she said. The question wasn’t rhetorical. She really wanted to know.
“Hormones and a lack of common sense,” Ronnie said at once. “Just look how I messed things up with your mom for no good reason. Weigh that against how long it took me to make things right. Idiocy definitely played a role in that.” He slanted a look at her. “You want to talk about what happened? I know it’s a touchy subject, but you’ve never said a word about how you felt when things blew up and all Ty’s dirty laundry was spread all over the tabloids.”
“I think my feelings are pretty obvious without dissecting them,” she told him.
“Sometimes talking does help.”
She shook her head. “Not likely.”
“Sweetie, I know how badly he hurt you, and if I really thought it would help, I would punch him.” He hesitated, then added, “I also know how important his friendship was to you for a long time before that. Do you really want to lose that, too?”
“I lost our friendship a long time ago,” she said mournfully. That, as much as anything else, was what had broken her heart. “I just have to face it, Dad. It’s over. Not just the relationship, but also the friendship. I’ll never be able to trust Ty again.”
“Your mom learned to trust me again,” he reminded her gently.
“Not the same,” she said.
Her dad was right about one thing, though. Cheating was something he and Ty had in common. The big difference was that Ronnie had recognized his mistake after one careless, irresponsible slip. Ty not only hadn’t acknowledged it, he’d compounded it by cheating over and over until he’d finally gotten caught. He had a three-year-old son as proof of his infidelity.
Annie might have been able to get past the cheating with enough time, but that precious little boy? No way. Any babies Ty had were supposed to be with her, not some gold digger who’d slept with Ty a couple of times, then dumped her kid with him in exchange for a big payoff when he wouldn’t marry her.
Oh, Annie knew all the gory details. Not because Ty had told her, but because they’d been tabloid fodder for weeks. Obviously if Ty was home, so was his little boy. Now everyone in Serenity who’d been living on Mars when the story first broke would know just how big a fool she’d been to give her heart to some hotshot sports superstar.
Worst of all, despite everything—the betrayal, the hurt, the humiliation—she still loved him. And that made her an even bigger idiot than he was.
“You need to call Annie,” Maddie told Ty after seeing the headline about his return in the Serenity newspaper. “It was crazy to think we could keep your being back here quiet for long.”
“Don’t you think Dana Sue probably filled her in?” he said, torn between dread and anticipation at the thought of speaking to Annie. Their relationship had ended really badly, and it had been all his fault. “Besides, Annie doesn’t want to talk to me. She made that plain three years ago.”
“When Trevor was born,” his mother guessed.
Ty nodded. He loved his son to pieces, but he knew that Annie would never in a million years get past the fact that he’d not only cheated, but fathered a child with someone else. There wasn’t an explanation in the world good enough to make her see past that one huge mistake.
Claiming that they hadn’t been exclusive certainly hadn’t worked. Reminding her of the countless times they’d talked about how reasonable it was to date others while she was still in college and he was on the road with the team had only backfired.
“That didn’t include getting another woman pregnant,” she’d retorted, her eyes filled with the kind of hurt he hadn’t seen since her mom had kicked her dad out for cheating when Annie was fourteen. “How am I supposed to forgive that?”
“I don’t know,” he’d told her, defeated. “I honestly don’t know.”
Truthfully, he still didn’t. But when he’d been injured, the one bright spot had been the chance to come back to Serenity and maybe take a stab at making things right with Annie. He could have done the rehab anywhere, had the best trainers in the world working with him, but he’d refused every option the team had proposed, packed up Trevor and come home. He wasn’t entirely sure why making amends to Annie was so important right now, but it was. One of the lessons he’d learned the hard way was that friendships were more valuable and lasting than casual sex. Too bad he’d had to lose his best friend before he’d figured it out.
Now that he was here, though, he had no idea what the next step should be. Maybe his mom was right. Maybe it just needed to start with a phone call.
“Does she ever mention me?” he asked, looking for some sign that Annie’s attitude had mellowed.
Maddie shook her head. “Certainly not to me. Can you blame her?”
“I suppose not.”
“I so wish things had turned out differently, Ty. You two—”
“Are over,” he said flatly. “Her decision.”
“If you honestly believe that, then why did you come back here?”
“I thought it would be good for Trevor to spend some time with his family.” That, at least, was true. His son needed more stability than he could get even from the most doting nanny and a dad who was on the road for days—sometimes weeks—at a time.
His mother studied him skeptically. “Really? And that thought only occurred to you after I mentioned that Annie had moved back home?” Before he could respond, she continued, “Because it certainly didn’t cross your mind during the off-season last year, or the year before that.”
“Coincidence,” he claimed.
“Oh, Ty,” she chided. “At least be honest with yourself. You’re here because of Annie. Why bother denying it, at least with me? Now, what are you going to do to make things right?”
He glanced across the table and saw the lingering disappointment in his mother’s expression. That was as hard to take as losing Annie. After the way his dad had cheated on his mom and the way Ty had hated him for it, surely he should have behaved more responsibly. Instead, he was apparently a chip off the old block, after all.
“I have no idea what I can do,” he admitted.
“Well, you need to come up with a plan. The two of you are bound to cross paths. Not only is this a very small town, but our families are connected. Dana Sue and I are friends. We’re in business together. Annie works for me, for heaven’s sake.”
Ty winced at the complicated mess he’d managed to create. “I’m sorry, Mom. If this is going to become some big thing between you and Dana Sue, I can go somewhere else for rehab. There are plenty of facilities in Atlanta.”
“No,” she said, backing down at once. “Having you back home is such an unexpected joy for me and for your brothers and sisters. It’s giving us a chance to spend time with Trevor, too.”
She drew herself up. “Dana Sue and I will figure out a way to deal with this,” she said confidently. “We’ve been friends a long time, and we’ve always known that something might come between
