Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (22 page)

“If you let his voice continue to haunt you,
he’s won.”

“He won years ago. When a beautiful girl told
me she loved me and I couldn’t love her back. I knew I’d never be
good enough, or right enough, or just...” He spread his beautiful
hands wide. “Enough for her. So I ran.”

He was repeating the same words his father
had always said to him. Did he know how affected he’d been by the
emotional abuse of his childhood? When had he come to believe he
wasn’t enough for anyone, even himself?

“You’re here now,” she said gently.

“I believe you told me now is too late.”

A lot of things she’d said in anger were
sounding a bit bitchy coming back at her. Rosie thought Livy
believed the worst of people. In her job, that usually saved time.
But maybe she’d allowed her past and her work to dictate too much.
She couldn’t say she forgave Garrett; that would be a lie and she’d
lied enough already. But she could give him his chance with Max
unfettered. The two of them deserved it.

“It’s not too late for you and Max. He needs
you and you’re here. From what you’re telling me, you could be just
what he needs at this stage in his life. How did you grow out of
your klutzy phase, anyway?”

“Once there wasn’t someone looking over my
shoulder, trying to change everything about me, pointing out every
pitfall before I even got there...” He raised an eyebrow. “I grew
out of it on my own.”

“You’re telling me to let Max be Max.”

“I’m not telling you anything, Livy, except
that you look beautiful with the moon on your hair.”

Before she could stop herself, Livy touched
her hair. She could almost feel the soft light of the moon. J.J.
had often murmured poetic phrases that had charmed her girlish
heart. Tonight Garrett charmed her woman’s soul. She could tell him
that she was too old for such things now, but that would be another
lie, and she’d had far too little charm in her life.

“Max is your son,” he said. “You do what you
think is best.”

“He’s your son, too.” She rubbed her
forehead. “I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t know what’s
best for him after all.”

“My life isn’t Max’s life. Thank God. Once
you think it’s all right to tell him the truth, I promise he’ll
always know his father loves him. That’s something I can’t say
about myself. I don’t want the same for Max.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you they loved
you?”

He crossed the floor, silent in stocking
feet, and stood close enough so that the moon shaded them both. Her
breath caught as she saw again that strange flicker in his eyes she
could not place. She braced herself for a torrent of feelings when
he kissed her and touched her as she wanted him to. But he merely
brushed his lips along her brow, tucked her hair behind her ear and
murmured, “You were the only one.”

* * *

“I’ve got a story about the closet monster
and a story about the goblins in the bathroom mirror.”

Max sat so close to Garrett on the couch he
was practically in his lap. Garrett had discovered over this past
week with Max that if the child wasn’t in his pocket he was trying
to get there.

Starved for his son’s voice, his warmth, the
sweet drift of white-blond hair, the little-boy scent of heated
sunshine and dry grass, Garrett didn’t mind. Everything about Max
fascinated him.

So much so that he hadn’t thought of the
un-book at all, and his Muse might be dead for all he cared. Even
Andrew seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. A fact
that would concern Garrett if he could work up concern about
anything other than Max—and Max’s mom.

Livy had suspended Max’s two-week jail term
on condition that he stay with Garrett after school and not wander
off. No problem there. The two of them were exactly where they
wanted to be. Together.

Garrett shifted just a little, and Max
climbed right into his lap, then opened the sketchbook Garrett had
given him. “Do you think these goblins are goblin-y enough?”

He took in the blue Magic Marker blobs that
seemed to be climbing right out of the gray crayon mirror. Max was
really good at visualizing what frightened him. Almost as good as
he was at articulating it. For eight, Max was amazingly bright.
Garrett tried not to pump out his chest and preen. But he couldn’t
help it. His son had to be the smartest kid in the world.

“Very goblin-y. I can see why you wanted to
keep an eye on that mirror at all times. I wouldn’t want any of
those coming at me when I had my pants down.”

“’Zactly. Mom would never understand. It’s a
guy thing.”

“Definitely.”

Livy wouldn’t like to hear that, but truth
was truth, and some things
were
guy things. Like eating ice
cream in your underwear, or pizza without plates. Drinking milk
right from the carton.
We don’t need no stinkin’ glass!
Or
watching cartoons on the iPad and drag racing on the TV at the same
time while you listened to the radio.

“Once I got the goblins done, I was going to
work on the zombies in the basement, but I got a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

Garrett tipped Max back until his son lay on
his arm, his head tucked against Garrett’s chest. Without even
thinking, Max snuggled. Garrett’s heart thundered with a love so
deep he could barely keep it to himself. But he’d made a
promise—one that was getting harder and harder to obey the more
deeply he fell in love with his son.

“There’s something that’s always scared me,
and I want to make a story about it before I do the basement
zombies.”

“You’re worried about something worse than
monsters, zombies or goblins?’ ’

“Lots worse.” His voice quivered, and
Garrett’s arms tightened around him.

“What is it, big guy?”

Max giggled. “I’m not big like you.”

“I was little once.”

Max twisted to look into Garrett’s face. “You
were?”

Garrett had promised not to tell Max he was
his father, but he hadn’t promised not to tell him anything else.
Max needed to know that he wasn’t a freak, that the way he was, was
the way he was supposed to be, and that in the end everything came
out all right. Or near enough.

“I was very small. Then when I hit high
school, boom, I shot up. One summer I grew four inches and that
fall another two.”

Max stuck out his feet. ‘‘I suppose your feet
grew, too.”

‘‘No, I think that’s when my body caught up
with my feet. I didn’t trip so much after that.”

‘‘You tripped?”

‘‘Everyone does.”

Max held up his cast. ‘‘Not like I do.”

‘‘That’s because you’re special.”

“I am?”

“Didn’t you know that?”

“Mom says, and Rosie, too. But they have
to.”

“And I don’t?”

“No. You’re just some guy.”

Garrett hated being “just some guy.”

“I wish you could be my daddy.”

“Me, too,” Garrett whispered, his lips
against Max’s hair.

Despite the poignancy of the moment, Max was
suddenly done cuddling. He leaped off Garrett’s lap, leaving him
feeling cold and empty, then tumbled to the floor to write his
newest, biggest fear in earnest.

“Half an hour and we have to get back,”
Garrett reminded him.

Max merely grunted. He was busy.

Livy had worked several late nights. Her
mother’s case was at a standstill and some of her other cases
weren’t going well, either. Not that she talked about work with
him, or much else. But Garrett knew what a person looked like when
the work wasn’t going well. He still saw that person in his mirror
every morning, though he no longer cared quite so much.

Each afternoon Garrett met Max at his house.
They went to Garrett’s place, where they did guy things until dark.
Then Garrett would bring his son home so he could be in bed by
eight-thirty.

Most often Livy arrived just as they did, but
sometimes she showed up after Max was asleep. The guilt in her eyes
saddened Garrett, and he’d tried to lighten it by telling her some
of the funny things Max had done or said. But it didn’t seem to
help.

Some nights she was so tired she went right
to bed, and Garret wandered home, taking a detour through any
cemetery he could find—major or minor. So far not a single idea had
jumped up and bit him. But what did a book matter when he had Max
in the daylight and sometimes Livy all night?

Because there were nights when they’d watch
Max sleep, then she’d pull him into her room and they’d make love.
He’d lose himself in the taste of her skin and the scent of her
hair and the play of her hands along his body. Then he’d hold her
in his arms, and she’d sleep as he watched her face shift beneath
the shadows of the moon.

On nights like those Garrett felt as if he
were part of a family—until he had to walk home alone in the cool
drift of dawn.

She had no idea he loved her. No idea that he
always had, or that he always would.

Garrett had come to terms with his feelings
the first night she’d welcomed him into her body, then her bed.
Just because he hadn’t been able to tell her all those years ago
didn’t make his love nonexistent.

Just as telling her now would not make her
believe him, even if he could manage to say the words he’d never
said before. She’d think he was saying them because of Max. Then
he’d lose her, lose him, lose this. So while he often felt lonely,
even as she lay in his arms, legs all tangled with his, breath warm
and sweet on his skin, he’d keep his mouth shut, keep his feelings
to himself and do his damnedest to make her love him all over
again.

* * *

“Livy, wake up!”

Livy almost slammed her nose into the desk
when her chin slipped off her hand. She
had
been sleeping.
And dreaming again of him.

“You all right?” Kim sat on the desk.

“Fine.” Livy shoved at her hip. “Get off my
desk.”

“But I look so good on it.” Before she jumped
off, Kim posed like a sex kitten from a forties calendar. “If I
didn’t know better I’d think you were having wild and crazy sex all
night long the way you keep falling asleep at your desk.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“We’ve had this discussion, and you said you
didn’t like men. Besides, if you were getting that much, you’d be
smiling more often.”

Livy smiled now, and Kim’s eyes sharpened.
Livy stopped and turned her attention to the file on her blotter.
Kim was too smart. That was why Livy had purposely frowned whenever
she felt like grinning.

It wasn’t hard to find something to frown
about around there; all she had to do was open a case file. But
inside, even when she was frowning, even when she went home tired
and found out she’d missed seeing Max again and the guilt hovered,
deep down she was happy, as she hadn’t been for a long, long
time.

If Garrett hung around, as he seemed bent on
doing, soon enough she’d have to tell Max the truth, and everyone
else, too. For now, she wanted to enjoy this uncommon stretch of
E.R.-free life. Whatever Garrett was doing with Max, it seemed to
be working. There hadn’t been a new mark on her son since Garrett
took over.

For just a while longer she wanted to have
Garrett to herself. Once everyone knew the truth, they’d all be
under heavy Savannah scrutiny. Once Rosie came home, the fun would
be over.

Livy didn’t want to think about that. In
fact, she was tempted to throw Rosie to the wolf sisters just so
she could keep Garrett in her bed.

Had the sex been this good last time? She
would have remembered. But while she could recall every nuance of
what she’d felt for him, the intensity of her love, the depth of
her need—the sex? Livy gave a mental shrug. Adequate. Maybe neither
one of them had known what they were doing back then. But Garrett
certainly knew what he was doing now.

“You’re smiling. That file isn’t funny.
What’s up with you?”

“Sometimes you gotta laugh or you’ll
cry.”

“Sometimes,” Kim agreed. “What do you want to
cry over today? Rosie?”

Livy glanced at her watch. “I’d better run
over and see her. Have you checked with Judge McFie’s office? When
can we get another appearance?”

“Next week.”

“Have you found out anything about the
goose?”

Kim was shaking her head before Livy finished
the question. “If Rosie took that goose, she hid it better than
they hid King Tut’s tomb. Do you think you can get her to give it
back?”

Livy merely rolled her eyes.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Throw her on the mercy of the court?”

“That should work. Not.”

“I’ll try to think of something.” Livy
considered the file in front of her again. “I should never have
taken on Jeremy Dubouis as a client. I should have known an easy
divorce only meant trouble later. Maybe I should recommend another
lawyer.”

“He’ll just keep calling you. He likes you.
And he’s harmless.”

“But lucrative.”

“What did he do this time?”

“Played the bongos on the lawn.”

“He did that last week.”

“In his jockstrap.”

“Oh.” Kim’s lips trembled. “Well, that’s
new.”

Livy hesitated. Something had been bothering
her since that first night in Garrett’s arms. Since he’d told her
about his past, she’d been thinking a lot about that little boy
whom no one had loved. And about herself. How she reacted to
people, what she believed of them and how she acted on those
beliefs.

“Kim, do you think I believe the worst of
people before I even give them a chance?”

“You’ve been talking to Rosie.”

“Not today.”

“Maybe you do.” At the expression on Livy’s
face, she rushed on. “But I can’t blame you. Look at your job. What
choice do you have? Like you said—Dubouis had trouble written all
over him from the moment he walked in the office. Besides, I’m the
same way. So is Klein. The only person I know who loves everyone on
contact is Max, and he’s a kid. He’ll grow out of it.”