The Perfect Liar (Last Stand #5)(78)
Author: Brenda Novak

"Why bother? Tears don’t help anything," she told him, and forced a smile as she unlocked the door to the cabin.

"Your mother told me you want us to move into a motel, but we’re not going to leave our home, Luke. This woman, whoever she is, has no reason to hurt us."

If Kalyna was as crazy as she sometimes seemed, she wouldn’t need a reason. But Luke wasn’t sure whether or not he should push his father on this. Now that he knew Kalyna was here in town with him, it seemed a bit extreme. "She’s acting a little more stable than I was expecting. But I’m telling you, Kalyna’s unpredictable, and she has your address. You have to be careful."

"I’l keep an eye out," he said.

Ed thought he could handle Kalyna. He had no idea how she could twist things in her own mind. But Luke couldn’t imagine her driving down to San Diego to harm his family without some provocation, and he hadn’t given her any, not this morning. "Mom told you she might’ve kil ed the woman who adopted her and a young teen, didn’t she?"

"She told me. You’ve really got yourself mixed up in something, haven’t you?"

He had. And he felt he deserved it for being careless enough to step into Kalyna’s trap. "Just do me one favor," he said. "If she calls you guys, don’t talk to her, okay? And if she sends you a package or a letter, don’t open it. Call me first."

"I wil ."

"Good. Let me deal with her."

"I take it you’re not going to marry her."

He laughed without mirth. "No, I’m not going to marry her."

"Is she really pregnant?"

He thought of that paper from the clinic. Positive. "She showed me the results of a pregnancy test she took yesterday. Looks like she might be.

But I’m not certain the baby’s mine." He was stil holding out hope, although he had eight months to wait.

"Why would she tell you it’s yours if it isn’t? That’s easy to disprove."

"I know." But Kalyna had done enough weird shit where he was concerned that he wouldn’t put it past her, not for one second. "She’s doing anything she can to hold my attention."

"You don’t think you could ever grow to like her?"

"No. Definitely not."

"Okay. Well, I’m glad the rape charges are being dropped, anyway. It was terrible worrying about what might happen to you."

Luke hadn’t had a chance to feel very relieved. If that baby was his, he was looking at a life sentence spent shackled to Kalyna. Part of him actually wondered if he might prefer five to ten. But at least he’d been able to call off McCreedy, which meant most of the money he’d put on retainer would be returned to him. "This hasn’t been my best week."

"It’d be nice if you could meet someone and settle down," his father said.

His parents told him that all the time. He usually rolled his eyes and tried to distract them with another subject. Today, however, he pictured Ava as she’d been in the moonlight, staring up at him. Her lovemaking had been intense; he’d been completely consumed by it.

"I wil . Someday." He hated that he’d been so rude to Ava when she came to his apartment. Maybe he’d expected too much from her this morning. When Geoffrey had shown up, she’d been shocked and embarrassed. Sending him off as if their time together had meant nothing might’ve been a knee-jerk reaction, a self-defense mechanism snapping into place. She’d been trying to shove him away since the very beginning.

But that prickly "I don’t need anyone" exterior protected one of the softest hearts he’d ever known. He’d seen that for himself last night.

Had he reacted differently, with more understanding, maybe they’d be planning to see each other tonight.

He wondered what she’d say if he called her….

"Luke?"

"What?"

His father repeated what he’d apparently missed. "I said you’re nearly thirty. Don’t you want a family?"

"Yes, I want a family."

"Then maybe you should get serious about finding a wife," he said.

And, for Luke, that was the deciding factor. He wasn’t sure Ava would be the woman he married. But he felt something for her he hadn’t felt for anyone since Marissa. He wasn’t going to give her up quite so easily.

After hanging up with his father, he dialed her cell number, but it went straight to voice mail.

"Ava, it’s Luke. I’m calling because…last night wasn’t just another night for me. I’d like to see you again. Wil you call me?"

Chapter 30

"Honey, don’t talk like that. Come on, we have a good marriage…I wasn’t sneaking around. I told her you wanted me to take Buffy to the vet, that I’d have to call her later."

Hearing her father in the living room doing his best to cajole his wife, Ava remained in her bedroom. Her stint in the shower had been much shorter than she’d originally intended, but with her father around, she hadn’t felt comfortable taking a longer one. She wouldn’t have worried about it if she’d known he’d get into a marathon argument with her dear stepmother, however.

Purposely wasting time, she checked the mirror to see if her eyes were stil puffy.

"…I did tell you she called," her father was saying. "It’d already been two days. I felt I should get back to her…"

Fortunately, the swelling had gone down. Now that she’d done her hair and put on some makeup, as well as a blouse and skirt, she didn’t look too bad.

"…I can’t ignore her. I was married to her once. She was part of my life…"

Ava didn’t want to walk out and embarrass her father. He had to feel like an idiot sucking up that much. But now that she was finished in the bathroom, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She hesitated to go to work today. She feared Geoffrey might’ve stopped by the office to see her since their run-in this morning and revealed that some cataclysmic event had changed their lives. Even if he hadn’t, she couldn’t abide the thought of facing Skye or Sheridan or Jonathan, knowing she’d slept with one of her clients. So maybe she wouldn’t go in.

Or maybe she would. They’d probably be glad to hear she was no longer seeing Geoffrey. But she was almost as reluctant to acknowledge that as she was to admit the truth about Luke. Her friends had been trying to tell her that something important was missing from her relationship with Geoff. Because she’d clung so stubbornly to the belief that her life was just the way she wanted it, pride wouldn’t allow her to admit that they’d been right all along. Not yet. There were too many other emotions swirling around inside her.

"…Boo, stop…"

Boo? Ava grimaced. She didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to witness her father begging the forgiveness of a spoiled, selfish woman half his age. A woman who wasn’t one-tenth the person Zelinda had been before her fall from grace.