Nobody Said It’d be Easy

by Patty Blount

  Lia nodded once, smiled tight-lipped. “So…this is just a…a gratuity.”

  “No. No, Lia.” God, he was making a mess of this, a total mess. “I’m out of practice with this sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing is that?”

  He looked at her sideways because her tone was way too sweet and he wasn’t buying it for a second. “Can we sit? Please?” He waved a hand toward her bed.

  She pursed her lips, but nodded.

  “Lia, today…well, it sucked,” he said with a laugh. “I feel like I went through some sort of high-octane parenting boot camp. I’m exhausted and raw and, and so damn scared I can hardly stand it, but I needed to see you.”

  He hadn’t stopped reeling since the school called that morning, but he swallowed hard and studied her carefully. She still wore the jacket she’d put on before the fast run across the courtyard from his door to hers. Her cheeks were red from twin blotches of embarrassment. He smiled again. Look at the pair of them. Like two adolescents at a middle school dance, trying to adult.

  “Lia, you knocked me sideways the second I saw you and I still haven’t regained my balance. You have to know that pissed me off.”

  Her eyes glittered with something he sure as hell hoped weren’t tears. When he saw her lips twitch, he relaxed.

  “Pissed you off,” she echoed.

  He joined her at the bed and sat down before his knees buckled. “Losing Janey…it pretty much killed me. You know how everybody talks about crap like anger and denial and acceptance?”

  “Yes. The stages of grief. They’re a well-established part of the process.”

  He held up a hand. “Oh, trust me. They’re true. I got hit with all of them at once. Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining—I couldn’t deal, so I…didn’t. I went through the motions for my girls but I checked out until you moved in.” He lifted his eyes to hers, found her listening intently, head angled.

  “Tell me about her. Your Janey.”

  She might as well have clobbered him with a two-by-four. God, this woman confused the hell out of him.

  “Um. What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  Okay. He could do this. “We met in school. Upstate. We had no classes together. I noticed her in freshman year but we didn’t start dating until college because some asshole got to her first.”

  Lia’s lips curved. “What did you do?”

  “I got over her. Or tried to, at least. I did a halfway decent job until we met again in college. This time, I didn’t wait. We got married right after graduation, had Kimberly by our first anniversary.”

  “Wow. You work fast.”

  He shrugged. “Not very. Four kids in ten years and then…four months after Emmy was born, she died. Aneurism. They say she was born with it.”

  Lia suddenly gasped, pressing both hands to her heart. “Your girls?” And another gasp. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “They’re fine.” He smiled, touched. “I had them all immediately tested. I lied to them. Emerson and Madison were easy. But Olivia and Kimberly knew something was up. I swear to God, I didn’t sleep for two full days while I waited for the results. Couldn’t take my eyes off them. Whatever Janey had, it doesn’t seem to be hereditary.”

  There was a long silence. Comfortable. Easy. She looked up. “Gabriel?”

  God, he loved when she called him by his full name. “Hmm?”

  “You said I knocked you sideways. Is that a good thing?”

  Eyes pinned on hers, he spread his hands apart. “It is now. It wasn’t when we first met.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughed when her cheeks went pink again. “Okay, Lia, the truth is, I loved my wife. I haven’t looked at anybody else since I was a kid. Until now.” He paused, let that sink in for a minute. “I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t want it to happen but now…”

  “Now?” she repeated.

  “I never saw you coming but now that you’re here…that we’re here…I want us to be together.”

  She bit her lip, opened her mouth and closed it. He’d dropped a bomb on her. He understood that.

  “Am I very much like her? Janey?”

  Christ, talk about bombs. He drew in a deep breath, tried to answer and laughed. “You’re you. You’re not a Janey replacement. Janey was a mess. Disorganized, scatter-brained, always losing stuff. She was smart and kind of shy but had tons of friends. She was beautiful to me but we fought a lot about things she’d swear on a stack of Bibles she’d told me, but never had, and she bought way too many shoes and I loved her,” he finished simply. “You’re so friendly and helpful and organized and—and brilliant. It’s actually scary because I was afraid you were perfect.”

  She made a face that made him smile.

  “You’re full of love you don’t know what to do with. It pours out of you, Lia. I know we haven’t known each other that long but I’ve never met anybody who spreads smiles the way you do. Every place I go, a smile appears at the sound of your name. Ben the bagel guy lights up like a neon sign when you walk in. So does Sal at the pizza store. My tenants adore you. My daughters love you. And I want to be with you if you’ll have me.”

  A slow flush spread across her face and Gabe needed to believe that was a good thing.

  “Your turn, Lia. Tell me about him. The ex.”

  Her lips pulled into a thin, tight line.

  “Jared.” She sighed in disgust. “We met in college. We were married for four years. We lived in the city in this great co-op. Then, this girl moved in, one floor above us. Candi. With an I.” She said it with a sneer.

  Uh-oh. Gabe was pretty sure he knew how this story ended.

  “We were trying to have a baby. While I was busy with temperature charts and ovulation predictor kits, Jared hooked up with Candi-with-an-I.”

  “When did you find out?” Gabe asked but Lia squirmed.

  “I didn’t. He told me when I was almost ten weeks pregnant.”

  Gabe’s jaw dropped. Pregnant? But…

  Oh no. Oh God.

  He opened his arms to her, held her against his heart. “Lia.”

  Her arms came around him. Held him tight. “We didn’t know it was ectopic. He was working. I had a cramp that wouldn’t let up. And then I started bleeding. Roseann—you met her—she took me to the hospital. I had to have emergency surgery. They couldn’t save my baby. They almost didn’t save me. I couldn’t reach Jared. He wasn’t answering his cell.”

  Her flat tone couldn’t hide her pain. Gabriel stroked a hand down her hair.

  “I called him at work. They told me he wasn’t there. He’d taken a personal day. I thought I just forgot, that maybe he’d told me and it just slipped my mind. He showed up at the hospital the next day, looking like hell. At first, I convinced myself it was because we’d lost our baby, but that wasn’t why and I think on some level, I knew it. He wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t sit near me. He just stood there while I kept babbling apologies and stupid promises about how we’d try again, we’d keep trying. Finally, he put up his hand, shook his head, and said something happened, something he never expected, never planned on.

  “He’d fallen in love with Candi and wanted a divorce. He said he wanted to tell me weeks earlier, but couldn’t do it after we learned I was pregnant. He wanted me to know he tried to break things off with her, tried to do the right thing, but after I lost the baby, he realized life is too short to not be happy in it. He said I could keep our apartment.”

  Big of him, Gabriel thought, biting his tongue to keep from cursing.

  “I was devastated. I left the hospital against medical advice and went home. I ended up—” Lia pulled away and shrugged. “Well. That doesn’t matter now. I called Roseann in a panic when I noticed Candi’s baby bump and moved out within the week.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” Gabriel whispered. He wished he could hit something. What a tool this Jared was. He had a great woman like Lia and he pulled shit like that? Sw
allowing hard, he cradled her face in his hands. “I am so sorry,” he repeated. “We don’t have to do this now, or at all, if you’re not ready or if you don’t want me.”

  “I do but…”

  But.

  So not the word a man barely holding on to his self-control wants to hear. “How long has it been?”

  “The divorce was final almost a year and a half ago.”

  So he’d be her rebound guy. Suddenly, Janey popped into his head. Lia would be his rebound. That realization sawed through him with a rusty knife.

  “Do you still think about him?”

  “Not with fondness. When I do think about him, there’s a bad word or two. Maybe a revenge fantasy.”

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed. And when he saw the same question in her eyes, he knew he had to give her the truth. “I think about Janey every day, Lia. I always will. The girls…they’re so much like her, in a dozen different ways. But I think about you, too. This is new for me. There hasn’t been anybody since Janey until now. Until you. So now, I’m thinking…maybe my heart’s big enough, healed enough, to hold you both and I really need to know if this is okay with you.”

  That was all of it. Cards out on the table. He’d told her everything. He also knew it wasn’t exactly the love song every girl dreamed of hearing. But she had a past, too. If he could take the chance, couldn’t she? Did she know she was killing him slowly with all this waiting?

  Finally, she moved and he had just enough time to suck in a breath before her mouth covered his and his brain downshifted into first gear. All he could think was yes. He’d wanted to feel all that softness for weeks. Sink into it like a pile of fresh-fallen snow. Soft. Yes. God, yes.

  Her mouth was hot on his and when she made a sound, his brain re-engaged enough to tell him it was a happy sound and urged him to make her do it again. He ran his hands through her hair, lifting it, smoothing it, rubbing handfuls of it against his face. A jolt hit him square in the solar plexus. This was Lia.

  She ran her hands from his hair to his arms, to his chest, down his stomach and this time, he was the one who made a happy sound.

  “Lia,” he murmured. “Lia.” He trapped her hands, held her away from him while he could still form words. “Let me. Please let me.”

  Her eyes met his and he held his breath, waiting.

  *

  Time stopped until she nodded. Her consent was all he needed to lose his mind.

  The way those lips felt, the way that hair smelled, the way her hands moved on him…he didn’t just kiss her—he feasted on her like she was his first meal in…well, years. He tumbled into this kiss, let it consume him, let it take over until all the world faded away and all that was left was this. Her.

  He tugged her down to the pillow, rolled over her body and settled his erection there—right there—where she was made for him, just for him and kissed her until he couldn’t stand it another second. He stripped off her clothes, the jacket she still wore—he tossed that to the floor and before it even landed, he had his hands under her the hem of her top, and the tingle that rippled under his fingertips stirred something in him.

  This woman was magic. Being with her like this was a gift he wasn’t sure he deserved but damn it, he wanted it. He couldn’t get enough of her taste and kissed her again with his fingers fumbling the button on her jeans.

  “Gabriel,” she whispered, pushing on his shoulder. “Clothes. Off.”

  He was working on it. Cursing, he left that perfect cradle of her hips so he could peel the jeans from her body. Then he stood up, ripped his own clothes off, scattering them all over the floor. Condoms. He’d blushed like a twelve-year-old when he bought them last week.

  Been carrying some around ever since.

  Thank God.

  He knelt on the bed as he covered himself, shaking from anticipation. Did she feel it, he wondered? Did she feel the same toe-curling want that was currently gushing through him like the tidal surge during a hurricane? He shifted his gaze to meet hers and even though her eyes were blurred by lust, she bit her lip.

  No. Oh, no, no, no.

  He cocked his head to one side, did the play-by-play in his mind, hunting for the moment when he’d messed up so he could obliterate it from her memory. When he noticed her hands had slipped from his body to her own, to spread over her abdomen, to hide—he understood he wasn’t what was wrong and a spike of anger aimed at her dumbass ex arrowed through him.

  “Let me see, Lia. Please?”

  She shut her eyes, but slid her hand away.

  Okay, then. Time to make her forget. He took her hand in his, slowed his breathing, even though he was sure it would kill him to slow down. But he would. He’d give her that; he’d do that for her. He kissed the hand he held and looked.

  The scars were hardly visible, three of them riding low under her navel. He bent his head, licked, nibbled, and kissed each one. “You’re beautiful,” he said between kisses. When she tried to squirm away, he said it again and again and again, until she shivered and moaned and begged. “I think you’re beautiful exactly as you are.” He let go of her hand. “Touch me, Lia. Please.” He practically hissed out that last word.

  She did, taking her hands on a slow tour of his lines and curves, stopping here and there to clutch, to squeeze, to torture. Every time she neared the prize, his pulse would leap, but she’d back off, leaving him dying by degrees.

  “More, Lia. More.” He dragged her up to her knees, wrapped himself around her, kissed her again. Always, again. He was hard and hungry. Lia met him kiss for kiss but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to soothe what he had inside him for her—what he thought had died. “Touch me, Lia. Please.”

  When her hand closed on him, his eyes crossed and he let out a sound that made her gasp. “Now?” he mumbled into her hand, the sound a ragged, breathless plea.

  “Yes,” she whispered. She sank back down to the mattress, hands taking him with her, guiding him into her, welcoming him. She clenched, surrounded him with heat and softness and he suddenly couldn’t shut up. “So soft, Lia. God, I love how you feel…soft and hot and I never want to leave.” He buried his face in her hair. “Mm. Lilacs.” His thoughts scattered and with his lips, hands, and body, he did his best to scatter hers, too. He left no part of her unexplored, running his hands up to her breasts and then down, down to her center, moaning whenever something she did pleased him or when something he did pleased her because it was the same now. His pleasure, her pleasure. His body, her body. Them. One.

  His body sang to hers. She kissed him, let her hands roam, caress, and squeeze. His words became incoherent and he laughed—actually laughed. He fused their lips together when he felt that long-lost heat deep inside him ignite and then detonate. She grew impossibly tighter around him. She held him, held him tight as he chased the explosion, rode the after-shocks, and held him together until he returned to solid ground.

  *

  Lia lay sprawled on Gabe’s chest, listening to the solid thud of his heartbeat under her ear.

  It galloped. She smiled.

  So did her own, she noted, and her smile grew.

  He ran one big hand up and down her spine and she wanted to arch and purr like a kitten. She lifted her face to his, kissed him again.

  “Mmmm. You taste so good,” she whispered.

  “So do you.” He grinned and then he yawned. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not the company.”

  She smiled. “Had a long day?”

  Laughing, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and pulled the covers over them. “God, yeah. They’re all long but never a day like this.”

  Lia put her hand over Gabe’s heart. “You are amazingly good at this.”

  “What,” he asked with an eye-roll. “Sexy pillow talk?”

  “No, balancing everything. I’m going to say something that will sound weird, given what we just did, but I wish I had a dad like you.”

  “Yep. Weird.” Gabe tightened his hold on her. “But thanks. So, does that mean
you and your dad aren’t close?”

  Lia shook her head and snuggled closer. “No. He was too busy serial cheating to become as involved in my life as you are in your daughters’.”

  Gabe played with her hair. “How old were you when you found out?”

  She thought about it. “I’m not really sure. It was just sort of always there, you know? That tension. The constant passive-aggressive sniping they’d do to each other, the long unexplained absences, the whispered telephone calls.”

  “What about your mom?”

  Lia shifted under the sheet. “That’s more…complicated,” she finally said. “She blames me.”

  Gabe’s hand went to her chin, tilted her face up to his. “No way. How?”

  “Well, my arrival wasn’t exactly planned. I think my father felt trapped and rebelled. And my mother used all of my various flaws and shortcomings as justification for his rebellions. She is hyper-critical of everything about me.”

  “I see no flaws.” He laughed and took his thumb over the curve of her breast.

  But Lia didn’t laugh. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, looked at him over her shoulder. “There are many.”

  “Give me one.” He sat up, too, adjusting a pillow behind his back.

  She shook her head. “If I give you the list, you’ll run.”

  His smile broadened. “I live here. Not going anywhere.”

  “Good.” She said it simply. And then, she panicked. “I know I shouldn’t press you because you have your hands full, and I totally understand if you don’t want to take this further,” she babbled. “But I—”

  “I do.” He cut her off, tugged her back down, kissed her again. He rolled her underneath him, pressed his lips to her neck, her shoulder. “Lia, I don’t know about you, but I thought we were pretty damn amazing.”

  She clapped both hands to his face. “Yes! Yes, it…you…this was amazing.”

  His smile lit the dim room. “Damn right.” His arms snaked around her waist, fingers caressing skin. “So let’s just…enjoy it, see where it takes us.”

  He bent his head and kissed her breast and Lia stirred, the need already building again. They made love a second time…and a third before sleep finally took them but even in sleep, he never let her go.