“I don’t want your consolation prize. We don’t want it.” Her shoulders sagged as she walked toward the door. “I’m sorry, Vaughn, but there’s no place for you here. There hasn’t been for a long time.”
His insides were scraped raw as the office door shut, sealing him off from River. As if he hadn’t done that himself, years ago. You’d kill her. Marcy. Was that true? Had coming back to Hook been a huge mistake for River and Marcy? He’d never been good for River, and he still wasn’t. Possibly even worse now that he’d spent years numbing himself while she busted her ass to raise their child. Was it worth trying to convince River—and himself—that he could stay? Or was history doomed to repeat itself?
Hadn’t he bailed just like his own parents?
With that ugly thought knocking around his skull, Vaughn reached toward the desk, batting off the top to the Adidas box containing his uncle’s possessions. His pulse lurched when he spotted a picture of himself and River right on top, as they’d been when she still attended high school. God, the way she used to look at him. As if a cape were all he needed to be some powerful superhero. The opposite of how she looked at him now.
Did it have to be, though? Maybe he’d never earn back that pure, perfect trust. But even a sliver of that former belief she’d had in him? Fuck, it would make life worth living. To have that trust from his child, too, would be the stuff of dreams. Dreams he’d never been aware of having. Until now. And after so much time devoid of feeling, that hope was addictive.
Vaughn’s step was purposeful as he left the office, shoebox wedged in the crook of his elbow.
Chapter Four
Vaughn watched River from across the street, wondering why the hell she was eating lunch by herself. Could have been worse. She could have been sharing a homemade sandwich with a man. As had been proven that morning, jealousy was the kind of emotion that didn’t give a damn about rights. On days when coping with memories of being overseas, memories of River, got too thick and bunched up around his neck, sometimes demons crept in. One such demon in particular was the image of her in the arms of another man, almost as if his subconscious wanted to push him that final inch into madness.
Dangerous. Dangerous to think of River as his. When he’d left her crying out for him forty-nine months and four days ago, he’d relinquished any claim on her personal life. A fact that needed remembering.
There were several reasons why he’d left River behind, one of them being his fear he would keep her from reaching the potential she’d been born with. Staying in Hook after her high school graduation, wasting two years attending night classes and working at the factory… Staying in this second rate town for him. The guilt had driven him crazy.
He’d joined the army after her twentieth birthday in the hope—which he could see now had been subconscious—that River would see reason and go make a better life in the time he was gone. Go to a real college. Hell, she’d had the grades, the tuition money set aside by her parents. What had been holding her back?
Vaughn. Him. A fist-fighting, vehicle-boosting delinquent turned part-time mechanic. Not worth her time. Not even worth her notice. And all that…all that had been before he’d come back from overseas with a head full of screams and bomb blasts. Before the army, he’d been beneath River. But after serving, he’d been cancerous.
I’m not bringing a man with a habit of leaving into my daughter’s life.
If he wanted the chance to become a father, he would have to backburner his feelings for River. Hell, he had zero business trying to recapture their relationship anyway. None. God, on top of ruining her youth, he’d left her high and dry as an adult. If she allowed him the chance to break the cycle his parents had created, he’d need to be grateful. Wanting more and being denied would be murder.
Unfortunately, the man who’d been compelled closer, always closer, to her in high school—the man who’d dared to touch her magic—felt hollow and restless watching her eat alone.
“Shit,” he muttered, climbing out of his truck. From her perch on the hood of her car, River jolted, then grew very still when she saw him approaching—the exact opposite of the circus performance happening live in his stomach. Goddammit, even in her factory jumpsuit, goggle marks on her forehead, she was sunshine breaking through storm clouds. Had it only been a matter of hours since they’d parted ways? “All the popular kids must be sick today for the class president to be eating by herself.”
River set her sandwich down on the plastic bag in her lap. Carefully, gently, the way she’d always done everything. Until they got kissing, he silently amended. Nothing careful or gentle about what happened when their mouths met.
Stop fantasizing about something you can’t have and never deserved.
“I’m not class president anymore,” she said after a beat. “Anyway, I like the quiet.”
“You used to hate it.”