River's End (River's End Series, #1)(94)

“You hit Joey. You made him bleed.”

“I did. I did do that. It was a fight, Charlie. Not just me beating up Joey. He fought back.”

“Doesn’t make it any better, Dad.”

He sighed. Score one for his son. Of course, Charlie was right.

“No, it doesn’t. Look, Joey and I were fighting about some adult stuff. About stuff we let go too far and get too heated. It wasn’t right. It was…”

“About her. I hate her! I want her to leave and never come back here. You never hit Uncle Joey before she came.”

He cringed. Of course, Charlie would blame it on Erin. Almost as simplistically as Joey blamed it on her.

“Erin didn’t do anything, Charlie. Joey and I did.”

“She did that stuff with Joey. That stuff you said only happens when people love each other. Like you and Mommy.”

He did say that. He had the big sex talk with Charlie at the start of the school year after Charlie heard a very enlightening, but very wrong discussion of sex in the schoolyard. Jack explained that sex occurred between two people who loved each other, trying not to make it seem as gross as the initial description he heard of it implied.

“Well, if Erin did, so did Joey. Do you hate Joey too?”

Charlie bit his lip, and it took all Jack’s wherewithal to meet his son’s gaze as they talked. “No. I don’t hate Joey. But you do for that.”

“I hated Joey for saying mean things about her. And I should have handled it better, Charlie. I’ll never deny that. But your uncle was very wrong about what he said.”

“Are you now doing that with her?”

Sex. Shit. How does one answer an eight-year-old son about having sex? By lying? Charlie would see right through that and respect him even less. By admitting it? Really, no one ever explained that when he had kids, he’d be handing condoms to one son while confessing his sex life to the other.

“Yeah. I am, Charlie. But I love her. I love Erin. And it’s something you’re going to have to be okay with.”

Charlie frowned and shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

“I know,” he said, kissing his son’s forehead. Charlie didn’t remember Lily, and their family had always been all men for Charlie. He never shared his father with any woman, not even his own mother, so Jack got why he wouldn’t want to now. “But that isn’t Erin’s fault. Try to remember that, okay, bud?”

Charlie nodded and bit his lip before burying his head in the crook of Jack’s arm. He heard a noise and looked behind him. Erin was standing off to his left, in the pine trees. She had been listening. He stood up with Charlie’s hands looped around his neck. He needed just five minutes with her, but he couldn’t yet. Charlie was still too upset.

He gave her a tight smile as he passed her, and Charlie burrowed against him. He hoped she understood.

****

Erin wasn’t expecting to run into Jack. Not so soon. He was sitting on the beach with Charlie curled in his lap. They spoke quietly to each other. Jack brushed his lips to Charlie’s white, freckled forehead. And that stabbed her heart. He could be the sweetest, kindest, most tender man she’d ever known. She didn’t know too many other fathers, but the ones she did know didn’t hold, kiss, or comfort their eight-year-old sons. Not the way Jack did. She quietly moved towards the rock beach and finally sat down. She watched the low river going by. The day was already promising heat. She was glad she showered and put on clean shorts and a tank top. Her hair was now combed and pulled back.

She didn’t know what to think or feel. Horrified. Shamed. Embarrassed. Unwelcome. And yet, she wanted nothing more than to stay. Jack said he loved her. To her and in front of all of them, the men who so dominated her life nowadays.

She heard him before she saw him. She could feel Jack stepping directly behind her. There was a change in the air and her heartbeat increased. He squatted down next to her and his eyes were on her. She kept hers glued to the rocky river bottom. He finally sat, stretching out his legs in front of him. “So I didn’t handle that in the best way I could have, huh?”

She turned and he smiled at her, but she frowned. Why was he smiling at her? Now, of all times? He’d just beaten his brother up. Over her. After being a total jerk to her. Jack who was serious almost all the time, decided now not to be? His smile became a long, lazy grin that made her heart swell.

“You beat up Joey.”

“I tried to beat up Joey. He surprised me with all the fighting skills he learned while he was gone. I should have anticipated that.”

“You scared your children by hitting their uncle.”

“I know, I just spent the last hour explaining why they should never act that way, and to listen to what I say, instead of doing as I do. Somehow, I don’t think that was quite how it’s supposed to be.”

“You…”

“I know what I did, Erin,” he said, interrupting her, but his tone remained gentle. “I embarrassed you. I hurt you. I shamed you. I know what I did and Joey was the least of it. Joey can fight back. But you can’t.”

She frowned. That was not what she meant. But strangely, Jack raised his hand to her cheek. Who was this new Jack? She didn’t get him at all.

“You acted like you’d never seen me. You think Joey was rude to me now, but at least, Joey never lied to me. He always told me where we stood; we always were honest with each other. That’s something, Jack. Something pretty important.”