Chapter 15
Upstanding Woman
Ivy
I don’t think I’d ever had any man be so direct with me. While I loved that he was willing to leave me be, I knew I didn’t want anyone else here but him.
He began to shift his weight, and I reached up and traced a finger along his lower jaw. “No. I want to see what happens between us – even if it scares the hell out of me.”
He tipped his head and his ocean-blue eyes filled with curiosity. “What is there to be scared of?”
I laughed. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“Fair. Are you sure I didn’t pressure you?”
I smirked. “No, but telling me that I ticked all your boxes is a very smooth move.”
He chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Even though my dick is hard as a fuckin’ rock right now, I’m gonna give you a choice. Your buddy wants you to talk to Lark. Something tells me you don’t want him to be there. Am I right?”
I widened my eyes. “Get out of my head!”
He grinned a boyish grin. I loved that look on him, it softened his features and drew me to him. “If you want, I’ll call Lark and make sure he has time to talk to you this afternoon. That way, your buddy isn’t there, and if it doesn’t go the way you want, it’s private.”
My teeth sunk into my lower lip as I debated that.
“Ivy,” he half-said, half-groaned.
I let my lip go and grimaced. “Sorry! That sounds good actually, but can we do that after we finish what we started?”
He shook his head. “No. Thing is, I know his schedule. You want this, it’ll be better to go in the afternoon before any of the happy hour-slash-early-bird dinner people show up.”
“Fine,” I said, not hiding my petulant tone.
He smiled and sat up. “Don’t worry. When we’re done, no matter how it goes, I’ll take you out for a nice dinner and then we’ll really finish what we started.”
I sat up. “Awesome. That sounds like a plan. Are we going on your bike?”
He stood, paused, and looked down at me. “It’s almost twenty miles from here, are you sure you want that? You’ll have to do something with that beautiful hair of yours if you do.”
My hair wasn’t exactly my armor, but like most women, I felt better when I knew I looked my best.
With a short nod, I said, “Okay, we can take my car.”
“Let me call him first.”
I nodded and hit the bathroom.
Nickel left the office and I settled into a chair across the desk from Lark.
While I drove us here, I’d thought about what I’d say …and of course, now all of those thoughts went by the wayside.
“Don’t have all day, lady,” Lark said with a smile.
I wrung my hands in my lap. “Yeah, I know. This isn’t like me.”
He leaned forward and I took in how handsome he was for an older man.
He had curly, dark hair – which would explain why my hair was so curly when Mom’s was stick-straight.
One thick lock of it was a silvery gray and it was so expertly done, I almost wondered if he had it colored, but his weathered skin and calloused fingers told me otherwise.
“I’ll have to take your word for it, darlin’.”
Mom called me ‘darlin’’ all the time, and for some reason hearing Lark use that term kicked me into gear.
“Okay, this is bizarre, but here goes nothin’. You donated your sperm in Atlanta twenty-seven years ago.”
Lark’s face froze and he sat back in his chair. “Yeah,” he drawled.
I twisted my hands up in front of me. “You may not recall, but you didn’t check the box for no-contact. Mom gave me the information she had. And… I’ve been looking for you in Atlanta, and Memphis over the past seven months.”
“Moved here a year ago,” he muttered.
“Yeah. I figured that out four months ago, but Ryan wouldn’t, I’m sorry, Nickel, kept me from you.”
He nodded.
“My mom chose your donation for her IVF treatment.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty-five.”
He grunted and I couldn’t tell if it was a grunt of that checks out, or something else.
“That’s why I was here Monday, but… Things went awry.”
He laughed. “‘Awry’. Yeah. Getting taken at gunpoint is exactly what awry means.”
I stared at him.
“Sorry. What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Nothing, I suppose.”
His brows drew together. “Nothing? I doubt that.”
I shook my head. “I’m not here for back child support or anything.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t demand that even if you wanted to, that’s spelled out in the contract.”
I did a slow nod. “Right. Mom knew what she was getting into, and still she would mention how much she wished she knew the man who made me who I was.”
“I didn’t make you into anything.”
My head tilted. “No, and I said the same thing. But, looking at you, I can see where I get my hair because it’s never been from Mom.”
He kept quiet, and I began to feel awkward. My gut had been right. This was a bad idea.
I stood. “You’re busy. I don’t want to take up more of your time.”
He stood, but leaned a hand on the desk. “Did something go wrong in the past year?”
“Wrong, how?” I asked.
His beard moved with his lip twitch. “Don’t know if your Mom married or whatnot, but when I signed the forms, they gave me some pamphlets about what to expect if I got contacted.
Most of the time it’d be because home life was crap, but I can see that isn’t the case for you. So, I’m guessing something changed.”
I pressed my lips together. “Yeah, I suppose you might say that. My step dad who essentially helped Mom raise me, he died a year and a half ago. No matter how curious I was about you in my teens, I’d never make Jeff feel like he wasn’t my dad.”
Lark dipped his chin. “There you go. Sorry you lost your dad. Guessing he wasn’t much older than me, which means he died young.”
“Yeah. Fifty-five.”
He shoved a hand in the pocket of his faded jeans. “Look, I’m not tryin’ to be standoffish, but I’m not anyone’s father figure.”
Yep. Bad idea. And, I was even more grateful that Chad wasn’t here.
I nodded, kept quiet, and took a sideways step toward the door.
“But it’s good to know my donation amounted to an upstanding young woman.”
My eyebrows arched. “You don’t know me well enough to say that – especially after what happened in that dilapidated farm house.”
He shook his head. “Did you get out alive? Did you keep Nickel from getting hurt any further? Yes, and yes. Where I’m from, that’s the measure of an upstanding woman.”
I nodded again, moved closer to the door, but paused when he spoke.
“That friend of yours – he knows about me, right?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Lark’s eyes hardened. “Do not let him tell people about me. My gut says the trouble you and Nickel got into has something to do with me. Those dumb fucks thought the triplets are my kids and abducting one would devastate me. They get word you’re my kid – even if I don’t know your mom – you’re in even more danger. ”
“Why would they have a problem with you?”
He arched a brow. “You work in real estate, surely you’ve heard of ‘not in my backyard.’ There’s plenty of folk ‘round here who don’t want a bar in the area.
Even if it’s a restaurant and bar. Narrow-minded assholes don’t need reasons to start trouble if it gets them what they want, which is me out of the picture. ”
“I see.”
“That’s another reason I can’t have you hangin’ ‘round here trying to get to know me. Those bastards have been raisin’ hell here since our soft open. They get dealt with, maybe we can get to know each other.”
I gave him a wan smile and opened the door. “That sounds like a plan. Take care, Lark.”
The office door opened to the main barroom, and Nickel sat on a barstool so he faced the doorway.
His full lips formed a slight pout as he stood and came to me. “Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head. “Not like you mean.”
His gaze shifted to a point over my shoulder. “What did you say to her?”
“Don’t like your tone, Nickel,” Lark muttered.
“Don’t care. I’m not your employee right now.”
“No. Even my brothers don’t take that tone.”
I put a hand on Ryan’s chest, and felt his heartbeat hammering against my finger tips. “Ryan, please.”
He tipped his head down and stared at me. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”
I gave him a small smile. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
He slung his arm around my shoulders, turning me toward the exit, but also bringing Lark into view.
Lark cocked a brow at me. “Looks like searching for me wasn’t such a waste after all.”
Oh boy.
We went out to my car and Ryan stood at the driver’s side door. “I’m driving us back.”
“I don’t—”
He stepped closer to me. “Nope. You’re covering, but I know that did a number on you. Give me the keys.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Which also says it’s not that good. Let me drive, you don’t know where we’re going.”
“We’re going to my place.”
He shook his head. “I’m taking you out. Let me drive.”
I handed him my keys. “Fine. But this seems early for dinner.”
He pressed the button to unlock the car. “It’s four-thirty, and with traffic, it’ll be five-fifteen by the time we get to where I wanna take you.”
I wandered around to the passenger side and got in the car. I buckled up as he started the engine and adjusted the mirrors.
“Did he argue with you?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you to jump in a lake?”
I chuckled. “No, but he made it clear he wasn’t sure what he could do for me at this point.”
Ryan sighed. “Was he a dick about it?”
“No, and that’s why I didn’t want to follow through. Something told me it would be anticlimactic.”
He reached out and squeezed my thigh, then left his hand there. “It is a lot for a man to wrap his head around.
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure about that. If it’d been a one-night stand, sure. But he signed a form that allowed for contact and they gave him a brochure on what to expect when an adult child makes contact.”
Ryan looked at me and back to the road as he guided the car onto the Interstate. “That shit doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
His hand rubbed up and down on my thigh. “Why allow a kid to contact you if you don’t want a relationship?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know, but it was roughly twenty-seven years ago that he…donated.”
“You’re twenty-seven?”