For Love or Money
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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Chapter One
“FORGET IT.”
“Kels, I really want to make this right.”
“Whatever.”
Sometimes a guy had to know when he wasn’t going to win. Sometimes even knowing, he couldn’t quit trying. Most particularly when his adversary was his thirteen-year-old daughter.
And in this case, he couldn’t quit even if he did win. Because he had something else he had to discuss with the woman-child sitting on the passenger side of his SUV. She’d flipped the button to activate the heated leather seats when she’d climbed in.
At which time he’d glanced at the outdoor temperature reading. A balmy 85 degrees. In the desert. California desert. And wisely kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry I was late. Dan Rhodes stopped in just as I was leaving. He’s starting tonight and needed a cortisone shot.”
Dan Rhodes, a Palm Desert high school basketball star and one of her late mother’s former students.
“Yeah, well, I told Melissa you’d look at her knee.”
And he’d let Kelsey down by not being at the dance studio on time to pick her up. Never mind that half the time when he showed up as scheduled, she harrumphed because she liked to hang out and watch the older girls—the ones in “company”—take class and run through routines.
“I’ll look at it tomorrow, before class,” he said now, though technically, unless her parents consented to him treating Melissa, there was nothing he could do but advise her to get it looked at. Which he’d already done. Three times in the past month.
As an orthopedist specializing in sports medicine, he’d given the girl’s dad his card. But he’d never heard from them.
“Whatever.” She was staring out the side window, her expression...bland. He’d been told—by someone among all the well-meaning counselor types who’d flooded forth to advise him after Kelsey’s mother had died—to watch out for belligerence. He’d be happy for it. For anything beyond...bland.
“Was Carlie at dance tonight?” Kelsey’s best friend had been having issues since Kelsey was chosen for junior company and she wasn’t.
Her head swung around then, eyes almost piercing as she studied him in the falling dusk. “What’s with your sudden interest in Carlie?”
Sudden? He gave his head a mental shake—ordering it to get in gear. “She’s your best friend.”
Kelsey’s snort didn’t bode well. “Not for like a year, Dad. Shows you how much you pay attention.” That last was uttered under her breath, so he pretended not to hear.
“You just want to know about Barbara.”
Carlie’s mother. They’d gone out. Once. Shortly after her divorce. When the girls had both been on a Girl Scout trip.
“If I wanted to know about Barbara, I’d call her and ask how she’s doing,” he said now, firmness entering his voice. It didn’t come often. But it was there when it needed to be. “Be angry with me for being late—that’s valid. But don’t disrespect me, Kels. I—”
“I know.” Her tone completely docile now, she cut him off. “You don’t deserve it, and I’m sorry, Daddy.” He could hear the tremor in her voice and hated that even more than the cattiness. “You’re the best and I love you.”
“I love you, too, squirt.” He cringed as the endearment slipped out before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to use it anymore. The mandate had come down that summer. She hated it when he called her that. Made her feel like a kid, she’d said.
“You haven’t called me that in a while.”
“You told me not to.”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to really stop.”
He wasn’t going to win. No matter how hard he tried. Because she was thirteen. And he just didn’t get it.
* * *
“LOOK, JANE, I GET IT. You need to pretend that the kid’s gonna be normal someday. As soon as his muscles develop. But he isn’t gonna be. Ever. And I don’t have the cash to fund your need to make him something he ain’t. Do yourself a favor, and me and maybe him, too, and just accept what is.”
If she hadn’t been standing in the middle of a bay in Dillon’s car repair business—his father’s business before him—Janie might have clenched her fists. Or done something even worse, like start to cry.
In the olden days, back when she and Dillon had been so in love they’d been crazy with it, her tears had brought him to his knees. These days, they gave him strength.
“I’m not asking for a favor, Dillon,” she told him, remaining calm by thinking of her son, sitting at a table in his preschool class, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his face just inches from the table, while he put pencil to paper. If they were lucky, he’d make a mark that was distinguishable. “Per our decree, you are responsible for half of Dawson’s medical bills.”
“Speech therapy isn’t medical.”
“The state disagrees with you.” She handed him the paperwork she’d brought, showing that medical insurance would pay for the therapy. They just had to come up with the co-pay. A measly 20 percent. And she had to have the time off work to see that he got there.
The extra hours, those in which she helped her son exercise muscles and do his therapy “homework,” she was already handling. Like every single time Dawson ate and they played the blowing-bubbles-in-your-cup-through-your-straw game. Or every time she asked him for a kiss and he licked her cheek before turning to kiss her. They were games his speech pathologist had helped her design to strengthen his low muscle tone.
“If so, then why are you only just now bringing it to me? Who’s been paying all along?” His tone, challenging as always, hurt. Still.
How could a man turn his back on his own son? Be embarrassed by him? How could Janie still hope that someday Dillon would realize how phenomenal, how perfect, their son really was?
“The state paid, Dillon. Through age three. Dawson just turned four. Now insurance pays, but not the co-pay part.”
Because Dillon provided the cheapest insurance he could get for his son.
“You’re just doing this to get back at me, aren’t you?” Wiping his greasy hands on a red towel he grabbed from his rolling toolbox, he walked toward his office. When they were both inside he shut his door.
The smell of grease and gas emanating from his overalls was one thing she did not miss. Dillon had been in college when they’d met—studying business. He’d had big plans. And then they’d gotten married and his father’d had a heart attack and he’d taken over the garage. She’d supported him on all of it. Had loved him even more for it. She just had never gotten used to the smell of grease that permeated him at the dinner table. Even after he’d showered...
You’re just doing this to get back at me. His words were no less grinding even after taking a second to step away from them.
“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked, not ready for another one of their asinine confrontations. The kind where he hurled ludicrous accusations like they were truth and she walled herself against them.
But she’d known when she’d gotten up that morning that the moment was coming. She’d been happy the night before when she’d received confirmation in writing that Dillon had to help with the co-pay. She’d given herself the night to enjoy the small victory. The small feeling of relief.
And she’d arisen that day with the knowledge that if she did not hand deliver the paperwork to her ex-husband, in front of others, he’d spend months requesting it. Over and over again. Denying, each time, that he’d received it. And if she sent it certified post, he’d refuse to sign.
She could take him back to court.
If she had the money.
“You can’t possibly think that I purposely had a child with Down syndrome so that I could somehow get back at you?”
“I’m not an idiot, Jane. Of course you wouldn’t do that.” He sat, pulling at his mustache as he looked up at her standing by the closed door.
Did he know she kept the handle within reach on purpose? Because it was the only way she could make herself confront him? Knowing that she could choose to escape at any point.
“I need money, Dillon. I’ve covered the past two months of co-pays. I need you to give me this month’s.”
Until last night’s letter had come, she’d been afraid she would have to borrow the money again.
At some point, her friends were going to run in the opposite direction when they saw her coming.
“And I think you’re still doing this therapy thing because it’s your way of making me pay. You’re just trying to get more money out of me. You don’t want me to move on, get ahead, because you can’t. But I’m not the one who insisted on going through with a pregnancy with a known birth defect...”
Of course, having once been the love of her life, he knew best how to push her buttons.
“I am not trying to keep you from getting ahead.” With extreme focus, and having had a lot of practice, she ignored the worst of his barbs.
“I didn’t want to think so, but I’m not the only one saying it anymore.”
“Who else is saying it?” She hated herself for asking. Heard the question come out of her mouth before she’d thought about it, enabling his ability to get her going...
“Wendy.”
“Who’s Wendy?”
“The woman who’s been living with me for the past three months.”
She hadn’t known. He’d known she hadn’t known.
“You’re obligated to pay this money, Dillon. Please just give me a check and I’ll leave you alone.”
And Wendy. Leave him and Wendy alone.
She didn’t want Dillon for herself. Hadn’t wanted to be married to him since the second he’d denounced their son as not worthy of being born. The doctor had offered a medical abortion because they’d caught the Down syndrome diagnosis during her first trimester. Dillon had done everything he could to get Janie to agree to the procedure. He’d even made an appointment with the doctor’s office, behind her back, to have it done.
And yet...for many years they’d been a couple she’d thought would be together forever. Hearing that he was with someone else, even though they’d been divorced since before Dawson was born...
A part of her died.
Another part needed a good cry.
“You think this therapy is so important, pay for it yourself.” He looked smug. Arms crossed. His lips not smiling but his eyes looking like he was.
How could she ever have been in love with this man?
“I can’t.”
“Well, I can’t, either.”
“Yes, you can, Dillon.” She waved around her at the four bays behind them, all full, the wall-size calendar at the side of his desk and the Dry Erase board, both also completely full. “You’re doing well. Paying your obligation for your son won’t even put a dent in your petty cash.”
“And you resent that, don’t you? That I’m doing so well? That Wendy and I can afford to take a Caribbean cruise over Christmas? That we went to Vegas for Thanksgiving...”
She hadn’t known. Had never done either. But she and Dillon had always talked about doing both.
Focus.
She thought of her baby boy’s face when he’d high-fived her that morning because he’d put his tennis shoes on all by himself, crossed the laces and considered them tied. He’d been happier than when she gave him ice cream. And she was happier, too. So much more than she’d ever have been without him. More than a cruise or any vacation would ever make her.
She was doing this for Dawson. Getting the money for Dawson.
“You’re legally obligated to pay this.” And he knew she had a friend who would see that he did. But not until he made her beg. “I need the money, Dillon.”
“You’re desperate.” Eyes narrowing, he leaned forward. “You lost another job, didn’t you?”
She could lie. But knew he’d find out soon enough. He always did.
So she didn’t lie. She just stood there. As mute as Dawson would be without the therapies Dillon wanted to deny him. He had no way of knowing what Dawson sounded like. He’d never met the boy he’d fathered. Had no idea how Dawson sounded when he tried to communicate with her. No way of knowing that the therapy was helping Dawson learn to talk clearly enough to be understood.
“When are you going to admit that I was right all along? Look at you, Janie. What’s this, three jobs in as many years? Admit that you made a mistake. That you should have taken the choice we were given back when you had that first ultrasound. You should have ended the pregnancy.”
The words still hurt. Every single time. Because they deleted the happiest person she’d ever met from the face of the earth.
Gripping the door handle, she swung around.
“Janie.”
His tone had changed. For a second there, he could have been the man she’d married.
She looked over her shoulder. Maybe to remind herself that that man had never existed.
He was standing, pulled a few bills out of his wallet and walked over to hand them to her.
“Here,” he said. “Never let it be said that I don’t stand up to my obligations.”
If it had been just her, she’d have spit on those bills. But they were hundreds. Would pay for far more than a few months’ co-pays. She took them. Looked him in the eye as she said, “Thank you.”
“You deserve better than this, Janie.” He sounded sad.
And she figured he should be. She had the absolute best life had to offer waiting for her in a preschool across town.
While he’d lost the only thing of importance he’d ever had.
And didn’t even know it.
