“I asked you upstairs if I could come back tomorrow and you never gave me an answer. So I can only assume you have a problem with me doing so. In that case, I think you need to hear me out, Bristol.”
He moved to stand a few feet from where she sat and met her gaze. “I want to see my son again. Every chance I get. I want to know him and I want him to know me. I want to be there for him. I want to be a part of his life. I’m not a man who will walk away from my child. I have rights as a father.”
He paused before adding, “And just so you know, if you deny me those rights, I will fight you legally with every penny I have.”
Bristol knew she needed to do something before she began crying. Already it was taking everything within her to fight back the tears glistening in her eyes. She doubted Laramie knew just how much his words meant to her.
A part of her had known that she’d fallen in love with him during their holiday fling for a reason. Although she hadn’t gotten to know him in the way she would have liked, in her heart she’d believed he was a man with character. A man of honor. A man who believed in doing the right thing.
When she discovered she was pregnant, letting him know had been automatic because of what her mother had done to her father. But Bristol hadn’t known, until this very minute, how Laramie would feel about their son. Whether he would accept him or walk away. Even when he’d said he believed Laramie was his and had wanted to see him, there hadn’t been any guarantees as to what his reaction would be. But she could not deny him the right to see his son and if he’d walked out the door after doing so, it would have been his loss. Not hers or her child’s.
But from what he’d just said so passionately, he didn’t plan to walk out the door. He wanted to be a part of his child’s life...just like her father would have wanted to be a part of hers had he known about her sooner. Laramie Cooper was proving there were decent men out there. Just like her father.
Tears she couldn’t contain any longer wet her cheeks. Why was she getting so emotional? Especially now? She blamed it on the fact that the man she’d fallen in love with three years ago, the man she’d thought was dead, was not only very much alive but was here, in her home, standing in front of her and accepting his child without any hesitation. Of course that didn’t mean he wanted to renew a relationship with her or anything; she understood that. That was fine. The most important thing was that he wanted a relationship with his son.
“Hell, Bristol, you’re crying over what I said? Just because I want to be a part of my child’s life?” Laramie asked in an incredulous voice.
More tears she couldn’t control flooded her eyes, and she saw both anger and confusion in his features. She wasn’t handling this very well and now she had him thinking the complete opposite from what she was feeling.
“I need to get some tissue,” she said, quickly getting up to go into her kitchen to grab a few. Moments later, when she returned, Laramie was standing in front of her Christmas tree with his back to her. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans. She wondered if he’d noticed the ornaments. She doubted he would ever know how much she’d come to treasure them. How each time she looked at one she was reminded of Paris.
“Laramie?”
He turned around and met her gaze. She could tell from his stance and his brooding expression that he was still angry, even more so. She needed to explain and the only way she could do that was to tell him everything. “I think we need to sit down and talk.”
The look in his dark, piercing eyes said that as far as he was concerned, there was nothing to talk about, but he nodded anyway. She took a seat on her sofa again, but he said, “I’d rather stand.”
She wished he would sit down. Then she wouldn’t have to stare up at him. Wouldn’t have to notice just how well-built he still was. How sexy he looked in jeans and a leather jacket. And she wouldn’t have to notice how his eyes were trained on her. But she said, “Okay, if you prefer standing.”
The room was quiet but she was convinced she could hear the pounding of her heart. “I might have confused you about a few things, Laramie,” she said. “I would like to explain and hope in the end you’ll understand.”
She paused before saying, “Growing up, I never knew my father. Other kids had daddies and I didn’t understand why I didn’t. It was just me and my mom. One day...I believe I was eight at the time...I asked her about it. I wanted to know where my daddy was. She got angry with me and said I didn’t have a daddy, that I didn’t need one and not to ever bring up the subject of a father again. Her words were final and I knew it.”
Bristol picked up her teacup and took a sip although the tea had cooled. “It was only after my mother died when I was fifteen that I moved from Houston to—”
“You lived in Texas?”
“Yes. I was born in Houston and lived there until I was fifteen.”
He nodded. “I’m a Texan, as well. I was born in Austin.”
She nodded and then continued her story. “When Mom died, I moved here to New York to live with my aunt Dolly. She was my mother’s only sibling.”
Bristol took a breath and then continued, “It was only then that I got up enough courage to ask my aunt about my father. I knew nothing about him. I didn’t even know his name. But Aunt Dolly did. However, my mother had sworn her to secrecy. According to my aunt, my father and mother dated while in high school in Dallas but he broke things off with my mom to pursue his dream of studying art in Paris. My aunt said he asked my mother to go with him, but she refused, saying she didn’t want to live in another country.”
“Your father was an artist, as well?” Laramie asked as he leaned against a bookcase.
“Yes.” Now might have been a good time to tell him her father was the famous artist known as Rand, but she didn’t. Her father’s identity wasn’t important to this story.
“Imagine how excited I was when I found that out. When I learned where my artistic abilities had come from. It also explained why my mother never wanted me to pursue my art. I guess me doing so reminded her of him. Once I found out who he was, I wanted to connect with the man I never knew. The man my mom had kept from me.”
She took another sip of her tea. “According to my aunt, my mother never told my father she had gotten pregnant. He didn’t know he had a daughter. The reason Mom kept it from him was because she resented him for choosing Paris over her.”
She paused again before saying, “I convinced my aunt that I needed to see my father. To let him know I exist. She prepared me by saying that he might not want a child, that he might question if I was really his. Aunt Dolly didn’t want me to get hurt. But I didn’t care. I needed to meet him.”
She recalled that time and how desperate she’d felt. “One of the men at my aunt’s church was a detective with the NYPD. He tracked down my father and discovered he lived in Los Angeles. I made the call to my dad the morning of my sixteenth birthday. Aunt Dolly talked to him first, to break the ice and introduce me. Then she handed the phone to me.”
“What did he say?”
No need to tell Laramie it had practically been the same thing he’d said when she’d told him about their child. “He said that he believed I was his and that he wanted to see me. To prove that point, he flew out immediately. In fact, he knocked on my aunt’s door in less than eight hours.” She smiled. “That was the best birthday present ever.”
She fought back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes again as she said, “On that day, I began what was the happiest two years of my life. He told me that he wrote my mother but she refused to write him back. His letters were returned. She stopped all communication between them. When he returned to Dallas from Paris that first year for the holidays, he’d tried finding