Road to Reality (9 page)

She nodded her head.

Wow, he thought, not able to fight the possessiveness that overcame him. “Not even by yourself? Ever?” he asked again, dropping his hand from her chin.

This time she shook her head.

He hugged her close, hoping to ease her discomfort.  He wasn’t embarrassed at all. If possible, he was even more aroused.  But that also meant he wouldn’t be getting anywhere else tonight.  It was obvious she was skittish.

He was trying to figure it out in his mind. She was drop dead gorgeous. Men had to have been fighting for her all her life, yet not one of them had ever been able to please her.  Her next statement stopped his thoughts dead in their track.

“I don’t really have a lot of experience.”

He didn’t know how to approach it at this point.  What if she asked about his past experience? He would be honest, definitely, but he didn’t want to turn her off either.  He had never been a one-night-stand type of person, but he’d had plenty of relationships over the years. Some short, other’s long, nothing extremely serious, though.

“Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to. It’s totally up to you. We can have this conversation about our history if you want. If you need to know, I’m okay with it,” he explained. “I’m clean. I’ve always had protected sex.”

The whole conversation seemed to embarrass her even more.  Her face grew redder and she moved away from him, back to rubbing her hands on her thighs and averting her eyes from his. “I don’t need to know yours. I know you would have been responsible.  But I want you to know mine. I don’t want you to think something that might not be true,” she said shyly.

The relief he felt at not having to share his own past was short-lived, because now suddenly, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know hers either. The thought of her with other men was an uneasy feeling he never experienced before. Obviously she had been with other men, she had a child.

He reached over and held her hands in his, trying to calm her. “I haven’t been with anyone since the beginning of my pregnancy,” she said, and then blurted out. “And no one else before that.”

He continued to look at her. No questions coming forth, he wanted her to talk at her own pace, say only what she felt comfortable with, with no pressure from him.

“I’ve only been with one person, Zoe’s father.  It was only for a few months, and only a handful of times.”

“How is that possible? I mean I know how it’s possible, but
how
is it possible that someone as beautiful as you, as terrific as you, has had so little experience?”

Having only had sex a total of five times, she definitely didn’t have a lot of experience.

She wasn’t about to explain to him how her first sexual experience had been in a cheap hotel. Or how Derek had said his roommates were home, and because she lived in a dorm, it was the only way they could have privacy. She never pushed the issues about meeting Derek’s roommates but wished she had. She had been too naive to see the signs, too in love with the idea of someone caring about her.

Her shoulders drooped as she tried to decide how much to tell Mac, whether to bare her soul or not.  She really liked him. A lot. And she didn’t want to scare him away.  But wouldn’t it be worse if he found out about her past after the fact? Or thought she hid it from him. Maybe it was best to come clean now and let him decide if he wanted to continue any type of relationship with her or not.

She inhaled deeply, trying to figure out where to start. “I don’t know. I can only guess the reason since I don’t know what goes through a guy’s mind.”

“Well, I’m a guy. I know what is going through my mind right now, and I’m astonished to say the least. But if you really don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

She was so uncomfortable right now, laced with a mixture of underlying sadness and distress. “No, I probably should. I don’t want any secrets. I mean it’s not bad. I’m not a criminal or anything like that. But its best you know about my background if you were interested in getting involved. Not saying you are, just saying...” She trailed off, not knowing what else to say and afraid she already put her foot in her mouth.

“Beth, yes, I
am
involved. I have been since the minute I ran to Zoe on the playground. From the minute I watched you hold it together and put your trust in a complete stranger, regardless of how terrified I knew you felt.”

He picked her hand up in his and waited to speak until she looked him in the eye. “I want to know if you want to tell me. But if you don’t, that is OK, too. Nothing you tell me will change how I feel about you.”

She believed him. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she had ever had any men in her life that she could actually believe in, but she believed Mac. So she told him.

“I had a pretty bad childhood.  I guess that is the simplest way to say it. Of course, I’m sure a lot of people say the same thing, but they really don’t know what it’s like.  I grew up a little over an hour from here, in a small one-stoplight town.  There is no way to sugar coat it: we were poor, living in an old metal trailer and hoping the electricity didn’t get shut off again this month because it was the middle of the winter. And it was
cold.
Or hoping I could run a fan because the inside of the trailer felt like an oven in the summer.  Eating cereal for several meals in a row, or crackers and spray cheese, whatever was cheap and was easy for a kid to make alone.”

She cringed at the thought of those memories, but pushed on. “I was alone most of the time. My mother was a hairdresser; she did work. But in our poor area there wasn’t a lot of money to be made, which is why I finally relocated out of the area.  My father— when he worked—had odd jobs: the night shift in a warehouse, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, whatever he needed to do to buy his next six pack of beer and carton of cigarettes.”

She saw him sit back and get comfortable, letting her continue at her own pace. “It’s a hard life when you’re poor, when everyone around you has more, and you’re the kid on the outside looking in.  When you’re washing your hair in the sink because the faucet wasn’t working in the tub and you didn’t want to go to school dirty. Because if you did—and it happened when I was younger—you got picked on.”

She cleared her throat. It was burning now, the memories physically hurting her.  “Can you give me a second? I need a drink.”

“Take your time,” he told her as she walked out of the room.

She came back with a bottle of water in her hand, took a few sips, and continued. “It wasn’t just me that was dirty when I was younger. We lived in filth; no one cleaned.  My father, when he wasn’t working, sat on the couch drinking and smoking, and the smell of smoke overwhelmed the tiny two-bedroom trailer.  My mother refused to clean up after him, and no one really paid too much attention to me.  I was shy, withdrawn, scared half of the time because of the amount fighting they did.”

She could still visualize it in her mind. Her father screaming at her mother to bring him a beer, then her mother screaming back to get his lazy butt up. Finally, her father in a fit of temper would the throw empty beer cans through the kitchen attempting to hit her mother with one—until she finally brought him another.

“Anyway, I sat in my room a lot talking to my dolls and myself. I didn’t have any friends. No one wanted to be friends with the tall gawky girl that came to school in dirty clothes smelling of smoke, whose father was drunk and mother was never around. I thought everyone lived like that until I was around eight.”

She smiled grimly. “I was invited to someone’s house after school one day. They didn’t have much more money than we did and they lived in the same trailer park.  But when I walked in it smelled nice, like lemons. It was clean, really clean.  And though we only had hamburgers for dinner, it was a meal. Not a handful of gold fish crackers and a can of soda.”

She looked at him, saw what he was struggling to hide on his face, and didn’t want to go on. She forced a smile and tried to tease, even though the situation was anything but funny to her. “I feel like I’ve said enough, that you are ready to bolt out the door.”

“No. No, I’m not going to bolt. Not now, maybe never.” He pulled her close, settling her against his side, his arm around her shoulder, her head on his chest.  “Go on. I want to know, I want you to tell me.”

But she couldn’t, so she changed the subject a bit. “My father thought I was stupid because I never talked much. They didn’t start me in school until I was six, because to him any child that stayed in her room all the time and cringed when she heard loud voices, or talked to dolls, must have something wrong with her.  Add to the fact I wasn’t a very attractive. I was a homely child.”

He snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true. I would show you a picture, but I doubt any were ever taken other than classroom pictures in school.  I was rather thin, not that I was starved, but you can only eat so much of the type of food I was fed.  School lunches, which were free for me, were the only real meals I ever had. My hair was often in a messy ponytail. Even though my mom was a hairdresser, she never bothered with me. My clothes were all too big or too small. All hand-me-downs from other families who felt bad for the girl whose parents didn’t care if she existed.”

He ran his hand up and down her arm, trying to soothe her. She took comfort in his action. No one had ever tried to soothe her before. “Aside from the clothes, my skin was really bad, probably because I only used cheap soap when someone actually bothered to give me a bath, or told me to bathe.  All that aside, my eyes were opened going to my friend’s house that day.  I went home later that night and cleaned my room. I don’t know what made me do it, but I wanted it to look like my friend’s. Not that it ever would. I only had a few toys, mismatched sheets and a pillow with no pillowcase. But I wanted it to be neat, and when it was, it felt good.  So I slowly started cleaning the rest of the house, or trying to at least, even if it was only with water and dish soap. That was still better than nothing.”

Mortification, that he struggled and failed to hide, now clearly showed on his face, mixed with underlining pity. The last thing she wanted was pity from anyone, least of all him. “I can see you doing that, taking charge, and making a change,” he said placing a kiss on the forehead.

“Really?” she asked, pleased with the comment. “Anyway, back to your original question, I didn’t date in high school because no one really talked to me, for all the reasons I listed.  Then in college I was too busy working every hour I could to earn money. I wanted so badly to break away from my miserable childhood.  By the time I was twenty and away from home, I was so out of my element. I was stupid and naïve and fell for the first guy to pay attention to me.  I learned my lesson, though. It was a hard one to learn, but Zoe has to come first now.” She let out a big breath. “So that’s the shortened version of my story, I guess.”

He sighed and hugged her close. “Look at you, Beth. Look around you. This place, even though it’s small, it’s a home. A great home that you created all by yourself for Zoe without any help. She’s well cared for, well fed—a happy child. No one would think anything other than how loved she is. And no one would have ever known you came from what you did, to what you are today.”

“I’m ashamed of where I came from,” she told him bluntly. “I can’t change that. But I can change where I am now. And I did, and I am.  But I wanted you to know.  I didn’t want you to find out another way and be embarrassed that you’re with someone who was the epitome of trailer trash.”

“Never.  I’m not embarrassed, nor would I ever be. I’m both troubled and saddened to know you lived like that. I was proud of you before, for being on your own, and raising Zoe as well as you are.  Now, knowing what I do about your past, I’m in complete awe of you. For what you made of yourself, for the life you are making for Zoe.  You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Thinking back, Mac didn’t know what else he could have said to Beth when she confessed her childhood life to him.  He couldn’t tell her that having money didn’t mean he had great childhood. Because it didn’t.

His mother never loved or cared for Brooke or him. His father was never home, and when he was, rarely paid attention to them. Not unless it was to make a public appearance, to fit the image of the perfect family that his mother worked so hard to maintain.  All their meals, their clothes, their care, came from hired staff.

Although he didn’t think he had a good childhood by any sense of the imagination, he never went hungry, was never dirty, never lacked money or worried about electricity or filth.  But the one thing he didn’t have any more than her, the one thing money couldn’t buy, was affection from his parents.  Or even attention for that matter.

When he’d left Beth’s house last Saturday after their lengthy talk about her past, he thought he had broken through a wall with her, and he was happy about it. Not about her life, but that she trusted him enough to tell him.

Trust. He was trying to earn hers, and thought he was, even if it was just a glimmer. 

He had talked on the phone with her daily this past week and they even managed to have dinner together twice, mid-week because she worked late on Monday and Tuesday, and he didn’t want to take away from her time with Zoe. It seemed like whenever he was in the room, Zoe had a hard time dividing her attention between the two of them. He didn’t want Beth to feel like she was taking second place in her daughter’s eyes.

She had seemed lighter this week, happier almost.  Maybe she was relieved to get all those bad memories off her chest? Maybe she realized he wasn’t going to walk out on her because of it?  Or maybe she was starting to believe in him?  He could see where her faith in men would be nonexistent—and hoped to change that.

Now it was Saturday morning again, and Beth and Zoe were on their way over.  He had high hopes for the day.  Lucas and Brooke were having their second Fourth of July party, starting later this afternoon.   Beth, Zoe and he were going to have an early lunch, then let Zoe take her nap here. Afterward, they would walk over to Brooke’s together before the party started and help Brooke get ready.

“There’s my girl,” Mac said, watching Zoe run down the hallway toward him where he waited for her, crouched low. Of course she ran willingly into his arms.

“Wow, it looks great in here,” Beth said.

The house had been transformed in the two weeks since she had been over. His living room was now complete with a warm toasted almond paint color that covered the entire open floor plan.  It went well with the kitchen, and because the floors were so dark, the walls really shouldn’t have been. He was glad she’d convinced him of that.  He definitely needed to add some splashes of color, but there was time for that. “Come on, I’ll show you the upstairs.  They finished the master suite a few days ago.  There’s still some more work to do on the fourth bedroom, but they put a rush on the master for me.”

He held Zoe’s hand and made his way up the stairs located at the back of the living room. “The office isn’t finished yet either, next week with any luck. Thanks on the color suggestions there, too. I think that soft sky blue will work out well.” He really did like her style. It was simple, basic and modern, but warm. He grew up in old antique coldness and he wanted the furthest thing from that as possible.

Opening his bedroom door revealed a sage green color similar to her living room.  It worked well with the rich brown floors and dark cherry wood furniture.  He made a mental note to himself that he needed a new bedspread; the plain white one didn’t work anymore.

“Big bed,” Zoe said.

“Yes, it is,” Mac said, with a sly grin at Beth, who looked away shyly. 

He’d asked them to spend the night. No pressure, of course, there were plenty of bedrooms for everyone.  Since the fireworks show would be well past Zoe’s bedtime, he thought it would be easier to put her to bed at his house if she fell asleep, rather than pack her up and drive home. 

When Beth walked in she was minus any luggage, so he guessed she decided against staying overnight after all. It was hard not to show his disappointment, but he focused on trust again and hoped she would let him know when she was ready.

“Bathroom is right here.” He indicated, sliding the pocket door open to reveal a massive tiled shower on one side, a soaker tub on the other. Duel vanities on opposite walls, and another small door leading to the toilet made up the room.  “His and hers walk-in closets.” He pointed to the other two doors but didn’t open them.

“This suite is almost as big as my whole apartment,” she said, amazed.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only seen Zoe’s room, the kitchen and living room,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Mommy’s room is bigger than mine,” Zoe informed him.

“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up a tad at the information.

“Yes, and it’s purple,” Zoe added.             

“Purple?” He turned those same eyes with an arched brow toward Beth.

“Lavender,” she corrected.

Zoe added more information. “It has a cloud bed.”             

“A what?” Mac asked, confused.

“That’s enough, Zoe. No more talk about Mommy’s room,” she said, then turned to Mac. “A canopy bed.”

“Sounds like someone else likes princesses, too.”

***

After lunch, they settled Zoe down for her nap in the room across from Mac’s old bedroom. He was thrilled and ridiculously pleased when Beth went back out to her car to bring in their overnight bags.

Not wanting to press his luck, he showed her both rooms. The one that Zoe was in, and his old room for her use.  When she hesitated to put her bag down in his old room he took a risk by laying his hand over hers and saying, “Or I can carry it into my room.”

She let go of the bag and he breathed a sigh of relief.  Now he had to get through the party and fireworks show.

***

Like clockwork, two hours after Zoe lay down for her nap in the queen-sized bed at Mac’s house, she woke up calling for them. 

Since Mac had bought a camera monitoring system for Zoe’s room, they were able to see her sitting on the bed too. He put one of the two portable receivers downstairs so that Beth could keep an eye on Zoe and feel comfortable walking around the house and yard without worrying.  The other receiver was in his bedroom—where hopefully she would feel comfortable, too.  But she was still too nervous to think about being comfortable at this point.

In the end they decided to drive Mac’s car the half mile down the road to Brooke’s since he hadn’t realized the number of things she needed to bring for Zoe. Men never seemed to understand.

“Mac!” A little redhead yelled and ran full force into his chest with a thud to give him a big hug, not even caring that he wasn’t alone. Beth tried her hardest not to frown. Maybe it was a family member, and she didn’t want to judge.

But Mac lifted the redhead up to his level and planted a kiss on her lips. That looked a bit too friendly to be family to Beth.

It didn’t take long for Zoe to show her displeasure, either. She tugged on the end of Mac’s knee-length shorts and demanded, “Pick me up.” Then she lifted her arms in the air with a frown.

Mac easily put Zoe on his hip where she cuddled in tight, her head on his shoulder.

The little redhead took in the sight of the Zoe claiming Mac and giggled. “Looks like someone’s jealous,” she said, looking at Beth who was frowning at Mac, too.

Mac grinned—clearly not the least bit concerned—and made the introductions, as an extremely tall man made his way over to shake hands with everyone. 

Beth had never felt small in her life, but standing next to the sheer size of Jack—whom Mac had introduced as Cori’s fiancé—she did.  And she couldn’t believe Cori and Jack were even a couple. They actually looked comical together. 

“What a pretty ring,” Cori said with a bright smile and a bob of her head.  “Turn your frown upside down, Zoe. I don’t like to see anyone sad,” she said with a little giggle and a finger poke in Zoe’s tummy.

It worked. Zoe slowly smiled and held out her little hand with matching red nail polish and showed Cori her ring. “Dr. Mac give to me.”

“Dr. Mac gave it to me,” Beth corrected her.

“Yes.” Zoe clapped and then threw her arms around Mac’s neck for another cuddle.

Beth saw Cori watching the byplay with interest, a wide grin forming on her face. “Really? Mac, you’ve never given me any rings.”

Jack chuckled at his fiancée’s attempt to poke fun at Mac, and Beth started to relax a bit. Jack obviously didn’t seem concerned over Mac kissing Cori on the lips.

Mac tugged a lock of Cori’s hair. “You’ve never been a good girl before. Only good girls get rings.”             

Cori started to stay something, but Zoe interrupted her yelling, “Magic box!”

Of course that caused both Jack and Cori to raise their eyebrows at Mac. “You’ve got a magic box too, Mac? What else don’t I know about you?” Cori said, poking her finger in
his
side now.

“Beth, ignore Cori. She is a horrible tease and flirt,” Jack said, watching Beth’s face, apparently noticing her discomfort. “Zoe, Cori has her own ring, too,” he said, drawing Zoe’s
and
Beth’s attention to Cori’s engagement ring.

Cori gleefully held up her hand for Zoe to see.  “Look, mine is chocolate. My favorite.”

Zoe didn’t understand that the ring in front of her was a chocolate diamond rather than an actual treat and said, “You can eat your ring. Yummy.”

“No, Zoe.” Beth jumped in quickly.  “It’s not candy,” she said, trying to explain. “It’s the color. Chocolate is brown, remember? Well, her ring is brown, so it’s called a chocolate diamond.” She knew Zoe still didn’t understand, so she ended with, “It’s not food.”

“Come on, Beth. Let’s go help Brooke before everyone gets here.” To Beth’s dismay, Cori grabbed her hand and dragged her up the stairs and then through the glass doors on the deck. Beth literally had to run to keep up, even though Cori’s legs were much shorter than hers. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Mac waving her on and laughing as he walked away with Jack, Zoe happily clapping her hands in his arms.

In the kitchen, Brooke gladly accepted Beth’s help getting the arrangement of snacks ready.  “Did you make all these by yourself?” Beth asked, recognizing homemade when she saw it.

“Yes,” Brooke replied proudly over the bowls of dips, the fruit platter, stuffed mushrooms in the oven, and small loaves of bread toasting in another oven to be cut up and layered with tomatoes and mozzarella prepped and ready to go. “Please tell me you cook. I’ve got no one else I can talk food with,” she said pointedly glancing at Cori.

“Hey,” Cori protested. “I can talk food fine. Just not how to cook it. But I love eating it,” she said, grabbing a crab-filled cucumber cup from a tray.

“I like to cook. Nothing gourmet, but I like healthy foods.  I would rather have fresh and homemade than processed any day,” Beth said.

Brooke beamed. “My new best friend. You’ve been well and truly replaced, Cori. Go get us a drink, will you?” She ignored Cori’s pout and gave her a gentle push.

Cori grabbed a deviled egg and popped it into her mouth whole. “Sure, I’ll gladly get your drink, while you two keep cooking so I can eat.  Hurry up now. Get it all ready, I’m starved,” she said, bounding off for the coolers lining the deck.

***

Hours later, Beth was watching Zoe play in the water on the little beach, splashing around, carrying buckets of water and sand to make her castles, all the while chattering without a care in the world.

“She seems to be enjoying herself,” Mac said, taking a seat next to her in the shade.

“Impossible not to. She’s being spoiled by everyone here. Everyone is picking her up, getting her food, and now she is playing in the water. It’s a child’s dream,” she said, grinning even though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Mac noticed.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Beth, come on, tell me. What’s wrong? Did someone say something to you?”

“What am I doing here?” she asked suddenly.

“What does that mean?” he asked as his eyebrows creased.

Checking to make sure no one was nearby first, she explained, “Mac, look around.  I’m so out of my element.  If I didn’t feel like I wasn’t good enough for you before, I sure do now.”

“That’s nonsense. I told you how I felt about your upbringing and I meant it,” he said, clearly trying to hold his frustration in check.

When she had first been introduced to Lucas’s father, Thomas, she thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place the large man.  Lucas’s mother Michelle was a sweetheart—not that Thomas wasn’t—but there was motherly warmth to Michelle, and Beth was immediately taken with her.  But when Lucas’s brother Ryan showed up, Beth finally realized who Lucas’s family was. Suddenly, she felt more inferior than ever.