Chapter 15
Lia trembled as she reached the shade of the maple tree where Dallas stood. She knew Dallas would not be here unless there had been a tragedy, and her first thoughts were of her father. “Is it Dad?” she asked, her voice shaking. “What’s happened to him? I heard from him—”
“Lia.” Dallas gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “It’s okay. Julian’s all right. Nothing’s happened to him.”
“Good,” she managed to get out, her breath ragged as she struggled to recover from her shock. She gazed into Dallas’s gray eyes. Almost thirty now, Dallas had matured into a handsome man. The boy she had met at the stable years ago was gone.
“Dallas.” Gilda approached, followed by Frank. “It’s been a long time.” She had peach begonia blossom that looked like a rose stuck behind her ear.
Dallas smiled as he put on his hat, the floppy brim shading his eyes. “What a surprise.” He gave Gilda a warm hug, something he had not offered Lia. “It’s great to see you, Gilda.”
Still trying to make sense of this surreal scene, Lia noticed Robby Oxford, a former MMA champ and Dallas’s bodyguard, circling close to them. She turned to see the reason why. Aaron was heading her way with Stevie striding along beside him. Robby eased in front of her as Aaron closed in.
Gilda took Dallas’s arm. “I want to introduce you to Frank and his sons,” she said as if there was not the least bit of tension or awkwardness swirling in the air. Of course, Lia knew that Gilda was completely aware of all that surrounded her. Sun. Moon. Stars. Earth. Sky. Plants. Battle lines.
Dallas’s mother was Victoria Caroline Peyton, who had been raised in the Mississippi Delta where good manners were as essential as food and water. She had raised her son likewise. Victoria had once told Lia a gentleman without good manners was simply nothing but a barbarian. So it didn’t surprise Lia to see Dallas graciously extend his hand to Frank and say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Stevie was busy taking photos with his phone as Aaron stood rigidly beside him.
“Lia,” Aaron called to her while he glared at Robby, who didn’t blink an eye.
She stepped around Robby and spoke quietly to Aaron. “It’s all right.”
“Is that what you think?” he shot back, his blue eyes livid.
With her own temper in turmoil, she retreated to Robby’s side as Stevie greeted Dallas.
“Dude, you’re awesome. I saw you in concert in Atlanta about two years ago.” Stevie shook hands with Dallas. “Great show. I loved hearing you sing ‘The Midnight Special.’ You just tear that one up.”
Dallas smiled. “I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” he said. “Next time you’re at one of my concerts, I’ll get you a backstage pass.”
Stevie held up his phone. “Can I take a selfie?”
“Sure.” Dallas posed with Stevie for some photographs. He was always polite to his fans. His mother had taught him well.
Lia didn’t give Gilda a chance to introduce Dallas to Aaron. She stepped in and took Dallas by the arm. “Let’s take a walk.”
Dallas fell into step beside her. She didn’t look back as she escorted Dallas down the driveway, but she heard Frank and Gilda suggest that everyone go have some lemonade. They invited Robby to join them, but he refused and trailed behind her and Dallas.
“What is going on? Why didn’t you call me? How did you even know where to find me?” She had never mentioned Aaron’s house to him.
“I activated the LoJack on the Jaguar and had its whereabouts traced.” They stopped beside Dallas’s black Escalade SUV with blacked-out windows. He spoke frankly. “We’re about to be hit by a shit storm, and we’ve got to get out in front of it. That’s why I’m here. There’s a private jet waiting for us at the airport. We’re going to Paris to see Julian.”
“What?” she gasped.
“A photographer lucked up and got some pictures.”
“No!” she wailed. She wanted to strangle Dallas. “I knew this would happen. I told you, Dallas. I told you a thousand times to be careful when you were with Madison. You know how those paparazzi photographers are. You know they will stop at nothing.” She stood with her hands on her hips. “Shit storm is right.”
Dallas remained silent for a moment. Then he looked her in the eye. “Yeah. You told me a thousand times. You hammered me with it,” he said with resentment in his voice. “So I get a place on the backside of nowhere and live like a hermit. But guess what, Lia. I’m not the one in the pictures. You are.”
She frowned. “Me?”
“Yeah, you, Lia. You and I’m guessing the tall guy who looks like he wants to rip off my head. Is he the one you’re sleeping with?”
Her face flamed. “That is none of your business.”
“In a few days, it’s gonna be everybody’s business. Maybe you should have taken your own advice.”
Stunned, she paced behind the luxury SUV. “It’s not possible.” Aside from the music world and die-hard fans, she was hardly ever recognized in Nashville, much less in an unsuspecting place like Lafayette Falls. And she had never capitalized on her relationship with Dallas.
“I’ve only been at the hospital, a few stores, and this house.” She replayed her activities in her mind. “I haven’t been approached by anyone. Not even for an autograph.” Dallas was the celebrity with the well-known face. “I don’t stand out.”
“The Jag does.”
“The Jag,” she repeated, recalling the two guys loitering around the car at the hotel and at the park. A sick feeling started to build in her stomach.
“It’s an expensive custom job. We’re not that far from Nashville. Maybe somebody noticed. It would stand out in a town like this,” Dallas said. “And all they had to do was run the plates to know it belonged to me, and you’re connected to me. So they’re asking, ‘What’s Lia Montgomery doing staying in a hick town? Is Dallas here too? Let’s follow her. Could be some money in this.’ And there was.”
Lia shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Look around you.” He waved his arm at the woodlands. “Look at all these trees. Talk about a great place to hide with a telescopic lens. You would have never known they were there. You and your boyfriend were sitting ducks.”
She raked her fingers through her hair as her stomach roped into a painful knot. She thought of the evenings she and Aaron had played basketball or sat on the deck together. The night they’d watched the fireworks. She gripped the side of the SUV as she recalled the rainy day they had made love in the tree house with open walls. A deep shudder ran through her as she realized her privacy had not only been invaded but also earmarked for public consumption.
“Are you sure?” Tears welled in her eyes. “How do you even know about the pictures?” She wanted so desperately for him to be wrong.
“Connor called me,” Dallas said, referring to his publicist. “He said Raymond Wilkes bought the pictures, and he’s publishing them in that gossip rag of his, TruCelebrity. It’ll be on the stands next week. The headline is going to be ‘Your Cheating Heart: Lia Montgomery Caught in the Act.’ He’s also putting the pictures online.”
“Oh, God.” Lia rubbed the back of her neck. “Raymond Wilkes. Sonofabitch. He’s doing it to get back at Dad.” Wilkes and her father had been sworn enemies for years. Their feud dated back twenty-five years ago when Wilkes had outed a young homosexual singer and her father had retaliated with multiple lawsuits that had caused Wilkes to declare bankruptcy.
“Yeah,” Dallas agreed.
Looking down, Lia watched a trail of ants marching across the cool concrete driveway. Off to do whatever ants do. A small bee hovered over a tiny yellow wildflower that had somehow escaped Frank’s Weed Eater. It was strange how you noticed such small things when you didn’t want to face bigger things. Like your life falling apart.
“Julian will know what to do. He always does. He’s great at damage control.”
“Yeah.” Her father had handled publicity disasters in the past, and there were certain things you could count on about Julian Montgomery. He had a backbone of steel and he didn’t mind playing dirty.
She faced Dallas and the truth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We should have ended things before now like you wanted. I was the one who couldn’t let go. For all the wrong reasons.”
At the top of that list was a girl who didn’t want to be a failure like her mother.
“I’m going to make this right,” she promised. “Just take me to the airport, and then you go be with Madison.”
“No,” he said.
“I need to see Dad alone. He’s my father, and this talk is overdue.”
“We go see Julian together. We do this together.”
“Not anymore, Dallas.” She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Not together. Not anymore.”
The silence was thick between them, as if they were standing beside a coffin saying farewell to a love that had passed away.
Finally, Dallas spoke. “Do you remember the day we first met?”
“Like yesterday.”
“Me, too. You changed my life, and I’ll always love you for that.”
“We had some great years together. Really good times.” She swallowed. This was harder than she had thought. “And years from now, when I’m old, I’ll look back on my first love and think how lucky I was to have known you.” Words were forming lyrics in her mind.
The gentleman cowboy pressed her hand to his lips. “Lia, you are a song.”
She had to smile. “If I could only be in the studio now.”
“I can tell your creative energy is getting fired up. I know the look.”
She sighed. This was not the time or the place for creative energy. “I’ll go get my things.”
In the bedroom, she threw her toiletries in her tote bag. She had kept her T-shirts, shorts, and underwear stored in the carry-on, so it was a matter of grabbing what she had on hangers and putting those clothes in the upright. She was folding her white strapless dress when Aaron walked into the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice tense.
“I have to go. I have to see my father.”
“What happened to the eighteenth?”
“It can’t wait.” She packed the white dress and turned to Aaron. “The guys looking at the Jag were paparazzi. I just didn’t think. I never once thought they would track me down, but they did. They took pictures of us that will hit the tabloids in a few days.” She told him about the bad blood between the publisher, Wilkes, and her father. “Wilkes may not have any information on you. Not even your name, I hope.”
“Lia, you’re leaving because of some stupid pictures?”
“It’s about more than just some pictures.” She took her turquoise tunic off a hanger.
He stood beside the open closet door. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. It’s about Dallas’s career,” he remarked curtly.
“Don’t.” She pushed past him and tossed the tunic in the suitcase. Her shoulders slumped. “This is all on me. It was my mistake. I have to explain to my dad. I have to fix this.”
“No, you don’t.” He grasped her hand. “There’s no fixing needed. So somebody took some pictures of us and the world is gonna know we’re lovers. I’m not ashamed of that. I don’t care who knows or what they think because it doesn’t matter. I love you, Lia. All that matters is that you’re here with me and the baby.”
“Aaron.” She didn’t know how much more her heart could withstand. “I will come back. I promise.”
He turned her face toward his, and she saw the deep-seated fear in his eyes. She grasped the side of his face and gave him a quick, reassuring kiss. “I love you, too. I’ll come back. You know I will.”
“Lia, I’m asking you to stay. If you love me, you’ll stay.”
He wouldn’t relent. Typical of him. She smoothed the front of his rumpled blue jersey. She couldn’t relent either. Pulling away from him, she took her last two items out of his closet, and he swore.
“So your rich and famous cowboy shows up, and you’re ready to walk away.” Aaron paced from one side of the room to the other as she closed and zipped the suitcase. “I saw how the two of you looked at each other.”
She frowned. “Sometimes people only see what they want to see.” She retrieved her carry-on bag and put it on top of the larger suitcase. “There’s something you need to understand. I’m not your ex-wife.”
His face paled, and she knew she had struck a nerve. She thought of the shoebox filled with hurt and maybe a large part of his heart. “The past is what it is. You can’t judge the future by it. You shouldn’t judge me by it.”
He put his hands on his hips. It was like watching him dig in. “If you want to leave, fine. Leave.” He waved his hand toward the door. “Don’t bother coming back. I don’t need you, and the baby doesn’t need you.”
She told herself he was angry and didn’t mean what he said. Yet she couldn’t stop the sorrow that was filling her heart. She clutched the handle of her suitcase. “Is that what you want?”
He gave her a cold nod. “You walk out that door and leave with him, you don’t come back.”
A silence followed the harsh finality of his words, and she understood the ache in her chest. “That’s not love, Aaron.”
She realized if she left, she’d lose him. He viewed her leaving as a betrayal. Maybe it was. Maybe it was for the best. He had no faith in her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that or anything else at the moment.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Then it’s over.” He strode into the nursery and shut the door.
She yanked her bags out of the bedroom. Gilda was waiting for her in the foyer.
“I never saw this coming,” she told Gilda.
“Some things are never clear. I’ve spoken with Dallas. Here.” Gilda pulled a necklace out of her tote and put it on Lia. The gold chain supported a dark green gemstone flecked with red. “It’s bloodstone. I always keep it with me. Legend has it that bloodstone came into being when the blood of Christ fell on the green grass and turned to stone. Bloodstone is the crystal of courage and wisdom. It increases mental clarity and decision making.”
“I could use the courage.”
“Especially when it comes to facing Darth.” Gilda used her nickname for Julian. She opened the front door. “Don’t worry, Yoda is coming along.” She smiled as she and Lia stepped outside. Robby came and retrieved Lia’s bags.
“My spirit guides are very excited about a trip to Paris. La Ville Lumière,” she added in a dreamy tone. “Ma cher, Frenchmen are magnifique in bed.”
“I’m done with men.”
“Of course, you are,” Gilda agreed completely.
As she and Dallas got in the SUV, she noticed Aaron standing on the front porch, arms folded as he watched the vehicles roar to life in his driveway. Driving the red Jaguar, Robby pulled out first. Next was Gilda in her hatchback, followed by Dallas in the SUV. Before Dallas turned the Escalade into the street, Lia glanced in the sideview mirror and caught a brief glimpse of Aaron with Stevie standing beside him.
A melody started humming inside her. I’m not through loving you.
* * *
The rocking chair creaked against the tile floor in the special-care nursery as Aaron rocked John, who slept soundly in his arms. Perhaps it was the rhythm of the rocker that soothed the stress inside Aaron. Or maybe it was the precious life he held close. At least he still had John Aaron, and they were going to do just fine together.
Fathers and sons.
He thought of his father, the former cop who had been tough on him when he needed tough as well as always there to help if he needed help. Now Frank had aged, and his son was no longer a little boy with problems a dad could fix.
“Aaron.” Frank had stood in the bedroom doorway as Aaron sat in the armchair putting on his running shoes.
Aaron looked up. Worry had deepened the lines in Frank’s face. “I’m fine, Dad.” He shrugged and lied. “I expected it. I knew she’d be leaving sooner or later.”
“I heard she had to go talk to her father about some stuff.”
“The music business,” Aaron said with disdain.
“When she gets things settled with her father, is she coming back?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I told her not to come back.” Aaron’s controlled slipped. “For chrissake, she left with another man. I’m not putting up with that shit.”
Frank’s frown deepened the wrinkles in his face. “Didn’t you know about the other guy from the beginning?”
“Yeah, I did,” Aaron admitted as the anger inside him spread. He was furious with himself. “She said they were over, and I, being the fool I am, believed her. Just like I believed Molly.”
Frank nodded. “So Lia told you today that she’s still in love with the singer?”
“She didn’t have to tell me. Damn it, I’ve got eyes. I can see.”
“Can you?” Frank walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Dad, please. I don’t need a lecture. Not now.”
“You’re gonna get one, whether you need it or not. I thought it was a bad idea in the beginning because I know how you are. You’re not quick to fall for a girl, but this girl stole your heart the first moment you saw her. And that’s only happened to you once before.”
Aaron groaned as he laid his head back on the chair and rubbed his temple where a stress headache was beginning to throb.
“I figured you were heading down the wrong path again, and I was going to talk to you about it. See if I couldn’t get through to you, despite your doggedness. I don’t know where you get that from, but it must be one of your grandparents.”
“I wish you had kicked my ass.”
“Well, I changed my mind about her. I started noticing little things—how her eyes lit up when she saw you and the way she smiled at you.”
“Dad, I don’t need this now.”
That didn’t shut Frank up. “I realized she was in love with you. Love was in every look she gave you. Every touch. I knew she was the right girl.”
Aaron battled the pain inside himself. “You’re wrong. If she had loved me, she wouldn’t have taken off with that asshole to Paris. She’s not coming back.”
“What about her sister’s baby?”
“Looks like she didn’t care any more about him than her sister did.”
“Aaron, you know that’s not true. She adores that baby, and she’s worked right alongside you to make this house a home for the baby.”
“Yeah, well, she walked out on us.” Aaron refused to give an inch.
Frank softened his voice. “Son, is it so hard for you to believe she loves you?”
Aaron bent to tie his shoes and battled the truth emerging from his soul. “Yes. Is that what you want to hear? Every night I told myself she was falling in love with me. That she’d stay. But deep down, I never believed it. I always knew she’d go back to him.”
After a moment of silence, Frank had given his head a shake and stood. He had patted Aaron’s shoulder. “Then it’s best she doesn’t come back.”
Aaron had only one beacon of light left when it came to the future.
He looked at John Aaron, who squirmed and made a face in his sleep. Aaron felt a rush of love as he straightened the baby’s beanie. “It’s gonna be okay. It’ll just be me and you. Father and son. Like I’d always planned.”
“Dr. Kendall.” One of the nightshift nurses approached him. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“It’s getting late.”
Aaron hadn’t noticed the time. “How late?”
“Almost midnight.”
He had been in the nursery with John since eight. Time had slipped away.
“Are you going to stay the night?”
He glanced at the sleeping baby in his arms. There was nothing waiting for him at home but a cold, lonely bed. “I’m gonna stay.”
The nurse walked away, and the rocker continued to creak under the weight of a father and a son.