by Roni Loren
Maybe she’d never be able to be the kind of person Kade deserved.
Because even knowing how much hurt she’d caused him back then and how he needed her help now, she still felt like running.
TWENTY-FIVE
Kade sat on a bench under the massive oak tree that served as their meeting place and turned his phone on silent. Work wasn’t allowed to invade this little sliver of sacred space. The park was pretty empty this afternoon, the chilly overcast day chasing cold-sensitive Texans indoors, but Kade didn’t mind the quiet. Sometimes there were so many people out here that it was like trying to spend quality time in a fish tank.
A car door slammed a few yards away and he turned toward the parking lot. A small tornado of blonde curls was already hurtling his way. He stood, holding out his arms to prepare for impact. Rosalie was wearing white tights, a pink skirt, and a flower-patterned sweater—perfect princess wear, but he knew that pristine outfit wouldn’t last long. And sure enough, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, her foot smacked into a mud puddle, creating a Jackson Pollock version of her former self. Her mother shrieked her name from behind her, but Kade just laughed. Rosalie was rough and tumble wrapped in glitter. If Angie kept putting her in white, she was just asking for it.
Rosalie didn’t even break stride and before he knew it, she was barreling into him like a mini-linebacker. “Daddy!”
“Spark!” He lifted her into his arms, spinning her, and she wrapped herself around him like an octopus. He closed his eyes as he hugged her back, inhaling the smell of banana Laffy Taffy and Burt’s Bees baby shampoo. Angie had never changed the shampoo, and the scent reminded him of those early days when he’d rock Rosalie to sleep after Angie had nursed her. Back then, even when he knew his marriage was struggling, he never once considered the possibility that he’d be relegated to cameo appearances in his daughter’s life.
Rosalie leaned back, her arms looped around his neck, and grinned a semi-toothless grin. “Look, I lost a front one. The tooth fairy brought me ten dollars for it. ’Cause those are more special.”
Everything was a little lispy with the missing tooth, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. No matter how hard it was knowing that he’d only get a couple of hours with her, there was no way he could maintain a grim mood under the power of a seven-year-old ball of sunshine. “Wow, you’re rich, Spark.”
“Yep. I bought five packs of glitter stickers,” she said, a touch of awe in her voice.
He set her down, shaking his head. At least she was doing justice to the nickname he’d given her. Since age two, she’d never been able to resist something sparkly. Rosalie started to chatter again, but Angie stepped up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Baby, can you go play on the swings for a minute? I need to talk to your dad.”
Rosalie stuck her bottom lip out for a second and looked to Kade as if to get a veto, but he nodded toward the swings. “Go on, Spark. I’ll be there in a second to give you a push.”
When she was out of earshot, Angie crossed her arms and glanced toward the car. No doubt her husband, Chris, was there waiting for her. They would sit and wait for Kade’s two hours to be up, watching him like he was some sort of prisoner on leave for the day. “I heard Barcelona burned down.”
“Yeah,” he said, not in the mood to talk with her when the clock was already ticking for his visit.
“I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”
He sighed. “Why are we having small talk, Angie? This is my time with Rosalie. Get to the point.”
“You need to drop the custody case.”
He scoffed. “Good-bye, Angie.”
She reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “Wait, listen to me. I’m serious. It’s just going to go like it did last time and will waste my money and yours. And even if they do make some adjustment to the arrangement, you’re going to be doing Rosalie more harm than good by disrupting everything. Things are stable for her now. Every time she comes home from these visits, it takes me days to get her back on track. It confuses her and fills her with all these questions she doesn’t need to be worrying about.”
Kade’s jaw clenched so hard, his teeth hurt. “What? Like why don’t I get to see my daddy more? Why can’t I go to his house?”
Angie’s gaze flicked over to where Rosalie was playing, her pixie-like features going hard.
“Those are valid questions, Angie. I’m her father. Just because you don’t want her to love me, doesn’t mean you get to make it so. You can’t just insert a replacement dad and expect me to disappear from her mind.”
She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “God, it’s always about you, isn’t it? This is about winning to prove a point and punishing me for moving on. You wouldn’t even know what to do for Rosalie. You haven’t had to parent her since she was two. You get to just walk in for two hours every now and then and be fun times guy. Skip all the hard stuff. You don’t have to comfort her when she’s sick or clean up the vomit. You don’t have to make sure she gets to bed on time or deal with her crankiness when she doesn’t. Chris and I handle that.”
The trees around them seemed to turn from brown to red as fury leaked into Kade’s system. “Are you seriously throwing that in my face? I don’t handle it because you won’t let me.”
Her attention zeroed back on him, eyes narrowed. “When exactly would you fit in her bath and bedtime story? Before the threesome you have on the docket that night? Or maybe right after you chain some woman up in your bedroom?”
He gritted his teeth and tried to keep from shouting. He didn’t want Rosalie to know they were fighting. “That’s not my life anymore.”
Her lip curled. “Sure it isn’t.”
“Daddy! Push me!” Rosalie called. Her little legs were pumping but she wasn’t getting the swing going like she wanted.
“Be right there, Spark.” He spared Angie one last look. “I expect an extra ten minutes today since you’ve wasted my time.”
He didn’t wait for her response. There was no reason to. No matter what he said, Angie wasn’t going to listen. If he’d hoped for her to one day grant mercy or become reasonable on this topic, he was a fool. She knew that he’d lay his life down before he’d hurt Rosalie or expose her to anything she shouldn’t see. But ever since Angie had gotten remarried, Kade’s presence in Rosalie’s life had become a blemish on the picture perfect family image Angie wanted to create.
She’d come from divorced parents who’d remarried so many times and had so many combinations of step and half-siblings that Christmas had become a weeklong marathon just to visit all the different families. He knew how much she’d hated it both as a child and adult, so on some level, he understood why she was being so ruthless about this. But he no longer had patience for her fucked up view on things even if she’d come by it honestly. See a shrink and get over it. Don’t cut your child’s father out of her life just to make yourself feel better.
“Are you and mom fighting?” Rosalie asked when he made it over to the swing set.
He sighed and squatted down in front of her. “Nah, we were just talking.” Heatedly.
She tilted her head, considering him in that evaluating way only a seven-year-old could. “Did you ask her if I could come to your house? I want to see the room you told me about, and you could help me make those cupcakes like we did at your restaurant that time.”
His chest felt like a bale of hay had been dropped on it. “No, baby, we can’t go to my house.”
“Why not?”
Her big blue eyes flickered with sadness and a hint of betrayal—like he was the one who didn’t really want her there—and he had the sudden urge to swoop her up and just take her home, rules be damned. Show her the room he had designed for her. Tell her that he wanted her there more than anything in life. But through all of this, he’d worked hard not to show the strain. She didn’t need her parents
’ drama set on her little shoulders. “I’m hoping that will happen one day soon, Spark. But today we get the whole park to ourselves. And I brought you a special present for later.”
Her grin returned with extra wattage with the mention of a present. And she jumped off the swing and challenged him to an epic game of hopscotch. When he lost that, twice, and not on purpose, he brought out her gift—a sparkly purple pair of rollerblades and helmet. Kade spent the rest of his time with her trying to teach her how not to be a crash test dummy. He was only partly successful. And before he knew it, Angie was heading back over, calling to them that it was time to go.
Rosalie whined, but he knew she wouldn’t get too out of hand. She, unfortunately, knew the drill. She pulled off her rollerblades and helmet and walked them over to Kade. “Thanks for the skates, daddy. I love them so much.”
He squatted down to her level and ruffled her hair. “You don’t have to give them back, peanut. You can take them home.”
“Yeah, sweetie, Chris can help you practice. He has rollerblades in the garage,” Angie added, her tone a little too bright.
Rosalie shook her head. “No. I want daddy to teach me. He’s good at it.”
Kade coughed over the snort that tried to escape. His kid was awesome. “You sure?”
“Yes,” she said, determination in her little voice as she thrust the rollerblades toward him.
He could tell it was costing her something to part with the glitter-coated gift, but he took the skates and set them down on the ground, his heart swelling and breaking at the same time. Whether Rosalie knew it or not, this was her way of showing him that he still meant something important to her, that she was holding a spot for him in her life even if no one else wanted him there.
He pulled her into a hug and gave her a squeeze, smiling even though everything inside him felt off-center and broken at the thought of not seeing her again for another two weeks. “You be good for your mama, okay?”
“I will,” she said, giving him an extra tight squeeze before letting him go and taking Angie’s hand. “I love you, daddy.”
He swallowed hard. “Love you, too, Spark.”
Watching her walk away and then peek over her shoulder for one last wave before climbing into the car was about all he could take. He waited until the car pulled away then he sat down on the sidewalk, laced his fingers behind his head, and let the anguish overtake him.
It was a full fifteen minutes before he had the energy to get up, grab the rollerblades, and head to the car.
But when he rounded the grove of trees by the parking lot, he stopped midstride. Tessa was sitting on his back bumper with her chin in her hands. When she saw him, she lifted her head and her gaze flicked to his face, then to the skates, then back. Sympathy shrouded her features.
She knew.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice croaky from the tears he’d shed.
She stood, clasping her hands in front of her like she was afraid he was going to tell her to fuck off. “Gibson told me where I could find you. I thought maybe we could go to dinner . . .”
“Dinner? Like pick up take out.” That’d been their MO for the last few weeks.
She shook her head and stepped forward, holding her hand out. “No. Dinner. Like a date. In public.”
“Tess, you don’t have to . . .”
She closed the distance between them and took the skates from his hand. “Hush, I still plan on using you for your body later. Don’t worry. I’ll even pay for dinner so you feel really cheap and tawdry.”
He laughed and drew her into his arms, setting his chin atop her head. Somehow she knew exactly what to say to make the load on his shoulders not feel so damn crushing. “Thank you.”
She tilted her face up and pecked him on the lips. “Thank me later. Come on, the line at Dairy Queen’s going to be killer if we don’t get there soon.”
“Ooh, big spender.”
“You know it. I may even spring for a peanut butter sundae.”
He released her from his hold and let her lead him to his car. “Well, now I’m just feeling pressure to put out.”
She peeked back over her shoulder with a saucy smile, but he saw the tenderness lingering there in her eyes and felt it reach down into his bones, setting up shop like it’d never left. He knew then that he hadn’t learned a thing since he was seventeen. This girl was going to break his heart all over again.
And if he didn’t do something soon, all he was going to be able to do was stand by and let her.
TWENTY-SIX
Kade swirled his spoon in his chocolate chip cookie dough shake, contemplating it like it was some exotic foreign food he’d never tasted.
Tessa rolled her eyes. “I told you I was just kidding about coming here. We could’ve gone somewhere else. I know you’re used to haute cuisine, Mr. Vandergriff.”
He lifted his gaze from his dessert with a smirk. “It’s not that, smartass. I’m just not used to indulging like this. I gave up fast food sophomore year after getting oinked at one too many times. It still feels like the enemy, I guess.”
She tilted her head. “I never understood why they called you those names. You weren’t overweight when I met you.”
“The universe granted me mercy and I had a growth spurt at sixteen that, along with my diet, thinned me out some. But it didn’t matter to the other kids. You know how things stick. Though, to their credit, they did shift over to teasing me more about the stutter instead since that was still fair game.”
She took a bite of her sundae, remembering how he’d stumble over his words the more nervous he got. Part of it had been kind of cute and endearing because she could tell when she was knocking him off balance, but she’d seen how brutal the other boys were when the stutter would appear at school. She remembered wishing with everything she had that Kade’s mouth would just cooperate with him. “How’d you get past that? You can’t even tell that you used to struggle with it.”
He held out his spoon so she could taste his dessert. “When I moved in with my dad, he got me a top-notch speech therapist and had me see a psychologist. They think a lot of my problem was tied to all the stress at home and the social anxiety of being bullied or whatever. Either way, by my third year in college, it was almost completely gone.”
“And smooth and charming Kade Vandergriff emerged,” she said, trying to sound upbeat even though she knew he was glossing over the story about why he’d been in therapy. Gibson had made it clear Kade had been going through more than dealing with a stutter.
He shrugged. “I don’t know about all that, but I owe my father a lot. He didn’t have to accept me into his life like he did. He didn’t even know me. But he took me on like a project. Taught me about life, confidence, and business.”
“Are you still close?”
“Yeah. He retired a few years ago and spends a lot of time on the coast now, but we get together pretty often. I also have two half-sisters who live in town. One took over my dad’s restaurant supply business, the other is a teacher.”
“Wow, that had to be crazy walking into an entirely new family with relatives you had no idea existed.”
“Yeah, it was overwhelming. But after the initial shock, they took me in like I’d been part of the family my whole life. Maybe because I look just like my dad—that made it more believable. I eventually did the DNA test thing, but really, that was more for my reassurance than theirs. I’d never experienced that kind of open acceptance before. I mean, my mom loved me, but she had her problems. And I knew that when it came down to it, she’d always choose my stepdad over me. So for a while, I didn’t trust the Vandergriffs.”
She smirked. “I know how that is. When new foster parents were nice to me, I was more likely to be suspicious than thankful. Normal families still freak me out a little.”
“As if there
’s such a thing as normal.” He went back to staring at his cup for a while, lost in thought, and she knew his mind had drifted back to his own fractured family. He let out a long, tired breath. “So why are we here, Tess? You haven’t wanted to go out in public since day one. Why now?”
She watched him, trying to choose her words carefully. “Gibson kind of told me about your situation with your daughter and ex-wife.”
His expression turned wry, but he didn’t look up. “Gibson has a big mouth.”
“He cares about you.”
He leaned back in his chair, meeting her gaze head-on. “One doesn’t negate the other.”
“He told me I should break things off with you.”
He shifted forward so swiftly the table rattled. “He what?”
She wet her lips, that glare of his scrambling her thoughts for a minute. “He told me to set you free so that you could find someone to date for real or to step up and be on your arm in public.”
Kade’s expression darkened like spring storms rolling in over a formerly sunny day. “It wasn’t his place to give you that ultimatum. My problem isn’t yours. And even if it was, I think Gib’s plan is shaky at best. Having a girlfriend on my arm isn’t going to really prove anything. I don’t exactly have the best track record with long-term relationships. The court date is in less than three months. Who’s going to care that I’ve been seeing some chick for a few months? They’ll just think it’s another fling.”
She swirled her ice cream with her spoon, watching the vanilla melt and become one with the peanut butter syrup. Nerves were flailing around in her stomach like epileptic sparrows, but she kept her expression smooth. “Agreed. That probably wouldn’t matter.”
“So why are we even worrying about it?” He shoved a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth, almost as if he was in combat with his dessert.
She took a deep breath. “Because having a new girl on your arm won’t make a difference, but having your former high school crush and brand new fiancée who you’ve been dating in secret for six months on your arm is an entirely different matter.”