Sugar Springs (13 page)

She’d actually expected him earlier in the day, since she knew the clinic closed early today, but thankfully he hadn’t shown up while her clients had been there. He hadn’t shown up at the diner for breakfast again, either. She couldn’t help but wonder if his absence meant he wouldn’t show up to talk at all. Maybe he’d already packed up and hit the road. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d bolted.

The thought of him leaving instead of owning up to his responsibility irritated her, and she reached out to turn up the volume. Several minutes later, she’d stored the last of the equipment, and she turned to check the door again. Cody had entered without her hearing the chime that would have sounded. He now stood five feet away, wearing the same expression from yesterday afternoon.

The saliva in her throat disappeared.

As they stood there staring at each other, the words to the song playing through the speakers, Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” registered in her head.

She reached over and pushed a button, and silence fell around them. He definitely spun her round, in more ways than one. Even his furious, ticked-off look set her pulse on a slow gallop. The man—damn him—expelled testosterone like her
radiator had blown antifreeze when it busted last winter. It spewed from every possible angle.

Finding out that he hadn’t known he’d fathered kids had messed with her mind and had caused a behavior she wasn’t proud of. Her brain had been infiltrated by silly thoughts, not unlike those her mother might have. Thoughts along the lines of maybe he’d stay. Maybe he’d be just what the girls needed. Maybe he’d thought about her once or twice over the years.

She fought the urge to roll her eyes at the last one. Didn’t matter if he’d thought about her every day of his life. He’d proved years ago he wasn’t the man for her. She did not need men who left.

While she continued to stand there staring at him, unable to find words to start the conversation, the studio phone rang.

“Excuse me,” she said, coming out of her trancelike state. “I need to take this.”

“Let it ring.” Cody’s deep voice did not come across as a request.

Her heart thumped. “It’s business. I can’t afford to miss any opportunities that might come up.”

She reached toward the phone on the corner of her desk.

“Is there any doubt they’re mine?”

His words stopped her hand in midair. She couldn’t have ignored the question if her house had literally been going up in flames around her.

She slowly pulled back from the phone and wet her lips. “All you have to do is look at them. They’re replicas of you across the eyes, and then when they smile...”

Pausing, she picked up the framed photo she kept on her desk and caught her lip between her teeth. It was a shot she’d made during a Dollywood trip three years before. Both girls
had been laughing as they’d come off a roller coaster, and she’d captured them perfectly. The photo was a head-and-shoulders shot, and with the shadow of the trees above them making their hair a shade darker, they’d looked so much like Cody that later that evening she’d caught herself bringing up the Internet to search for him. She’d wanted to scream at him, to make him understand what he was missing out on.

Instead, she’d shut down the computer and cursed him for the decisions he’d made. Not for leaving her to raise the girls alone, but for not being there for them. They deserved a father. But only one who chose to be there.

The phone quit ringing, and she passed the picture over to him. “They look just like you. Also, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.” She shrugged. “I’d bet my life on it.”

He studied the photo in his hands, but she could read nothing in his expression. It remained as tense and angry as it had been when he’d entered the room. Finally, he looked up and caught her gaze. “And you chose to never tell me?”

The phone began to ring again. “I swear, I thought you knew.”

His entire body seemed to turn to concrete in front of her. “And what? You thought I’d just walked away? Felt no responsibility at all?”

“I didn’t know.” His pain hurt her, but she had no idea how to lessen the wound. The phone continued to ring, its shrillness in the thick tension adding to her stress. “I didn’t know what to think,” she whispered.

“So you thought the worst,” he accused. His nostrils flared a bit as his chest rose on a deep breath.

If the guilt wasn’t bad enough before, it certainly was now. Why had she ever believed her sister?

As if the phone were a lifeline, she reached out and snatched it up before it went silent once more. She turned her attention to the caller, discussing appointment options, then brought up her calendar to book them into a slot in the coming week. All the while she kept an eye on Cody. He’d moved away from the desk and now edged around the room until he stopped at her back wall, arms crossed tight, broad shoulders taking up way too much space. He stood studying the black and whites arranged there. They were her favorites.

When she was finished with the customer, she quietly hung up the phone and simply watched Cody from across the room. She sensed the aura of protective distance that he’d once been a master at putting between himself and everyone else. It hadn’t been there the other times their paths had crossed this last week. At least not as strongly as it was today. It amazed her that it still existed. Probably it had shown up today because he was hurting over all he’d missed out on. The guilt over that ate at her, while at the same time the seventeen-year-old who’d had her heart crushed wanted to stomp her foot and childishly tell him he’d gotten what he deserved.

But he didn’t—he hadn’t deserved this. She knew that. No matter how they’d ended, he’d had a right to know about his children. If she’d had any real clue he hadn’t dismissed them as callously as Stephanie said, she would have continued looking for him.

“This is from Roy and Pearl’s.” Cody pointed to the shot taken at his foster parents’ farm four years ago and glanced back at her. His features weren’t friendly, but at least he no longer looked as if he wanted to snap her in two. “I recognize the tree.”

She nodded. The unique knot in the side of the elm was the reason she’d wanted that angle. “They purchased the most beautiful mare a few years ago. She wasn’t quite as white as the photo makes it seem, but I liked the contrast, so I developed it to come out that way.”

She wondered if he realized both of his foster parents had passed away.

“It’s impressive.” He faced the wall again. “You still develop from film instead of using digital, then?”

“Only the black and whites.” They were what she enjoyed most. There was a magic about seeing them come to life beneath her hands that she loved.

She stood and moved closer to him. They’d once been the best of friends, and though she didn’t want to be, she was as drawn to the haunting pain clinging to him as much today as she’d been the first day they’d met. He was a man who’d been hurt many times over in his life, and she hated that she’d added to it.

“I’m sorry you had to find out about them the way you did.”

His jaw jerked.

She tried again. “When I realized you didn’t know—”

“You lied and told me you’d been pregnant before I left town.”

Well, there was that. But no, that wasn’t quite how it had gone down, either. Discussing all this in the middle of her studio, though, was making her uncomfortable. It felt too personal. This was her private space, and she found she wanted him out of it.

“I know I can never make up for the lost years, Cody, but I promise to do my best to explain everything.” She turned away from him and headed across the room. “But we’ll do it in the house.”

He’d always been able to see too much under the surface when they argued. Having him standing there now, staring at her pictures, made her feel like he was seeing a part of her she didn’t share with others. She didn’t like it.

“You never wanted to do portraits.” The words were spoken quietly behind her just as she reached the door.

She paused, unsure how to reply and unwilling to answer his unspoken question. Yes, she’d settled. She hadn’t gone after all she’d wanted. But she hadn’t had a choice. Without facing him, she gave him the only answer she could. “I’ve found I’m quite good at portraits.”

Without another word, she entered the house through the connecting door. They were there to discuss their kids. Discussing her or her photography was off-limits.

Cody watched Lee Ann retreat to the house, and for just a second considered turning around and heading back out the door he’d come through. After he’d exhausted both himself and Boss the night before with an arduous run, which had not done the job of lowering his anger at all, he’d spent the better part of the evening stewing. She’d kept the knowledge that he had two kids from him for years. Until he’d walked in there today and started the conversation, though, he hadn’t really thought about the fact that
he had two kids
.

How could he have skipped that fact?

He had two kids.

The very idea overwhelmed him to the point that he feared he was about to experience his first panic attack. How had he come to be the guy who had not only
not
been there for his
kids, but also had no idea if he even wanted to be there for them now?

Of course he would be. Financially at least. That was the right thing to do. And sure, he’d like to know them. They seemed like good kids.

But do everyday things? Be a dad?

The thought brought a taste of sourness to this throat. He had no idea how to even begin such a thing.

He shook his head as he got his feet moving across the room to follow the perfectly tucked-in pink shirt that had now disappeared from view. He had no idea how to even go about being there for the girls daily. He never lived in the same place for more than a few months. How was he supposed to work two teenagers into that lifestyle?

As he stepped inside the living room, he took in the changes and wondered if Lee Ann still lived there with her mother. He assumed so, given the fact it had been Reba’s house when he’d last been there.

The wall color had been updated to a light brown in both this room and the connecting den. The furniture was newer but not new, replacing the older versions he’d grown used to during the months he’d spent hanging out with Lee Ann, and the overall feel was one of calming comfort and order. Either Reba no longer lived there or if she did, Lee Ann ran the household. Because it definitely had more of a feel of Lee Ann now than of her mother.

He inhaled, filling his head with the lemony-clean scent of the room, and slowly blew the breath out. A dull headache began behind his eyes. He’d never wanted kids. Hadn’t even given thought to having any. Ever. Yet he had two.

He would have doubted he was their father if he hadn’t seen the same things Lee Ann had pointed out. The girls did look like him, exactly as she’d said. And that disturbed him in a whole new way.

There weren’t enough similarities for others to have noticed, and they weren’t likely to now since he’d only been in Sugar Springs for a year before, and apparently no one else knew of his actions with Stephanie. But the similarities were there nonetheless. He’d seen them before he’d even let himself recognize the fact.

Anger suddenly blazed again, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the root cause. Stephanie? Lee Ann? Him? Any one of the past foster parents in his life who’d helped shape him?

No, not the foster parents. They’d merely given him a valuable education at a young age. Don’t rely on the idea of family. It never existed quite like you wanted.

Only Lee Ann had made a family with her kids.

His kids.

And once again he didn’t fit in there, either.

He blew out another breath as he fought to get his emotions under control.

Lee Ann continued into the den without saying another word. He closed the door to the studio behind him and followed. She stood with her profile to him, and as he stepped across the threshold, the bottom dropped out of his world. There was a small lifetime of pictures lined up across the front wall of the room.

He scanned the photos marching along each frame before landing on the last one. Candy and Kendra, happy and smiling out at the world, stood slightly behind, and to either side of, Lee Ann. Once again he had the urge to walk out of the
house and never look back. They were happy. His being there would mess things up.

Lee Ann waited patiently in front of the first one. He ripped his gaze from the most recent photo and moved closer to her, his jaw clenched so tight he wouldn’t have been surprised to feel a tooth break. In front of him now were two tiny babies, with pink blankets and white stocking caps, being held in Lee Ann’s arms. Red faces squinted out in utter disgust at the world while Lee Ann smiled as if she’d just been given the best present of her life.

“This was a few days after they were born,” she said. “They were so tiny I didn’t get to hold them for a couple days, but they were very healthy. We got to bring them home when they were less than a week old.”

His pulse pounded in the side of his neck. “Was that before or after Stephanie died?”