Hearts On Fire (12 page)

Chapter 22

    
Finding him gone
upon waking hadn’t surprised her or frightened her in the least. In some ways
it was a bit of a relief. She wouldn’t have to stare into those love filled,
trusting eyes just yet. She wouldn’t have to make him hate her. Yet. But soon.
Very soon. Dragging on her blue jeans and pulling a heavy cream colored sweater
over her head she bit her lower lip as tears threatened. Sinking to the edge of
the bed she bit back on a sob. She could still smell him in here. His cologne
was musky, male. What the hell had she been thinking, sleeping with him again?
Letting him love her again? And worse, damnit, so much worse, loving him again.
She’d handed him her heart and he’d taken it so gently. He’d handed his over to
her as well. And look what she was going to do to it. Shatter it into a million
pieces.

     “Oh, holy hell,” she
muttered to herself, getting to her feet. She found her way downstairs and to
the kitchen from what was a vague memory of being led up to her room last
night. She smelled coffee, something she was in desperate need of. And whether
she wanted to admit it or not she was in desperate need of JD as well. Just to
see him smile at her one more time. But instead of JD she found Josh sitting at
the little kitchen table, a calculator on the table in front of him, papers
scattered on the surface.

     “Morning, sunshine,” he
drawled with a grin and a wink for her. “You sleep okay?”

     One look into his
glinting eyes and she knew he knew. “Smartass,” she grumbled, finding a mug in
one of the many cupboards.

     “Don’t be mad at JD. He
didn’t kiss and tell. I figured it out on my own.”

     “You’re a regular Columbo,”
she muttered as she poured coffee from a steaming glass carafe and turned back
to him. “Where is he?”

     “In dad’s study. He had
some things he said he needed to see to. Work stuff.”

     She was nervous and
having a hard time disguising it. Her hands shook and her stomach was turning.
This was the morning she would have to own up to her lies. Before anyone else
could do it. “I suppose I shouldn’t interrupt him.”

     “I get the feeling you
could go to him any time you wanted and he wouldn’t think of it as an
interruption, Lizzie.” When he saw her eyes widen a little he added, “He never
got over you.”

     She felt as though the
breath in her lungs had been stolen.

     “Even when mother forbid
him to see you he wouldn’t listen. Even when she told him she’d shut him out.”

     “Eventually he listened,”
she murmured, remembering the way he’d broken it off with her right before
leaving for college.

     “He didn’t break up with
you because she made him do it, Lizzie,” Josh told her. “He broke up with you
for your sake.”

     It didn’t matter anymore,
did it? “It didn’t make it hurt any less.” And it didn’t make what she’d done a
couple years later okay either. But they’d both done what they’d done.

     “I just thought you
should know. The fuckin’ sap still loves you.”

     Now she managed a grin,
but it was fleeting. “I still love him too, Josh. But I think after I say what
I have to say to him this morning he’ll never want to see me again.”

     His brows came together
and he tilted his head at her.

     “And for better or worse,
I better get it over with. Could you do me a favor and make sure we have some
privacy for a while?”

     “Sure,” he said a little
hesitantly.

     “Especially from your
mother,” Lizzie added.

     “Go through the living
room and through the front foyer. The study is off the family room. You’ll see
it.” Watching her leave the kitchen he wondered just what in the hell she was
going to break to his brother.

     This house, the original
ranch house, spoke of money in a subtle way which the house Arlene currently
occupied did not. Family antiques lined the mantel of the fireplace. The wood
floors here shined softly, not garishly like the tile and marble of the new
house. For all her life she’d never been able to imagine JD in the mansion
Arlene had built. This house, she knew, he’d grown up in. This house suited
him.

     She found him sitting in
a large room lined with book shelves and photo covered walls. Leather bound
books, hard cover books and paperbacks lined the shelves and seemed to be in no
particular order. This would have been Lawrence MacGreggor’s room. His man
cave.

     JD sat behind the desk
looking at the screen of his laptop computer with a frown on his lips and a
pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. The black and blue stripped
sweater he wore stretched across his broad chest and the sleeves were shoved up
over his elbows, exposing his muscular forearms.

     The sight of him sitting
there made her knees weak and her heart flutter. What would it be like to come
upon him like this on a daily basis? To live in the same house as him? Silly.
She shook it off. It would never happen.

     When he sensed her
standing there he looked up over the tops of his glasses and when their gazes
touched he smiled. “Good, you found me. I need rescuing for a while.”

     “If you’re too busy…” She
found herself almost wishing he would say he was and cursed herself for being a
coward.

     “I’m never too busy for
you, honey.”

    
Honey
. The term of
endearment should have melted her heart. Instead it was like a stab to her
heart. Because she knew he would never say it to her again. “Oh.”

     He cocked his head and
pulled the glasses from his face, laying them on the desk. “What’s wrong?” His
jaw worked and his worried eyes blinked slowly. “You’re not regretting this
morning, are you?”

    
Only because I know it
will make what I have to tell you hurt all the more. But I would never regret
being in your arms again. Never.
She shook her head. “No.”

     He relaxed. “Good. Then
tell me what it is. I can see something is bothering you.” He stiffened. “It’s
not Katy, is it? Nothing has happened to her?”

     “No. She’s fine as far as
I know.” It had to be now. Stepping into the office, she reached behind her and
softly shut the door. “But I do have to talk to you about something.”

     He looked from the closed
door to her, worry lines forming between his brows. A million things whirled
through his mind and his heart hammered in his chest.

     Lizzie wrung her hands
together in front of herself as she took the seat across the desk from him.
Placing her hands in her lap, she met his gaze. “This isn’t going to be easy
because I know you’ll be furious with me.”

     “Lizzie, you’re scaring
me here. What’s going on?”

     “I… I should have told
you this thirteen years ago but I didn’t have the courage. Well, and I was
angry with you. So damn angry.” She smiled sadly. “But it’s no excuse for what
I’ve done. What I’ve kept from you.”

     He leaned forward in his
chair, barely containing the urge to jump to his feet. “What, Lizzie? What is
it?”

     She knew if she just sat
quiet for a moment he would figure it out himself. But that was the coward’s
way out and she was done being a coward. “I’ll just say it. JD, Sean is your
son.”

     The color drained from
his face and he leaned back in the chair heavily. “What?” he whispered. “What
did you say?”

     “Sean is your son, not
Brian’s.”

     “My…?” He raked his
fingers through his hair as the color began to come back to his face. “My son?
You’re sure?”

     “Of course I’m sure, JD.
You’re the only man I’d ever slept with.”

     “But how… you married
Castellanos. Moved to Seattle with him.”

     “Yes.” Closing her eyes
and sighing, she said, “I did.”

     “You knew you were
pregnant with my child when you married him?”

     “Yes. I did.”

     Red crept up his neck and
jaw. Anger flashed in eyes which had been soft with love only moments ago.
“Does he know? Castellanos?”

     “He’s known all along,”
she admitted quietly. When she saw cold fury replace anger, she put up a hand.
“This is not Brian’s fault. He did what he did for me and Sean. I explained my
situation to him and he offered to help me, as my friend.”

     “Fuck that,” JD growled
thunderously.

     “I’m sorry, JD. I’m so
sorry.”

     “Fuck that too.” He stood
suddenly, shoving the leather chair back where it slammed against the wall
behind him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he bellowed, his voice overwhelming in
the confines of the study.

     She’d known he would
explode but still she shrank back from his fury. “There were a lot of reasons,
JD. Starting with the fact that you were married at the time.”

     “Barely.”

     Now she found some of her
own anger. “You were married to another woman, JD! And you had an affair with
me! I had to find out the truth from Grady Summers, of all people!”

     He absorbed this in
silence, turning his back on her to look at the pictures on the wall.

     “I didn’t find out I was
pregnant until you’d been gone again for a month. I… At first I didn’t know
what to do. You’d gone back to finish school. You’d gone back to your wife.”

     “You still should have
told me, Lizzie,” he said without turning around.

     She knew he could not
bear to look at her and it broke her heart. But now the damage was done and she
had to forge ahead. “What would you have done, JD? Left her for me because I
was pregnant with your child?”

     He whirled around, his
eyes stormy. “Yes!”

     “Yes, I think you would
have. Exactly what your mother was afraid of.”

     “My mother?” Some of his
fury turned to a cold dread. “She knew?”

     Lizzie nodded sadly. “I
went to the hospital for the tests. She’d seen me there at the gynecologist and
put two and two together. She managed to get the pregnancy test results from
the doctor even before I had them.”

     JD felt his stomach drop.
Looking at the top of her bowed head he felt a mix of fury and sadness.

     “She invited me out to
her house. Her new house.” Looking up at JD she somehow managed a wry smile.
“She told me she wanted to have me out for coffee and a visit. Stupid me, I
thought she was finally trying to accept me. She took me into her sun room and
poured coffee for me and offered me the most delicate little chocolate covered
cookies I’d ever seen in my life. She asked me how I was feeling and how Katy
and I were getting along since Grady had left town. She asked after my mother
too. And then… And then she asked how my child was doing.” Shivering, Lizzie
wrapped her arms around herself. “Just like that she asked. I can still see her
sitting there in the sunshine, smiling sweetly at me with a cookie in her hand.
I was too terrified to answer her. She explained how she’d found out and she
asked me outright if the child was yours.”

     He wanted to be furious
with her but was finding it difficult now. In her eyes he could see a
frightened young woman. Still, he held himself back from her. The frightened
girl was no more. A confident woman stood before him. One that could have told
him the truth years ago.

     “I told her the child was
yours. Pleasantly, as she sipped her coffee, she asked me if I had considered
aborting the child. When I told her no she offered me the money to do so. I was
floored that she could discuss killing her own grandchild over coffee and
cookies. She told me she supposed she understood why I would want to keep the
child. Then she just smiled at me and offered me another cookie as she told me
how things were going to be. She told me I was not to tell you about the child.
Ever.” She looked at him now, forcing herself to hold the tears. “I told her to
kiss my ass. I’d been thinking about it and was ready to tell you. She just
smiled. Then she told me what she would do if I went to you.”

Chapter 23

    
JD’s fury found a new
target.
His mother. He knew she was ruthless. But this… Restlessly, he
turned and paced the back wall. A child. He had a child. And he also had the
mother of his child huddled miserably in a chair before him. He loved her so
much… and yet he was so angry with her he wanted nothing more than to throttle
her senseless. “What did she threaten you with, Lizzie?”

     “The only thing I truly
loved. My baby.”

     “But how? How could she
threaten you?”

     “She told me she’d have
him taken from me. She’d have him given to you and your wife so that he could
have a family.”

     He frowned at her. “That’s
utter nonsense, Lizzie. She couldn’t have done that.”

     She rolled her eyes and
let out a sigh of disgust. “I lived with my alcoholic mother and thieving
sister, JD. My stepfather had tried to rape me and then ran off to God knows
where. Who do you think the judges around here would have sided with? Me or
your mother?”

     “Still…”

     “I was nineteen years old
and I believed she could follow through on her threats!” she shouted at him.

     “You believed she could
take your child from you?” he asked incredulously.

     “Of course I did. Your
mother was the most powerful woman in the county. And she wasn’t known for her
kind heart or for making idle threats.”

     The pain he felt, the
loss, was nearly physical. “You should have come to me, Lizzie. I wouldn’t have
let her do that. We would have found a way.”

     She shook her head.
“Don’t you see, JD? I couldn’t trust you either.”

     God how it hurt to hear
her say those words. Though his anger still simmered he found a way to speak
gently. “You knew me. You knew you could trust me. Christ, we grew up together.
We spent that entire summer together.”

     “I
thought
I knew
you. But you’d lied to me all summer long!” Now she jumped out of her chair too,
stopping herself just short of pointing an accusing finger at his chest. “The
only thing I knew with any certainty was I was
not
going to lose my
baby! I was not going to let that bitch steal my child from me!”

     His heart wrenched. Stoically
he reminded himself that this woman had kept his child from him. For twelve
years he’d been denied being a father to his boy. “Surely there came a point in
time when you realized my mother was no longer a threat. I mean, you’re a
doctor now, Lizzie, with a thriving practice. You’ve made your way.”

     “I was afraid for so long
I didn’t know how to not be anymore, JD.” She twisted her hands together in
front of her. “There’s no way I can make you understand.”

     “No. You can’t.”

     “I knew the fear was
irrational. But it was there. And not just of your mother. I had you to be
afraid of too.”

     He took a step back as
though she’d struck him. Hell, she might as well have. Never, ever would he
want her to fear him. “Me?”

     “Yes. You were making a
name for yourself. People loved you. The ‘cowboy district attorney’, they
called you. I thought, what if you’re so angry with me you decide to punish me
by taking Sean away from me? The public would sympathize with you, not me. I’d
be this horrible bitch who’d stolen your son and hidden him away from you.”

     His jaw hardened, a
muscle working furiously in the corner. “That’s exactly what you did, Lizzie.
Right or wrong and for whatever reasons you had, you left the state when you
found out you were pregnant with my child. And then for twelve years you kept
him a secret from me.”

     Her chin lifted
defiantly. “I did what I had to do to protect my son.”

     “From me,” he seethed. Because
his anger needed an outlet he slammed a fist down on the desk. “You could have
told me at some point! And don’t tell me you couldn’t! You could have told me
that first night in the hospital! Or any time over the last years!”

     “No.”

     “Yes!” He saw the tears
in her eyes and did not allow himself to be affected by them. Not this time.
“Is this why you slept with me this morning? Did you figure I’d soften up this
way?”

     “What? No… I… I had no
intentions of sleeping with you, JD. I told you last night there was too much
between us.”

     “Another opportunity you
had and tossed away,” he growled.

     “I was exhausted last
night.”

     He shrugged a shoulder at
her. “Does Sean know?”

     Her heart thudded in her
chest. “He knows Brian isn’t his real dad. He doesn’t know about you. I plan on
telling him—”

     “We. We, Lizzie. I start
being a part of his life as of right now.” His gaze drilled into her, leaving
absolutely no room for debate.

     Raw fear choked her
words. “Of course.”

     He still had a million
questions flying around in his head. He wanted to strangle her. He wanted to
hold her. He loved her. He hated her. “God
damnit
!” With a shake of his
head he pushed past her and swung the door open.

     “JD? Where are you
going?”

     He turned to her, his
face crimson with anger, his hands balled into fists. “Out. I’m going out. I
need to get away from you for a while.”

    
She’d expected the
anger
and the coldness, but the hurt she’d seen in his eyes, the
humiliation and the misery, were nearly too much to bear. Sinking into the
chair she buried her face in her hands. God but she’d made a mess of things.
And to top it off JD now thought she’d had some devious motive for sleeping
with him. “I love you, damnit,” she grumbled as she heard his voice raise from
somewhere else in the house before hearing a door slam shut.

     She’d braced herself for
this. Or so she’d thought. What she had not counted on was losing the fight to
stay away from him. To not let herself fall for him again. And she’d fallen
hard. Again. She’d fallen right back in love with the son of a bitch. Oh, she’d
known she still loved him and that she always would, but to
be
in love
with him, to be unable to resist handing her heart over to him again… “Damnit!”
she repeated, exploding from the chair just in time to run right into Josh’s
chest.

     “Hey,” he soothed, taking
her by the shoulders. His troubled blue eyes met hers. With a lopsided smile he
said, “Jeeze, I don’t know what the hell happened in here but you sure got JD
all fired up.”

     “I imagine so,” she
murmured.

     “I offered him a cup of
coffee and he told me to fuck off. Then he stormed out of here like he had
Lucifer himself on his heels. And he looked to have murder on his mind. You
know anything about that?” he asked rhetorically.

     She sure in the hell did.
And it didn’t matter who knew any longer. “I just informed him that he’s the
father of my twelve year old son.”

     Josh’s hands dropped from
her shoulders and he rocked back on his heels. “What?”

     She closed her eyes wearily.
“I need you to take me to Katy’s. I want to pick up my things and my car.”

     “I… JD is the father of
your kid?”

     “Yes. Are you going to
give me a ride up the hill or make me walk?”

     “I’ll give you a ride,
sure.” He blinked and shook his head as though trying to clear it. “I’m
assuming you knew all along it was his kid.”

     “I did.”

     “Well no wonder he’s fit
to be tied.”