Something About Joe (22 page)

But Joe
didn’t have the right to try and force the issue. She’d had enough
of men telling her what to do with her life. She wouldn’t put up
with it from anyone again—even Joe.

“Peter is Mitchell’s flesh and blood,” she
repeated.

“
Who has
never even held his child in his arms.” Joe’s mouth was a tight,
bitter line. “What reason did he give for this sudden change of
mind?”

“
That he’d
been to Gamblers Anonymous. That he regretted the past.”

“
You’re so
damn naive. Can’t you see the guy’s got some kind of ulterior
motive?”

Allison was
stung. “Why should he have to? Is Mitchell so unappealing? Am I so
unattractive? He says he’s made a mistake and—” She flushed with
anger. “And why should I have to justify myself to you?”

Joe’s eyes
were as cold as a winter sea. “No reason at all.”

Allison
realized it would be no use explaining anything to him. He wasn’t
going to sa
y the words she ached to
hear—that he loved her and he loved Mitchell.

She felt as desolate and alone as she’d ever
felt in her life.

Joe didn’t care.

J
oe fought the pain and betrayal
searing his heart. He hadn’t slept at all, going over and over
again the scene with Allison in the hospital. He’d finally decided
she’d been upset and overwrought. That she might feel differently
about breaking up if he told her how much she and Mitchell meant to
him. Then he’d made plans for proposing to Allison, each option
more romantic and memorable than the last.

Finally the master plan had evolved and he’d
got over here as fast as he could to set the wheels in motion.

To find she was seeing her ex-husband.

Like Deborah had.

The old pain
surged through the barriers he’d erected against it. He’d loved
Deborah too, although that love seemed as nothing compared to what
he felt for Allison. He’d loved Deborah and she hadn’t told him she
was married but separated from her husband. A husband who was on
the scene as soon as he’d discovered there was a rival.

How could the same cruel lightning strike
twice?

That
cold-eyed, cold-hearted bastard Peter obviously couldn’t bear to
see Allison with another man. Last night she’d told him Peter had
never seen her with anyone else since their breakup. He didn’t want
her for himself, but he clearly didn’t want her to find happiness
with someone else.

And Allison
had fallen for the story he’d spun her.

Joe’s
stomach churned
. He swallowed hard
against burning anger. He’d been so wrong about Allison.

He’d thought
maybe she had come to love him as he had her. He hadn’t even
considered the possibility she’d say “no” to his proposal. What
they had together was so extraordinary, so once-in-a-lifetime. All
those feverishly imagined scenarios had never included anything
like this.

Allison’s
eyes were clouded with a mix of defiance and—oddly—misery. She had
never looked more beautiful or desirable; her hair a tangled mane,
her breasts heaving under the fine knit of her cardigan.

But, much as
he desired her, sex was the last thing on his mind. He loved her.
This went beyond desire. It meant total commitment and growing old
together. She’d turned his life upside down. In those sleepless
hours, he’d even started thinking about more children. Brothers and
sisters for Mitchell.

But she was
considering going back to Peter. Joe could put up with Peter in
Mitchell’s life—the guy was his father—but Joe wasn’t hanging
around while Peter tried to lure Allison back.

Anger blotted out rational thought. Anger at
Peter for his cunning. Anger at Allison for her treachery. Most
consuming of all, anger at himself for not having spoken to her
sooner.

But what
would have been the point of that? He might have bared his heart to
her and she might still have betrayed him.

She didn’t love him.

His sense of loss of his dreams, of Allison,
of Mitchell, fused together into a fury so strong he could feel his
heart racing and the veins on his neck standing out like ropes. He
longed to slam his fist down on the table and curse the world.

Allison was kneading her left palm with the
thumb of her right hand. She bit her bottom lip.

“
I want to
say goodbye to Mitchell,” he said.

Allison’s
eyes looked stricken. “Are you going?”

“
D
amn right I am.”

“
Don’t...
don’t you want to stay
with Mitchell a little longer? After all we went through last
night?”

Joe winced
at her use of the word “we”. Last night they’d been a
couple.

“
Of course I
do.” He had to stop himself from roaring the words. “But, for
Mitchell’s sake, I can’t. He’s got his father now, he doesn’t need
me. And it’ll only confuse him if he’s got two daddies
around.”

Allison’s
eyes were downcast. “Th...that’s true. He wanted you, not Peter,
when Peter was here before.”

Did she have
to twist the knife by telling him that? Joe burned with the pain of
realization that Mitchell was no longer his concern. He wouldn’t
see him grow up, be there for him, be the kind of father his own
father had been to him. The kind of father the child
deserved.

He had to make this parting brief. He headed
for the living room.

Mitchell was
still engrossed with
Sesame
Street
. Joe lifted him from the
playpen.

“
I...
I’ve got to go, Mitch,” he
said, fighting to keep his voice even. “Give me a hug.”

Joe held the
little boy close. He’d gotten fond of some of the kids he’d
nannied, and it had been hard to say goodbye. But not like this.
This was unbearable. Mitchell was special. He loved him. And today
Joe had planned to celebrate the start of their new life as father
and son. And a life as Allison’s husband.

“Bye bye, Tiger,” he said, unable to keep
his voice from breaking.

“
Bye bye,
Joe,” said Mitchell. “S
ee ya.”

“
See ya,”
echoed Joe, putting Mitchell gently back into his playpen. Mitchell
turned back to the video screen making the most of his chance to
watch his favorite characters.

Joe turned away. He snatched up his helmet
from where he’d put it on the sofa next to Peter’s accursed
elephant.

“This is goodbye?” Allison’s voice was
scarcely more than a whisper.

“That’s right.” He couldn’t bear to be
around her for a second longer. To feast on her beauty which would
now never be his.

Knowing his
eyes were bleak and his face like granite, he allowed himself a
final look at Allison where she stood clutching the back of the
sofa.

If he was
tempted to soften his heart enough to say a civilized goodbye, he
resisted it when he saw those damn wedding photos on the cabinet
behind her. He should have known this would happen the minute he’d
seen them. He’d ignored those warning bells in his head and this
was the consequence.

He jerked his head in the direction of the
offending photographs. Would his voice stand by him and not betray
how he was really feeling by a crack or a quiver? “And don’t think
you can come crawling back to me when things go wrong with
him.”

That was it.

Time was up.

He and Allison were finished. The chapter
closed.

Joe
said no more, but turned on his heel and marched
out. Then slammed the gate behind him with such force the fence
shuddered.

He fumbled
for what seemed like an age to fasten his helmet—an operation that
generally took a few seconds.

Without
looking back, he
mounted his Harley and
jumped on the starter pedal with all his might until the powerful
motorcycle roared into life. He gunned the throttle and took off
with a furious squeal of tires and a belching cloud of
smoke.

Joe
didn’t even think about the speed limit, just
put his head down and rode.

He didn’t know to where.

He didn’t care.

He just wanted to ride and ride and
ride.

A
llison didn’t know how long she
stood staring sightlessly at the door. Joe was gone.

The ringing
of the telephone broke into her consciousness. She moved very
slowly to answer it. If it was Peter she’d hang up, she couldn’t
bear to talk to him again.

But it was
the pleasant tones of her former mother-in-law, Nancy, that greeted
her.

Allison
tried to keep her voice from betraying her anguish at Joe’s
departure, and to speak as normally as possible. “I’m sorry, Nancy,
I haven’t had a chance to call you. Mitchell was in hospital last
night but he’s okay now.”

She
explained what had happened, a warm comfort suffusing her misery at
the thought that Mitchell’s grandparents loved and cared about him.
“Peter was here,” she concluded.

“
Was he?”
There was an undercurrent to Nancy’s voice that immediately alerted
Allison. “That was quick.”

“Quick? What do you mean?”

“
Oh, my
dear, you mean he didn’t tell you?”

Allison’s heart started to race. Somehow she
dreaded what she was about to hear. “Tell me what?”

“
We let him
know this morning
we’ve established a
generous trust fund for Mitchell—a regular monthly allowance. We
want to help you out financially. And, if you approve, we’re going
to buy an apartment in Sydney so we can visit you more often and
make up for lost time. We’ve changed our Wills, too. We’ll be
leaving Peter the Adelaide house but, apart from that, everything
we have will be Mitchell’s. Peter’s not very happy about it. But we
can’t risk our lifetime’s work being gambled away.”

Allison clenched the telephone receiver so
tightly her knuckles showed white. She didn’t hear another thing
Nancy said.

The blood drained away from her face as the
shock of Nancy’s words hit her. She had to hold onto the doorway
for support. She felt engulfed with pain and disbelief and
terrible, bitter regret.

Her dream of
Mitchell being loved by his father had finally been destroyed.
Peter had been lying when he’d told her he had stopped gambling.
What had been his visit today been but a gambler’s desperate bluff?
To play with Mitchell’s emotions—and hers—in the hope of gaining
money from them was a deadly game with a small fortune at stake. A
monthly allowance right now, much more when his parents died—and
Bill had already had a near-fatal heart attack.

Her mouth
twisted cynically. Wouldn’t Joe laugh to know how right he’d been
about Peter’s ulterior motive? But she’d never be seeing Joe again
to tell him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Allison
surveyed the trail of
crumpled, chocolate-bar wrappers that littered the kitchen counter.
She always shoveled down chocolate when she was stressed or
miserable but this time they hadn’t made her feel better. She
wondered if anything could. Except Joe.

Joe.

She’d longed for him every second since he’d
walked out of her life a week ago.

How could she have let him go?

How could
she have let herself be sucked in by Peter? Her desire for Mitchell
to be with his natural father had made her gloss over the doubts
she’d had about her ex-husband’s sincerity.

When she’d
confronted Peter with what she’d learned about Mitchell’s trust
fund from Bill and Nancy, his desire to play happy families had
dissipated. Surprise, surprise.

Peter was
more to be pitied than despised. But, in spite of her anger with
him, she couldn’t help remembering his motives for bringing
Mitchell the toy elephant. Maybe there was still hope for a
relationship between Peter and his son. She never wanted to lay
eyes on her ex-husband’s face again. But perhaps he could see
Mitchell with Bill and Nancy when they were visiting. That is, if
he could forgive his parents for disinheriting him.

Allison
sighed and bit into another chocolate bar. Her family life had been
far from perfect, but when she delved into other people’s families
she saw flaws there, too. Peter felt his parents had abandoned him
at boarding school. Joe’s immediate family sounded wonderful but
what about the parents of his cousin who had kicked her out,
pregnant at age fifteen?

Would her
birth father have been any better than her adoptive one? She’d
never know. And at least her adoptive father had provided for her
materially when she was growing up. But Mitchell’s biological
father had proved himself unworthy—despite the fact he was “flesh
of his flesh”. Joe had given him way more love. Had her compulsion
to keep Peter in Mitchell’s life lost her son someone more
important?

Joe. Her
thoughts always came back to Joe. She’d lost him. But she couldn’t
forget him. Even if she tried to bury her memories, Mitchell
wouldn’t let her. Every so often he’d ask for Joe and his little
face would cloud over when she’d tell him Joe couldn’t see them
right now.

She couldn’t sleep, spending the nights
tossing and turning, thinking endlessly of Joe, hugging his jacket
that still smelt so heart-rendingly of him.