Jill Shalvis - Long-Lost Mom

They burst into laughter.

“I just wish,” Kristen said, sobering, “that he could have gotten in trouble sooner-ten years sooner.”

“Better late than never.” Jenna refused to continue to run her life on bitterness or anger. Instead, she was concentrating on the things that mattered-loyalty, affection… love.

“I like your new look,” Kristen said softly. “Not the hair, silly,” she said with a laugh when Jenna tucked a strand behind her ear. “The inner look you’ve been sporting lately. All that new belief in yourself and the people around you. It really shows, honey. You’ve changed. And it looks good on you.”

Uncomfortable with the compliment, Jenna shifted her weight uneasily. “Maybe you could tell that to Stone. And Sara, while you’re at it.”

“Is she warming up to you yet?”

“Not exactly.” Jenna grimaced when she took a sip of the tea, then added a generous helping of sugar. “Yesterday she called me a dork when I tripped.”

“I love you-you know that now.” Kristen’s eyes sparkled with good humor. “So I can say this-you’re not exactly graceful. Remember the time you took a swan dive, down that flight of stairs at school? Landed on your tush right in front of Bobby Parker?”

And a million other kids, who’d laughed at her for weeks. One more thing in a very long list that had added up to zero self-confidence. “Very funny,” Jenna said, remembering her past humiliation. “But the truth is, Sara booby-trapped me with a long piece of string. I nearly killed myself in there yesterday. Then she told Stone I tripped her-on purpose.”

“Really? What did Stone say?”

“He told her to watch her big old feet more.”

“He stuck up for you.”

“Yeah, but don’t get excited. He still isn’t exactly thrilled with me.” Although, she had to admit, he never let it show in front of Sara. He always treated her with the utmost courtesy and made sure Sara did the same. Even in the sticky situation of keeping the truth from his daughter, he never wavered in doing what he believed was right. “That girl has an attitude to match…well, quite frankly, it matches her father’s.”

Jenna’s office front door had opened with a blast of chilly morning air just as she finished her sentence. Too late she realized why Kristen’s eyes were wide with warning and that the tall shadow behind her meant the worst possible thing had just occurred.

Stone had heard her.

Grimacing, she turned to face him. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Attitude and all,” he said with a mock salute.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he assured her, shutting the door, “especially when you mean it.” He leaned back against the wood and gave her a look so divided between sizzling passion and annoyed fury, she didn’t know if she was excited or terrified.

He didn’t waste time on pleasantries, although he did pause to glare at Kristen. “Well, now your being here makes sense.” He shook his head. “Hope you had a good laugh, both of you.”

“No,” Kristen said quickly. “We never did that.”

He looked at Jenna, and whether he realized it or not, his expression softened slightly. “However it happened, I’m glad you have her. Family is everything.” Voice grim, he crossed his arms. “It’s time, ladies.”

“For what?” Jenna asked, her pulse hammering ridiculously.

“To tell Sara.” He stalked with a sort of lethal grace over to the teapot and poured himself a cup, which he brought unsweetened to his lips.

“It’s too soon,” Jenna protested weakly, forcing her gaze to his. “She doesn’t like me. If you tell her now, she’ll like me even less.”

“You started this, Jenna. You came here without being honest, and now we have no choice but to finish it.”

“Well, that’s not exactly fair…” Kristen started, only to pinch her mouth closed when Stone shot her a dark look.

“Fair?” he questioned evenly. Despite his obvious anger, his voice was polite to a fault. “And it’s fair, I suppose, Kristen, to let my child think her mother ran off without a care. To let her think I’m falling for a woman named Cindy, which has her worrying about what will happen when her mother does come back, because I won’t be available.”

Kristen’s mouth opened, then closed at the look of barely contained fury on Stone’s face.

He said he was falling for her. Jenna stared at Stone unblinkingly. She was afraid to close her eyes even for a second, or he’d go away. “What do you mean?”

Stone’s jaw was clenched tight, his eyes hot and furious, as if he wished he could snatch back his words.

No one spoke in the charged silence, but Jenna’s heart raced.

“I think I should leave you two alone.” Kristen grabbed her purse, kissed Jenna’s cheek and left.

There was more silence while Jenna endured the unrelenting glare of the man who’d held her heart for so many years.

“I don’t know what the hell I meant,” he finally snapped.

Jenna sagged in disappointment.

“We’re ruining Sara’s life, Jenna.” Wearily he set down the cup and folded his body onto the couch. “Much as I hate to think about it, she has to know the truth. Today.”

“Is that wise?” she asked quietly. “I haven’t been back all that long. Maybe-”

“Maybe you should stop thinking of yourself,” Stone interrupted her in an equally quiet voice. “Think of Sara and how she’s being affected by our emotions, no matter how hard we try to keep them to ourselves.”

It wasn’t often Jenna experienced a surge of temper. But now, facing an irritated, hurting, unbearably sexy Stone, she lost it. “How dare you suggest I’m being selfish!” she cried. “I’m thinking of her-and you. It’s what’s kept me silent.”

“No. That was for yourself.” He rose to his feet to face her, eyes blazing. “You didn’t know how to tell me the truth. It was easier not to.”

“You’re judging me again, Stone. You’re judging me on what you remember of that frightened young Jenna. I’m telling you-I’m not the same person anymore!”

“Then stop acting like her.”

“If I was acting like her, I’d have run by now.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t.”

They stared at each other, breathing hard, hands clenched at their sides. And Jenna realized he still believed she could leave. In his own way, he was testing her. Could she blame him? He had Sara to protect, so there was no way he could tell her the truth unless he knew Jenna was going to stick it out.

“I didn’t mean to disrupt your life,” she said, her words barely audible.

“Little late for that.” His cool tone made her flinch. “And now Sara is reacting to what she senses between us.”

“And what exactly is it between us?”

His chest rose with the deep breath he took, but he didn’t speak. His hands ran through his dark hair, the gesture betraying his uncertainty. It was so unlike him she stepped closer.

“Stone?”

He stilled, then took another deep breath. “You can trust me, Jenna. That’s what’s between us. Always.”

“But will you ever trust me again?”

He lifted his head, staring at her for one endless beat in time.

“Forget it,” she said quickly “It’s too soon-”

“I’d like to think I can. But I don’t know.” He grimaced. “You confuse the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth.”

“I’m sorry.” Cupping the stubble-roughened line of his jaw, she sent him a bittersweet smile. “I know how I’ve hurt you. I’d hate me, too.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said. “I never could.”

Her brain could hardly soak it m. He was clearly frustrated. In her world when people were angry, they turned from her. Forever.

“Jenna.” He tipped up her face with achingly gentle hands. “I don’t hold anything in, you know that. When there are problems or when I don’t agree about something, you’re going to know it because I’m going to tell you. There have been a lot of conflicting emotions here. It doesn’t mean I’m not proud of you and what you’ve done with yourself.”

“You’re…proud?” The last word came out a bit strangled because she had to speak around the huge lump in her throat. His approval shouldn’t mean so much, but oh it did.

“Yeah.” His eyes were warm and full of things that suddenly didn’t terrify her so much anymore. “I’m damn proud of you.”

“Okay,” she said, clutching at him a little because she had to know this was real. “Here it goes, then. Trust and honesty. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Yes.”

“I’m staying forever and I want you and Sara in my life. For always.”

His eyes glittered. “Come on,” he said suddenly, taking her hand and pulling her toward the door.

“Where?”

“To Sara.”

Panic and hope warred within Jenna, and panic seemed to be winning. “But…”

Turning back to her, Stone stared deep into her eyes. “It’s simple, and it shouldn’t have taken me so long to see it. You want her to know. She needs to know.”

Stone tugged Jenna out of the office toward his vehicle.

“Stone-”

He opened the passenger side of his truck for her. “She can’t wait. She shouldn’t wait. I realized that this morning.”

He drove with his usual intense single-mindedness, and Jenna found herself staring at his strong profile in wonder. He seemed relaxed, driving with calm skill. The strength she always sensed in him was there, an innate part of the man. But she could see beyond that strength now to what lay beneath.

He wasn’t sure of himself at all, at least not in this circumstance, not when it came to possibly hurting Sara. But he believed that his daughter deserved to know, and that was enough for him. Never mind how difficult or painful it would be for him. He didn’t look at it that way.

What mattered was doing the right thing by Sara.

Same thing with allowing his parents back into his life. They’d deserted him when he’d needed them most, yet he’d done everything in his power to ensure he made Sara available to them. Because it had been the right thing to do.