by J. M. Paul
“To let go and move on.” I take a deep breath to steady myself for what needs to come next. This will shatter me, but it’s the only way I can get a clean break. “I think it’s time you hire a new nanny.”
His face goes completely pale. “No.” He grabs my hand in his. “I don’t want a new nanny. I want you. The kids love you.”
“I love them, too, but as much as it kills me to leave them, I have to walk away from you, so I quit.” At those last two very simple yet complicated words, I feel moisture sting my eyes.
“You’re being irrational,” he says quickly. “You can’t leave us.”
I pull my hand from his and stand. “In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t own me, Jacob. I can and will do whatever the hell I want. I’ll still visit the kids because they’re my niece and nephew, and I love them to pieces, but I won’t deal with you. Find yourself a new nanny.” I turn to stomp my way through the pontoons, toward Liz, who’s talking to a few familiar guys—Landon and Miami.
Before I make it more than two steps, Jacob grabs my arm and whirls me around to face him. My eyes dart to where he’s touching me and then blaze up into his.
“Get your hands off of me,” I hiss through my teeth.
Jacob immediately drops his grip and lifts his hands in an innocent gesture. “Please don’t walk away from me, Joslyn. Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“I disagree. I have so many things I need to tell you.” He steps closer and tilts his head toward me. “I fucked up, Joslyn. What we found out that day, it changed something in me.”
“Changed you or the way you felt about me?” I ask boldly.
“Both.” Jacob cautiously reaches out to smooth away a strand of hair that was tossed in my face by the steamy breeze. His finger slowly trails down my cheek before it falls away.
Even though I’m angry with him, the contact causes my pulse to accelerate. He’s always had that effect on me, and I’ve come to realize that he probably always will.
“Hey.” Ian walks up to me. “You ready for another drink?”
Jacob squeezes his lids closed, and the muscle in his jaw twitches like a bomb. When he opens his blue eyes, they are pleading, begging unspoken questions that I want to learn the answers to.
“You know what, Ian? It’ll have to be some other time.” I pat him on the shoulder. “It was really nice meeting you.”
Ian’s brown eyes bounce between me and Jacob, realization finally setting in. His shoulders drop before he nods his head and turns to leave again.
Jacob and I watch each other while the hot sun beats down on us.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” Jacob’s attention flits to the surrounding people chatting loudly, laughing, and drinking.
“We’re kind of stuck in the middle of a lake, Jacob.”
He pulls out his phone, quickly taps against it, and then shoves it back in his pocket. “My buddy’s coming to pick us up.”
Okay then.
Jacob and I are sitting across from each other on an unfamiliar pontoon anchored in a semi-secluded part of the lake. The boat sways in the small waves, the sun is scorching overhead even though it’s filtered through the bimini top, boats and WaveRunners hum loudly in the background, and the smell of barbeque wafts through the stuffy air.
I take a drink of the gin and tonic Jacob made me and watch him nurse his beer. I’ve given him time to gather his thoughts, but the clock has expired. Just when I start to tell him that, he opens up.
“When I learned you were related to Juliana, it ignited irrational fear in me.” He turns his attention from the lake to me. “I was concerned that I had fallen for you because you were familiar and reminded me of Juliana.” His gaze slides over me. “You have blonde hair, blue eyes, a similar figure, and some of the same mannerisms.”
My heart nosedives into my stomach.
He admitted he wasn’t attracted to Juliana, and maybe now that he knows we’re related, it’s severed his attraction to me.
I soak in the feeling of that possibility, allowing the cold, hard truth of the reality to enter my mind and swim around in there before it drowns. Because, even though I’ve decided to move on with my life, if Jacob tells me he wants nothing to do with me, I might as well jump off the boat to sink to the bottom of the lake with my pride.
“Jacob, stop.” I hold my hand up in a halt position. “You don’t have to say it, okay? I already know.”
Jacob slowly sets his beer down, stands, and saunters over to sit next to me. Taking my face in his hands, he says, “I don’t care if you already know. I have to say it, Joslyn.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head, trying to rid the words from my mind before I hear them.
“You can’t leave as our nanny. The kids are so fragile and wouldn’t know what to do without you. They love you so much.” He rubs his thumbs along my cheekbones.
He’s already said this, and I told him I couldn’t stay.
“Open your eyes, Joslyn,” he whispers.
“No.” I shake my head again.
“Please look at me because what I want to say, I don’t want to say to your eyelids.” He chuckles.
That makes my eyes pop open because this is no laughing matter.
His dark blue eyes are soft, serious, intently watching me, like he can see into my soul. “I don’t want you to stay just for the kids. I need you to stay for me, too.”
I open my mouth to say something, but his thumb covers my lips.
“I love you, Joslyn Stone. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. I was a stupid asshole for freaking out over the fact that you and Juliana are related. You’re nothing alike. You’re good and pure and honorable. I trust you with my life, with my kids’ lives, and I don’t trust easily these days.” He licks his lips. “You always put everyone else’s needs in front of yours, and if you’ll take me back, I’ll make it my priority to put yours first.”
If I’ll take him back?
I pull away from his hold and gaze out over the lake. There are so many people out on the water, and I’m not sure how they’re all not running into each other.
“Joslyn?” Jacob’s voice is concerned.
“It’s not that you freaked out that scares me. I did the same. I’d have been a little worried if we weren’t concerned about the revelation.” Turning to him, I capture and hold his attention. “What upsets me is how you completely shut down, wouldn’t talk to me, and pushed me away after we shared so much together.” I take a reassuring breath. “I can’t be in a relationship where there’s no communication. I’ve been there before, and I won’t do it again.”
“I promise—”
This time, I stop him by pressing my fingers against his mouth.
“You hurt me in a way I never thought I could be hurt. That doesn’t disappear because you’ve spouted some flowery words to me.” My hand falls away from him to land in my lap.
“What are you saying?” There’s a quiet desperation in his voice that makes me ache for him.
“I’m saying I want better communication, but you’re going to need to show me how you feel with your actions, not just your pretty words.” I shift on the seat, my legs sticking to the vinyl.
“So, you’re saying there’s a chance for us?” Light sparkles in his eyes.
I run my hand through his hair and caress his cheek. “I can’t walk away from you any more than you can walk away from me.”
The biggest smile I’ve ever seen brightens Jacob’s face right before he lunges at me. I have enough time to let out one strangled squeak before his lips are firmly planted on mine. His body pushes me back onto the bench.
After several minutes, he slightly pulls back and looks deeply into my eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And I do. I’ve never meant four words more.
He brushes his hand back through my windblown locks while searching my eyes. “Will you move back in with me? I can’t take one more day without you by
my side.”
“Don’t you think we should take things slow?” The last word comes out on a moan when he grinds into me.
“Screw slow, Joslyn. It’s overrated. We took things at a snail’s pace last time, and I’m done. I want you. I need everything there is to have where you’re concerned.” He rubs his nose against mine and murmurs something that makes his voice go all throaty. “If I’ve learned anything over this last year, it’s that life is short, and you have to take and enjoy every moment. You’re the only person I want to chase moments with.”
With that, I’m his completely. My heart is mush in his hands, and there’s no way I can say no to anything he asks me. And he’s right; life is short and we need to seize each day and make it count, make it last.
Lifting up, I place a soft kiss against his moist lips before I breathe, “Take me home, Jacob,” against them.
He captures my face in his hands, and the elation I see in him electrifies my love for him. It sizzles hot and deep and will be a part of me until I die.
Lowering his mouth to mine, he captures me in the kiss of a lifetime. It begins frantically, hungrily, as if we’re starved from the time away from each other. Gradually, it transitions into something slow, melodic, and romantic. Like our bodies are trying to tell the other how much they’ve missed one another, how incomplete they’ve felt until this very second.
The longer Jacob kisses me with such tenderness on that boat in the middle of the lake, the deeper his passion reaches into my chest to shake me loose, to banish the stormy clouds swirling around my soul. Jacob’s love filters light and happiness into all the darkest parts of me, and I know I’ll never be the same. And I never want to be.
From the day we met on that park bench all those months ago, we were never strangers. My heart knew his, just as his recognized mine. Even though we fought against it, we were one from the beginning—one body, one heart, one breath, and one soul—and we would remain that way for all of eternity.
EPILOGUE
* * *
“Ah, you’ve brought me back to the scene of the crime.” I grin at Jacob and sit in the exact same spot on the park bench as the day I met him.
Today is one year to the date when fate took things into her own hands and forced Jacob and me together. To celebrate, Jacob has a series of surprises in store for me. I’m usually not one to like surprises, but when they come from the man I love, I’ve learned they’re the best.
“Where else would we start this glorious day?” He sits next to me with Jenna in his lap.
She’s started walking, but she’s still too unsteady to let her wander over the park’s uneven ground. Jagger runs to the edge of the lake and immediately starts throwing stones in the water, like he did last year.
“It’s surreal to think a year has passed since we first met.” I swing my legs on the bench and tip my face toward the warm sun. “It seems like yesterday, but so much has happened that it also feels like years have gone by.”
“I hope that’s a good thing?” Jacob bounces Jenna on his knee, and she giggles, clapping her hands.
“The very best thing.”
“Good.” He smiles, but for some reason, it seems off.
We sit in comfortable silence, listening to Jenna babble unintelligibly, and we watch Jagger try to skip rocks across the surface of the lake. Jacob shifts, peering up the hill, toward the car, and I wonder if we need to get going to his next surprise.
Clearing his throat, Jacob asks, “Did you see the new necklace Jenna’s wearing?”
“You’re letting her wear a necklace?” I blink in surprise. “What if it chokes her?”
I jump up from the bench, and Jacob stands with me.
“It’s just for today,” Jacob says as he props her on his hip.
“Jacob—”
“Just look at it, sweetheart,” he interrupts before I can rear up into full-on freak-out mode.
I come closer to inspect the necklace that’s almost down to Jenna’s belly. The motherly instinct in me wants to scold Jacob for letting this precious little girl wear something that could possibly harm her, but when I gaze at him, his face is alight with such jubilation, I knock my reprimand back down.
Jenna’s wearing a sterling silver bar necklace with an engraving. When I lean closer, I read what seems to be Roman numerals. My brows knit together, and I lift my gaze to Jacob’s for clarification.
“It’s the date we met. Right here, in this park, at this bench,” he says softly.
“That’s sweet.” Raising my hand, I tickle Jenna’s belly, causing her to throw her head back and laugh, and then I stroke my finger over the cold metal of the engraving. “It’s beautiful.” But I still don’t understand why Jenna’s wearing it.
“We entered each other’s lives here”—he nods his head at the bench—“but Jenna’s the one who truly brought us together. I didn’t realize it back then, but I had fallen head over heels in love with you while you were Jenna’s nurse. I had lost my wife and was dealing with a sick newborn and a grieving toddler. But, when I saw you holding my daughter’s hand and talking to her that first day in the hospital, I knew my heart was in the best kind of trouble.”
He rubs the thumb of his free hand along my jaw before he turns toward his son and yells, “Jagger, come here, buddy. It’s almost time.”
“Yay!” Jagger drops his handful of rocks and trots over to stand next to his dad.
“What’s going on?” I feel like I’m in a vortex where nothing makes sense.
With tenderness in his eyes, Jacob says, “Flip the necklace over.”
Without knowing why, my hand starts to tremble. My eyes flit back and forth from Jacob to Jagger to Jenna before landing on the silver bar glinting in the sun. When I see the back, all the air in my lungs freezes before it whooshes past my lips in a shocked gasp.
WILL YOU MARRY US?
I blink several times, thinking I’m seeing things. When my eyes finally meet Jacob’s, they’re soft, hopeful, and filled with so much love, I can feel it sink into my soul, as if it’s found its final resting place.
Jacob gets down on one knee and props Jenna on the other. Pulling Jagger in front of him, Jacob reaches into his pocket and pulls out the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. The large diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds sparkles in the sunlight, almost as if it were as happy as my insides feel.
“You’re everything in our world, Joslyn. We want to spend every day making you smile and laugh and proving you’re loved beyond reason because that’s how you make us feel.” Jacob lifts the ring between us. “Will you marry us?”
I blink in shock, tears streaming down my face so forcefully that I can’t speak.
“Please?” Jagger asks with puppy-dog blue eyes.
I laugh and look at Jacob. He’s wearing a mischievous expression.
“I hoped you couldn’t say no to me, but I pulled in a backup just in case.” He jerks his head at Jagger.
“Will you, Joslyn?” Jagger asks innocently.
“Yeah, will you?” Fighting against a smile, Jacob mimics Jagger’s tone.
I study the three people I love most in the world as they all stare back at me with pleading, promising blue eyes, and everything in my universe rights itself.
I nod enthusiastically. “Yes! All the yeses in the world.”
“Yay!” Jagger claps his hands.
When I bend down, he jumps into my arms. I squeeze him just a little too tight, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Jacob clears his throat, and I wink at him.
“I think there’s someone else who would like to hug me,” I whisper into Jagger’s ear.
He giggles and backs away.
Jacob stands, and I follow suit.
When he reaches out to hug me, I grab Jenna from his arms and swing her around and around in circles. “It’s you who wants a hug, isn’t it?”
She squeals and belly laughs until drool runs down her chin.
When I stop spinning, I eye Jacob, and
he has an amused grin pulling at his lips.
“Is it finally my turn?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
He shakes his head. “This is how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives, isn’t it?”
“If you play your cards right.” I step into him.
“Good thing I have a lifetime supply of decks.” He lifts my left hand between us and gently glides the ring onto my finger. Gazing deeply into my eyes, he kisses the diamond and then my hand. “I’ll love you forever.”
“Just as I’ll love you forever.” I lift up onto my toes and kiss his waiting lips.
“Daddy, is it time for the other surprise?” Jagger pulls on the leg of Jacob’s pants.
When we look down at him, I can see glee is bursting out of him.
“Another surprise?” My eyes widen.
Jagger eagerly shakes his head.
“Yes, there’s one more thing.” Jacob steps away and pulls something else from his pocket. He leans down to Jagger and whispers in his ear as he hands him what appears to be folded papers.
Jagger nods at whatever Jacob says and then gazes at me with uncertainty in his big blue eyes. With a shaking hand, Jagger offers me the papers he’s holding.
My heart starts to beat unsteadily, and it lodges itself in my throat while butterflies, birds, and anything else that has wings take over the extra space in my chest. I have no idea what’s happening, but my intuition tells me that this is even bigger than agreeing to marry Jacob.
I open the documents with unsteady hands and quickly skim over the words. My mind can’t digest what I’m reading because it can’t be true. A sob escapes, and I cover my mouth with my fingers.
My eyes snap to Jacob’s in disbelief. “Wh—” I swallow and try again. “I don’t understand.”
“We want to be a complete family.” Jacob places his hand on top of Jagger’s head. “And the way to do that is if you agree to adopt Jagger and Jenna. They’re already your children in every way that counts, but we’d like to make it legal, so you’ll have as many rights to them as I do.”
“Oh my God.” I think I’m dreaming or quite possibly in shock as I review the adoption papers in my hand. “I don’t know what to say.” I choke on the moisture streaming down my face. If I agree, my niece and nephew will be my daughter and son. I’ll finally be a mom.