Chapter Nineteen
So much for flushing him out of her system with hate-sex.
Vanessa had woken up several times in the night for a repeat performance.
He’d reached for her, or she’d reached for him.
They’d tumbled off the bed in a tangle of sheets.
They’d melded together, limbs entwined and mouths clinging.
He’d explored every inch of her body. He’d proven himself creative, tireless, and sensitive to her needs.
She’d proven herself insatiable and easily aroused.
God.
She rolled out of bed a few hours later than usual, with a slight headache and deliciously sore muscles.
What a shameless hussy she’d been. Smiling, she tugged on her T-shirt and sleep shorts, and padded to the bathroom.
Her eye makeup was smudged, her hair tangled.
She looked like she’d enjoyed a wild night.
Instead of fixing herself up, she yawned and padded to the kitchen. Paul had made coffee. She poured herself a cup, shoved her feet into flip-flops, and went looking for him.
He was next door, cutting a piece of wood with a skill saw.
She winced at the sound, which was too loud for her delicate condition.
He turned off the machine when he noticed her.
His safety glasses had a light coating of sawdust, as did his T-shirt.
He removed the glasses as she stepped forward to greet him.
“Good morning,” he said with a lazy grin.
She touched her lips to his. “Good morning.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I wrestled a bear. Or was that you?”
He set her coffee mug aside and drew her into his arms. “Any parts I can kiss better?”
“Not a chance,” she said. “You’re an animal.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She rolled her eyes at the question. “A baby came out of my vagina, Paul. Your penis isn’t going to hurt me.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” he said and nuzzled her neck.
She laughed, trying to avoid his touch. He was tickling her with a combination of beard stubble and sawdust. “I need a ride to my dad’s.”
“All right.”
“Give me ten minutes to get presentable.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t see a problem with her shorty pajamas and bedroom hair, and drank from his own coffee cup.
She went back to her own cabin to change clothes, brush her teeth and tame her hair.
Then they left Lost Lake in his truck. Vanessa rode in the passenger seat with the window down.
It was a beautiful Texas summer day, hot and bright.
She acknowledged that her former self, before getting burned by Bennett, wouldn’t have been content to ride shotgun in an old pickup truck next to a man who did manual labor.
Her current self was delighted.
Paul wouldn’t impress anyone who cared about money or social standing. He was far from perfect. He’d had an affair with a married woman. He’d been shot under mysterious circumstances. He was gruff and secretive and inscrutable.
But there was more to him than met the eye.
He had a sense of humor and a softer side.
He could treat a woman with respect and give her toe-curling orgasms. It hadn’t escaped her attention that he’d been a perfect gentleman last night.
He hadn’t seemed fazed by her risqué behavior.
He’d let her get wasted, without judgment or interference, and she appreciated that.
She’d had a rough year. She needed to let her hair down, to drink too much and make bad decisions.
He’d been there to pick her up when she’d stumbled.
He’d rescued her from making a scene in the parking lot.
All in all, he’d handled himself—and her—like a pro.
She knew he wasn’t steady boyfriend material, but that was okay, because she wasn’t thinking about long term. They were cool for the summer. She wasn’t going to overthink it. She was just going to sit back and enjoy the ride.
When they arrived at her dad’s house, he pulled up to the curb and let the engine idle. “I kept you out all night. Will you get grounded?”
She laughed and gave him a lingering kiss. “I told him not to wait up.”
“Should I walk you in?”
“Definitely not.”
He accepted this boundary without protest. They didn’t make plans for a second date, but she assumed they’d have one. She climbed out and waved goodbye. He turned the radio up and drove away in a low rumble.
She floated inside on feet that barely touched the ground. The sound and smell of sizzling bacon brought her to the kitchen. As she entered the doorway, her father deposited a huge pancake on Emily’s plate.
“Mommy!” Emily cried. “You’re back from the sleepover!”
Vanessa kissed Emily’s cheek in greeting. “Sleepover?”
“Uncle Jack said you and Mr. Paul had a sleepover.”
She glanced at Jackson, who shrugged and ate an entire slice of bacon in one bite.
“We went out to dinner first,” she said, as if that mattered. She hadn’t planned an excuse for staying out all night, and she decided not to make up a story for Emily. She’d rather be honest about dating and relationships, and let the chips fall where they may.
“Have a seat,” her father said. “There’s plenty.”
Vanessa took a seat next to Emily, who chattered about the exciting evening she’d had. “We watched a scary movie, and told ghost stories. Then Penelope saw a ghost in the dollhouse!”
“Did Penelope have nightmares?” Vanessa asked, arching a brow at Jackson, who shoveled eggs into his mouth.
“No,” Emily said.
Her father brought a stack of blueberry pancakes to the center of the table. Jackson tried to grab them before Vanessa could get any.
“Hey,” she said, picking up a fork to battle it out. She managed to spear two, and they laughed like they were kids again.
This was the kind of morning she’d imagined when she’d booked the summer rental.
She’d wanted to sit down for a big breakfast, and joke around with her brother, and reminisce about old times.
It was ironic, she supposed, to get what she wanted here, after she’d avoided her father’s house like the plague for more than a decade.
She wondered what he thought about her spending the night with a man she’d met a week ago. It would be incredibly hypocritical for him to comment on her life choices, but that had never stopped him.
“What are you up to today?” she asked him.
His face registered surprise. “Nothing much.”
“I thought I’d take Emily to the park.”
“There’s one down the street.”
“I know.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he offered.
She agreed with a careless wave, as if it was no big deal for them to hang out together. Emily made a happy sound and took another bite of pancake. Jackson regarded Vanessa with raised brows.
“You’re in a good mood,” Jackson said.
She shrugged, sipping orange juice.
“You should have sleepovers more often.”
Vanessa kicked him under the table and smiled at Emily. “Maybe I will.”
After breakfast, they got ready for the park.
Jackson had made plans to go biking with a friend, so it was just the three of them.
They strolled down the tree-lined sidewalk until they reached the park.
It was a pretty, green space built around San Felipe Springs.
There were several footbridges that crossed over the bubbling brook.
Families with small children were wading into the water to cool off.
“I want to swim,” Emily said.
“Let’s go to the playground first,” Vanessa said. “You can get wet and muddy before we leave.”
She raced toward the swings. “Push me!”
Vanessa let her father do the honors, and he sent her flying, chuckling at Emily’s insistence to go higher.
“You used to do the same thing,” he said.
“Did I?”
Emily tired of the swings and ambled off to play in a section of the park that looked like a page from Alice in Wonderland.
There were giant mushrooms, whimsical structures and swirling shapes.
Vanessa kept an eye on her from a park bench.
Her father settled in next to her. They talked about her mother, who was busy with church business, as usual.
Then the conversation turned to Vanessa and Paul.
“What does he do for a living?”
“You know what he does. You called the owner of the cabins to complain on my behalf.”
Her father didn’t blink an eye at the charge. “Jackson thinks he’s a cop.”
Vanessa stared at him in surprise. “Jackson is mistaken. He used to work for a security company.”
“Is that what he told you?”
She bristled at her father’s dubious tone.
He’d pegged Bennett as a liar from the start, and he’d been right.
It didn’t help that Paul was secretive about his past. She remembered the way he’d scanned the restaurant for threats.
Instead of sharing this information with her father, she gave him a quelling look.
“It’s none of my business,” he said quickly.
“No, it isn’t. Do you grill Jackson about his dates?”
He changed the subject. “Are you going to let that kid hit Emily?”
Vanessa glanced toward the playground. Emily had befriended a toddler who was waving a stick around like a sword.
When he tried to take a clumsy swing at her, she wrenched the object out of his hand and tossed it aside.
The boy ran to his mother, wailing. Emily disregarded this protest and continued playing.
“Sometimes interference is unnecessary,” Vanessa said.
He smiled at her pointed remark. “You’re a good mother.”
The simple statement brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away before he could see the effect he had on her. She might not forgive him, but his recognition still mattered. “Thank you.”
After a long pause, he cleared his throat. “I wasn’t the best father, or the best husband. But I loved your mother.”
“You loved a lot of women.”
He didn’t argue. “I wish I’d been more circumspect.”
She twisted her hands in her lap, and said nothing.
“I wanted to tell you about something that happened to me. It inspired my career in law enforcement, and I’ve kept it secret all these years.”
“Okay,” she said, intrigued despite herself. “You have my attention.”
“Do I have your word that you won’t repeat this? Not to anyone?”
“Yes.”
“It’s about a woman.”
“Of course it is,” Vanessa said drily.
Her father told her a story about a girl he’d been infatuated with as a teenager.
He’d followed her around like a lost puppy, but she was a year older, and she’d never been interested in him.
Even so, he’d been there to help her when she needed it.
She’d killed a man in self-defense, and her father had buried the body.
Vanessa listened to the tale with wide eyes.
She was too shocked to speak. She was aware of Emily in the background, her pink shirt a blur of color as she climbed a giant mushroom.
She swallowed hard, uncertain how she felt about this news.
It wasn’t every day a parent confessed to a crime in the middle of a play structure based on Alice in Wonderland.
She felt like she was having a bizarre nightmare.
“Did you tell Jackson about this?” she asked finally.
“No.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“She ran away, and stayed gone for a long time. I didn’t see her for more than a decade. Now she lives on a ranch outside of town.”
“Does Mom know?”
“She does not.”
Vanessa swallowed hard, trying to process the story. “You said she inspired your career in law enforcement.”
He inclined his head. “It was a formative experience. Like a crossroads, between two opposite choices. Two sides of the law. I could have continued down a dark path, but I didn’t. I went the other direction.”
“This could ruin you if it got out.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you tell me?”
Her father studied her for a long moment. “Maybe you heard about the trouble at the Crazy Horse.”
“I did.”
“I shot a man.”
“I know.”
“It was another pivotal moment for me, one that made me contemplate my own mortality. I’m getting older, and I won’t be around forever. I decided that I didn’t want to die with so many things unsaid. I didn’t want to die without trying to right the wrongs between us.”
She glanced away, her throat tight.
“I told myself that if I got a chance to mend our relationship, I wouldn’t hold anything back.”
“You’re only fifty,” she said. “It’s a bit early to cash in your chips.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But life is short, and I can’t bear to waste another moment of it. Our estrangement is, by far, my biggest regret.”
“You regret it more than burying a body?”
“Without question.”
Vanessa blinked the tears from her eyes.
Her father’s second effort at connecting with her hit her even harder than the first. She hadn’t known about her mother’s miscarriages, or the events leading up to the divorce.
She hadn’t realized her parents had led such full and complicated lives.
These stories didn’t absolve her father of his sins, but they humanized him and gave context to his choices.
“Mi’ja,” he said, and put his arm around her.
She didn’t pull away, or tell him not to call her that. When he brought her closer, she buried her head against his chest and cried.