A Father's Sacrifice. Karen Sandler
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shook his head. “I can’t.” His blue gaze burned into hers. “We have to talk.”
She knew that, yet her stomach clenched. “Okay.”
He looked down at his hands as if surprised they were empty, then lifted his gaze to her again. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs. Asleep.”
“How old…” He swallowed, his throat working. “When was he…” A glance away, then back at her. “Are you sure—”
“He’s yours, Jameson. I’m positive.”
An incautious joy lit his face for an instant before he squelched it again. “Tell me…tell me how…what happened? We used—”
“A condom. I know.” It had been the only flash of good sense in the whole encounter. She’d had condoms in her nightstand and they’d stopped their headlong passion long enough to put one on. “They were old. That’s my only guess as to why it didn’t work.”
He nodded, taking it in. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her hand gripped the edge of the table. “You know the answer to that, Jameson. You were gone. Vanished. By the time word filtered back to us about what had happened, you were convicted of manslaughter.”
The pain in his face was nearly unbearable to witness. “If I had known—”
“What could you have done? How would anything have been different?”
Something flickered in his wary blue gaze. “It might not have changed anything. But I might have—” He cut the words off, looking away briefly. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”
“Water under the bridge,” she said, wondering if he would remember.
The taut line of his mouth eased fractionally into a faint smile. “Your mom forgave a lot with those four little words.”
“Mom figures everyone deserves a chance.”
His smile faded as his expression turned bleak. “And you? How much are you willing to forgive?”
She didn’t answer, but Jameson didn’t expect she would. The question was unfair, anyway. His transgressions had gone beyond the absolution of the most forgiving of hearts. And beyond those sins, the potential of his father’s legacy still lurked.
Rubbing at her arms, her gaze strayed to the lone table still filled with dirty dishes. “I have to finish closing up. I don’t like leaving Nate too long by himself.”
“Let me help.”
She wanted to say no; he could see it in her face. She forced a smile. “Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll get the dishes.”
She nodded, then stepped around the front counter behind the register. Producing a set of keys, she headed for the door and locked it. After flipping the sign in the window, she shut off the front lights. The whole time she kept her back to him, giving him the clear impression she wished him gone.
But they still had plenty to resolve and he wasn’t leaving until they’d talked everything out. Guilt dug at him that his first instinct had been to run, but he’d gotten his head on straight quick enough and he was determined to take responsibility. He welcomed it.
He quickly cleared the table, stacked the dishes efficiently and carried them back to the dishwasher. The stack filled the rest of the rack that Nina had started. He shoved the rack into the dishwasher, started the cycle, then dumped the dirty flatware into a rack for the next load.
He heard the beeps of the register as Nina rang out the day’s sales. He could see her shoulder and the curve of her hip through the kitchen doorway and he let himself relive the brief unforgettable moment of their kiss. Right then, he would have given another four years of his life to kiss her again.
Once he’d pulled the sterilized rack from the dishwasher and shut the doors on the flatware, he headed back out front. Nina was counting up the register, credit card slips in a neat pile next to currency of varying denomination.
He waited until she’d counted through the tens in her hands and noted the total on the daily receipts sheet, then he stepped into her line of sight. “We’re not finished.”
She compressed her lips and a dimple formed in the corner of her mouth. He remembered tasting that tiny depression, laving it with his tongue. He shut down his thoughts, focused on Nate, his future.
She sighed. “Yes.”
“Who knows I’m his father?”
“No one,” she told him flatly.
“You must have told your parents.”
She shook her head. “Not even them.”
A dull ache centered inside him. “What about Nate?”
She met his gaze. “I told him you lived somewhere else and you couldn’t come to visit.”
Nothing but the truth. Still, it cut deep. “And now that I’m here? What do we tell him?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had thirty seconds to even think about it.”
“We don’t have to tell him about prison. Not yet.”
Her dark brown eyes flashed. “We don’t have to tell him anything!”
“Fine. Other than that I’m his father—”
“I’m not telling him that.”
He thought he would explode with anger. “The hell you won’t!”
“He’s only four. He won’t understand.”
“He’ll understand that much.” Tamping down his ire, he took a step toward her, risked a hand on her shoulder. “Nina, please…”
He felt resistance, as if she wanted to shrug off his hand. She took a breath, let the contact remain. “What do you want, Jameson? To let the world know you’re his father, then head off down the road? You said you want to stay, but how long will that last?”
How could he answer that, when he hadn’t even worked it through in his own mind? “He needs to know who his father is.”
She nodded, a bare concession. “I think you’re right. But it will break his heart to meet his father, then be abandoned.”
“I won’t abandon him.”
The beginning of tears glimmered in her eyes. “How do I know that, Jameson?”
What could he say to her, what could he promise? His own father was such a sorry excuse for a man. He might not have followed in his father’s footsteps, but he had his own trail of failure. How could he prove to Nina he could change, that he could be the kind of dad Nate deserved?
What burst into his brain, half formed and half crazy, he should have rejected out of hand. Even if he had the courage to say it out loud, she’d never agree. It was a fantasy anyway, something that worked for people like the Russos, but for a man like him, happily ever after was a joke. Especially with the possibility he was more like his father than he wanted to believe.
But this wasn’t for him. This was for Nate. He’d discovered he had a son and he would damn well do everything he could to build him a better life than he’d had.
He swallowed against a desert-dry throat, taking a deep ragged breath. His gaze locked with Nina’s, he tightened his hand on her shoulder.
And forced the words out. “Marry me.”
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