The Wildflower (Completed) (Southern Nights)

Chapter 19

Zeb stared at her, looking for the right words to say when a child like yelp caught his attention.  They both turned back towards the door just in time to see Nicole drag Brandon roughly by his shirt collar towards an empty table in the corner.

Elizabeth gasped and turned her head.  She hated this.  How could anyone be so cruel?

The sound of Zeb slamming both of his fists down on the table caused her to jump in her seat.

“Damn it!” he cursed and she flinched.  This was her fault and now Zeb knew it.  He would blame her for allowing their son to end up in the hands of that woman.  And she couldn’t blame him.  He wasn’t here to say that he wanted to keep their son; she made the decision for him.  Now a little boy was paying for her thoughtless mistake.

“Zeb, I’m so sorry,” she started to apologize and the white hot fury in his eyes cut her off.

“What the hell is Nicole doing with our son?”  he asked through gritted teeth.

She was suddenly taken aback.  He didn’t look at her with accusing eyes.  Instead, he was glaring in Nicole’s direction.

Yes, she could tell that he was pissed off but she got the feeling that his barely restrained anger wasn’t directed at her.

Elizabeth didn't answer him immediately.  Since the hospital visit that was a question that she had asked herself.  When the silence started to get the best of her, she slowly lifted her head and pinched the bridge of her nose out of sheer irritation over her sense of helplessness that engulfed her.  She then told him the only answer she had been able to come up with.  “Well, I guess she would be the one that adopted him.”

His fist pounded the table a second time and she couldn’t stop her knee jerk reaction of jumping in her seat.  She was at a total loss for words.  What the hell could she say?  She didn’t like it either but there was nothing she could do about it.  Elizabeth closed her eyes wishing for the first time in a really long time that her life could have turned out differently.  So many decisions made have led to this cluster fuck that she now calls her life.

When she finally opened her eyes she saw Zeb watching her again.  His eyes seemed so much softer.  He reached out and grabbed her hand.  For just a minute she let herself revel in the heat of that simple touch.  It felt so nice, so comfortable and so perfectly right.

“Look Lizzie, I’m the one that is sorry,” he told her and she could hear a hint of sadness ringing his words.  He glanced back at the pair sitting on the other side of the room and she saw a deep longing resonating in his eyes; a longing for something that he couldn’t have.  “I can’t stop myself from thinking that maybe if I had just called you or told you how I really felt then maybe things with us would have been different.  I thought I was doing right by you by giving you your independence. My silence led you to believe that I didn’t care and I won’t ever be able to forgive myself for that.”

Elizabeth listened to him speak while watching Nicole chatting away rather loudly on her phone while Brandon sat in front of her quietly with his face turned to the table.

Zeb squeezed her hand.  “I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you, baby.  It’s just that something’s not right about any of this.  What are the odds that Nicole, an old flame that I dumped more than once, would end up adopting our child?  There were times that I even called her a stalker.”

That little bit of information caught Elizabeth off guard.  She knew that Nicole had a thing for Zeb because he told her.  She even witnessed her desperate attempts to gain his attention at the airport six years ago and then again the other night at the honky-tonk.  But stalker?