Words From The Heart (Spring-Summer Romance Book 2) (10 page)

Mrs. Jarvis gave a haughty sniff. “It’s only been six months, Bennett.”

Audrey stiffened, and he willed her to not speak, but knew she would.

She did.

“Six months,” Audrey said. “How interesting that you know how long it’s been without you seeing the children.”

Bennett winced, and the couple startled.

“Oh, wait …” Audrey continued. “That’s right … you wanted rid of him. What? Is it his fault she’s gone?”

“Audrey.” He grasped her sleeve. She’d gone too far.

But she yanked free, apparently unstoppable. “No,” she said, her eyes dark. “I’ll put it all out here or not sleep tonight.” She shook her arms, drying her palms on her jeans. “He hired me to care for June because she was failing.”

His mother-in-law acted surprised.

“She wouldn’t eat properly and your grandson, Jeff, wouldn’t leave his side. I am now the only mother they have, and ‘so what’ if our family isn’t what people expect. They are my entire world, but you wouldn’t know that either. You’re too busy staring at yourselves to see the beautiful children your daughter created … or how generous and kind the man is that she married.” Audrey hushed. Her chin lifted, she gazed at him. “I’d like to go now,” she said. “I miss
my
children.”

His heart full, he nodded, but when she went to walk away, he couldn’t stop himself from telling her how much she meant. As he did with everything else though, he spoke in the only way he knew how. Taking hold of her cheeks, he leaned in and kissed her.

Her anger dissolved in their mingled breath.

He glanced down at his in-laws. “I miss Beth,” he said, “but I’ve done enough crying. Jeff and June need their dad to be strong. She’s how I manage it.”

Steering Audrey from the table, he returned to theirs, weighted a few bills beneath his plate, and aimed them for the door. They didn’t speak on the drive to her parents’ place, and he assumed it was because they were both lost in thought. But after picking up the children, the silence became a wall they couldn’t see around.

He hated it, but knew the source. For all he’d done with her, for all he’d spoken to her, in his head, he was still married to Beth, and it was destroying the best thing he had.

She reasoned she had everything going for her, a good home, a loving family. She no longer thought of Bennett’s children as anything but her own. June considered her “mom”, and though Jeff called her Audrey, he turned to her for everything a mother would provide. Bennett’s reluctance to move past their current relationship became a huge issue though, standing between them more and more as summer turned into fall.

Fall then became winter. They shared Thanksgiving and Christmas with her parents. Surprisingly, Beth’s showed up with gifts. Jeff was reluctant to speak to them, but June acted like they’d come solely for her. Mrs. Jarvis was won over in an instant, her face wreathed in smiles. Strangely, they accepted August, too, Mr. Jarvis calling him a “wonderful little boy”.

At the first of the year, ten months into her life with Bennett, the barrier they’d erected crumbled a tiny bit. August’s and June’s birthdays approached, her first, his second, and Audrey sought out Bennett to organize some sort of party.

“We should invite Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis.”

Leaning back on the counter, Bennett stared at her across the rim of his coffee mug.

“Don’t look at me like that. We should.”

“Just like we should attend the weekend picnic with the Harrises?” he asked.

That’d been awful. Bobby and Jeff’s friendship continually forced the families together. The relationship hadn’t gotten any easier though. She and Mrs. Harris generally talked about cooking, the one topic they could agree on, but even that was on a different spectrum, Mrs. Harris being extremely health conscious.

“They love the children,” Audrey continued, “and cutting them off, after making an effort to include them, would be wrong.”

He agreed. It was written on his face, but male pride kept him from saying it.

“I thought we could do something at the park.” That way Jeff could escape to the playground. He’d not warmed up to Beth’s parents at all. And if August was messy, as he tended to be, it wouldn’t be noticed.

“Okay, you plan it and …” Bennett’s head turned. Setting his coffee cup down, he rounded the kitchen counter and headed into the living room.

The tumult that followed brought her after him. She entered the toy-strewn space to find Jeff cringing at the base of the couch, August’s cheeks purpled. His mouth agape, he tried to breathe, but whatever had lodged in his throat prevented it.

Panic grabbed her, and she surged forward. But before she could take action, Bennett gave the boy a hard slap, and the object shot out. August erupted into screams, and Bennett, his cheeks red, eyes moist, wrapped his arms around him and spoke low.

“It’s okay. Daddy’s got you.”

Daddy. Audrey’s legs weakened, and she sank onto the couch.

June decided to join the noise, whimpering, and she reached for her, lifting her into her lap. With the flat of her hand, she patted her softly. But her gaze was on Bennett.

He looked down at Jeff. “Your little brother can’t play with those. Remember, I told you to keep them in your room?”

Again, his words settled over her. Little brother.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Bennett inhaled, then nodded toward the toys in question. “Pick it all up and put it in the box. Put the box on my dresser. You can’t have those back until you learn to do better.”

Obedient, his head hung, Jeff reached for the tiny plastic parts.

August squirmed to be released, his unrest already forgotten, and Bennett lowered him to the floor. Their eyes finally met. Neither one said anything, yet their thoughts were the same. Their sons, their daughter, and the love grown between them begging to be set free.

CHAPTER 10

Audrey tossed in bed for the thousandth time, her breaths escaping in a frustrated huff, and Bennett, tired of hearing the noise, rolled over to face the back of her head. The upper strap of her top, slipped off her shoulder, exposing the length of her neck and a warm patch above her right shoulder blade. Edging forward, he pressed his mouth there, and the sound of her breathing changed to a softer flurry.

“What’s got you so wound up?” he asked.

She wriggled, changing positions again. Lying flat, her hands folded across her waist, she looked not at him though, but the ceiling. She nursed June less now, adding cereal and fruit to her diet, so her voluptuous figure had lessened. Not the appeal, however. She was as desirable as she’d ever been. Even then, her nipples rosy through her tank top’s thin material, begged his attention.

Bennett tamped down the heat and dragged his eyes to her face.

“You called yourself ‘Daddy’,” she said, “and referred to August as your son.”

He had. But he thought of himself that way and thought she’d be happy about it.

“He isn’t your son.”

Surprised by her tone, Bennett rose onto one elbow. “What do you mean?”

She spoke frank. “He isn’t your son, and Jeff and June aren’t my son and daughter. I have no rights to care for them outside of you allowing it, and if something happened to either of us … God forbid … they’d be split up.”

She was right, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of it. But, as usual, he lived in denial. After Beth had died, he’d denied she was gone, denied June wasn’t getting used to the bottle, denied Jeff had trouble grieving. Now, he was trying to deny he’d have to make a choice. That’s what this came down to – choosing between the past and the future.

“I’m in love with you,” she said.

Again, Bennett started. That was not the tone he’d expected her to use when he heard those words.

“It’s okay,” she continued. “You don’t have to say it back.”

“Beth …”

“Yes, Beth. But my name’s Audrey, and I love you. I love your children; you love my son. I’m their mom; you’re his dad. I’m sorry about your wife; I’m not trying to replace your wife, but I’m extremely resentful.”

There wasn’t anything to say right then. She had the right to feel that way. In her eyes, he’d been dragging his feet, as if he stood with one foot on either side of the gate. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

She didn’t respond, and the silence became deafening. Eventually, he lay on his side again, and she shut her eyes. His sleep was troubled, filled with strange dreams in which Audrey and Beth interchanged. Something similar must’ve been in the air with the children because June cried at three a.m. and August, for the first time he could recall, left his toddler bed for theirs. He scrabbled at the mattress, climbing in, and Bennett tucked him in between them.

He awoke mid-morning, August curled around his arm, and noticed the emptiness on Audrey’s side of the bed immediately. He lay there, unmoving, one hand rising to stroke August’s head. Gradually, the noises below stairs leaked through the walls:  Audrey talking to Jeff, his son’s response, and his daughter’s high-pitched squeal.

He listened for some ten minutes, then working his way from beneath August, rose and shuffled across the hall into the master bedroom. He stood in the doorway, the yellow light of dawn exposing the rim of dust on every surface. Except for changing clothes and showering, he spent very little time in here. As a result, it’d become an unintended shrine.

Bennett wandered to his dresser and removed the photo of Beth from the uppermost drawer. Reversing, he sat on his perfectly made bed, her image smiling up at him. He forced himself to picture her as she’d been toward the end, but found, like when he’d struggled to remember her face well and healthy, that the image of her suffering had also faded.

Was that good or bad? He couldn’t see her dying, what he had now was the vestige of feelings she gave him, and that was nothing to tie his entire life to. Whereas Audrey was real and warm and living,
their
children worth the effort of letting Beth go.

She loved him. Bennett turned that over and over, unable to grasp hold. Such a beautiful woman and she loved a middle-aged widower with two young children. “I’m a fool.” As big a fool as her ex to not take hold of such a gift.

“Daddy?”

Bennett turned Beth’s photo upside-down on the mattress and opened his arms. August sprinted across the floor and, his feet pounding, leapt into his lap. Bennett rose, tousling August’s auburn hair. “Let’s go downstairs and see Mom. Want to?”

Curling against him, his eyes blinking sleepily, August nodded, and Bennett turned his back on the photo and made his way out.

“I want you to remodel the master bedroom,” Bennett said.

Her hair wet, one hand implanted amidst it, Audrey paused. Damp patches on her shirt and shorts gave tantalizing glimpses of the woman underneath. “You want me to do it?”

He nodded and slid toward her. Curving his hands over her waist, he looked upward. “I need to move on, but I can’t as long as I see her in there. So you do it, make it look like the ultimate vision of Audrey.”

Her lips tipped in a crooked smile. “You want the room naked?”

Bennett laughed. It was good to laugh, good to make this change. “You in it naked would be great,” he replied. “But you can decorate it however you want.”

Her smile smoothed. “On one condition …”

She pressed him onto his back and urged him higher on the bed. Taking a seat, astraddle, she deliberately, to his thinking, pressed her heat tight against him. His body reacted as she’d probably expected, an almost triumphant look forming on her face.

“What’s the condition?” he asked, breathing hard.

“When it’s done, you and me are in it and no more holding back.”

Her thighs gripped his sides tighter, working the slightest bit back and forth, and he groaned. No more holding back, no more stopping himself because of Beth. Could he do it and not fight the guilt?

Not having the answer, Bennett rose up, rolling Audrey beneath him, then sliding downward, he peeled back the waistband of her pajama shorts, her softness calling his name.

“What are you …?” she began. Her question ended in a gasp, and her back arched, her fingernails digging into him, she shook, her cries steaming the room.

He shifted higher afterward, hanging directly overhead. “No more holding back,” he said.

Her eyelids hooded, cheeks pink, she raised one hand to his face, her words slurred. “Not sure if I can live through it.”

Bennett laughed softly. “Me either.”

She had his promise and so worked diligently with the full belief that, when the bedroom was finished, he’d keep his word. She had to do some explaining to Jeff, who had questions about what was happening, but then focused her attention on what would make the space theirs.

She sold the furniture online and purchased a new, more modern set, bed and dresser and a pair of end tables. She gave away the sheets and bought new ones, an earthy-green bed cover, and a lovely framed garden print to hang on the wall. Bennett never complained nor acted upset, which lifted her good mood. This was right. Seeing the changes, he would finally commit to her and work toward a permanent solution to protect the children.

She wouldn’t lie. She wanted him to propose, not believing she’d even had the thought after her disastrous marriage with Cale. Nor did she totally expect him to follow through. It was one thing to remodel the bedroom, to even believe he’d finally make love to her. It was another for him to remarry. That said, she hoped one would lead to the other.

Audrey admired the space, inhaling the mingled odors of new carpet and fresh paint. Peeking into the master bath, she pictured the vanity and mirror scheduled to be installed in a couple days. New gray floor tiles led up to a standing shower lined with marble in matching tones. A glass surround shielded an enormous bathtub set beneath the window.

“Mama … mama …”

June’s chatter whisked in the room out of her view, and Audrey revolved, snatching the half-clothed one-year-old from where she stood at the end of the bed. “You’ve got Mama’s cell phone,” she said. Wiggling it out of the little girl’s grasp, she checked the screen for any open apps and was surprised to hear a voice speaking.

She’d called someone? Audrey raised it to her ear. “Hello?”

A heavy silence rose from the other followed by a click. Nonplussed, Audrey double checked the number and her heart shoved into her throat.

Cale. She’d called Cale? Of all the people for her to dial.

“What a can of worms,” she said, taking a seat on the bed.

Why had she kept his number anyway? She’d asked Bennett to move on, but saved a piece of her past. Releasing a frustrated breath, Audrey deleted his number, and as the days passed, forgot about it entirely.

The doorbell rang, a week later, and cartoons blaring from the living room, June chattering to a doll in the floor, she bypassed August and Bennett, reclined together on the couch, and swung the front door open without looking first. She froze, seeing Cale’s face, then her nose wrinkled, taking in the pungent scent of alcohol.

“I want … to see my son.”

A cold hand gripped her insides and squeezed. He’d come for August? He couldn’t have August, had no rights to him anymore. “You’re drunk,” she said.

When had he taken to drinking? Audrey stepped out the door, pulling it closed. “How’d you find me here?” she asked.

Cale swayed on unsteady legs, falling against a porch post. “You called … but didn’t … didn’t sound like English.”

June. One phone call wouldn’t have been enough to give away her location. He wasn’t smart enough to figure it out from that, but, it had apparently brought him here. He could have found her any number of ways then.

The door she’d just shut swung inward, and Bennett appeared in the entrance. “Audrey?”

Cale tried to stand more upright, but wobbled. “You’re shacked up with him?” he asked. “Where’s
my
son?”

Audrey pushed Cale backwards toward the steps, but though he stumbled some, he surged ahead. He halted swaying, his weight on her palms.

“There he is. My boy, looks jus … just like me.”

She glanced behind and found August clinging to Bennett’s leg. Bennett lifted him, tucking him to his chest.

“He’s nothing like you,” she replied. “You gave up the right to him when you told me to have an abortion.”

Bennett’s stare became almost unbearable. She hadn’t told him that.

“Not to mention, you haven’t paid any child support,” she added. “Now, you need to go …” She looked toward the street.

“He can’t drive like that,” Bennett said. “He’ll get somebody killed.”

“Call the police then,” she said.

But he didn’t move. “I have a better idea.” He disappeared inside and returned without August, his cell phone pressed to his ear. “We don’t want to get the police involved if we don’t have to,” he said.

Why? Because of custody issues. She knew the answer. But surely that wouldn’t be a problem. Cale hadn’t been involved in August’s life at all, and here, he stood, drunk.