by Jordan Marie
“We like you and for the first time since we can remember, Mom is laughing freely.”
“She was happy with Orville,” I tell them, needing to make it clear that I’m not trying to replace the man who became their father.
“She was happy, but she worried. She never let herself relax, even as a child I can remember that. Mom always worried she wasn’t good enough,” White says. “I even heard them talking about it once. It didn’t matter what Orville said, Mom just felt she caused Orville problems.”
“This town sucks ass. They talked about her all the time and she hated that Orville had to hear it,” Gray grumbles, obviously bitter.
“Your mother is the strongest person I’ve ever met in my life boys. She’s special.”
“You love her,” White says.
“I do. It’s happened quick, but that doesn’t change things at all. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. I…” I break off, rubbing the back of my neck and feeling a little out of my depth. “I want to get your blessing.”
“Our blessing?” Gray asks, but White smiles. He already knows what I want.
“I’m planning on marrying your Momma. I’m from another time, I know, but I wouldn’t feel right without asking you first.”
“What are you going to do if we say no?” White asks.
“Ask her anyway,” I laugh. “But, I sure would feel better knowing I’m asking with you two on my side,” I add honestly.
They both look at me and for once their faces are completely solemn. I start to worry, but then they both begin to smile.
“Can’t think of a man I’d rather have as a stepdad,” Gray says, slapping me on the shoulder and giving me a hug.
“Do I have to call you Dad?” White smirks.
“You can call me anything you want, as long as you’re okay with me marrying your Mom.”
“Welcome to the family, Jansen,” he says and for the first time since the girls found that damn oil bubbling up in the field, I breathe a little easier.
Now if Ida Sue just says yes…
32
Ida Sue
I feel like a damned cat on a hot tin roof. I’m jumping around from place to place. I can’t concentrate at all. The house is way too quiet, too, and that doesn’t help. If you add in the fact that Jansen and I have a date tonight… It’s a wonder I’m still standing.
I look in the mirror for the hundredth time. I left my hair down and brushed it until it shined. I started to curl it, do something to make it look different, but I stopped myself. Jansen seems to like me. He’s seen me when I’ve looked like death warmed over. I’m too old of a dog to try and learn new tricks—even for him. So, I kept my hair the way I prefer to wear it. I did put on makeup and the pink dress he seems to love. I’ve worn it a few times and each time I’ve noticed his eyes stay on me a little longer, his caresses are a little more intense and his voice sounds more graveled, threaded with need when he tells me I look pretty. It’s been a while, but I think those are all very clear signs. They make me feel pretty anyway.
With one last glance, wishing my push up bra pushed my girls up a little higher, I give a defeated sigh and go and check on Mary. She went down about thirty minutes ago, which is earlier than normal. That will probably mean I’ll be up with a wide awake two-year-old late tonight, which is bad. I let her go to sleep though, because it also means a sleeping toddler now might actually get me laid tonight. I miss sex. I haven’t had it since Mary was conceived actually. There’s a good chance I have cobwebs growing up in there and having a house full of kids makes using anything battery operated useless. I swear their little ears hear everything.
That doesn’t mean the thought of having sex with Jansen doesn’t scare me to death. It does. I’m just hoping that I can finagle it to where we’re in my room in the dark. The dark hides a multitude of sins and the good Lord knows that my body has a lot of things that need hidden.
I head downstairs and walk into the kitchen and jump when I see Jansen, White, Gray and Green all standing in a line. The boys grinning like a bunch of roosters that just snuck into the hen house—which is never a good thing—and Jansen standing there looking nervous as hell.
“What’s going on?” I ask, eyeing them all closely.
“Nothing, Mom. Just sitting here shooting the shit with Jansen,” White says, slapping his hand on Jansen’s shoulder.
“Let me ask you boys something.”
“What’s that, Mom?”
“Do I look any different than I did yesterday, White? Because I didn’t buy bullshit when you tried to sell it to me then, either.”
“Uh-oh.” I hear Green mumble under his breath and that just proves that at least one of my sons has a few brain cells left.
“Uh… Well you look prettier,” he says.
“You do look pretty, Mom,” Gray agrees.
“Definitely,” Green adds—way too cheerfully.
“Pretty as a picture,” Jansen says walking to me. The boys shuffle behind him and I should pay attention to them, but my gaze is locked on the man smiling down at me.
“Stop distracting me,” I mumble. “My boys are up to something.”
“Nothing bad, I promise you, Honey Girl.”
“You’re in on it too.”
“A man just needs to surprise his woman sometimes, Ida Sue. That’s all. How about you and I go outside and take a walk for a bit?”
“Mary is sleeping.”
“Then we’ll go outside on the porch and sit in the old swing. You’ve got that baby monitor, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we’ll grab it.”
“But the boys,” I mumble trying to look over Jansen’s shoulder.
“We’re going to be heading out, Mom. We’re spending the night at White’s buddy Davis’s house,” Gray says.
“All three of you?” I ask, even as Jansen puts his arm around me and practically forces me to walk into the living room.
“Yep. We’ll just finish moving those things in for you, Jansen.”
“Sounds good boys. Appreciate your help.”
“Anytime,” they chime in and I give up trying to look behind me. It’s clear that Jansen isn’t going to let that happen.
“What are they moving in?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Seems like tonight has a lot of surprises,” I respond, picking up the baby monitor off the coffee table and taking it outside with us.
“You got something against surprises, Lovey?”
“I usually like to be prepared.”
We sit down on the swing together and Jansen takes the monitor and puts it on the ground by our feet. Then, he pulls me into his arms, lifting me so that I’m mostly sitting on his lap.
“That’s better,” he says with a satisfied grin.
I wiggle just a little to get comfortable and I can feel the hard ridge of his cock under my ass.
“Keep doing that, Ida Sue and the only surprise you’ll be getting is me taking you upstairs and giving you the hardest fucking you’ve ever had in your life,” he growls.
“I’d be okay with that.”
“Ida Sue.”
“I assume your surprise is the reason all of my children are out for the night.”
“All of them?”
“Even Petal. Apparently, my friend Leddie wanted to bake cookies with a little girl and her daughter Meadow is getting too old to enjoy it. So, she mysteriously wanted to borrow Petal for the night. Would you know anything about that?”
“Why would I know about that?”
“Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“Does this mean I have you alone tonight?”
“With the exception of Mary, yes.”
“You have really good kids, Ida Sue.”
“They are, and a whole lot of sneaky. I’m beginning to think you have some of that in you too, Jansen Reed.”
“Maybe a dash. Are you going to make a man beg for a kiss, or what?”
“Would you beg?
” I laugh.
“For you, baby? Every damn time.”
He says that with such intensity on his face, what can I do other than kiss him? Which is exactly what I do.
I think I might love Jansen Reed.
Lord help me. Lord help us both. Love never works out for me. And I’ve never felt for anyone the way I feel about Jansen.
Which means when this falls apart, it just might kill me.
And that’s terrifying.
33
Jansen
There’s one thing I can say about Ida Sue Lucas. Okay there’s lots of things, but right now all I can think is that she can kiss. She kisses better than a woman ought to have a right to. She’s ruined me for any other woman and that’s the damn truth. If I hadn’t already decided to marry her the kiss she just gave me would have definitely made my mind up for me.
We break apart, both of us breathing hard. I’ve unbuttoned the top of her dress and pushed my hand inside, palming her breast, and I don’t even know how that happened. I need to get control, but with my hand full of her breast, her ass pushing and grinding down against my hard cock and the taste of her kiss, I don’t know if that’s possible.
“I had plans, Lovey, but I have to have you,” I growl into her ear. I suck the lobe in my mouth, biting down on it and then soothing it with my tongue.
“Plans can wait. Let’s go upstairs,” she murmurs.
She barely has the words out before I have her in my arms and I’m carrying her back into the house. She’s unbuttoning my shirt, placing small kisses with each inch of skin that she reveals.
“Fuck, woman,” I growl when her sweet little tongue laps against my nipple.
“I love that you have hair on your chest, Jansen. I love the way it feels when I rub my face against it. I like it almost as much as when I make you say fuck…”
“Make me say it?” I grin, turning the corner to get to the stairs.
“You come off as very straight and narrow, Jansen. You could pass for a country preacher,” she says. And I stop in my tracks, pulling back to look at her.
“The fuck you say?”
“There you go again. When you say fuck it’s like the devil himself sets my body on fire, angels weep and the only way the hunger inside of me can be quenched is if you cover me in your holy water.”
“Don’t think I have any holy water, Lovey,” I laugh, looking down at this woman that I love more than life and thinking she might be as pretty as she is crazy. I like both. She brings a lightness into my life that has never been there before.
“We’ll improvise. I think you might have something even better,” she says, her tongue moving along her bottom lip. I’m so hypnotized by watching that, I miss her hand moving down to massage the hard outline of my cock in my jeans. There can be no missing what she means.
“Fuck, woman. You grab hold of my fucking cock like that one more time, I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk for fucking days.”
I watch as her eyes dilate, her breathing harsher and realize she’s telling the truth. She loves it when I say the word fuck. That’s good information to have and I’ll make sure to use it to my advantage.
I just have to get her upstairs first.
“Jansen?” I stop on the first stair.
“Yeah, baby?”
“What is that?” she asks, her voice so soft and quiet that I almost don’t hear it. That’s when I notice she’s staring in the direction of the kitchen… specifically the table.
I slowly let her slide down my body so she’s standing beside me, sudden nerves overtaking my hunger for her body. I think she’ll like the table. I’m praying she does. Still, there’s a chance she won’t. There’s a larger chance that she won’t understand the message I’m trying to give her.
There’s also the fact that my entire future is hinging on what happens here tonight.
“I…” I clear my throat. “…Made you something for Valentine’s Day.”
“A table.” She walks toward it, her voice so quiet that it’s hard to hear and I can’t read the emotion in it to know what she’s thinking.
“Lovey—”
“You made me a table, Jansen.”
Now, I’m really starting to worry. Maybe her boy was right. I rub the back of my neck. “I got you some flowers too,” I tell her, clumsily moving the vase of lilies and daisies up from the center of the table.
“It’s huge,” she continues to murmur.
“You have a big family, Ida Sue.”
She puts her hand on the top of it and carefully slides it around. Her head is down, so I can’t really see what’s going on in her head. “You made me a table.” Her voice is still soft and I think there’s a touch of wonder in it.
Maybe she does like it.
She sits down on the bench and I start to relax a little. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t like it… Right?
“You made me a table.”
“Ida Sue…”
She finally turns to the side and looks at me. There are tears in her eyes and the sight of them hits me wrong—a million times wrong.
“Ida Sue, Lovey, you don’t have to keep the table. I just was trying to—”
“In my whole life, Jansen, no one has ever bothered to do anything like this for me.”
“Ida Sue—”
“You used oak.”
“You admired the wood for being strong, thought it felt like protection over your family and land. I couldn’t use anything else after hearing you talk about that old oak tree.”
“You made me a table and you listened to me,” she says.
“Lovey, you’re going to have to let me in that brain of yours,” I finally tell her. I kneel down on the floor in front of her, using my thumb to brush away the tears on her face. She shifts a little on the bench and her hand moves over the letter I that is engraved deep in the wood.
“You put my initial on it.”
“You’re the foundation of the family, Ida Sue. Your children adore you. You’d give the world to see them happy.”
“You know me,” she whispers.
“Ida Sue—”
“I want your initial under mine, Jansen.”
“Ida Sue. This table was for you and your kids, I’m just—”
“If I’m the foundation of this family, like you say then, you are my foundation, Jansen. I want your initial there.”
Now, it’s my turn to be speechless. I look in her face and I let my hands cup the side of her face, pushing them under her hair.
“I’ll put it on there.”
“I love you, Jansen Reed.”
Something clicks into place with those words. Something I’ve been missing since the day I was born.
“I love you, Ida Sue Lucas.” I kiss her then. A slow kiss, full of all of the emotion inside of me, a kiss that promises her that I’ll be with her forever.
A kiss to tell her that I’m not going anywhere.
A kiss that says I’m finally home.
34
Ida Sue
I’ve squatted down to see the legs of the table. They’re beautiful, so much more than I ever would have imagined. Jansen has shown me the flowers and colors on the legs and I know I’ve not spoken or responded, but I honestly haven’t been able to form the words. To know he took the time to hand carve and stain something so individual so that everyone in my heart was represented… Orville was good to me. I loved him for being an anchor when I was horribly lost. But, as good as he was, it would have never occurred to him to do something for me… just for me. We didn’t have that kind of a relationship. Our lives centered around the kids and that was fine.
But this…
My finger moves over the lily. It looks delicate and pink even though it’s carved into the wood. I wet my lips and swallow down the emotion that surges inside of me.
“Why did you put the lily on here, Jansen?” I finally ask, standing up.
“White and I had a talk while he was in. When I sho
wed him the table, I was originally going to put an I on each of the legs. Then, he told me about your name Peace Lily.
“Jansen, I’m not—”
“It’s a part of you. It’s who you were before you were hurt, Ida Sue.”
“How do you know I was hurt?” I ask, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
“Because that’s part of who you are now, too. I might not know the whole story, but I can see it. Someday you can tell me the whole story.”
“I don’t think—”
“When you’re ready you will. I don’t think you get this, Sweetheart, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you,” he vows, brushing my hair away from my face. My tears, I wasn’t even aware I was still crying, he sweeps away on his thumb. “I’m here until you tell me to go,” he adds.
It feels like a promise and one I’m desperate to believe.
“What if I keep you?” I’m trembling even as I ask the question, but I have to ask it.
“I’m praying you do, Darlin’. Fuck me, I’m really praying you do,” he murmurs, his lips claim mine, and while we’re kissing I feel his hands against my ass, pressing me into him and the hard ridge of his cock feels heated against my stomach.
He lifts me up, his lips never leaving mine and I immediately wrap my arms and legs around him, holding on. My ass hits the table and he lowers me on it, pulling away from our kiss. We look at each other, both of us breathing hard. He pulls his shirt open, and if it didn’t have snaps, I’m sure buttons would have gone flying. I rub my lips together, watching as he reveals his body to me—just waiting.
He kicks his boots off next and still I can do nothing but watch, totally hypnotized by him. I watch as his face softens from the harshness of desire and he grins at me.
“You’ve got too many clothes on, Darlin’.”
I’ve noticed Jansen has used a lot of pet names with me, but I think “Darlin’” might be my favorite.
“I’m just enjoying the show, Cowboy. Just enjoying the show.” I’m grinning as I respond, the smile stops as my mouth falls open with a soft whimper when he unzips his pants, pushes them down over his hips.