“This is nice,” he whispered. “All the kids asleep upstairs, the parents alone in the quiet. I could get used to this.”
Deacon’s hand slipped dangerously low on her back. They were already melded, body against body, chest to thigh. Warm lips played at her ear then down her neck, and she felt an instant throbbing between her legs.
Even as she trembled with desire, she tried to ignore the clanging warning bells telling her she was too close to the edge, that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from falling. That this wasn’t taking it slow.
And so with real regret, she eased away from him.
He sighed, and she felt his frustration cloud the moment.
Drawing in a breath, she turned to the fireplace and all the pictures of his daughters that her heart wished were her own. She didn’t want things to be this way, uncertain and confused. Didn’t want herself to be this way. But the future and all it might hold was a blurry glimmer, and she hated that she couldn’t make out the details. “Don’t you think we need to talk about stuff?”
“Like what?”
She whirled on him, her eyes burning with tears of frustration. “Like what? Like the fact that we have children, and we live in two different states! Like I can’t see the future and I don’t know what we’re going to do and it’s driving me crazy.” Not wanting to cry, she bit down hard on her lip so she wouldn’t.
“Okay,” Deacon said, giving her a long, level stare. “We can talk logistics, but let’s talk about this first. I’m in love with you.”
Clare felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as she gaped at him.
“Yeah. There it is. I’ve been wanting to say it for a while now.”
More than one man had thought he loved her. More than one man had realized his mistake.
“I…” she sputtered. “How can you say that? It was just a few days. It was only—”
He took a step toward her, his brown eyes fierce. “You don’t need to tell me how long it was. I was there. And don’t say it was a fantasy. I’m not an idiot. I know what I felt then. I know what I feel now.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot.” Her head was truly spinning off, and she couldn’t get a full breath. She’d been about to say something, something that made a lot of sense, and now she couldn’t think what it was.
“Clare.” He took her gently by the shoulders. “There’s something between us. You know there is. Give me a chance to convince you that we should be together.” He smiled. “You gave me a chance to redeem all mankind before. This time, I’m only trying to redeem one man.”
“Deacon.” She laid a hand on his chest, couldn’t help herself. “You don’t need to redeem yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She reached up to touch his face, and when he turned to press a kiss into her palm, all those feelings she’d tried to bury came bubbling up to the surface.
All her life, she’d wanted to feel this kind of love, and now that she did, she feared it more than she’d feared never finding it. That’s why she tried to keep the wall up. The wall that was now just a pitiful fence.
Easy to love, easy to leave.
“You know I don’t have much success with these things.”
With a small smile, he caressed her cheek. “Does anyone? I mean until the last one? The one that doesn’t end?”
“And how can you possibly know when that is? I mean they’ve all ended before, right? Or you wouldn’t be going another round. I’d kind of decided I was all out of rounds.”
“I know you had. But we’re changing that.”
The second his mouth moved over hers, she forgot herself. There was only the sparkling pleasure of his mouth on hers and the pounding in her head as his tongue slowly parted her lips. He kissed her, soft and slow. He kissed her with his heart, made her head spin, her pulse race. He overwhelmed her, or maybe it was her own feelings for him that overwhelmed.
She sighed, completely intoxicated by his taste. She reached for him, clung to his shoulders, telling him without words that she felt for him. Unable to tell him what she was so afraid of.
His hand slid up from her waist to cup her breast. He brushed his thumb over her nipple, bringing a moan then a gasp as she felt her milk let down. Her hand flew up to cover his. “I—I haven’t nursed in a several hours and…”
He went utterly still as her statement sank in.
She dropped her forehead to his chest. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry.” Mortified, she pressed her hands against her engorged breasts.
“Clare. Look at me.” She finally looked up to find him smiling down at her. There was heat and want in his eyes but also humor. “You’re the mother of my children. You feed them. I’m a mammal expert, remember?”
She breathed in and out, struggling with the transition from being a woman on fire to a human milk machine, and all with his profession of love still tumbling around in her heart. “How can you possibly make me laugh at a time like this?”
“It’s a gift.”
Right on cue, there was a cry from upstairs.
“At least they’re getting predictable,” Deacon said. “And maybe just as well. Because the next time I make love to you, I want you to be sure where this is going. What we’re moving toward.”
And so with her head spinning, she went upstairs to nurse, Deacon’s words replaying in her head. The next time I make love to you.
As if it had been more than sex before and he was certain there would be a next time.
Chapter 29
DEACON’S SONS TOOK IN the world from their car seats on the kitchen table. His daughters shared a chair while he stood behind them, carefully brushing out the nighttime tangles. And Clare was upstairs sleeping. Not a bad way to start the day, he thought with a smile.
He hadn’t meant to blurt out his feelings quite that way, in hindsight he might have chosen the moment better, tried more finesse. Oh, well. She might as well start getting used to the idea.
“Okay, Margo Largo, one braid or two?”
“Two. One. Two,” she counted off, holding up her fingers.
He parted her hair down the middle and divided one side into three parts. He finished the first short braid—Margo didn’t have that much hair—and started on the other.
“Patwick, Patwick, Patwick,” Maci sang, touching Patrick’s feet.
Margo pulled off Parker’s socks, singing, “Parker, Parker, Parker.”
“Daddy, how did the babies get their mommy?” Maci asked.
Oh, boy. He’d known this was coming and had been trying to figure out the preschool version. “Well, Clare had the babies. They were in her tummy. That’s why she’s their mommy.” He did a mental pat on the back for fielding his daughter’s question.
“Oh,” she said, reaching over to put Parker’s socks back on. “No. I’m doing this one,” she said when her sister reached out for one foot.
“Uh-uh. No fighting over the babies.”
“But how did they get in Clare’s tummy? Were we in a tummy?” Margo peered up at him, her face bunched up in concentration.
His mind scrambled. Did he go the “all kinds of families” route? Some had daddies, some mommies, some two mommies or two daddies. Every family was unique and special. It sounded like a line. It felt like a line. Margo was still peering up at him, and his heart clenched at the questions in her brown eyes. Please don’t ask me where your mother is. Please.
“Cware!”
He looked up, desperate for a lifeline, and thank God, Clare stood at the entrance to the kitchen. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Their eyes met, and a flush crept into her cheeks.
The girls scrambled down from their chairs and went to her.
“Clare! Daddy said we could go to the park today before you go on your plane. Do you want to go to the park?”
Deacon watched her squat down to their level, and when they both wrapped their little arms around her neck in what he knew to be a choking squeeze, Clare closed her eyes and pulled them closer. If he hadn’t already been in love with her, he
would have fallen in that moment. Fallen. Sunk. Gone.
Clare wasn’t just the kind of mother he wanted for the girls. She was the mother, the woman, for all of them.
“I’d love to go to the park. Nice braids.”
“Daddy does them.”
“I see.” Her eyes met Deacon’s.
“Just one of my many talents. Why don’t you two go up and brush teeth. Pick out something warm.”
The girls ran off, and Clare straightened, glancing at the babies.
“You look rested,” he said.
“I feel rested. Thank you.”
“How much of that did you hear?”
“Just the end, I think.”
He sat in the chair they’d vacated and pulled Clare into his lap. He rubbed his thumb over her hip. “I want to tell them the boys are their brothers. I’m just not sure how to explain it without getting into where babies come from, and that inevitably leads to talk of their own mother.”
“What do they know about her?”
“Not much. Up until now, they haven’t asked. I’ll have to tell them about her someday, set my own feelings aside, and give them a choice. But a big part of me feels like she doesn’t deserve their love, not a single ounce of it. That sounds bad.”
“No, that sounds human,” she said, slipping her arm around his neck. “You want to protect them.”
“Yes. And how in the hell do I tell them their mother didn’t want them without breaking their hearts?”
“Maybe she did, in a way. But maybe she wanted you to have them. Maybe that’s what you tell them.”
He was afraid that wasn’t true, but he held Clare tighter, wondering how he’d gotten so damn lucky this time around. “Maybe I do.”
“You’ve never told me much about her.”
And he didn’t want to. He drew in a long breath and let it out. “There’s not much to tell. We weren’t together long. Looking back, I don’t know if she hid her true self or I didn’t look hard enough. Maybe both. Either way I didn’t really know her.”
“And you know me?”
“Yes. Not everything,” he said, pressing his palm to hers, noting the ends of her fingers barely came to his second knuckle. “But I know the important parts. The rest is all discovery, part of the fun.” He kissed her neck then pulled back. “Is that what scares you? You think I don’t know you? Or that you don’t know me?”
“Maybe.” She looked down at their joined hands. “I’ve been wrong so many times, Deacon. You met me after one of those times, but that wasn’t the only one.”
She sighed heavily, and he could feel the weight of her unspoken thoughts.
“But I do know you’re a good daddy, Deacon. That counts for a lot.”
“I try,” he said, looking right into her dark eyes. “It means a lot that you think so.”
“I do.”
He wrapped both arms around her. “Some days, I wonder what the hell I’m doing. Or more accurately, think I absolutely don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Then they’ll squeal and shriek, clap and kiss my cheek when I reach something from a high shelf, and I feel like a damn hero. Like I can do anything.”
He looked over at the babies, both drifting off to sleep. “I don’t ever want to let them down, or not be that man they clap for when he hands them the cookie jar hidden—or not so hidden—on the top shelf.”
“I’d clap for you if you handed me the cookie jar.”
“Really?” He slid a hand up her thigh. “That’s all it would take?”
“Maybe a little more.”
“Just a little?” His palm skated higher, stopping just at the crease where thigh met hip. Then he slipped a hand up and into her hair, and pulling her head back, his lips covered hers.
With a primal need, he nearly forgot where he was. Clare made him forget. Her scent, that subtle hint that was all woman, stirred something in him. It tangled in his senses along with the kiss. She sighed and skimmed her fingers through his hair.
There was a scream from upstairs, and Deacon lifted his head. “And then there’s that kind of shrieking. Not so great.”
She opened dazed eyes and stared into his. There was another yell from upstairs, and she smiled. “Sounds like a battle for the pink boots.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “I knew getting one pair in pink and one in purple would come back to haunt me.”
Clare ran her hand up his chest. “I’ll go.”
“And I’ll let you, as I’m not too proud to say I’m afraid to get between two women and their shoes. But not just yet.” And he kissed her again.
* * *
A WEEK LATER, CLARE and Jess sat at the coffee shop, sipping lattes. The boys slept soundly in the stroller. A swift walk around the park sent them into dreamland.
“I almost wish they’d wake up,” Jess said peeking around at them.
“Not until I finish my bagel. Please.” But she looked in on them too and pulled up the soft blue blanket a little higher on Patrick. God bless schedules.
“You look good.”
“Thank you. I feel good. This makes six days in a row I’ve walked the three-mile loop,” Clare said. Her ass might not be tight enough to crack nuts like Jess’s, but she was getting back to her prebaby self.
“I mean really good. Is that new?”
Clare glanced down at the fitted work out top. “Not new, it just looks better with my nursing boobs.”
Jess smiled. “Well, you look hot. A hot baby mama. And happy.”
“I am. The boys are sleeping, and I’ve been keeping up with the yoga during their morning nap.”
“I get the feeling it’s more than yoga.”
“Yeah.” She couldn’t stop the grin pulling at her lips any more than she could stop the thump and bump in her chest. Clare took a sip of her coffee, trying to hide the spontaneous smile that came when she thought of Deacon and the sizzle she got when she thought of him touching her.
Her phone buzzed with a text. “Oh, my gosh,” she said, looking at the picture on the screen. She handed the phone to Jess. “A picture his mom took of the girls holding the boys at Thanksgiving.”
“Well. That may be the cutest thing I ever saw.”
“Isn’t it? I feel like he’s showing me how perfect our lives could be.”
“And you don’t agree?”
“No. That’s just it. I do. I’m starting to believe it. And isn’t that the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome?”
She circled her straw around the whipped cream-topped coffee before looking back up at Jess. “He says he’s in love with me.”
“Wow.”
“I know. I want to believe him. I mean, it’s not that I think he’s lying, but I can’t keep from wondering, am I missing something? I just keep thinking, I must be missing something. Like it’s too perfect. He’s too perfect. With me, with the babies.
“And then there’s the girls. I miss them. They’re like these beautiful little balls of love and trouble and ideas. I want it. I want all of it. But you know me, Jess. I don’t want to want it so badly that I make another mistake.”
“Is it possible you’re overthinking things?”
She met her friend’s wry smile. “It’s possible. But I don’t want to latch onto something because it looks right on the outside. Or because it would make things easier. I mean, I’m here and he’s there, and how hard will it be if it doesn’t work out? We’re connected for life. How can I be in love with him and then have my heart broken? He’ll eventually be with someone else, and then what? Am I living there? Sharing custody? Taking the babies over to his house with his new wife and the girls calling her ‘Mom’ while I go home to sit alone?”
“Wow. You’ve really thought this through. And hold up. Did you just say you were in love with him?”
“Oops. I guess that slipped out.”
“I guess it did. You want my advice?”
“Sure.”
“Stop thinking.”
“That’s the same thing you told me the day after I met him.”
“It is.” Jess grinned. “And isn’t that interesting?”
* * *
DEACON CALLED A FEW days before he was due to arrive with the girls for a visit midway between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A month was a long time in the life of a newborn. They were changing so fast, daily it seemed.
“Hey.” Clare bounce-stepped across the room with her cell to her ear.
“Hey. How are you?”
“Good.”
“How are my boys?”
“Good. How are my little kittens?” She winced at using the word my. They weren’t hers. If Deacon noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“They’re good. Unfortunately, Jax is not.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah. The flu. Bad.”
“That’s awful. I hope you don’t get it.”
“You and me both. Knock on wood, I never have. The thing is, I’m going to have to stay here and cover.”
“Oh.”
“I miss the guys. I miss you,” he added, his voice deep and soft as velvet.
“I miss you, too.” So much that she ached with it.
“We’ve got animals here over the weekend, so one of us has to be available. Even if Jax is back, he’s covered for me so much lately, I don’t feel like I can ask him to do it again.”
“I understand, but I’m sorry.” Though a little was for herself, most was for him. He was working so hard. Trying so hard. It wasn’t fair that he was doing all the juggling and the traveling.
“So what are the boys up to?”
“Oh, you know. Just the usual. Climbing trees, setting things on fire.”
He laughed softly. “It won’t be long. Have you talked to your parents about Christmas?”
“I did. They’re pretty flexible. And the boys won’t know it from any other day. We should do what’s best for the girls.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We can come there if you want, for Christmas. I can be with my family before or after.”
“I do want. Very much. Thank you.”
Love At Last Page 23