Built

“You’re right. You don’t know me, and it’s very possible you don’t remember Halloran because you only spent one night with her. Do you remember a bar called Jack and Jill’s?” When I just stared at the woman blankly she pulled on her lower lip and puckered her eyebrows in a little frown. “Maybe if you think about the day you got out of prison, that will help jog your memory.”

I jerked my head back at those words and narrowed my eyes. Five years ago I had been released from prison after serving two and a half years on an aggravated-assault charge. I refused to let my mom or my sister, Beryl, meet me on the day I got out; in fact I hadn’t even told my family what my release day was.

At the time I was angry, bitter, and had so much resentment and hostility still pent up over the reasons behind my arrest and the subsequent changes in my life, that I knew I needed to blow off some steam and get my head on straight before I saw anyone that loved me. I needed a few days to get back to the man they knew and not the one prison and life on the inside had turned me into.

I might not remember the name of the bar, but I did recall that I had walked aimlessly for a few blocks once the bus dropped me off at the first stop in Denver. The state prison was miles and miles away in Canon City and I swore to this day that the bus ride back home took days instead of a few hours.

“I might recall finding a bar that day but still don’t know anyone named Halloran.”

I had a bad feeling about where this conversation was headed. I didn’t hide my past but it wasn’t exactly my favorite topic of conversation either. It was unnerving that this stranger seemed to know so much about me.

That day was far from one of my finest.

Sure, I was free and it felt good to be out, but the girl I was in love with when I got locked up had moved on, left me not even six months after I went away. Meanwhile the bastard that I had nearly killed with my bare hands was still free and unchecked, allowed to do whatever he pleased even if that included using his fists on unsuspecting women. The injustice of it all festered inside me, making me a ticking time bomb ready to go off again. My fuse was always primed and just looking for an igniter. To tame the explosive fury that was still churning inside of me and to kill the craving that two years of no booze and no women had left burning in my guts, I figured the best place to scrounge up both would be the first seedy bar I could stumble into. I would get my fix of whiskey and a willing woman and then face both Beryl and my mom feeling somewhat like my old self.

“She was about this tall.” The woman held her hand up a few inches over her own head. “She was blond, blue-eyed, really pretty, and, like I said, supersweet.”

I didn’t miss her past-tense use of the word “was.” It was the second time she had referred to her friend that way. “Was?”

The tears started up again and the woman wrapped her arms around herself like she was giving herself a hug.

“Like I said, Halloran had terrible habits and terrible taste in men. Both of those things caught up with her last weekend. She was shot and killed over a drug deal gone wrong on East Colfax. Her new boyfriend was a drug dealer and thought it was perfectly safe to take her along on a pickup. Halloran should’ve known better, but she never thought things like that through. They were attacked by a rival dealer and his crew. Halloran was shot eleven times, the boyfriend was hit more than twenty.”

The woman could barely get the words out, and I couldn’t stand idly by any longer while she sobbed all over my jobsite. I walked over to her and pulled her into a tight hug even though she was a stranger and not making any sense. She needed someone to comfort her and I was the only one around to do it.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

She didn’t hug me back, but she did nod her head where it was pressed against my chest. She took another steadying breath and moved away from me while wiping her cheeks off with the back of her hand.

“You might not remember her, she did tell me the night she met you that you were very drunk, very angry, and also kind of sad. She was in the bar because her boyfriend at the time had just kicked her out after knocking her around and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She said the two of you started trading horror stories; you told her all about the guy that hit your sister and how you went to jail because you stopped him. She was smitten. You were brave, stood up for someone that couldn’t stand up for themselves, and well … look at you.” She waved a hand in my general direction as bits and pieces of that day started to pepper my brain with memories.

I’d always had a thing for blondes. Add some tragedy and whiskey to the mix and there was a very good chance I had gone all in on the booze and sex and just couldn’t remember any of it. I vaguely recalled sitting at the bar while someone that smelled sweet and gazed up at me with sad blue eyes took up the stool next to mine. I remembered heavy words and solemn kisses. I remembered gentle touches and liquor-fueled decisions. I even remembered the itchy comforter from the no-tell motel that I had woken up in, facedown and hungover like a motherfucker. I couldn’t remember the girl, her name, what she looked like, but I remembered that she made me feel better for just a moment and that I wanted to hurt the person who had made her so sad.

“Are you trying to tell me I hooked up with your friend?” I wouldn’t deny that it was a strong possibility and any reason this woman had for tracking me down now after all this time was making me break out in a cold sweat. I could clearly follow the trail she was leading me down without bread crumbs. The destination simply didn’t seem possible.

“Yeah. You guys hooked up, but like always, Halloran made the wrong choice and went back to the guy that was beating on her. She told me she skipped out on you the next morning without even giving you her name.” The woman who said I should call her Echo tucked some of her curly hair behind her ears and looked at me with tired hazel eyes. “She saw you on the news when they did that story about the tattoo shop you were renovating in LoDo. I don’t think she meant to tell me but it slipped out … she saw you on the TV and said, ‘That’s Hyde’s daddy.’”

I knew it was coming, had felt it as soon as she told me I had hooked up with her friend. Fury, whiskey, and a pretty, sad girl led to really bad decisions on my part. I had been having sex since I was fifteen, and I could count the number of times I had done it without protection on one hand with most of my fingers left over. Unfortunately one of those times was the night I got out of jail.

“You’re telling me I fathered a child with your dead friend?” It sounded harsh but my head was reeling and I was suddenly having a hard time breathing. The ground under my boots felt less solid than it had a minute ago and everything inside of me wanted to call her a liar and throw her off of my site.

She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, at the time I didn’t really think anything of it. Halloran has had a lot of boyfriends and Hyde has had a lot of ‘special’ uncles throughout the years. I wouldn’t bother you, would never have tried to find you if it wasn’t an emergency. Because of how she died and her history of drug use, the state took Hyde. He’s with Social Services now on his way to a foster home. If you don’t do something they’re going to put him in foster care and then try and adopt him out. He’s going to get lost in the system.”

I balked and fell back a step. “If I don’t do something? Seriously, lady, I don’t even know if what you’re telling me is true.”

She nodded and dug around in her back pocket until she pulled out a cell phone. “I know it’s sudden, and I know it’s crazy. But Halloran didn’t have much family and the ones that are left don’t have anything to do with her or Hyde, so there are no relatives that can or are interested in taking him. I offered, but I’m gone so much for work and my track record isn’t exactly spotless, so they turned me down as fast as they could. I also had some bad habits and liked the wrong kind of men when I was younger. Luckily I got myself straight before it was too late.” She gulped. “I very easily could’ve ended up like my friend.”

She blinked at me then turned her attention back to her phone. “It may be crazy and hard for you to believe, but you have a son, and if you don’t do something soon he’s going to end up nothing more than a case number in some social worker’s file.”

It was my turn to shake my head. I wanted to tell her to leave. I wanted to tell her she was crazy and talking nonsense, but I had never been the type of man to run away from the messes I created or my responsibilities. So when she thrust her smartphone at me I took it from her like it was going to bite me.

I held the little device in my hand and stared numbly at the picture of a very pretty blond woman with her arms wrapped around a little boy in torn jeans and a Transformers T-shirt. He had wavy dark brown hair, big eyes that were a clear, calm dark green, and a smile missing a few of his teeth. He also had a very familiar dimple indenting his chubby cheek. He was tall for a little kid, and as I gazed at the image before me I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at a photo from my own childhood. My hand went numb and the phone tumbled to the ground.

Echo didn’t say anything. She just bent down to pick up the device and held it out in front of me. “There are hundreds more if you want to see. The resemblance is startling, isn’t it? That’s why I freaked out when you first came out of the house. It’s like looking at Hyde in the future when he’s all grown up. He looks just like you. He just turned five, so you can do the math if the picture isn’t enough to convince you that he’s yours.”

He did look just like me. He really fucking did.

I ran a hand over my beard and considered her thoughtfully. “Why didn’t your friend ever find me? Why didn’t she ask for help?” The idea that a part of me, a tiny human that I had helped make, had been out there in the world all these years without me knowing had some of that old rage and resentment I struggled to keep a lid on churning deep in my guts.

“I told you, she went back to the guy she had been with. I don’t think she really knew who Hyde’s dad was until he was born. It was pretty obvious when she had him, though, that it wasn’t her boyfriend since he was Mexican and Hyde obviously isn’t.” The girl flinched and shoved her phone back in her pocket. “The boyfriend beat her so bad when she got out of the hospital she almost died then. That forced her to clean up her act for a while because she didn’t want her newborn to be without a mother, but the older Hyde got the more Halloran started to slip back into her old ways. She probably could’ve tracked you down, introduced you to your son, but she was more concerned with chasing the next high and keeping her newest man to be bothered doing something that might benefit her kid. Like I said, Halloran was sweet and kind, but she wasn’t a very good mother. I mean, I think she tried to be, she just didn’t know how. Hyde has had a pretty shitty time of things in his few short years. You could make such a huge difference in this boy’s life, Mr. Fuller. He’s a great kid, outgoing and funny. You would never know what he’s been through. He deserves a real home. He deserves a parent that will love him and take care of him.”

I braced a hand on the top of my hammer and blew out a heavy breath. I felt like the entire world had shifted around me and had started spinning in the other direction.

“I have a kid?” I wasn’t sure the words came out or if I just thought them, but they felt so bizarre and foreign on my tongue.

She nodded again and this time her expression was full of sympathy and knowing.

“Look, I know this is a shock. I know you might go back in that house and do nothing because you think I’m a liar or a crazy person, but it was a chance I had to take because the last person that should be forced to suffer for his mother’s poor choices time and time again is that little boy. He makes me wish I had lived a better life, had been a better person from the start just so I could help him out.”

“My history isn’t exactly one that’s going to win me any awards or make anyone think I’m prime father material.” I was all too familiar with the sins from the past having a lasting effect on the here and now.

“Maybe. But don’t you think you should at least try? Are you going to be able to live with yourself if there is even a slim possibility that Hyde is yours and strangers are given responsibility for his care? I’ve been in the system. It isn’t pretty and most of the kids that come out of it end up in jail or way more messed up than when they went in. If you can stop that, why wouldn’t you?”

I knew she was right because Rowdy had spent his youth orphaned and then his teenage years in foster care. He wasn’t messed up per se, and had never been in jail, but whenever he mentioned his past it wasn’t full of happy memories and sunshine and rainbows.

I sighed again and lifted my hand to rub it across the back of my neck. “Okay, lady … I mean Echo, I won’t make any promises, but I do have a client slash acquaintance that practices family law, so I will reach out to her and see what she thinks I need to do. I imagine the first step would be proving the boy is mine legally. I don’t suppose your friend put me on the birth certificate?”

The brunette tugged on her lip again and shook her head in the negative. “It’s blank. I pulled it right after the funeral when the state came and took Hyde. I was hoping to find a name, but like I said I don’t think she really knew who the father was and she was so scared of her man at the time there was no way she was going to put another man’s name down. All I had was her mentioning you when she saw you on TV. I actually went to the tattoo shop and asked them for the name of the person that had done the renovations. The tiny blonde with all the tattoos at the front desk didn’t want to hand it over without a reason why. I told her I was looking to hire someone to renovate my condo. I don’t think she believed me. Luckily one of the guys that works there had your card and handed it over.”

I knew exactly the kind of attitude that tattooed and tiny blonde could throw, so I was grateful that one of my boys had stepped in. Even if this lady wasn’t on the up-and-up, I owed it to myself, to the kid, and, sadly, to the girl that had helped me drown my sorrows in booze and sex when I was feeling so lost and alone to find out if the little boy really was mine.

“Like I said, no promises, but I will talk to the attorney and see what she thinks needs to happen. Okay?”

The woman nodded and I could see the relief flash across her face. “I guess that’s more than I had hoped for when I initially decided to search you out. You honestly could’ve just thrown me off the property without hearing one word I had to say, so I’m considering the fact that you listened a win regardless of what happens next.” She gave me a wobbly smile. “Thank you.”

She turned and started to walk away back toward a little hybrid car that I just noticed was parked behind my truck in the driveway. I called out to her before she was halfway across the yard.

“Echo.” She stopped and turned to look at me over her shoulder with raised eyebrows. “If I give you my cell number, can you text me a picture of the kid?” I shrugged. “It might help me explain the situation to the lawyer a little better since I’m not always so great with words.”

She tilted her head to the side a little and narrowed her eyes at me. “I will on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Call him Hyde, Mr. Fuller. He has a name.”

I swore softly under my breath. I purposely hadn’t been using the kid’s name. It made it all too real. Made him all too real.

“Can you please text me a picture of Hyde, then?”

“I’d be happy to.”

I rattled off my number and she pulled her phone out to pop it in. She said nothing else as she made her way to her car and climbed in and left. I was just walking back into the house, my mind racing a million miles an hour, when my phone dinged with several messages.

I told myself to just wait and look at them after work, that it could wait, but I found myself sitting on the dilapidated steps of the cottage and scrolling through the photos.

They were all of a little boy laughing and playing. In every image he was smiling and happy. He appeared to be carefree and light of heart, which was amazing considering the things that Echo had mentioned he had been through. He was too young and innocent to have to navigate not only the sudden death of his mother but the shock of being put into the care of strangers as well. I didn’t know for sure that he was mine even if the resemblance was uncanny, but I was about to really ruin any shot I had with Sayer Cole by asking her to help me find out.

If she thought I was an undatable ex-con before this, she was really going to steer clear of me when she found out there was a strong possibility that I had fathered a child during a forgotten night of drunken sex with a woman I couldn’t even remember.

It didn’t matter if she wasn’t ever going to be interested in me the way I was interested in her as long as she helped me help the kid.

Right now Hyde, and whatever I could do to help him out, was my top priority, not convincing the lovely lawyer to go to bed with me … even though I wasn’t one hundred percent ready to take that dream off my agenda just yet.

CHAPTER 3

Sayer

Rough day?”

I was sipping on a lemon-drop martini and trying to rub my temples where a dull throb has been pounding since lunch. I blushed when Quaid commented on the gesture and wondered how bad my lack of sleep really had me looking. I was typically put together in a way that could almost come across as harshly professional. I didn’t mess around when it came to my job and being a pretty woman in the legal world was always a disadvantage when it came to being taken seriously, so I made sure to have on a practiced and poised demeanor at all times.

“Rough few weeks. I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m in the middle of not one but two custody cases that are unbelievably time-consuming. One day I’ll have a client who really has the best interest of their kid at heart.”

I forced a lopsided grin and watched as Quaid pulled the knot of his tie that rested loose at the base of his throat. He really was outrageously good-looking. Several women at the bar kept glancing over their shoulders in our direction, and the waitress had almost dropped his Scotch on the rocks on his lap when she delivered it because he smiled at her. His hair was cut trendy and sharp, shorter on the sides and longer on top and styled like he was going to be in a magazine shoot for something expensive. Quaid was name brand all the way and not ashamed to show it off. His eyes were an unusual shade of blue that shifted between faded denim and gray. His gaze was calculating and focused. Nothing about him was relaxed or at ease, and while he dominated his space and oozed self-assurance, it was in a much more in-your-face kind of way than Zeb did.

I wanted to kick myself.

I was hanging out with Quaid specifically to keep my mind off Zeb, and yet I was having a hard time focusing on what was a lot of hotness encased in a very expensive suit across from me.

He lifted a golden eyebrow at me and picked up his drink. He grinned at me before putting the glass up to his lips and I wanted to have a serious talk with my vagina for not even kind of taking notice or perking up.

“I could never do family law. The kids are too hard, the emotion tied up in those cases seems exhausting. I deal with adults trying to manipulate the system and the law every day. Watching them do that to their own kids, using them as pawns …” He shook his head and I think I heard one of the women at the bar sigh dreamily all the way from across the room. “It’s too much bullshit.”

“Well, I couldn’t deal with people who are guilty getting away with things they shouldn’t be getting away with. I don’t have enough faith in a random selection of jurors to make the right decisions when it comes to law. People are too easily swayed by charm and pretty words.”

He lifted his other eyebrow to join the first. “You don’t trust the system?”

It wasn’t a popular opinion among my peers, but I had seen too much, had lived too long with what happened when the system failed, to put all my faith in a flawed construct. I finished my drink and shrugged. “I trust the system to fail, which is why I do what I do. Some of these kids have to have someone who will fight for them no matter what. The system can fail, but I won’t.”

Quaid’s mouth pulled tight and he leaned back in his chair as he considered me thoughtfully. It was a good look. Piercing, intent, probing, I bet it worked really well when he used it to pick apart a witness on the stand, but I knew all the lawyerly tricks he had in his bag because I used them, too. I grinned back at him and waved the waitress over to order another drink.

“So what about someone who is just unhappy and out for blood? What about someone who just wants to make another person suffer? How are you helping in that situation? Are you fighting for the right and the just then?”

I was smart enough to know he was talking about his ex-wife. It was no secret in the legal community of Denver that she had taken him for a ride and that he had been lucky to escape with anything left to his name. They had been high school sweethearts, and when things went south they really went south. There were rumors of infidelity on both sides, but nothing had ever been brought to light, and because my firm was the best at what we did, Quaid escaped with both his reputation and fortune intact. He still had to pay through the nose monthly for maintenance, but overall we considered the settlement a win on our end. Apparently he didn’t share those thoughts.

“Everyone deserves representation. Isn’t that what the illustrious system is built on? I don’t handle a lot of divorce cases myself for that very reason, but I do know how ugly they can get. Happy people don’t split up, so by the time the marriage has dissolved I think everyone involved is already looking for somewhere to place the blame and looking for an outlet for all that hurt.”

He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Been married before?”

I shook my head. “No. Engaged, and it ended amicably, but I see it every day in my office. Something that is supposed to bring couples closer, make them happy, ultimately makes them the most miserable they have ever been.”

“Tell me about it.” The bitterness in his voice was impossible to miss.

He muttered something else I didn’t hear and put his panty-dropping grin back on just in time for the waitress to slosh half my drink on the table as she put it down.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Really?”

He chuckled. “Women like me.”

“I bet they do.” Why wouldn’t they? He was gorgeous, smart as hell, well-spoken, charming, exuded wealth and confidence, and that smile was lethal. I was a fucking idiot for not responding to any of it. I would punch myself in the face if I could. Why couldn’t I get my act together?

“Not you, though. I mean you obviously like me well enough, but you don’t like me. Can’t say I’ve ever had a woman cancel on me more than once.”

My hair was braided and pinned up in a coil at the back of my head, but if it had been down I would be twirling it nervously around a finger. A bad habit my father had hated. I had spent my entire youth doing anything to avoid his disapproving looks and cutting words, but some of my less attractive habits he had been unable to scorn out of me.

“I’ve been busy. My caseload is full, I was in the middle of a renovation on my house, and I’ve been trying to spend as much time with my brother as I can.” It was complicated to explain to people why I was obsessed with being around Rowdy and being a part of his life, so I went with the half-truth that I told anyone who asked me about it. “We didn’t get to spend much time together growing up and I feel like I’m making up for lost time now that my father is gone.”