Susan Mallery - Almost Perfect

She came with an explosion that made her gasp his name. Shudders of release claimed her. He touched her until she had drawn the last drop of pleasure, then caught her as she collapsed into his arms.

“It’s all right,” he whispered into her hair.

“Easy for you to say,” she murmured. “You’re not the one who’s naked.”

“I can change that.”

She looked into his dark eyes and smiled. “Would you?”

In the time it took her to get to her feet and walk to the bed, he had pulled off his clothes. Together they drew back the covers, then she patted the mattress.

“Right here,” she told him.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked, his eyes bright with humor and anticipation.

“Everything.”

LIZ AND ETHAN ARRIVED BACK AT her place about eight the following morning. If Denise suspected how they’d spent the night, she didn’t say anything.

“Everyone slept fine,” she relayed as she collected her purse.

“Did you?” Ethan asked.

“I did okay. I wanted to check on them a few times in the night, just to make sure no one was having nightmares.” She yawned. “All right. Maybe I didn’t exactly get my full eight hours. I’m heading home now. After church I plan to doze in my chair. It will be good practice for when I’m old.”

Ethan kissed her cheek. “You’ll never be old.”

“I wish.”

“Thanks for staying here,” Liz said, hugging her.

“After what you’d been through, you needed a break. I’m happy I could help.”

Sunday was a lazy day of strolling around town, followed by lunch and a movie. Ethan hung out with them. Liz did her best to act normal so none of the kids would suspect that she and Ethan had behaved like more than friends the night before. At least thinking about sex meant she didn’t have to think about her attacker.

Since she didn’t know what making love with Ethan had meant, there was no reason to talk about it. Not that she would anyway. But it was difficult not to think about it or try to assign various meanings to their time together. It was a bit stressful, so by Monday she was ready to have her life back.

Unfortunately, the town didn’t cooperate. She spent the day fielding visitors who stopped by to check on her. About ten-thirty, after her doorbell rang for the fifth time, she accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to get any work done. At least not that day.

She already had a collection of casseroles in the freezer, salads in the refrigerator and enough cookies to make the kids do the happy dance for weeks. When the doorbell rang again, she braced herself for yet another visit where they would discuss her stalker fan, relive the attack, her rescue and crow over the fact that because she’d been in Fool’s Gold when it had happened, all was well. She wasn’t expecting to find Dakota and Tyler on the porch.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Dakota held up a hand. “Don’t panic. Everything is fine. I was heading into town when Tyler said he wanted to come home and talk to you.”

Liz looked at her son. He stared more at the ground than her, but there was something about the set of his shoulders that made her worry.

“Okay. That’s fine.” She opened the door wider.

Dakota looked curious, but only said, “You can take him back to camp later if you want or have him stay home. Just phone the office and let us know which.”

“I will,” Liz promised.

Dakota waved and left.

Liz followed her son into the living room. Instead of sitting he turned to face her.

His dark eyes, so like Ethan’s, were bright with emotion. He pressed his lips together, as if gathering his thoughts, then spoke.

“You should have married Dad.”

She held in a groan. Not exactly a turn she expected the conversation to take, and not a concept she looked forward to explaining.

“Is this about what that woman said on Saturday?” she asked, doing her best to sound calm.

“Sort of. Parents get married.”

“Some do. Some don’t.”

Tyler glared at her. “I wanted to know my dad. I kept asking and asking and you wouldn’t tell me. You wouldn’t say anything. It’s not fair.” His voice escalated exponentially.

“Okay, if we’re going to have this conversation, we’re going to sit down and we’re going to speak calmly. If you’re going to get upset and yell, I’m not talking to you.”

“Fine,” he grumbled and collapsed on the sofa, his arms folded across his chest.

She sat on the coffee table in front of him, so they were facing each other.

“When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. I was only four years older than Melissa. Do you think she’s ready to be a mom?”

He shook his head but didn’t speak.

“I came back to tell your dad, but he was with someone else. A girl. And I was hurt and confused, so I left.”

“You should have stayed. You should have tried harder.”

“I know.”

“You should have,” Tyler repeated, his voice getting louder again. “He would have married you. I asked him and he said he would have married you. We would have been a family.”

She drew in a breath. “Tyler, please. I know you’re upset, but I meant what I said. I’m not having a screaming match with you.” Especially not about this.

She reached out to touch his hand, but he jerked it back. That hurt more than the questions, more than the accusations.

“He would have been my dad,” her son said more quietly.

What was she supposed to say to that? How could she explain?

“I was very young.”

“You keep saying that. I don’t care. You were wrong.” His eyes filled with tears. “You kept me from my dad.”

Which is what this was about.

How was she supposed to explain about hurt pride and a bruised heart? Maybe she didn’t.

“You’re right,” she said again softly. “I did keep you from him. That wasn’t my intent. I didn’t mean to hurt either of you, but that’s what happened and I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough.” A tear slipped down his cheek. He looked away. “I needed my dad and he wasn’t there.”

She thought about pointing out how she’d tried again five years ago, but fate, in the form of Rayanne, had intervened. Information Tyler would need at some point, but not now.

“I can’t change the past,” she stated, feeling sick to her stomach.

“He would have come to get me,” Tyler told her, his voice fierce with emotion. “He would have wanted me with him.” He turned to glare at her. “I want to live with him. I want to live with my dad and not you.”

HELL CAME IN THE FORM OF A pain that wouldn’t go away. Ethan’s rejection was nothing when compared with her only child telling her that he didn’t want to live with her anymore. It was as if Tyler reached into her chest and pulled out her still-beating heart and threw it in the trash. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. All she knew was that she couldn’t cry in front of him because it might upset him. An irrational, maternal response that came from instinct.

She stood, amazed that her legs still worked, then walked into the kitchen.

“Did you hear me?” he yelled, following her. “I don’t want to live with you. I want to live with my dad.”

Each breath sliced through her like a knife. She half expected to see blood pouring out of her body, pooling at her feet. It felt like she was dying. Truly no death could be worse.

After finding Denise’s phone number, she turned to Tyler.

“I heard you,” she said quietly. “I need to make a call, then we’re leaving.”

“I don’t want to go back to camp.”

“Good, because you’re not.” Liz couldn’t imagine making the drive. She was in no shape to negotiate the mountain road and surely shouldn’t be behind the wheel of anything dangerous.

She punched in the phone number, then waited until Ethan’s mother answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Denise. It’s Liz.”

“Oh, hi. How are you?”

Talk about a question she couldn’t answer. “I know it’s really short notice, but could you please take Tyler for a couple hours? He’s not sick or anything.”

“Of course. He’s not at camp?”

“Not right now. May I bring him over now?”

“Sure. Is everything all right?”

No. Nothing was all right. Nothing would ever be all right again. “May I bring him now?”

There was a pause. “I’ll be here.”

“Good.”

Liz grabbed her cell phone and her house keys.

“Let’s go,” she told Tyler and walked out of the house.

It took less than fifteen minutes to get to Denise’s place. Tyler didn’t speak and Liz was grateful. When they reached the welcoming home, she stopped on the sidewalk.

“Go on in,” she said. “I’ll wait here. I’ll be by to pick you up later.”

Her son, the child she had given birth to, worried over and loved with her whole heart, looked at her with angry eyes. “I want to live with my dad.”

“I got that.”

“I’ll run away if you don’t let me.”

More wounds, she thought sadly. More pain. A few short weeks ago she and Tyler had been so close. She would never have believed he could speak to her like this. That he would want to drive her out of his life. He was only eleven. How could he not love her?

The front door opened and Denise stood there. The other woman probably wanted to ask what was wrong, but instead she gave Liz an encouraging smile, then turned to Tyler.

“Hi. Have you had lunch?”

“I’m not hungry,” Tyler groused.

“Then we’ve got a problem because I just ordered a pizza.”

Tyler smiled slowly. “With pepperoni?”

“It’s not pizza if there’s no pepperoni.”

“Sweet!” He hurried up the walkway and entered the house.

Liz watched him go, waiting for him to turn around, and say something to her. To run to her, wrap his arms around her and tell her that he was sorry. He didn’t. He didn’t look back at all.

“Are you all right?” Denise asked.

Liz shook her head. “I have to go,” she said, struggling not to cry. “I’ll be back later.”

She hurried away.

Her arms folded, her shoulders hunched, she made her way to Ethan’s office. Now that Tyler was with Denise, Liz could allow herself to think about the man responsible for all this. The man who had turned her child from her.

It had been his plan from the beginning. She realized that now. He’d been angry and hurt and desperate to get what he wanted. She was in the way, and he’d been determined to make her irrelevant.

Why hadn’t she seen it? The truth was here-clearly visible in everything he did. Could reality be any bigger than the injunction? He’d played her from the beginning and she’d let him. She’d thought she was in love with him. Talk about stupid. Following her heart, letting herself trust and love again had cost her the only thing that had ever mattered.

Her son.

She pushed through the door into Ethan’s construction company. The receptionist at the front desk looked up and smiled.

“May I help you?”

“No,” Liz said and headed for Ethan’s private office.

The young woman got up and followed her. They reached Ethan’s door at about the same time.

“You don’t want to get in the middle of this,” Liz told her.

Ethan hung up the phone and stood. He took one look at Liz, then turned to the girl. “It’s all right, Cindy.”

Liz stepped into the office and carefully closed the door behind her. Now that she was here, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She’d thought she might want to throw things, to scream, to threaten. She’d worried if she had access to a weapon, she would use it. But all her energy was gone, bled away in the open wound of her missing heart.

“You don’t know what it means to love a child,” she said softly. “To be willing to die to protect him. Loving a child isn’t about winning. You don’t deserve him. But you can’t see that. You wanted to punish me. Well, congratulations. You have. You may think you’ve won, but you haven’t. Because for now, you’re a bright, shiny new toy. Eventually Tyler will see that. And then he’ll come home.”

At least that’s what she was telling herself with every breath. That her son would come back to her. That he would love her again. That he loved her now…still…he was just too angry to see it.

Ethan moved toward her, stopping in front of her. “What are you talking about?”

The question sounded genuine. He looked more confused than upset.

No. It was another trick. All of it. She couldn’t trust him. He was the enemy-she’d been the fool who’d forgotten that.

“Tyler told me that he wants to live with you,” she repeated flatly. “Don’t pretend this wasn’t part of your plan.”

“What?” Ethan took a step back. “Jesus, Liz. What are you saying? Tyler’s not living with me.”