Burn For You (Boys of the South) (23 page)

I flop onto my back. “Answer it.”

Staring at the wall while Landry gets out of bed and answers the phone, I go over my schedule. Today, I’ll be up against Pierre Gaston, a three-time Grand Prix champion. He’s a good driver, aggressive, and not afraid to chance it in tight places. He’s also a sort of a hometown favorite, so I have my work cut out for me.

All in all, it should be an amazing pre-run. I grin, tucking my hands behind my head.

“She wants to talk to you.” Landry holds out her phone over my face. “I’ll go get Mia dressed and see if the chef is here yet.”

I take the phone, but before I can kiss Landry, she’s out of the room. At least she has on a robe, and not the one she wore last night, so our personal chef won’t get a show.

“What?” I growl into the phone.

“Now that doesn’t sound like a man who spent the night satisfying his woman,” Paisley says.

“Say what you need. I got things to do.”

“Mia needs to come home.
Now
.”

“No. You agreed to one month. It’s been three weeks,” I point out.

“I don’t care,” she snaps. “Mia is my daughter. I want her.”

“She’s not a thing, damn it.”

“Yeah, and she’s not something you play house with either.”

“Fuck you,” I say, losing my patience. “We’ll come home, when we come home, and not a minute sooner.”

“I’m sick, Beau.”

“No shit,” I say with a laugh, shaking my head. “I’m so tired of your bullshit. You only want Mia, because I’m with Landry.”

“Isn’t that special,” Paisley coos. “Have you let her take your virginity, or are you saving it for your wedding night? You’ll look ravishing in white. Hmm, maybe pink is more your color.”

I grind my teeth and sit up in bed. “A virgin? Honey, I recall fucking you for so hard that you couldn’t walk the next day. Then we did it all over again. Hell, you even let me replace that stick up your ass with something bigger, and I don’t remember you saying anything but, “Fuck me harder, Beau.” So don’t talk to me about saving anything.”

“Is that an invitation for more, lover boy?” Paisley purrs. “All this reminiscing has all me hot and bothered. And you are much, much bigger than Austin. Maybe I should fly out and see you.”

I bang the heel of my hand against my head.
Shit.
I let myself be drawn in. I have to end this now.

“You heard what I said, and you already agreed. Deal with it.” I end the call and toss the phone, only to realize that Landry is standing at the end of the bed, holding my daughter.

“Breakfast is ready,” is all she says as I stand up. I reach for her, but she backs away. Her eyes are huge and her lips are pale.

Mia reaches for me, almost swan diving out of Landry’s arms. “Let me take her for you.” I grab my daughter and kiss her head. “Morning, sweet pea.”

“Did you mean what you said to Paisley?”

Oh, please let her have just heard the part about me telling Paisley to deal with it. I’d rather she think I was an asshole than I still have a hard-on for my ex. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Paisley gets something up her tail every now and then.”

Wrong thing to say.

Landry’s brows rise almost to her hairline. “I, um... could you please warn me the next time the two of you want to talk about what y’all did in the past?”

“You don’t understand—”

“You’re right. I don’t understand at all.” Her gaze goes to the floor. “I think you and Paisley still have a lot to work out.”

“We have nothing to work out, beyond custody agreements.”

Landry’s gaze snaps to mine. “Then take her to court so you don’t have to keep doing this.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t, that’s why.” I will her to be as understanding as she was last night.

––––––––

L
andry

“Let me in,” I demand. “Help me understand the hold she has over you. Please. If you care anything about me, then you’ll be honest.”

His jaw works, and for the first time, I can see a hint of embarrassment on his face.  “I put up with Paisley like I do, because I’m afraid she won’t let me see Mia.”

“She can’t do that,” I say with a shake of my head. “You’re Mia’s dad,”

He places Mia in the middle of his bed. I hand her the bottle I brought with me, and she begins to drink it.

He makes a sort of grunting/laughing sound. “I’m sure she’ll tell the world before long.”

Dread drops like a rock into my stomach. “Tell the world what?”

His beautiful gray eyes close briefly, and when they open again, they are full of pain. “I don’t know if Mia’s mine.”

“I don’t understand,” I say lamely, though I know exactly what he meant.

He rubs his face with his hands, obviously struggling to get his frustration under control. “Paisley and I weren’t an exclusive couple when she got pregnant. Is that explanation enough?”

I nod quickly, wanting to stop him from explaining anything else. My mind whirls. He’s taking care of a child who may or may not be his? Who would do that, except for a man in love enough to overlook something like that?

Tears pool in my eyes, and then fall on my cheeks.

“Say something, instead of looking at me with those big eyes,” he growls. “Say something instead of crying. I hate to see you cry, especially when I’m the reason for it.”

“I’m not crying for me. I’m crying for you.” I turn my gaze on Mia, lying in the bed, drinking her bottle and oblivious to everything. “I’m crying for her.”

His hands are suddenly on me, turning me to face him. “Then you understand.”

––––––––

B
eau

“I understand that the two of you need to grow the hell up and work things out for Mia’s sake.” Landry jerks herself out of my grasp. “Better come downstairs soon, before your French toast gets cold.”

“You had the chef make French toast for me?”

She pauses by the door. “It’s Saturday. I wanted to surprise you.”

I watch her walk away, and then join my daughter on the bed. She crawls to me, bottle hanging out of her mouth by the nipple. “Ouch.” Then I blink. “You crawled. Holy shit, sweet pea, you crawled.”

I grab her and kiss her milk covered face. “Landry,” I shout.

Landry’s footsteps echo up the hall. She bursts into the room. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I say, placing Mia on the bed again. I lay down beside her. “Watch this.”

Slowly but surely, Mia sticks the bottle in her mouth, lets it hang, and then crawls to me.

“Ahh!” Landry squeals and claps, jumping on the bed with us. “You did it. Oh my gosh, Beau, she did it.” Then that sexy woman kisses my daughter, me, and then Mia again. “I’m so proud of you.”

“She looks a little weird crawling like that, but—”

“She’s just like her daddy, doing it her own way,” Landry says firmly.

The room gets all hushed as I realize what she says and now knows. My cheeks heat, and I duck my head. “You don’t have to—”

“Just.” Kiss. “Like” Kiss. “Her.” Kiss. “Daddy.” Landry sits back with a satisfied look her on her face. “Don’t make me lick you for emphasis.”

“Tonight, I’m feeding you dessert in bed, and that’s a promise,” I tell her.

Satisfied gives way to one of her dreamy smiles. “Dessert in bed. That sounds perfect.”

T
he next
day gets off to a horrible start. Mia stayed up crying half the night with some kind of stomachache and I couldn’t help Landry tend to her, because I had to be ready to leave at seven a.m..

I barely slept, because I felt so guilty. And to top it off, because of some scheduling conflict, the race has been moved up to tomorrow.

Now Remington’s here, and one of the eight thousand lights that shouldn’t stay on after I turn over the engine, won’t shut off.

“Want me to take a look at that?” he asks.

Yvette looks from me to him, a glimmer of a smile on her face. She motions one of the paparazzi over. “Take a picture with Father Montgomery.”

With a forced smile, I stand beside Remington and let the cameras do their thing. As soon as they are gone, I go right back to my car while my pit crew works on the engine.

“Simmer down, Beau. A Montgomery never lets them see him sweat.”

“Did you just rip off a woman’s deodorant slogan?”

“Smelled right at the time.”

I roll my eyes. “I thought you knew to stay away.”

He tugs on his hat. “That’s always been a problem of mine—staying away.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” I start to walk away, but Remington grabs me by the arm.

“You will hear it.”

I throw my arms up in frustration. “I’m all ears.”

“I met your mother after Judith and I filed for divorce.” He sits down in a nearby chair and motions for me to do the same. Since I can’t help the pit crew and I want to get this over with as soon as possible, I join him.

“I loved your mother. You should know that,” he says, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “I loved Judith too, but my wild ways were too much for her, so she sent me packing.”

“So it’s Judith’s fault, or my mother’s?”

“It was mine.”

I try not to let the surprise show on my face. “Roni was a beautiful woman, full of herself and funny as hell. She’d just come off a tour with Desert Storm.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that.”

“Anyway, the two of us—” He whistles. “It was explosive, crazy. That woman wrung me out to dry more times than I can count, and I kept coming back for more. Then she got pregnant with you.”

“So you quit coming around.”

Remington nods. “For a while, I did. I already had a boy at home I needed to look after. It didn’t seem right to neglect him.”

Of course, he couldn’t neglect Chase, the golden one. “Good for you.”

“Look, this is coming out all wrong, and I know I’m going to make this sound all wrong too, but Roni had a lot of problems that had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with what she saw over in Iraq. Bad enough what it does to a man, but to a woman... most people like the whole everybody’s made the same bullshit, but the fact is, we’re not. Men are made for war, for hard labor, and for all the dirty crap in the world so our women don’t have to deal with that shit.”

I take off my hat and set it on my knee, looking everywhere but at him. “A lot of people would disagree with you.”

“A lot of people can kiss my ass. It’s bad enough our boys come home fucked up, worse when a woman comes home that way.”

“So you’re saying that despite everything being your fault, that it was really Judith’s for trying to divorce you, and my mother’s for suffering from PTSD?”

“I’m saying that what I did was wrong, but I didn’t make your mother take her own life. She’d taken up with another when that happened, and it was his baby, not mine.”

I grit my teeth, staring at the track now. “Jesus. Not that bullshit story.”

“It’s the damn truth. I had a vasectomy after Walker. I’m shooting blanks, son, and have been for years.”

My gaze jerks to his. “Why do want me to believe this so badly? You have two other sons already. Go make their life miserable.”

Remington’s eyes cloud up. “Haven’t you had someone that meant the world to you, but no matter what you did or said, it didn’t make a difference? Yet, you kept trying.”

I swallow, tapping my fingers on my leg. Yeah, I knew how that felt. I’d put up with it for five long years, and then again after Mia was born. But this wasn’t the same.

“You know what the definition of stupidity is—trying the same thing over and over while getting identical results each time.”

“That’s not—”

“You know what the hell I mean. For once in your life, just say I’m sorry, Beau, and be done with it.” I jump to my feet and start to stride away. “All these woe-is-me stories just piss me the hell off.”

“I’m sorry, Beau.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I keep walking.

“Did you hear me—I’m sorry for ruining your life. Roni’s, too.”

I pause. “I heard you.”

“And?”

I let Remington stew a bit before I answer. “It’s a start.”

I
dress
Mia in a frilly red and white polka-dotted dress with a matching hat, then take a picture to text to Paisley and Beau. 

Beau immediately responds while Paisley, normally first, stays silent.

I frown and finish putting the touches on my makeup. Another fluff of my hair, and I smooth down the dark red dress I’m wearing. It has spaghetti straps, hugs me in places that normally I’d say no way to, but Beau had really, really liked it—if the way his mouth had dropped when I tried it on before he left had been any indication.

And he said it matched the color of his car.

Something I’m guessing is not an accident, since Yvette is the one who sent it over to me, along with matching shoes that are made by Valentino.

There’s a knock on the door. After scooping up Mia and her diaper bag, I head outside to the waiting limo. It doesn’t take us long at all to get to the VIP section, though the streets are crowded.

Judith and Remington are waiting for us when we arrive. Judith kisses my cheek and takes Mia while Remington nods and throws back a shot.

Grateful she doesn’t mention the night I came home a mess, I look around the private box, noting the luxurious accommodation, the sumptuous banquet of food, and the Romanov Industries logo.

“Go enjoy the race, Landry. I’ll watch Mia for you,” Judith says. “They supplied everything we could need for her.”

Sure enough, there’s a high chair, portable crib, a play gym, and tons of toys. “Wow.”

Judith waves me on. “Go, go. The race is about to start.”

Remington hands me a pair of binoculars, and we head outside. “He’s number seven.”

“That’s good luck,” I murmur, holding the binoculars up. “Will we be able to see the entire race with these?”

“No, once they round that corner, we’ll have to go inside and watch. But it’ll be over before you know. By the time you get comfortable, Beau will be crossing the finish line.”

I smile, my heart speeding up as all the cars get into position. The lights change, and then they’re off in a cloud of smoke and squalling tires. I scream for Beau, not caring if anyone is looking at me, but then I hear the roar of the crowd. They like it as much as I do.