LLucy’s Revenge(Divine Creek Ranch 15)(8)

“Talk to me.”

“Sorry. You have magic fingers.”

Lucy smirked. “You have no idea.”

His mind dove into the gutter and his cock perked up when she looked at his chest and licked her lips. He struggled to recall what she’d asked him to talk about. They’d kept things platonic up until this point and he wasn’t accustomed to Lucy being so clear about what she desired. Then he recalled what she wanted to talk about.

“I met Elizabeth when we were teenagers and we dated a couple of times. After college she returned to Divine and it was then that we got serious. My family approved of her family and vice versa.”

“Her pedigree mattered to them?”

“Oh, yeah. And at the time I valued their acceptance. I was fresh out of college and I worked a lot of hours, paying my dues in the family architectural firm. Elizabeth seemed happy. Then she switched to a different church and started going to a lot of meetings at night without me. She became more vocal—and judgmental—in her opinions. When I talked with her about it, she said that if I wasn’t for her, I was against God. I thought when she got pregnant it would give her something healthier to focus on but it didn’t. Once she had Patrick, she hit the ground running. She’d pack him up and be gone all day at meetings, or at least that’s what she told me. When she started her study group…she became obsessed.”

“And the baby?” she asked, still gently manipulating the muscles in his arm, which felt oddly out of balance with the rest of him, lighter and warmer as though she was drawing toxins from him as he talked. He angled his body on the couch so he faced her when she reached for his other hand.

Patrick’s heart contracted at the memories. “I’d come home and find the house dark as though she’d been gone the whole day. She’d get home late and he’d be exhausted, and dirty. She’d hand him to me and get right on her computer, and I wouldn’t hear a peep from her, even at bedtime, unless I interrupted her. He seemed more and more like an inconvenience to her, and so did I. The one good thing to come of it was me bonding with my son over bath time and a late supper every night. I fooled myself into thinking that what bordered on maternal neglect was just the norm in a modern family lifestyle.”

He still felt tremendous guilt for not intervening in some way before everything had come to a head.

Lucy listened quietly, without judgment as he spoke. He didn’t relish telling her any of this, but she needed to know. He didn’t expect her to just accept that there was a part of his life that was a big black void, but he was afraid she’d view him differently. View him as a weakling.

“Leroy Paggs worked as a mechanic but I took care of all our vehicle service while in Morehead so our paths never crossed, even in a town as small as Divine. All that time Elizabeth had been acting like one of the frozen chosen, she’d been carrying on with Paggs. I divorced her after she…after I…” He stuttered a time or two before he finally spit it out. “Patrick isn’t my biological child. But I love him as if he was.”

Lucy’s hands halted for a second in their gentle manipulation and he glanced at her, expecting pity. She tilted her head and looked at him, hurt showing in the furrowing of her dark eyebrows. Sweet relief hit him when he didn’t see pity in her piercing blue eyes. Looking around the living room and biting her lip as if she was trying to decide what to do, she surprised him when she crawled into his lap. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she hugged him tight, pressing her face into his throat. Her sweet body heat through the thin, silky material of her robe hit him like opening the door to a hot oven, warming him.

Hope flared inside of him and he responded to her loving gesture. Holding back with her hadn’t been easy the last two months but it had become habit. He needed what she offered right then, like parched earth needed rain. To hold this warm, solid bundle of woman made him wonder when had been the last time he’d done that and he couldn’t recollect. Elizabeth had never been very demonstrative.

Patrick had accepted that Lucy might already know about his son’s paternity but it was clear from her reaction that she didn’t. He wouldn’t have minded if the girls had told her, and had figured that she already knew. That only solidified in his mind what good friends they were to him and his son.

He wanted the telling done with and forged ahead, anxious to move on to discussing where this night might take them.

“I knew Elizabeth wasn’t happy, but I felt impotent to fix the situation. She wouldn’t listen to me. I realized how twisted she’d become when she became obsessed with ridding Divine of all the polyamorous groups. She slandered and libeled them. Blogged about them. Posted videos and pictures on the Internet trying to shame them and finally began attacking them directly. At her urging, Paggs broke into Summer and Margot’s little boutique, roughed Summer up, and later set fire to the shop.”