“No.”
“Oh, yes.” Alyssa walked to the window, tipped the curtain aside with one finger and studied her son, a beautiful boy who grew to look more like his father with each passing day.
A father she’d cheated out of his son.
Trent’s words swept through her, the anger and recrimination emanating from him as he faced her in the small, cluttered office. So different from the boy she’d known, the look of hope and promise he wore when he’d received his congressional appointment, knowing he had a chance to do something, be someone, change the world.
She felt sacrificial then.
She felt traitorous now.
“You talked to him?”
“Yes.” She leaned her forehead against the cool spring glass, then sighed, sniffed, and shook her head, watching Jaden loft the ball from various angles. The boy’s pinpoint accuracy went beyond his years, reflecting his natural ability to weave a pattern and pick a receiver. Of course his height helped, a combined parental gift. Trent’s height had made Alyssa feel less freakish in high school. At five foot nine she’d towered over half the boys until growth spurts pushed them to equal or surpass her.
Susan stepped closer and tucked an arm around her shoulders, the show of support inspiring more tears. “You talked with Trent?”
“He talked. I cringed.”
“Cringed?” The leap in her mother’s voice made Alyssa regret her choice of words. “Did he touch you?”
“No. Yes. I—”
“It’s either yes or no.” Grim-faced, Susan studied Alyssa, her voice defensive and sharp. “Did Trent Michaels lay a hand on you?”
“Trent Michaels?” Gary Langley’s voice cut in, surprise and disparagement weighting his tone. “You saw him? Here?”
“At The Edge last night,” Susan confirmed, shifting her look to Alyssa’s dad as he labored his way into the kitchen. Discomfort ruddied Gary’s features and accelerated his breathing, his post-op condition aggravated by forty extra pounds. Susan shook her head, scolding. “But don’t go getting yourself all worked up. You’re just out of surgery and need to rest.”
Alyssa’s internal guilt-o-meter cranked into high gear. She’d already disappointed her father in every way, shape and form. She had no desire to add another heart attack to the list. “Dad, sit down.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, waving off their hands. “The doc said I need to walk, need to move around. Stop fussing. So…” He turned his attention back to Alyssa, his gaze taut, his color high. “He’s back?”
Forget turning the clock back minutes or hours. Right now Alyssa wished she could spiral the hands back to her senior year, erase Trent Michaels from the picture once and for all, and see what her life would have been like if she hadn’t fallen head over heels in love at seventeen. She sighed. “Working for Walker Electronics it seems.”
“And he knows about Jaden,” added Susan.
Her father scowled, eyes narrowed. “Good. High time he started paying his share.”
“Trent would have helped all along. You know that, Dad.”
“I know he didn’t.” Gary lowered himself into a chair, his face a study of pain until he’d settled into position. The chair support allowed him to breathe easier. “Now’s as good a time as any to prove he would.”
A typical Gary response.
True to form, her father jumped to what had always been the number-one priority in his life.
Money.
“Gary.” Susan sat in a chair opposite him and surprised Alyssa with her next words. “You can’t blame a man for not taking care of something he didn’t know existed. Trent wasn’t a bad kid at all. I expect he’s turned into a good man.”
“Right. A guy who slept with the boss’s daughter and got her pregnant. I have a hard time finding the good in that.”
“Really?” Susan’s arched-brow look deepened his scowl. “Shall we discuss our courtship in front of our daughter?” Please don’t. Alyssa hid a cringe at the thought of her parents being teenagers in love. Some things a girl just didn’t need to know.
Gary’s frown deepened. “Of course not.”
“Then I suggest a little humility,” Susan told him. She lowered her chin but held his gaze. “There are a multitude of tender hearts in this house right now, Gary. Not just yours.”
Susan’s reference to the kids softened Gary’s features as she rose to get him a cup of coffee. “Does Jaden know?”
Alyssa shook her head. “No. And he’s not going to either. Not till he’s ready.”
“The size of Jamison?” Gary’s expression underscored the unlikelihood of that. Worse, he was right.
“I’ll talk to Trent,” Alyssa continued. “Explain that Jaden needs time…”
“Or you do.”
Alyssa fought the surge of guilt. What would Jaden think of her, to suddenly find out he had a father who had no knowledge of his existence. What kind of liar did that make her? And why did something that seemed noble and necessary twelve years before become such a dark smudge on her soul now?
Trent’s face came back to her, that look of betrayal. The shock. The pain. The anger.
But he hadn’t tried to hurt her, and that put him one up on Vaughn.
“Mommy?”
Cory’s sweet preschool voice squelched the discussion. Alyssa scooped the little girl into her arms, planting kisses along her face and neck.
Cory giggled. “That tickles.”
“I know.” Alyssa touched her forehead to Cory’s. “Your fever’s gone.”
“Can I still have medicine?”
Cory loved the grape-flavored fever reducer, enough so that Alyssa kept it high and out of sight. “If the fever comes back. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Alyssa tipped her head. “Not at all?”
Cory shrugged. “Maybe for ice cream. ’Cause I’m sick,” she added with a solemn nod to her grandmother.
Susan melted on the spot. “Ice cream helps sore throats. I think it’s a good choice this morning. But not every morning,” she added.
Her attempt to be stern came up short. Cory’s smile had a way of negating the firmest intentions. “Thank you, Grammy. I love you. Can I sit with you, Grampa?”
Gary’s stoicism couldn’t resist the three-year-old’s charms either. “Soon,” he promised. “But I bet Mommy can pull up a chair and have you sit right next to me, okay?”
“Okay.” She beamed at his suggestion, always ready to compromise, a Pollyanna child seeking good in all things. Thinking of herself and Vaughn, Alyssa had no idea where the sweet, gentle nature sprang from, but Cory’s good behavior had been a blessing in an otherwise-tumultuous life.
Alyssa drew a chair alongside Gary’s. Her father’s size dwarfed Cory, but he grinned at the petite girl and graced Alyssa with a genuine smile for the first time in over a decade. “She’s a special little thing.”
Alyssa met his smile and matched it. “She is. And smart as a whip.”
“She looks like you, Susan.”
Susan nodded as she scooped ice cream into a princess-decorated bowl. “I think so, too. I look at Cory and I see the face I saw in the mirror when I was a little girl.”