On the Ropes (22 page)

She was smiling, like she always did, and held Jan—who was maybe two—on her hip. Not the inside hip next to Jan’s father, though, but the outer one. She could have been reading too much into things, but that pose seemed very telling. Maybe she’d just been tired of carrying her and switched sides. Maybe it was a subconscious snubbing.
You belong here, not there
.

Although everyone else in the photo seemed happy enough, her father’s expression was typically stern. Emotionless.

Cold.

“Why does he look so hostile?” she asked herself, really, figuring Tina couldn’t possibly know the answer.

“That’s me right there.” Tina pointed to a broad-grinned woman with a jheri curl just behind Jan. “Was a family reunion down in Virginia.”

“Right.” Jan had seen enough of the pictures now that she knew her mother’s family had them every year—that they
still
had them and that her mother no longer went.

“Your momma and daddy had been arguing all weekend.”

“About what?”

“God, they were always arguing about something. That’s why she didn’t want to be with him. She said they didn’t belong. Didn’t click.”

Jan swallowed. “They weren’t compatible.”

“Hardly news, right?”

Jan shook her head.

“Truth is, and I’m sure she would have told you when you were old enough because that’s how we do in our family, you were…” Tina pursed her lips and squinted. “Hmm. Is there a politically correct way to say it?”

“Don’t worry about offending me.”

“Of course I’m gonna worry about it. I bet you’re just as tender as your momma is. You’ll be mad at me for two days for being so blunt.”

“Mad on the inside, but cold on the outside.”

“That second thing ain’t part of you. Get rid of it. Look. You were a much-wanted accident.”

“Oh, is that it? I knew I wasn’t planned.” Her father reminded her of it plenty and reminded her of how grateful she should be that his wife took her in, considering everything.

“But what you don’t know is that after your momma got pregnant, your momma was fit to raise you on her own. Your daddy asked her to marry him, and she said no. She didn’t want you living in a strained household because she grew up in a happy one. Her parents were just joyful.”

“This picture”—Jan tapped it—“was taken after she said no?”

Tina nodded. “I don’t know if it was that same weekend, or some time after it. He kept turning up places she’d be at. Wouldn’t give up.”

Stephen had been persistent, but it’d seemed different. At no point had he pushed himself on her. When she asked him to retreat, he did, only for her to tease him back inch by inch when she was ready.

“I have—
had
a boyfriend kind of like that,” she said softly and rubbed the corner of the page with her thumb. “He’s giving me space.”

Her phone was filled with his messages, and they were all more or less the same.
“I won’t ask where you are, but I want you to know I want you here. Call me.”

She wanted to, but didn’t. If she’d called, she’d tell him to come get her, because after all this time of saying
no
, she was just sick of it. She wanted him to take her and
keep
her.

It was like Meg had said. There was something to be said for compatibility, and she and Stephen had it. She may have been boxed into a corner at the moment, but she’d be an idiot if she didn’t fight her way out of it. She’d get back to him—let him pick up the pieces—as soon as she was done.

Staring at the photo, she had a thought. “Is that why he did it? My father, I mean. He was the one who tossed her apartment and made us move. He did it because she told him she wouldn’t marry him?”

Tina’s face took on a pinched expression.

At the sound of a creaking floorboard, they both looked up at Momma who’d wheeled herself into the entryway. She sat very still, her hands fisted around her wheelchair’s rims, and her dark eyes wide and beseeching.

Jan wanted to run to her, to hold her in her arms and twirl one of her long dreadlocks around her fingers. But, she sat very still, clutching that album as if it were an anchor holding her down.

“He was an odd man, your father,” Momma said solemnly. She rolled slowly into the room and cast her gaze up at the air vent over the sofa. “I can hear almost every word y’all are saying.”

Tina harrumphed. “You been hearing us all week, then. We must be talking about something you don’t want known. That it?”

Momma’s thin shoulders drew up in a lazy shrug. “I don’t care what you say as long as you get it right.”

“Your tale. You tell it.” With a grunt, Tina sat back and crossed her arms over her voluminous chest.

Momma pulled the afghan around her neck a bit tighter and leveled a wary gaze on Jan.

The silence in the room was so thick that breathing seemed to be a chore. Jan didn’t think Momma was going to say anything—that she’d retreat back to her room, but finally, she cast her gaze to her knees, and said, “Is he good to you?”

“Who? Dad?”

What a loaded question.

Momma cringed. “Well, him, too, but I meant your boyfriend. The man who was with you when you went to my place in Virginia.”

“Oh. Like you said, Dad is an odd man. He always said I was the product of sin, not love, and that I shouldn’t expect to become much.”

“I’m sorry,” Momma whispered.

Jan shrugged. “I’m over it. I’m really, truly over it.” It was true. She’d had a lot of time to think in the past few weeks, and she’d grappled nightly with the understanding that she’d never be able to change her father, but she didn’t have to let him change
her
, either. She was worth love, and people deserved hers. People
wanted
it.

Stephen did.

“And your boyfriend?”

“Stephen. Well. Yes, he’s good to me. Probably too good for me. I’ve kept him waiting for so long.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not worth waiting for.” Momma let out a long exhale and wheeled closer to the coffee table. She folded her hands on her lap, laid her head to the side, and stared at Jan.

It reminded Jan of the way Stephen looked at her at times. Like he was seeing right through her and pegging her for exactly what she was. Confused and lonely and sometimes…full of shit.

Momma’s gaze went softer, and her lips pulled up at the corners.

“What?” Jan asked.

“You’re not mad at me.”

“Of course I’m not mad at you. Why would I be mad at you?”

Momma straightened up and folded her hands onto her lap. “I didn’t know who’d taken you until a couple of weeks after you were gone. The folks in the hospital kept telling me that the social worker took care of it and that you were with family. I figured they found my mother’s number in my purse and sent you to her.”

Jan shook her head.

Momma grimaced. “I guess they called the wrong number. After I got out of the hospital, I wasn’t in any position to take care of you. Couldn’t get you back. Your father’s family wouldn’t even let your grandma go get you. Said it was best if you stayed in Bermuda, and she couldn’t fight them. I wish I’d had something in place just in case. Some paperwork saying where you’d go if anything happened to me. I was young and stupid. Didn’t know any better.”

Jan imagined that Stephen’s eyes would have bulged at hearing that her mother hadn’t anticipated the custody ramifications should anything happen to her.

She chuckled, and shook her head. “Until recently, I thought you were dead. No one would tell me anything about you, so I stopped asking, and just assumed.”

“No, not dead. Wished I were sometimes, though. How’d you find out otherwise?”

“I hired an investigator. I wanted to know where you ended up.”

“Where I was buried, you mean?”

Jan grimaced, but nodded. “And to…maybe connect some dots. Try to reconnect with anyone who’d have me.” She’d been tired of being on her own.

Tina wrapped her arms around Jan and squeezed. “We’d never turn you away, precious. You come whenever you want, you don’t even have to tell me in advance.”

Jan hugged her back. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

“I worried you’d think I abandoned you. By the time I was in any kind of shape to look after you, I figured you’d hate me. I didn’t know what your father was telling you about me. Nobody would tell me anything about you. Wouldn’t take my calls. My letters went unanswered. So when you showed up, I figured you were coming to let me have it.”

Now Jan did get up and embrace her mother.

Sighing, Momma hugged her neck hard and breathed Jan in. “No, I didn’t come to yell at you. I was scared to see you, too. I was afraid you’d think I didn’t want to see you. I guess we were both scared of the same thing.”

“Can you stay?”

Jan’s mouth opened to form a quick
yes
, because this was what she’d wanted for years—being reunited with the one person on Earth who’d made her feel like someone special.

But then she remembered, Momma wasn’t the only one anymore. There was another person who cared. Who’d been so patient.

She swallowed and chose her words carefully, because Tina was right. Tenderheartedness was something both Jan and her mother had in spades, and she didn’t want to hurt a woman who’d already been through so much.

They’d both been through so much.

“My life’s a bit upended right now. I’ve got a lot of decisions to make, but I can stay for a little while.”

Hopefully Stephen could be patient a little while longer.

Derrick slid a beer across the counter to Stephen. “You’re looking down in the dumps. You should be happy. Your girl’s flying in, isn’t she?”

Stephen scoffed. “I would be happy if the nerves didn’t get in the way of it.”

“You kidding me? You’ve been a professional boxer and an attorney, and you’re telling me you’ve got nerve issues?”

“When it comes to Jan, yeah, I do. Maybe you’re content with wallowing in the bachelor life, but I’m ready to be through with it and I can’t imagine anyone filling the void in my life better than she would. She’s just…” Stephen splayed his fingers, a gesture of utter defeat. Even with a better-than-average vocabulary, he didn’t have the words for this.

“She’s fuckin’ excellent. How ’bout that?” Derrick said.

“That’ll work.”

She was.

“Hey.” Derrick lowered his voice to a whisper. “Cory Kirk told me you beat the shit out of him at the gym yesterday. Was he exaggerating?”

“No. He got cocky. I simply demonstrated why he shouldn’t be.”

Derrick whistled low and shook his head. “Remind me not to tease you anymore about your collection of suspenders. And don’t look now…” His eyes darted over Stephen’s shoulder toward the door.

Of course Stephen looked. In the mirror, he saw Jan entering the restaurant with an extra-gravid Meg, Seth, and Toby in tow. She’d flown into Raleigh-Durham and the Rozhkovs gave her a ride out to the coast. It’d likely be their last trip of the summer with Meg being so big and Stephen occupying the beach house full-time.

The group parted ways. Seth, Meg, and Toby eased through the crowded room to a table, and Stephen met Jan halfway between the bar and hostess stand.

He didn’t even have to reach for her. She was just in his arms suddenly, and he didn’t care how she’d gotten there. He breathed in her coconut and hibiscus scent and brushed his lips across her forehead, then her lips, when she looked up at him.

“Hi,” he said.

“You didn’t think I’d come back, did you?”

He rubbed her back, choosing his words carefully. “I worried you wouldn’t, and I worried you didn’t want to be chased anymore.”

“You weren’t chasing me. I wasn’t exactly running.”

“Seemed like it sometimes.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You hungry?”

She shook her head and clasped her hands together behind his back.

His cock, pressed tight against her flat belly, gave her an obvious
hello
.

“Hey, Jan!” Derrick called. “You wanna see your man wear a mermaid tail and ride a bucking mechanical dolphin?”

Stephen spun her one hundred-eighty degrees and kept her pressed to his front as they maneuvered through the tables to the Rozhkovs. “Hey, little buddy,” he said to Toby. “Hey, Seth. Hey, sis. Why don’t you show Toby a good time tonight and take him to a hotel with a pool?”

Meg’s nod was slow, and her gaze knowing. She held up her key fob, pressed a button, and a set of headlights in the parking lot flashed through the windows. “You can get Jan’s suitcases. Make sure you lock the door.”

The short trip to the house was a blur. Stephen vaguely registered that he’d toted Jan’s bags from the restaurant the few blocks to the house, and that they magically appeared in the downstairs master.

He vaguely recalled closing the bedroom door and working the zipper of Jan’s dress down. He sort of remembered stripping her nude and making her stand before him like some sensual goddess, but he didn’t really
wake up
until she whispered, “Tell me what you want from me, and I’ll try to give it.”

Her hands wrung each other nervously, and she kept her gaze locked on the floor.

He tipped her chin up, but her gaze remained downward.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

She did, but it was a brief flit—long enough for her pupils to focus—and then she looked down again.

She wasn’t a woman who’d ask for what she wanted. She’d gotten used to toeing the line and doing what was expected, but not demanding anything for herself. He liked that she was undemanding of him, but he wanted her to understand that she
could
ask. She could ask him for anything, and he’d find a way to give it.

“Hmm. Why so squirrely, sweetheart?” He eased around her and sat on the bench at the foot of the bed. Heeling off his boat shoes, he watched her hands’ nervous flitting at her sides. Her toes curling against the rug. She looked over her shoulder at him, and red bloomed in her cheeks.

He didn’t really expect her to answer, and she didn’t. She looked back down.

He took off his T-shirt and wadded it into a ball. “Turn around.”

She did.