She knew Tara? She knew her… and me? Had she really come here because of Tara?
“Whatever.” Tara flips her hand up in the air, the diamond on her finger reflecting off the fading sun in the distance. “You couldn’t do your damn job. What are you even doing here?”
Camdyn tugs on my hand. “She said a bad word.”
“I know.” I glance at Kacy. “Can you take them inside the house?”
She nods, gauging my reaction. I offer nothing. Am I mad? Fucking right I am, but not at Kacy. I want answers, sure, but I’m more pissed off at Tara being here.
Tears well up in her eyes, but she takes both girls. “How about some hot chocolate?”
They both nod. “You read ours mind,” Camdyn says, following her.
“Extra mellows dis time,” Sev tells her, dragging the cat inside with her.
Tara’s eyes linger on the house. When the door closes behind them, she rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe she came here. I never told her to,” she breathes, as if she’s offended. “It’s typical of her. She probably got your address off the papers I kept having her send back to you.”
Ah, yes. There’s the stuck-up bitch I remember. “Cut the bullshit.” I groan, running my hands over my face. “What are you doing here?”
“To get you to sign the papers.”
“You couldn’t mail them? You can’t show up here right before Christmas and confuse them.”
“News flash, asshole.” Her eyes narrow into slits, ready to chop my dick off. “You sent them back. Five fucking times now. This all would have been over a long time ago if you would have signed them.”
“I didn’t sign them because you wouldn’t correct them,” I point out, done having this same argument. “Do you have them?” I motion with an irritated jab to the designer bag hanging off her arm. “I’ll sign them now to get you off my fucking property and out of my life.”
I don’t think she likes how mean I’m being by the constant roll of her eyes. “Still just as dramatic as I remember.”
“And you're still just as bitchy,” I dig, hoping it stings.
Opening her bag, she pulls out a stack of papers and a pen. “Sign them and I’ll leave.”
Ripping the papers and the pen from her hand, I glower at her. “Gladly.” I’ll do just about anything to get her out of my life at this point. Well, almost anything.
“They got big,” she notes, gesturing to the house.
I shake my head, a warning glare shot her way. “Don’t.”
She blinks slowly, playing dumb. “Don’t what?”
“Act like you give a shit.” Scanning the papers, I notice what’s missing. What’s always missing. The reason I’ve been sending them back for years.
I hand them back to her, my jaw so tight it’s sending pain through my ears and into the back of my skull.
“What now?”
“Same problem as always,” I snap, throwing the pen at her feet. “Full custody or nothing. I don’t get what the fucking problem is. You left them. That should have been the first thing on the papers. You didn’t want them. The only reason you keep putting joint custody is to hurt me.”
There’s sadness in her eyes. Something I didn’t think she was capable of and hadn’t expected. “It’s more than that,” she whispers, her eyes dropping to the gravel beneath us, the only spot cleared of snow.
My pulse pounds my ears. Thump. Thump. Thump. “What then? It’s not like you actually want them.”
There’s no reaction from her. No words. No denial.
And then it hits me, like the time I was kicked in the stomach by Morgan’s horse when I was ten. All those people Tara’s trying to impress, they don’t know she has kids. If anyone found out she has children, including the guy she’s engaged to, well, that wouldn’t look like the small-town girl made it big. It’d look like she left her family. Which is the truth, but that story doesn’t sell like the Texas beauty queen ploy she played them with. So why’d she want joint custody?
I look up at her, realizing how much Camdyn looks like her. Sighing, I ask what I probably don’t want to know. “If you didn’t want anyone finding out you had kids, why not just give me full custody the first time I asked for it?”
There’s hesitation to answer my question, but she surprisingly does. “Because I thought if I had joint custody, I could still see you.” For the first time, sadness laces her words.
I want to grab her by the throat and shake some parental sense into her. “So it had nothing to do with them,” I deduce, anger pulsing through me in waves.
She nods.
I can’t even accurately describe how much hate I have for her. It’s damn near suffocating. “They deserve better than you,” I growl, shaking my head. “Correct the goddamn papers and I’ll sign them.”
I can tell by the way Tara’s watching me, the jealousy in her eyes when she noticed my arm around Kacy, this girl, she doesn’t love the man who gave her that ring on her finger. At least not completely. There’s a good part of her that’s still in love with me. And though I want to hate her, there’s a fraction of my heart that cares for her as the mother of my girls.
I lean into the stone pillar next to me, inhaling a slow, steady breath. “Do they mean anything to you?”
Her gaze falters and lands on her ring. “What kind of question is that, Barron?” That’s my answer. I knew this answer. I expected it, but it still hurts like hell that the lives we created together are easily replaced. This is Tara though. I don’t think she’s capable of loving anyone besides herself.
“And me?” I ask, because I’m curious what my role in all this had been. A boy she used for a good time?
She rolls her eyes, as if that’s a stupid question. “Of course I do.”
I don’t miss the present tense she uses. That’s when I realize what a shitty person she is. She can love me, but not them? It’s obvious, they’re better off not knowing her.
Her eyes drift to the house again. “Can I see them?”
“No! Goddamn it,” I yell. That’s when I lose my shit completely and send my fist into the side of the house. I regret it immediately because I’m pretty sure I just broke my hand, but the pain is nothing compared to this anger pulsating through me. Tara yelps and jumps back, unprepared for my temper. I step toward her, close enough she feels my breath on her face, but I don’t touch her. “You left me with a fucking newborn and no reason. I haven’t had a life in three years, and you come here and rip it up again. Well, too fucking bad. You’re toxic. I don’t want you anywhere near them. You either change the papers and give me full custody or stay married to me. Take it to trial. You know I’ll win and get custody anyways. But you won’t do that, will you? You don’t want anyone knowing about your life here, do you?” She says nothing. “Ball’s in your court, sweetheart.”
She searches my eyes, scowling. “You don’t have to be so nasty to me.”
“Believe me, Tara, you haven’t seen just how nasty I can be when it comes to my kids’ safety.”