Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(13)

The lie he’d told.

So many secrets and shadows around a relationship that represented clean, white light to him. Ironically, now that he yearned to come clean to River, to tell her everything, she was well out of his reach. His family had been built without him. However, down deep in his bones there was a yearning to care for River and Marcy. To be the missing piece, even if he’d always been a piece that didn’t fit anywhere. The puzzle would never truly feel complete without calling River his own again, but he’d take whatever scrap they threw his way and be goddamn grateful.

“She said I could meet Marcy, so long as I get lost afterward. Leave town,” Vaughn said, feeling the weight of that decision as if it rested on his own shoulders. “After everything she’s been through, I hate to push for more. Jesus, what do I know about being a dad, anyway?”

“You’re here. That’s a damn fine start.” They both rolled their necks, neither of them big on sharing. “You know, if you want to earn some brownie points with River,” Duke said, breaking into Vaughn’s thoughts. “You could start by preventing her hangover.”

Vaughn’s head came up. “What?”

Duke gestured with his glass of whiskey toward the back of the Third Shift. “I wasn’t kidding when I said we’re all tying one on.”

The crowd parted just enough for Vaughn to catch sight of River’s unmistakable blonde hair flipping…as she put away a shot of tequila.

“Christ.”

…

Oh God. What was she doing here? She should be home, using the unexpected night off to clean the house or finish that novel she’d started reading…when? Last year? She’d just phoned the babysitter to let her know she’d be an extra hour. And that hour’s end was fast approaching. According to Helen, she was happily knitting on the couch with Marcy sound asleep upstairs. River never went out unless it was a special occasion, so why did she feel so guilty?

Maybe because drinking tequila was an attempt to get the taste of Vaughn out of her mouth. The kiss still lingered, the intensity of it kicking around in her belly every time she replayed it. Which her wiser self insisted she should not be doing. Hence the tequila. If she didn’t take a proactive approach in eradicating the new memory, she would relive it all night long—as if thoughts of Vaughn didn’t already take up way too much of her consciousness.

I’ll let you meet Marcy. But only if you leave town afterward and don’t come back.

What would Vaughn decide? And why did regret insist on prodding at her? He’d looked so…devastated as she’d walked away.

It made no sense. He was the one who’d claimed he’d stopped loving her that night four years ago. She could still hear the toneless, callous manner in which he’d said the words. I don’t feel the same way anymore, Riv. I’m sorry. And what had come after. The desperate way she’d seduced him, trying to convince him he was wrong. One more time. Just one more time, and you’ll see.

Nine months later, she’d had Marcy.

Feeling a sudden, bone-deep need to be home, to lay eyes on her daughter, River pushed to her feet—and swayed, the room doubling around her.

“Oh.”

No sooner had she made the decision to sit down until her head stopped spinning than two big hands closed around her biceps, steadying her. “Hiya, doll.”

Vaughn. And with a flash of clarity, River realized the real reason she’d come to the Third Shift, a place she normally avoided like the plague. She’d been hoping to bump into him.

For shame, River. You really are a self-destructive idiot. The sentiment became even more obvious when Vaughn brought her close, his breath ruffling the tiny loose strands at her hairline, igniting a flickering white flame in her belly. “I was jus’ on my way out.” River frowned over the slur in her speech. “You know what I’m m-mean.”

His lips had the nerve to tick up at both ends. “You always were a lightweight.”

“We keep arguing. And you keep showing up like nothing happened.” A hiccup escaped. “Did you used to do that?”

Vaughn’s smile dimmed. “We never used to argue.”

“There had to be one,” she insisted.

Those big fingers started massaging her biceps, sliding up to perform the same soothing action on her shoulders. Good Lord. Why did it have to feel so good? “There was one time,” he said after a moment. “You invited me over for dinner at your parents’ house, and I didn’t show because I knew I’d f*ck it up. I knew, Riv. So you snuck out when they fell asleep, stormed over to my apartment in the dark—which is how I got pissed off—and you ended up getting it doggy style on my kitchen floor.” By the end of Vaughn’s story, his breathing had graduated to rough drags of air. “That’s how we handled our one argument.”

The memory of having her jeans yanked down by angry hands, her knees sliding up and back on the linoleum floor until Vaughn got frustrated and lifted her legs up like the handles of a wheelbarrow? The forced visual swiped away a huge portion of the tequila fuzz making River dizzy. Vaughn’s gaze had dipped to her breasts, which were still covered by the Giants T-shirt she’d worn to work beneath her coveralls. Although she might as well have been wearing a see-through negligee, based on Vaughn’s riveted attention. The hands massaging her shoulders had grown more insistent, gathering material with each movement, until the shirt lifted and exposed her stomach.