On the Line (25 page)

Nathan placed his hand on the hood and raised an eyebrow. “Why would you tell me
not to bother? I’d like to see you, too. I thought we were friends.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you,” Janelle spat. “So just go home.” She backed toward
the house and took a shaky breath.

“Would Saturday be a good time then?” Nathan casually asked.

Janelle stopped mid-step. That’s what this was about, Zoe’s birthday party. He must
have talked to his mother. She met his bronzy glare and moved toward the edge of
the porch.

“So you’re here about her party? I’m sorry, we haven’t mastered telepathic communication
yet so I wasn’t sure how to invite you,” she said sweetly.

His rounded jaw tightened and his lip curled. “There’s this invention called the
telephone. Maybe you could try using that.”

“I find the phone too unreliable. I can never be sure my calls will be answered.”
Janelle returned his glare with one of her own.

Above them a streak of lightning flew across the sky, and Janelle felt a cooling
breeze on her face. She glanced at the trees and saw the leaves turned upward. They
were in for a doozy of a storm. Thunder crashed as she met Nathan’s stare again and
she realized he’d taken another step closer.

“I told you to give me a call, that I would answer it,” Nathan snapped, fire burning
in his eyes.

“No, you told Patrick to tell me to call you. I never would have expected something
so cowardly from you, Nathan. I was not impressed,” she replied coolly.

“Me? A coward?” Another flash of lightning, followed quickly by the clap of thunder.
“You’re one to talk.”

“Excuse me?” Janelle took a step off the porch as the wind began to pick up.

“You heard me. You want to talk about cowardly, what about you? Finding out you were
pregnant with my child and taking the easy way out. Staying with a man you didn’t
love instead of leaving him and building a life with me.” Nathan crept closer and
Janelle recoiled at his words. “I thought we had something, Janelle. I thought I
meant more than just a few months of kicks.”

“There was nothing easy about what I did, Nathan,” she hissed.

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Believe what you want. I would have explained everything to you weeks ago, but you
decided to give me the cold shoulder instead,” Janelle managed in a steady voice.
He was closer to right than she cared to admit, even now.

“I was directed to stay away from you. I didn’t do it because I wanted to,” Nathan
growled. “Do you think for a moment I have liked following that order? I have a lot
of questions, and only you can answer them. I foolishly thought you and I might be
able to—”

“You’re right, that is foolish,” Janelle interrupted, holding her palm up as he stepped
up to the bottom step. “You chose your job over your family. I was married to a man
who always chose his career over us, why would I want that again?”

Nathan’s eyes widened and she saw the hurt flash through them. “We’re hardly a family,
Janelle, you saw to that. And I had no choice.”

“Neither did I,” she snapped. “I had a responsibility to my husband. I had to try
to keep my marriage together.”

“You sound just like your mother.” Nathan’s now frigid stare bore straight through
her.

Silence fell between them as the first raindrops hit the ground. They stared at each
other without a word as Janelle tried to regain control of the composure she was
about to lose.

He was right. About everything, he was right. She had been a coward, and it was her
mother’s voice she’d heard in her head as she’d made the decision
to end the affair.
Her heart had become Nathan’s and she had desperately wanted to follow it. But her
head had led her down the logical path. The more convenient path of remaining with
Richard and keeping everyone else happy.

With a coolness she hadn’t expected to muster, she looked squarely at his achingly
familiar face. She held up a shaky hand, her finger pointing toward the road. “Leave.
Now.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms, and stepped onto the bottom step. “No.”

Janelle’s eyes widened as she pulled her shoulders back. “What?”

The rain beat harder on them and the wind blew it sideways, straight into Janelle’s
face. There was only one step separating them, but she could feel the heat emanating
from his large body. She suddenly remembered, with great clarity, the feel of his
arms around her, and another familiar warmth began to uncoil in her stomach. She
tried to shake the memory away.

“You heard me,” he shouted over the rain. “I’m not going anywhere until I have answers.
I want to know that I can spend time with Zoe. And I want to know what this is between
you and me.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything left between you and me.” Janelle choked on the words
and she looked at her feet. If there was anything there to salvage, she was still
stinging from his abandonment. Perceived or not, it felt very real to her. She’d
been through it before and was certain she didn’t want to live through it again.
She had to change the subject. “Are you really that upset about not getting an invitation
to a child’s birthday party?” Janelle scoffed. “This isn’t elementary school.”

“Not funny, Janelle. She’s my daughter and you’ve deprived me of that knowledge long
enough,” Nathan snapped as he closed the gap between them and stood almost eye-to-eye
with her. “I’m her father. I have a right to be there.”

“You’re just a sperm donor,” Janelle muttered. Nathan raised his hand and Janelle
fell backward trying to get away from the strike she knew was coming.

Nathan saw her recoil and looked up at his hand where it had stopped on its
way to
the crown of his head. All of his anger fled as he reached out to stop her from falling.

“I’m sorry,” she said unsteadily as he gripped her upper arms and pulled her against
him.

She was in his arms again. He took a moment to savor the feeling and held her tightly
to his chest. How could she possibly believe he was about to hit her? He carefully
turned them both and, keeping her shaking body close to his side, walked them to
the swing at the end of the porch. Once they were seated, he gently cupped her cheeks
in his hands and lifted her face to his.

“Janelle,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so sorry,” she cried.

“I would never hit you,” he said, pain lancing his heart as he said the words. “You
should know that.” When she nodded, he closed his eyes and laid his forehead against
hers but it didn’t ease the pain. “I’m not him.”

“I know,” she mumbled, and he heard a small sniff.

“Why would you call me that? You know I would have been more to her if I’d known.”
He lifted his head and tried again to raise her eyes to his. Slowly, hers opened
and he saw tears swimming in their faded blue depths.

“I know.” Her voice cracked, and it was more like she’d mouthed the words than said
them. “It was such a stupid thing to say. It’s just . . .” She tried to look away
but he held her gaze with his.

“It’s just what?” he repeated gently.

“It was my way of dealing with things, I guess. We did the same thing when Kelsey
was pregnant,” she replied with a shrug.

He thumbed away a tear as it slid down her cheek. “I can only assume you’re referring
to the man that got her pregnant then left her, and I’m not sure I like the comparison.”

Her head moved up and down as her cheeks colored slightly. “I thought you weren’t
interested in being Zoe’s father. I had to try to separate you from that role.” Her
bottom lip quivered violently, and he had the urge to kiss it still.

“I never said I didn’t want the role. I never had the chance to say anything.” Nathan
inched closer until their noses were almost touching.
“And I’ve had time to think
long and hard about it, even though I didn’t need to, and decided I would love nothing
more than to be her dad. And more.”

Janelle hiccupped and pulled back slightly, her head still resting between his hands.
“More?” She shook her head, almost violently, then broke his grip and stood up. “No.”
She walked away and stopped just beside the stairs, placed her forearms on the railing,
and looked into the rain and darkness. “You don’t want more, not really. How could
you?”

Nathan stood and walked toward her. He stopped beside her and mimicked her stance.
“How could I not?”

“What I did to you is unforgiveable,” she answered and he fought a smile.

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” Nathan studied her as she considered his response.
He’d always marveled at how controlled she was, her true emotions rarely showed on
her face. It was the little tells he had to watch for. “By the way, which part is
unforgiveable? Ending the affair or keeping Zoe from me?”

“All of it,” she said quickly and her pale brow furrowed slightly. “Especially keeping
Zoe from you.” She glanced at her clasped hands in front of her. “I regret that one
every day.”

Nathan frowned and looked into the dark. “Did you even consider leaving him while
we were together?” Out of the corner of his eye he caught her nod.

“Often,” she murmured and his heart lightened a little. “I tried to think of a way
to make it work for us. I ran every possible scenario in my head, several times,
and almost always came up with the same conclusion,” she continued, and he could
barely hear her over the rain. “I ended it because I was pregnant and I couldn’t
see any of them working out positively.”

“If you and I had been together, Jan, it would have been positive,” Nathan said as
he slid closer. “You could have moved in with me,” he suggested and turned to face
her, resting one hip against the rail.

Her head swayed, her blonde hair brushed her shoulders. “I was afraid people would
make it out to be a horrible scandal and it would ruin what we had.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Who cares what they might have said?”

“I did.” She glanced up at him, her blue eyes round and innocent.

Reluctantly, he bobbed his head in acknowledgment. He wouldn’t have wanted her to
be uncomfortable around other people, especially if their words or actions made her
awkward around him. “You could have moved in with your parents.”

“No, I couldn’t,” she replied and turned to face the rain. “Mom disowned Kelsey when
she came home from college pregnant. Kelsey lived with me and Richard until after
Zach was born and she moved to LA. I knew for certain Mom would have kicked me out
and then where would I have gone?”

“You could have found an apartment.” Nathan reached up and placed his hand on her
back. Slowly he began to rub up and down.

Her head moved from side to side again. “I had no money. It was all gone.”

“What do you mean?” Nathan asked as he watched his hand move along her wet shirt.

“All of my earnings from teaching had gone into a savings account, and we lived off
of his income from the beginning. That money was supposed to be mine or our rainy
day fund if we needed it.” Janelle turned her head and Nathan met her gaze. “I wanted
to take it and find an apartment but he’d gambled it all away.”

Nathan’s hand froze. “You know this for sure?” She nodded and shifted her gaze over
his shoulder. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this.

“After I ended it with you, I was feeling foolishly brave, or just really pissed
off, I can’t decide, and I asked him about it,” she answered, a far-off look in her
eyes. “He yelled at me and said the money was just as much his as it was mine and
he could do with it as he pleased. It was the first time he got really violent with
me,” she finished quietly.

Nathan saw red. “He hit you while you were pregnant?”

Janelle looked down. “He gave me a black eye, but he didn’t know I was pregnant yet.”

Nathan cursed under his breath. “You should have called me. If for no other reason
than to charge him with assault.”

“I should have,” Janelle agreed. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

She was right, it didn’t matter now. “Could you have moved in with my mother?”

Her eyes widened as she frowned at him. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She
closed her
eyes and turned her face away from him. A tear ran down her cheek and she shook her
head. “I guess I didn’t think of everything.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her head onto his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter,”
he repeated her words. She shook her head and he looked at her tear-streaked face.
“Hey, what is it?”

“All this time we’ve lost. Time we could have been together, as a family, and I screwed
it up.” Sobs wracked her body and he shifted their positions. He leaned against the
rail and held her in front of him, both of his arms wrapped around her. “I always
screw it up.”

“No,” he cooed into her wet hair. “You didn’t screw it up. We can be together now
and we’ll figure it out.”