Read Online Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) by Lori Handeland - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t seem possible, she went even
stiffer. Her back and neck must hurt something awful every
night.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Better tread lightly here. “Every kid
deserves a dad.”
    “Even kids whose dads don’t deserve
them?”
    Garrett’s insecurities returned. He’d learned
over the years that most writers functioned with an odd sort of
schizophrenia—arrogant enough to believe they could write, yet
vulnerable enough to possess the emotions to do it in the first
place.
    Since this morning, Garrett’s schizophrenia
had begun to slop over into his life as well as his work. One
minute he knew he was the best thing for Max, and in the
space of an instant and a single wrinkled nose from Livy, he was
certain he’d be the worst possible influence on his son.
    “I’d like a chance. I won’t hurt him.”
    He was treated to her “too dumb to live”
glare, which he was starting to believe she reserved especially for
him. “Where have I heard that before?”
    A single sentence and one night in the garden
might have been only yesterday, so clear was the voice of his past: I won’t hurt you, Livy. I swear. I’d cut off my arm
before I’d hurt you. Give me a chance. Let me touch you. Let
me...
    He could say he’d been twenty and foolishly
stupid. Seduced by the sight of her atop the grass, the drift of
the flowers against her hair, the scent of her skin all around him
and the taste of her mouth on his. But the truth didn’t make what
he’d done forgivable.
    Garrett licked dry lips and discovered he
could taste her still. Maybe that was why he’d been drinking since
he’d come back to Savannah. With whiskey in his mouth he no longer
tasted Livy and burned for her.
    How could he explain that he’d left so he wouldn’t hurt her? That he’d known in his heart he would
never be good enough to stay.
    For months after, his entire body had ached
with loneliness and a desperate desire to return. The only way he’d
survived was to write until the blinding fury of need dimmed. He’d
put everything he’d felt for her, all that he’d feared and
believed, everything he’d left behind, into that first book.
    He’d done it for her. But she’d never believe
him.
    “Did you ever try to find me?”
    “No.” She crossed her arms.
    “Why not?”
    “I lived on the road for seventeen years. My
father was exactly like you. Drift and wander, pick up a job here,
sleep over there. You told me your name—something easily changed,
as you’ve proven. But you never told me where you were from, or
anything about your past. There would have been no finding you,
J.J., even if I’d wanted to try.”
    Uncertainty swamped him. “Why didn’t you want
to try?”
    “You left me, of your own free will. Why
would I drag you back where you didn’t want to be, so you could
leave Max, too?”
    Considering it from her angle, she had a
point. Why would she believe he’d stay for the son when he hadn’t
for the mother?
    Garrett tried a different tack. “Maybe we
should leave our past out of this.”
    “I don’t see how, since the past is Max.” Her
sigh was long and as full of exhaustion as her eyes now that the
heat had burned off. “Why are you here? Why don’t you leave? It’s
what you do best.”
    “Not anymore.”
    Her withering look revealed how little his
words meant, and he couldn’t blame her. But he wasn’t going to give
up. “Don’t make me go to court. You’ll lose and you know it.”
    “Why are you doing this to me?” she shouted,
and the anguish in her voice bounced off the cool shadowed porch
and into the bright autumn sunlight. Two tiny old ladies paused
amid their afternoon constitutional and glared at Garrett from the
sidewalk.
    “Ladies.” He inclined his head.
    They sniffed—as only elderly southern ladies
could, making him feel as if his knuckles had been rapped without
them ever touching him—then straightened backs stiffer than Livy’s
and hurried on.
    Garrett was trying to get