Falling For A Redneck (17 page)

Inside, the boys snatched cookies from their Nana and then hightailed it somewhere in the house, probably to hide. Marissa also scattered, saying Dirk needed to talk to Clara alone. At least she wasn’t crying anymore. It just about killed him when he’d caught her so tearful and fearing he’d dump her to the curb. As if.

While
Dirk dreaded the inevitable confrontation with his ex, he finally got an answer to a question he’d asked himself many times over the past few years. He’d often wondered what he’d do if Clara ever came back. He had even entertained the notion of getting back together with her for the boys, but seeing her again, he discovered something that surprised him.

He felt nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. There was still a lot of anger, but no love, affection, hell, not even any lust. Looking at Clara as she sat at the kitchen table, legs crossed and munching on a cookie, he wondered what he’d ever seen in her.

With this revelation came a sense of relief and closure. He knew now what he wanted
, and it wasn’t her. But what exactly was Clara’s game plan? Because he knew her well enough to know she’d not shown up out of some sudden desire to atone. Dirk wasted no time. “What do you want, Clara?”

“I want my family back
.” Clara shot him a brilliant smile.

“We were never a family.”

“Oh, Dirk,” she pouted prettily. “Don’t be so mean.”

“
Mean? Are you for real? You left almost three years ago and never once tried to contact me or the boys. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve decided you want us and come waltzing back. Are you out of your mind?”

“I feel real bad about that. Let me make it up to you.”

“Somehow I doubt that. What happened to Clements? He get busted too?”

A moue of displeasure wiped her smile.
“We had a fight. But I don’t want to talk about him. You should know I never loved him like I loved you, Dirk. I’ve missed you and my babies.”

“Really?
Could have fooled me.” Dirk couldn’t help his mocking tone. “Listen, Clara, I don’t know what your game is, but it’s not going to happen. I’ve found someone else now, someone who’s good for me and the boys.”

“That uptight stick?
You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Marissa is a lady, something you wouldn’t understand.”
And definitely not a stick
, he thought, remembering her soft curves.

“You can’t tell me you prefer that stuck
-up bitch to me?”

“What you call stuck
-up bitch, I call manners and class. And yes, I do prefer Marissa. What you and I had wasn’t healthy for either of us. Look at what we did to our lives, to each other and the boys. A part of me will always care for you, Clara, as the mother of my children, but I can’t be with you.”

“But we belong together.
Me, you, and the boys. We’re family,” Clara repeated stubbornly.

“Family doesn’t run when things get tough,” Dirk stated flatly. And he knew better now. Clara just wasn’t the type to stay in one place
, not when greener pastures beckoned.

A sneer twisted her features.
“Yeah, well, let’s see if your precious
lady
wants to be with you after I tell her about your record. Wonder how much she’d like you once she knows you were a con.”

He couldn’t help but smirk.
“Go ahead. It won’t matter. She already knows.” Petty, perhaps, however he enjoyed the shocked look on Clara’s face. “Now, if you’re done trying to cause trouble, I think it’s time you left.”

Clara seemed to deflate in her seat
, and her shoulders slumped, but only for a moment, before she flounced out of the chair. “You’re making a mistake, Dirk. I could have made you and the boys happy. We could have even had more babies, a little girl maybe. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I’d love a little girl, but I’d prefer a different mother. One who cares
about me and our children. And that definitely isn’t you. Time to go, Clara.”

Shoving the chair back, the legs of it screeching on the floor, she flounced to her feet. “Fine, be a fucking jerk.
I don’t need you anyway, and who wants to be tied down to some snotty-nosed kids?”

Dirk winced, thankful the boys couldn’t hear the nasty words their mother flung in an attempt to hurt him
, which also cemented his knowledge that he was making the right choice.

“Have a good life
, Clara, and don’t come back,” said Dirk with finality.

With a dark look, Clara stalked out of the kitchen and out of Dirk’s life, hopefully for good.

Marissa swung slowly on the porch swing. She would have loved to listen in on Dirk’s conversation with his ex, but she knew this was something he had to do on his own.

The slamming of the screen porch door startled her, and she glanced over in time to see a pissed-off-looking Clara come storming out.
Leaving already?
Good. And not happy about it either she’d wager.

Marissa didn’t say a word, hoping
Clara wouldn’t see her sitting there, but as her foot hit the last step, Dirk’s ex turned around and fixed her with a nasty sneer.

“
Congrats. You won. Not that he’s a great prize or nothing.”

That’s a matter of opinion.
Marissa said nothing, but she did let out an inner happy yell.
He chose me?

Clara took a step toward her and lowered her voice.
“But I’m warning you, you’d better take good care of my boys, bitch. He may have chosen you, but I’m still their mother.”

Biologically
, perhaps, but in every other way, the woman before her was a stranger. And by the looks of it, intended to remain that way. Once more, she was choosing to walk away instead of fighting for a chance to spend time with her boys. Marissa couldn’t fathom that, and neither could she reply without saying something, probably nasty.

Clara sniffed.
“Nothing to say? Well, I do. I’m warning you right now you’d better not let any kids you and Dirk have push mine aside. My boys deserve a mother who will love them. I know I may not have been the best mother around. Hell, who am I kidding? I am a shitty mother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. And if I ever find out you’ve hurt my boys…”

In that moment
, Marissa suddenly felt sorry for Clara as she stood there with raccoon eyes from running mascara. She finally found her tongue. “I would never hurt the boys. And you don’t have to worry about me giving Dirk more kids. I can’t have any. Your boys would always have me one hundred percent.” Why she revealed that secret to Clara when she didn’t dare tell Dirk, she couldn’t have said. She didn’t owe Clara anything.

Marissa’s statement seemed to stun Clara. “You can’t have kids?
” Her eyes narrowed. “Does Dirk know?”

How did she guess?
Marissa shook her head and regretted her impulsive revelation. Would Clara use her dreaded secret against her and use it as the wedge to drive Dirk away from her forever? But then again, she’d eventually have to tell him the truth. “No, but I’m going to tell him soon. I know I have to. And while I’d never hurt the boys, and I would love them as my own, once Dirk finds out it’s not going to matter, is it?”

“
I think you might be surprised,” Clara murmured. For a moment, her face softened, taking on a vulnerable look. “Take care of my kids.”

W
ith those parting words, Clara sauntered over to a battered pickup truck and took off in a cloud of dust. But while she’d managed to abandon her past, Marissa couldn’t. Marissa couldn’t help but mull her own troubled thoughts.

Do I tell him? Clara seemed to suggest he wouldn’t care.
But if I do, and he leaves? I don’t think I could stand going back to my sterile, frozen prison.
However, she couldn’t maintain the pretense they had a future forever.

Leaving the boys behind for a few extra days, Dirk and Marissa headed home. The decision
came after the Clara fiasco when they cuddled on the swing. The appearance of his ex on the scene hadn’t driven a wedge between them, but it did bring them back down to reality.

“It’s time we got on with our lives. We’ll go back without the boys
and make sure the coast is clear first.” Dirk’s mother, when asked, didn’t mind keeping the boys for a few extra days.

Marissa agreed, still bemused by the fact Dirk had chosen her. But her secret left a shadow on her happiness.
How long will I have him once he finds out I’m not whole?

Decision made, they wasted no time, leaving early the following morning—after a hearty breakfast and sloppy kisses from the boys, slobber she didn’t wipe anymore.

Waving until they pulled out of sight, it seemed only natural for Marissa to rest her hand on Dirk’s muscled thigh. Absent-mindedly, she rubbed the worn denim lightly.

“If you keep doing that, I am going to stop this car right now and take you on the side of the highway
,” Dirk muttered in a low, husky growl.

“Promise?” said Marissa teasingly. Actually
, she wasn’t really teasing. She wanted him inside her, claiming her. Making her feel whole.

Dirk put on a burst of speed to Marissa’s laughter, but she behaved and kept her hands
—and her dirty thoughts—to herself. For now.

When they were a few minutes from the
ir houses, Marissa slid her hand back on to his leg and boldly began rubbing the growing bulge at the front of his pants.

With a squeal of tires
, Dirk slammed into the driveway and jumped out of the car. Marissa barely had time to get out before she was in his arms, his hard lips pressing against hers.

Fumbling keys while keeping her lips locked to his, she unlocked the door
, and they stumbled inside.

Marissa expected a repeat of their first time on the wall in the entranceway
, but Dirk had other ideas. Scooping her in his big arms, he strode quickly to her bedroom and tossed her on the bed. Something crinkled underneath her, and she pushed at Dirk, who already covered her body.

“There’s something under me,” she whispered in between kisses. “Hold on
, let me move.”

Marissa rolled on
to her side, and Dirk grabbed what hid beneath her and jumped off the bed, pacing.

“I take it you didn’t leave yourself a letter?”
His face bore a grim expression as he looked at the envelope he held.

A chill swept away the heat
, and Marissa sat up, hugging her knees, a pit in the bottom of her stomach. “No. Open it.”

It took
Dirk only seconds to tear the plain white envelope open and scan the message inside. His face grew darker and darker. “That’s it. We need to do something about this.”

Marissa grabbed the sheet from his hand and read the note.

You’re ruining everything. It’s not over. He still wants you. But he won’t get you. I’ll make sure of that. With you gone, he’ll be mine again.
You may have run, bitch, but you can’t hide forever, and when you come back, I’ll be waiting.

Marissa re-read the note as Dirk paced
, ranting about the things he’d do to the bastard when he caught him. But Marissa suddenly had a light bulb go on. She jumped off the bed and went to her office to boot up her laptop.

Dirk followed. “What are you doing?”

“I think I can find out who this is.” She loaded her email account for her pro-domme persona and scanned through the messages. All of them were from one person—one ex-submissive begging her to see him again. To beat him again.

Everything came together.

“I know who’s doing this,” Marissa said excitedly.

“Who?” said Dirk
, punching one fist into the palm of his other hand.

“You can’t hurt th
is person.”

“What? Why not
, after everything he did to you?”

“And what about what I did to her?”

“Your psycho stalker is a she!” Dirk’s brows shot up. “How am I supposed to beat up a girl?”

Despite the situation,
Marissa laughed at the expression on his face. “You’re not. Lucky for you, I have a plan.” Turning back to her laptop and replying to her sub’s last message, she set up an appointment for that night.

“Are you insane?” shouted Dirk
, reading it. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

“I hope not. Just trust me on this.”

Marissa explained her plan, and in the end, he grudgingly accepted it, but with one stipulation: he’d be on hand when she carried out her plan to free herself from her stalker.

They sealed their deal with a kiss tha
t turned into frantic lovemaking on the floor of her home office, his hard body pumping into hers as his eyes mesmerized her with their intensity.

When he came deep inside her, he bellowed
, “Marissa!”

And Marissa hugged him
tight, wishing she could bottle this moment up forever, knowing that after this was over, everything would change because she’d decided sometime during the drive home it was time. Time to tell him her secret and explain why they couldn’t be together.

Time to return to being the ice princess.