A Love Surrendered (43 page)

“No problem, Brady.” Steven put two fingers to his teeth and whistled, halting all commotion. “Hey, anybody gonna say goodbye to their uncle?”

Cousins flew into the parlor, giggling while Steven kissed and tickled. Maggie asked for a hug, and the girls obliged. “She’s pretty,” Abby said, “but I miss Annie and Glory.”

The smile withered on Maggie’s face, and Steven hooked her close. “Annie and Glory spent Thanksgiving with their aunt Eleanor, but next year Glory’ll be with us and maybe Annie and Aunt Eleanor too.” Ruffling Abby’s curls, he gave Henry a Dutch rub. “You guys didn’t eat all the ice cream, I hope, because if you did, somebody’s going to pay.”

“We did!” they squealed, and Steven jumped up like he was going to chase ’em down.

Bedlam broke loose when cousins shrieked out the front door just as Gabe thundered down the steps. “Steven,” she shouted, latching her coat on the way out, “make sure Pop
knows it was Henry who blew ice-cream bubbles out of his pipe, okay? Bye!”

Sean sauntered through the kitchen door, pipe in hand and a crooked smile on his face. “Good thing Pop likes butter pecan, or Henry could be in big trouble.” Setting Patrick’s pipe by his chair, Sean strolled to the front door to put on his jacket, flashing a warm smile. “Great meeting you, Maggie.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Don’t let Steven coerce you into mopping up—it’s no place for a lady. G’night, all.”

The door slammed shut like a vault, leaving nothing but silence and air that was hard to breathe. Steven popped up, preferring to deal with his mother’s sticky kitchen instead of Maggie’s sticky question. He squeezed her hand. “Mags, put your feet up and relax while I clean up, okay?” He paused. “You want anything? Coffee, soda, water?”

“You?” she whispered with a shy tilt of her head. She twined her fingers in his and pulled him back down.

“Maggie, I—”

She kissed him, and the familiar taste of her mouth reminded him how this very attraction had altered their lives. He pulled back to stroke her cheek. “Mags, I need to get the kitchen cleaned up and then walk you home. Unless you want to call Frailey since I don’t have a car?”

“No . . . walking’s fine.” She hesitated, peeking up beneath sooty lashes. “Steven?”

“Mmm?” He brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said softly, blue eyes locked with his. “I know you had feelings for Annie or you wouldn’t have dated her, but . . .” She swallowed hard. “You care about me too, right? Enough to make this marriage work?”

He smiled, his eyes softening as he studied her. “I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me, Mags, if I didn’t. Nobody’s that noble.”

Her smile wavered. “Oh, I don’t know—you seem to be.” She tilted her head, her gaze fragile. “You’ve changed a lot,
Steven. There was a time you couldn’t keep your hands off me.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But I was wrong, and I regret it.” He leaned in to graze his lips against hers. “But trust me, Mags, the chemistry’s still there.”

“But I need to be sure,” she whispered, eyes clouded with insecurity.

He stared, the pull of attraction there to a faint degree, but nothing like it once was. His gaze flicked to her full lips before he slowly leaned in to take her mouth with his, reminding himself that Maggie, not Annie, was the mother of his child and would soon be his wife. His mind clung to the thought, but when she deepened the kiss, alarm curled in his stomach. He nudged her back. “Come on, Mags—I want to keep this aboveboard till we’re married.”

She sat up with a hurt crimp of brows. “But we’ll be married in less than a month, Steven, and all I’m asking for is a few kisses. And it’s not like we haven’t been intimate before.”

He drew in a deep breath. “That was then, Maggie, this is now. I want this marriage to work for Glory’s sake and ours, which means we do it God’s way, period.”

She blinked. “God? Since when are you interested in—” Her eyes flared wide. “Wait—this has to do with Annie, doesn’t it? She got to you, didn’t she?”

He sighed and rubbed her arms. “I won’t lie—Annie’s been a positive influence. She started me thinking about God in a way I never have before, and it’s changed my life.” He lifted her chin, gaze gentle. “Which is why I want to marry you. Yes, I care about you, and yes, I’m still attracted to you, but Glory deserves two parents who love her and you deserve a man you can trust.” He drew in a fortifying breath. “A man who promised to marry you when you gave him your all. I didn’t honor my promise then, but I intend to now for Glory and for you.”

Her eyes drifted closed. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

He was tempted to lie, but he knew he couldn’t. Not anymore. “That’s not important.”

“It is to me!” Her eyes blazed open, fire and pain burning in their depths. “Are you?”

He studied her, loathe to hurt her but unwilling to deny the truth. “I was on my way.”

Hand to her eyes, her body crumpled with a heave, and he scooped her up, head bent to hers as he kneaded her back. “Maggie, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” she rasped. With a violent shudder, she angled her chin. “Does she love you?”

“I . . . don’t know . . . ,” he said, quite sure Annie probably hated him by now—he certainly would. He’d left it to Maggie to explain the situation, avoiding Annie ever since.

“You do know!” she screamed, tears ravaging her face. “Don’t lie to me, Steven. Annie said you and she were just dating and nothing more, but I have to know—does-she-love-you?”

He stared for several seconds. “You have to ask her.”

She shook his arms, teeth clenched. “I’m asking you!”

He paused. A muscle quivered in his cheek. “I think so.”

She sagged back on the couch with a hand to her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, gripping her arms. “All that matters is you, me, and Glory.”

A shiver rippled as she shook her head. “It does matter,” she whispered. “I love my sister, Steven, and I’m not a monster.”

“No, Glory is the only thing that matters now,” he said quietly. “Everything else is insignificant next to our daughter.”

A low moan trailed from Maggie’s lips as her shoulders slumped into a sob. “Not ‘our’ daughter, Steven,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, “mine.”

His blood stilled to a crawl. “What do you mean?” he said, voice hoarse.

She looked up then, and he saw it all—her love for him, her grief, her shame. “I lied because I need you, and yes, I care for you . . . but you’re not Glory’s father.”

He shot up, fury stuttering his words. “W-what?”

Bolting to her feet, she grasped his arm. “I thought . . . that if you still cared for me, maybe, just maybe, we could try again and make a home for Glory.” She moved in close, slipping shaky hands to his waist. “Steven, I only did it because I love you . . .”

He flung her arms away, eyes burning with fury. “By lying and manipulating? God help Glory with a mother like you! And to think I almost made you my wife.”

“It’s not like that,” she cried, her voice almost shrill. “I was angry at Annie for betraying me and angry at you for telling me the past was dead and gone, because for me . . . ,” her eyes met his, brimming with tears, “it isn’t, Steven. I could tell you still cared and I certainly knew you were still attracted to me, so I just . . . ,” she drew in a shaky breath, “stretched the truth a bit.”

“Stretched-the-truth-a-bit?” he enunciated tersely. His jaw sagged in disbelief before it went to rock. “You can’t stretch what you don’t have, Maggie.”

She rubbed her arms, eyes desperate. “I would have never done it if you told me you loved Annie, Steven, but you didn’t, and then you proposed—”

“Because you tricked me!” he railed. He paced, bile thick in his throat, then wheeled around. “What kind of woman are you anyway?”

“A desperate one, in love with my daughter!” She moved to where he stood, a tic pulsing in his jaw. “You said you still cared, Steven, and I care about you too, and you said you didn’t love Annie, so I just thought . . .” She shuddered, avoiding his gaze. “What did I have to lose?”

“Oh, I don’t know—your self-respect?” He clenched his hands for fear he would shake her. “Why would you do that to your own sister if you knew she loved me?”

“Because she told me she didn’t!” she screamed, fingers quivering when she pushed the hair from her face. She closed her eyes, shoulders slumping as she turned away. “And because I wanted to be a mother to Glory,” she whispered, “and I c-can’t do that a-alone.”

She started to weep, and he felt his fury fade, but he wasn’t willing to let it go.

Not yet.

Striding to where she stood, he gripped her, her tears finally softening his hold. He willed his body to settle down, forcing his temper to calm. “Maggie, we’ll get through this somehow,” he said stiffly, “but not before you tell me the truth.” He lifted her chin with a firm finger, muscles twitching his jaw. “Who’s the father?” he breathed.

She shook her head and tried to back away. “It’s not you, Steven, so why do you care?”

He jerked her back. “Blast it, Maggie, I care about Glory, and God help me, I don’t know why, but I care about you too.” He sucked in a halting breath, compelling himself to relax. He lowered his voice. “We were going to be married, Mags, I was going to be Glory’s father. I have a right to know who it was and when it happened.” He thought of Glory, and his heart wrenched, forcing a crack in his voice. “I
need
to know if there’s the slightest chance Glory can know her father.” A thought struck, and the air thinned in his chest.
Please, God, not Brubaker or Brannock
, he thought, painfully aware Maggie had flirted with both to make him jealous.

Body wavering, she stared, lids rimmed red and despair bleeding from her eyes. He steadied her with a gentle hold, watching as her lips opened and closed.

His heart thudded in his chest while he massaged her arms. “We’ll get you through this, Mags, I promise . . . but first I need to know.” He drew in a deep breath and took her hands in his, encouraging her with a light squeeze. “Who is it?” he asked quietly.

Her jaw trembled as she pressed a kiss to his palm, eyes raw with pain. “Oh, Steven, please don’t hate me.” Her gaze dropped as if she couldn’t bear to witness his reaction, but not before he saw the truth in her eyes.

Joe.

18

S
o, help me, Walsh, you’re a dead man.
Steven latched the iron gate of Aunt Eleanor’s Georgian brownstone and stared at the house where two sisters resided for whom he cared deeply—one he’d planned to marry and one he now hoped he could. He noted all windows were dark, which was to be expected long after midnight. Burying his hands in his pockets, he headed north to Washington Street where his partner lived, the best friend who’d betrayed him with the woman he’d loved. His jaw hardened as he picked up his pace, wounded that Joe never told him how he’d felt about Maggie. Since they’d traded baseball cards in the first grade, he and Joe confided in each other about
everything—
everything but Maggie, it seemed—and Steven felt the sting deep in his soul.

The wind whipped at his unbuttoned coat, but he didn’t feel the cold. He was too hot at Joe to even notice, and God knows he needed to cool down. He’d always known Maggie and Joe were close, even spending time together when Steven couldn’t, but he hadn’t known
how
close. After he’d raged and ranted, he and Maggie had talked for hours before he walked her home. He soon discovered she’d turned to Joe when Steven broke up with her in their sophomore year. His
lip curled. A real friend in need: comforting her, supporting her.

Loving her
.

Steven never meant the breakup to last for long. He’d only wanted to give Maggie some of her own after she’d flirted and done God knows what else with both Brubaker and Brannock to make him jealous. The two guys he hated most in the world, and Maggie knew it, letting them paw and parade her like some prize trophy. Like she belonged to them, but she didn’t. She belonged to Steven, body and soul, and he belonged to her. But in a jealous rage to teach her a lesson, he’d taunted her with Erica, and he and Maggie had paid the price.

And soon, Walsh.

Maggie had left Boston, and Steven had been sick with missing her, his love as potent as the hard grain alcohol that flowed through his veins when he tried to forget her. Looking back, he remembered Joe being in a funk too, but then he and Joe were so close they seemed to share everything—highs, lows, moods, failings.
And my girlfriend, apparently.
It should be Steven marrying Maggie, but now that was impossible. Glory needed her father, not her father’s best friend, and Steven was going to make sure Joe Walsh owned up to his responsibilities.

Tonight.

He turned the corner, ignoring a group coming out of Brannigan’s, loud and lewd and obviously drunk, no matter the law. Something hitched in his chest, and he realized it was a strange mix of regret and gratitude. Regret because that once had been him . . . and gratitude because it no longer was. Maggie came to mind, and his heart ached for all they’d been through, but he vowed to be there for her even if it wasn’t as her husband. He didn’t envy her telling Annie the truth, but she’d promised she would in the morning, and his heart skipped a beat.

Annie.
The little girl he’d looked down on, the “kid still wet behind the ears,” had become the woman who’d set the little
boy in him free . . . to become the man he’d always hoped to be. A faint smile softened the hard line of his lips. A man now able to love the kind of woman he’d always longed to have. A woman who not only changed his life for the better but that of everyone she knew, from Glory to Aunt Eleanor . . . and now Maggie. The tightness in his chest eased a bit. Part of the reason Maggie had confessed, she said, was because she’d seen something in her sister that struck hard—kindness, honesty, selflessness—things she’d seldom seen in the starstruck world of Hollywood. And, oddly enough, things she’d begun to crave. She’d been baffled when she sensed the same in Steven, a decency that drew her, and she was stunned to realize she wanted what they had.
Even
if it meant giving up one for the other.

A wavering sigh parted from his lips as he hurried up the steps of Joe’s mom’s perfectly groomed three-decker home, a few streets over from Steven’s in the Southie neighborhood of Boston. Steven had spent as much time on this front porch as he had his own, poring over comic books and playing Mysto Magic, and the memories suddenly thickened in his throat. Joe was the best friend he’d ever had, a brother in every way but blood, and Steven knew he’d forgive him.

Eventually.

He rammed his finger to the doorbell and waited, grateful Mrs. Walsh, a near-deaf widow since a year ago May, would never even wake up. But Joe would, and Steven badgered the button again, fresh adrenaline pumping over what he’d done to Maggie.

The porch light went on, and the door wheeled open. Joe blinked through slits, his stubble as dark as the glare in hazel eyes now blackened to brown. “What the devil are you doing, O’Connor?” he groaned, his voice gruff with sleep. He swiped a hand across a sleeveless T-shirt to scratch a muscular chest matted with sandy hair, then cocked a hip, feet bare beneath plaid pajama bottoms. “For crying out loud, it’s past one in the morning.”

“Outside, Walsh,” Steven ordered, the sight of his half-clad “best friend” boiling his blood when thoughts of him with Maggie flashed through his mind. “Now!”

The scowl on Joe’s face faded into confusion as he opened the screen door. “Don’t be stupid, Steven, come inside and tell me what’s wrong.”

Steven jerked the front of Joe’s T-shirt and yanked him outside before slamming him to the wall. “Twenty years we’ve been friends, Walsh, and we swore no secrets, but you didn’t keep that promise, did you, Joe?”

Joe shoved him away hard, thrusting Steven against the newel post of the porch banister. He was fully awake now, thick arms corded and ready to take Steven on. “What the devil are you talking about, O’Connor? Are you drunk?”

“Nope, dead sober.” Hands itching hot, he bulldozed him to the wall again, two-fisting his shirt to pin him with fire in his eyes. “Just like I was when Maggie told me you slept with her.”

Joe froze. Even in the dim lighting, Steven saw the blood siphon from his face as his body went slack. Lids shuttering closed, he lowered his head when Steven flung him away, sagging against the wall with a hand to his eyes. “Why’d she have to tell you?” he whispered, his voice hoarse with shame. “It was only one time, Steven, and it was a mistake.”

“I’ll say, Walsh. A life-shattering one—
yours
.”

He looked up then, eyes glazed with anguish, and Steven saw the truth in his face—the torment of a man who loved both his best friend and the woman between them. Like a zombie, Joe lumbered to the far side of the porch, dropping onto the wooden swing where he and Steven ate Good Humor bars in the summer while they traded comic books and army men. He bent as if he were an old man, shoulders stooped and face in his hands. Moving to the railing, Steven eased down on the handrail, arms crossed as he waited for him to speak. When he did, his voice was so broken and low, Steven had to strain to hear it.

“I . . . never,
ever
intended that to happen, Steven, I swear. We were just friends . . .”

Steven grunted, biting back a curse but not his anger. “Friends don’t sleep together, Walsh, nor stab their best friend in the back.”

“Blast it, O’Connor, I know that,” he hissed, head jerking up and eyes ablaze. “You think this has been easy for me? Knowing I betrayed you both, the friend I’d go to the mat for and the woman I craved? I’ve died a thousand times over what happened that night, despising myself for being a man so in love with my best friend’s girl I was willing to be her best friend too, just to be near her.” He sank back into the swing, arms limp as he wandered off into a glassy stare. “But all she ever wanted was you, and I swear, Steven, if it’d been any other man, I would have bloodied him.” He glanced up then, resignation sagging every muscle in his face. “But I knew she deserved better than me, and it didn’t take a quarter of the brains in my head to figure out that was you. You were always the smart one, the kid the teachers loved, and that blasted guy girls always went crazy for.” A sheen of moisture glimmered in his eyes while a muscle jerked in his throat. “But I love you like a brother, Steven, and I swear I never intended for that to happen . . . nor saw it coming.”

Steven exhaled slowly, his anger finally drifting out with a billow of air that collided with the cool of the night. “How
did
it happen?” he said quietly.

Joe sucked in a deep breath and massaged the bridge of his nose, his voice as flat and dead as the wood banister Steven straddled. “Maggie didn’t act like it in front of you, but she was devastated when you guys broke up. I can’t tell you how many nights she cried, and I always gave her a shoulder to cry on and nothing else, I swear.” He hung his head, avoiding Steven’s eyes as he peered at the floor. “Until the night she saw you kissing Erica at the Pier.” He shook his head, grief weighting his features. “I’d never seen her like that before—depressed, crazy, ready to rip Erica’s eyes out. So I got her
out of there fast. Pop lent me his car that night, so I planned to drive her back to the dorm, only . . .” He licked his lips, fingers fidgeting on the wood slats of the swing. “I was scared because she was talking crazy, acting like she was going to hurt herself to get your attention, and I . . . I wanted to stay . . . make sure she was okay, you know? Only she was bent on drinking to forget and begged me for some of that giggle water you and I stashed, so we drove to Lover’s Landing because that’s where she wanted to go.”

Steven closed his eyes, guilt stabbing.
The same parking spot, the same car as our first time . . .

Joe inhaled and the air shuddered from his body as he glanced up, sorrow wet in his eyes. “The truth is, we got plastered, Steven, literally fried to the hat, and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew . . . ,” his Adam’s apple shifted while his voice trailed low, “we’re waking up the next morning in the backseat of the car, guilty, awkward, and sick to our stomachs.” The edge of his lip crooked. “And I mean literally—Maggie threw up all over me and Pop’s car.”

“Good,” Steven said, fighting to stay mad. His eyes went hard. “So who made the first pass, Walsh—you or her?”

He hesitated and swallowed hard, his face creased and riddled with hurt. “She did, Steven, but I suspected all along she only did it to make you pay and I know I should have stopped it, all of it—the Landing, the booze, the necking in the car.”

“The baby?”

The word hissed from his lips before he could bite it back, and he may as well have spit in Joe’s face. The whites of his eyes splayed wide while his jaw went slack, and his skin leeched as pasty as if he’d just come off that drunk he’d had with Maggie.

“What?” It was a rasp, shallow and harsh. “What are you talking about?”

Steven stared, and suddenly he no longer saw the buddy who’d slept with his girl but the best friend who’d shared his
lunch, his toy soldiers, and his comic books for most of his life. The kid he took a bullet for when Joe ruined his father’s tie in a magic trick gone awry, and the kid who’d slammed Wilbur Morrison to the ground after he blackened Steven’s eye. They were as close to family as two boys could be, mingling blood via an army knife in a pup tent in the Walshes’ backyard. Steven’s heart twisted as he swallowed the emotion in his throat, the slice of the blade then as sharp as the blade that severed them now—as brothers, partners, and friends who shared everything but this.

Fatherhood.

And yet, somehow, Steven shared his pain.

Heart heavy, Steven moved to sit on the far end of the swing, head bent and hands clasped on knees splayed wide. He felt Joe’s stare burning into his profile and exhaled, eyes fixed on the spindles in the wraparound porch. “Think about it, Joe,” he whispered. “Maggie went away for a year shortly after that.” He looked over then, meeting Joe’s gaze, empathy burning in his chest. “She had a baby girl in California, and she told me it was mine, which is why I proposed.” He turned to peer out into the brisk night studded with stars, squinting up into the sky. “Made me promise not to say anything to any of my friends till we got married, especially you.”

The weathered wood of the swing groaned when Joe slumped back. Sweat glazed his forehead like the shock that glazed his eyes, and when his fingers rose to absently press at his temples, they quivered as much as Steven’s insides at the thought of what lay ahead for his best friend.

His touch to Joe’s shoulder produced no reaction as Joe continued in a blank stare, breathing ragged.

Steven gripped his arm. “Joe, you need to know your daughter’s in Boston.”

That did the trick. Joe’s head jerked up, mouth gaping so wide, it could have been a yawn. “What?” Every muscle in his face seemed to work at the same time, cheek twitching, lip quivering, and a spasm in his temple that matched the
one in his eyes. His voice was a rasp tinged with awe. “M-my daughter? In B-boston?”

“Yeah,” Steven said quietly, cuffing his shoulder. “She’s a great kid, Joe, so much life and fun, she’s a true chip off the old block.”

Moisture stung Steven’s lids when a flash of tears brimmed in Joe’s eyes. “Y-you . . . you’ve s-seen her?” he whispered, his throat working hard to push the words from his tongue.