Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (26 page)

Max peered at Garrett from between his bangs.
“Do you cut your mom slack?”

“My mom ran off and never came back for
real.”

Max considered, face bunched tight. “That
would be a whole lot of slack. I didn’t think moms were allowed to
run off.”

“They aren’t, but some do it anyway.”

“Do you hate her?”

“I try not to hate. There’s too much of that
going around.”

“That’s too bad about your mom, ’cause I like
grammas. Rosie’s the best, and I wouldn’t mind another. But you got
a dad, right?”

Garrett went stiff all over. “He’s not the
grampa type.”

“How do you know?”

“He wasn’t the dad type.”

“Well, neither were you until you got me. So
maybe your dad will be the best grampa. If you cut him some
slack.”

“I’ll think about it.”

In Garrett’s eyes Livy saw the shadows that
had been there when he was J.J. and remained even when he’d become
Garrett—the shadows of insecurity that his father had put there
long ago. She wanted to erase those shadows, though she wasn’t sure
how, or even if she could. Perhaps that was a task for Max.

“Mom? I’m sorry I said I hated you. That was
mean.”

“Right now,
I
hate me.”

He smiled a little at that. “I was mad. I’m
still
mad, but I don’t hate you. Because even when you’re
mad at me, when I’m the baddest I can be, you still love me,
right?”

Livy nodded. “That’s love.”

Garrett gave her an unreadable glance.

“You going to forgive me, Max?”

“Maybe.” His shrug had the attitude of a born
heartbreaker. “Tonight I wanna stay with Dad.”

That hurt.

“Sure. Fine.” Her voice, too loud and hearty,
revealed it wasn’t fine at all.

The two of them stood. Max took Garrett’s
hand and tugged him toward the door. Garrett held back, his gaze on
Livy’s face made her feel as if he could see everything that went
on behind her eyes.

“You okay?”

“Sure,” she said again.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Really. Thanks for this.” She moved her
hands helplessly. He’d done a wonderful job of calming their son
while she’d been struck dumb by her own stupidity.

“Thanks for Max.” He kissed her cheek.
“Really.”

Max pulled on his arm. “Come
on,
Dad.”

Her son left her with a smile and no goodbye.
Maybe
he’d forgive her? As quickly as she’d forgiven her own
father for dying? Or J J. for leaving?

Livy collapsed into the chair Garrett had
just vacated. Wouldn’t that be justice?

What happened in childhood was so hard to
outgrow. The things parents did, however well meaning or
accidental, affected their children for years, sometimes for
always.

What would be Max’s cross to bear, courtesy
of her? Lack of trust? Dislike of women? Compulsive dishonesty?

She rubbed her forehead.
Mother guilt
forever.
Put that on a T-shirt, she could sell a million.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Livy felt steady
enough to leave the room. Unfortunately, what was waiting for her
in the hall made her want to run right back inside and lock the
door behind her.

“Sugar, I don’t know why you felt the need to
lie to me of all people.”

“Or me.” Kim was not giggling now. “I thought
we were best friends. I told you everything.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. Kim refused to
discuss how she’d ended up in Savannah, where she was from in the
first place or why she insisted upon dating brainless bimbo
boys.

But this wasn’t about Kim.

“I’m sorry.” Livy leaned against the wall for
support, since her usual sources were mad at her. “He left; I
panicked. Then the lie just grew. I never thought he’d come back.
He wasn’t the type.”

“Livy, I’m just so angry right now I think
I’d better leave.” Kim clipped off toward the exit.

“Will you be in on Monday?”

“I’ll let you know.” Kim didn’t even turn
around.

Livy winced. “Ouch.”

“If she’s any kind of friend, she’ll get over
it.”

“I lied to her for years. What kind of friend
does that make me?”

“A frightened one. But you had to have known
I’d understand. That I’d never judge you.”

“A lie seemed the easiest way to make the
questions go away. Then the lie had been around so long, it was the
truth—or near enough.”

“Well, I can’t say as I agree with what you
did, but it’s done now. The question is, how are you going to clean
up this mess?”

“I have no idea,” Livy answered.

* * *

Garrett had wanted Max to know the truth, but
he hadn’t wanted him to find out the way he had. However the shock
didn’t seem to be having any lasting effects on the boy. He
appeared completely normal as he skipped up Garrett’s walk, tripped
on the stairs and sprawled across the porch.

Garret began to hurry forward to pick him up.
Then he remembered how embarrassed he’d always been if anyone
fussed after he fell. So he hovered on the walk, held his breath
until Max’s head went up, revealing no signs of major injury and
allowing Garrett to breathe freely again.

“Hey, Dad?” The boy had taken to calling him
dad with the greatest of ease. “There’s a package for you.
From...A. Lawton, New York City.”

Andrew had resorted to Federal Express. Must
be serious. Of course, Garrett knew things had been serious for
quite a while now. Andrew hadn’t.

Max handed Garrett the envelope. “What is
it?”

“Trouble.”

“You know that just from the package?”

“I know that from who sent the package. You
remember the coffin in the dining room?”

Max nodded.

“That came from A. Lawton, too.”

Max shrugged, unconcerned with trouble that
didn’t include him for a change.

As Garrett let them into the house and turned
on the lights, he considered what might be in the envelope. It was
Garrett’s turn to send a practical joke to his agent. By their
unstated rules neither could send a joke unless it was his turn.
Otherwise things might get out of hand.

The fact that Garrett had not answered the
delivery of the coffin with something hilarious only proved how
dead his Muse was. In the past, he wouldn’t have rested until he’d
come up with the perfect reprisal.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Max asked.

Funny how jokes, reprisals, contracts and
careers meant little in the face of Max’s smile.

“Nope.” He tossed the package on the table.
“Let’s have some fun.”

An hour later, Garrett carried his sleeping
son upstairs. Despite Max’s chatter about all they were going to do
together on their sleepover, he’d been snoring halfway through the
first scary movie, the bowl of popcorn in his lap tilted in the
opposite direction from his head.

When Garrett laid him on the pull out couch
in one of the bedrooms, then took off his socks and his jeans, Max
mumbled, “Mom,” and tugged the pillow over his head.

Tired himself, Garrett nevertheless watched
Max sleep awhile. How could he have created something so
perfect?

A sound downstairs drew Garrett into the
hall. Was that a knock? After glancing at a motionless Max, he went
to find out.

From the table in the hall, Andrew’s package
beckoned. Garrett stuck out his tongue at it and moved closer to
the front door.

Light and dark danced on the porch. The weak
thud
sounded again. Who could be here at this time of night?
Garrett opened the door to Livy.

They stared at each other. Garrett wasn’t
sure what to say. Why was she here?

“Is Max...?”

“Sleeping,” he answered.

She stepped inside, closed the door, then
leaned against it as if afraid to be near him. Had she come to end
what was between them? Garrett had never been sure exactly what it
was, but since there was something, he hadn’t pressed to put words
to it. Livy could easily have cut him out of her life and out of
Max’s.

But as the weeks had gone on and she’d let
him stay, let him get closer and closer to their son and to her,
Garrett had begun to hope they might forge a family. Still, she’d
never mentioned love, not this time, and he wasn’t sure if he
should, if he could, or even how.

“I can’t think straight, Garrett. I can’t
sleep too well, either. You’re both the boy who left me and the man
who made my son smile through his tears. When you laugh, I hear
him. When he smiles, I see you.”

What was she trying to tell him?

“Every time I kiss you I feel new things,
then I remember old times. It used to be that whenever I smelled a
summer rain, I’d have to fight not to cry, because in the space of
an instant I’d see your face and then it would be gone.” She
snapped her fingers. “Just like you were. Every single time, I hurt
so bad. I thought the memory would fade, but it didn’t. Because
when I see Max, I see you.”

He had to touch her. He couldn’t stay away.
Garrett took one step, and she met him halfway. He held her gently,
uncertain what she wanted but needing to give her whatever it was
because she’d given him everything.

“You touch me and I forget it all. Touch me
now. Make me remember only you.”

Then she was kissing him, not a kiss that
said thank-you, or hello, and certainly not goodbye, but a true
kiss, full of such passion that his mind went fuzzy with desire and
crazy with need.

He should tell her right now that he loved
her, always had, always would. But what was between them consumed,
as physical as it was intangible, and as she touched his skin,
murmured his name, drew him into her spell as completely as she
always had, he could think of nothing but showing her with his body
all he felt within his heart.

As he’d imagined countless times before, he
ran his hand along her panty hose, up beneath her skirt. The satin
of her skin beneath the silk of the stockings enticed him. He had
to put his mouth to her neck, surround himself with the scent of
her hair.

He tugged loose the rubber band and buried
his face in the strands, walked his lips to the first button of her
jacket, then followed his fingers down. Above the camisole beneath
the suit, her breasts appeared even fuller than before, nearly
spilling out of the scooped neck. Her nipple peeked just below the
lilac lace.

“I want to see you in only this—” He looped
his finger in the neckline. “These—” His palm stroked the
stockings. “Maybe the heels, too.”

Her eyes heated, and the smile she gave him
was pure seduction, very little like Livy at all. “I can do
that.”

Even her voice was different, hoarse, as if
she’d been moaning his name all night long. Garrett lifted her into
his arms and headed for the steps.

She struggled. “You’ll hurt yourself and be
no good to me at all. Have you got a Rhett Butler complex?”

“Doesn’t every man?”

“Every Yankee, anyway. I can walk.”

“I’ll only put you down if you run.”

The smile appeared again. “I can do
that.”

And she did.

By the time he’d locked the door behind them,
she’d shrugged off her suit jacket. The skirt slid to the floor,
and she stepped out of it to stand in front of him in lilac lace
and nude panty hose. But it was the sensible black pumps that drove
him wild.

Crossing the floor, he unbuttoned his shirt.
She shoved the material aside, pressed an open mouth to his skin.
There would be no leisurely lovemaking tonight, because he wasn’t
going to last much longer.

He tipped her onto the bed, shucked his pants
in a hurry and followed her down. With muted thuds her shoes hit
the floor, then she rubbed his calf with her silk-stockinged
toe.

When had that become arousing? The instant
Livy did it.

He got rid of her stockings, left the
camisole on, loving how it felt against his hand, his chest, his
mouth.

“Garrett.”

She’d never used his new name in bed. He was
overjoyed that she’d used it now. If they were to have a future,
they had to let go of the past. Both of them.

But when she pushed against him in an erotic
bump and shift, she could have called him Napoleon for all he
cared. He sucked in air between his teeth. He was far too close to
the edge for that sort of thing.

“Shh,” he murmured against her brow, her
chin, the underside of her satin-shrouded breast. He ran his tongue
along the slope, blew upon the wetness until she shivered, then
discovered the satin tasted as good as it felt when he drew Livy
and the material into his mouth and suckled.

She cried out, and he stopped, lifted his
head. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Her cheeks were flushed; her breath
came as fast as his. “I’m all right. I just need you. Now.”

Since he needed her, too, always, he covered
her hip with his hand and entered her with a single stroke. Her
eyes fluttered shut, and he kissed her closed lids. “Look at me,
Livy. Let me see all of you.”

Once, she’d held his gaze whenever they came
together. The sharing of their souls had been as intimate as the
sharing of their bodies. Now that they shared a son, he wanted that
intimacy back. He needed it as badly as he needed her.

He held his breath, afraid she’d refuse him
the emotional bond. But as he joined them together, again and
again, she opened her eyes. When she gasped and trembled beneath
him, clutched him and made him tremble, too, he cradled her face
between his palms, and he kissed her reverently. Then he said those
words that had always been beyond him, until today.

“I love you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed again, and she
continued to tremble beneath him. At first he felt cold and alone,
but the pull of her body, the warmth of her, drew him in, and for a
while he thought only of this act of love and not the lack of
words.

When the last tremors faded, she sought his
hand, kissed the center of his palm, just like the old days, and he
hoped she might tell him again, as she had once before, that she
loved him. Instead, she smiled curled herself along his body,
keeping his hand in hers. Her breath brushed his chest as she fell
asleep.