Treading water a few feet away, the love of my life shoots me a devilish grin. “Oh, come on,” she teases. “It's refreshing. Maybe you don't have any actual balls to freeze off?”
Still struggling to catch my breath, I let out a hard chuckle. “Pretty sure you're more intimately acquainted with them than anyone.”
“Yeah, right,” she fires back, still playful. “I know what you partners get up to with the interns.”
My body’s adjusting to the chilly water, and with my breathing calming at last, I smile and say, “This partner prefers more seasoned attorneys with their own firms. Especially those with CEOs for clients. And the most delicious ass.”
Her lips curved, she says pertly, “Too bad you can’t catch any of those,” and with that, she flips over and starts swimming away from me. I give chase at once, my arms cutting through the water, thinking I might stand a chance, because even though she’s a stronger swimmer than I am, I’m pretty sure she’s out of practice.
I have no idea how long we play that game of cat and mouse. Again and again, she evades me deftly, kicking water in my face whenever I get to close, and at one point she even dives down and swims under the boat to the other side, which freaks me out a little as I picture her misjudging and banging her already injured head, passing out underwater, and how long would I wait for her to resurface? But after swimming around the boat in a damned hurry, my heart pounding, I find her hanging on to the rope ladder, grinning at me again.
Narrowing my eyes, I put all my strength into lengthening my strokes, lunging for her, but with a squeal and a burst of laughter, she grips the ladder with both hands and hauls herself up, easily climbing back into the boat. When my feet hit the deck seconds later, she’s already covered herself with a towel, more’s the pity. She hands me the other towel, and I seriously consider ignoring that in favor of ripping hers off.
I’m not sure if my thoughts are reflected in my eyes or not, but regardless, she’s having none of it. After shoving the towel at me, she climbs up and pads up to the bow, where she sits down with her legs dangling off the edge. After quickly drying off, I wrap the terry cloth around my waist and leap up, stepping carefully over to lower myself next to her.
“This is nice,” she comments after a while, regarding me sadly. “When did we stop having fun?”
Wow. The question hits me hard, sinks heavily in my gut. We did use to have fun, didn’t we? Even after the surprise pregnancy and the spur-of-the-moment wedding and the whirlwind that followed—buying our first house, making it a home, getting ready for the baby, and adjusting to our new lives while both still working the stupid long hours expected of law firm associates—we still found time to play.
“A long time ago,” I answer solemnly. “It was probably the colic.”
“Well.” Her lips twist tightly, and she sounds genuinely mournful as she says, “That was a mistake.”
Yeah, it was.
The first of many.
Chapter 21
Paige
“What is that?” I ask, squinting at my iPad. I’m sitting on the bed in my room, and on the screen before me, my middle child is seated—well, more like bouncing, really—on a couch in my parents’ family room, holding out her arm to show off a temporary tattoo on her bicep.
“It’s a butterfly!” Abi says in an accusatory tone, as if I’m being deliberately obtuse. “Aunt Mia and Uncle Jay got this special paper, and we drew our own tattoos, and they put it on the computer and printed the tattoos.”
“That’s super cute, honey,” I say with a smile, tilting my head and examining her drawing, which does look like a butterfly…I suppose? “Did Freya get one, too?”
“Yeah. Hers is a skull. It’s creepy.” Abi picks up the tablet, and the picture turns blurry and wobbly for a few seconds as she points it toward the cushion where her big sister is curled up with her own iPad, wearing her pink headphones. Abi moves the camera closer to her sister’s arm, showing off what is indeed a kind of creepy drawing of a human skull, commenting, “She’s watching Inside Out.”
Of course she is. I swallow a groan—and make a mental note to ask Miranda if watching that movie is something Freya does at her house, too.
“What about Elliott?” I ask.
“Aunt Mia said there was no way he’d stand still long enough.”
“Sounds about right,” I say wryly.
Abi turns the camera back on herself, and I see that she has what looks like chocolate stains around her mouth and her short blonde hair is so frizzy and knotted I doubt it’s been brushed properly in days. What are they doing to my kids?
Let it go, I tell myself sternly. It’s not a big deal.
“Uncle Cam is teaching me to play guitar.” Leaning toward her little sister, Freya pops onto the screen, her headphones around her neck.
“That’s fun,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, because that sounds like something that will last for exactly five-point-three seconds.
“They took us to McDonald’s,” my oldest child goes on, and her face and voice could not be smugger.
“Who did?”
“Uncle Jay, Aunt Mia, and Uncle Cam,” Abi takes it upon herself to answer. “We weren’t supposed to tell.” With a disapproving frown, she shoves Freya’s head farther away from herself. In response, Freya digs her elbow into Abi’s side, and Abi yowls angrily.
Lord help me. I press my lips together. “Where’s Aunt Mia?”
“Right here.” Long, tan legs in cutoff jean shorts walk into the frame, and then my sister sits on the arm of the couch and leans down so that she appears on the screen behind my daughters. “What’s up?” She squints at the screen, staring at me, and then her eyes widen and she prevents me from answering by exclaiming, “Oh, my God. What happened?”
Oh, right. I’d forgotten my shiner. I’ve taken painkillers intermittently today to prevent my headache from coming back, and I guess it’s working, because I keep forgetting what my face looks like. With a grimace, I explain, “Clients were fighting, and I was stupid enough to get in between them.”
My sister’s jaw drops. “Is that normal?”
“Nothing about this case has been normal,” I grumble. But it’s time to flip the topic back on her. “Seriously, though. McDonald’s? Really?”
Mia flashes a sheepish grin. “They needed to learn.”
“Learn what?”
“That Auntie Mia is cooler and way more fun than Mommy?” my chronically annoying little sister returns. “Duh.”
Rolling my eyes, I open my mouth to give her a lecture about respecting the rules when you’re responsible for other people’s children, but a knock on the bedroom door interrupts me. At my half-shouted permission, the door opens and Logan appears.
“How does room service for dinner sound?” he asks, leaning against the frame with his hands shoved into his shorts pockets. My chest flutters, heat spreading low in my core. His hair is dark and ruffled, wet from the shower—just like mine is, because we both needed to wash off the lake water—and involuntarily, I find myself riveted by the sight of him, filling that doorway. He must’ve been spending more time than he used to at the gym, because that blue Big Sur International Marathon T-shirt never used to fit him that snugly across the shoulders and arms.
Of course, he’s had more time for the gym since he moved out.
I swallow hard. “Yeah, that’s fi—”
“Is that Daddy?” Freya asks sharply, and I look back down to find her eyes big and hopeful.
“Yup.” I give my oldest child a reluctant smile, biting my lip. An expression of surprise takes over my sister’s face, and I can feel my cheeks starting to prickle and burn, so I lift up the iPad and point the camera at Logan.
“Daddy!” Abigail squeals happily, and her sister does the same as he saunters over to sit down next to me on the bed, beaming at the screen.
Settling in, he asks his daughters how they’re doing. After a short while of listening to their eager conversation, I ac
cept with a quiet sigh of resignation that he’s part of this video chatting session now, and so I hand over the tablet, making him hold it.
In my shorts pocket, my phone dings. Plucking it out, I see it’s a text from Mia.
Why is Logan there with you?! it reads.
I type out a hasty reply: Told you he’s opposing counsel on this case?
Almost immediately, her response arrives. Yeah, but why is he THERE with you? Has he been there all week?!?!
Sheesh. I get that my sister is an excessive-exclamation-points kind of person, but sometimes she’s just…too much like herself.
Yeah, and it’s too long of a story for texting, so please just let it go, I write back.
Let it go?! comes her response. Within seconds, she sends another message: OMG, the look on your face when you saw him just now. What the hell is going on?!
What look on my face? My fingers twitch over the phone’s keyboard, but then I decide I don’t really want to know. Bad enough that I already suspected I’m unable to hide my desire for him from the world.
I have to wonder, though. Am I looking at him differently now than I did this morning? Our conversation on the boat was harrowing—illuminating and fiercely honest. I’ve been grappling with it ever since, unsure how I feel about it. How I feel about him. The stuff he told me about his mom and his jealousy toward me… I’d never made that connection, though as soon as he said it, it seemed so obvious.
And I believed him. That’s the part that has me unsteady, rattled to my core. I believed him when he said he knows now I’d never betray him like his mom did his dad. I had no idea he’d been seeing that therapist on his own, but he said it’s helped him, and I believe him.
I just don’t know what to do with all that new information. Forgive him and take him back? Or forgive him—and continue trying to move on with a life without him?
I’m not talking about this right now, I reply to Mia. Knowing that won’t satisfy her and having absolutely no patience at the moment, I mute my phone and shove it back in my pocket.
The digital age definitely as its advantages.
Such as allowing my girls to be over a hundred miles away but still able to share with their father everything they’ve been doing this week. Abi and Freya are carrying the iPad around my parents’ house, showing him the art and craft projects they’ve been doing, the new toys my parents have bought them, and the blanket fort they were allowed to build in the dining room. And the whole time, he’s asking questions, listening, and watching them intently.
A breathless warmth fills my chest. It slays me, the light in his eyes right now, as he teases and jokes around with them, the way he laughs and the pure joy in his countenance as the girls start chasing their shrieking and giggling little brother around the house, pretending to be monsters that are trying to eat him.
He’s so good with them. Loves them, adores them, is every bit as helplessly devoted to them as I am.
And they worship him.
They need us both, he said, and he’s right. We’re different people, with different strengths and weaknesses, and we provide our kids with different kinds of love and care, all equally important.
Something dark and sickening twists in my gut. Am I a horrible, selfish person to even consider moving them hundreds of miles away from him? By becoming a mom, I didn’t entirely forfeit the right to do what’s best for myself, but there’s a balance. And ultimately, if the choices I make for my own good are likely to hurt my kids more than they’ll benefit, then I’m letting them down, and I don’t deserve to consider myself a good parent.
That’s what you do, out of love for these tiny humans you made. You sacrifice. You do things you don’t want to, day in and day out, and the crazy thing is, it’s all worth it.
Even when their existence was not on purpose. I always balk at calling them accidents. An accident implies negative consequences.
I’m sitting there with my heart in my throat and a burning behind my eyes when, through the iPad’s speaker, my oldest child suddenly asks, “Daddy? Are you coming to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, too?”
While I freeze, my eyes widening, Logan whips a sideways glance at me, and he hesitates, saying, “Uhh…”
How to respond? There was so much longing and excitement in Freya’s voice, and I want nothing more than to tell her what she wants to hear.
But I can’t give her false hope.
“Daddy probably has to go home and work, sweetie,” I say, grabbing the iPad and turning it so I can see my daughters’ faces.
“Aww,” whines Abigail, while Freya is silent in her disappointment, her mouth clamping shut and her eyes going cold.
With a sinking feeling, I realize that my suspicions have been right. She blames me, thinks I made her dad go away out of pure…meanness? My little girl does think I’m selfish and horrible.
And I have no idea how to fix that, because the truth is too complicated and grown-up for her to comprehend.
“The word is…clients.” A corner of Logan’s mouth dimples, and he eyes me like he just issued a challenge.
“Huh?” I blink at him, frowning. Then suddenly I get it. “Association? No. I’m not playing.”
We’ve been having dinner on the patio while daylight has slowly faded into twilight. Finished with our meals, we’re sitting back in our chairs, sipping Pinot Noir in the waning light. It should’ve been a nice and peaceful meal, surrounded by tall trees, with only muted birdsong to interrupt the quiet. But I can’t help feeling uneasy, a nervous tension humming beneath my skin. I don’t know what happens next between us, and it’s keeping me from being able to relax.
We seem to have reached a sort of truce, though—for several reasons, most likely. Such as agreeing to move forward with settling things between us, even involving a mediator if we have to. As for our little chat on the boat earlier, where we were more brutally honest than I think we’ve ever been—
I turn my thoughts away from the memory. I’m not ready to start digesting it yet.
It’s also helped that the case is now officially on hold and that Logan dumped Stu. Which honestly surprised me, because my husband has endless patience for putting up with other people’s crap when his career is involved.
Speaking of which, Charlton finally called him back right before our food arrived. Logan was, of course, his unflappable self as he explained what happened, and yeah, I still admire that he manages to keep his cool around that infuriating man.
Apparently I also still feel protective of my husband, because when I heard the old bastard yelling over the phone, it wound my muscles tight with anger on Logan’s behalf. I wanted to snatch the phone out of his hand and give my former boss a piece of my mind.
Not that the Hammer would’ve given a shit. He doesn’t accept criticism from any man, and I’m pretty sure he’s never in his life truly listened when a woman was talking. He’s an old school misogynist.
Logan is staring at me narrowly, his head tilted. We’ve been avoiding controversial topics tonight. Until now. Knowing him, he’s going to insist on playing that annoying game.
“What?” I inquire, apprehensive.
His eyes glinting with mischief, he turns his head to look toward the trees. “We never played it in a hammock.”
“We never did anything in a hammock,” I point out, and then I roll my eyes as his expression turns suggestive. “Logan…” I warn, watching him push his chair back and get to his feet before rounding the table, stopping before me.
“Come on,” he says, and it’s not so much a command as it is an enticement—an invitation and a challenge, tauntingly seductive. His gaze heavy-lidded, he offers his hand. And that’s all he does. Just burns me with that intense stare of his, keeping his hand outreached.
God help me.
My insides turn to liquid, all hot and melty and shapeless, and my face feels feverish and flushed. Like I’m a teenager and he’s my big crush.
This is not good.
“I’m
not having sex with you again, Logan,” I tell him, and I’m pretty sure I sound like I mean it.
His lips curve in a smile. “Babe, I just want to lie in a hammock with you and look at the stars. No one said anything about sex.”
Uh-huh. It should be comforting to know he’s still as full of shit as he always has been. But it’s not. Because knowing that never helped me guard against him in the past, did it?
Oh, hell.
Apparently tired of waiting, he reaches down and grabs my arm. Then he’s hauling me up out of the patio chair, and as I yank on my arm to free it, he just tightens his grip.
“You wanna go down this road?” he asks in a menacing tone. “You know where it’ll end if you fight me.”
I set my mouth. Fine. I’ll go lie in the damn hammock with him. Then I’ll go to bed. Alone.
“Let’s go,” I say, and as he releases me and starts toward the steps off the patio, I swallow a sigh and follow him.
When we reach the hammock, he strides around to the other side of it, kicks off his flip-flops, and gets in. After lying down, he arches his brows at me, and I hesitate, watching the wobbly ropes fastening the contraption to the trees, the way it keeps swinging. Falling into a mud pit, getting hit in the face—have I really not gotten injured enough the past couple of days? Seriously.
“Yeah, no,” I say, starting to back away. “This isn’t happening.”
He pushes up with one arm, and the other one snakes out, his hand grabbing hold of me, pulling me toward him. “Logan!” I squawk as I topple in, landing on top of him, grasping for purchase. The hammock lurches violently, and we both freeze, waiting for it to settle again.
“You’re so annoying,” I say when the contraption stills, and I can feel his chest shaking with laughter. It’s unnerving to be on top of him like this. He’s too big, too solid, radiating too much heat—and he smells too good, like soap and himself. Like my husband.
With a grunt, I carefully slide sideways, holding my breath the whole time. Please, don’t tip over. Please. When the ropes bounce but don’t start swinging, I exhale with relief.
Mend (Waters Book 2) Page 28