Lawyers In Love: Bittersweet Homecoming by Ann Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

nightmare to get to the Gulf beaches. “Do you hear sirens?”
    “Yeah.” His pupils got bigger as he watched two ambulances streak by them on the way back to Tampa. “Mommy, did they take Dad to the hospital in one of those?”
    Imagining what hideous tortures Gray had endured brought bile up in Andi’s throat, but she swallowed it. For Brett’s sake, she kept her tone light. “They might have, at some point. But I imagine they brought him back from South America on a plane.”
    “Do you think he can swim?” Brett watched some older kids cavorting on personal water vehicles as their car crept along next to the causeway beach.
    Andi felt a momentary twinge of guilt. Her unreasonable fear of drowning had kept her from taking her son for outings in the pool and on the beaches, which cut him out of a lot of
Florida
fun. “I don’t know.”
    “I bet he can. Lisa in my swimming class can swim real good, and she can’t walk at all, even with crutches.”
    “You’ll have to ask your dad.” Swimming was only one of many skills Andi had no idea whether Gray had possessed before his ordeal, much less now.
    “Okay. Look, Mommy. There’s a big dog playing out in the water. Can I have one?” Brett pointed toward a ribbon of sand along the causeway. A happy looking golden retriever trotted out of the murky water toward its master, a stick clenched between its teeth.
    “No. It wouldn’t be fair, keeping a dog inside all day while you’re at school and I’m working,” Andi told her son for what had to have been the hundredth time.
    He shot a longing look at the dog. “Maybe Dad has a dog.”
    “He doesn’t. He has to work, too.”
    Brett kept quiet for a few minutes, as if deep in thought. Just as Andi was beginning to hope he’d stay silent until the traffic cleared, he turned to her. “You won’t have to work when you and Dad get married. You can stay home, the way Kristine does since she married Tony.”
    Damn the traffic and the dog and her son’s constant chatter. Between them, her patience was close to the breaking point. “That’s not going to happen, Brett.”
    “But you told me you never got married because you thought Dad was dead. Aren’t you going to marry him now?”
    Oh, God. It hadn’t been a month since some jerk kid at school had taunted Brett about his mom not having a husband, since she’d spun that tall tale about how she and his dad would have married if only he hadn’t died while protecting their country. Why was it every time she opened her big mouth her words came back to haunt her?
    “No, Brett.”
    “Why not?”
    Someone farther back in the line of westbound cars blasted on his horn. When Andi looked up, she noticed traffic ahead of her had started moving.
    “I’ve got to watch the road. We’ll talk about this later,” she said as she pulled into the space the car ahead of her had just vacated.
    “Is it because he got hurt? Because he’s got scars?”
    “Of course not. Brett, your dad’s the same man he always was, inside. Inside is what counts. Haven’t I always told you that?”
    “Then why won’t you marry him? Take care of him?” he asked, his plaintive tone tearing at Andi’s heart.
    She kept her eyes on the road, tried to banish a mental picture of Gray’s face, still compelling in spite of its imperfections.
    “Why, Mommy?”
    “Not now, Brett. I have to pay attention to traffic.” The words came out sounding harsher than she’d intended. “Sorry, buddy. You just don’t understand.”
    How the hell could she tell a seven-year-old kid she’d lied? That he was the product of a glorified three-night stand, not the love match of the century?
    How could she explain that chances were, if Gray had known about her pregnancy, he probably would have offered no more than financial support—certainly not the cozy family scene she’d painted to salve her son’s wounded pride?
    Good thing lying was just a sin, not a crime. Andi doubted even silver-tongued Tony