An Innocent Thanksgiving (Holiday Heat Book 2) Page 6

  As I closed the door, Jenn snorted. “When are you going to put that poor guy out of his misery?”

  I ignored her, looking at Fern instead. Her hands were absolutely covered in paint, but her actual paintings were really lovely. “Wow, great job honey! Your stuff is beautiful!”

  “Thanks!” Fern added a bit more green to one painting. “We learned ‘bout…” Her face screwed up as she concentrated. “Impressionists.”

  “The Impressionists, yeah, they were an important painting group, weren’t they?”

  Fern nodded. “I tried to do it like them.”

  “Well I think you did a fantastic job. But it’s time to wash up now, okay? Jenn and I will hang these up so they can dry.”

  Fern went into the bathroom and I started cleaning up the paints. Jenn folded her arms. “I’m serious, Maggie. Leo’s cure, and it’s clear that he likes you.”

  “Well, I don’t like him, so that’s that. And besides, I don’t have time to date anyone. I’m a single mother, I have to focus on Fern.”

  “You know that excuse is tired, right? It was tired two years ago. If you don’t want Leo, there are plenty of other fish in the sea out there. You’re a great catch, there has to be some great guy out there for you!”

  “Mmm.” Jenn had been bringing this up about once a week for as long as I’d known her. I was used to tuning it out by now.

  “I think…” Jenn wiggled her eyebrows. “I think that maybe it’s because you’re still hung up on Fern’s father.”

  Ah, great. Jenn was always fascinated with the ‘mystery guy’, as she’d dubbed him, who was the father of my child. I hadn’t told her anything. Literally, nothing. I’d shut the conversation down every time she’d tried to pry. Jenn was a good person but she was also the meddling kind and I knew that if she knew she would never stop until she got every single detail and then she’d probably do something ridiculous like call Cal up to get details from him or organize some kind of reunion or something.

  “If you’re so stuck on Leo,” I said instead, “why don’t you go next door and sample his cookies?”

  Jenn laughed. “Touché, Mags. But I’m not kidding, here. I’m going to get you a new man, a good one. You deserve it.”

  Yeah. Sure. “Whatever you say, Jenn.” There was only one man who’d ever captured my interest, and he didn’t want me anyway, so.

  Life went on.

  11

  Cal

  Maybe buying a house in a whole new city sight unseen wasn’t the smartest idea, but I was an artist and so I figured I was allowed to be a little spontaneous and eccentric. Besides, I had the money to spare. It had taken me only a little over a week to get everything settled and ready to go, and it wasn’t like this would impact my career.

  It was ironic, though. Most people didn’t know about my marriage—Mark did, but I didn’t think that Maggie knew about it. It had been pretty short. Nothing against Kate, she was a good person, but we just weren’t right for each other. And I’d been pretty immature in my twenties. I didn’t blame her for getting angry, although there were things she could’ve compromised on as well.

  One of our biggest arguments was about children. I hadn’t wanted any, and I had been frustrated that she’d married me with the idea that she could change my mind about that. Sure, maybe someday I would want kids. Maybe someday I would stop enjoying my art and would want to become a rancher instead. People changed. But going into a relationship expecting to change a person? That just never worked out well.

  And now look. It was twenty-five years since the divorce, sure, and yet, I had in fact changed. I wanted to be Fern’s father. It was like the moment I got confirmation she was actually mine something wrapped a string around my heart and tugged viciously. I had to be in her life. I wanted to be in her life. I’d be damned if I didn’t at least try to reason with Maggie and show her that I could be there for Fern, that her assumptions about how this would go were wrong.

  I wandered through the house, checking it out. The previous owner had just wanted to get rid of it—something about a divorce, and starting over, etc. Boy did I understand that feeling. The woman was moving to Europe and couldn’t bring anything with her, so the house had come with the furniture she’d used to have, and while it wasn’t exactly to my taste, it was nice enough and would do for now.

  The place was nicer than I’d thought in the pictures. Excellent. I’d really scored a deal with this one. This wasn’t the first time that I’d uprooted myself. I’d originally been based in New York City, but after the divorce from Sandy I’d moved to Cincinnati to be near my parents. I’d felt like it was a good choice to ground myself, and they’d missed me—and then I’d just ended up staying. I had a real community there, so why not?

  Now I was moving again, and once again I was doing it to be with family, although the context was entirely different. Once I put up my artwork around this house, though, it would feel like home. That was really all I needed. Fern was what mattered, and I couldn’t wait to start getting to know her.

  Of course, there was still Maggie to consider.

  As I unpacked and began sorting things into closets and onto bookshelves, I tried to think of what to do to handle her. Maggie had a right, I supposed, to not tell me. I hadn’t made it easy for her to think that I would want a child in my life. I was traveling all the time for art shows, would get lost in my head for days or weeks when I was in the middle of a new art project, and I wouldn’t know a proper routine if my life depended on it. And that was all before you considered the way I’d talked to her after our one night stand.

  And yet… I couldn’t deny that I was hurt over being kept in the dark. A relationship was one thing, but a child was another. Even if I hated Maggie—which I didn’t, and never had, and never could—that didn’t mean that I would hate my child. I wanted to be a part of Fern’s life and I still felt, as illogical as it might be, that Maggie should have told me. Even if she wanted to keep Fern’s parentage a secret from her parents, surely we could have found a way around that. I could have visited her in Nashville when her parents weren’t there, sent her money privately somehow…

  That actually begged the question over what I was going to do now. How could I explain things to Mark? He wasn’t going to be happy no matter what way you sliced it. It was his daughter, and there was a good twenty-some-odd years of age difference. He was going to feel betrayed, and pissed, and especially since this had been a secret for so many years.

  Fuck. I shoved that thought to the back of my mind to deal with later. Same with ideas about my relationship with Maggie. It was… it was going to be difficult to keep my hands to myself, I could admit that. She was even more gorgeous than she had been five years ago, and the sharp edges she’d developed only made me want to work past them to get at the soft, fun girl that I knew was still in there.

  I wanted to get my hands on her, the way that I had the other night. It had only been a week ago and yet it felt like years, and yesterday, all at once. I longed to taste her, to get her in every position imaginable. It felt like I was in my twenties all over again when it came to her, driven wild and unable to think about anything other than sex. It had never been this intensely focused on just one person before, though. Even Kate… we had married because I’d felt that was what we’d had to do. That that was the choice before us. But I hadn’t been half as crazy about her, or haunted by her, as I was by Maggie.

  But what I wanted in regards to Maggie wasn’t the focus here. If I was moving here to woo her, if Fern wasn’t in the picture, maybe things would be different, but Fern was in the picture. Fern was my priority. I wasn’t going to focus on Maggie, and I was going to find a way to keep my desire for her under control. I wanted, no, needed Maggie to see that this wasn’t about her or about following my dick. This was about my daughter. I was serious about being her father.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when Maggie followed me into my dreams.

  I dreamt about her—I wasn’t sure h
ow we got there, how we went from point A to point B, but the next thing I knew in the dream, she was naked in my arms. We were in a home, I knew that much. It was our home, ours, I knew that somehow even if I couldn’t see the details of it. Maggie was riding my cock slowly, on top of me in bed. I could reach up and fondle her sweet, full breasts.

  “Cal,” she murmured in the dream. Her curves were all on display for me and I mapped them out with my hands, taking my time the way I hadn’t yet in real life.

  I wanted to take that time in real life, if she would let me.

  She was so beautiful. And she felt so good around me, so real, it was hard to believe that I wasn’t awake. I thrust up into her and she cried out, a flush spreading across her face, down her neck, across her chest. Her head fell back, her blonde hair spilling around her. I reached up and tugged on it and I felt her shudder in pleasure. Would she like it if I did that to her in real life?

  I started to fuck her harder, tugging at her hair, and she began to beg please, Cal, please the way that I loved, it felt so damn good, I wanted to fuck her until she came all over me and I filled her up with my come—

  The dream began to fade, and I bucked my hips up in frustration, but instead of feeling Maggie’s hot, tight warmth, the slick slide of her waiting pussy, I felt only empty air. I blinked my eyes open and found myself still lying on the damn empty bed, with an aching erection.

  Fuck. Wrapping my hand around my cock, I stroked myself quickly, grunting through gritted teeth as I spilled over into my hand, my cock twitching as I pictured Maggie. God, it was going to be nearly impossible to resist temptation. She just managed to get through to me in a way that nobody else ever had.

  But… my concerns that I’d voiced that night five years ago weren’t invalid. I’d been letting my love for Fern, my desire to be with her, and my lust for Maggie fog my brain. As I cleaned myself up from my wet dream, I reminded myself of all the reasons why being with Maggie was still a bad idea. Not just a bad idea, but inappropriate. Maggie was too young, we lived such different lives, she was the daughter of my best friend. Even just one of those reasons would be enough not to pursue her, but all three? Yeah, forget about it.

  My focus would be on Fern, and Fern alone. I had to put Maggie out of my mind.

  12

  Maggie

  I relished the feel of Fern’s little hand in mine as we headed down our front walk. Sundays were nice, quiet days for us. We went on walks and headed to the local park. I couldn’t really take Fern on any crazy adventures—I couldn’t afford it—but she was only four, so really, fun outdoors time and quality hours with her family were all she needed. Already she kept getting so big, growing an inch every time I looked away for a split second, and soon she’d be too big for those things. She’d be in school. She’d want to hang out with friends all the time instead of with me.

  For now, though, she was small, and I could just make her day by taking her to the park, pointing out the birds we saw, and pushing her on the swing. And that—that was all that I needed, too. My darling girl brought joy to my life in a way I could never have fathomed before becoming a parent.

  I was looking down at Fern, smiling at her—I found myself smiling at her a lot, like the lovestruck idiot that I was when it came to my daughter—and so I didn’t see him. Fern did.

  “Uncle Cal!” Fern said. That was how she’d been introduced to him at Thanksgiving, and as far as I was concerned, that was how he would stay to her.

  But—wait what the fuck was Cal doing here!?

  My jaw dropped like a fool as I watched Fern run up to Cal to say hi. She’d been showered with love and adoration from the moment she’d been born, so she was a friendly and outgoing child as a result. She seemed to think that the world was just full of good people and kindness, and honestly, I wanted her to keep thinking that for as long as possible. Of course, I taught her about stranger danger, and all that, but I never wanted that joyful spark of treating each person she met as a friend to ever really leave her. The world was full of enough cynical, frustrated, jaded people—people like me—and I wanted better for my daughter.

  Cal was sure enough standing at the end of our walk, hands in his pockets, wearing a soft dark red turtleneck and a fleece jacket with dark jeans. He looked unbearably handsome, his hair a bit windswept, and in another life—a better life—I could have walked right up to him and kissed him hello. I wanted to do that, to walk up and kiss him and say hi, and have him put his arms around me, and ask how my day was, and…

  I shook myself. That wasn’t my life. That wasn’t our situation. I had to give up such stupid, foolish daydreams. I wasn’t a child anymore, crushing on her father’s handsome, successful, charismatic best friend. I was an adult, and I was reaping the consequences of those daydreams.

  “Hey, Fern!” Cal crouched down with a big smile so that he could hug her hello. “How’ve you been?”

  “Great! We’re going to the park!”

  “The park?” Cal stood up. “Mind if I join?” He looked at me as he said it.

  I folded my arms. “What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my tone carefully neutral so that Fern wouldn’t realize that anything was going on.

  “We have an unfinished conversation between us,” Cal replied, his tone also neutral.

  “So you decided to ambush me?” I asked, lowering my voice but keeping a smile on my face so that Fern wouldn’t notice anything was up.

  “Well, seeing as how you ran away, I didn’t see how else I could talk with you.” Cal shrugged. “I mean business, Maggie. I’m serious here. I’m not letting this go. I didn’t know before but I know now and I want to talk about this, seriously, and not have you just declare that things are the way they are and walk away.”

  I bit my lip. I really wasn’t sure what the right option was here. I wanted to keep Cal away from me, for the sake of my own heart. And I felt that I had a right to not tell Cal about Fern. But now that he knew about her, didn’t he have a right to try and be a part of her life?

  I really didn’t know.

  “We’re going to the park,” I said. “Like Fern said.”

  “Great, then I’ll join you.”

  Yay.

  The park wasn’t far away, but suddenly the walk felt ten times as long as usual. Fern was skipping ahead, sometimes turning around to skip backwards so she could talk to us at the same time. Cal watched her with this soft smile on his face, like he was drinking her in, and I couldn’t help but empathize. He looked the way that I felt when I was watching Fern—happy but also with this sense of wonder, like I couldn’t quite believe that this person really existed and could be so wonderful.

  When we got to the park I told Fern to go ahead and play while Cal and I had a quick talk. She was happy to go and climb, and we sat down on a park bench.

  “What are you doing in Nashville?” I asked, struggling not to sound too accusatory. I thought I knew why he was here, but I wanted to be sure. He wanted to talk to me about letting him be a part of Fern’s life, and I had no idea how I was going to answer that or what to do with it.

  “I moved here.”

  My heart skipped a beat and my stomach dropped like a stone. “You—what?” I was sure that I was gaping but I couldn’t help myself.

  “I moved here,” Cal repeated. He wasn’t looking at me, but watching Fern.

  I swallowed a few times, trying to find my voice again. “What—what are you doing here? Why would you do that?” He must’ve uprooted everything for that, and to do it in only a week and a half? What the hell?

  Cal turned his head, looking me dead in the eye. “I’m planning to be a part of my daughter’s life.”

  “We already talked about this.”

  “No, you talked at me, and you didn’t give me a chance to respond.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. What was I supposed to say to that? He was right.

  Since I didn’t know what to say, I just sat there, waiting for him to speak. Cal was never the kind
of guy who hesitated to speak his mind. I was sure that this wouldn’t be any different.

  Sure enough, after he waited a moment to see if I was going to say anything, Cal spoke. “You think that I won’t be around to raise my daughter, but that’s why I’m here. I want to prove that I will be. Maybe I didn’t give you a reason to have any faith in my… in my desire to be a father, and I can understand that. But I’m here now, ready to prove that I am. I think it’s only fair that I get a chance to know Fern and see how I can fit into her life.”

  I felt like I’d been hit by a hurricane. I had never expected—out of all the things I thought would happen, Cal uprooting his entire life to come to Nashville, to live in Nashville, was not one of them.

  It was kind of flattering, I had to admit. He was clearly making an effort. Now he would be near Fern and he’d easily be able to see her. And you, my traitorous heart whispered. I ignored that.

  He could have walked away, honestly. I had made it easy for him. I’d made this as much of a no-strings-attached situation as possible. I had insisted that he didn’t have to pay for anything, and basically cut him loose. I hadn’t wanted him to owe me anything and I’d meant it. Most men would’ve taken that happily and gone on with their lives, not thinking anything more about their fling and the product of that. But instead of that, Cal had literally chased me down.

  I supposed that I should have seen this coming, or at least expected Cal not to sit idly by. He had never been a jerk. The only time he had been anything less than kind and considerate to me had been right after we’d had sex, when he had insisted that it was a mistake and that we could never do anything like that again. That rejection had stung, and for the first time in my life, I had felt something other than safe and comfortable with him.