He’d tried to tell her that months ago.
“So I’m sorry that I hurt you by not being honest with my family. You and this baby are so important to me, and I don’t want you to think for one second that you aren’t.”
Her sincerity was obvious in her expression.
“But I also want you to know that you were wrong about everything else you said.” Raising her chin, she leveled her eyes on him with intensity. The pleading look she’d had seconds earlier was gone.
“Like what?” he asked, needing to know exactly what he was so wrong about.
“I’m not ashamed of you. I’ve never been ashamed of you. My reasons for not telling my family about you had nothing to do with feeling ashamed of you in any way.”
“Then why didn’t you say that last week? You never said that once, and I left there thinking that you were embarrassed to be with me.”
His tone lacked the bite it would have had a week ago. Instead he just sounded tired. He desperately wanted her to say the right thing, because he wasn’t sure he could take any more heartache.
“I said all the wrong things,” she admitted. “If I could go back and redo that argument, I would have just come right out with it. I guess I was taken aback because it had never crossed my mind that you would ever think I could be ashamed of you.”
James looked at the space between them on the couch. “Honestly, I’m not sure I would have been very receptive to the truth even if you had told me. I was angry and upset. I’ve been wrestling with this idea that I can’t give you the things you want because I don’t have a seven-figure salary.”
She leaned over and placed her hand on top of his. “I don’t need things. I need you. I love you, James.”
He turned his hand over and closed his fingers around hers. He raised his gaze to hers, hoping to God he saw truth there. Her big blue eyes, the color of a clear day, were trained on him, and he could see into her soul. And he saw love.
“How long have you felt this way?” he asked her.
“Since that night at the Langham. Actually the morning after, to be specific.” She smiled. “I knew you were special. I knew the way you made me feel wasn’t just lust. My heart started beating for you that morning, and even though months went by until we figured out we wanted to be together, I had already fallen for you.”
He squeezed her hand. Her fingers were long and delicate. And the all-important finger on her left hand was bare, which brought up another question.
“If you loved me, why did you tell me that you didn’t want to get married?”
“Because I didn’t want to push you. I didn’t want you to feel trapped into marrying me just because we’re having a baby,” she replied, her voice begging him to understand. “You’ve mentioned that you aren’t sure you ever want to get married again. I can respect that, and I said what I did to give you an out.”
Fuck. This woman. This amazing, selfless woman. He’d been so, so wrong.
“Do you want to get married?” he asked.
“I would marry you today if you asked me. But I’d also happily live with you unmarried for the rest of my life.”
Swallowing down the lump in his throat, he shook his head. “I figured it’d be important to you to be married by the time the baby arrives. So we’d all have the same last name.”
She brushed her fingers over the side of his face, and the contact sent shivers through his entire body. “What’s important to me is that you know how much I love you. That I’d love you with or without the same last name.”
He turned his cheek into her palm and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he wasn’t alone. He’d always felt like everyone depended on him to take care of them. Cade was of course his responsibility. But Holly had worn him down and had squeezed out every last ounce of desperate effort he had.
Megan made him feel like he could let go of that breath he’d been holding on to ever since he’d gotten divorced. Ever since he’d started feeling like it was him and Cade versus the world. Megan was going to be on their team, and James knew she’d help carry them if he needed her to.
He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers. “I love you too.”
“You do?” A slow, happy smile curved her lips. He nodded.
She leaned forward and lightly pressed her mouth to his. They were soft and warm and perfect, and he deepened the kiss, pulling her toward him. God, this woman.
After a minute he broke the kiss. “What are you going to do about your parents?”
“I had a video chat with them about an hour ago. They’re really excited to meet you and Cade.”
Warmth spread throughout his chest. Before he could fuse his mouth together with hers, he heard loud stomps coming down the stairs. James pulled back just in time to see Cade enter the living room and stop.
“Ms. McKenna?”
The look of complete confusion was etched on the little boy’s face as he looked between James and Megan. Smiling, James took Cade’s hand and tugged him close to his side.
“Remember how earlier tonight you mentioned I was the only one in the house without a girlfriend?” Cade slowly nodded. “Well, you were wrong. Because Ms. McKenna and I are dating.”
The little boy’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You are?”
Megan smiled. “Yes, we are. I hope that’s okay with you?”
Cade looked back at his father and then to Megan. “Sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders like he didn’t care.
Megan smiled and bit her lower lip, and before James could allow that simple sexy action of hers to cause anything to happen to him below the belt, his son leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Way to go, Dad.”
He pinned Cade to his side and tickled him relentlessly in the stomach, causing his son to buckle against him and howl with laughter. After a minute, Megan cleared her throat. Both James and Cade stopped, and their attention went to her smiling face.
“I came over to invite you to a wedding next weekend,” Megan said. “It’s in Boston, and I’d very much like if you both would come with me.”
Cade’s eyes widened with excitement. “Awesome! I’ve never been to Boston or Fenway Park!” He whipped his head to his father. “Can we go, Dad? Please?”
James smiled at his son before looking back at Megan. She was biting her lip again, and her eyes were almost as pleading as Cade’s. “Of course we can go. But bud, we’re going to have to get you a suit.”
Cade’s excitement vanished. “Really?” he whined, his top lip curled in disgust.
“I’m sure a shirt and tie would be just fine,” Megan intervened.
His son let out an audible, exaggerated sigh and scurried up the stairs yammering about packing for the trip next week. James looked at Megan, his eyes roaming her face.
His chest felt lighter. His shoulders not so tense. James hoped that if they had a little girl, she’d look just like Megan. Although with as beautiful as Megan was, that might not be the best thing to wish for.
“So are we okay?” she asked, reaching for his hand again.
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Yeah, sweetheart. We’re good.”
And he knew that for the first time in a long time, he really was good. Sure, he’d been through a lot of shit in life to get to this point. Hell, so had Megan. But life was funny like that.
James pulled Megan onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. Her scent of warm vanilla infused his senses and had him nestling into her neck. He placed a featherlight kiss on her skin and loved the responding shiver that went through her body.
This life—this crazy upside-down journey—might not have been what he wanted originally. But going through the heartache of Holly had left him with Cade and brought him to this moment.
James had never thought he’d be able to love another woman again, let alone have another child, but he was so glad that fate had other things in mind. If someone would have told him years ago that this was where he�
�d end up, he would’ve said they were crazy.
James smiled against Megan’s neck. “This is exactly where I need to be.”
Epilogue
Five years later
Flopping into the lawn chair, Megan sighed. She took a long, much needed drink of her iced tea. Summers in Ballagh were usually lovely, but it was sweltering today. After slipping off her flip-flops, she wiggled her bare toes in the cool, prickly grass and closed her eyes.
The sun was bright, even through her eyelids. If she tried hard enough, she could just about block out the craziness happening around her in her parents’ backyard for their now-annual Fourth of July picnic. Just about.
“Mom, Kyle won’t let me play with the squirt gun!”
Megan opened her eyes to see her four-year-old son pouting beside her. Jace’s little face was pinched, his dark brown hair glimmering in the sunshine with flecks of gold and red. He looked exactly like his father in every way—same perfect mouth, same strong nose, same devastating smile—except he had her pale blue eyes. And his were currently on the brink of tears.
“Moooooooom,” he continued to whine, bending his knees and jerking his body. “Kyle’s not playing nice.”
Megan looked over at Quinn and Ewan’s youngest boy. Kyle was holding a squirt gun that was bigger than he was. He hadn’t grown out of his cute baby chubbiness yet, and his cheeks hung down in pinchable deliciousness.
“Jace, honey, Kyle isn’t even two yet. You have to be patient with him.”
“But Mom, I was playing with that squirt gun, and he took it from me.”
“Is there another squirt gun you can play with?”
Jace looked toward the back deck, where his grandmother had lined up an entire arsenal of squirt guns, water balloons, and other water-related attack accessories. “Yeah, but I like the green one.”
“Let your cousin have the green one. Go grab that blue one.”
Megan took another sip of her tea as Jace sighed and slowly stomped toward the deck.
“Hey, honey,” she called, forcing him to look back at her. “I bet your father could use some cooling off. He’s been standing next to that grill for thirty minutes.”
Megan shot him a devious smile and winked. She saw the light bulb go off in her son’s head a second before he raced toward the unused but loaded squirt guns. Smiling to herself, she closed her eyes and let the sun soak into her face.
“Vindictive, Meg. I like it,” she heard her brother, Sean, say from beside her.
She opened her eyes to see that he’d pulled two lawn chairs next to hers and sat down. His skin looked incredibly tan against his pale pink polo shirt and light tan khaki shorts. His blond hair was cropped closer than she’d ever seen it before, but it suited him. He’d lost his frat boy look years ago.
Megan heard a deep yell followed by her son’s shrieks of delight. Megan and Sean looked toward the grill and laughed at James, who was being blasted with water by his son.
“When did you guys get here?” she asked her brother.
“Five minutes ago. Mom cornered us in the kitchen to show us some frilly baby shit. Why is it when you’re having a girl, everything has to be pink? Darcy loves purple, and now the babies, who haven’t even been born yet, apparently love pink. It looks like a unicorn got sick inside my house and threw up in every room but the kitchen.”
Megan giggled. It was some sort of poetic justice that Sean and Darcy were expecting their first child any day now, and they were having twin girls.
“Stop your bitching,” a feminine grumble sounded from behind Megan. “You’re not the one carrying giant monster babies inside you.”
Darcy came into view, shuffling across the lawn. She looked adorable in a sleeveless navy blue sundress and a pair of big, dark sunglasses. Her black hair was bluntly cut to her chin and she waddled toward them in a pair of lime-green flip-flops. “They’re either doing aerobics or they’re practicing for the Tour de France because they’ve been kicking me all morning. My poor liver.”
Megan’s heart went out to Darcy. She was hugely pregnant—just past thirty-seven weeks—and her doctors told her they’d induce at thirty-eight weeks if everything was looking good. Megan could tell just by looking at her sister-in-law that Darcy must have been wishing it was thirty-eight weeks like three weeks ago.
Before she could sit down in the chair Sean had set up for her, Megan’s dad yelled from the deck. “Darcy, wait, let me get you a better chair!”
Connor disappeared inside the garden shed and emerged with an Adirondack chair and a cushion. Sean met him halfway across the lawn to grab them.
“Thanks, Dad,” Darcy said to Connor as Sean helped her sit in the sturdy chair. “I don’t know what I was thinking trying to sit in that folding chair anyway. It never would have taken my weight.”
Sean chuckled as he sat back down and stretched his legs out.
“What’s so funny?” she snapped at him.
“You made a joke, woman. It was funny so I laughed.”
Megan couldn’t help but smile at her brother and sister-in-law’s constant but lovable bickering. She didn’t think the two of them would know how to communicate if it weren’t for sarcasm. They were both highly successful, Sean as CEO of Rolland Construction and Darcy as owner and president of Dovetail Interior Designs. But when they were together, they squabbled just like they’d used to as kids.
Quinn and Ewan picked that moment to come into the backyard, carrying their own lawn chairs. They walked hand in hand across the grass, looking every bit the happily married couple that they were. Ewan appeared relaxed in a pair of dark gray cargo shorts and a black polo shirt. Quinn wore a long yellow halter dress, her shoulders nicely bronzed from all the time she spent in the sun.
Shortly after finishing graduate school, Quinn had moved back to Ballagh and started her own landscaping business. It was a small operation, and she mainly worked residential jobs. But she was sought after from as far north as Boston to as far south as Providence.
Ewan, on the other hand, was still quite happy managing the family pub. But the big news there was that he’d bought the pub from Megan’s dad a couple years ago. He was now the proud manager and owner of Katie McMullin’s.
Quinn had insisted they buy a house instead of living in his one-bedroom apartment over the pub. Because Ewan couldn’t deny his wife anything, they’d settled just out of town in a quant craftsman house with enough land for Quinn’s massive garden.
As the two lovebirds got closer, Megan noticed Quinn had a lovely blush on her cheeks, and Ewan was looking smug. Those two couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. She would put some money on where they’d just come from.
“Hey, guys,” Quinn said, unfolding her chair. Ewan kept his hand on the backrest as his wife sat down. “Darcy, how are you feeling?”
“Like a whale,” she grumbled, rubbing her hand over her belly in slow circles.
“Darce, you’re not a whale. But if you were, then you’d be the most beautiful whale I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Sean replied with sincerity.
“I’m going to fucking punch you in the throat,” his wife grumbled, making everyone snicker.
Looking over his shoulder, Ewan asked, “Has anyone seen our children?”
A huge water fight had erupted on the far side of the house. James had an unfair advantage and used his position on the deck to pick off children one by one with his water Uzi. All the kids were involved in the battle. Cade must have taken a break from playing games on his tablet and was using a tree for cover from his father’s assault.
Jace was trying to take cover behind a bush with Gavin, Quinn and Ewan’s older son. And little Kyle was standing out in the open trying to catch the squirts of water from James with his mouth.
“Megan, I wish you guys could come to Kyle’s birthday party,” Quinn said, accepting a glass of iced tea from Connor. “We should have planned this picnic and his party better. Maybe next year instead of having two separate parties we can combine i
t.”
James, Megan, and the boys had flown into Boston in March for Gavin’s fourth birthday. When together, Gavin and Jace were inseparable. Quinn and Ewan had gotten pregnant almost immediately after their wedding, and Gavin had been born five months after James and Megan had welcomed Jace into the world. Kyle was turning two in a couple weeks.
Megan looked over at Darcy with a smile. “Next year we’ll have three birthdays to celebrate in July.”
Just then, Megan heard James yell out, “I surrender!” She glanced at the deck, where James was shielding his head as Cade, Jace, and Gavin soaked him with their squirt guns at point-blank range. Little Kyle was doing his best to help by tickling his uncle.
Cheers erupted from the victors as they gave each other high fives. Immediately, new teams formed, and it looked like it was Cade and Kyle versus Gavin and Jace. The kids took off to the side of the house to make their battle plans.
James’s light gray Cubs shirt was now dark gray and completely drenched. Megan wished he’d whip the shirt over his head and wring it out just so she could see his wide, strong chest with a speckling of dark brown and gray hair and those delicious V-shaped lower abdomen muscles.
After four years of marriage, seeing James without his shirt on still did things to her body. Tingles, goose bumps, dampness between her legs. He still did it all. He was the hottest forty-year-old Megan had ever seen, and he was all hers.
Every day when she woke up beside him, she thanked her lucky stars. It sounded cliché, but she really did fall in love with him a little more every day. He wasn’t only a good person, an excellent lover, and a supportive partner. He was so much more.
The part about James that she found irresistible was that he was an amazing father. He loved their two boys fiercely. Megan learned so much from just watching him with Cade and Jace. How to be more patient, how to be loving yet firm. She wasn’t only a better mother because of James, he made her a better person. And a happier one as well.
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