Jake

Her words, want to work things out, rang in my head when Dad strode through the back door and spotted her.

He hadn’t had an episode in a while, so I was still in my chair, wondering what he was about to say or do.

His large pointer finger lifted and pointed square at the middle of her chest. “You. I told you not to come around again or I wouldn’t keep you and Rory a secret from my son.”

I blinked, unable to form words. I wasn’t sure what year Dad’s head was in. I hoped it was farther back than I thought because the only Rory I knew was a hired hand who lived on our property while I was enlisted. He’d been brought on shortly before I left for my tour of duty. We shot the breeze a few times before I left because we were around the same age. He was only a couple of years older than me.

Tara’s uneasy gaze met mine, breaking the spell Dad had cast.

I stood. It was then my father seemed to notice me.

His baritone voice that had scared me straight more than a few times from doing stupid things young boys do turned grave.

“You’d only gone back from leave when I found them in the barn carrying on like married folk.” That was Dad’s turn of phrase for sex. “No telling how long as she’d come around before you arrived for leave and wanted to stay at the house to get things ready. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

I nodded, still trying to choke the ramifications of what he’d said down my throat.

“Can you give us a minute?” I asked him.

I was fairly sure he was in the present. He sounded so. He gave a jerk of his head and went back in the house. I turned on Tara.

“Is it true?”

She got to her feet and held up a hand as if that would stop the storm of angry words from spewing from my mouth.

“I didn’t plan it. I was lonely. He was there.”

I turned away from her and pushed back my hair, tugging some to let the pain I felt manifest in physical form. It wasn’t for her. No, it was because I hated the questions swirling in my head. Like I’d told Honey, I’d always used a condom. But the next question I asked was far from the worst one I could think of.

“How long?”

That was as much as I could get out.

“How long what?” she asked.

Facing her again, I glared at her like that saying if looks could kill. “How long were you fucking him?”

She opened and closed her mouth without saying a word.

“How long?” I roared, my voice echoing into the night.

She stepped back as the tenor of my voice had surpassed rage levels. She licked her lips before speaking.

“I never meant—”

“Stop dancing around the question,” I said.

“Fine,” she snapped, finding some of her spine. “For a few months off and on. Besides, he left when I told him about Jamie—”

She covered her mouth, realizing her mistake. The fear in her eyes was telling. She hadn’t meant to say that. My own fear doubled as her confession had somewhat answered the worst question created in my head when Dad had dropped the bomb.

I hated the next words out of my mouth. “Is she mine—biologically, I mean?”

She had the chagrin to look sheepish.

“There’s always a small chance.”

Before she could say something else, I threw the crystal tumbler at the wall like a major league pitcher. It shattered on impact, sending her leaping back.

“Get out,” I yelled and pointed at the door.

Her chin lifted. “If I go, I’m taking my daughter with me.”

I bared my teeth. “No way in hell.”

She bared hers.

“She’s mine. That much we know for sure. If you want to keep her, you have to keep me.”

We were both seething to the point of breaking. To calm myself, I picked up the beer she’d brought me, having nothing else to help me swallow all the things I wanted to say. As it was, I hoped Jamie hadn’t woken up and would come investigate. I downed a healthy amount when she shocked me for the second time tonight.

As I continued to glare, she took a breath and spoke again. “I don’t know why you’re so holier than thou when you’re sleeping with a married woman.”

My brows tucked tight together. “What are you talking about? I’m not sleeping with anyone who is married.”

Her response was to laugh. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” I snapped.

I was so ready for her to leave.

“That sow, Hillary, whatever her last name is, is married to Axel Spider. You know, the drummer from Hidden Spiders.”

The gut punch came from Tara when she acknowledged that Jamie’s paternity was in question. Now she’d sucker punched me with news that Honey was married.

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “How do you even know her name?”

No way had Honey lied to me about something like that.

Tara whipped her phone out. As she unlocked it, she said, “I found her name on a document she left in her room.”

Silently, I groaned, knowing leaving her run of the house had been a bad idea. Then she thrust her screen in my face. There on one of the online tabloid sites in bold letter was Axel Spider marries in secret. We’ve found out the woman is Hillary Hunter…

I looked away, not wanting to read the rest. Tara certainly wasn’t done.

“How could you not know this? A simple Google search and these are the first results. How could you let someone take care of our daughter without knowing who she was?”

The agency had run background checks on all candidates and guaranteed they were accurate. Honey had met all my qualifications with no red flags in her background. Since I’d met her before, I hadn’t bothered doing digging on my own.

I slumped in my chair, feeling beaten up for sure. I brought the long neck to my lips and guzzled it down like water on a sweltering summer’s day.

“Jake,” she said, trying to get my attention. But my eyes had gone unfocused as I tried to make sense of everything. “You loved me once. We can make this work. I still love you.”

I closed my eyes, defeated. I felt plowed over, knocked out in the second round.

Then she was speaking and I couldn’t make sense of her words. I blinked, but my vision didn’t clear either until her face got closer. Even so, everything was hazy.

“Jake.”

She sounded like she was speaking in a tunnel a million miles away.

“Come on,” she said, tugging at my hand. “You don’t look so good.”

My head didn’t feel right either. I couldn’t think and allowed myself to be yanked on until I lumbered to my feet. I stumbled forward and stilled, pressing a hand to my head. It throbbed and between that and everything else I knew I should lie down.

I felt blind, my feet unsteady as I moved. I braced myself on the doorway before being led into the house. It seemed to take forever until I was in my room. Everything spun as I fell backward. I passed out or so I thought.

When I woke again, things were still fuzzy around the edges. I heard her before I felt her.

“Come on, Jake. We used to have good times together.”

Was her hand around my dick? That was my last thought before oblivion claimed me again.

The rocking motion woke me again. A wave of nausea broke my unconscious state. What sickened me more was Tara… She was straddling me, rocking up and down. I shoved her, though strength was not my friend.

She tumbled over pouting and giggling. I rolled off the bed, forced to make a run for the bathroom to puke by brains out.

I made note as I held up my pants in my mad dash that my dick had been as limp as a noddle. Whatever she had been trying to do either was over or never happened. I prayed as I gave up the contents of my stomach to the porcelain god that it was the latter.

It could have been hours, days, or years as I sat on the cold tile slumped over as wave after wave rolled through me. When I felt steady enough, I got up, rinsed out my mouth, and found Tara naked in my bed.

“Get the fuck out.”

I didn’t yell it. My daughter’s room was too close. But her wide eyes were enough to prove she’d clearly gotten my meaning.

“Jaime—” she began, but I was having none of it.

“My name is on the birth certificate. You will have to go through my dead body to take my daughter from me.”

She was mine and no amount of DNA could take that away from me.

Tara dropped the sheet she’d been demurely clutching at her chest. Good to know, my money for acting lessons had paid off. When her lips flattened, the mask she’d been hiding behind dropped away.

“I’ll get a lawyer and take her from you,” she snarled.

It all clicked into place. “No, you won’t. I don’t know what happened to you or if you were always this way. But you came here for something and it wasn’t me or Jamie. Probably money. And maybe if you’d just asked for it straight out I would have given it to you to be rid of you for good. But now, I’m calling the cops. Whatever shit you gave me is still in my system.”

She gasped, probably figuring I would never do something like that. And maybe I would have been too embarrassed to years before I became a father. But I needed the ammunition to get her out of my and Jamie’s life. No way would I let her influence my daughter.

I turned away, not interested in seeing one inch of her bare skin. But I had a warning for her.

“I suggest you leave right away. If the cops catch you, you’re going to jail.”

I heard fabric being pulled roughly up her legs. A couple of seconds later, the sound of my door opening had me turning around. I followed at a discreet distance. I had no trust for her and wanted to make sure she left peacefully. She left the front door open in her wake and I watched as her car kicked up dirt as she peeled out down the long driveway.

The next thing I did was call the cops. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, especially when one of the deputies chuckled until he realized how serious I was about my claim. They took pictures of my bedroom, took the sheets, which was fine considering I would have burned them. They bagged the beer bottle she’d given me and the one she drank. Though it was the middle of the night, they said if I wanted a blood test, I had to go to the hospital ASAP as a lot of drugs could flush out of my system in hours. I had to wake up Ed to have him stay at the house because I didn’t want to wake up Dad or Jamie and explain.

The hospital was another humiliating experience. But they were professional and didn’t laugh in my face about my claims of assault. I didn’t know who was redder, me or the nurse who had to take samples from the skin of my dick to get Tara’s DNA off me.

It would be hours before I got home as I had to give a statement and be questioned like I was the criminal before I was released to go back home well after sunup.