Forever Reasons (10,000 Reasons Book 4)

by Cee, DW

  “Tell me about your darker days, Jenna.” I shook my head no, again. This time, I was standing my ground. “Please.” He begged. “I need to know.”

  “How about we get out of this hot sauna and go get something to drink?” I changed subjects and led the way. “I assume the refrigerator is stocked?” Searching for drinks, I popped open a champagne bottle and handed Xander a flute. “Cheers.”

  Xander gulped his drink in one shot and invaded my space. “You can either continue talking or I can take you to bed. Which will it be?”

  Damn. I wasn’t ready to be in bed with my...husband. I wasn’t ready for a husband.

  “Can I shower and change before we continue this late-night discussion?”

  “Only if we’re showering together.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I blew out. “Can a girl have a little privacy around here? My mascara probably looks like a cobweb by now. I never wear this much makeup. It was your crazy sister who forced me to sit in the makeup chair for her.”

  Xander’s hand gently curled around my neck and he kissed me into a slow burn. I had no choice but to reciprocate—not that it was ever a hardship to kiss this man.

  “I’ve never met a woman more beautiful than you, my sweet wife. If you want to shower on your own, be my guest. We have a lifetime to shower together.”

  For a married woman, I was being ridiculously shy, but I couldn’t help it. This was still a dream to be married to Xander Blane. My most fervent prayer would be that our marriage wouldn’t be my greatest nightmare.

  *******

  My girl, my wife, was skittish as hell. This almost-virgin bride of mine humored me. What a ride this was going to be.

  While she showered and readied herself for the night, I did the same. Naturally, I was done even before her shower turned off, so I called my mother to make sure our daughter was doing fine.

  “Yes, Alex is well. She fell asleep with only minor complaints about not seeing her parents.” Tiffany Blane said as soon as she answered the phone. “Are you doing as well with your wife?”

  “I don’t think so, not yet.” I answered with a laugh. “My wife is not used to having a husband just yet. I’m sure we’ll get over this impediment soon.”

  “You will, Xander. It took a while, but you’re both there, walking together—finally! Be good to your wife.”

  “I will, Mother. Please give my baby a kiss for the both of us.”

  “Will do. Bye.”

  “Was that your mom? How’s Alexandria?”

  “Mom says she’s fine. Maybe we can leave her a few more days with my parents.”

  “No.” The wife was quick to cut me off. “I mean...I’d feel much better if she was with us. I’ve really never been without my sidekick. I miss her. It’s like I’m without a limb.” The confession was cute.

  “All right. We’ll go back in a couple of days. However,” I stood my ground, “I’m taking us to Europe for a month next spring.”

  “What if I get a job before then? What about preschool? Our daughter will never go to school at the rate she’s traveling.”

  “If you get a job, you ask for vacation time. As for preschool, it can wait.”

  I pulled up the comforter so Jenna could slide in next to me. What she did instead only made this night even more comical. “I’m a restless sleeper, Xander. Why don’t I take the other bedroom so I don’t bother you?”

  She already knew the answer to that question; why she asked was beyond me. “Shall I carry you to our bed or will you walk here willingly?”

  The sigh was adorable. “Oh, all right. It’s your loss. I’m a terrible sleeper.”

  “The very few nights I’ve had the pleasure of sleeping with you, you slept like the dead. In fact, I remember carrying you from your car to my sofa, and even then, you hardly moved.” Jenna crawled at a snail’s pace into bed. “Sweet Wife,” I addressed her. “I will not swallow you up like the bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. If you’re that nervous, just let me hold you in bed tonight. That’s all that needs to happen. I’ll give up my husbandly rights tonight and a few nights after, if that’s what you want.”

  “All right...” she answered warily.

  I laughed. “Come here.” I pounced on her and kissed her long and hard. She responded lustily.

  “What happened to giving up your husbandly rights?” she asked breathily when I stopped the mauling.

  “I said tonight. I believe it’s morning right now.” I tickled the frown off her face. “I’ll start tonight.” What she considered mauling, I considered loving. “You want to talk, or not?”

  She was thoroughly annoyed trying to figure out which was the lesser of two evils. “How about if I ask you a few questions concerning how you spent your time while we were separated?”

  “Shoot.” Now that I had her securely resting atop my body, I was happy to divulge anything and everything. “What do you want to know?”

  “I know you’ve explained yourself concerning that night at the Downtown Club, but I wanted to know why...if you truly lov—” she stopped herself, to my frustration. “Never mind. I have no questions. Let’s just sleep.”

  I held her even tighter, hoping to sooth the hurt. I’d done much damage. “I don’t know that anything I say will ameliorate your heart, Sweet Jenna. What I want you to know is that once you told me about our baby, I did try and contact you for a while. When you didn’t respond, all I could hope and pray for was that you’d allow me to be a part of your lives once the baby was born. I thought about you daily. I should’ve come to you sooner, I wanted to come to you sooner, but I was ashamed of my behavior.” I sighed long and hard thinking about our shitty conversation at the Downtown Club. “The longer I held off from coming to you and Alex, the harder it was to apologize.”

  “OK. Thanks for the explanation.” There was too much sadness in those words.

  “I kept track of you and Alex through my family.” Feeling like I needed to reassure her that I wasn’t completely absent, I grabbed my phone and showed her my picture gallery filled with photos of our daughter and her mother. “Of all these pictures, this one is my favorite.” I blew up the one of Jenna pushing Alex on the park swing, laughing hysterically at something. “You both look so happy. I longed to be with you and our daughter.”

  “How’d you get this picture?”

  “Lexi took it and sent it to me.”

  “Huh. I don’t remember Lex being here with us, but I wasn’t getting much sleep during this time. A lot has been forgotten.”

  “I lived off these pictures, Jenna. Since the day we met, you’ve always been a part of me. Once Alex was born, I knew there’d be absolutely no one else but you.” She was quiet, contemplating all I’d said. “Are you tired? Do you want to sleep? As promised, I’ll give up my husbandly rights tonight.”

  She said no more. She crashed and didn’t wake up until mid-morning. Though I woke up with the sun, I laid still, content to hold my wife.

  *******

  Most of the morning passed with me dead to the world. When I finally awoke, I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. My husband, was nowhere in sight.

  With a robe to cover my sorry excuse for nightwear, I went in search of the man who made my heart feel too much.

  “You’re up.”

  “Yeah,” I answered with a yawn. “Sorry I slept the morning away. You didn’t have any plans, did you?”

  “Nope. I’ve made no plans in hopes that you and I could spend this time getting reacquainted. Shall I order breakfast?”

  “Sure.” Xander made the call and gave me time to get ready for the day. “Should we hang out in this fabulous bathroom? All we did yesterday was get a massage and sit in the dry sauna for a while.”

  “We can. Let’s do it after breakfast on the lanai. The view outside is stunning.”

  “All right. Let me call Alex, first. I miss my little girl.”

  Xander’s smile was blinding. “Let’s do it together.”

  He han
ded me his phone and I called my parents.

  “You’re on speaker and Alex is in the room.” My mother called out.

  “Hello, Baby.”

  “Mom!” she demanded. “Where are you?”

  “Hi Alex.”

  “Dad! Where are you?” The demand was no different.

  “Your mom and I will be back tomorrow, Alex. Are you having a good time with your grandparents and Auntie Lexie?”

  “No. Come back.” Though she said no, I knew she was fine. In between her demands, she was giggling and ordering around everyone else.

  “Let’s cut this short, Jenna.” I agreed to Xander’s suggestion. “She’ll have us following her every word if we stay on the phone too long.”

  “Alexandria, you be a good girl for everyone, OK? We’ll be back soon.”

  “No, OK. You come back right now!”

  “We’ll have presents for you when we see you, Alex, OK?”

  To her father’s question, she happily replied, “OK!”

  “When did I become ‘Dad?’” Xander wondered with a chuckle. “Our little girl ages by the decade every time we speak with her. Why is she growing up so quickly?”

  “I think she interchanges Dad and Daddy depending upon her mood. If she’s disgruntled, you become Dad.”

  “She’s absolutely adorable, Jenna. Can we talk about having more kids once you’ve restored my husbandly rights?” he joked.

  “Do you really want more kids?”

  “Yeah, like ten more.”

  “Um, how about we adjust to this marriage, first?”

  “Don’t you want more children?”

  “I do, but...I don’t know. I think it might be a little while before I think about...” I had a hard time explaining my concerns about us being close enough to produce babies.

  “It’ll happen, Sweet Jenna. I’ll wait.”

  My husband prodded me to the beautifully prepared breakfast area, gently lifted my left hand to his lips and said, “Did I tell you that I bought this ring for you after we first made love?”

  “You did?” I asked staring at the diamond too big for my finger.

  He nodded as he kissed my hand several more times. “Sit, let’s eat.”

  I took a few bites of food before asking, “Are you going to tell me more about this ring?” Who knew this man was thinking marriage with me for that long?

  “Back then, I was in love with you. I wanted to tell you a few times but couldn’t bring myself to say those words.”

  “Why?”

  “It just wasn’t something I’d ever said to another woman. It felt odd and almost embarrassing, so I held back.”

  “Those three words could’ve gone a long way for the both of us, Xander.”

  “Don’t I know it, now.”

  “If I recall, we had a serious row after our first night together.”

  “We did—and again, it was over our baby girl.” Xander smiled recalling a moment that contained no smiles at the time. “Do you think it was our first or second night together that produced Alexandria?”

  “If I had to guess, it’d be our first.” Now it was me who reminisced with a smile. “That morning, when I was showering, I touched my stomach and knew something special had happened. As much as I feared it, I also desired it. I was so happy when she was born.”

  *******

  Speaking of happy, I was thrilled my wife was strolling down memory lane without a grimace or a grunt.

  “Tell me about your pregnancy and labor, Jenna. Was our Alex temperamental while in utero?”

  I adored the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled. My wife was stunning. “Our baby girl was always in a rush to grow up. She wanted out of my stomach from early on. My OB said she’s never met anyone with morning sickness the entire nine months.”

  “I had heard that you had a difficult pregnancy. Tell me how you went to school and finished the nursing program.”

  “At first, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I drudged on thinking that the ‘flu’ would pass soon enough.”

  “When did you finally realize you were pregnant?”

  “A colleague suggested I go see a doctor because I wasn’t getting any better. That’s when I learned I was carrying our child. From then, it wasn’t easy living through the next five months, but Alex had mercy on me and popped out almost immediately. For nine months of sickness, I earned a thirty-minute labor and out she came.”

  “What did she look like when she was first born?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. The last person I wanted to see and the person I most longed for was reincarnated in this little baby. Somehow, that made me love her even more. All the love I had for you transferred to her. That’s why I named her after you, Alexander. I gave her your first and last name.”

  “Thank you, Sweet Jenna.” I reached over and placed my hand over hers. “When my parents told me that you’d called our daughter Alexandria Blane, my heart was overwhelmed. There were tears in my eyes knowing I’d done something right, but hoping you didn’t hate me for all I’d done wrong to you.”

  “Xander.” She turned her hand over and linked fingers with me. “I could never hate you, no matter how hard I tried.”

  “I know, in the beginning, my parents tried to get us together several times. I refused because I was ashamed. But, why did you refuse, Jenna? I wished my parents would’ve been successful in convincing at least one of us to meet. This wedding could’ve happened a lot sooner.”

  “I figured if your parents were this insistent that I meet you, they had to have been even more forceful with you. Since you never reached out, I didn’t think you wanted to see me or our daughter. Why suffer more hurt and reach out to you? I was in too vulnerable of a position to see you.” It killed me to see tears glistening in her eyes. I was a damn fool.

  “I’m sorry,” was all I could say. For months to come, I’d probably continue to apologize for one deed or another.

  “It’s all done, Xander. Don’t keep apologizing. Let’s move on.”

  *******

  Our honeymoon was a short-lived one. True to his words, Xander was a perfect gentleman in bed, content to just sleep with me. By the second night, I was open to more intimacy, but I chose not to let him know. Who would’ve thought that I’d be married to the man I loved? However, I was scared to love him. Losing him again would be disastrous for me and our daughter.

  “Momma, I want to go nigh nigh.” Our daughter said as we arrived at our home.

  “All right, Baby.” Xander and I quickly put our girl to bed before the ugly meltdown happened.

  “Can I help you move your belongings into the main house?”

  “I guess we should do that, huh?” I answered, feeling almost shy. Since Maui, everything moved at a fast pace.

  Without another word, Xander went to the guesthouse and brought out a few, immediate needs and allowed me to put things away.

  “I cleared half my closet for you.”

  “What? When?”

  “Before we left for Hawaii.”

  “You knew?” I asked in surprise.

  “I’d hoped.”

  It took a while, but I decided to move in, entirely. I told Xander to catch up on work while I took up residence in his bedroom. “I think I’m done unpacking except for all my books and school paraphernalia.”

  “Would you like to share this office with me? The desk is big enough for two and I’ve already cleared away your half of the desk.”

  The desk.

  This desk brought back so many memories. This was where we were right before we ended up making love for the first time. My expression must have been obvious. Xander had the same look from that fateful night.

  “Imagine me having to work here every day with that memory, Jenna. You’ve haunted me since the moment we met. There truly hasn’t been a day when I didn’t think of you. If you want to remember anything about the past, remember that.” He held my hand and pulled me onto his
lap. “I’ve missed you.”

  Once his lips met my own, I knew history would repeat itself.

  I was as desperate for him as he was for me. We practically raced to the bedroom.

  Our needs, our sweet memories, our hunger fed one another and we consummated our love.

  Our bodies understood, remembered, reveled in one another.

  It was as if we’d made love every night since our first time.

  Everything was perfect.

  My life, right now, was eerily perfect.

  *******

  How had I gone this long without my soul mate? Jenna fit perfectly in every way. Why’d it take me this many years to get her back in my life? I was a serious fool for not demanding this woman complete my life.

  “Thank you, Jenna.” We were still entwined. Our bodies refused to part. “I promise never to let you and our daughter down, ever again.”

  It took my wife a good long time before she admitted, “I’m scared, Xander.”

  “Why, Sweet Jenna?” I held her even tighter as an expression of my commitment to her.

  “I know I’m being dumb, but I fear losing you again. That would destroy me this time if I lost you.”

  “No, no, no, Jenna. Please don’t think that way. You’re not losing me—ever. We are committed for life. Only death will separate us.” I kissed her repeatedly to show her my love, my absolute devotion to her.

  “After the Downtown Club...I’m so ashamed, Xander...there was a time when I thought about ending my life...I was hurting so badly...” The wracking sobs drowned me in a sea of guilt. I hated watching my girl in this much pain. I was at a loss as to how to make these memories disappear.

  “Jenna...my sweet wife...those days are behind us. What I said to you that night was inexcusable and if it takes me a lifetime, I’ll work to earn back your trust. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” The tears wouldn’t quiet down. “Baby, you’re gutting me. I was a dick. I was an asshole to you. I swear you’ll never, ever be alone. You have me. You have our daughter, plus nine more kids coming.”