One More Time (8 page)

They both stared open-mouthed and wide-eyed at me for a second, and then burst into hysterical laughter.

“What are you two laughing at?” Max asked from the top of the stairs.

“Nothing,” Ellie managed to say between snorts and giggles. “Dillon just spat out some psycho-babble that made a heck of a lot of sense.” Piper snorted, which set them both off again. Max shot me a what-the-fuck-look and I shrugged.

An hour later, I dropped Piper at the garage and headed back to the apartment. On the way there, I drove past the townhouses in South Charlotte where Cas lived. He had been talking about how great his place was for months now. It wasn’t until recently I bothered to listen. It looked like two were still for sale. I stopped long enough to punch the number of the realtor in my phone and then headed home.

Two hours later, I was back at Dragonfly to make sure everything was ready to go for Reyn. I didn’t blame her for wanting to go back to Virginia to live with her parents. Reyn was lucky to have someone there to help her get through this tough time. When my parents died, I had my brother and my aunt. When my aunt passed away my brother, Adam was in Afghanistan and I had no one. Shaking off the nostalgia, I found Polly and Lena in the back and asked them to help me prep the bar.

An hour and a half later, the place was filled with friends and family. Bee-boppy music blared from the speakers and Kurt and I were behind the bar serving drinks. Max and Gage were leaning on the bar in front of us talking to their women. We were all busy laughing at something Piper had said when I spotted someone coming towards us.
Isabella
. At first I thought I was seeing things. Jesus, the girl was more beautiful than I remembered and lush. Damn! That body was something else. When she reached the bar, I stared into those sapphire blue eyes for a second before asking, “Isabella? What are you doing here?”

“Can I talk to you outside?” she asked. I closed my eyes for a second and reveled in the sound of her voice. I had been jerking off to that sexy-hot voice in my head for almost a year now. Hearing it in real time turned me inside out.

“Go ahead, I gotcha covered,” Kurt said, patting me on the shoulder.

Staring straight ahead, I followed Isabella out of the bar. She was wearing a short skirt. Long, toned legs stretched for miles before tapering into a pair of brightly colored flip flops. I couldn’t tell from the back, but it seemed as if she had on two different colored tank tops. Sliding past her, I opened the door and her step faltered, letting me know I still got to her.
Good.

“Thanks,” she muttered, as she passed by. That same floral-citrus scent from the last time I was with her floated in her wake and I fought the urge to sniff the air, like a dog on the trail of something good.

I waited for the door to completely close before asking her again, “What are you doing here?” She nervously twisted her hands in a back and forth kneading motion. The memory of how those hands felt all over my body made my dick twitch.

“I have to talk to you,” she said.

“So talk,” I coldly replied.
This should be good.

Isabella opened her mouth to say something and a dog barked. It sounded big, familiar and close. Glancing over her shoulder, I spotted her Toyota parked close to the door we’d just exited. Inside, I could make out a shadow.
Brutus
. She muttered something unintelligible, but I ignored her and strolled toward the car. “Dillon, wait!” she shouted. For some reason, I needed to see that dog. As soon as I got to the car, I opened the back driver side door and was accosted by Brutus barking and the sound of a baby crying.

What the hell?

“Oh shoot, Boo! You woke her up!” Isabella chastised, as she opened the door across from me and pulled a tiny screaming baby from a car seat.

Brutus licked my hand and ran in frantic circles around my body which almost knocked me off my feet. All I could do was stand there frozen and stare at the bundle in Isabella’s arms.

She had his baby. She gave birth to that fucktard’s kid.
A rage like I had never felt before came over me. So as not to make a complete ass of myself, I decided to get the hell out of there and started back for the bar.

“Dillon,” she called out, “where are you going?”

The unsure note in her voice made me stop dead in my tracks. I turned to face her. “What the hell, Isabella?”

She nervously shifted the screaming baby. “Shhhhh,” she softly said, bouncing the baby up and down in her arms. “This is what I needed to talk to you about.”

I cocked my head to the side and stared at her. “Ummm, I’m thinking you should be talking to your fiancé about this, not me.” A frown appeared on her face when I said this and I didn’t know what to make of it.

“I don’t have a fiancé,” she said in a tone that suggested even the thought of such a thing was revolting.

“Yes you do,” I countered. Again her brow did this cute little wrinkle thing.

“No I don’t,” she firmly replied.

“Really? So the guy who stood in your doorway and told me you two had been together for a year and were
engaged
, was lying?”

She responded with one simple word. “Yes.”

What. The. Fuck?

Isabella

‡

H
e came back!
My heart did a happy jig inside my chest.

“When?” I asked. His silver eyes bored through me and I wondered what would happen if I kissed him. Would he kiss me back or push me away?
He didn’t just skulk away like a slimy slutmonger. He came back! Get it together, Isabella, or he’s going to think you’re a looney tune.

“When what?” he asked.

“When did you come back?”

“The weekend after we were together,” he replied.

“Why?” I had to ask. I needed to know.

“That doesn’t really matter now, does it?” I watched his eyes drift to the baby.

Oh it matters all right. You just don’t know it…yet.

“Of course it matters,” I told him.

He let out a harsh, ugly sounding laugh and the baby jumped in my arms and began crying again.

“Shhhhh,” I whispered, rocking her back and forth.

My breasts were heavy and aching and I knew it was almost time to nurse. That wasn’t the only reason they were aching.
Nosiree.
I hadn’t seen Dillon Whitaker in ten long months. I stood there taking him in and realized he had slightly changed. His hair was a bit shorter than I remembered, but that wasn’t it. He seemed…different somehow, but I could not place my finger on what had changed. He was still hands down the most attractive man I had ever laid eyes on. His silver grey eyes pierced through me and my body answered with an achy throb between my legs.

“Jimmy is not my fiancé. We broke up a few weeks before I met you.” His neutral expression made me think he was probably a damn good poker player.

“So why did he answer your door and tell me the two of you were happily engaged, if you weren’t?” he asked.

Because he’s a psycho-controlling-nut-job
, I almost blurted. Instead, the words “I don’t know” spilled from my lips. “I wasn’t aware you came by or that he was in my house. Wait! I take that back. He did stop by one night while I was at work to drop off his key and get his things.”
And to apparently tell you lies to chase you away. Thanks a lot, Jimmy.

He gave me a skeptical look. “So you weren’t with him when we…?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that to you… or to him,” I half-heartedly added.
To tell the truth, I wasn’t so sure what I would or wouldn’t do to Jimmy anymore.

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here now,” he stated.

Amelia picked that moment to loudly wail and remind me she was hungry. I could feel my milk letting down. If I didn’t feed her soon, things were going to get dodgy. “Look, uh, is there somewhere we can go so I can feed her and we can talk?” I could see the uncertainty in his eyes and felt bad about springing this on him, really I did. However, my number one priority was Amelia and my now leaking boobs.”

He relented with a sigh. “Sure. We can go back to my place. I’ll take Brutus. You and uh….” his eyes darted to the baby.

“Amelia. Her name is Amelia,” I told him.

“You and er…Amelia, can follow me.” As soon as he finished his sentence, Dillon patted his leg for the dog and started for his jeep. Brutus happily loped along after him.

“Traitor,” I whispered.

By the time we arrived at Dillon’s apartment, Amelia was hysterical and my nerves were shot. All I couldn’t think about was sticking my boob in her mouth and shutting her up. The second Dillon unlocked the door I bolted past him with the car seat into what appeared to be a living room…. a very messy living room.
Please tell me he’s got a place to sit down that isn’t contaminated.
My boobs felt like throbbing milk geysers and were ready to burst. When I spotted a big overstuffed sofa, I plopped the car seat on the coffee table in front of me and unsnapped the harness. In fluid sequence I fished a burp cloth from the diaper bag, whipped it over my shoulder, yanked up my shirt, lifted Amelia from the car seat, unleashed my breast and shoved my leaking nipple in her mouth. She immediately latched on, quit screaming and started making sweet num-num noises. I settled back onto the sofa and sighed with relief.
Disaster averted.
That’s when I noticed Dillon. He was standing in the doorway with a shocked expression on his face. Brutus was sitting at his feet, also staring at me. An embarrassed flush warmed my face, before I noticed the giant bulge in the front of his jeans.
Really?
My eyes drifted from his crotch to his face where our eyes met and held for a minute. Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen. Brutus followed behind him and I wanted to shout, “Bad dog!” Instead, I fought the urge to laugh. If that little scene turned him on, just wait. He hadn’t seen anything yet.

Dillon and Brutus stayed in the kitchen until I was finished feeding and changing Amelia. When they reappeared, I patted the sofa beside me, hoping he would sit so I could explain why I was here. He didn’t. Instead, he plucked a dirty looking dishtowel from an overstuffed chair across from me and tossed it onto the floor, before sinking down.

Taking this as my cue to talk, I began. “I need you to take a paternity test.”

His eyes widened in shock and his mouth dropped open. Apparently, it hadn’t crossed his mind he could be the father. His surprised gaze drifted down to Amelia, who was now asleep on my lap, and then back to me.

“That is not my kid,” he said, slowly shaking his head back and forth.

His denial caused something ugly to twist deep inside of me. I lifted Amelia onto my shoulder as if to protect her from him, before staring him in the eyes and continuing. “Maybe she is, maybe she’s not. Either way, I need to know.”

He swept me with a cold stare before stating, “Not from me, you don’t.”

The chill in his voice made my stomach clinch.
He has to
.

“Please, Dillon?” I calmly asked. “All you have to do is take a simple blood test. Once we find out the results, we’ll be on our way and you’ll never have to see us again.” His unblinking stare was too much and I had to look away.

“Why are you here, Isabella? Why aren’t you in Charleston right now having this conversation with whatshisface?”

The icy cold tone of his voice made me snap. “Because, Dillon, if you don’t take this blood test and prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that you are Amelia’s biological father,
whatshisface
is going to take her from me!” I shouted. Amelia jumped in my arms but quickly settled back down.

A myriad of undecipherable expressions flitted over his face, but all he said was, “Explain.”

So I did. I explained how I came to discover I was pregnant and how Jimmy threatened me when he found out about it. I told him about Sally taping the conversation and the restraining order. Then I told him about the night Amelia was born and how I had slipped in the puddle of water, hit my head on the side of the counter and ruptured a portion of my placenta. “If Sally hadn’t come home when she did, the baby and I both might not have made it.” I explained how Sally found me and how I had to stay in the hospital for two weeks recovering. Finally, I pulled out the letter sent three days ago by Jimmy’s lawyer informing me I had until the end of the month to legally name James Marsden as the father or he would sue for sole custody.

“He’s going to take her from me, Dillon.” I gave Amelia a squeeze and she snorfled in her sleep. “He has money and connections. I sell songs, gig on Saturdays at my uncle’s bar and teach guitar lessons part time. I can’t compete.”

“What if she is his, Isabella? What then?” he asked.

“Then I’ll have a very different fight on my hands. Look, I don’t want anything from you except a paternity test. I promise, as soon as we get the results, we’ll be out of your hair. Please Dillon. Please do this for me…for her?” I pleaded.

He stared at Amelia for a minute before nodding his head. “Fine, we can go first thing in the morning. You can stay here until we find out the results.” I opened my mouth to thank him but he raised his hand to silence me. “Once we know, though, even if she is mine, I want you gone.”