Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels), page 23
In four days, Friday afternoon at two o’clock, she could lose her son.
She flipped through the documents. Just as she’d feared, he was alleging her adoption of Austin was illegal because he wasn’t given proper notice that his parental rights were going to be terminated. She read the petition carefully, each line striking her heart, tearing it apart. He didn’t lie. There no exaggerations of the truth. Only the cold hard facts. She had illegally adopted Austin because Dani had lied under oath at the involuntary termination hearing when she’d claimed she didn’t know the identity of Austin’s biological father.
The tears she had no hope of holding back blurred her vision and burned her throat. She slid down the wall to the ceramic tiled floor, clutching the court papers to her chest and sobbed.
*
Griffen tossed back the shot of bourbon, then poured herself another. In the two hours since she’d been served, despite her valiant attempt to numb the anguish at the expense of her liver, the pain hadn’t ebbed. She had serious doubts it ever would, either.
Then there was the anger. She seethed with it, and the bourbon was more fuel to her fire than a numbing agent to her pain. After all she’d done to pull her life out of the hell Ross had left her in, she’d mistakenly believed she and Austin would have a new beginning. She’d downsized, found a nine-to-five job close to home. But after talking to her future brother-in-law, she realized she’d been wasting her time. Trenton hadn’t been all that encouraging. Legally, Jed held all the cards. The bastard even had the winning hand. Because according to Trenton, no judge was going to deny restoring Jed’s parental rights.
She sipped the whiskey and set the glider to rocking again. A light breeze stirred the leaves on the trees, and she heard the croaking of the frogs down by the water. While she wouldn’t miss this house because of what it represented to her, she would miss the quiet nights on the back porch as the water from the lake rhythmically lapped at the shoreline. She'd miss the gentle breezes on summer evenings and the occasional wildlife that ventured across her back lawn. And the quiet. She wouldn’t have that in town, but considering she could very well be completely alone, maybe being so isolated wasn’t a good idea.
She didn’t know what to think. Try as she might, she simply could not figure out what was going through Jed’s mind. One on hand, he was generous to a fault, setting up a trust fund for Austin with more money than he’d ever need in his lifetime. She supposed since he was already paying for one child that wasn't even his, no way was he going to deny his biological progeny a secure future. Too bad the only future Austin wanted was one with his father...a father who up until she’d been served with court papers, would’ve only seen his son during the off season when he wasn’t in Buffalo, New York.
Then there was the other hand. The one where Jed was a backstabbing, low-life cowardly bastard. Dammit, they’d discussed this. He’d promised he’d never take Austin away from her. But one fancy job offer from Buffalo and all that changed—without so much as a phone call to warn her he was going to be ripping her heart out of her chest and stomping all over it with his cleats.
The rat bastard.
The hinges on the back door squeaked and she looked up, expecting to find Austin. Instead, it was the rat bastard himself. He still wore the suit he’d worn for the press conference. His hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it all evening. He looked miserable, and she didn’t care. Not any longer.
Right now, she despised him.
“Griffen—”
“I saw the press conference,” she said. “There’s nothing left to explain.”
He crossed the porch and moved to sit beside her on the glider. “Sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that.” She came off the glider as if she’d been shot from a cannon. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.” She stood at the railing and faced the lake because she couldn’t stand to look at him, couldn’t bear for him to see the pain he’d caused her, how he’d broken her heart.
“It’s over.” The tightening of her chest squeezed and made it difficult to breathe. “I know it was just sex for you, but I can’t play that game. I don’t know why I thought I could.”
He moved beside her and turned, propping his backside against the railing. The moonlight cast his face in haunted shadows, making the chiseled lines more prominent, more...determined. “We need to talk.”
She threw him an incredulous look. “Seriously? I thought the papers I was served with tonight pretty much said it all.”
“What are you talking about?”
She turned and snagged the court documents off the table next to the bottle of Kentucky bourbon. “These,” she said as she planted them against his chest with a smack. He clamped his hand over hers, but she yanked it away. “Go fuck yourself, Maitland. You’re not taking my son away from me.”
His frown deepened as he scanned the documents. “There must be some mistake,” he said. “I have no intention of taking Austin away from you.”
She wanted to flip him off. She wanted to throw the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels at his head. Instead, she poured herself another shot and tossed it back. “You’re goddamned right you won’t.”
He looked at her curiously. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m trying to be.”
“And how’s that working for you?”
She let out a sigh as she dropped onto the glider. “Not so good.” Leaning forward, she rested her head in her hands. “How could you do this? After everything, how could you go behind my back like that and petition the court to take Austin away from me?” She looked up at him. “I told you I’d never deny you your son. Does my word mean nothing to you?”
He pushed off the railing and joined her on the glider. “I told my lawyer I wanted to make sure my parental rights were restored. I never told him to seek nullification of the adoption.”
“Apparently he didn’t get the memo.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She was afraid to believe him. “And I’m supposed to trust you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve never lied to you.”
No, he hadn’t. But that didn’t make her feel any better, either. She’d believed her ex would never lie to her, cheat on her or rob her blind, and look how that had ended.
He smoothed his hand up her back, his fingers settling at her nape where he gently massaged the knot of tension gathered there. She trembled beneath his touch, just as she always had and probably always would. A part of her wanted to tell him to stop, the survival part of her. The weak-where-he-was-concerned part kept her mouth clamped shut and soaked in his touch.
“The court will reinstate my rights without you losing yours,” he said. “Establishing shared legal custody won’t change anything, other than giving me back my legal right to my son.”
She straightened and shifted in her seat to look at him. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe this,” he said, then leaned in and kissed her. She should’ve pushed him away, but she didn’t. Instead she kissed him back and allowed herself to become lost in the dizzying sensations.
He ended the kiss and looked at her. The intensity in his gaze unnerved her, but she couldn’t look away if her life depended on it. She wanted to despise him. She really did. Certainly, she didn’t want to trust him. Only problem was—she loved him.
“I want you and Austin to come with me,” he said quietly. “To Buffalo.”
She looked away again, afraid to hope. So what if she loved him? That didn’t mean he loved her. Oh sure, he cared about her. That much she did know, but love? Enough to make a relationship work? They’d never last. They’d become nothing more than a temporary promise to what? Love, honor and cherish?
“I want you and Austin to live with me.”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. Her heart took a dive and landed in the pit of her booze-soaked stomach. Live with him? Did he know nothing about her?
She laughed suddenly, the sound cold and caustic and filled with bitterness. “That's convenient.”
He sighed and gave her a look that said she was making this a hell of a lot harder than necessary. Too bad. He knew she was not the kind of woman to shack up with a man.
She stared at the man in question and tried to wrap her mind around what he’d just asked her. “You want us to live together?”
He didn't say anything, just looked at her with that hard flinted gaze. She recognized the tight clenching in his jaw as a sure sign of his frustration. Jed Maitland was not accustomed to being told no, by anyone.
No matter how much she loved him, no matter how much Austin might want otherwise, she refused to live with him without a commitment. A legal one. She swallowed the disappointment lodged in her throat. “No.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I thought...dammit, Griffen. What were you hoping for? A marriage proposal?”
“Quite frankly, yes.” A deep ache curled inside her at his defensive tone. She'd been silly to think they could have a real, lasting relationship. They were too different. Like two roads that crossed on a journey from elsewhere. His the glitter highway and hers an old country lane filled with traditional values, like family and marriage and forever.
She turned and swiped a renegade tear from her cheek. She hurt so badly, she doubted she’d ever heal. “What did you expect me to want, Jed? After what we've shared recently...”
She looked back to the lake. She'd done things with Jed, wicked and erotic things she'd never done with another man, not even her ex-husband. She gave herself to Jed when she hadn't even realized she loved him. And that love made all the difference in the world to her. To her, it meant forever.
“It doesn't matter,” she finally said. “I'm happy for you. Good luck in Buffalo.”
He grabbed hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. Anger, and something else, flashed in his eyes. Hurt? “It doesn't have to be this way.”
“Yes it does,” she said and shrugged out of his grasp. “I'm not like one of your gridiron groupies, Jed. I won't be packing a bag to follow you to New York. Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but it's just not my scene.”
He eased a harsh breath between clenched teeth. “I'm asking you to come with me. For you and Austin to live with me.”
Her patience slipped. “That's the problem,” she railed at him. “You want us to live with you. I can't do that, Jed. I have Austin to think about.”
He glared down at her. “The three of us will be together. What is wrong with that?” he asked. His eyebrows pulled together in that ferocious frown that had become all too familiar to her.
Who was she kidding? Everything about the man was familiar to her. He was permanently imbedded in her mind, her heart and her soul. “What kind of message would I be sending to my son if I moved in with you? I won't do it. Austin deserves better than that, and you know what, Jed? So do I.”
“I thought...” His voice rose, but then he sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don't know what I thought,” he said more calmly. “I never made you any promises.”
“I never asked you to,” she whispered. She looked up at him, her heart aching as she memorized every line of his face, every nuance that made him Jed, that made him the man she loved. “Good-bye, Jed.”
She turned and walked toward the door. Every step of the way she fought to keep the tears blurring her vision from falling.
“Dammit, Griffen,” he said, his voice filled with tension and frustration. “Don’t do this.”
Blindly, she reached for the door. With her hand resting on the knob, she turned back to face him. “No, Jed,” she said, hating the anguish between them. But it was too late. “This is exactly what I have to do. I love you, but for me, it’s all or nothing.”
She pushed through the door and slipped into the kitchen, leaving the night, and Jed, outside. She leaned against the frame, waiting until she heard his Escalade roar to life before she dropped into one of the chairs at the round table. He was gone. Out of her life, and Austin's.
When Ross left, she'd resigned herself to being alone, but she'd never felt so completely isolated as she did at this very moment. Allowing the bleakness to consume her, she dropped her head in her hands and cried until there was nothing left but emptiness.
*
Jed was miserable as the limousine wound its way through the Wednesday afternoon traffic to Orchard Park, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. He’d known all along Griffen was the type who played for keeps, the kind of woman he should’ve had the good sense to avoid. Instead, he'd allowed that other, uncontrollable part of his anatomy do his thinking for him, and where had it led him? Straight to hell.
Only it wasn't her fault the path to hell was paved in her curves, in her gentle laughter, in her sweet smile. There was more to his own private purgatory than just sex. It was her, every single thing about her. Every exciting, frustrating, stubborn part of what made Griffen who she was...the woman he’d let into his heart. The hell was of his own making because he couldn't give her the promises she needed to hear.
He should be relieved. The last thing he needed was a wife and kid cluttering up his life.
He should be grateful that she hadn't taken him up on his proposition.
Instead, he was miserable.
For the past two days he'd been damned irritable, too. He’d fired his agent, his publicist and had instructed his lawyer to set up the meeting with the Buffalo people. Rambling around the empty, cavernous house in Possum Kingdom, he’d been restless, irritated, and he missed Griffen. He'd lost count of the number of times he’d reached for his cell phone to call her, but something always held him back. Something kept him from calling Griffen to tell her he'd commit to anything she wanted just so they could be together.
It’s all or nothing.
He bit back a curse and shifted on the leather seat of the limo. Her words continued to haunt him. She loved him. And he’d told her what he’d wanted, and she’d still kicked him in the balls with her rejection.
He'd loved once before. He’d committed himself to one woman and he'd lost big time. He'd loved Dani and she'd left him without a word, never giving him a chance to know his son. He'd loved his parents and they'd been taken away from him. For the past thirteen years he'd committed himself strictly to his career because it'd been safe. He'd been broken and patched up far too many times, but always, his career had never failed him. He'd even been committed to Linc, and that commitment had ended when his best friend took his own life.
It wasn't your fault.
“Dammit, Griffen.” His gut twisted at the image of her in the moonlight, that stupid ratty sweater she always wore pulled tight around her as she downed shot after shot of Jack Daniels in an attempt to numb the pain he’d caused her. She'd tried to hide them, but even in the moonlight he'd seen the tears glistening in her eyes.
Good-bye, Jed.
He didn't want good-bye. He wanted her.
It’s all or nothing.
As the driver pulled to a stop, Jed wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life in letting Griffen slip through his fingers. He'd always see her whenever he spent time with Austin. Their coming into contact with each other was inevitable because of the common bond they shared with their son. And he knew it would never be enough.
He didn't want good-bye.
He didn't want strained meetings.
He didn't want polite conversation.
He wanted her, dammit.
The driver opened the door and Jed stepped out into the biting cold air, a far cry from the warmth of the Texas sun this time of year. The damp chill hanging in the air made him instantly uncomfortable and long for the warmer temperatures of home.
Home. With Griffen and their son.
He ignored the funny lurch in this chest and strode across the snow-dusted pavement to the glass door. An attractive young woman in a navy wool suit greeted him and introduced herself only as Marty Fuller’s personal assistant before leading him to a conference room with dark paneling, heavy furniture and potted trees.
Marty Fuller, the assistant general manager of the team, stood and greeted him. Fuller was a small, wiry guy with a too slick grin who’d probably never gripped a football in his life. He introduced him to the team’s lawyers, a pair of officious looking pricks with matching waxy complexions, followed by the publicist, Cal Palmer and two additional suits. And not a single member of the coaching staff.
“Have you had a chance to see the city, Jed?” Fuller asked, motioning for his assistant. “Drink?”
“No, thanks,” Jed said, then watched as Fuller waved his assistant away. “I came straight from the airport.”
He hadn't had a real drink since the first day he arrived in Hart. That didn’t mean he’d lost the craving for something strong and forgetful. More than once he found himself standing in front of the wet bar at the lake house, contemplating the numbing effects of Jack, Johnny or José. Booze wouldn't ease the loneliness, at least more than temporarily. When he came out of the drunken stupor, he'd still be without Griffen and Austin, so he hadn't bothered.
“Anxious to get down to business.” Fuller chuckled as he settled his scrawny frame in the chair at the end of the conference table. “I like that. Did your agent explain our offer?”
Jed leaned back in the black leather conference chair and kept his eyes on the AGM. “Actually, Bob Yorke and I parted company. Why don't you tell me about the offer?”
Fuller exchanged a look with his lackeys, then returned his attention to Jed, that slick smile on his face again. “Well, Jed,” he said, leaning forward and placing his arms on the polished surface of the table. “We feel you're just the publicity shot in the arm that we could use.”
“My record speaks for itself,” Jed said, giving Fuller a smile of his own, one he didn't quite feel. Something wasn't right in this room, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what was wrong. Yet.
