Can't Stand the Heat? (14 page)

She had to make a decision about the paternity test, and soon. Once Walker showed his game, he’d have no reason to stay in Otter Tail.

It was the right thing to do. And the idea made her sweat.

She threw the sponge into the sink. “Damn it.”

Nick poked his head into the kitchen, his eyes bright. “Come on, Mom. Walker’s just about ready.”

“I’ll be right out,” she said, struggling to smile. “Two minutes.”

“Okay.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Maddie said to tell you she’s saving you a stool at the bar.”

“Are you going to sit with us?”

He rolled his eyes. “Duh. I’ll be with Walker.”

How would Nick feel if it turned out that he was really Walker’s son?

He’d be confused. Shaken. Upset. In spite of his battles with Tony, he knew his father loved him. What would happen to their relationship?

She wouldn’t think about it tonight. Right now she was going to enjoy watching the game and savor the knowledge that her son had a role in getting it ready.

When she slid onto the seat next to Maddie, her friend held up a small black box. “Walker gave me one of the controllers,” she said. “You want it?”

“God, no. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Give it to someone who plays video games.” Augie Weigand was standing at the end of the bar, looking hungrily at the boxes four other patrons held. “Hey, Aug. Use this one.”

Augie’s face lit up. “Thanks, Jen.” He ran his fingers over it, testing the buttons and the joystick.

Ian Hartshorn elbowed him. “Give you twenty bucks for it.”

“No way, man.”

“What do you know about this game?” Maddie handed Jen a beer.

“Not a thing. When Nick and Tommy talk about gaming, my eyes glaze over.”

“Yeah, I never got the appeal of sitting in one spot and staring at a TV for hours,” Maddie said cheerfully. “But it’s great for the Harp. And Walker is going to leave the system and a bunch of games, too. We can have regular tournaments.” She nodded toward the door. “Hey, look, Tony’s here.”

Her ex had just walked in, and Jen almost wanted to kiss him. Nick would be thrilled that his father was taking an interest in what he did. “Nick must have told him about helping Walker with the game.”

“He’s making an effort,” Maddie said, apparently reading her mind. “That’s great.”

“Yeah.” It was good that Tony was trying with Nick. Really, it was. But sometimes it would be easier if Tony had been a complete jerk with his sons and they could simply cut him out of their lives.

As Nick and Walker fussed with a machine, Maddie asked quietly, “What’s going on with you and Walker?”

“Nothing.” Jen’s face burned, and she tried to hide it by drinking her beer.

“Really? Your kid helps him with the game. You blush when I ask about him. But there’s nothing going on?”

“Okay, maybe he wants there to be something.” And so did she. “But he reminds me of the person I used to be. And I don’t want to be that girl anymore. I don’t even want any reminders. I was so horrible to him.”

“You can move beyond that,” Maddie said softly. “Look at me.”

“What I did to Walker is a lot more than a bunch of kids teasing each other.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes. “When you and Delaney were helping me plot revenge on Quinn, you mentioned something that you’d done in high school. Something bad. Was that Walker?”

“Yes.” She shifted on her seat, trying to find a way to change the subject.

A blast of trumpet music from the speaker drowned out Maddie’s response, and a picture of an enormous castle appeared on the screens. Lightning crackled above the gray stone building, and clouds swirled around the turrets. Mist rose from the ground, curling up the walls.

A sword appeared on the screen, and then lifelike images of four young men walking up to the castle door. It creaked open and they stepped inside.

A flash of light appeared at the top of the staircase, and a woman materialized out of it. She was tall and blond and wore a black leather bustier, tall leather boots and the world’s skimpiest black leather bikini bottom. Her face was indistinct.

“Who dares to intrude?” she asked.

She started down the stairs, and her face slowly swirled into focus. Jen shifted uncomfortably. The sorceress looked a lot like her. Hazel eyes, mouth and nose…she could be looking in a mirror.

The crowd in the pub stirred. “That’s Jen,” a man said loudly. Everyone swiveled to look at her.

When the sorceress reached the bottom of the stairs, she turned to one of the four characters. A tattoo of a sun and moon, twined together, peeked out from the edge of her bikini.

Jen gasped. The sorceress’s tattoo was almost identical to hers. Only two men knew that tattoo was there.

One of them was Walker.

Her glass wobbled as she set the beer on the bar. Maddie turned to her. “Jen? Tell me you don’t have a tattoo on your butt.”

She ignored her friend as she stared at the screen. The leather-clad woman raised her arm. Light and smoke flew from her fingertips, and one of the men tumbled over. A lightning bolt quivered in his chest, right where his heart would be.

“Leave my house,” she said, turning to the other characters. “Before you meet the same fate as your friend.” She snapped her fingers and disappeared in a flash of smoke.

The game went on, with the three men, joined by the recovered fourth, scouring the castle for signs of the sorceress. She shot lightning bolts at them, changed them into dogs, set traps for them. Jen was numb. Walker had made her the villain of his game.

She felt people watching her, but she focused on the screen. The picture was wavy and blurred, but she refused to let the tears fall.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Walker weaving through the crowd. Toward her. She looked around frantically, but there was nowhere to go. Too many people, packed too closely together. She was trapped.

“Jen, I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t realize—”

“Go away, Walker. You’re making it worse,” she said without looking at him.

He hesitated, and she kicked him in the shin. “Go. Away.”

As he backed off, she wanted to run out of the Harp, crawl into a hole somewhere and stay there for about a hundred years. Far from Otter Tail.

As the game progressed, every time the sorceress appeared on the screen people glanced at her. Comparing. Wondering.

Tony’s gaze burned into her, and her stomach twisted. He would have figured out how Walker knew about that tattoo.

By the time the sorceress had been vanquished and the screen faded to black, Jen was shaking with humiliation. Her face was hot and she wanted to squirm. But she made herself sit perfectly still.

Her hand cramped, and she realized she was clutching her beer glass. Setting it carefully on the bar, she stared blindly at the logo for GeekBoy, Walker’s company, on the screen.

Walker had made her the villain in a video game that millions of people would see. Starting right here in Otter Tail.

She
had
been the villain in his life.

She’d embarrassed him publicly, all those years ago. Humiliated him.

Maybe she deserved to be a villain in his game.

Maybe now they were even.

“That’s not my mother.” Nick’s voice rose above the crowd. “It didn’t look anything like her. And she doesn’t have a tattoo. Right, Mom?”

What kind of example would that be?

She slid off the bar stool and pushed through the crowd toward the big plasma television Walker had installed. Nick was standing beneath it, his cheeks flushed, his leg jittering.

“Tell them, Mom.”

She touched his shoulder, knowing he’d hate any public display of affection. “It’s okay, Nick,” she said quietly.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to face her friends. People she’d grown up with and known for years. Walker, white-faced, moved to intercept her. She ignored him.

“I’m sure you all think Walker used me as the model for Neoma.” She dragged in a shuddering breath and tried to smile. “I don’t know about that—she’s way too hot to be based on me.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd, and people shuffled their feet. Jen put her hands behind her and grabbed on to the table for support. “But if that was me up on the screen, it would only be fair. Because I
was
the villain in his life. In high school.”

“Jen, no,” Walker said, elbowing his way toward her.

“Any of you who went to school with us know that Walker was expelled right before we graduated. It was my fault. I did something to him that I’ve been ashamed of ever since. And no, Hank,” she said to the guitar player as he started to speak. “I’m not going to tell you what it was. That’s between Walker and me.”

Nick stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her, and she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. At some point in every kid’s life, he finds out that his parents aren’t perfect. She swallowed hard. If Nick hadn’t realized it before, he sure knew it now. If she allowed herself to think about his disappointment, his embarrassment, she
would
run away.

Get through the next two minutes.
Then she could leave with a scrap of dignity.

“Walker tried to tell me he didn’t realize Neoma was me, and I believe him.” Did she? It didn’t matter. This was her penance. She clenched her hands more tightly around the table and managed a wobbly smile. “But maybe I should ask him for residuals.”

Laughter rippled across the room.

“Enjoy the game, everyone, and the system Walker donated to the Harp,” she added. “We’ll all remember his generosity long after he leaves.”

She pushed her way back through the crowd, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Refusing to stop. Until Tony appeared in front of her.

“Jen. How did—”

“Not now, Tony. Later.”

Oh, God. He knew. She saw it in his tight jaw, the anger in his eyes.

She was almost at the door, her face still burning, when her mother put a hand on her arm. “We’ll take Nick out for dinner,” she said quietly. “We’ll go get Tommy and pick up Stevie and Adam, too. Even though they were moved to the Fisks’ today, we promised to let them know how the game turned out. We’ll be gone for a while.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she said around the lump in her throat. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“You don’t have to, dear. It sounds as if you’ve paid for your mistake many times over.”

Her mother’s understanding, her gentle voice, made the tears overflow. Jen didn’t deserve her mother’s kindness. Jen deserved exactly what Walker had done.

She put her head down as she hurried out the door. The evening was chilly, and she’d left her coat behind, but nothing could make her go back into the Harp.

When she reached her car, she realized she’d left her purse and car keys in the pub, too. She leaned her forehead against the roof, tears flowing faster, until she heard footsteps crunching over the gravel.

“Jen, wait.”

Walker. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She began to run. Her side ached and her lungs heaved, but she wouldn’t stop.

He caught up as she reached her house. Stepping in front of her, he ran backward. Slowing her down. Forcing her to face him.

“Jen, please. Stop.”

She slowed, then faltered to a halt. Dragging in deep breaths, she bent over, hands on her knees.

When she could speak, she said, “Why did you follow me?”

He stared at her, astonished. Bewildered. “Did you think I wouldn’t? That I would let you walk out and not do or say anything?”

She wanted to step around him and finish her escape. But, just like at the Harp, some things were better faced immediately. “Why not?” she asked wearily.

“You can’t believe I did that deliberately. That I put that game on the screen, knowing she looked like you.”

Jen lifted one shoulder. “Kind of hard to miss, Walker.”

“I haven’t seen her for months.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I mean, of course I have, but I didn’t
see
her.”

Sweat was drying on her skin, and she shivered. “I meant what I said at the Harp. I don’t blame you. I owed you. Yes, it was humiliating, but I deserved it. I humiliated you in front of the whole school. But did you have to do it with Nick there? God! You think he’s your son, but you still let him see that? Slap him with the knowledge that his mother had sex with you?”

“Do you really think I would do that? To you or Nick?”

She closed her eyes and wiped away the tears that had streamed down her face all the way home. Nick knew. Tony knew. What was next?

“You’re cold. Let’s go inside.” He put his hand on her lower back and steered her up the steps, through the porch and into the living room. “How about some tea?”

This was her house. He wasn’t going to take care of her in her own place. “I’m fine.”

Walker stood stiffly in the center of the room, hands in his pockets, as if bracing himself for a blow. “Will you give me a chance to explain?”

She stayed out of his reach, hugging herself to stop the shaking. Because she was cold. That’s all.

One side of his mouth curved. “A little intimidating,” he murmured. “No wonder I thought of you when I created my kick-ass, take-no-prisoners character. I designed her a long time ago,” he continued. “Before I had a game for her. Were you the model? Apparently so. But I swear, Jen, I didn’t do it deliberately. Heck, I haven’t thought about you for years.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. “Until I came back to Otter Tail.”

“I get that you used me as your villain. But did you have to use the tattoo?” Her face burned as if she’d been slapped. “Everyone is going to realize…”

“No one’s going to realize anything. It’s a game, Jen. Make-believe. Of course she had a tattoo. It’s part of her persona.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m so sorry. I’ll change it before it goes public.”

She studied his eyes and saw only remorse. Apology. There was no guilt in his clear gaze.

She doubted he was a good enough actor to hide that.

“All right, Walker, I believe you didn’t do it on purpose. It was horribly humiliating, but now I know how you must have felt after…after I seduced you. When you were expelled. It doesn’t feel good.”

“I saw Tony stop you. What are you going to say to him?”

“Oh, God, I have no idea.” She pressed her palms against her hot cheeks. “He knows. And from now on, every time we fight about something, he’ll throw that at me.”

“What happened, Jen? With you and Tony.” Walker started to reach for her again, then dropped his hand. “Tell me about your marriage.”

He had the right to ask. Her relationship with Tony was the reason she’d asked him to change that grade.

“He didn’t ask me to sleep with you,” she said in a low voice. “I never intended to. It just…got out of hand.” She stared down, remembering the way she’d flirted with Walker. The painfully eager expression on his face. He’d been an earnest boy, serious and sweet. So different from cocky, confident Tony.

Back in high school, Walker would push his glasses higher on his nose when he was nervous. He’d pushed them up a lot that day. She remembered how his hand had shaken when she took it to lead him into that closet. The way he’d kissed her, as if she was infinitely precious.

“I never told Tony,” she said.

“But now he knows.”

“Yes. I’m such a hypocrite.” She swallowed hard. “I betrayed him, too. If Nick isn’t his son… We had a lot of problems, but he didn’t deserve that.”

“It was a crappy thing to do to him. But you weren’t married to him when we had sex.”

“I was in love with him. Committed to him. That’s just as bad. I never even considered he wasn’t Nick’s dad….”

“How come you two didn’t make it?”

She stared out the window, unseeing. “He lost his baseball scholarship when the principal found out what you’d done. So instead of college, he went straight to the minors. He traveled a lot. I was alone at home with a baby. Being married wasn’t what either of us thought it would be.”

“You were young.”

“We made a lot of grown-up mistakes.” She dropped onto the couch, curled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “He blew out his rotator cuff, and that was the end of baseball. He got the job as a cop in Green Bay, but things were never the same.

“The final blow was probably as much my fault as his. He cheated on me. Neither of us was happy. He wasn’t what I wanted, and I couldn’t be what he wanted, either.” She tugged at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “Everything came to a head one night when I got home early from a visit to my parents. Tommy was going to a birthday party the next day, and I didn’t want to take a chance on traffic.

“It was late, close to midnight. Both the boys were asleep in the car. When I pulled up to the house, the lights were all on, so I knew Tony was there. I left the boys in the car and went in to get him. I wanted him to carry Tommy to bed so he wouldn’t wake up.”

Walker sat next to her, took her hands in his and uncurled her fists. Her nails were digging painfully into her palms. He smoothed them out, then twined his fingers with hers.

He let go of one of her hands and pulled her against his chest. His heart thumped beneath her ear, steady and strong. Reassuring.

“He was in my kitchen with a woman. Naked. Having sex on my table.” Her throat closed. “I loved that kitchen. Loved everything about it. Cooking was the only time I was really happy.” Jen took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I’d found that table at a yard sale, spent hours stripping it, then refinishing it until it was perfect. And he was using it to bang some blonde with plastic breasts.”

Walker wrapped his arms around Jen and rocked her while she cried, deep, wrenching sobs that tore at her throat and made her chest ache. By the time they slowed, his shirt was wet and she was drained. He rubbed her back while she hiccuped, and when she was sure she could talk without breaking down again, she pushed away from him.

“He betrayed me. But our marriage was over long before that.”

“Why did you sleep with me?” he asked abruptly. “Back then.”

She raised her head to look at him. “Truth?”

“Tell me.”

“I wasn’t planning that. But when you kissed me, touched me…” She cupped his cheek. “It had never been like that for me before. You were so tender. So careful with me. You made me feel cherished.”

She let her hand fall away. “Afterward, I was so ashamed. I’d been using you, and you were loving me.”

He brushed the tears from her cheeks. “You know I had a crush on you. Had for a long time. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

“Too bad it was really hell.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t say that. Purgatory, maybe.”

He pressed a kiss into her palm, and desire shuddered through her. Crazy to want him now. But she did.

Not just wanted him. She needed him to fill the empty places inside her. To make her feel whole again.

Before Walker had come back, she hadn’t felt whole in a very long time.