Key To My Heart: Stay (16 page)

He forced himself to look at Renee, but
made sure that his voice was cool when he said “What can I do for
you Renee?”

She laughed. “Why the cold shoulder
Gar? You know that we had good times together. I would have thought
you’d be a little happier to have me back in town. There’s so much
work that needs to be done to the house before I can sell it.
You’ll be busy for months getting the place back to what it used to
be. Maybe we can make some improvements too, so that I can actually
make a profit off of the place. You’re so good with your hands.”
She winked at him.

Garett fought an eye roll. “Look Renee,
I’m still not sure exactly what it is that you think needs to be
done to the house. It’s in better shape than half of the places in
town already. I’m sure that if you sell it just like it is, you’ll
still make a profit.”

To him it seemed as if anything she
made off of the house would be profitable since her parents had
paid for the house, but he didn’t want to remind her of that or the
fact that it was hard to sell a house in Clinton, no matter what
shape it was in. He was starting to get a headache and was reminded
of another reason he would have eventually broken it off with Renee
even if she hadn’t cheated on him. Her voice got shrill sometimes,
making it hard to listen to her. He wanted her to go away, and
wished that he had never dated her in the first place.

She ran her hand up his arm. “Oh,
there’s plenty of work that needs to be done Gar. And I’m not just
talking about my house.”

He brushed her hand away and gave her a
dirty look. “I’m engaged Renee. And did you happen to forget the
fact that Acasia is pregnant with my child?”

Renee made a clucking sound with her
tongue, another habit of hers that had often annoyed him. “Always
the gentleman aren’t you Garett Black? Don’t you know that in this
day and age you’re no longer obligated to marry a woman just
because you knock her up?”

She moved towards him again, and Garett
stepped back, almost wishing that Acasia would return home now so
that Renee would have to go away and give up on her efforts to
seduce him. He strained his ears, hoping to hear her car, but there
was nothing, and he knew that he would have to deal with Renee
himself, feeling a little guilty that he had even thought of hiding
behind his pregnant fiancé.

“
I didn’t ask her to marry
me because she got pregnant. I asked her to marry me because I love
her and want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don’t see
anything that needs to be done on your place before it can be sold,
and I’m sure that my father and brother would agree.”

Renee frowned. She frowned so often
that she had already started to develop frown lines, and he
wondered how he had spent a year and a half dating someone who was
so sour and bitchy. Her frown turned into a pout. But her pout only
made her less attractive to him because she was wearing so much
makeup that her face almost appeared to crack when her expressions
changed.

He turned his back on her again, hoping
that his dismissal was enough to convince her that there was no
room for her in his life professionally and certainly not
personally, but he had a bad feeling that Renee would not be so
easily put off, especially since ignoring her phone calls hadn’t
worked so far.

“
Gar, you’re the only one
that I can trust to take care of my house. Don’t be unreasonable
because your girlfriend is pregnant and jealous.”

Garett let out the sigh that had been
building as he turned back to Renee. “She’s not my girlfriend.
She’s my fiancé. As in the woman that I am going to marry. And she
has no reason to be jealous.”

“
C’mon Gar. You know that
there are still sparks between us. No one will ever have to know.
You work on my house, and if you happen to work on me now and again
while you’re at it, what harm will it do? I still remember exactly
what it felt like to fuck you.”

“
Get out of my house Renee.
And don’t bother trying to call my father about working on your
house. It’s not going to happen. So you might as well stop calling
me. Put the house on the market the way it is and go back to
wherever you came from.”

“
You’re gonna make me cry
Gar. Why are you being so mean to me?”

She was pouting again. Garett wondered
what he was going to have to say or do to make her go
away.

“
I’m not being mean Renee.
I’m being honest.”

She took a step towards him again. He
stepped back, but as soon as he did, he realized that he’d made a
mistake. He was backed into a corner, and she took advantage,
bringing her mouth to his before he could make a move to stop
her.

He shoved her away as gently but as
forcefully as possible, giving her a look that he hoped was full of
enough disgust to let her know exactly how he felt about her
kissing him.

“
Get out of my house. Now.
Before Acasia gets home and I have to explain to her what you’ve
been trying to do.”

Renee gave him a sly smile. “What I
tell her myself?”

“
If you bother Acasia, I
will make sure that your house never gets worked on by any licensed
contractor in this town.”

“
Ah, so you haven’t talked
to her about me have you? She doesn’t know how crazy you were about
me. She doesn’t know about the hours we spent in bed
together.”

“
Shut the hell up Renee.
It’s time for you to leave.”

He looked pointedly at the door. When
she still didn’t seem to get the point, he crossed to the door and
threw it open, again giving her a pointed look.

She offered him one last pout as she
exited, but there was a look in her eyes that made him worry that
she would talk to Acasia, and misrepresent what had gone on between
them. He wished again that he had talked to her about Renee before,
since it seemed to make things look even worse that he hadn’t told
her that his ex had left over a dozen voicemails for him since
she’d been back in town. The first few had been so suggestive that
he had deleted the rest of them without bothering to listen to
them.

As he watched Renee walk down the
street towards her car, he was on the lookout for Acasia’s car. He
knew that he needed to talk to her right away, and he hoped that
she returned home soon. But there was no sign of her, and he sighed
as he moved into the yard, trying to get a better view of the
street.

He felt a crunch underneath his foot,
and looked down to see that he had stepped on an egg. He was
puzzled at first when he noticed that there were groceries laying
all over the yard. Then his heart sunk as the realization that she
HAD returned home set in and he reached for his cell phone,
pressing the button to speed dial the woman he loved, hoping with
all his might that his omission had not done irreversible damage to
their relationship.

Acasia

When Acasia woke up reality set in
again. And reality wasn’t sitting very well with her at the moment,
considering the fact that her current reality was the fact that she
had seen her fiancé locked in what appeared to be a passionate kiss
with Renee. She felt sick and wondered how in the hell things could
have gone so wrong so close to the wedding and the birth of their
child.

Tears stung her eyes again, and as she
sat up in bed, realizing that she needed to urinate, she could hear
her mother walking around upstairs. She knew that her mother would
hear the water going through the pipes when she used the restroom,
and would naturally wonder who was in the basement, likely not
having noticed that her daughter’s car was sitting in the garage.
She wanted to put off talking to her mother, not in the mood to
explain what was going on, but she knew that she couldn’t wait much
longer before using the restroom. She hadn’t had the best bladder
control since she’d become pregnant.

She got out of bed with a sigh,
crossing to the downstairs bathroom. Her mother’s footsteps crossed
to the basement door almost as soon as she flushed the toilet, and
she was tempted to stay in the bathroom a little longer, but she
knew that it was no use hiding from her mother. It never had
been.

Heather had just opened her bedroom
door when Acasia walked out of the bathroom. She gave her daughter
a surprised smile.

“
Sweetheart what are you
doing here? I wasn’t expecting you. Where’s Garett?”

At the sound of his name, the tears
sprang up again. Her mother took one look at her and then wrapped
her arms around Acasia.

“
What’s going on
baby?”

“
Oh Mom.”

She couldn’t stop the tears from
flowing then, and her mother took her hand and led her into her
bedroom. Heather held her while she cried, murmuring nonsensical
words of comfort as if her little girl were still really her little
girl instead of a grown woman.

After the tears had finally stopped and
Acasia had caught her breath, her mother handed her a handful of
tissues from her apron. She must have been preparing dinner Acasia
thought distantly, feeling as if she were someone else. Or maybe
just wishing that she were someone else so that she wouldn’t have
to face what she had witnessed.

They sat in silence for several
minutes, until her mother cleared her throat.

“
Acasia.”

“
Yes Mom?”

“
Will you please tell me
what’s got you so upset darling? You know that I never could stand
to see one of my girls cry.”

“
Daddy was the one that
could never stand to see us cry, especially Demi. You always
thought that we cried too much.”

Heather smiled. “At times you did, but
girls often do that at different times in their lives.” The smile
faded and she reached out and brushed Acasia’s hair out of her
face. “Please honey, just tell me what’s going on so that we can
figure out how to work it out.”

“
I don’t know if this is
something that can be worked out.”

“
Almost everything can be
worked out, even if it means walking away from the situation. I may
have teased you girls about your crying when you were little, but I
never did like to see you upset. You know that don’t
you?”

“
Of course I do Mom.” She
sighed. “Did you ever worry that Dad might cheat on
you?”

“
I think that everyone
worries at some point that their significant other might cheat on
them. Sometimes it’s only our own insecurities seeing things that
aren’t there though. Garett adores you. I hardly think that you
need to worry about such a thing, especially now, so close to the
wedding and the birth of your child.”

“
I saw him kissing another
woman Mom. I came home from the grocery store, and the blinds in
the living room had fallen down again. I saw him kissing Renee
Neal.”

Heather made a face like she had
smelled something bad. “I never did like that girl. She was always
so snippy to your sister when they went to school together, always
criticizing her.”

“
A lot of girls were mean to
Demi in high school just because they knew that she took everything
so personally. It didn’t help that Garett was chasing after her and
ignoring all of them either. Sometimes I wish that I could fall in
love with a man who wasn’t handsome.”

Heather shook her head, and Acasia
could tell that she was hiding a smile. “If you love him darling,
he’ll be handsome to you even if he isn’t handsome to anyone else.
There are some women, and men too, that always seem to want
something they can’t have. Renee has always struck me as that type.
Even when she was dating Garett he wasn’t really hers, because you
were always on his mind. I could see in his eyes how he felt about
you every time he asked about you.”

“
If that’s true, then why
did I come home to find him kissing her?”

“
What exactly was it that
you saw honey? Do you think you could have misinterpreted it
somehow?”

Acasia snorted. “How could I
misinterpret it? They were kissing.”

“
Have you talked to him? Or
did you run away as soon as you saw what was going on?”

“
Mom.”

“
Yes?”

“
Do you really have to
lecture me right now? I feel bad enough as it is.”

“
I’m sorry sweetheart. I’m
just trying to think logically. It doesn’t seem logical that Garett
would even want to kiss that woman.”

“
I know what I saw
Mom.”

“
You still need to talk to
him.”

As if on cue her phone rang. She could
tell that it was Garett from the sappy ringtone that she had newly
assigned to him, their proposed wedding song; and she reached for
the phone, pushing the button to ignore the call.

“
Acasia Marie.”

“
I have nothing to say to
him.”

“
You have nothing to say to
the man that you agreed to marry, the man whose child you’re
carrying, a man that I know you love with all of your
heart?”

“
What is there to say? I’m
not going back there when I know that there’s obviously something
going on between him and Renee.”