Sparking the Fire (38 page)

Done with playing nice, he hardened his tone. “Delete. The. Photo.”

The nearest photographer held the camera at chest level, obviously with no intention of removing anything.

“I get you have a living to make and that I'm fair game. But kids are not. That photo needs to be erased or I'm gonna erase your existence.”

“We're within our righ—”

Wyatt grabbed the photographer's shirt before he could complain about his rights or how they were about to get trampled on.

“Photo. Now.”

Of course he meant the one of Roni, but the other leeches took it as an order to shoot—and shoot they did. A TMZ-worthy pic of Wyatt manhandling one of the weasels who dared to intrude on the personal life of his niece.

In for a penny. He ripped the camera from weasel number one's hands and turned it over, looking for the smart card slot. Found it, popped it, removed the card. But they all had cameras and it seemed unlikely they'd just line up and delete-on-demand. This was . . . shit, this couldn't get worse. Or so he thought.

He shoved the camera back into the scavenger's chest and pushed him so hard, he fell back on his ass.

That
was probably worse.

“Wyatt!”

Or this.
In all the commotion, he hadn't noticed a cab pulling up. Standing there with a suitcase and a look on her face that would have frosted hell was Roni's mom, Jen.

“M
om!” Inside the relative safety of Wyatt's house, Roni ran into her mother's arms and let herself be enveloped in a hug. “I thought I wouldn't see you until tonight.”

“I got the red-eye from Seattle into O'Hare and figured I'd drive back with you instead of picking up the connection to Bloomington.” Jen kissed the top of her daughter's head. “I can't believe how you've grown in two months. What have they been feeding you?”

“Gage never stops stuffing my face. He's the best cook.”

Jen drew back and assessed her daughter, love and concern shining off her equally. “I missed you so much. And now I need to talk to Wyatt. Alone.”

Roni frowned. “It's not his fault. He was just protecting me. All of us.” Her gaze flickered over Molly, who stood near the kitchen entrance, looking acutely embarrassed. “Molly, I didn't tell anyone, I swear.”

“I know you didn't, honey.”

Jen visibly stiffened at Molly's endearment. “Go get your things.”

“Mom—”

“Just—just do it.”

Roni's eyes welled and her gaze met Wyatt's, shock and pain lurking there. He wanted to hug her and pull her close, this girl he loved not only because she was his flesh and blood, but because she was one of a kind. A Dempsey, through and through. He gave her a tight smile to let her know it would be okay.

So what if it made him a liar?

Roni trudged up the stairs. Once she was out of earshot, Jen turned to Wyatt.

“Do they have pictures of my daughter?”

“Yes. That's why I was talking to them.”

Her mouth firmed even further at the word
talking,
and she redirected her focus to Molly.

“I assume you're the reason why my daughter's uncle is involved in a brawl that'll splash her name and face all over the Internet.”

“I'm sorry. They weren't supposed to be here.”

“Are
you
supposed to be here?” Jen's voice was comically quiet-loud. She was trying not to lose it but clearly on the cusp.

Molly looked to Wyatt, and what he saw crushed him. The doubt about whether she should be here, about how maybe this had all been a mistake.
They
were a mistake.

One fire at a time.

Molly muttered, “I'll let you talk in private,” and headed upstairs after Roni.

Shaking her head, Jen put her hands on her hips and nailed Wyatt with a world-class glare. “Are you going to pull that big-quiet-man crap on me now?”

“Why say anything? You've clearly already made up your mind about what you saw, Jen.”

“I told you to keep her safe. No drama. None of the bullshit your family is always pulling.”

“They're her family, as well,” he said quietly. “They always will be, bullshit drama and all.” He scrubbed his mouth. “We're not the villains here. You had a bad time of it with your ex, and maybe from the outside, we don't look much better, but—”

“From the outside?” Jen hissed, cutting him off. “I just saw you brawling with a stranger in the street. There's nothing outside about it. You are no different than my ex.”

“The difference is I was protecting Roni. Protecting what's mine.”

She scoffed. “She doesn't need that sort of protection. You weren't there when she was so sick she couldn't hold any food down or move an arm to read one of her comics. You weren't there when he left her and broke her heart.”

And whose fault was that? Christ, there was nothing worse than being punished for another man's sins.

“Jen, she needs her family. All of her family.”

Her mouth worked, but he knew before she spoke it would be the same old party line. “She needs stability. She doesn't need you or that crowd of louts you call family. I gave you a pass because you're Logan's real brother, but the rest of them . . .” She waved a hand dismissively. “All she needs is her mother.”

And that was it. All his rage had been expended on those dickwads out front. He could let Jen rip Roni out of Wyatt's arms, harden his niece's heart against her mother, but that wasn't his way. And he certainly wasn't going to engage in a headline-grabbing custody battle with the world watching.

“At least let me drive you home.”

“We'll take the train.”

Fine. Anger dogging every step, he took the stairs two at a time and stuck his head around the door of Roni's room. She sat on the bed, hugging Molly as they said their good-byes.

“You're always welcome in LA, honey,” Molly was saying. “And I'm serious when I say you have a really good eye for scripts.”

“You don't know that,” Roni said on a sniff. “I bet someone thought
Jem and the Holograms
was an amazing idea.”

Wyatt coughed, clearing the emotion from his throat. “Your mom's waiting, Roni.”

Her eyes snapped to his, accusing, brimming with hurt. Seemed he could never escape being the bad guy.

“I'm sorry about what happened out there. You shouldn't have seen that. It's not who I am.”

“You were protecting me. That's exactly who you are.”

He looked to Molly, who watched with those violet eyes that saw everything.

“Yes.”

“And now you're sending me away.”

“This summer was always going to come to an end. So your mom's here a few hours early, that's all.” Still pissed, still mouthing off about his family. But he refused to rip this mother-daughter relationship apart so he could make his with Roni stronger. In a couple of years, Roni could make up her own mind. Maybe she already had. If she still wanted to be in their lives, he would welcome her back with a big Dempsey hug and he wouldn't let go.

He grabbed her bag and stepped outside while Molly hugged Roni again. The clog of misery in his throat threatened to choke him. He ducked into his room to compose himself a minute, and when he emerged, they were standing at the top of the stairs waiting for him.

“I know you don't understand right now, Roni, but one day I hope you do.”

“I'm fifteen, Wyatt, not five,” she muttered.

Okay, so maybe she understood more than he gave her credit for, but understanding didn't make it hurt less. He took her small palm and placed in it the one thing he had of Logan's that held any value. Apart from her.

“This is your dad's badge. Keep it safe.” Folding her in his arms, he embraced her hard enough to imprint his love on her. Sure, it was just a few hours early, but he'd wanted to use the drive back to Bloomington to tell her stories and learn about hers. To say all the things he'd left unsaid.

Now they'd run out of time, and he prayed that one day he'd get another chance.

 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

M
olly had been living on borrowed time, thinking she could fake normal and wouldn't infect everyone around her with the craziness that was her life.

Furtively, she watched from an upstairs window as Wyatt walked his family past the gauntlet for which she was to blame and put his niece and her mom in a cab. Cameras that should have been aimed at her probed and pointed at them. Wyatt shielded them the best he could and stayed for a moment, watching the car until it turned the corner at the end of the block.

She knew exactly what tomorrow's headline would say: “Molly Cade: Home Wrecker.”

Not true, yet Molly felt like she had destroyed something here.

She met him at the bottom of the stairs. “I'm sorry,” she said, the words sounding heartbreakingly hollow and alarmingly inadequate.

He didn't acknowledge her, just pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead as if that could hold in his pain.

“I should leave,” Molly said after the silence had strained to the tautness of a stretched rubber band. “It's the only way they'll go.”

“Do not dare use this as an excuse to pull away here,” he ground out.

“It was Ryan. I just know it was.” She was pacing now, pounding panicked steps up and down Wyatt's hallway as her brain figured it out. “He put two and two together and sicced those mad dogs on you and your family. First, the photos, now this.” Was she ever going to be free of him?

His head snapped back. “The photos?”

She should not have said that—or maybe she should have. Maybe he needed to know the depths that an association with her could descend to. “I found out from Cal that Ryan used the hack to cover a photo leak. He deliberately put those photos he took of me out there to punish me during our divorce. Revenge porn.”

For a moment, she thought he hadn't heard her. His eyes glazed over, his entire body stilled, and it looked like the nearest wall was going to get an introduction to his fist.

“How long have you known?”

“I found out the day . . . the day we first . . . got together. It's what had me so upset during the run.” That made it sound as though she'd used him to work out her anger. Well, she had, hadn't she? She hurried on. “I wasn't completely sure, but then he more or less admitted it when he visited the set. He wouldn't have liked you standing up to him. He would have found out who you are and sent them here.” With each damning realization, her voice rose in panic. She would never be free of Ryan, and she refused to let his poison contaminate the best thing to ever happen to her.

Wyatt and his wonderful family did not deserve this.

“You should have told me, Molly.”

This
was what bothered him? “It wasn't your problem. And talking wasn't really—”

“What we were about?” He huffed a low laugh. “Jesus. And I thought I had communication problems. You couldn't even trust me with that.”

She couldn't even burden him with that. There was a difference.

“I should leave.”

“Thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

Whatever made him think that? “I can't do this.”

“You can't do my humble hovel?” His query emerged with an eerie calm.

“That's not what I meant—”

“Then say what you mean. Let's both say it. Cut through the excuses and the layers and expose the root. Those vultures out there? An excuse. Getting photographed whenever we go out to eat? An excuse. The threat to my relationship with Roni? An excuse. Take all that away and you're left with you, me, and how we feel about each other.”

“It's not as simple as that.”

“Isn't it?”

He had only experienced it in microcosm. The macro view was a hundred times more terrifying. “All those things you labeled as excuses? They're my reality. Those vultures out there? My permanent biographers. Getting photographed whenever I go out to eat? The reason why I can't. The threat to your relationship with Roni? It will always be there. They're what I have to live with, day in, day out. And the last thing I need is you making it worse by getting into public spats with my ex and the press!”

Those blue-gray eyes heated. “I will protect what's mine. And if that means dressin' down your ex and shovin' a paparazzi camera where the sun don't shine, then so be it.”

The man who was usually the soul of restraint had transformed into a rabid dog. This is what she'd turned him into. “There's an unwritten pact here, Wyatt. I let them take a few photos and they don't call me a bitch on TMZ. I play nice with my ex in public and the studio green-lights my next project. I smile and simper, I lie back and think of Hollywood. These are the rules.” Different for women in the business than men, but still the rules.
Minimize, de-escalate, move on.
“And I can't have you going rogue because you refuse to play the game.”