Resist You (Unchained Attraction Book 3)

by K. L. Shandwick

  “Come here,” I ordered, tugging Tricia’s hand as I closed the trunk of the car. “You got this, baby. Think of all the things you and Miles spoke about and the decisions you’ve made since then. They haven’t been wrong up until now, have they?”

  She shook her head, her serious gaze locked into mine and gave me a reluctant reply. “I suppose not.”

  “Telling Billie and Sawyer about your baby was a massive step, and look how that turned out,” I reminded her. “Like me, they also feel your pain. No one is condemning you for what happened. You need to stop punishing yourself. Look at this as a good day, the day you truly begin to face your demons and it’s the first day of the rest of your life. You’re only inviting your mom today, not actually challenging her. When she says yes to the meeting, then you will be able to prepare what you want to say.”

  “I know, and I am confident I can do this. Well, I was when I woke up this morning, but I feel my faith circling the drain as we speak.”

  “Nonsense, you got this.” I hugged her tighter and smiled encouragingly. “If anything spills out today you never intended to say, I’ll be there to support you. I’m your knight in shining armor, remember? The guy who stops the sky from falling, the amazing hunk who—”

  Tricia chuckled. “Who is so big-headed, he may not fit through my parents’ front door.”

  “Thought you said they had patio doors? I don’t mind going around the back. Actually, it’s one of my favorite moves, going in from behind.”

  “You can be so smutty sometimes,” she chuckled, swatting my ass.

  “Smutty? I’m insulted, baby. I won’t accept anything less that filthy dirty where you’re concerned.”

  “All right, I know you. I expect nothing less from the regular Don Juan you were in your day.”

  “I agree, I was a womanizer… once, but I’m reformed, you’re the only woman I want to backdoor with these days.”

  Tricia chuckled again. “Is that so? Then let’s just concentrate on getting through the day. If I don’t feel like I’ve already been shafted by the time I leave my parents’ place, we’ll come back to this subject again.” I grinned, loving that despite her nerves she still had enough sass left to joke.

  Breaking away from her, I opened her car door, kissed the top of her head, and waggled my brows. “This day needs to be over already,” I teased. Chuckling again, Tricia shook her head and slid onto the passenger seat. I closed the door and prayed the visit wasn’t too harrowing for her.

  “This place reminds me of Ohio. Same set up as before, on the edge of town, off the beaten track, but with more land.” As soon as Tricia explained the similarity of where she grew up to her parents’ current property, I understood how the rural setting would have helped her to conceal her pregnancy. Apart from school, Tricia wouldn’t have come into contact with that many people unless she’d wanted to.

  I imagined a skinny teen back then because she had maintained her slender appearance, and with her tiny frame and a few clever clothing choices it would have been easy to conceal her pregnancy. Bradley had told me she socially withdrew after the party, so it made sense how no one knew since she had told me the truth.

  Their family homestead of around thirty acres was situated on the outskirts of Hammonton, New Jersey, enough to give her family some status even if the wealth wasn’t there. However, it hadn’t taken much to note there had been many upgrades and changes to the single storey brick house and outbuildings in recent years. There had been a lot of expensive upgrades and I guessed Tricia had probably been behind those.

  Her father was just a few months shy of his eightieth birthday, yet like mine, he had no plans to retire. The difference between them was that her father’s work was physically demanding.

  As we approached the house her sister, Marnie, ran out to greet us and I only had to look at her to sense her excitement at seeing her sister.

  “How long has this been going on?” she asked when she’d released Tricia from her embrace and wagged her finger between us. Tilting her head, she scrutinized me from head to toe. “James, right? From Sawyer and Billie’s wedding.” I was somewhat taken aback that she appeared not to know much about us, but it made sense since Tricia had compartmentalized her home life from everything else.

  “A while,” was all she replied, turning to slide her hand into mine for reassurance when I walked around the car hood and stood beside her.

  “A while? Hm, sounds serious, Tricia,” she teased, like she was used to her sister not having a partner.

  “A year,” I said, amending Tricia’s answer because I had wanted them to understand I was serious about her. I thought Tricia had looked embarrassed to admit we had been together that long and not to have said anything, or perhaps she’d felt afraid to admit what we were aloud in case it fell around her ears.

  Marnie eyed me suspiciously for a few long beats then turned back to Tricia. “A year with a guy like him, and you’ve never wanted to boast about it to us?”

  Tricia smiled, glanced coyly at me through her lashes, and chuckled softly. She looked younger than her years when she did that. “Maybe I wanted to keep him all to myself.”

  “Damn, my little sister is finally smitten.”

  “Is there a point to all of this besides embarrassing me?” Tricia asked, the sassy side shining through for the first time since we’d arrived. “Yes, James and I are together. Yes, I love him and no we haven’t set a date. Now we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, what say we go and find Dad?”

  Marnie grinned and winked at me like she was confirming she’d gotten a rise out of her sister. “He’s on the patio flipping burgers,” she informed us and rolled her eyes. “Mom is probably ironing the pants she’s wearing. You know what she’s like. As soon as she heard you were bringing someone with you, she went into overdrive. She’s already changed out of the linen dress she had on as it had gotten too creased while she waited for you to get here.”

  Both of us chuckled, but my hand tightened protectively around Tricia’s because Marnie’s point about her mom confirmed what Tricia had told me. It would appear her mom hadn’t changed her ways and was as eager to make a good impression to people from outside of their household. My blood boiled that her mom’s flaw had caused her daughter so much distress over time.

  When we’d set out for our visit, I had wondered if Tricia would be able to keep her temper together and not be pushed into a situation that may put all the therapeutic work she’d gone through in jeopardy.

  However, after hearing Marnie’s remark about their mom, I wondered if I would be able to quell my irritation if her mom tried to belittle Tricia. I had met the family before but briefly around the time of Sawyer and Billie’s wedding. However, being at their family home was my first opportunity to learn who each of them was on a more personable level, and their relationships with Tricia.

  We followed Marnie into the house and through to the patio, and I noted she still walked like she was on parade. Tricia smiled and tugged me over toward her father when she saw him and reintroduced me. I warmed to him immediately and thought he and Tricia’s characters where very much alike.

  “You remember my husband, Franco?” Marnie asked, gesturing toward a muscular guy with a buzz cut I knew to be a drill sergeant of thirty odd years, according to Tricia. Franco rose from his chair and shook my hand, firmly.

  “So you’re the guy who’s tamed my wild sister-in-law,” he joked, swiping the beer bottle he’d placed on the table beside him, retook his seat, and glanced first to me, then toward Tricia.

  “Patty isn’t wild, she’s just a very independent girl,” her mom stated stiffly, as she stepped onto the patio looking completely prim and proper. “Elizabeth, but family call me Betty.” Holding her hand out to me she flashed me what I believed was her best winning smile, but in my opinion, it wasn’t a genuine one.

  “Not anymore,” Marnie stated, nodding her head at me, replying to her mom’s comment about Tricia. “Our baby girl is smitten. If
you’d seen the look she gave him when they first got out of the car,” she teased, sighed dreamily, and fanned herself.

  “Don’t embarrass James,” her mom admonished, like my feelings counted, but Tricia’s didn’t.

  “How could I be embarrassed with this elegant beauty on my arm?” I stated, moving over to Tricia. I slid my arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her temple. Tricia glanced up at me, a smile teased at her lips. “I love your daughter very much and I’m more than delighted this precious lady feels the same.” Betty bristled where she stood, and I almost chuckled because I had defended Tricia.

  As the conversation settled into small talk, I noticed Tricia began to relax. Betty, eager to make an impression, flitted back and forth carrying food from inside out to a large buffet table she had set up. Neither Tricia nor Marnie offered to help her. I noted how different and distant the girls’ relationship was with their mother in contrast to my sisters with ours.

  Turning my attention to the conversation, it only took me minutes to decide Marnie was a straightforward woman who clearly loved Tricia, even if she liked getting a rise out of her. However, as a career soldier nearing retirement, she appeared somewhat battle hardened from her military life, and had no issue in calling situations as she saw them. I liked that about her and felt reassured she had a true measure of their mother. This gave me confidence Tricia would have an ally if she decided to share her story with the rest of her family.

  As the day wore on, I tired of Betty’s need to impress and felt relieved when the heat of the day lured all three women into the pool, leaving Franco, Lester, and I chatting on the patio. Like any father, Lester was eager to know more about me.

  “What do you do for a living again?”

  Thankfully, I sounded far more respectable in my company director’s role than I would have had he asked me the same question a few years earlier, when I had no job to speak of. He appeared impressed with my response and then went on to probe my relationship with his daughter.

  “You’re living together?” His mouth set in a line as he glanced questionably toward me over his half-rimmed spectacles.

  “Mostly,” I replied, honestly. “We live part and part… due to work commitments,” I added.

  “What does that mean?” he asked, his tone a little sharper.

  “Sunday night until Wednesday night we live near my work in New York. Thursdays she comes back to New Jersey to catch up on paperwork in the office, and Friday to Sunday we stay at her place.”

  “Then the answer isn’t mostly, it’s yes, with Tricia spending one night away,” he told me, frankly.

  “Yes,” I confirmed, feeling stupid and snickered.

  “And this arrangement will continue until when?” her dad pressed with a questioning look. Franco stood up and rubbed the back of his neck, clearly feeling awkward I was being pressed by Lester in front of him. “Gotta take a leak and make a phone call, y’all, be back in a while,” he muttered, slipping his feet into his pool shoes and heading inside the house.

  “Until I ask Tricia to marry me at which time, I don’t see the situation changing. Tricia loves what she does, and I do what I do, and our situation works well for us. If Tricia wants us to have a bigger house together in New Jersey we’ll find one, if she wants a house in New York, we can do that too. I’m all for making her happy, Lester.”

  For a long minute I sat quietly looking at the three women in the pool and I waited for him, knowing there would be a blowback somewhere from what I’d said.

  “So you’re going to marry?” he asked, peeling his eyeglasses off his face and lowering them to his lap.

  “I hope so… with your permission, of course,” I added, glad I hadn’t asked her on the boat since the opportunity had presented itself to do it in a traditional way.

  Lester looked back toward the pool and I felt in that moment, Tricia was the only person he saw. Drawing in a deep breath he nodded. “You’ll treat her right. I can see what she means to you. You’ve got a look of a man who adores her… and rightly so, she’s always been adorable. She deserves the man who will worship her as his wife.”

  “You’re right, I do adore her and I already worship her.”

  “She’s got complex thoughts in her head, that one,” he said, thoughtfully. “You can deal with those?”

  My chest tightened and for a minute I thought he knew why Tricia lived a single life. I studied him, both of us paused in time as I weighed him up and decided if he had known he’d have made no secret about that.

  “I can. I love her. All of her, and everything about her,” I replied honestly. Nodding, he accepted my explanation, which in my view, hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface on how I felt about his daughter.

  “Seeing Tricia settled would mean the world to me. Personally, I never thought it would happen.”

  “It’s going to happen,” I confirmed. “I’ve already bought the ring,” I disclosed and winked. Lester swallowed hard and for a moment I watched as he fought gallantly with a wave of emotion that gripped him. Not wishing to embarrass him, I stared toward the pool and gave him time to catch his breath.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Are we going to eat all this food at some point today?” Franco shouted toward the women still in the water and gestured with his beer bottle toward the table.

  I glanced toward the patio door where he stood and he tipped his beer bottle in my direction as well. I knew then he’d heard more of the conversation than either Lester or I knew and had come to his father-in-law’s rescue as our conversation had reached a natural ending.

  All three women got out of the water, but Betty insisted on putting the finishing touches to the buffet table alone. After placing the food on the table, we all filled our plates and sat down to talk as a group.

  During the conversations there were some minor disagreements when Betty tried desperately to impress me, but Marnie had quickly put her back into place. As an observing newcomer, it gave me much more of an idea of the family dynamic Tricia had negotiated as a sixteen-year-old girl in trouble.

  After we’d eaten, Betty and Lester tidied the empty food dishes away, while Marnie, Franco, Tricia and I moved to the more comfortable sectional seating area to chat. I challenged both girls about not offering to help their mother and offered to do this myself. They’d both been quick to explain any offer wouldn’t be welcomed, as their father was barely allowed to help. Apparently their mother had certain ways of doing things, and set routines for clearing up, and therefore she had much preferred to do it herself.

  “What made you choose the army?” I asked Marnie, wanting further insight into how Betty’s matriarchal force had influenced her girls.

  “Honestly? My mom,” she replied in a low voice, her eyes darting toward the patio door. “I got out of their house in Ohio as soon as I could. We used to have some terrible fights. Nothing I did ever matched her expectations of me.” She tipped her chin toward her sister. “Unlike Tricia, who was pretty, popular, and exceptionally brainy. Great bragging material for Mom. My sister here was much smarter than me and had already planned her escape to college with an impeccable rolling GPA of 4.5, year on year. Not everyone can slide into an Ivy League college on full scholarship. I scraped the barrel with Mom’s manly looks and intelligence genes… except for the stick up her ass, and I was far better suited toward practical tasks.”

  Franco chuckled. “Honey, you do not have manly genes, look at those babies,” he replied, pointing another beer bottle toward her very ample breasts. My eyes followed his gaze and Tricia cuffed the side of my head.

  “Ow,” I replied, chuckling, “I wasn’t conscious what he was pointing at, until it was too late,” I laughed. “Sorry, Marnie.”

  Marnie grinned and shook her head at her arrogant husband. “Anyway, the way I saw it, I had two choices. Prison for killing my mom, which offered a uniform, bunk, three square meals, and a possible psycho for a roommate. Or, a marginally better uniform, a bunk in a room full of
potential killers, but with no criminal record on release and better career prospects in the army.” Tricia cracked up laughing at her sister and as Franco’s laugh was so amusing we all ended up joining in.

  Marnie wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “I love her, but in very small doses and from a distance,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Plus, there was only room for one saint in the family home, and our dad’s application for that role was light-years ahead of any I could have made for that position.

  After Marnie’s confession, the couple went on to tell us about some of the tours of duty they’d been on and the roles they had played in shaping our country’s new recruits, with Franco being responsible for their physical health and Marnie teaching communications. Later their questions turned to me and we spoke about how Tricia and I met. After this I gave them an insight into my family makeup, my siblings, and their families.

  “Franco was adopted,” Marnie said, sitting up straight in her chair when I’d disclosed that my sister Caitlin’s young boy was the same. “Here’s a funny story for you,” she added, looking to Franco for permission who nodded.

  “Franco’s always known Cilla and Dave weren’t his biological parents. The adoption took place through the Catholic Church, and although he knew which religion they were, they would never disclose which district to him. They moved through several states when he was small, so he had no idea where to start. Anyway, we got one of those DNA kits from one of those ancestry sites and did a test. As he was doing one, I did one, just for fun. After all, you’ve seen those stories where common folks like us are related to kings and oil billionaires, right? When did we do this again, Franco? Two months ago?”

  “Yeah, around that time,” he confirmed.

  “Then the day before yesterday the results were posted. Obviously, Franco was excited, but when we looked at the matches there were two matches of third cousins and almost four thousand fourth cousins. Nothing of note really, but here’s the thing, there was this weird hit on mine.”