Built (Saints of Denver #1)(15)
I reared back a little and took a minute to get my thoughts in order before asking, “You have a sibling your family never disclosed to you, too?” It seemed highly unlikely, but I was missing a piece of the puzzle here and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to hand it over. I couldn’t believe he’d found himself in a similar situation to the one I was in when my father died and his will revealed that I had a brother. The bastard couldn’t even be bothered to tell me himself. Ever the consummate Svengali, toying with the people he was supposed to love like we existed for nothing more than his amusement. His games and ploys had been exhausting, but his last one had failed. Thank God. I was so lonely growing up, so sad and isolated, that when I found out about Rowdy, I dropped everything in my old life in Seattle and hightailed it for Colorado as quickly as I could. It was the one time in my life when I acted without thinking. It was the one time I had let myself feel . . . until that fateful day I met Zeb.
I made it no secret that I considered Rowdy to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to me, so if that was what Zeb was talking about I could walk him through the ups and downs of it all.
He pushed off the desk and started to pace back and forth in front of me. I was trying to figure out what exactly was going on as he brooded before me, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from tracking the way the muscles in his shoulders and back bunched and flexed under his T-shirt each time he reached the end of the rug and turned around to walk back the other way. The man was hot even when he was troubled and it made me feel a little bit like a pervert for not being able to control my fascination with him.
“Not a sibling . . . a son.” He stopped in front of me as the words dropped like a bag of bricks between us. “There is a possibility I fathered a child as soon as I got out of prison. I might have a five-year-old son out there.”
I felt my jaw drop a little and I was glad I had taken a moment to add some artificial color to my face because whatever heat had worked into my cheeks by being around him had surely leached out with his revelation.
“A possibility, but you don’t know for sure?” It was what I would ask any client in the same situation. “Is someone coming after you for child support?”
He shook his head and picked the pacing back up. “No. It was a one-night deal and the mother didn’t even know who the father was until the baby was born. She passed away recently and the little boy is currently with Child Protective Services. The woman’s friend tracked me down claiming I’m the boy’s dad and begging me to keep him out of foster care. I don’t really remember the girl or the sex, but I do recall the day since it was the day of my release and the timing fits. The little boy just turned five according to the friend that found me.”
I frowned and fought the urge to get up and grab his arms to get him to stop moving so that I could talk to him without having to crane my neck.
“So a stranger dropped all of this on you with the mother out of the picture and you just bought the story at face value?” He had to be smarter than that.
My skepticism finally brought him to a halt as he stopped in front of me and looked down at me. I sucked in a surprised breath that whistled through my teeth when he bent down slightly and held his phone under my nose for inspection.
“No. I thought she was nuts and threatened to throw her off my jobsite until she showed me a picture of the boy.” I stared in shock at the image on the phone of the mini Zeb. “That kind of proof made me listen to what she had to say.”
Without thinking, I snatched the phone out of his callused hand and touched a finger to the adorable little face looking back at me on the screen. “He looks just like you.”
Zeb snorted. “I noticed. Which is why I’m here.”
I couldn’t stop looking at the little boy, so without looking up, I asked him, “There are no other relatives? No grandparents or aunts and uncles who could take him in while we figure out paternity?” I winced when I realized I said “we” like this was a problem we were going to find a solution for together. For all I knew, Zeb just wanted some advice or the name of another good attorney. The thought of anyone else helping him navigate the tricky family court system made the hair on the back of my neck rise up.
“According to the friend that brought the information to me, the mom was living a pretty dangerous lifestyle. She hadn’t been in contact with her family for years. The little guy has no one, and if he is mine then I need to do the right thing by him and I need to do it as quickly as possible.”
I gulped and handed the phone back when he stuck his hand out for it. I put my own hand to my chest because my heart was beating so fast I thought maybe he could see it through my skin and layers of clothing.
“That’s very admirable, Zeb.”
“No, it’s not. If he’s mine I should’ve been taking care of him all along. He shouldn’t be in this situation because I was too drunk and disgustingly miserable to use a condom one time. It’s not his fault that his mom was an addict and made terrible decisions. No kid should have to suffer because of the shitty choices the adults in their lives might’ve made. He deserves better than this.”
I agreed with him, but I also thought he was being kind of hard on himself. I knew far too many men who, were they in the same situation, would have ignored the revelation of a child they fathered and pretended like nothing had happened.