Reading soaking tubs.
And reading him wanting to make sure I liked my job, felt fulfilled there, and I didn’t need more.
And reading, not days into us being us, him making me go out with Lorie, Minnie, and Pinky and make friends in his world, have a girl posse who would also have my back.
Reading him shielding me from losing hope about Tia.
Reading him not caring all that much if he got me pregnant.
Reading him teasing me about buying islands and bikinis.
And how he didn’t mind if I called Rayne about Rogan’s money, he just wished he’d been there to have my back if Rayne upset me.
Reading how hard it was for him to share things about himself that he worried would color the way I thought of him.
Reading how he’d never let me go.
Reading.
And reading.
And reading.
Something was happening in my belly. It felt like a soda pop was fizzing there.
How I’d missed all this, I did not know.
I had been at my lowest ebb and I was in survival mode.
But I’d quit surviving the minute he carried me out of Lefty’s clinic.
And from that point on, me and the man in my life had been falling in love.
“Now, Toots, you gonna get on the back of my bike?”
“Tia,” I said.
“Are you gonna get on the back of my bike?”
“Yes, West. Of course I am. I love you.”
He closed his eyes and his forehead landed on mine with a thud.
Oh my.
He really, really loved me.
“Baby,” I whispered
He opened his eyes and lifted away.
“Tia,” I repeated.
He shook his head. “Reunion can continue tonight over enchiladas. Now we’re goin’ home and havin’ make-up sex.” I stared at him and he concluded, “All day.”
My eyes got big. “All day make-up sex?”
His hand slid from my jaw down to the side of my neck where he squeezed. “Okay, maybe not all day, since the kids’ll be here tonight, but we’re stayin’ in bed all day. Eventually I’ll need to crash, or enchiladas will be shit.”
“You need to crash?”
“Babe, sat up all night waitin’ for you to come home. You raced outta Ace and disappeared into thin air. Then fuckin’ Scott shows at my door sayin’ you’re with him and he wants your shit. So I’ve been up all night and spent the mornin’ pissed as hell and scared as fuck and on the back of my bike comin’ into the Valley to deal with my woman. Now I’m not pissed, I’ve dealt with my woman and we’re goin’ home, we’re fuckin’ then we’re crashin’.”
That soda pop feeling was getting stronger and it was effervescent.
“You sat up all night waiting for me to come home?”
“No, I got on my bike, left Ace and went to Mrs. Jimenez’s place and waited for you to show there. When you didn’t, I figured you’d cooled down and went home. So I went home and you weren’t there. Then I stayed up and waited for you to cool down and come home ’cause you tossed out your money, Toots, and someone’d have to pay the taxi.”
“Pay the taxi?” I parroted.
“You went to Ace on the back of my bike so, after you tossed most of your bills on the bed, and a taxi home would cost a whack, with no way home and no cake…yeah, pay the taxi.”
We’d had our fight. He’d said what he’d said, then he’d gone to the only places I could go, Mrs. Jimenez’s and his house. And in the end, after we had our fight and he said what he said, he was waiting up to pay my taxi.
Oh my God.
He so totally loved me.
And I’d been right. I’d finally been right.
I’d found the real thing.
I knew what that feeling was in my stomach.
That lightness.
The froth.
It was joy.
I was feeling actual joy.
I’d never had that in my life.
But I knew precisely what it was.
Buck clearly didn’t feel the joy.
I knew this when he ordered, “Babe, quit starin’ at me and get on the back of my bike.”
I didn’t quit staring at him.
I kept staring at him, and I did this awhile.
Firstly, he was so incredibly handsome, I could look at him forever.
And secondly, obviously, I liked everything I could see, and the best part about it was that everything I could see was mine.
All mine.
“Babe—” he started, sounding impatient.
He stopped talking when I slid my hands down to rest on his chest.
“I need to go get my purse, then we can go home,” I whispered.
It was his turn to stare, but he didn’t do it as long as I had.
His hand at my neck shifted, going back and up, his fingers in my hair. He put pressure on, pulling me up as his head came down. His mouth hit mine and he kissed me.
Then he ended it.
“Buck?” I called.
“Right here, Toots,” he answered, and he was.
We were no longer kissing, but we were still plastered together, and his face wasn’t even an inch away.
“Consider it erased.”
His head ticked.
His eyes flared.
Then we were making out again.
This time, it lasted longer before he ended it.
He let me go but took my hand.
We walked up the stairs.
I got my purse, invited Tia and Damian to enchiladas (Rayne declined, not surprisingly), we walked back out…
And I got on the back of Buck’s bike.
29
Never Easy
I saw the car coming up the drive after Buck was done with me, he’d passed out, I’d passed out, but I’d had some sleep, he had not.
So he was still passed out, and I was in the kitchen, making a sandwich.
I didn’t know whose car that was, I just knew it was fancy.
And seeing a fancy car, I got worried and sifted through my mental database in an attempt to decipher if I held the knowledge as to what the statute of limitations was on assault.
I did not hold this knowledge.
That said, I suspected it was longer than a few weeks.
So this could mean Buck and Gear were not in the clear with those ASU boys.
Or more to the point, their angry parents.
Girding for battle, even if I only was wearing a pair of panties and Buck’s tee, and since I couldn’t risk going back to the bedroom to dress because that might wake Buck, I headed to the door.
And even if it was a little chilly outside, I stood out on the deck in front of the door and glared angrily at the man getting out of his fancy car.
The good news, evidence was suggesting that Buck and Gear were still in the clear.
The bad news, Nolan Armitage, Rogan’s attorney, was back.
“I’m uncertain how to make myself any clearer, Nolan,” I called as he made his way to me. “However, I do know I had witnesses to your last visit, which was unwelcome, so now we may be bordering on harassment.”
He stopped at the foot of the steps and declared, “Rogan’s dying.”
“You told me that before.”
“Yes, and when I did, Rogan was dying. Now, they’re making him as comfortable as they can, waiting for him to die.”
It came out of nowhere.
I didn’t expect it.
Not after what I went through. Not after what Rogan had put me through. Not after what came next for me and for Tia.
But even so, it came.
Pain.
“He wants to see you, Clara,” Nolan declared.
I hadn’t noticed, my mind had shifted to what I was feeling, but when I refocused, I saw he was speaking to me, but he was looking behind me.
I sensed why even before Buck said, “Tell us where and I’ll get her there.”
“
You should go today,” Nolan advised.
Today.
We should go today.
Oh God.
Rogan was dying.
Nolan moved up the steps, reaching into the breast pocket of his suit. I saw Buck’s arm come out and take the slip of paper Nolan offered him.
Nolan stepped immediately back as if being in close proximity to me might mean he’d catch something nasty. He then turned and walked down the steps.
But he turned back and looked up at me.
“He won’t tell you this, but you should know, the stealing began when he got his diagnosis and the prognosis was what’s happening right now.”
I didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“He had to make sure you were covered,” Nolan stated. “He had to know, when he was gone, you never had to worry about anything.”
My husband had to embezzle forty million dollars to make certain I never had anything to worry about?
“This isn’t on her,” Buck said, low and angry. “Quit fuckin’ with her head because it isn’t on her.”
“It’s partly on her, weak women who lean too much on men,” Nolan retorted.
Buck made a growly noise.
I jerked out of the vacuum I’d fallen into at the understanding the first man I’d ever loved was imminently dying and came back to the conversation.
“I have a master’s degree and worked at a world-renowned research library,” I reminded him.
“Which would not put you in a five-thousand-square-foot, six-million-dollar home in Arcadia,” Nolan shot back.
I studied him.
Closely.
What I saw was bitter.
Planted in him by someone else.
Now aimed at me.
“You know,” I said softly, “I don’t know what women you’ve had in your life, but they are not me.”
His face went hard.
Yes.
Bitter.
“I loved my husband,” I told him. “I did not need the house in Arcadia. And I survived a number of things since I was seven years old. Sure, none of that was as bad as what Rogan left me with after what he did, though some of it was close. Nevertheless, I would have survived with him gone. What would have been the struggle that would have stuck with me until the day I left this Earth, was watching the husband I loved die of cancer.”
“You say that, Clara, but you are even now not standing on your own two feet. You’re standing in nothing but another man’s shirt, which leaves little to the imagination of what you’ve been doing, and it isn’t even two o’clock in the afternoon. And you’re doing this at his home, not working the job, incidentally, that he gave you, but definitely living a life he allows you to lead.”
Another growly noise came from Buck, I felt him move, but I stepped in front of him, even as I didn’t take my eyes from Nolan.
I also spoke through this.
“I’m standing here because I have cute taste in shoes and good manners. You see what you want to see, whether that’s been sadly distorted by women who have used you in your life is not on me. Like what Rogan decided to do in his desperation at getting a hopeless diagnosis is not on me. What my husband should have done was come home and trusted in me. He did not do that. He underestimated me.”
“And whored around on her,” Buck added.
Yes, there was also that.
Nolan’s head ticked.
“Yeah, don’t got an excuse for that, do you?” Buck bit.
Buck was wrong.
He did.
“There are appetites a man has he doesn’t take to his wife. He takes them somewhere else. Especially when he only has a short time left to live.”
“Then he chose wrong again, asshole,” Buck declared. “’Cause the wife he had has her own appetites, and they’re the kind, a man gets them in his bed, he’ll never go wanting.”
Wow.
That was sweet.
I turned my head and looked up at Buck.
“Really?” I asked.
He looked down at me, and I had confirmation as to his tone and vibe.
He was far from happy.
Now at me.
“Are we goin’ over this again?” he asked.
“No,” I muttered.
“Good.” He did not mutter.
“I’ll take my leave,” Nolan said.
“Take it for the last time, man,” Buck warned.
Nolan lifted a hand and walked to his BMW.
I watched him do this.
Buck, I suspected, did not.
“Babe, you need to get dressed.”
Needless to say, the soda pop feeling was gone.
“Never easy,” I mumbled as Nolan closed himself into his car.
“Baby?” Buck called, his arm curling around my waist.
I looked up at him again.
“I guess that’s life, right?” I asked. “A woman who does not want a child gets pregnant with one, she gives it up. A woman who wants a family gets one, her husband leaves. She can’t cope, and even though that child has nobody, nobody, she takes her own life, leaving that child very alone and entirely defenseless.”
“Clara, darlin’,” Buck moved closer to me, sliding his hand up my jaw and into my hair, “you need to get in. Get dressed. It’s cold and you got somethin’ you gotta get outta the way.”
“And then,” I went on like he didn’t speak, “that child gets shunted from home to home. Careful, always, to do the right thing. Because maybe the people in one of the homes, they’d like her. Maybe, if she makes all the right moves, someone might want her.”
“Christ, baby,” he whispered.
I saw the pain in his eyes, so deep, it could be described as agony.
That, for me.
That, because he loved me.
I didn’t like that for him.
I didn’t want that for him.
But I couldn’t control it.
My first love was dying.
He was thirty-six years old and he was dying.
So I kept going.
“But they don’t. And she struggles through. Gets an education. Makes something of herself. Falls in love.”
“Please come inside with me, Toots,” he begged quietly.
“And it wouldn’t have mattered either way, Buck,” I carried on. “Either Rogan got the news he got, and he did what he did, which left me out there, alone, without resources and desperate. Or Rogan got that news and he came home and told me, and I’d have to prepare to watch the man I loved die. For me, there was no win. For me, it wasn’t ever going to be easy.”
Buck rested his forehead to mine and whispered, “Baby, please.”
“Then I find you,” I whispered back. “And I can live on hope Tia’s okay. Because I’ve got you. And I can step up for Tatie. Because she’s sweet and because I’ve got you. I can fall in love again. And I can make you fall in love with me. And you’re mine. All of you is all mine. And we don’t even get an entire day to enjoy that, and now…this.”
Buck stopped trying to get me to go inside.
Instead, his fingers curled in my hair and he pressed his knuckles tight to my scalp and didn’t move away.
“I should get dressed and see Rogan,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” he muttered back.
Neither of us moved.
We stood out in the cold, the thin Arizona creek meandering by us, and stared in each other eyes.
Eventually, it occurred to me that I was wearing his tee.
Buck was out in nothing but jeans and bare feet.
I needed to get my man inside.
“Let’s just go do this,” I said.
“Babe?” he said.
“Right here.”
“My sister burned herself and my mother to death, and I’m still standing.”
I sucked in breath.
Buck kept speaking.
“My dad’s incarcerated. Probably the only way you’ll ever know him is sittin’ across a table from him in a visitation ha
ll in a prison. You’ll never taste how good he can make a meatloaf or hear how loud his laugh booms or be able to hand our kid off to him and watch him get down on the ground and play like he’s good to do that for weeks. I hate that like fuck, but I’m still standing.”
Our kid?
Buck went on, “The woman I loved turned into a bitch I couldn’t stand the sight of and took my kids away from me, and I’m still standing.”
“We’ll get them back,” I promised.
“We might. We might not. But whatever happens, Gear will be standing. Tat will be standing. You’ll be standing. And I’ll be standing. That’s my only goal. That’s what I live for. And that’s life, Toots. You’re right. It’s never, not ever, easy. The key, gorgeous, is to stay standing.”
This was very wise.
Sad.
But wise.
I nodded, the movement of my head moving his.
“Now, let’s go do this,” he murmured.
He also made to shift, but I stopped him by catching his beltloops on either side.
“I feel pain about this, Buck,” I admitted.
“You loved him. That’s not a surprise. It’d be a surprise if you didn’t.”
I nodded, but said, “I just want you to know, it’s not about still having feelings for him. It’s about having had feelings for him.”
“I know that, Clara.”
I studied him closely.
“You sure?”
“Babe, if I thought you were holding a torch for this guy, you would not be in my bed. Remember? I don’t share.”
“Oh, right,” I mumbled.
His lips twitched and he replied, “Right. Can we get out of the cold now?”
I yet again nodded.
But this time, he didn’t move.
“Are we going inside?” I asked when we both kept standing there for a good while.
“From the minute I learned all of it, I wanted the power to erase your life, write it new.”
My eyelids fluttered rapidly, shock and something else, and that something else was something beautiful, pulsing through me.
“I didn’t have that power, Clara, so I did what I could do.”
Oh my God.
He did what he could do.
And there I was.
I had, indeed, leaned on a man.
Because I needed to.
And he gave me a home, a family, a job, a car.
And his love.
“West,” I whispered.
Still Standing Page 38