by Lili Valente
“As much as you love my cock?”
I draw away, feigning serious consideration. “Nearly. Very nearly.”
“Who’s shameless now?” He laughs and tickles me until I spill out of the truck to escape his fingers.
But I let him catch me on the porch, on the stairs, on the landing outside his bedroom before we sway inside and close the door, where we prove just how in love we are with every sweet and sexy kiss.
CHAPTER 23
DEACON
The only thing better than going to sleep with Violet in my arms is waking up to find her still there.
Though, I confess I’d take being awoken by the sun peeking in through the curtains over the high-pitched yapping sound blaring from Violet’s phone.
“Oh my fuh, wha?” She gropes her way across the sheets, eyes still closed as she fumbles for the phone on the bedside table. I squint her way, fighting a groan as I see the time.
Four forty-five a.m. A call at this time can only mean one thing—someone’s in trouble. I just hope it isn’t a kid. Or serious. Or both.
I sit up, reaching for the T-shirt and jeans Violet tossed to the floor when she ripped them off of me last night, intending to get dressed and ready to drive us wherever we need to go. I’m definitely coming with her, even if she fights me about it. No way I’m letting her face an emergency alone with only a few hours of sleep under her belt. We didn’t get to bed until after one in the morning.
Well, we got to bed…
Just not to sleep.
“Woah, woah, slow down, Ginny,” Violet says, swinging her legs over the side of the bed as she sits up. “What’s going on?” Her fingers abruptly freeze, mid-eye-rub. “What? Say that again.”
Her eyes go wide as they shift my way with a smile that makes me hope this isn’t a Code Red situation, after all. “Good for you, woman. That’s wonderful, I was hoping you two would hit it off but I never…” Violet trails off, wincing at something Virginia is saying on the other end of the line. “Yeah, I know. That happens apparently. The next time shouldn’t be painful at all. Uh-huh. Yes. Honestly.” She scoots back into bed, covering her tempting bare legs with the blankets and propping up against the headboard, motioning for me to join her.
I hold up a finger and then jab a thumb toward the bathroom, and she smiles again, nodding as she asks Ginny, “So is that the bad news? You said you had good news and bad.”
I head for the bathroom, use the facilities, wash my hands, and give my teeth a quick brush on the off chance Violet is up for letting me kiss her back to sleep for an early morning power nap. But when I return, she’s pacing the rug in front of the bed with a thoughtful expression, and I know we’re not headed back to bed any time soon.
“What’s up?” I ask, pushing aside my disappointment.
“The tiger salamanders,” she says, curling a lock of hair around her finger the way she does when she’s thinking or worried or both. “Looks like they might not be tiger salamanders. That’s what prompted the early morning call. Ginny’s freaking out, worried that you and Tristan are going to kill them because they’re not the endangered kind of salamanders.”
“I’m not planning on killing anything.” I sit down in the wingback chair near the window, threading my hands together. “I’m sure Tristan’s not, either, but ultimately it’s his call. Hopefully we can find a compromise. But something does need to be done about the brush. It’s a fire hazard, and you know how deadly the wildfires have been the past few years.”
“I know, I just—” She’s cut off by a crashing sound from outside. “What the hell was that?”
“Probably raccoons in the garbage again,” I say, turning to pull the curtains away from the window. “The boys always forget to put the rocks back on top of the lids when they take the trash out.”
But when my eyes adjust to the dim light pooling around the garage from the barn lamp, I don’t see a trash bandit pawing through last night’s leftovers.
I see a girl in a sock cap with a long braid trailing from beneath it replacing the can in its upright position, while one of the twins shoves the spilled trash bags back inside. At first, I’m not sure if it’s Jacob or Blake, but then he laughs, and I can tell from the way his shoulders shake that it’s Jacob.
Only that’s not Raney, his girlfriend of nearly three years, who he’s pulling into his arms and kissing tenderly on the forehead. This is someone new, a girl he hasn’t told me jack shit about, and we haven’t discussed whether it’s kosher to have girls for overnight visits. I know my dad couldn’t care less who’s shacking up on his property, but I’m not sure I’m ready to start running into my twenty-year-old sons’ fuck buddies every time I pop over to have dinner or play Xbox with the kids.
Not to mention the fact that the two tiny bedrooms in the guesthouse are separated by an inch-thick piece of plywood Dad threw up when the kids decided they wanted separate spaces a few years ago. Out of respect for Blake in the other room, who I’m sure isn’t thrilled about hearing every creak and moan coming from his brother’s bed, Jacob should have discussed this with the family first.
“What’s going on?” Violet asks, coming up behind me.
“Looks like Jacob decided to bring a lady friend home without telling me about it,” I whisper, on the off chance my voice might carry through the glass to the couple now kissing below.
“Guess it runs in the family,” Violet says with a laugh that becomes a swiftly indrawn breath as she leans down to peer out the window. “Holy shit…” Bracing one hand on my shoulder, she jabs a finger at the pool of light. “That’s Adriana. That’s my daughter.”
CHAPTER 24
VIOLET
M y daughter is not at home in bed where she promised me she would be. My daughter is running around Sonoma County at five in the morning, making out with Deacon’s son right under my nose.
Literally.
If I threw open the window and leaned out, I’d be able to drop a piano on her lying, sneaking head.
“What are we going to do about this?” I hiss, watching in horror as Jacob wraps Adriana’s long braid around his hand with a possessiveness that’s way too familiar. Did he learn that move from his dad? Do fathers and sons exchange tips like that? Most importantly, did Deacon have any idea this was going on?
I cut my gaze sharply his way. “You didn’t know, did you?”
Brow furrowed, Deacon shakes his head. “No. Of course not. Are you sure it’s her? I haven’t seen her face, it could be another—”
“I’m sure,” I say, shifting my attention back to the increasingly steamy scene below. “I know my daughter. That’s her hair, her shoulders, her skinny little ass getting fondled through her jeans.”
Jacob now has Addie’s bottom in both of his hands, pulling her closer as she wraps her arms tight around his neck and kisses him like his lips are made of those churro chips she couldn’t get enough of last summer. If someone doesn’t throw a bucket of water on them soon, they’ll be banging against the side of the barn before we know it.
“Get your clothes on.” Deacon stands, plucking his sweater from the floor near the bed. “We’re going down there.”
I hesitate, torn between irritation that he’s jumped straight to giving orders, skipping the discussion part of the decision-making process, and relief that someone’s taking charge. But that’s my daughter out there, and I’m the one in charge of deciding what’s best for her. I have to make this call with a level head, no matter how much I want to bury it in the sand and let someone else decide how to handle this sticky situation.
“Wait.” I lift my hands, stepping in front of Deacon as he starts for the door. “Let’s think this through.”
“I don’t need to think it through,” he says. “I need to ask my son why he thinks it’s okay to keep things from me and run around with a girl who’s still in high school.”
“And I want to swat his hands off her butt with a willow switch, drag her home by her ear, and lock her in her room for the
next decade. But that’s not going to help us move toward an adult relationship with either one of them.”
“She’s not an adult,” Deacon says, thrusting an arm toward the door. “Hell, he’s barely an adult, but she’s definitely still too young for him. He should know better.”
“She’s eighteen, and only six months from graduation,” I find myself saying, even as I wonder who popped the words into my mouth. “I wish she hadn’t lied to me, but she’s of legal age, and maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for all this. Maybe they knew that you and I were dating and she didn’t want to—”
“You said Adriana started sneaking months ago, way before we were ever a thing,” he cuts in. “Unless you think she was sneaking around with someone else before moving in on Jake.”
My brows shoot up so fast I stumble back a step. “Woah. Hold up a second. That sounded an awful lot like you were slut-shaming my daughter.”
Deacon’s shoulders creep closer to his ears. “Of course I wasn’t. But until now, Jacob was with the same girl for years. He’s a loyal kid. A loving kid.”
“And now he’s what? Slutting it up with my wild daughter?”
“No!” He exhales, fingers spreading wide in front of him. “Let’s just go talk to them. See what’s going on before they leave.”
“I think we should let them go,” I say, crossing my arms. “We’re both surprised and upset. We should wait until the shock’s worn off. We don’t want—”
“I want to talk to my son. And I’m going to. Now. You can decide how you want to handle things with Adriana,” he says, starting for the door.
For a moment, I consider trying to block his path again, but I’ve known Deacon long enough to recognize his “unstoppable force” face. He’s going down there, no matter what I have to say about it.
Now I just have to decide if I’m going, too.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter as I pull on my dress and sweater from last night and hurry after him. I pad down the steps, shove my feet into my clogs, and push through the back door into the chilly December morning to find Deacon already in mid-lecture and the kids with their backs pressed against the weathered siding of the guest house. Jacob looks mortified and Adriana so utterly shocked that it’s immediately clear to me that she had no idea my Deacon was her Jacob’s dad.
My Deacon…
He might not be my Deacon after tonight. How can I keep dating a man who plows over me like a steamroller every time his judgment call clashes with mine? Decisions need to be made as a team, especially decisions with serious consequences like this one. Jacob and Adriana care about each other—a lot. That’s immediately evident, too. Even now, with his dad reading him the riot act, Jacob holds tight to Addie’s hand, his thumb brushing back and forth across her knuckles, and Addie is clinging to his arm like it’s her lifeline in a world gone mad.
She trusts him, maybe even loves him, I realize as her eyes begin to shine with unshed tears and her bottom lip quivers. She’s about to fall apart, and Deacon is still yelling at Jacob, something about respect for his brother’s space that is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.
“That’s enough,” I say, stepping off the porch and starting across the dry grass.
Adriana’s gaze immediately shifts my way, her eyes going even wider with a mix of relief and fear that makes my heart twist in my chest. “Mom? What are you doing here?”
“That’s a question we’d like you two to answer first,” Deacon says. “We’re adults who pay our own bills. We don’t have to explain our behavior.”
“Take a breath, Deacon,” I say, motioning toward the two clearly distraught almost-adults in front of us. “They’re upset. We’re upset. Let’s all calm down. Why don’t I make us some tea, and we can go inside where it’s warm and sort this out in our inside voices?”
“Dad doesn’t have an inside voice when he’s mad,” Jacob says, his resentment clear. “He goes into drill sergeant mode, and that’s it, no one else can get a word in edgewise.”
“Watch it,” Deacon says softly. “I won’t be disrespected in my own house.”
“I’m not disrespecting you. I’m trying to explain, but you won’t listen,” Jacob says. “And Blake isn’t even here, so there’s no reason to worry about him being bothered by Addie and me. He’s over at Ms. Baxter’s house. They’ve been banging like bunnies since last summer, and she’s ten years older than he is. If you want to have a rage stroke about something, do it about that.”
“At least she’s a grown woman, not a child,” Deacon pops back.
“I’m not a child,” Adriana says, her voice breaking as the tears in her eyes spill down her cheeks. “I’m pregnant, and children don’t get pregnant.”
Her words hit like a swimming pool full of ice cubes dumped over our collective heads.
My jaw drops, my throat goes whip-tight, and I’m pretty sure my heart stops.
Just…stops, for a long moment, as if by refusing to beat it can keep this from being real. Keep my daughter from being a teen mother, following in my footsteps and making her life so much harder than it had to be.
I was nineteen when I got pregnant with Beatrice and Grant proposed as soon as he found out. But having children so young still drastically altered the course of my life. I dropped out of college, art school seeming a ridiculous luxury when there was a baby waiting for me at home and so little money for childcare. And then I got pregnant with Emily, even though Grant and I were using condoms, and it just seemed like fate had chosen a path for me.
I settled into my role as wife and mother, letting the other things I’d wanted to be fall away. And I loved being Grant’s wife—he was so good to me for a lot of years before things went south—and being a mom to my girls is the best part of my life, bar none. But I never got to figure out who I was apart from all that. I went straight from my mother’s house to my husband’s house. I never lived alone, never figured out what I liked to do when I was by myself, never had the space to dream the adult me into being. Instead, I got to fake it until I made it, pretending I was prepared to be a parent when I wasn’t much more than a kid myself.
And Addie’s even younger.
So damned young. With her makeup-free face and cheeks shiny with tears, she looks about fourteen. A baby. My baby.
My baby is having a baby.
I open my arms and Adriana falls into them with a sob of relief.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she says, clinging to me as she cries harder. “It was the first time. The condom broke, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” I smooth her hair away from her forehead and kiss the top of her head. “We’ll figure it out. You’re not alone. I’m here. I’ll always be here for you, baby, no matter what.”
“I’m here, too. I’m not going anywhere,” Jacob says, the words thick with emotion. I look up to see tears in his eyes, too, and my heart breaks all over again.
I nod, lips curving tightly. “Thank you, Jacob. That’s good to know, but I’m going to take Adriana home now. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I don’t want to talk without Jake,” Addie says, pulling back to meet my gaze, hers so wild I know immediately we won’t be leaving any time soon. “We love each other, Mom. I kept things a secret at first because I knew you wouldn’t want me dating a boy in college, but as soon as I turned eighteen, we were going to tell you. But then I missed my period, and we were so worried we decided to hold off, and then I took the test and…”
I nod, swallowing past the lump in my throat as I do the math. “So you’ve been dating since the summer? Since you were seventeen?”
Addie nods. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, honey,” I say with a sigh. “That’s the least of our worries now, but you could have told me. You could have told me about the broken condom, too.”
“I was too scared,” Addie says, eyes filling again. “I thought you’d be mad.”
I cup her sweet face in my hands. “Why would
I have been mad? Honey, we’ve talked about this stuff since you were little. I’ve always told you that I’m ready to help you get birth control or go to the clinic for the morning after pill or—”
“But it wasn’t the morning after when I found out I was pregnant,” Addie says, blinking faster. “It was six weeks after, and as soon as I saw it on the monitor, I knew I wanted to keep it. I don’t care how hard it’s going to make college or anything else. I want this baby.”
“We want this baby,” Jacob says.
Deacon curses beneath his breath, the first thing he’s said since the bomb dropped. I shift my focus his way to find him standing rigidly in the dim light, tight-lipped and bloodless, looking like he’s been dropped in the middle of a warzone under heavy enemy fire.
CHAPTER 25
VIOLET
A ddie stands up straighter, her voice shaking but her gaze steady. “I’m three months along. I won’t have the baby until after graduation, and it’ll be three months old by the time college starts in the fall. And Cal Poly has subsidized childcare for student parents, a great program. I’ve already done all the research, Mom. The baby will be safe there while I’m in class, and I can study after he or she is in bed at night, and nothing about my plan really has to change.”
“That’s great, Ad,” I say, hating to rain on her parade, but she needs a dose of reality. “But babies are a lot of work, even with daycare to help bear the load. And they get sick so often when they’re small. Especially when they’re in an environment with other kids every day. And even if the baby’s healthy and a decent sleeper, there are times when you won’t get any rest at all, when you’ll be so wiped out by rocking a teething infant all night that you won’t be able to drag yourself to the grocery store for milk, let alone to class. And if you’re that far away, I won’t be there to help you with any regularity.”