God, what an awesome, terrifying, crazy thought. What the hell did Life think it was doing, asking him—the most emotionally disconnected person on the planet—to be a father? As a child he’d been consumed by anxiety, responsibility, overwhelmed by a world that asked him to deal with far too much, far too soon. Adulthood, his and Lachlyn’s, and his mother’s death, allowed him some measure of relief. But, because he never wanted to feel so unbalanced—scared—again he deliberately distanced himself from emotionally investing in situations and people because that would make him vulnerable. To Tyce it was a simple situation, vulnerability equaled hurt and pain was to be avoided. The logical conclusion was to avoid emotion altogether, like he had with Sage three years ago, or to disconnect, like he had learned to do with his mother.
Tyce supposed that, to the world, he looked normal, content, like he had it all. Nobody knew, not even Lachlyn, that on the inside, he felt hollow and empty. Kicking the crap out of his sparring partner at the dojo and pushing his body to the limit made him feel alive but the endorphins soon wore off. Art, mostly, provided a distraction and he, occasionally, felt the hit of adrenaline when he painted his oils or constructed his sculptures. Mostly he found the process easy and intellectually undemanding.
Tyce tipped his head back. Instead of seeing paint-streaked wooden beams and the steel pipes that were a feature of his converted warehouse he saw the faded walls of the small, two-bedroom apartment he’d lived in for most of his life. He was sitting on the cold floor outside his mother’s bedroom door, rocking a crying Lachlyn, wishing that his mother would unlock the door and tell him that she was okay. That they’d be okay. He’d always wondered what he was doing wrong, why his mother needed to hide from him and his sister. He remembered the hundreds of drawings he did for her, hoping that, maybe once, she’d acknowledge his effort, desperate for any attention from her.
His index finger traced the line of Sage’s jaw. At one time selling portraits—quick charcoal or ink sketches—had kept the roof over their heads, food in the fridge. In his early teens he’d sold rough sketches on street corners and in Central Park and later he sold his sketches to the women attending the art classes where he posed, naked, as an artist’s model.
He clearly remembered feeling anxious as his hand flew over the paper, working out how much he could charge, how many sketches he needed to do to cover the latest unexpected expense; a kid struggling to gather rent money. Eventually he managed to control the anxiety, the burning resentment, and he’d learned to do that by detaching. From things, from the need for support and affirmation and, eventually, from people. Sage was the only person who’d ever threatened his control, who tempted him to edge closer, to climb into her head and let her climb into his. He couldn’t do that, wouldn’t allow himself to open up again.
And her being such a temptation was exactly why he’d allowed her to walk away from him years ago, why he’d let her slip through his fingers. It had been self-preservation in action.
He’d been an adult all his life, had dealt with situations no child should have to, had raised his sister as best he could. He wasn’t scared of much but, God, Sage having a baby terrified him. Tyce linked his arms around his bent knees, as fear, hot and acidic, bubbled in a space just under his heart. And, like it or not, he and Sage were now joined together in an age-old way, through the mingling of their DNA. No matter how Tyce looked at it, as the mother of his child, Sage would be a permanent fixture in his life. Sage was also the only person who’d ever come close to cracking his armor and that meant that she was desperately dangerous.
He didn’t like it but the situation couldn’t be changed and all he could do was manage the process. How to do that? Tyce stood up and walked over to his desk in the corner of the studio, pulling out his battered office chair and dropping into it. First things first... Since he was going to be connected to the Ballantyne family for a long time to come, he had to come clean. About everything. First to Sage, then to her brothers.
And yeah, that was going to be as much fun as running around outside, naked, on a winter’s night in Siberia. But it couldn’t be avoided and it had to be done, and soon.