Matter of Time (18 page)

He paused, giving them a chance to catch up. When no one spoke, he continued. “Lucas and I came back to Charlotte at the end of the summer semester to visit Grandma and Grandpa, and while I was here, I ran into your mom at the grocery store.” He turned his gaze to Brianna. “And met you for the first time. You were four months old.”

Maggie gasped, while Brianna’s mouth dropped open in shock. Dammit to hell. These kids had been hit with one bombshell after another over the past week, and they had to be wondering if the shit would ever end.

“But… you guys have been married sixteen years. I’m only fif—” She snapped her mouth closed and pressed her lips together. “You lied to us about how long you’ve been married!” She jumped up from couch and paced back and forth around the living room.

“Yes,” he quietly admitted. “I never agreed with it, but your mom didn’t want you to know, and… well… this isn’t something you can put back in the box once it’s out, so I kept my mouth shut whenever the subject came up. If you think back on it, I’ve never told you how many years we’ve been married. Anytime the subject of our anniversary came up, I either sat back and said nothing or left the room.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. I’m as guilty as she is because I went along with it. But I never liked it.”

“So what happened with Lizbeth?” Maggie asked.

“I went back to State, packed up all my stuff, told Lizbeth I couldn’t see her anymore because I had a child to raise, and moved back to Charlotte. Until this past weekend, I hadn’t talked to her since that day. Uncle Lucas ran into her at Christmas at a mutual friend’s house. When he found out she’d never married, he arranged for us to meet last weekend in Myrtle Beach.”

“Did she…?” Maggie started and then stopped. “Did she stay single because she still loves you?”

Lizbeth told him as much last weekend and alluded to it time and again during their phone conversations this past week, but hearing the revelation from his sweet, intuitive thirteen-year-old truly drove home the point.

“Yeah.” He nodded and smiled. “And the thing is, while I never cheated on your mom and I did everything I could to be a good husband and father, my relationship with your mom was doomed because I didn’t have a whole heart to give to her.” He glanced sideways at Luke. “I’m totally ruining my tough-guy image here, aren’t I?”

Luke smirked and lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, but it’s okay.”

Brianna stopped pacing and turned on Logan. He braced himself for another tirade only a fifteen-year-old with massive attitude could deliver, but rather than blasting him, she breathed out, “She set you up.”

The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he instantly jumped to Lizbeth’s defense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Lizbeth—”

“Not her. Mom.”

He snapped his mouth closed and drew back like she slapped him. “What?”

“Mom, she trapped you. All those years ago.” She flopped down on the couch. “Was she on the pill when you guys were dating?”

Picking up on her train of thought, and not liking where it was headed, he hesitatingly said, “Yeesss.”

“Oh my God. She totally set you up. When she took me to the doctor to get on the pill—”

“What? You’re on the pill?” This time it was him who burst from the chair. “Why didn’t I know this?”

“Duh, that’s not something dads are told.”

Renewed fury and dismay at not knowing what was going on in his children’s lives rushed through him and burst from his lips. “The hell it’s not.”

“Dad, chill. It’s because of girl stuff, okay? Not because I’m having sex.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed to the point he barely saw through the slits. “So there’s no boy that needs castrating?”

Brianna giggled and shook her head. “No. And you need to sit down and listen. This is important.”

He did as she said and took a few deep breaths to get his blood pressure back within recommended limits.

“When I started on the pill, Mom told me it was important to take it every day and to never skip. And if I ever got the crazy notion to stop taking them to get pregnant so a boy would marry me, she’d kill me. She said she knew a girl who did that once, and it didn’t turn out the way the girl planned. She was talking about herself. I’m sure of it.”

A dull roar started in the base of Logan’s skull and grew to the point all he heard was a sound similar to ocean waves crashing onshore, drowning out everything else.

Did Bobbi Jo really do that to him? It never occurred to him she might’ve intentionally stopped taking her pills to trap him.

Jesus Christ… Was there anything she wouldn’t do to get what she wanted? How in the hell could he have lived with her all those years and not seen the truth?

“Dad.” Luke shook his arm, bringing him back from the brink of whatever precipice he’d been about to fall over. “Dad, are you okay?”

Logan shook his head to clear the red haze and fog surrounding him and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He lifted his gaze to Brianna, who also looked concerned. “I always wondered how you came to be when she was on the pill.”

“Great,” Brianna said, flopping back into the couch cushions. “I love knowing I’m a mistake.”

“Hey, look at me.” He spoke harshly, making sure he had her undivided attention before he continued. “I’ve made a ton of mistakes in my life, but you’re not one of them. Do you hear me?” He glanced around at his children… his world. “If you hadn’t come along, then I wouldn’t have married your mom, and then I wouldn’t have you two.” He nodded to Luke and Maggie. “And while I’m sure there are days you think that’s not such a good thing,” he said dryly to Brianna, “I wouldn’t change a single thing. I love Lizbeth. And I loved her so much I felt like someone ripped out my heart and stomped it into oblivion when I left her. But I can’t imagine life without you three.”

After several moments of charged silence, where everyone processed what they’d just learned, Brianna said, “Can we meet her?”

“Yeah, absolutely. In fact, if you guys grab your suits”—thank God they were still here from their last trip to Lucas’s—“we can go over there and swim in the indoor pool at her hotel. How’s that?”

Brianna narrowed her eyes and studied Logan. “That was the plan all along, wasn’t it?”

He laughed and stood, then wrapped his arms around her in a gigantic hug when she also stood. “Yeah, but it’s so much better when you think it’s your idea.”

She surprised him by hugging him back harder than ever before. “I had no idea Mom was like this.”

Maggie and Luke had already run to their rooms to get their things, so he and Brianna had a few minutes alone. “Me neither.” He pulled back, took her chin in his hand, and lifted her face so she was looking at him. “I meant what I said. You’re not a mistake. You are a gift. All three of you are. And I can’t imagine life without you.”

She gave him a watery smile and nodded. “Thanks, Dad. I love you too.” With a deep breath and an exaggerated sigh, letting Logan know she was teasing, she said, “All right, let’s go meet the other woman.”

I
t’d been nearly an hour since Logan left, and Lizbeth had been a whirling ball of nervous energy, not only swirling around her room, making it as sterile as possible, but also whipping about the hotel. The first thing she did was make the bed exactly as it had been when she checked in so there wouldn’t be any evidence of Logan’s and her previous activities. After that, she gathered the toys Logan instructed her to bring—cuffs, nipple clamps, flogger, paddle—and hid them under the false bottom of her suitcase. She felt like a criminal hiding evidence before the cops showed up, but she wanted the kids to have the freedom of coming and going as they pleased. And if they snooped—a natural inclination—she didn’t want them finding anything other than clothes.

After one last dash around the room, making sure it was childproofed, so to speak, she went to the front desk and got an extra keycard made for each of the kids. Then she moved to the hotel’s boutique, searching for a bathing suit that would be more appropriate than the one she brought. When she packed her teeny-weeny string bikini, she’d planned on a party for two in the hot tub, not volleyball in the pool. However, the hotel didn’t offer anything in the way of suits, so she bought a pair of shorts to go with a casual top she brought from home and ran back to the room to change.

At the sudden knock on the door and the
beep-beep
of the lock being activated, she jumped and spun toward the sounds as her heart knocked around in her chest. As the door swung open and Logan walked in ahead of the kids, she wiped her palms on her shorts and drew in a calming breath, praying she didn’t pass out or throw up from adrenaline overload.

Locking gazes with her, he strode across the room with purpose and conviction. She had the sense he was trying to convey some sort of message without using words, but her brain was too frazzled to understand. Stopping directly in front of her, the corner of his mouth lifted in a grin and his eyes heated a second before he shocked her stupid by leaning over and kissing her on the lips. Pulling back from the kiss, he winked and turned to stand beside her.

After wrapping his arms around her waist, he said, “Lizbeth, I’d like you to meet Brianna.” He pointed to his oldest daughter, whose blank expression gave absolutely no insight into her thoughts. “Maggie,” he said, gesturing to his youngest daughter, who smiled slightly before dipping her head. “And my son, Luke.”

Still reeling from the impact of his greeting, Lizbeth was completely unprepared for the wave of emotions that swamped her as she looked at Logan’s kids. It was too early to know if they would ever like her or even accept her into their lives. But she hoped they did, because as Logan’s flesh and blood, they instantly became important to her. She’d never seen a picture of Bobbi Jo, had no idea what the woman looked like, but all Lizbeth saw in the kids was Logan. They each had his dark hair, and as they studied her through green eyes identical to his, she saw his essence and inner fire burning brightly in each of them.

Easing away from his grasp, she took a tentative step forward and smiled. “Your dad has told me so much about you. It’s nice to meet you.” She made eye contact with each of them and hoped they realized she wasn’t just being polite, but truly meant it.

As they responded with a chorus of nice-to-meet-you-toos, she pressed her lips together and wondered if she should address the big ugly elephant in the room or leave it alone. Meeting Logan’s children would have been stressful and awkward under any circumstance, but this was far from normal. And if she, as an adult, was this conflicted about the best way to address all that happened with their mother over the past several hours, how must they feel? They had to know she was aware of their mother’s arrest, and she couldn’t imagine how humiliating that must be for them. Deciding it best to go ahead and get it out in the open so no one felt the need to tiptoe around it, she said, “I’m sorry for all you’ve been through this week. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you.”

There were several moments of tense silence where they all stood perfectly still, sizing her up, and she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake. And when Brianna took a step forward and met Lizbeth halfway, she held her breath and prepared to get blasted for daring to wander into the inner sanctum of their lives.

But rather than letting her have it, Brianna asked, “Is it true you never married because you’ve been in love with Dad all this time?”

Brianna’s words shocked Lizbeth, and she barely contained a gasp. She turned and glanced at Logan as his eyes narrowed on his daughter in warning, then filled with warmth when he redirected his attention to Lizbeth. When he added a soft smile and nodded ever so slightly, she took that as a sign she should answer honestly.

She didn’t know what transpired over the last hour, but he’d obviously told them about his past relationship with Lizbeth, so turning to face Brianna again, she nodded and said, “Yes, it’s true. I never met anyone who compared to your dad.” She laughed and shrugged. “Not even your Uncle Lucas.”

After another charged moment, Maggie rushed forward, wrapped her arms around Lizbeth’s waist, and said, “I’m sorry for all the things my mom did to keep you and my dad apart,” then jumped back in line next to her brother.

This time, Lizbeth failed to contain her reaction, and she gasped with surprise at not only Maggie’s physical action, but her words.

“Maggie, you don’t have anything to apologize for.” Confused as to why the girl would say such a thing, she added, “No one does.”

The tension radiating from the children spiked as Luke shuffled his feet and turned to stare at the dark TV screen like he was watching the most amazing show in the history of television. Maggie lifted sad eyes to her dad before refocusing on the floor. And Brianna crossed her arms while chewing on the inside of her cheek.

What in the world was going on?

Before Lizbeth could question their odd behavior, Logan stepped forward and said, “Who’s ready to go swimming?”

“Works for me,” Luke said, turning and heading for the door.