Single Dad Sheriff (Harlequin American Romance) (15 page)

Tears burned his eyes like smoke from a bonfire. He squeezed them shut for a little bit. When he opened them up again, his dad crouched in front of the sofa where Tommy sat.

“What's wrong? Tell me, and I'll try to make it better.” Keith—Dad's—eyes glistened as if he were going to cry, too, and his voice was all raspy. “Let me help you.”

Tommy felt even more like crying because Keith was trying to be all loving and nice. He was trying to be the dad Tommy had wanted him to be before he'd met Chance. “You won't wanna help me with what I want to do,” Tommy warned him. “Can I use the phone?”

“Who do you want to call? Who do you want to help you?” It looked as if his dad was holding his breath, scared of the name Tommy might give him.

“Matt.”

Dad's forehead squeezed together like the ridges on a dipping potato chip. “Matthew? The sheriff's son?”

“My brother.” He glanced down at his hand. The Band-Aid had fallen off a long time ago, but there was a little pink scar where he'd cut the skin.

“Brother?” Dad rubbed his forehead now, as if he
wanted to smooth out those lines. “You don't have a brother.”

“I have a blood brother,” Tommy insisted. And he lifted his pinkie.

Dad must have seen the scar because he nodded. “And this brother is Matthew?”

Tommy nodded. “I have to call him.”

“Okay,” his dad agreed. “He's gone back to Chicago, though.”

“I have his number.” He'd memorized it a long time ago. “He has a cell phone.”

“Isn't he just ten?”

“Yeah, but his mom got him one when he came to visit Chance over spring break, so that he could call her if he wanted to go back to her apartment.”

“Can I ask why you want to call Matt?”

Tommy sniffled back the tears that kept burning in his nose and the back of his throat. “He's gotta talk his mom into moving here like you. Then him and Chance can stay in Forest Glen. And we can be a family.”

Dad's face got really pale, as if he had the flu or something. “Who can be a family?”

“Me and Mom and Matt and Chance.” He didn't say it to be mean, but his dad looked as if he'd punched him in the face. “It's not like I don't like you.”

“But you don't know me,” he said. “But it took you a while to get to know Chance, too. You just have to give me time.”

“It didn't take any time with Chance,” Tommy explained. “I just walked into his office and asked him to find my dad.”

“He did, Tommy. He found me.”

“No, it's like he was my dad. He just felt like he was. And Matt feels like my brother.”

“But he's not your dad. I am.”

“I know—and I want to spend time with you,” Tommy assured the guy. “I can spend the night and hang out. But I don't want to live with you.”

“That's not really up to you to decide yet. You're not old enough.”

Tommy sighed. “I know. I'm never old enough to understand. But sometimes I think I get it and nobody else does. Except for Matt. He gets that we're the family.”

“That's up to your mother, son.”

“She's really happy with Chance. Happy like I've never seen her. She smiles not just with her mouth but her eyes and her whole face. Doesn't Mom deserve to be happy? Why should she have to keep putting what's best for me before what's best for her?”

His dad's mouth dropped open. “Are you sure you're only eight?”

“I know. Right. I feel so much older.”

“You're definitely wise, my boy.”

Wise meant smart. Tommy knew that. But he couldn't figure out if his dad agreed with him. He just wiped his eyes and handed Tommy the cordless phone so he could call his brother. Tommy didn't even wait for Matt to say anything before he blurted, “We gotta do something to save our family!”

With a box in his hands, Chance headed toward the front door. Cookie snagged the leg of his jeans, playfully growling and snarling as she chewed on the denim around his ankle and tried to keep him from answering the knock at the door.

Or maybe she was trying to keep him from moving, like everyone else in Forest Glen. Except Jessie. She'd understood that he had to do this—for his son. No one had ever known him as completely as Jessie did. So she must also realize that he loved her even though he hadn't thought it fair to tell her.

Cookie barked and grabbed at Chance's jeans again, nipping some of his skin with the material.

“Hey, dog, you should be happy,” he told the feisty pup. “You're going to live with Tommy Phillips when I move. You love it at his house. You love him.” Chance loved him, too. He had yet to say goodbye to the little boy; he didn't know how he'd manage it.

Another knock rattled the door. Chance managed a smile. Trenton was always so damn impatient. Cradling the box in one arm, he opened the door and then shoved the cardboard container at his friend. “You're late. You're supposed to be helping me pack.”

“You can't afford me,” Trenton warned him. “Remember how much I charge an hour.”

“I don't know,” Chance said. “You have yet to show me a bill.”

“I can show you some shrapnel scars instead. Those have marked your bill paid in full.”

Chance waved off his friend's comments. They had talked freely about what had happened in Afghanistan, about the ambush that had injured Trenton. Chance, having escaped the roadside bomb without a scratch, had carried him to safety. “Old scars aren't getting you out of packing.”

“I brought someone that might.”

“You hired movers?”

“No, I brought Robyn.” He lowered the box to the floor and stepped to the side, so that Chance could see around him to the woman standing on the porch. She seemed reluctant to come any closer. The puppy jumped around her legs now, trying to lick her hands, which Robyn held out as if to ward off the animal.

Chance's stomach pitched with nerves at the sight of her. “Don't tell me you've changed your mind about the joint custody.”

“I haven't changed my mind about that,” she assured him. “Matthew wants you in his life.”

Trenton ducked out of the house and around Robyn, then headed toward the porch steps, as if trying to sneak away. But Chance was as nervous about being alone with his ex as he was about her reasons for being there—despite her assurances.

“You're leaving?” Chance asked Trenton.

His friend nodded in reply. “You two don't need lawyers anymore.”

“No,” Chance agreed. “But I need a friend.” Never more so than now, after having made the second toughest decision of his life.

“You need more than a friend,” Trenton said. “You're just too stubborn and self-sacrificing to admit that.” With a glance at Robyn, he headed down the steps and crossed the driveway to his sports car.

“He's right,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. Then she smiled. “But don't you dare tell him I ever admitted that.”

Trenton's flashy red car pulled out of the drive, and only the police car Chance had yet to turn back over to the sheriff's office remained. “You rode up here with him?” he asked.

She laughed. “Yeah, amazing we both made it alive.”

Chance figured she'd always blamed Trenton for his staying in the reserves. It had been his friend's idea, when college loans had started mounting, to enlist. To help pay for Robyn's med school bills, Chance had signed up, too.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “I don't understand…” But he held open the door for her to enter, the dog still jumping around her legs. Once inside, Cookie scampered off to her food and water bowls in the kitchen, and Robyn followed, glancing around the house with interest.

“I didn't understand either until Trenton passed this on to me.” She pulled a thin plastic chip from her pocket and held it out for him.

“What's he done now?” he murmured. His laptop lay open on the kitchen table, so he connected the memory card to a port and images began to play…of that first
night he had felt he had a real family, when Jessie and Tommy had come over with dinner for him and Matthew and spent the night. She'd taken photos and video of him and the boys. Then there were the pictures from the park and, at the end, the audio of a conversation she'd had with Trenton.

No wonder his friend had left.

“How the hell did Trenton get this?” he asked, staring at the images flickering across the screen. Tommy liked to wield the camera, too, so there were pictures of Chance and Jessie together, staring at each other as if unable to look away. And there were Jessie and Matthew, her arm around the boy's shoulders, his around her waist with easy familiarity and affection.

“Jessie gave it to him last time he was here.” She lifted a dark brow. “Turns out she's not a young boy.”

“No, she's not,” Chance said as an image of the beautiful redhead appeared on his laptop. “She really gave this to him?”

“Yeah. I think on a whim, or maybe because Trenton goaded her. He's good at that.” Robyn shrugged. “When I called her about it, she apologized profusely. She'd had no idea her conversation with Trenton had been recorded.”

“And you believe her?” he asked his cynical ex.

She lifted that brow again. “You don't?”

“I'm certain she had no idea,” Chance said, firmly defending the woman he loved, “but I still don't understand why she gave it to Trenton to give to you.”

“I do,” Robyn said with a faint smile. “She's in love with you.”

Chance's breath caught with hope. But then he pushed it aside because there was no possibility of living out that
dream Jessie had recorded on her memory card. That was all it had been: a dream, not reality. “She didn't tell you that.”

“She didn't have to,” Robyn said, gesturing toward the computer screen. “I saw it. I heard it. There's no doubt that woman loves you. And that you're in love with her, too.”

He could deny Jessie's feelings but not his own. All he could do was uphold the decision they'd already made. “It doesn't matter what we feel for each other.”

“Since when doesn't love matter?” Robyn asked, her dark eyes wistful as if she had feelings of her own for someone she couldn't have.

It wasn't him. Chance had no doubt about that. Even before she'd filed for divorce, he'd known she hadn't loved him anymore—not like she once had.

“Love doesn't matter,” he said, “when we're both determined to do what's best for our boys.”

She pointed to the computer screen and the image of Matthew and Tommy playfully wrestling with the hyper puppy. “What if being together is what's best for the boys?”

“That's why I gave up my job,” he reminded her, “so that I can be with my son. That's why I'm moving back to Chicago.” He hadn't found a place of his own yet, but he could crash at Trenton's until he did.

“You hate the city,” she said. “You always hated the city, but even more after you came back from Afghanistan. It'll kill you to live there.”

“It'll kill me to be apart from my son any longer.” He couldn't say goodbye to the boy again; being away from him had left Chance with a gaping hole in his heart.

“He hates the city, too,” she acknowledged with a
sigh. “It didn't matter that I kept you two apart. He's still you—through and through.” She blinked back tears of regret.

But Chance didn't believe she regretted that their son was like him but that she'd kept them apart. “I shouldn't have signed up,” he admitted. “I shouldn't have left…either of you. I'm sorry.”

“No. I was being selfish and spiteful. You were meant to go over there. If you hadn't, Trenton wouldn't have come back alive. Neither would so many others.”

“But I didn't get back to that boy in time…” He'd broken that promise, the one he'd made to help the sick child whose family had had no access to medical assistance.

“I wish you would have told me about him.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake off all her old resentments. “But we weren't exactly talking then.”

“No.”

“I think I was just looking for excuses,” she said, “a reason to blame you for us going wrong when it was really me. I just didn't love you anymore.”

“I know.”

She nodded. “I don't think I ever loved you like Jessie Phillips does. She loves you enough to let you go—not hold you back from doing what you want to do.”

He glanced around at the open boxes that he'd been struggling to pack. The only things he'd managed to put inside the cardboard cartons were items he'd inherited from his grandmother. The stuff that he and Jessie and Tommy had bought for the house or for Matthew—he couldn't toss them inside a box and close the lid. They were things he couldn't easily pack away.

“But this isn't what you want,” she said, gesturing at
the boxes. “You don't want to move back to Chicago. You want to stay here.”

“Are you trying to talk me into giving up my son?” Was that the purpose of this cryptic visit? Robyn had changed her mind about sharing custody.

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “No. I'm trying to talk you into giving him more.”

“Robyn?” He had never really understood this woman despite having been married to her. “I still don't know what you're telling me.”

She sniffled as the tears streaked down her face. “What if the boys are best for each other?”

“What do you mean?”

“That little redheaded boy calls Matthew.” She pointed at Tommy on the computer screen and smiled as if unable to help herself. “Of course on the phone he sounds like he's about forty. Not his voice, but his…wisdom.”

“You talked to him too?”

She nodded. “I didn't call to interrogate him like I did his mother. I just answered Matthew's cell. I'd taken it away from him for throwing a fit about you and this place. But once I answered it, I spoke with Tommy for quite a while.”

Chance laughed. “Yeah, forty sounds about right. Maybe sixty. The kid is…”
Precocious
didn't cover Tommy Phillips. “…amazing.”

“She's done such a good job with him,” Robyn said.

Chance nodded, impressed all over again with the way Jessie had managed alone. But then, in Forest Glen, no one was ever really alone. That was what he would
miss most about the town. No. What he'd miss most was what he could have had…with Jessie and Tommy.

“She told me that I did a good job with Matthew,” Robyn said, but she sounded skeptical.

“You have done a great job with our son,” Chance assured her.

Tears shimmered on her lashes again. “No. I did a very bad thing when I kept him away from you, when I put my resentment and my career before Matthew's needs.”

“What are you saying?”

“He needs to be here. With you.” She gestured toward the computer monitor. “With them.”

Chance gazed wistfully at the screen. It had stopped on a picture they'd taken with the timer on the camera. All of them were crowded together on the couch in the family room—everyone smiling and laughing as Cookie tried to lick Chance's face. “I appreciate what you're saying, but it's too late.”

“It should never be too late for love.”

It didn't matter that he had finally come to his senses. Jessie wanted what was best for her son, too, and that meant a relationship with his real father. For both Tommy and her.

 

J
ESSIE HAD NEVER BEEN
so miserable—not even when she'd been pregnant and alone and forced to move to a small town and live with relatives she hadn't known very well. Chance was moving today. Earlier, she'd seen the rental truck drive past the doctor's office on its way to his house. No one else was leaving Forest Glen; it had to be
his
truck.

Overwhelmed with the sense of loss, she stepped onto the porch. But still she couldn't breathe, not even with the warm summer breeze swirling around the house. She couldn't think about anything but Chance leaving. For good.

The door creaked open behind her, and she turned to see Keith let himself out. Despite renting a place right in town, he spent a lot of time here. With Tommy. And with her.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked. His eyes—the eyes Tommy had inherited—were as warm as the breeze with concern. And something else, something Jessie couldn't reciprocate.

She nodded. “I'm fine.”

Keith's mouth curved into a slight smile. “You've never been a very good liar, Jess.”

“I guess not,” she agreed. “You really knew that I was pregnant even though I told you I wasn't?”

“I didn't admit it to myself,” he said. “I took you at your word because I wanted to. I was a coward who didn't want to face up to that kind of responsibility. I didn't want to grow up.” He stepped closer and took her hand in his. “And because of that, you had to grow up too fast. You became a single mom when you were just a kid.”

“I don't regret that—I don't regret having Tommy,” she assured him. “I love him so much that every sacrifice I've had to make was worth it.” Even letting Chance go without a fight.

“You shouldn't have had to sacrifice anything,” Keith said, his thumb stroking over her knuckles. “I should
have been with you, supporting you.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Loving you.”

“I should have told you the truth. I shouldn't have denied you all these years with your son.”

“You can make it up to me now,” he said with a teasing grin. “And you can let me make it up to you for not being there when you needed me.”

Her stomach churned with the realization that he was about to propose. Dreading it, she shook her head. “Keith…”