Seth opened his eyes as a rare burst of sunshine touched his face. By the time he’d realized that Tori was curled up at his side, the sun was gone, hidden again behind dark gray clouds. Tori nestled into him, his arm gripping her tightly even in his sleep. With her eyes shut and hair mussed, she looked totally innocent and approachable, a look she rarely projected during waking hours. He was glad she’d relaxed. She’d been stressed for a solid day.
He still regretted taking her to see that witch this morning. She could blow it off all she wanted, but watching her go through the excitement of meeting her possible mother and then the absolute desolation had nearly cracked him.
He wouldn’t believe that woman was her mother. The two women couldn’t be more different. It’d take DNA to prove it to him.
He doubted Tori would ever request that Isabel give a sample. It appeared Tori had no desire to ever contact the woman again. Who could blame her?
He glanced at the clock on the side table and silently moaned. Two hours had vanished. He probably had a half-dozen calls and texts from people wondering what’d happened to him. He slowly untangled from Tori. She rolled to her other side and burrowed into a pillow.
He sat up, watching her, and smiled. She made his soul happy, and brought a calmness he’d missed for years. Even though he needed to get back to work, he really didn’t care that much. They were together and moving forward on the same path.
Finally.
When he’d first seen her he’d wanted her back in his life with a fierceness that’d surprised him. When they were together, the universe made sense. Everything moved in harmony. He rubbed a hand over the stubble that’d formed on his chin, feeling slightly sheepish at his fanciful thoughts, but damn if they didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense at the moment. Would he hear angels sing next?
He got up and looked for his jeans he’d worn yesterday, finding them on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. With his personal phone in the back pocket. He sighed at the feel of the case against his palm. He hated having to carry two cell phones. How had he left it behind? He’d been in a funk all morning. The other cell phone he carried on loan from the medical examiner’s office didn’t have all his personal contacts on it.
He opened the screen, frowning at the number of text messages and missed calls. Shit.
Jennifer.
He scrolled through her texts, panic tightening his chest.
Her texts had started last night, saying she couldn’t reach Eden. Then her texts stated Eden’s roommate claimed Eden had gone home two days ago.
Sweat broke out on Seth’s neck. Two days ago? Where was she?
He ignored the voice mails from Jennifer and called her. She picked up on the second ring.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you since last night!” Jennifer’s anger burned through the line.
He ignored her anger. Jennifer reacted to every situation with anger. Even when something good was going on, she found a reason to get upset and pass the emotion to the people around her. It’d been part of what destroyed their marriage. He couldn’t be around someone who was angry nonstop. “My phone was on silent last night, and I didn’t listen to your voice mails yet. What’s going on?”
“Damn you, why haven’t you called me?” More heat.
“I left my phone at home. I just got it. What happened?”
“Eden is here. She’s okay.”
“What? How’d she get there?” Seth was stunned. Sacramento was a good seven hundred miles from Seattle. Had she flown?
“Some friend drove her here. She’s dropped out of school.”
Shock and then guilt flooded through Seth. Was that what Eden had wanted to talk to him about? Should he have put more effort into reaching out to her? “She can’t drop out of school. It’s only been a few months.”
“Well, she’s understandably upset with the divorce.” Jennifer dug into his heart with her words.
“I talked to her about it,” Seth said, his heart pounding in his chest. “She said she understood.” Eden had reacted calmly during their talks about the divorce. Had she been hiding how she really felt? When he’d helped drop her off at college she’d seemed happy and looking forward to campus life. What had changed? His hands were ice.
“You know how she is. She doesn’t like to upset you, and she doesn’t let anyone know how she really feels.” Again Jennifer stabbed at him with her words. This is all your fault.
“But she’s willing to upset you? Are you sure she’s okay?” He looked at his watch. He needed to check the flights to Sacramento.
“Yes, she’s depressed. She didn’t like being alone up there.”
“That doesn’t sound like Eden.” Seth had never seen his daughter act the slightest bit depressed. And when he left her in Seattle, she was already hitting it off with her roommate. He tried to see past Jennifer’s words and anger. “What’s really going on?”
“I just told you she’s upset about the divorce. I don’t know if I can go through with it if it’s going to rip her up like this. I’m not like you.”
Her words burned Seth’s brain. He ran a hand through his hair, glancing in the bathroom mirror. He wasn’t the selfish asshole Jennifer thought he was. He firmly put the thought away. He knew he and Jennifer had done the right thing. But Eden was in need of some extra support.
Tori stepped into the bathroom, a concerned look on her face. She’d pulled on her sweater and underwear. “What’s happened?” she mouthed at him.
Jennifer yelled at him from the phone, her voice no doubt carrying to Tori’s ears. Confusion reigned in his head
Seth stared at her. The woman he’d wanted all his life stood in front of him. But his daughter was crying out for help. He didn’t know what to say.
Tori blinked, wariness entering her gaze.
“I’ll be there on the next flight,” he spoke.
Tori’s brows shot up. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Who’s that?” snapped Jennifer. “And Eden doesn’t want to see you right now. Give her a few days with me and then come down.”
And let you poison her mind against me?
“I’m coming down. Don’t tell me I can’t see my daughter.”
“Eden’s in Sacramento?” Tori whispered, alarm crossing her face. “Why?”
“She doesn’t want you here right now. She needs time to clear her brain,” Jennifer spit out.
“Let me talk to her,” Seth ordered. He had to hear it from Eden’s mouth. She’d always been her mother’s girl. Jennifer was who she ran to when she had issues. It’d worked. Jennifer identified with Eden because her brain was permanently stuck in that teen mentality.
He heard Jennifer speak to someone in the background, and then Eden’s quiet voice filled the line. “Daddy?” The sound of her word soothed his heart and he closed his eyes for a second. Nothing touched him deeper than hearing his little girl call him Daddy. And it told him she was all right.
“What’s wrong, Eden? Why did you leave school?” Thankfully Eden hadn’t inherited the irrationality of her mother. He could ask questions and get true answers without anger getting in the way.
“I didn’t like it. I was lonely all the time.”
“You should have called me. I was only a few hours away.” His heart broke at the sorrow in her voice.
“I know. And I did call but I wasn’t going to ask you to leave work to come see me. I know you’re trying to get a new job.”
“Ahh, honey. That doesn’t matter. I’d drop everything if you needed something. I don’t want you upset because we’re getting divorced. You’re my first priority, you know.”
Tori started to leave, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Stay,” he whispered. She shook her head, her mask firmly in place. She didn’t want to interfere in his family business. She pulled her arm out of his grip and went back to the bedroom.
“I’m okay, Daddy. I just wanted to go home for a while.”
“I’m going to come down and see you.”
“No. I don’t want you to do that! You need to focus on your job interview. I’d feel horrible if you missed out on the job because you left.” She pleaded with him.
Seth was torn. “Your mom says you’re upset about the divorce.”
“No, I’m not. I just don’t know if going so far away for college was the right thing for me. I couldn’t think about anything else except home. And it rains there a lot. It was always gray. I knew it was going to be wet, but I didn’t expect it to be that wet,” she said plaintively.
“You need sunshine like your mom,” Seth admitted. It was true. “Are you sure about me not coming down? I feel like I should see you.”
“When will you know about your job? Can you come after that?” Eden asked.
“It should be soon, and then I’ll head down. Are you sure you’re okay with the divorce? Why did your mom say that was a reason for you leaving school?”
“Dad, really?” Eden snorted in the phone.
Seth was relieved and saddened at the same time. Eden could see right through her mother’s tactics. Jennifer thrived on making Seth feel guilty for every little possible thing. He extracted more promises from Eden about calling him regularly and enrolling in the local community college.
He hung up the phone and sighed, rubbing at his eyes. He’d ridden a roller-coaster all morning. First signing the divorce papers, finding that horrible woman who might be Tori’s birth mother, making love to Tori, and then the absolute terror when he’d believed his daughter was missing. But the lowest of all was when Jennifer tried to make him think he’d emotionally ripped up their daughter by filing for divorce. Jennifer knew how to push his buttons. She never accepted blame for anything. She would twist every situation to make him look like the bad guy instead of sharing blame.
His relationship with Tori was a good thing. Even Eden would see that.
He wanted to introduce Tori to Eden. He wanted to show his daughter how two adults should have a relationship. Eden had watched him and Jennifer avoid each other for years. He fervently hoped her views of marriage weren’t too skewed.
He tossed the phone on the bathroom counter and went to look for Tori. A few minutes in her arms would bring the world back into balance. He found her fully dressed and making the bed.
He stared, stunned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m heading back.” She didn’t look at him as she arranged the pillows.
“Well, hang on. I need a shower, don’t you?” His stomach coiled in an odd sinking sensation. “I’ll just be a few minutes.” He turned to grab a rapid shower, but she touched his arm, stopping him cold. He met her gaze and saw she had all barriers at full attention.
“I’ll get a cab,” she stated.
“No, wait. What’s going on?” Seth could feel her slipping away. What just happened? “Are you upset I brought you up here? That we had sex? Because that was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. I don’t regret it one bit.”
Tori shook her head. “No, it was good.”
Good? “It was fucking fantastic,” he corrected.
Her smile didn’t touch her eyes. “It was good. But you have another life that you need to get back to. They need you.” She turned to leave.
He grabbed her arm. “I need you.” This wasn’t happening to him. He wasn’t letting her walk away.
She made a show of glaring at his hand on her arm. He relaxed his grip but didn’t let go. Neither of them had spouses now. He had no reason to let her out that door. He was going to fight for her.
“Your daughter needs you. I won’t stand in the way of that.”
“You’re not!”
“She should be your first priority!”
Seth heard an echo of his earlier words to Eden. “She is. I will be there whenever she has need of me, but she’s an adult now. She told me not to come, and I believe she doesn’t need me to hold her hand while she gets over her homesickness. I don’t need to wash her bloody knees when she falls.
“I love my daughter. No one will take her place, but she’s my daughter, not the woman I want to spend my life with. She’s learning how to navigate in the world, and she hit a stumbling block. Her mother can soothe her.”
Tori studied his face, her gaze flicking back and forth between his eyes.
Did she believe him? “Eden had a rough couple of months. She’s run back home. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to get this job and move forward with us.” He smiled. “I came here with the first goal, but the second was added the moment I saw you. We’re moving in the right direction, and you’re not going to run away again.”
“I didn’t run away. I was married. So were you! With a child!” She pulled her arm out of his grasp, but the determined look in her eye was faltering.
He was getting through to her. “Exactly. There’s nothing holding us apart. And I’m not going to let your fears damage the start we’ve made.”
“My fears,” she stuttered.
“Yes, yours. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that I’m not going away. I’m here for you. I don’t care what kind of crap we have to deal with. I’ve got some relationship baggage with an ex-wife and you’ve got some with an ex-husband, but I think we’re both mature adults. I’m not going to run at the first sign of adversity. And I won’t let you either.”
She swallowed and her shoulders relaxed a fraction.
He exhaled, but his mind was still spinning. Holy shit, that was close.
Victoria studied his face. Seth was determined. As determined as she’d ever seen him. They were both too rational to allow a misunderstanding to undermine what they wanted. He’d told Eden she was his first priority, and Victoria had felt like an intruder. Hell, she’d felt like “the other woman” even though they were both single and available. Her first instinct had been to disappear. She would have been in a cab by now if he hadn’t grabbed her arm.
She was thankful he’d held on. At that precise moment, she’d needed to know he wanted her. Her anger had shot up that he’d manhandled her, but right then her mind hadn’t been rational. She’d been ready to run without asking him what’d happened on the phone.
What did she want? Didn’t she want to have a future with him? Is that why she’d tried to vanish? Was she not fully committed to moving forward with him? She drew in a shuddering breath.
“I love you, Seth. But—”
“There are no buts,” he cut her off.
“Yes, there are,” she asserted. “You’ve been here a week and we’ve rushed headlong into this. We both need to take a careful—”
“Damn it, Tori. Do you hear yourself? Can’t you go with your heart? Why are you doubting yourself? You know as well as I do that we belong together. Why do we need to analyze everything first? We’re not in relationships with anyone else. I’m not wanted by the police. I’ve got good credit and a clean medical history. What else do you need to think about? I love you!” he shouted, lifting his arms in exasperation.
A naked man was shouting at her.
Tears welled. She brushed at her eyes, frustrated at the sudden surge. Where was her self-control? The last few days had ripped her open. Next she’d be texting cute pictures of kittens to her friends. She felt like she stood on a precarious peak, and the wind blew at her from every direction, trying to push her off balance. Her emotional balance was threatened.
Seth put his hands on his hips and stared at her, waiting. Did he know how hard it was to argue with him when he was naked? He stood as if dressed in a suit, completely unconcerned with how he looked. He’d always been fearless in front of her.
She sucked in a ragged breath. “I love you, too. I got rattled. I heard you talking to your daughter, and I felt like I’d interfered somehow… that we’d interfered, messing up your priorities. I was just trying to make it easier for you.”
Sadness filled his eyes. “Ah, Tori. Not having you won’t make anything easier. I know how to love my daughter. Being with you won’t interfere with that. You need to trust me on this,” he pleaded.
She shut off her rational brain and stepped into his arms. Inhaling, she smelled her scent on his skin. He smelled like her, and she liked it. She’d marked him, and he’d firmly imprinted on her heart.
“We’re going to make this work,” he promised.