Dawn Redeemed

Chapter 1

Erica shuffled nervously in her seat. The cordiality of the greeting had dissipated into an awkward, uncomfortable silence hanging heavily in the air between them. Her eyes fixed on the man's neatly groomed nails, on his soft, chambray button down shirt, on the tiled patterns beneath her feet, on the brilliant sunny afternoon outside of the coffee shop window, anywhere and everywhere, but traveling up to meet his eyes.

The locket secured by a dainty chain straining to hold its clasp around his muscular neck gave her some measure of hope. She assumed she'd lost the locket somewhere along the way. Maybe, at the bottom of the ocean, buried in a pile of sand, or lost in a tangle of sheets. She hadn't been too upset about it though. The locket hadn't been an expensive piece of jewelry. At the time, the Super Center had dozens exactly like it sitting in the discount bin and probably, to this day, still did.

The locket was just a cheap bauble she'd thought was pretty and in a moment of weakness, splurged and parted with ten bucks of her hard earned cash to buy. The heart shaped locket was battered and scratched. The gold plating wasn't as shiny, the engraved surface worn practically smooth, and the diamond chip long gone. As if the man, who in the spirit of finders keepers, wore it did so because it was something cherished and valuable, and he never took it off.

Her cousin, Alex, had a locket exactly like it. And Erica wondered if Alex had lost hers too or if the locket was sitting forgotten in the bottom of some jewelry box never again to see the light of day. Her cousin and she were like that. Constantly digging through the discount bins eager to spend their money on cheap trinkets they didn't really need or want. And hey, ten bucks was a hell of a steel for twenty-four karat gold plating and a genuine diamond chip, even back in the day.

Erica was mentally dawdling and she knew it. She was just so eager to focus on something, anything other than the expression on Torr's face as he opened the envelope and shuffled through the pictures. What would she see if she allowed her eyes travel up to meet his? Hatred? Anger? Joy? Elation? Confusion? She was prepared for all of those emotions and could probably handle them. Denial was the only thing she wasn't sure she could deal with. But, it was kind of hard to deny the truth when it was at your fingertips, wasn't it.

The uncomfortable silence stretched on and on as Torr flipped through the snapshots. His hands were careful and his touch cautious. He had such beautiful hands, the fingers long. The movements calculated and purposeful, like those of a concert pianist. The gust of his exhale riffled the edges of the napkin beneath her empty coffee mug. And the quiet, oh god, the quiet was killing her.

Maybe agreeing to meet with him was a mistake. She'd played this scene out in her mind hundreds of times. Never had she expected the weighty silence that hung between them. She'd imagined him cursing her in a fit of anger over what she'd done. Because sometimes emotions didn't have any other way of expressing themselves. She had expected questions or perhaps, tears. But, his stoicism as he flipped to the pictures and stacked them neatly on the table in the vacant space between them had her practically screaming at him to say something. His quiet resignation, his fingers working the sharp edges of the photographs so efficiently, wasn't exactly like anything she could have anticipated.

Erica wished her mug wasn't bone dry. Getting up from her damned uncomfortable straight backed chair and walking across the shop to the bar for another double shot mocha latte with extra foam would break the stillness and the awful quiet. It'd give her something to do besides sit here and wait for him to say something...anything. Was Torr ever going to speak or were they just going to sit here in silence with that stack of neatly arranged pictures on the table between them?

Torr was overwhelmed by the pictures in the envelope and by the woman who had slid them across the table to him. The gears in his mind churned to a stop and suddenly, though he always knew exactly what to say in any given situation, he was speechless. Erica sat on the edge of her chair, prim and proper as any debutante. She didn't nervously tap her nails against the tabletop or twist the ends of her hair between her fingertips the way some women did when they were on edge. She was still, her chest barely rising and falling with her shallow almost non-existent breaths.

He'd seen the flicker of recognition on her face as her eyes traveled up him and stopped to focus on the locket around his throat. Her eyes refused to wander any higher to gauge the expression on his face. The whimsical clock on the wall, a black cat with his tail swinging and eyes bobbing back and forth to mark the seconds as they passed and turned into minutes, ticked to fill up the empty silence in the room.

The barista leaning with one hip on the counter and a bored sneer on her face snickered at something funny. Her thumbs furiously danced over the screen of the iPhone clutched in her grip as she texted a reply. Erica either didn't notice the break in the awful silence or didn't react to it if she had. Her attention was fixed on him, but at the same time, not on him. Bracing herself, as she waited for him to say something. Maybe, she thought he'd scream at her and demand an explanation. He was in no place to judge anything or anybody.

He was careful with the snapshots, his eyes roaming over their glossy surfaces and memorizing every last detail. Torr's fingers trembled slightly as he held the photographs. Erica was so focused on avoiding the subtleties of his reaction that she didn't notice. He flipped a snapshot over and traced the edge of his fingernail across the loopy scroll of her neat handwriting. This picture was his favorite. Just a moment in time, nothing but a blink of an eye, captured on high gloss paper. He felt a pang of regret over what he'd missed. So much time was just gone and so many moments he'd never gotten the chance to celebrate, lost.

The snapshot was of a happy day. One of those unintended candid shots that by some twist turned out better than the planned poses intended to capture the moment. He didn't know who had taken the picture of the little girl and her mother. The two of them locked arm in arm and smiling at the camera over the lit candles of a birthday cake with pink frosting and 'happy birthday' spelled out in candy letters across the top. Perhaps the picture had been snapped by a relative or friend of the family.

The five candles on the cake illuminated her cherubic face and unruly auburn curls in a wash of golden light. He was glad that the little girl and her mother had gotten this one perfect moment frozen in time. All of the snapshots were of happy times, but of course, nobody needed a picture to remember the unhappy ones. Those kind of memories locked in your subconscious and stayed put. He ought to know. His mental photo album was full to the point of bursting.

Torr was careful not to bend the edges of the pictures with his clumsy fingers. Cautious not to smudge their glossy surfaces with fingerprints. He took his time to arrange the snapshots into a stack in the middle of the table. Erica's eyes followed the movements of his hands, measuring each flick of a fingernail or brush of a fingertip. "She's a pretty little girl. She looks so much like you."

Erica nodded in agreement. But, she only agreed to a point. Fallon did have the Gray family trademark red hair and of course, their stubbornness and hot temper. But, there were parts of her she'd inherited from her father too. Torr was not a stupid man. Besides, it didn't take a genius to put two and two together and come up with one little girl with eyes the exact indescribable shade of navy blue and a dimple in her chin to figure it out. Torr was waiting for her to spell it out. Not because he wasn't intelligent enough to come up with the answer himself, but because he wanted hear it as a confirmation from her lips.

Erica gripped the empty mug between her palms. Thank god the coffee shop served up their brew in mismatched sometimes chipped porcelain mugs instead of styrofoam or paper cups. Otherwise, she would have crushed the thing between her hands from how tightly she was holding on. Tensing for his reaction to what she was about to say, she took a deep breath and came out with it. "Fallon looks like her father too."

Torr looked up from the pictures to meet Erica's eyes. He needed to see the truth in them, before he posed the question. Her eyes were reluctant, wandering over the tile floor and then up and over to the plate glass window behind him to view the glorious afternoon outside before finally having the courage to meet his stare. "If I could ask." He added the picture to the stack, face up. His fingers fluttered over the smiling faces, as if he could connect to the subjects in the photographs with just a touch. "Who is her father?"

"You are." Erica winced and mentally kicked herself for being so blunt. She'd meant to be gentler in her handling of such a delicate subject. But, she'd botched that up royally in her blurting out of the truth. She met Torr's indescribable blue eyes and saw nothing but understanding and realization in the drowning pools of their depths. Knowing that he believed her should make her feel better, not worse. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and took a deep breath. Resting her fingers on his forearm, the tips burning from the contact of his skin against hers, she confessed. "I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry. I had no right to keep Fallon from you all these years."

"You had every right. I never tried to contact you after...I should have. It is I that am sorry. You went through so much on your own... for so many years." He gently took the tips of her fingers in his hand, warming the cool flesh with his palm. He pushed past the heavy feeling of regret that had settled deep in his gut. He knew and had known long before she told him the truth. In the end he was justified in remaining on the outside with nothing more than a brief glimpse in. He had done what he had to do to keep them safe. Something he could tell her about until the words dried up on the tip of his tongue, but never truly explain. "Can you forgive me?"

"You can still be her dad," Erica said in a small voice. Torr hadn't yelled at her. He hadn't accused her of keeping Fallon from him. He didn't call her a liar. He didn't deny the truth or start spouting bullshit about child support and visitation rights. There was no accusation in his tone, nothing but gentleness, understanding, and fragile, hesitant acceptance.

"I'd like that. I'd really like that." Torr released Erica's hand and gave her a reassuring smile. Reluctantly, he gathered up the pictures, taking painstaking caution not to bend the edges so that they stayed as crisp and sharp as they had been when she handed them over to him. His eyes remained locked on hers as he slid the pictures into the envelope and pushed it across the table.

"They're yours, keep them." The pictures weren't much of a consolation prize considering all he'd missed. She had made copies of the originals with the hope that he'd want them. He pocketed the envelope, carefully sliding it into the pocket of his jacket as if it were filled with thousand dollar bills instead of copies of a couple of dozen snapshots she'd gotten from the Super Center for a dime apiece.

Torr nodded and rested his hand on the envelope he'd slid into his jacket pocket for safekeeping. He wasn't necessarily a sentimental man. He never saved ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, book marked favorites pages on his laptop, or had shelves filled with baubles or family photos. He didn't even own a picture fame, but you could bet your ass he was stopping by the Super Center on his way home to pick up some. Maybe, one of those wall collages where he could see all the happy moments he'd missed out on at the same time.

Erica was curious about the locket at his throat. Her eyes flicked to the heart shaped pendant and then darted away as if they should be ashamed for noticing. The proper thing to do would have been to unclasp the chain and return it to its rightful owner. But, he didn't. He offered nothing as means of explanation for it and the chain stayed clasped around his neck, right where it belonged. There were some places he simply wasn't ready to go yet. "Thank you."

Erica eased back in the wooden chair and breathed out a sigh of relief. Things had gone better than she could of hoped for. Torr wanted to be part of Fallon's life. He hadn't rejected his daughter. She'd heard the eagerness in his voice. She hadn't thought beyond this meeting into the depth of what it truly meant to introduce Fallon to her father.

She toyed with her empty mug, twisting and turning the thing between her fingers. Obviously, this was the beginning of a new chapter on so many levels and she wasn't quite sure of where Torr belonged on the pages. "Fallon started school today. It's been so hard on her, moving and leaving all her friends behind, and now her first day of school, so late in the year. I don't want to put too much on her all at once."

She worried that Torr would think she was trying to back out. She wasn't, not completely. It was a strange concept, to no longer think of Fallon as hers exclusively. Today had been about baby steps. Getting to know the man who had fathered her child as more than an unwitting sperm donor and an unfortunate or perhaps, fortunate consequence of a one night stand. Torr was a man who wore his emotions behind an unreadable mask. He gave nothing away. His expression was guarded and hesitant. Everything about him was so reserved, each move, each sip he took from his mug, and the way he looked at her.

"Of course," Torr said. He kept his expression blank. Erica shuffled nervously in her chair, looking down again instead of at him. Yeah, he got it. This had been difficult for her. Perhaps, one of the hardest things in her life she'd ever had to do to this point. She was unsure of him and maybe, a little of herself. To her, he was a stranger and what had happened between them nothing more than an enjoyable temporary union of bodies. She didn't know, and there was no way she could, how much the hope of finally meeting his daughter had kept him alive.

He studied Erica. She fidgeted nonstop with the cup in her hands, avoiding his gaze. Today was a trial run for her. He truly expected no less. Naturally she would want to meet him, gauge him for herself before she introduced him to Fallon. "I understand. You don't have to answer this, but what have you told Fallon about me? Surely questions have come up."

Erica took a long drawn out breath. Torr had the right to ask the question. The truth might sting though. She'd been vague and evasive with Fallon. Her little girl was intuitive and on some level had sensed her mom's discomfort about answering questions about her father. The truth was now that Fallon was getting older and smarter. The pat answers Erica had fed her daughter weren't going to hold much worth in the future.

Fallon might not be mature enough to understand the intricacies of the relationship between her mother and father, but she was old enough to realize that sometimes things just happened and the explanations for them really didn't matter beyond the reality of what was. She deserved the right to make the decision on whether she wanted to get to know her father or not. Erica wasn't going to take that from her. "I've always told her that if her dad had gotten the chance to know her, he'd love her as much as I do."

Torr nodded in appreciation of Erica's explanation. There were hundreds of possible explanations for his absence and in the end Erica had chosen the only explanation with the truth intricately woven in terms a little girl would understand. "Wise words. True words. I do love her. Erica, I've always wondered."

"Yet, you never tried to find me."

"I did find you didn't I."

"You did," Erica said. Raising Fallon on her own had been tough. She could feel anger and accusation surging in her gut. A part of her wanted to resent Torr. It wasn't his fault. She hadn't exactly made herself easy to find, had she. She'd been the one to sneak out of that hotel room while he was asleep. She'd hopped the first available flight home. And she'd made damn sure she'd remained as anonymous as possible during their encounter. She hadn't told him a thing about herself and she hadn't asked any of the important questions about him in return.

Erica could feel the fight brewing. It was purely a defensive tactic. No doubt to scare him off or to perhaps, test his mettle. Torr didn't look like the type to scare easily. And she was not the kind of woman who turned her back on anything once she'd set her mind to it. She could have just as easily sought him out, but she hadn't. She was every bit as much to blame as he was. And pointing the finger of at him or turning it onto herself wouldn't change the situation and it certainly wouldn't help Fallon.

She blew out a breath of resignation. She didn't want to fight with Torr. He truly hadn't done anything wrong. Right or wrong, they'd both had a part to play. She'd come here to tell him the truth, and she had. The past was the past, nothing either one of them could do would change it or give him back the years he'd lost with their daughter.

Erica gathered her purse in her hand and slung the thin brown strap over her right shoulder. The awkward silence was back with a vengeance. The truth was they were both at an impasse, trying so desperately not to say anything that might piss the other one off. Wasn't that some consolation? They both wanted what was best for Fallon. And if anyone deserved some peace in this life, it was her. "I really should be going. Errands to run and such," she said lamely. Hers was not a graceful exit. She scooted her chair back, the grating of wood against tile broke the stillness in the tiny café.

Torr stood, ever the contrite gentleman, and helped her with her jacket. Six-foot four inches of solid male and raw testosterone crowded the narrow space between them. His breath was hot, stirring the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. She'd forgotten how attractive he was. No, not really, she remembered, oh god, how she remembered. In ten years, time seemed to barely have an effect on him at all.

He looked exactly the same. Wild, unruly deep walnut colored waves artfully styled in a casual, almost devil may care tumble, framed a hard masculine jaw. The cleft in his chin was perfect for playful nipping and seductive sweeps of a tongue. His lips were full, the lower lip slightly larger than the upper, pouty and definitely made for kissing and sinful pleasures. His chest was broad with just a hint of his powerful pecs and washboard abs visible beneath the his casual button down shirt. The fit of his faded Levis on his narrow hips and the way they molded to his defined thighs took her back to a night that had no place in the present.

Erica felt the blush creep along her cheeks, remembering exactly what he could do with those lips and all the other parts of his glorious body. Her blush deepened as he shot her a smile that said, he hadn't forgotten either. She wanted to blow out the breath she'd been holding and instead trapped it deep within her lungs. His touch was light, skating over her neck as he smoothed her collar into place. She was overwhelmed by him and with his crowding of her personal space. "I'll...give me some time to explain this to Fallon."

"Take all the time you need," Torr said. He fished in his wallet and tossed a five dollar bill on the table. A tip the barista certainly hadn't earned. He was close enough to touch Erica. To pull out the pins holding her tight chignon in place and run his hands through the silky strands of her strawberry blonde hair. He could almost taste her scent. It was so thick in the air, mingling with the aroma of coffee beans and sweet cream.