Just a Kiss: The Bradfords, Book 5 (2 page)

Ready to blast them further, he started to turn…as Heather’s fist connected with his jaw. It didn’t even jerk his head back, but it didn’t feel great.

Dooley grabbed her and Kevin glared, rubbing his face. “What the hell?” he demanded.

“I’ll fight whoever I have to!” she declared. “Steve has to do this! It’s what’s right!”

“Do what?” Kevin asked, giving her a scowl that had made NCAA offensive linemen tremble. “What’s this all about? The kid?”

“He has to take him. There isn’t anyone else,” Heather said. And just like that she started sobbing. “What am I going to do? He can’t go to foster care!”

Dooley shook her gently. “Calm down. Tell us what’s going on.”

“She
claims
,” Janice said, experimentally tugging on the arm Kevin held. But she wasn’t going anywhere. She sighed. “She says Steve has to take care of the kid. That he owes them.”

Kevin frowned at her. “Does he?” he asked.

Janice shook her head quickly. “No. It can’t be. The kid’s ten. Why hasn’t she come before this? Why would he lie to me?”

Kevin rolled his eyes, looking from Heather’s nose—which Dooley had covered with a bloody cloth at the moment—then to the claw marks on her arm. “I don’t know why he would have lied. Clearly you’d be completely understanding and supportive about it when you found out.”

Not that he was feeling
either
of those things—
at all—
toward his father at the moment. If any of this was true, then…

He couldn’t think about it. Heather was twenty-five years younger than his dad. She’d been drinking cheap wine coolers and kissing boys for the first time down by the river while his dad had been at home watching TV and eating meatloaf with his wife…Kevin’s
mom.
His dad was
married
. To his
mom
. The way it was supposed to be. They were a normal family. He’d grown up with a white picket fence—literally. He couldn’t imagine anything tainting that, anything ruining that picture of the all-American family.

Okay, so maybe perfect wasn’t fair. They weren’t perfect, of course. There had been problems with the business at times and fights about money. His dad had been extremely attentive to Kevin, the boy and the star athlete, and that had caused issues with his older sister. His mom loved them both but she wasn’t the cuddly, maternal type. She was much more comfortable yelling from the bleachers at a football game than she was reading bedtime stories in a rocking chair. Which had also been a problem for his sister—the non-athlete.

But they were a family. They were secure and stable. Supposedly.

Now his mother had gotten into a catfight in a nice restaurant and a hospital waiting room with his father’s much-younger mistress over his illegitimate child.

Secure and stable were relative terms.

He looked at Heather. The tears were still streaming. “What do you want? Steve? More money?”

She shook her head. “He has to take him.”

“Who? Dad?” Kevin looked at his mother but she was stubbornly looking the other direction. “What do you want Dad, I mean Steve, to do?”

“I’m going to jail!” Heather wailed. “For six months! Steve has to take care of Drew. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Jail?” Dooley broke in. His wide eyes met Kevin’s. “Seriously?”

Kevin wondered briefly if he was asleep and dreaming. Or maybe this was a practical joke.

But the blood on Heather’s shirt front and the rage in his mother’s eyes were very, very real.

He shook his head. “What are you going to jail for?”

Two security guards showed up before she could answer. Of course. Now that the girls were calming down.

“You need help, Kevin?” one of them asked.

“No, Brad, thanks. But,” he added as they turned to go, “maybe stay close, just in case.”

He started to ask Heather again about jail, but movement in the corner of the waiting room caught his eye. He leaned to get a better look… and then stared, his hold on his mom’s arm going slack.

Crouched behind a chair in the corner was a little boy.

Heather’s little boy, he’d bet.

Dan had said the woman went into the restaurant with the kid, now that he thought about it.

“You’re doing this with
him
here?” Kevin demanded, anger coursing through him at both of the women who were acting like idiots. “Here.” He thrust his mother at one of the security guys and stalked across the waiting room. He made himself draw a deep breath and shorten his steps as he got closer to the boy, trying to at least
seem
calm.

“Hey, buddy,” he said when he was within a few feet of the child. “What’s your name?”

The kid stood up behind the chair and met Kevin’s gaze evenly. “Drew.”

He didn’t seem scared. “You okay, Drew?”

If one of these crazy broads—his mother or not—had hit the kid with even a drop of coffee, Kevin was going to have security lock them up somewhere.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“Nope.”

“You scared?”

“Nah. Didn’t want to get hit in the head.” Ah. Hiding behind the chair was practical.

“Good idea.”

Drew shrugged like he wasn’t all that impressed with any of it. “I thought we were going to Arby’s.”

Kevin took a deep breath and forced himself not to look at the two women behind him. “I like Arby’s too.”

“I don’t like spaghetti,” Drew said. “That other place only has spaghetti.”

Kevin was certain Spaghetti Works had more than spaghetti but if that was all that stood out in Drew’s mind about the restaurant at this point, that was fine. “Are you hungry? ’Cause I
really
am.” He wasn’t. At all. But he had to get out of that waiting room and he suspected the same would be good for Drew. He was mortified by his mother’s actions. And, quite possibly, his father’s.

Again, Drew might be feeling similarly.

Drew slid out from behind the chair and came to stand right in front of Kevin, looking up. Way up. Kevin was six-four and a big guy. He’d played Division I football for Nebraska for four years and had spent two years in the pros with the Kansas City Chiefs. He knew his size was the first thing people noticed about him.

“You got any coffee?” Drew asked.

Kevin looked down at the boy. He knew that most child experts said to get on eye level with kids when you talked to them, to make them feel comfortable. But, strangely, he could tell that it wouldn’t matter with Drew. The kid was sizing him up—figuratively and literally—and seemed perfectly comfortable. In fact, for some reason, Kevin thought that if he tried to get on Drew’s level, the boy would know exactly what he was trying to do and it might have the opposite effect. “We have coffee in the break room.”

“That will do.”

Trying not to show his surprise, Kevin started for the back room. He didn’t even spare a glance at his mother, Heather, Dooley or anyone else.

“You take cream and sugar?” Kevin asked, crossing to the coffee pot. He’d play along with this. A little coffee wouldn’t hurt the kid, and if it made him feel grown-up maybe that was what he needed right now. Thankfully, Sam, Mac and Dan all stayed out of the break room. They might be helping up front—or taking bets on who would win if they let the women go at one another.

Heather was younger and clearly was motivated by something to do with her son, but Kevin knew his mom. She was tough. And she was clearly pissed off.

He wasn’t sure who he’d go with, frankly.

“Do you have French vanilla creamer?” Drew asked. “That’s my favorite.”

Kevin fought a smile. “Nope, sorry, just plain.”

Drew sighed. “Okay. Two sugars.”

If having the wrong kind of creamer was the worst thing to happen in his mind, then this night might be salvageable. As he mixed cream and sugar into a half cup of coffee, Kevin thought about that…and felt his frown deepen. Maybe this kind of stuff was normal in Drew’s life. Maybe Heather did crap like this all the time.

Terrific.

He set the cup down in front of Drew, who immediately picked it up and drank. He swallowed without a wince and Kevin had to wonder if he did, indeed, drink coffee on a regular basis.

“Kevin?”

He turned to find Danika Bradford, Sam’s wife, coming through the door. She was a social worker at the hospital and she was the first female he’d encountered in the past hour that he was happy to see. “Hey.”

“Exciting night,” she said. She smiled at Drew. “Hi, I’m Dani.”

“I’m Drew. Want some coffee?”

She raised an eyebrow at Kevin, who shrugged. “He prefers French vanilla creamer but he’s putting up with our plain stuff.”

“I like hazelnut best,” Danika said, taking a seat next to Drew.

“What do you know?” Kevin asked nonchalantly, also pulling out a chair.

Clearly Sam had called her, probably the minute he’d heard Kevin’s dad had been stabbed in the hand by a fork. But she might be able to get to the bottom of what was going on. If nothing else, she could be a resource. She knew more about custody situations and what happened when single moms went to jail than he did. Besides, Kevin had way too many emotions swirling to make any sense out of anything right now.

“What I know is that I’m going to challenge Drew to a game of Gin Rummy and that your dad is in exam room four,” she said, pulling a deck of cards from her purse. “You play?” she asked Drew.

“I know poker,” he said. “But I can learn Gin Rummy.”

She smiled. “Great. Because I’m not very good at poker.”

“It takes practice,” Drew said sagely, as if he’d been playing for years.

She started dealing, but nudged Kevin’s foot with hers. “Room four.”

He sighed and slid his chair back. Might as well get this over with. His dad was clearly the best one to talk to if he wanted answers. But he was also the last person Kevin wanted to see right now. No matter what was true or not true at the moment, his dad had done
something
that had resulted in this fiasco.

This stuff didn’t happen in Kevin’s life. His life was calm, normal, boring even. His buddies had the drama and the chaos. At least until recently when they’d all ended up in love and things had gotten a lot more…stable for all of them.

They were going to really enjoy this.

“Dad?” Kevin pushed the door open, half hoping the room was full of medical staff and half hoping his dad was alone. He really did want to know what was going on but he really didn’t want to hate his father.

He was afraid that latter was a distinct possibility.

“Hey, Kev.”

His dad was sitting propped up on the exam table. His hand was wrapped with a thick bandage and his eye was already turning dark.

“What the
hell
is going on?”

Kevin was so worked up he didn’t even feel bad about the swearing. It was one of the many things he’d worked at cleaning up in his life—and was one of many things that often proved difficult for him.

“I screwed up,” Steve Campbell said simply.

“So you did have an affair? With Heather?”

Steve nodded, then grimaced. Kevin suspected he had a killer headache. “It was brief. And a long time ago.”

“About eleven years ago?” Kevin said dryly. “I met Drew.”

Steve swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

Kevin shoved his hands into his pockets. “Have
you
ever met Drew?”

He wasn’t sure what he wanted the answer to be. If his dad hadn’t been involved, that made him an asshole. But if he had, it made him a liar. He’d been keeping this from them anyway. If he’d been involved, being a father to Drew, then he’d really been sneaky.

“No.” Steve closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the pillow. “I’ve been giving her money every month. I gave her a hair sample to prove paternity. That’s it.”

Well, and a successful sperm donation
, Kevin thought before he could stop it.

“And now?”

Steve opened his eyes and focused on his son. “Now I get to choose between taking care of my son or keeping my wife.”

Kevin felt a cold lump settle in his chest, then slide to his gut. “You think Mom would leave you?”

“I know she would. She told me ten years ago when she suspected something was going on and she told me twenty minutes ago. She’s leaving for Arizona and I either go with her or I don’t. Ever again.”

His parents had started spending the winter in Arizona ten Christmases ago. Now he wondered if Heather had something to do with his father choosing to go that year.

“When is she leaving?”

“Friday.”

Four days. Kevin couldn’t blame her. It was way early to avoid the snow and cold, and there was still some yard cleanup business happening, but they could get their extra guys to handle that. Getting away from all of this would be a welcome relief, Kevin was sure.

“What are you going to do?”

Steve didn’t answer at first but finally swung his legs around to sit up on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been thinking about that since I got here.”