He leans forward, practically jumping out of my arms for hers. That warm fuzzy feeling deflates a bit. He obviously loves his mom. The whole nanny thing feels like a distant memory.
She climbs back into the truck, situating him in his seat. “Can you hand me the big bag, please?” she asks. I look on the ground. I grab the diaper bag and hand it to her. “Thanks.”
I can’t see what she’s doing, and I very much want to climb in the truck and ignore her, but I can’t seem to get my feet moving. She climbs out. “Okay,” she huffs, breathing heavy. “He’s all set.”
I grab her arm and pull her toward me, looking down at her. “I didn’t deserve you walking out on me two years ago, and I sure as shit did not deserve this,” I say angrily.
“I’m not asking you for anything, Xavier.”
“That’s not at all what I meant, and you damn well know it, Skylar,” I snap.
“Then what do you mean?”
“I deserved to know two years ago. I deserved the choice and the chance to be there for my son.” My voice cracks with emotion when I say my son, and she catches it.
“I didn’t want to burden you.”
“It’s a burden I am more than willing to bear. But you hid it from me, Skylar. That fucking hurts almost as much as you leaving me does.”
She slowly closes her eyes. “It hurt me too.”
“You left,” I snap.
“I fucking fell in love with you, Xavier. I didn’t fucking know how to handle that,” she snaps, extracting herself from my grip. “Then a month later, I found out I was pregnant. It was all too fucking much. I wasn’t ready to bring you back into my life. I had to deal with the idea of you every day because a piece of you was growing inside me. Then before I knew it, he was here, and I became a mother and a CEO and…” she crumbles. Tears fill her eyes hard and fast and spill over. “Then you’d be in the middle of a season. I’d tell myself that I would call you, once I knew you’d be home, or at the very least, off the water. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you when you were on the water. I knew the moment I told you that you’d come running to New York, and I…I couldn’t tell you then and…I’m sorry, okay, I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell you.” She sucks in a deep breath. “I was scared. Scared if I let you into his life that you’d…something would happen to you. He deserves better than that, Dirk. You know that as well as I do how much losing our fathers affected us—”
“Will you shut up?” I tease slightly.
I close the distance between us, and the next thing I know, I’m wrapping my arms around her. “You fell in love with me?” I ask sweetly.
“I’m still fucking in love with you.”
The ice around my heart cracks, explodes, and shatters.
I lift her chin to look at me. “You mean it?”
“Every fucking day,” she breathes.
Chapter 28
Xavier
It takes everything I have. Every ounce of anger. Every minute of the last two years to stop myself from kissing her. She slowly closes her eyes and pulls herself from the grasp I have on her chin. “We need to go,” she whispers.
I nod, releasing her and stepping back.
She looks deflated as she grabs the rest of her stuff, tossing most of it in the back with Jax before she shuts the door. She opens the passenger door and climbs in, effectively ignoring me, and I’m oddly okay with that. I finally get my feet moving again and move around the truck.
I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head for a second before opening the door and climbing in. I situate myself. I like my truck so much better here than anything I get in Dutch. My pedals are backward, allowing me to drive with my left foot without the awkward cross over and putting my right leg in a weird position. She notices as I straighten out my right leg. “Huh,” she says.
“What?” My tone is still irritated.
I see her stiffen slightly then she looks at me and sighs. “I…” she pauses. She’s fidgeting with something. “Your pedals…” She changes her course.
“Not worth the money on a truck that I drive very rarely,” I say by way of explanation. Hoping she’ll get back to whatever it was she was going to say.
Her shoulders slump as I fire up the truck. “I can’t take back what I’ve taken away from you.” Her voice is soft, barely audible.
“No, Rebel, you can’t. But you need to figure out a way to make it work going forward. I may not know how I feel about all this, but bottom line, he’s my son and I have a right to…”
“Da-da,” Jax says from the backseat.
My heart hurts and warms all at the same time. I turn in my seat; thankful I haven’t moved yet and look at him. He’s looking right at me. “What, little man?” I ask. He reaches out, showing me his toy. It’s a boat, not anything like mine, but still it’s a boat.
“Boat,” he coos.
“That’s right, that’s a boat.”
“Da-da boat.”
I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face. I look at Rebel. She’s looking back at him too. “Does da-da drive a boat?” she asks.
“Yeah!” he giggles.
With that, I start to forgive her. I may not have gotten to see him every day or at all before today, but it’s obvious she talks to Jax about me.
I look at her. “Thank you,” I breathe. Then I turn back to Jax. “Would Jax like to go on a boat?”
“Yeah!” he says, bouncing in his seat.
“I think we can do that,” I say, my voice lighter, happier. It better reflects what I’m feeling right now. While I haven’t forgiven Rebel completely—that will take some time—my heart starts to warm to the idea of all of this a little more.
I put the truck in reverse and back out of the parking spot.
She doesn’t say anything until we’re on the highway.
“You’re absolutely right,” she says randomly.
I try to think back to what I’d said before Jax showed me his boat. Then I remember. “Which part?” I ask.
“That you have a right to your son, and I didn’t give that to you.”
“No, Rebel, you did not. Instead, you took away any chance I had to decide how I feel about it.”
“I was scared,” she murmurs.
“Of what exactly?”
“Everything. Your reaction. You showing up in New York, me having to face what I really feel. All of it. I was also scare of your rejection.”
My eyes find her. “My rejection? Of what, you?” I hitch my thumb in Jax’s direction. “Of him?”
“I told you I was protected. I was, but…”
“It takes two to tango, sweetheart,” I say sarcastically. “I’m not stupid, I knew the risk I was taking. Despite your claims of being protected.” She scoffs at my wording. Traffic comes to a crawl. I look over at her. “I didn’t mean…I know you weren’t lying about being protected,” I amend. I take a deep breath before continuing, “I knew that night that something changed in you. It changed for me too. But what I didn’t realize was just how vulnerable you were at the time…”
“I wasn’t vulnerable,” she protests.
I raise my eyebrows, looking back at her. “Really? Because I recall waking up in bed, alone, the next morning.” I recall that feeling very well. Too fucking well.
She takes a deep breath, looking out the passenger window. I can see a war happening in her reflection off the window. She’s either fighting for the words or she’s trying to figure out best how to salvage this mess. “I knew what loving you meant. I knew that loving you meant I would spend a good majority of my life alone and without you. You spend six months a year at sea and…” She wipes a tear from her cheek. “I couldn’t become my mother.”
I grip the steering wheel, hard. Anger, frustration, irritation…plain old pissed the hell off, all war inside me. “Did it ever occur to you that there may have been an alternative to that life?” I say through gritted teeth.
Her head snaps in my direction. “You’re a crab boat captain,
Dirk. It’s what you do.”
“Yes, I do, but I’d gladly give it up if it meant that much to you. I don’t captain that boat because I have to. I do it because I love being on the water. I do it because…because Jack did it. Not because I have to.”
“No, you might not, but do you think that I could live with myself if you gave that up because of me?”
“I’d never do it because of you. I’d do it for you. There’s a difference. I’d do it because I know what being on that boat means. I know the risks I take every time I’m out there. Do you honestly think I could do that knowing you were home, raising our children, alone?”
“Children?” she quirks an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean. Some women are cut out to be fishermen’s wives. Some women even enjoy the fact that their husbands are gone six months out of the year, but you, Skylar, are not some women,” I tell her. Everything I’ve said is the truth. “In the two years since you walked away, I’ve nearly given it up every time, every season. Then, right before the season would start, I’d send you a message. I’d get no reply. So, I kept going about my life.” I sigh. “It was all I could do to keep myself from going insane.”
“You’d really give all that up?” she murmurs.
“Yes, Skylar, I would. I have another business. One that keeps me plenty busy, one that could keep me on land and out of the water. One that could really use me year-round,” I argue.
“I live in New York,” she whispers.
“I’m very much aware of that fact,” I remind her.
“You live here. Your life, business, everything is here.”
“No, my business is in Alaska, and I live here,” I state. “I don’t have to be where my business is to run it effectively.”
She goes back to fidgeting with her fingers, and I move over a lane in anticipation of our exit.
She doesn’t say anything.
We’re at the light at the base of the exit when her phone chimes. She pulls it from her purse, looks at it, and tosses it back into her bag. “Anything important?” I ask.
“No, Diem got the car, and they’re on their way to check into the hotel.”
“Ahh,” I acknowledge as the light changes. “Who’s the woman?” I need to know, to understand the relationship there.
“She’s my nanny. She takes care of Jax while I’m at work.”
“And while you’re out?”
Her head snaps in my direction. “No, Dirk, despite what you might think of me or the woman I was when you came back into my life, I haven’t gone out for anything more than a meal with my best friend in over two years.”
My mouth falls open, shocked in a way I didn’t expect.
She folds her arms over her chest. She flinches a bit, and I don’t understand why, but I ignore it. “So, does that mean you have?” She hesitates on her question.
I pull up to a light. “No, Rebel. I haven’t slept with anyone since you,” I grouse.
She relaxes but keeps her arms folded.
Jax starts jabbering in the back.
I put my foot to the gas and move to the next light a block away.
Jax starts to cry. “What’s wrong, baby?” she asks him.
“Ungry,” he whines.
She looks in my direction. “How much farther?”
“About three blocks,” I tell her.
“Can you wait just a few minutes, kiddo?” she asks him, and he settles a little. He’s still crying. I keep driving.
After a few minutes and a couple stop lights, he settles just as I pull into the parking garage and park.
Rebel climbs out of the car and opens the back door and climbs in. She unbuckles Jax and lays him on the seat. “Let’s change you, okay? Then you can eat.”
After a couple minutes, he’s changed but still whining some. She grabs him before climbing back in and sitting where he just was. She closes the door. I turn toward the back and watch as she unbuttons her shirt. “What are you doing?” I ask her.
“What I do usually every night before he goes to bed.”
“Which is?” I ask, confused.
“Feed him. It’s nearly eight back home, this is his bedtime.”
“You feed him?” I parrot, still confused.
She opens her shirt and unhooks something on her bra, then she Settles Jax in her lap.
“You’re still breastfeeding?”
“Only at night.” Jax situates and she puts a blanket over him.
He’s perfectly content right where he is. A smile tugs at my lips. “Does he eat regular stuff too?” I can’t help asking.
She looks at me with a ‘are you stupid?’ look, and I shrug. “He eats, drinks, does everything a normal 18-month-old does. But no matter how many times I try to put him to bed with a bottle, he refuses. If I have it to give him, I will.”
I nod, still not understanding, but I also don’t know what to say. I turn off the truck.
I look back at them, and she’s digging something out of a bag. It’s long when she unravels it. Singlehandedly, she puts this thing together, then she lifts it over her head. She pulls the blanket away from them, then she puts her arm through it and it turns into a sling. She gently moves Jax enough to settle him in the sling. Then her hands are free. I see Jax’s hand come out and press gently against her chest, playing with a button on her shirt. I can only assume he’s sucking away because I can’t see him anymore.
She situates a few things that she pulled out of the diaper bag to change him. “Can you grab my purse?” she asks. I nod, reaching over and grabbing it off the floor of the truck. She looks down at Jax. “All done?”
“No,” he whines.
She expertly switches the sling to the other arm and the other side. Jax switches with her and I see him settle back down. I catch a glimpse of her nipple and am slightly disappointed to see her nipple rings are gone. For obvious reasons, but still. But once again, I see just how good pregnancy has been to her, and my cock grows long and hard in my pants.
“Okay, big guy, I’m gonna move,” she tells him. She reaches for the door handle and opens the door before sliding out. Jax in the sling. She grabs the diaper bag but leaves her other stuff in the truck when she closes the door.
She intends to come back to my truck. That thought makes me ridiculously happy as I climb out, her purse in my hand. “Shit,” I groan as I step wrong.
“What’s wrong?” she asks from the other side of the truck.
“Nothing.”
I shift and adjust slightly. That’s better. I close my door, and I limp for a couple steps, not trusting my leg at first. I start to straighten out as I come around the back of the truck. She holds her hand out for her purse, and I give it to her. She adds it to the shoulder with the diaper bag. “You okay?” she asks tenderly.
“Yup,” I tell her. No need to remind her.
“You sure?”
“Physically, I’m fine,” I amend. Mentally, I’m fucked the hell up. But I don’t say that.
She nods slowly, somberly. She caught my meaning.
She makes some adjustments to her clothes quickly, making sure she’s covered. The sling hides a lot, and she didn’t completely unbutton her top. “I have no idea where we’re going,” she says softly.
I give her a sad smile, and without thinking about it, I reach for her hand. She takes it. My heart sparks again when our hands meet. That familiarity returns. A sense of home and completeness consume me in ways I didn’t expect.
Chapter 29
Skylar
His hand in mine brings me comfort.
Something I had hoped would have dissipated over the last two years.
It was foolish of me to think I could see this man and not have every emotion resurface like a slap to the face.
His reaction to Jax is…otherworldly.
I never, not in a million years, expected his reaction. His acceptance.
I guess that’s why I was so hesitant to tell him about being pregnant or about Jax in the first p
lace. I kept it from him, and every reason I had for doing it was wholly and completely selfish. I did it because I couldn’t bring myself to let the only man I’ve ever loved who wasn’t my father, destroy me. In the end, I destroyed myself. Not being around Dirk these last two years has been hell. Complete and utter torture.
But I never kept Dirk from Jax.
Though, I don’t have many pictures, I always made sure Jax had some way of recognizing his father. Including a picture next to his crib. He needed to know who his dad is. Though, seeing them killed me. I wasn’t going to keep that from our son.
He’s right, I have to figure out a way to make this work. Keeping Jax from him now is not an option. Keeping Jax away from a fisherman’s life might be easier than I thought it would be. Hearing that Dirk would be willing to give up the crabbing life for a life with me nearly killed me.
I squeeze his hand in mine. He gently squeezes it back. His eyes meet mine at the same time Jax bites me and jumps slightly. I flinch and lift the blanket. I chortle. He’s falling asleep.
“What’s wrong?” Dirk asks quietly. I pull the blanket back, offering to show him. He looks but shakes his head, confused.
“Watch his mouth,” I say, and we stop walking.
Jax sucks a couple times, pauses for a moment, then starts sucking again then stops.
“He falling asleep?” he asks.
I look up at him, smiling sweetly. “He is.”
“I wish we had a stroller or something,” he says, “this way you wouldn’t have to carry him around.”
“I don’t mind. At least, not with the sling.”
“Will he stay asleep?”
“Most likely,” I tell Xavier. “He’s a great sleeper.”
“I feel so lost,” he says, candid and uninhibited.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I don’t know…I feel stupid, I feel like I should know all this stuff and yet…” He looks away from me, not finishing his thought. He hasn’t let my hand go so I squeeze it, reassuringly.
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