Page 54 of Lush Curves

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know it’spossible. The timing of the pregnancy, Cindy’s age, her eyes… I know, honey.”

“Right.” She shook her head. “I’m not coming in, Sam.”

“Princess –”

“No.” Now she was calm, calm to the point of being numb. On the whole, it was a metric fuck-ton better than being hurt, and she’d take it. “I agree that there’s a lot of talking to be done, but it doesn’t involve me. You need to talk to Kathleen, get some straight and honest answers. Find out why she’s here now, if she’s got any kind of documentation that you’re a father to that little girl. If you are, you need to figure many, many things out, between the two of you. Those things don’t involve me.”

“Theydoinvolve you.” He tried to take her hand, but Annie pulled away. “Annie, please… I want you here…”

“No.” She took advantage of him reaching for her and got the door open. She jumped into the front seat, jammed the keys in the ignition. “This is between the three of you now, Sam. I’m leaving so you can talk.”

“You should be here too, Annie. You’re a big part of my life, honey, and you have a say what’s going to happen next. You have a place here, with me.”

“No, I don’t.” She slammed the door, hit reverse so fast that Sam had to jump back to avoid getting his foot run over. The snowy road in front of her blurred as the tears fell thick and fast now, and her next words were just puffs of smoke in the freezing air. “If she’s yours, then I have no say, and no place with you at all.”

Chapter Eleven

Jax brought Annie a cup of coffee, pretended not to notice how pale and wan she looked, how much her hands shook as she took the mug. The woman looked like she was nursing one hell of a hangover, if Jax was being honest, and he couldn’t say that he blamed her. God knows, after Sarah had left him, he’d gone on more than his fair share of alcohol-fueled benders.

“So,” Sarah said. “Are you going to call him this morning?”

“No.” Annie sipped her coffee, grimaced as her stomach lurched. That third bottle of wine with Talia had seemed likesucha great idea the night before; now, not so much. “I can’t call him at all.”

“Mom… he’s going to need you. He’s just had a huge shock, and his whole life has just been turned upside-down. I know you wanted to get out of the way yesterday, leave them to sort it out, and I think that was the right course of actionthen, OK? But you can’t pretend that you two don’t have things to discuss.”

“What’s to discuss? At least until paternity is confirmed?”

“So… you want to wait for the DNA test?” Jax asked. “Then talk?”

“Yeah.” Annie sighed. “I mean, look… if that woman is lying, then it’s all over, right? But the thing is…” She paused, drank some more coffee. “The thing is, I think that little girl is his. In fact, Iknowshe is.”

“Mom, you can’t” –

“Oh, I can,” Annie said softly. “Isocan. Her eyes, Sarah… I’ve spent enough time looking into Sam’s eyes, and I know them like I know my own heartbeat. When Cindy looked up at me, all I saw was Sam. She’shis, guys, and I’d lay my life on it.”

“Maybe theotherguy had brown eyes too,” Jax pointed out. “If this woman was sleeping with two guys at the same time, then who the hell can say anything for sure?”

Annie shook her head. “I know you two are trying to help, but really… there’s nothing to talk about, nothing to be done. A little girl just lost the only man that she’s ever looked up to, the man who raised her as his own, and now she may have just been thrown into a situation where she has a whole new father, in a whole new city, and that bitch of a mother of hers has already trained her to call Sam ‘Daddy’. You think for one second that I’m going to confuse her more? Make things harder on her?”

“But you –”

“I’m an adult,” Annie said, cutting Sarah off. “And I can set aside my selfish wants for someone else’s needs.Especiallya child who is hurting.”

Sarah and Jax looked at each other, at a total loss what to do or say now. OK, yeah, Annie was right in many ways. Itwasbetter for her to step aside and let Sam and Kathleen sort shit out, because from what they’d heard about that woman, she had it in for Annie anyway. No way Annie being present would make things better or smoother or easier, and the last thing that anybody wanted was for Cindy to see the adults fighting.

But Annie was wrong, too. Wrong to just write Sam off like this, wrong to assume that if he was a new and surprise Daddy, that Annie was out. How the hell did that even make anysense? Was it because Annie had sacrificed everything for Sarah and Noah –her own happiness, her own health, her own sanity – and she was working on the assumption that every parent adopted the slash-and-burn approach to child-rearing? Or was it because she thought that in the hierarchy of Sam’s new life, she was dead last? Or maybe it was that she wasn’t up for the fight – she didn’t want to get into it with Kathleen, didn’t want to negotiate how much time she got with Sam, how a romantic relationship worked around Cindy?

Whatever it was, she seemed pretty certain that things with Sam were over, and Sarah and Jax had no clue how tobeginconvincing her otherwise.

Just then, there was a knock on the front door. Jax shot to his feet, sure that he knew who was standing out there. He was right.

“Sam,” Jax said. “Glad to see you, man. How you doing?”

Sam stepped into the house, looking exhausted. “Been better, I can say that for sure. Thanks for asking, though.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet, grabbed her coat, nodded at Jax, who was lingering by the still-open door.

“Hi!” she said to Sam. “Bye!”

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