Texas Two Step: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 1 (14 page)

He slapped the back of the chair near her bed. She startled, pressing her back into the headboard.

“Damn it, Olivia. That’s not funny.” He paced away from her. “You should have told me.”

He didn’t turn around and she wondered if he was unwilling to look her in the eye, unwilling to acknowledge his culpability in their current situation.

“When?” she yelled in frustration. “When would have been convenient? My God, Mitch, you were marrying someone else. You had already told me that you didn’t want to marry me. How do you think that made me feel? Did you ever stop to think about what you were doing to me? Did you ever even think of me at all?”

He turned toward her. Sadness emanated from his eyes. “Of course I thought of you…every damn day.” He resumed pacing the room then kicked the dresser before slamming the bathroom door against the wall.

“You have a mighty strange way of showing it. You never called. You never came to see me. Never made any effort at all to get in contact with me. I realize calling me while you were married would have been wrong, but you’ve been divorced for a while now.”

He dropped into the chair furthermost from her bed. “I did call. You changed your phone number. Travis hung up on me when I called him.” He exhaled loudly. “I knew when I married Joanna that I’d screwed things up with us. At the time, I thought I’d done the best I could with a bad situation. I figured you hated me. I just didn’t know how much.”

“I did hate you. Despised you with every cell in my body. For a long time, any time your name was mentioned, I got queasy. But that wasn’t healthy for my baby. I didn’t want him to grow in such hate. Then I married Drake, and you became my past. Hear what I’m saying…you are the past, Mitch. I want you to stay in my past. Neither Adam or I need you in our lives today.”

He held his head in his hands. Strands of black hair hung over his fingers. His voice was eerily calm and quiet as he said, “I can’t believe no one told me about Adam. Especially your brothers, my faithful fraternity brothers. On second thought, why didn’t any of them come down to the Lazy L and beat the crap out of me?”

“Travis had to almost chew his arm off to keep from calling you. Mom took Jason’s truck keys on the weekend of your wedding and hid the rest. Cash was in Montana in a PBR event. Trust me. You’re a dead man to my brothers.” Realizing that her fingers no longer shook, she pulled her hands from under her legs and adjusted the sheet. “I’m not surprised Travis hung up on you. He never told me about the call. You have to believe me about that.”

“Your marriage. Does what’s-his-name think he’s the father?”

She shook her head. “His name is Drake Gentry and no, he doesn’t. I was five months pregnant with Adam when we married. I told Drake everything. About you. About James. Joanna St. Claire. The pregnancy. Your marriage. Drake gave me the strength and stability I needed in my life. But never, ever doubt that he loves Adam. He does. And Adam loves him. I’d never do anything to come between them. And neither will you.”

“So if Drake was such a great guy, why are you divorced?”

She glared at him. “My marriage and my divorce are really none of your business. Same goes with my son.” She threw out the bluff and hoped he’d bite and leave. She didn’t hold out much hope.

“You can’t possibly believe I’d walk away, do you? You’re smarter than that, Olivia.” He leaned toward her. “
My
child
is
my business. Tell me this though, is my name on the birth certificate?”

She shook her head again. “No. I told you, Adam is a Gentry, not Landry.”

He slammed his fist into his hand. “That’s so wrong, Olivia. I have a right to know my son and damn it to hell, he has a right to know who his real father is.”

She pulled herself into an upright position and faked a confidence she didn’t feel. She was exhausted and in pain, but she would not let him see any vulnerability. “It doesn’t matter now. What’s done’s done. It’s too late.”

“The hell it doesn’t matter. That’s my child. My flesh and blood. He carries Landry blood in his veins, not Gentry, and you know it.”

“Look, Adam and I are doing great. We’ve done without you for five years. We’ll do without you for the rest of our lives. How many times can I say this? We don’t need you.”

He snorted. “Says the woman lying in a bed supporting a sprained ankle and a knee brace with orders to stay off it for a couple of weeks. How the hell are you going to work and take care of Adam?”

Incensed at his refusal to believe she’d built a life for herself and her son without him, her vision swam in frustration. Her mouth tightened. “You seem to forget, I have friends and family, Mitch. People who care about me. You met Nancy. She’s not exactly the babysitter. While it’s true she and her husband work for me, they’re more than employees. We’ve been in negotiations for them to become my partners in Jim’s Gym. Expand the personal-trainer services. Maybe move to a larger location and grow the services we offer. So my business is well covered. My mother will be here as soon as I call. My brothers would be here in a flash if Adam or I call. These are people who are here for me when I need them. People I can trust to stand by me.”

“And you’re saying I’m not there for you? What about the last twenty-four hours? And hell, I didn’t even know about Adam. How could I have been there for you if I didn’t know about my son?”

“My son. Adam is my son. You’re not a part of his life. He’s a little boy. Your walking into his life and announcing you’re his father will just confuse him. He has Drake, his uncles and my father as male role models. They’re good to him. Love him. Drake regularly sends him letters and pictures from his digs. Adam knows these men care about him. He doesn’t need you screwing up his life like you did mine.”

He leaned close, almost nose to nose. She had to make herself not flinch or draw away. His scent filled her nose and threatened to cloud her mind. She fought to ignore the tingle between her thighs. Fought to ignore the attraction still gnawing in her gut.

Damn him.

“Then let me ask you this…what was all that crap you spouted about still loving me? How can you profess to love me and lie to me about my son at the same time?”

“I do love you. You’re the father of my child and I’ll always love you for that. But I’m not in love with you. Not anymore. That died the night you broke it off with me. It was dead and buried the day you married Joanna.”

He stood, his back ramrod straight. “Well, let me tell you something. You may have kept me from being his father for the first five years, but I’m damn well not walking away now. You might want to wrap your mind around the idea that I’m here to stay.”

“Good Lord, Mitch. Think about Adam and not yourself for once.” Her tone was pleading, and she was.
Please, please don’t screw up our lives.
“He’s a happy child. He loves me. He loves Drake. He thinks of Drake as his father. We’ve built a good life here in Dallas. He doesn’t need you waltzing into his life messing with his mind. I don’t need you either. I learned a long time ago how to not need you.”

Mitch raked his hands through his hair then kicked a lightweight trash can, spilling its contents. “I don’t care if you need me. My child needs a father…his father. Me. Not some pretend father.”

She knotted the sheet in her fists. “And how in the hell do you propose to be his father? Your life is six hours away at the Lazy L. Our lives are in Dallas. Letters? Emails? Christmas and birthday presents? Fly him down for weekends? Don’t be a total jerk about this, Mitch,” she said on a sigh. “You’ll only confuse him. He’s too young to understand all this. Can’t you wait until he’s older? We can figure out what to do then.”

She tried to sound reasonable, tried to keep her voice from quivering and alerting him to all the fear and anxiety filling her. Not for one minute did she believe he would just walk away from his child. Her only hope was to delay the inevitable, try to prepare Adam for the news…some day in the future when he was older and could handle it. Only when Adam was older could he understand the reasons behind her decision to not tell his father about him.

“I don’t even know his birthday.” Containing all his ire had drained every drop of his energy. He dropped back into the chair, his head drooped as his fingers threaded through his hair. “I don’t even know my own son’s birthday.” He glared at her. “And whose fault is that?”

“August,” she said in a thin voice. “August fifteen.”

He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I will get to know my son, Olivia. You can’t keep me from him.”

She said nothing for a moment, just kept clenching and unclenching the sheet in her fist. “I wanted to involve you. You didn’t want me, didn’t love me. You told me in no uncertain terms that you weren’t ready for marriage. You were going home and I should start seeing other guys. You left and never looked back. You found someone else. Loved someone else. Why would I have assumed you’d welcome me with a baby in my arms? I’m sure your wife wouldn’t have appreciated my arrival on your doorstep with your illegitimate son.”

“We’ll never know, will we? You made that decision for me and for Joanna.”

He spun and paced the room, occasionally pausing to slap a doorframe, or throw his head back and take deep breaths.

She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. He was upset. That much was obvious. She tried to put herself in his shoes, to see the situation from his point of view, but it was so uncomfortable she quickly gave up the exercise. Deep inside, she’d known this day would come. She’d hoped she’d be better prepared. Now she didn’t know if that could have been possible.

“Mitch—” she started, but was stopped when he threw a furious look her way.

He flashed his palm toward her like a stop sign. “Don’t, Olivia. Don’t say another word.” His breaths came in heavy huffs and sighs. “I’m almost speechless. You hated me so much that you kept my son from me?” He gave a snort of derision. “I guess I should be thankful you kept him.”

“How dare you,” she shouted, slapping her palms on the bed. “How dare you begin to suggest I wouldn’t keep him? I love Adam. I loved you.”

“Love?” He spoke the word with derision then shook his head. “You don’t know what love is. No woman who loved a man would keep his child from him.”

Straightening into an upright position, her back rigid against the headboard, she pointed her finger at him. “Let me tell you what love is. Love is being pregnant and not telling the man you adore because you don’t want to screw up his life with another woman. Love is making it on your own when all you want to do is crawl in the bed and die. But you can’t because you have a screaming baby with colic at two in the morning and you have to open your business in two hours and you’ve gotten a total of three hours of sleep in the last twenty-four. But all that is okay because you love your baby. You’ll do anything for him, even protect him from a man he doesn’t know. A man who walked away.”

“Damn it, Olivia! I didn’t know!”

He paced the room like a caged lion, stopped to slam his hand against the door. In the dresser mirror she saw herself flinch. Their gazes met in the mirror. She hated that he saw that flinch. It made her look weak, and she couldn’t afford to show any vulnerability right now. She had to remain strong.

Mitch whipped around and stalked to the edge of her bed. In a voice that was so calm it was frightening, he said, “Here’s what’s going to happen. I am taking you and Adam to my ranch for your recovery.”

No! I can’t spend even more time with you. I can’t!

“No. I—”

He placed a work-roughened finger against her lips. She shut her eyes and stopped talking. Drawing in a breath, she forcibly calmed her racing heart.

“I said…”

She opened her eyes when he paused and met his gaze.

“I said,” he repeated, “I’m taking you two to the Lazy L so I can get to know my son. It’s that, or I’ll call my lawyers and start child-custody proceedings. I’ll do all the required tests to prove Adam is mine, but you and I both know that isn’t necessary. So, unlike what you gave me, I’ll give you a choice. We can all go to my ranch and play nice, or we can all meet in a courtroom. Let me warn you.” He leaned in closer. His eyes were dark and his expression deadly serious. “I don’t play fair when there’s something I want, and I want my child. I’ll use every resource I have to get him. Do you understand? My son will know his father.”

She tightened her lips, refusing to be intimidated by his stand or seduced by his presence.

Her head pounded, from her shouting, his shouting, the damn tile floor at Grayson Mansion. Mitch might be rich as Croesus, but financially she could fight him. She had some money in a trust fund her grandparents had bequeathed, but she’d set that aside as a college fund for Adam. Her family had the deep pockets that could be used to fight a custody suit, though a court battle would cost more than money. Adam’s parentage would be splashed across the newspapers. Mitch—or more likely his team of high-priced lawyers—would fight dirty, would accuse her of neglect or worse. No matter how stable and wonderful her son was, the lawyers could mess with Adam’s mind, destroy his self-confidence.

Adam was her first and only priority. He was her life, the only thing that kept her sane. The only thing that had made her want to live after seeing wedding pictures of Mitch with his new wife, Joanna St. Claire Landry, plastered on every prominent Texas newspaper.

“I have a job, a business to run. I can’t run off to south Texas on a whim, especially for weeks at a time. Be reasonable.”