The Good Father (6 page)

Because that was Brett’s way.

And she’d fall apart again.

Because that was what being with him did to her.

“Just one glass,” he said.

She nodded. Saving her strength, her arguments, for what mattered.

“The view is lovely.” She stared at the ocean.
Awkward.
But he was the one who’d chosen their meeting place. And the one who’d ordered—requiring any serious conversation to wait until they’d been served.

“When they first built this place it was a warehouse.”

“With a view?”

He shook his head. “No, this wall of windows was put in when it was converted to a restaurant.”

Who cared? Who cared? Who cared? She glanced to the side. Looking out into the room.

Where was that wine?

More important, the waitress who needed to deliver it so that they could be left alone.

“You’re wearing the same cologne.” She’d picked it out. After he’d sold the dot-com and they’d had their first taste of money. They’d gone into an expensive department store and smelled what had seemed like a million different scents. She’d chosen one for him. He’d chosen one for her. They’d bought the home in Santa Barbara. He’d put plans for The Lemonade Stand in motion. And started his nonprofit policing business...

“You’re not.”

Not what? Oh. Wearing the same cologne...

It had been one of the last things to go after the divorce was final. She hadn’t been able to bear giving it up. And then later, hadn’t been able to stand the scent. It reminded her too much of him.

Another sideways glance. Still no waitress... Wait, yes, there she was, at a table across the way, taking an order.

“Your hair is shorter.” His legs were as long and perfect, his suit fit him to perfection and that dimple just above his jawline still turned her on.

“Yours isn’t.” Did his voice have a bit of an edge? She stared at him. Wishing, as she had so many times in the past, that she could get through to him.

Their hearts had always been connected, but he closed his mind to her when it came to his most inner sanctum.

No waitress yet. No wine or bread.

She couldn’t wait anymore. “I’ve moved to Santa Raquel.”

“I know.” Kind of hard to pick curtness out of two words. But she needed it to be there. Needed to know that he was emotionally affected by her choice to invade his home territory...

Ella pulled herself up straighter. No. She needed Brett to be...Brett. Self-sufficient and capable. If he had any needs, if she was privy to them, she’d be compelled to try to meet them. And end up heartbroken when she failed.

“Here you go.” The voice startled her. As did the arm that reached between Ella and Brett, putting first one then the other wineglass down in front of them. All that time waiting, and Ella hadn’t even seen the waitress coming.

An unopened wine bottle was all that remained on the tray the woman held and, taking it, she set the tray down on a vacant table behind them, held out the bottle for Brett to examine, and at his nod, pulled a corkscrew out of her pocket and turned it into the bottle.

Ella watched every move. Cataloged them all. Putting every ounce of energy she had into collecting her thoughts, which would help enforce her emotional barriers against this man, and get on with the life she was currently living.

Brett was given a sip of wine to taste. He approved it. And Ella’s glass was filled to the halfway mark. Without waiting for him, waiting for the toast that had been a tradition with them, she took an unladylike gulp. Stopping short of chugging the remaining liquid in her glass.

Another staff person arrived with a variety of house-made breads and gourmet cheeses arranged on a silver platter. He moved the salt and pepper, and an unlit candle on the white tablecloth, and set the platter down. A small white china plate appeared in front of her.

Then another in front of Brett. Her Brett. Sitting right across from her again. As he had for several precious years.

And it was all too much for her. The romantic restaurant. The wine. The town and new job and new life. A woman sitting in a shelter because the man she loved had beaten her...

Feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes, Ella clasped her hands in her lap, stared out at a ship on the ocean and told herself to breathe.

CHAPTER FIVE

R
ATHER THAN HELPING
, the glass of wine only made things worse. So Brett helped himself to a little more. Two was his limit whether he was driving or not, so the second was going to have to do the trick.

Deaden the parts of him that had once been in love with this woman. At least long enough to get rid of her.

Before she settled in.

She was going to have to move back to wherever she’d come from. Or somewhere else. He’d pay whatever it took.

There was no way the two of them could live in the same town without her getting hurt. He cared about her. She’d feel that. Start to expect things. Or, at the very least, want them. And he wouldn’t give them to her. Their pattern was clear.

She wanted happily-ever-after.

He wanted to be left alone.

Because alone was better than doing to others as his father had done to their family. Brett wasn’t going to make the mistake his parents had made. They’d both grown up in abusive homes. They’d promised each other they wouldn’t carry the pattern with them. That promise had destroyed lives.

He wasn’t going to pretend to himself, or to Ella, that he wasn’t damaged goods.

Thoughts sped through his mind as he watched Ella pick up a piece of white Italian bread, dab a bit of grape jelly on it and top it with a piece of cheese. She liked jelly on crackers with apples, too.

“How’s your mother?” Her gaze met his directly for the first time.

And the impact nearly killed him. His heart slammed against his chest, and his mind went blank.

“Same.” The one word was all he could give her.

“She’s still handling all of your personal business? Including the house?”

“Yes.”

“And you still haven’t seen her?”

“No.” He had a phantom personal assistant. She handled his mail, his charity work and the various individuals who helped take care of his home. Landscaper, cleaning service, pool service. She even had access to his personal calendar via Google. She left curt messages or sent two-and three-word emails.

“Do you at least talk? Actually converse, I mean.”

“No.”

She glanced away.

“She left a key to her place on my desk a couple years ago. I go in once a week to take care of anything that needs to be done.” She let him get her Christmas decorations out of the small attic in her garage. And he’d changed some lightbulbs in the cathedral ceiling once. Mostly he just visited with her phantom ghost. Sat on her couch and felt her presence.

Ella’s shocked glance in his direction pierced him. “That’s great, Brett.” Her smile burned into him. “She’s softening!”

“Not really. I threatened to hire someone to take her place.”

He sipped his wine, frowning at his ex-wife. He didn’t blame Ella for scrambling for conversation. He blamed her for moving to Santa Raquel.

And filled his mouth with bread before he actually blurted out his frustration.

“I need your help, Brett.”

“Why did you move here?” His gaze was piercing. It had to be.

“I’m a pediatric nurse, and Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital is slated to be the best in the state. With all of the new positions to fill, I was offered the chance to be a charge nurse...”

In another lifetime that would have been reason enough to move.

He held her captive with a look and didn’t relent.

“I have to prove to myself that I’m completely over you. That living near you doesn’t matter to me. Personally.”

He sat back. Took another sip of wine. Thought about the hard alcohol he refused to touch. About how his father had used it to numb his pain. And then brought pain to his loved ones.

“I’m happy, Brett,” she said. “I’ve built a good life for myself, and I like where I am.”

Brett nodded, wanting to tell her how glad he was to hear those words. But he wasn’t sure he believed them.

“But Chloe, you remember her?”

As if he’d forget being the best man in her brother’s wedding. Or forget the woman who’d once been like a sister to him. Clenching his fingers around the stem of his wineglass, he acknowledged her remark with a small nod.

“Well, Chloe has been getting on me to start dating again. I keep telling her I’m happy being single, but she keeps trying to hook me up.”

Was she trying to make him jealous? Because it wasn’t working. He would have loved nothing more than to see Ella happily married.

Safely obliterating any temptation he might ever have to attempt to avail himself of her sweetness in the future.

Ella took a sip of her wine. He watched the glass touch her lips. Imagined how they’d feel to that glass if it could only have a second of humanity. Felt sorry for it that it could not...

“Then one day about a year ago she suggested to me that I wasn’t as over you as I thought I was. She claims that I’m a victim of our broken marriage and that until I face that fact, until I can see you and know for certain that I’m over you, I’ll never have a completely joyful life of my own.”

Chloe needed to mind her own damned business.

“A move’s a little drastic, don’t you think? You could have just called. I’d have stopped by so you could see for yourself that it’s done.”

Done. It had to be done. He’d known that. Acted on it. Still believed. Without even a smidgeon of doubt.

“My therapist told me that I can hide and pretend forever, but to really take charge of my life, I’d need to come out into the open, take the air into my lungs and start moving forward.”

“Your therapist told you to move to Santa Raquel?”

Ella’s smile gave him an ache in the groin. “No, I came up with the idea all on my own. And only after my supervisor suggested to me that I apply for the position in the Santa Raquel NICU.”

Her work with seriously ill babies interested him. Immensely. In terms of how she was handling it. How she felt when she got home at night.

He had questions he’d never ask. Needed answers he wouldn’t seek.

Because they’d open a box, let out topics they were never going to discuss. Not ever again.

After years of fertility treatments, of humiliating procedures, Ella had finally been able to get pregnant. And Brett had killed her dream.

He’d thought he could handle being a father. Had been sure he’d be different from his own father. Until he’d found out Ella was really pregnant.

And had to accept the fact that there was no going back.

He’d grown more and more withdrawn. Irritable. Terse. Until one night, when terrors had driven him from their bed, she’d come to find him. She’d known something was wrong. She’d pushed him to be honest with her. And he’d turned on her. Raising his voice. Telling her he didn’t want to be a father. That he didn’t want their baby.

When she’d asked him, with a horrified expression he would never forget, what he wanted to do about it, he’d told her he’d seen a divorce lawyer. That she didn’t ever have to worry. She and the baby would be well taken care of.

It was only then he’d realized that she’d been thinking more in terms of counseling. Maybe feared he wanted an abortion.

She’d never considered that he’d leave her.

And he hadn’t been seriously thinking about it, really. He’d just been gathering information. In case.

But the damage had been done. He’d split her heart in two.

And when, the next week, she’d lost the baby, she’d turned to Chloe, not him, for support.

He’d wanted to stay with her. And he’d seen his father in himself then most of all. Brett’s dad, once he’d known he had a problem, had been too weak to leave his family in peace. He’d needed them too much. And so he’d continued to hurt them.

Brett was not going to be that man.

So he and Ella weren’t going to talk about any of it. Not now. Not ever.

Ella took another sip of wine. Leaning forward, he topped up her glass. The sun had set, and the ocean was darkening. Soon there would be nothing but blackness beyond the window.

“I didn’t mean to bring up the past,” Ella said with a grin that made him sad. “I just need you to know that I have absolutely no interest in you personally, Brett.”

Was this the part where one doth protest too much?

“I don’t want you to think I’m here out of some pathetic hope that you might change your mind about me. Or to think that I’m stalking you or something.”

Protesting too much yet?

“The job is a big part of my decision to move here. And I always loved Santa Raquel. You know that.”

They’d visited his hometown. More than once. Each time she’d said she wanted them to settle there. To raise their children there.

Looking back, he saw that even then, he hadn’t ever really believed her fairy tale could happen. He’d just wanted it so badly he’d been a selfish ass, just like his old man, grasping at her hope and hanging on.

Until he couldn’t anymore.

Brett sat forward. Set his glass on the table and folded his hands in front of him.

“It’s a great job, a great place to live, but there are other great opportunities. I know you, Ella. There has to be more going on.”

“I made the final decision to accept the job offer because of The Lemonade Stand.”

He frowned, honestly confused. “I offered you a position on the board. You didn’t have to join the High Risk team to be involved.” She’d supported the idea of the Stand from the very first time he’d mentioned that if he ever won the lottery he’d open such a place. She’d been a sophomore in college at the time. He’d been a junior. They hadn’t even talked about marriage yet.

Her fingers, blunt tipped and slender, able to handle crises on a daily basis, climbed up and down the stem of her glass. She traced a pile of crumbs around the white linen tablecloth.
I moved here because of The Lemonade Stand.

His throat dried out like burned timber.

“Ella?” He needed her to quit studying the damned table and look at him.