for this. She would kill him for this. As soon as she saw him again. If she saw him again.

The speed limit ceased to exist for her as she drove to Stewart Airport. She didn’t know if that’s where he was going. He could have gone to Albany. He could have taken a flight out of the city, but for some reason the small airport seemed like the place he would go.

It was nearly empty when she pulled up, only a few summer travelers entering through the doors, and that’s when she spotted him. Ruby held his hand, rolling a tiny pink suitcase with her. Her heart did a somersault. That was her girl and he was her husband and he was walking away from her, without a last good-bye, without a final warning.

She threw her car into park and ran up the sidewalk after them. There was karma in this or irony or something otherworldly. She had done the same thing to him. She had left without warning, without a last good-bye. And because of that they had stayed apart for four years. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t miss out on more years of Ruby’s life. She couldn’t put her future on hold anymore.

Carter was who she wanted. It was time she stopped running from him and from love. It was time she stopped being afraid of being hurt and let him love her. He was right when he accused her of holding back before, of protecting her heart. It got her nowhere in the end. If she didn’t go for this, if she didn’t get them back …

“Carter! Ruby!”

She didn’t want to think of what a lifetime without them would be like.

Ruby looked back first. Carter didn’t seem to hear her. “Ruby! Ruby! Wait!”

She broke away from her father, running toward Belinda, slamming into her so hard that she lost her balance and her breath and fell to her knees with the child.

“Belinda, did you come to say good-bye to me?”

“No.” She felt the tears slide down her cheeks. “I came to get you back.”

“Belinda?” Carter approached them, surprise etched on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“How dare you, you bastard. How could you just take her away from me like that, without a word, without a good-bye? She’s my kid. She may not have born of my body but she’s my kid and I love her and you have no right to do this to me. You have no right to move her across the country without a word to me.”

“Move?” He frowned at her.

“I love you, damn it. I always have. I was coming to tell you. I was coming back to you because I want my family. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and have a wedding and build a home and do all those things we missed out on the first time. I just needed some time, Carter. I was coming back. I just needed some time.”

“I’m not moving away, Belinda.”

“Excuse me.” A police officer came up to them. “Is there a problem here?”

“Hush!” Belinda ordered him. “What did you say, Ruby?”

“I’m not moving away. I’m going to spend some time with Grandma while Daddy asks you to marry him. She’s got a beach house in Florida.”

“What?”

“Daddy was going to kidnap you and take you away till you agreed to marry him. He showed me the place he was going to take you. It’s in the woods.”

“Excuse me, folks.” The cop stepped forward. “Somebody want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“I’m sorry, Officer. My daughter is a little confused. This crying woman is my wife. We had an argument. I’m sending my daughter to stay with my mother in Florida for a couple of weeks while I take my wife away for a little while. I’m not moving my daughter across the country. I’m not really kidnapping anyone. In fact, I’m giving my daughter to her.” He pulled a folded set of papers out of his suit jacket. “I just came from my lawyer’s office. I had adoption papers drawn up.”

The officer didn’t move, just looked from Belinda to Ruby and then back at Carter. “Is any of that true, ma’am?”

She ignored the curious cop. “You’re going to give her to me?”

“There’s nothing to give. She’s already yours. I’m just making it legal. I’m making us a family.”