Come Home to Me. Brenda Novak

Чтение книги онлайн.

       5

      Presley hated leaving other people to do her work. She didn’t want to feel indebted to Riley or Aaron. Especially Aaron. But she was terrified that if Aaron and Wyatt had any interaction at all he’d suspect the truth. If Aaron hadn’t always been so vigilant about birth control, or if there’d been a specific incident when they’d noticed a broken rubber—which there wasn’t—he would already have questioned her or Cheyenne about the circumstances of Wyatt’s conception.

      Fortunately, she had those two things going for her.

      She’d made the right decision in not telling him, hadn’t she? Every once in a while, she panicked, wondering if she’d been crazy to make the choice she’d made. But she hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose; there was no duplicity involved. And she didn’t expect child support or anything else from him. So how was the fact that she’d kept Wyatt hurting him?

      It wasn’t. To her knowledge, he’d never expressed any interest in having a child. Indeed, his diligence in the birth control department indicated he didn’t want one. There were times he’d even said as much, when a friend married or had a kid. That meant she was doing him a huge favor by keeping the truth to herself. It allowed him to lead whatever life he chose without having to wrestle with his conscience.

      Of course, if he found out, there was no guarantee he’d look at the situation so philosophically. That was what frightened her. She hated to even think of the possibility....

      Wyatt, happy now that she’d let him loose to run around the house, started to empty his toy box.

      “You little devil,” she teased when she saw the mess he was making.

      He grinned up at her, completely unrepentant, and she bent to press her lips to his forehead. Then she dropped onto the lumpy sofa she’d bought from the thrift store where she’d worked in Fresno. “You’re a charmer, aren’t you?” she said as he babbled and played. “Just like your daddy. Headstrong, too,” she added, thinking of how willful they could both be.

      “Mama!” He brought her his collection of cars, one by one.

      Despite a long list of worries, Presley couldn’t help smiling when he trundled over without a car just to plant a kiss on her face. His kisses were wet and sloppy but, for her, they were one of life’s true pleasures. She loved Wyatt so much—and that was why she had to keep up her defenses where Aaron was concerned, no matter how intent he seemed on regaining her friendship.

      Her cell phone rang. She tensed, afraid it might be Riley or Aaron with a question, but caller ID indicated it was Cheyenne.

      With a yawn, she hit the talk button. “Hello?”

      Wyatt tugged at her arm. “Pone, Mama? Pone?”

      She smiled at his attempt to say phone. He was learning more words all the time. “That’s right, baby. Phone.”

      “Presley? Hello?”

      She could hear a certain amount of pique in Cheyenne’s voice. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

      “I just stopped by your studio.”

      Oh, boy... When Cheyenne and Dylan had agreed to help her if she moved back, they’d indicated that the quickest way to lose their support would be to get mixed up with the wrong crowd again—and they considered Aaron and his friends “the wrong crowd.”

      “I don’t know what he’s doing there, Chey,” she said, preempting her sister’s complaint.

      “It looked to me like he was painting!”

      Stifling a groan, she covered her eyes with one arm. “He came over this morning and offered. It wasn’t as if I asked him.”

      “You could’ve said no! You told me you’d stay away from him. If he finds out...I don’t have to tell you I have a lot to lose, too.”

      Cheyenne hated lying to Dylan. And having her and Aaron in such close proximity threatened them both with exposure.

      But Presley hadn’t wanted things to turn out like this! She’d tried to make the situation easier on everyone by leaving town. She’d planned to stay in Fresno indefinitely and would have done so if not for what was going on at Wyatt’s day care. She’d lodged a complaint, knew the day care was being investigated, but those days of doubt and suspicion had shaken her trust.

      “I tried.”

      “You said that you told him you wouldn’t be spending any time with him.”

      “I did!”

      “Maybe you weren’t blunt enough.”

      The look on Aaron’s face when she squeezed past him at the СКАЧАТЬ