Loving You (10 page)

If it was true, she'd lose Jonas. If it wasn't true, then why was Candellano here? And even if Jonas wasn't this guy's son, then the stink made and the investigation would surely turn up the fact that Mimi was dead. And then Social Services would take Jonas away from
her and whether Candellano got the boy or not, Jonas would be gone, just the same.

And Tasha would be alone.

Again.

At twenty-seven, she'd be as alone as she had been at seventeen, when Mimi had first found her. Only alone would be so much worse now—because now she knew what
family
could be like. Bitterness filled her mouth, snaked down her throat, and stained her soul. She should have known. Should have guessed that the good life she'd made for herself couldn't last. Wouldn't last. Things like that just didn't happen to people like her.

She scrubbed both hands across her face, wiping away the single tear sliding down her cheek. Her throat closed around a knot she knew wouldn't be disappearing anytime soon.

“Tasha?”

She looked at Molly.

“He's here.”

“What?”

“Jonas,” Molly said, nodding toward the front window.

Tasha shifted her gaze to the view of the wide lawn that needed mowing. Cold wind pushed at the tree limbs and ruffled the hair of the boy with his head down. Jonas was dragging his new backpack across the grass and kicking at a rock as he walked slowly toward the house. A brief smile tugged at her mouth. No one could dawdle like a kid. And Jonas did it better than most.

Knowing he had chores and homework to face once he set foot inside the house, he could make that walk from the bus stop to the front door last a lifetime. It
was a routine. One they were both used to. The welcome home. The arguing about vacuuming. The plea bargaining for a little TV time before homework.

It was business as usual.

Their little world.

The same one that, right at the moment, was teetering on the brink of destruction.

Tasha never took her gaze off Jonas as she said, “Go away, Molly.”

“Right.” But before she left, the other woman added, “Take it easy on him, Tash. He's just a kid.”

“Yeah, I know.” He was a kid.
Her
kid. Her family. And she was going to see to it that it stayed that way.

Striding across the room, she pulled the front door open and stepped into the cold bite of the November afternoon. The wind pushed at her, almost as if some invisible hand were trying to keep her in the house. Keep her from asking questions she really didn't want to put voice to. But there was no avoiding it. No ducking the issue. Jonas had started something that they were just going to have to face. Together.

She shook her head, tossing her hair out of her eyes, then walked to the edge of the porch. Jonas stopped at the bottom of the steps, looked up, and grinned.

That smile shot straight to her heart. He was such a
little
guy. And though she was barely old enough to be his mother, Jonas was more
her
son than Nick Candellano's. She loved him with a fierceness that only ten years ago she wouldn't have thought possible.

Back then, she'd figured love was just a word people used to hurt each other:
I love you, so you have to do what I say. I love you, so when I hit you, it means I care. I love you, so shut the hell up and get me a beer
.

Love hadn't meant a damn thing to her until Mimi.
And then, just two years ago, Jonas had joined their little family. With him and Mimi, Tasha had discovered what life should really be about. And she wouldn't lose it now.
Couldn't
lose it.

“Hi, Tash,” he said, flipping his too-long hair back out of his eyes.

“Hi yourself.” Dropping to the top step, she sat down and patted the place beside her. “Sit down, Jonas.”

He frowned, lines forming between his eyebrows as his eyes narrowed on her. “Something wrong?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

He took the first step, then stopped. Worried, he asked, “Did my teacher call you?”

One red eyebrow arched as she looked at him. “No. Is there some reason she's going to?”

He shrugged and gave her that smile again. The same half-smile she'd seen on Nick Candellano's handsome face earlier. And her heart clutched. “She maybe might not be happy about maybe my history test.”

A smile struggled to be born inside her and failed miserably. Ordinarily she almost enjoyed hearing Jonas's last-ditch attempts to soften a blow one of his teachers would be delivering. But today she'd already had a blow that had taken the heart out of her.

Nodding, she said, “We'll talk about history later.”

Grabbing the reprieve while he could, Jonas grinned again and clomped up the stairs. How was it, she wondered, that one small boy could sound like a battalion of elephants when he walked? When he reached the top step, he swung his backpack at the doorway, and when it slid through the opening, he threw both hands high and said, “Touchdown!”

Football
.

Football
players
.

Tasha's stomach swirled again and she had to swallow hard to keep from losing her lunch. Jonas plopped down beside her and nudged her arm with his shoulder. “So what are we talking about?” he asked.

She looked down at him and just for a minute let herself enjoy the sweet innocence shining in his eyes. Eyes that now reminded her too much of the man who'd ripped the floor from beneath her feet just a few hours ago.

At eleven years old, Jonas was still more of a kid than a preteen. And despite losing his mother and going into the system at eight and a half, he'd managed to retain a sweet optimism that never ceased to amaze Tasha. Even when Mimi had died, Jonas had been the one to remind Tasha that they still had each other.

They'd clung together through the pain of loss, and now, just a few months later, Tasha thought they were stronger than ever. So why then had he gone searching for his real father? Why had he taken the risk? Why was he willing to gamble everything they had for the chance at something he'd never known?

The only way to find the answers to the questions haunting her was to ask. So, keeping her gaze locked with his, she cleared her throat and said, “A man came to see me today.”

“Yeah?” He smiled, eyes wide. “A date?”

“No,” Tasha said, and reached out to smooth his hair back from his face. Her fingertips lingered a moment, then she dropped her hand to his forearm. Holding on to him, she said, “He was really here to see Mimi…”

“Uh-oh.”

“… or
you
.”

“Me?” His gaze shifted from hers. “Um … who was it?”

Did he inch slightly away from her, or was it just her imagination?

“Nick Candellano.”

“He was
here
?” Jonas looked quickly around him as if he were expecting the man to be hiding behind a plant, waiting to jump out and yell, “Surprise!”

Excitement fairly rippled out around him in a thick wave that danced across Tasha before it disappeared into the bone-numbing wind.

“Where is he now?” he demanded.

“He's gone.”

“Why didn't he wait?”

“Because I wouldn't let him.”

Jonas's gaze snapped back to hers, and Tasha's heart hurt at the accusation aimed at her. “You sent him
away
?”

“I wanted to talk to you first and—”

“But I've been
waiting
.…”

He tried to pull away, but Tasha's hand on his arm held him still. “Jonas, he says you're suing him for paternity.”

“I had to 'cause he wouldn't answer my letters and—”

“But why, Jonas? Why?”

“'Cause he's my dad,” the boy said, and his voice broke on the word. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, racing one another down his reddened cheeks.

“How do you know that?” Tasha asked, her voice quiet, filled with the pain of watching him hurt.

“My mom told me,” he said. “She always said it. That he was my dad.”

“You should have told me what you were doing,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully.

“You woulda said no.”

“Probably.” It cost her some to admit it, but it was the truth and she'd never lied to the boy before. Lies only caused more grief. But yes, she would have prevented him from opening up this can of worms that just might rise up and devour them all. Because to protect him, to protect what they had, she was willing to do just about anything. “Jonas, you know we can't let anyone find out about Mimi.”

“He won't tell,” the boy said quickly, eagerly.

“We don't know that,” she said, and silently she thought that Nick Candellano had struck her as the kind of man who would do whatever it took to cover his own ass. Maybe she was wrong about that, but she wasn't willing to bet their lives on it.

“I'm sorry, Tasha,” Jonas said, and his bottom lip quivered until he bit down on it. “I didn't want to make you mad or anything, but I had to do it. I just had to.”

“Jonas…”

And then the boy who was always insisting he was “almost a teenager” did something he hadn't done in too long to remember. He threw himself into Tasha's embrace, laid his head on her shoulder, and let the tears flow. “He'll help,” he said, the words choking on his body-shaking sobs. “He will.”

Oh God
. She soothed him with long, steady strokes of her hand along his spine, but the force of his crying shook her to the bone. He was so small, she thought. So young. So trusting. And so damn fragile. Her heart broke for him even as her mind raced, trying to figure out every possible complication. Oh, she wished he hadn't done it. Would do anything to undo it.

Through the tears, though, he gulped loudly and said, “He's my
dad
.”

Those three little words seemed to sum it all up for the boy. And in a way, Tasha couldn't blame him. He was holding out for the American dream. Heck, he saw it every night on television. Even the damn commercials showcased Mom and Dad and the kids. She supposed the advertisers were trying to appeal to Middle America. But God, didn't anyone guess what those
family
things did to kids who didn't
have
families in the traditional sense?

When she was a kid, she'd sneered at them. Known them for the joke they were. No one she had known lived that kind of life, had that kind of love and warmth. So she hadn't been tortured with the “what ifs” that were driving Jonas today.

But he was different.

He was younger than she'd been at his age.

He was hurt.

He'd pinned his dreams on an egotistical football player who couldn't give a shit about the boy who might be his son.

Jonas didn't see that, though.

He just
wanted
.

And when he didn't get it, he was going to be crushed.

C
HAPTER
7

“You have a
son
?”

Nick winced when his sister's voice hit a note only dogs should have been able to hear. Jesus. Hadn't he had enough crap already in the last couple of days? Did he really need a big spoonful of Candellano on top of it?

“I didn't say I had a son,” he snapped, biting off each word. “I said
the kid
says I have a son.”

“Oh, big difference.”

“There is a difference, thanks,” Nick said, and stalked across Jackson's office. Being a wise man, Carla's husband had already left brother and sister alone. Claiming to have been worried about paperwork that his secretary “might have” misplaced, Jackson had found an escape. The lucky bastard.

“This is why I told you to stay out of it.”

“How can I?” she demanded, leaping to her feet and marching to his side. “I'm supposed to pretend I don't know I've got a nephew out there somewhere?”

“Not somewhere,” Nick muttered. “Christ, he's not lost at sea. He lives outside Santa Cruz.”

“And I'm just now finding out about him?”

“Hell,
I
just found out about him yesterday.”

“And whose fault is that?” She crossed her arms over her chest. The toe of her right boot tapped loudly against the floor and sounded, for some reason, like the clock of fate numbering out the seconds of Nick's life. Well, at least his life as he'd known it. Because if this kid really was his son, everything was going to change.

Thoughts Ping-Ponged in his head and he didn't like a damn one of them. Carla couldn't say anything to him that he hadn't already said to himself. But naturally, that knowledge wouldn't have stopped her, even if he'd told her so.

Still, he wasn't going to just stand there and make like a target for Carla. If no one else was going to defend him, then it was up to Nick himself. “Damn it, how was I supposed to look out for a kid I didn't know existed?”

“No.” Carla took a step closer to him and jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “I think the better question is,
How could you have been so stupid as to make a child and not know it?
”

“Thanks,” Nick said, sneering at her. This was great. Spending this time with his sister made him remember exactly
why
when they were kids he used to kidnap her Barbies and hide them. “Man, Carla, you're really the one to have around when you're feeling like shit already.”

“Well, God, Nick. What do you expect me to say?” She threw her hands high. “There's a little boy out there who's part of our family and none of us, including his father,
know
him.”

He scrubbed one hand across his face.

“Where is he living? Who takes care of him?”

“His foster mother is—”

“
Foster
mother?” Carla's voice hit that weird note again and he could have sworn he heard the muted sounds of every dog in town barking in response. “Foster mother. A Candellano kid has a foster mother.”