Deserving of Luke

THE DRIVE TO PENNY MATTHEWS’S beach house seemed to take forever. Even the call he’d gotten from his mother, demanding to know if the rumors she’d been bombarded with were true—was Paige Matthews back in town, with his son—hadn’t kept the fifteen-minute drive out of town from dragging. It had been a hell of a conversation to have. After the way his mother had hung up, he wasn’t altogether sure he’d ever be allowed in the door of his parents’ house again. At least he’d be in good company. Between Paige, Luke, his father’s ex-lovers and his sister’s children, the number of people who were permitted to cross the threshold dwindled a little more each year.

But when he could scarcely make sense of this situation, how could he possibly explain it in a way that would appease his exacting mother? All he knew was from the moment he’d laid eyes on the boy, from the moment he’d realized that Paige had given birth to his child, every brain cell he possessed had been working on overdrive, struggling to find the right words to say to her.

He’d almost blown it at the diner earlier and he was sorry for that. The last thing he wanted to do was make his son uncomfortable. But the shock of seeing him, of knowing that his child had been alive and growing for eight years… It had been almost impossible to see past it.

At least until Paige had called him on it. She’d always been able to do that, even when they were kids. He’d start on a path he had no business going down and she would rein him in. Until the end, when she’d walked out on him, as if trying to convince him that Luke was his hadn’t been worth her time. Her effort. As if the fact that she was pregnant with his child hadn’t been enough to make her fight for them.

Thinking of those long-ago arguments had his emotions rising again, though he’d worked all afternoon to control them. Joni had been furious with him when he’d returned to the diner, had accused him of humiliating her in front of the whole town. Then she’d walked out.

But, honestly, he didn’t know what else he’d been supposed to do. How he should have reacted to the knowledge that he had a kid and that kid’s mother hadn’t so much as bothered to tell him.

Doubt and a little bit of guilt twisted at the back of his consciousness because he knew that assertion wasn’t strictly true, but he shoved both emotions aside. Ignored them. She’d had ample opportunity over the years to tell him she’d had his child. That’s what he would concentrate on when he spoke to her. That and not losing his temper, which was going to be a hard one, because right now he was one step away from feeling as though his head would explode.

The only truly coherent thought he had was that Paige had stolen his child. She had left town, pregnant with his baby, and had never bothered to contact him again.

Had never bothered to tell him that the baby had been born.

Had never bothered to tell him that he was a father.

Had never bothered to send him so much as a picture on the kid’s first or second or seventh birthday.

By the time he pulled up in front of the dilapidated house, he was even more determined to settle things between them. He wanted an explanation, now, and he would get it even if he had to slap cuffs on Paige and drag her into the interrogation room at the station. One way or the other, they were going to figure this out, tonight.

He bounded up the steps and prepared to knock hard enough to wake the dead.

“You look loaded for bear.” The words were said in a low, relaxed voice—one he recognized immediately because he’d heard the same tone from Paige innumerable times they’d been together. Her voice was a little deeper now, a little richer, but all the important elements were the same.

Whirling, he scanned the shadows cast by the single, yellow porch light until he found her, sitting on the swing, a glass of white wine dangling carelessly from one hand and a cell phone from the other.

Her short blond hair was rumpled and she was dressed in a purple tank top and a pair of ripped and faded jeans that probably cost more than he made in a month. She still smelled like lilacs. Her feet were bare and something about her small, blue-tipped toes calmed him in a way nothing else could have. Maybe because they made him remember what it had been like to be with her all those years ago, what it had been like to love her.

When they’d been together, she had always painted her toenails some mysterious color that none of the other girls would go near but that somehow drove him absolutely insane nonetheless. He’d been too stupid to realize it hadn’t all been for him, that he wasn’t the only guy in town she’d been showing her polish—and other things—to.

The red haze threatened to return, and he did what he could to head it off. They would get nothing accomplished if they were yelling at each other, a realization he figured Paige had come to herself some time that afternoon, if her smooth greeting was any indicator. That or the glass of wine in her hand wasn’t her first.

Sinking onto the swing across from her, he didn’t say anything at first. Simply looked at her. Noted all the changes and all the things that had stayed the same through the years. Suddenly he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Her voice was husky, sweet, and it sent shivers up his spine even as he told himself how stupid he was to respond to her. She’d lied to him, had—

“No, thanks. I’m driving.”

“That’s right. You’re a cop now. A law-abiding citizen. I’m having a hard time reconciling the new you with the guy I used to know.”

“I was always a law-abiding citizen. I only liked to pretend otherwise.”

“I remember.” She took a sip of her wine.

“You look good,” he said.

“L.A. agrees with me. Certainly more than Prospect ever did.”

Memories stretched between them, hanging on the silence like apples on a tree, ripe for the picking. He chose to ignore them, to walk past as though he wasn’t suddenly starving for a taste of them. Of her.

“His name’s Luke,” she said quietly, when the silence got to be too much for both of them. “It’s short for Lucas.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“I think so. It was my neighbor’s, when I first moved to L.A. He helped me get settled, learn my way around. He even drove me to the hospital and waited while Luke was born. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

The anger surged, burning so hotly and brightly that he couldn’t think past it. “You could have come to me. You could have told me you were pregnant with our child. Then I would have been the one to be there, to help you.”

“Is that how you remember it?” she asked offhandedly, as if his answer meant nothing to her.

“That’s how it would have been. I would have been with you every step of the way—”

“Is that so? Because the way I remember it is, I told you I was pregnant with your child and you called me a whore—right before you tossed me out of your house.”

“You were sleeping with my best friend, with half the guys on the football team. How the hell was I supposed to believe the kid you were carrying was mine?”

“I wasn’t sleeping with half the football team. I wasn’t sleeping with anyone but you. Only you didn’t want to believe that. Any more than you wanted to accept that you’d gotten me pregnant.

“Accepting responsibility for that act would have meant you couldn’t live the perfect life mapped out for you. The one that mommy and daddy wanted you to live. The one that didn’t include the slutty girl from the wrong side of the river.”

She was breathing hard by the time she finished, her chest rising and falling with each harsh inhalation. He probably shouldn’t be cheered by that fact, but it made him feel better to know that she wasn’t nearly as calm about this whole thing as she pretended to be.

He didn’t answer for a minute, instead turning to stare into the inky blackness that surrounded the house. Looking at her brought back too many memories, including ones of how badly he’d treated her nine years before.

But he wasn’t ready to deal with those memories yet—or the words she had just flung at him. Didn’t know if he’d ever be ready now that he knew she’d kept his child from him. How easy would it have been for her to return after his son was born and force him to see her and their child? No, he wasn’t going to let her turn this around. She could have played things way differently all those years ago.

“Look,” he said, “I know your past is something you’re ashamed of, but you can’t rewrite history to—”

She stood. “Get out of here.”

“What?” he asked, rising slowly so that they were face to face. Or, in this case, face to chest, since he stood about six inches taller than she did.

“You heard me. If you think you’re going to come here and insult me after all these years, then you’re crazy. I’m not that girl anymore, the one who was so used to being a whipping post that she took insults from everyone—including the guy who was supposed to love her. So, leave. You’re not welcome here.”

Though he knew there was an important message in her words, he could only handle so much at one time and his brain focused on the fact that she was kicking him out, denying him access to his son.

“You can’t do this. I have rights when it comes to my son.”

“You gave up those rights the day you threw me out on my ass and told me never to come back. It was the same day you told me you’d never give my bastard your name and that I should head back to the freak show because you were done slumming.”