by Tessa Bailey
Usually when facts fell into place for Vaughn, he appreciated the sense of understanding, but this wasn’t one of those times. His gut felt pumped full of lead as he saw the situation through the eyes of River’s father. Of course he would hate Vaughn for being the one to keep River from attending college. It must have been like déjà vu. A new generation of De Matteo keeping his daughter from fulfilling her potential. Jesus Christ, he felt ill. If he’d been alone, he would have sunk down onto the curb. “I wanted her to go. I—”
“You didn’t try hard enough, though. Did you? All those times you were in my house at night. You think I didn’t know?”
“Why didn’t you come throw me out?” The words stung leaving his mouth. “I would have gone. I would’ve known you were right.”
The older man stared off down the block, as if seeing into the past. “She would have only gone after you, twice as hard. And you would have been back the next day. I needed you to…”
“Break her heart?” Vaughn’s hands twitched with the need to ball into fists. “I did. And it was the worst decision I’ve ever made. I’ll pay for it the rest of my life whenever she looks worried I’ll do it again.”
“But you will.” Mr. Purcell’s disgust had returned. “You’ll do it again, whether it’s today or next year. Might as well save some time.”
Here it comes. Vaughn’s pulse shot into overdrive as the older man opened a compartment inside the trunk and removed a stack of papers.
“I never transferred the deed, Vaughn.” The silence following that statement was so complete, Vaughn could hear his heartbeat slow, slow, until it almost stopped. “When River announced she was pregnant, I made the decision. The baby meant a connection between you two, and if she ever got in touch…if you ever came back to Hook, I couldn’t risk the man who cost my daughter her future living inside my house. I can’t abide it.”
“So what’s the play?” Vaughn’s body was exhausted, so exhausted. Like he’d just climbed a mountain. “If I stay, you take the house away? You would do that to your granddaughter?”
River’s father had the decency to turn red, but it was half anger. “You going to stick around to find out?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. You can’t chance it when I’ve proven what I’ll do to keep you out of her life.”
You can’t.
Those two words sent steam rising in his belly, heating insides that had gone cold. Vaughn longed to embrace that kindled fire—the reminder of his fighter nature—then he thought of his bank account. How the money it contained was honest and hard earned, but still not enough to give River and Marcy the kind of place they were used to. Not enough to come close.
Painfully conscious of River’s attention on him, Vaughn backed away from the piece of paper that had dictated so much of his life, and strode toward his truck, his legs weighing a thousand pounds each. With a loud clanging resonating in his ears, Vaughn got behind the wheel and drove.
…
River flung open the front door of her house, running down the pathway at breakneck speed. “Vaughn!”
Oh God. She should have left the house sooner. Why had she just stood there, frozen in place by the window, hoping for some kind of resolution between her father and Vaughn when it was so obvious a bond would never form? Stupid, so stupid. And now he was gone. The man who’d so recently opened himself up, on the verge of more, had been shut down. She’d watched it happen. Unbelievably, it had been her father to finally pull the plug.
“What did you say to him?”
Her father turned, looking wearier than she’d ever seen him. “Nothing he hasn’t heard before.”
“What does that mean?” River screamed the words through her teeth. “I’m tired of being treated like a child who can’t handle hearing truth, or making her own decisions. Answer me like a goddamn adult.”
When he only turned toward his car, muttering under his breath, River snatched the piece of paper he was holding out of his hand. It was familiar. She had the same document inside a file folder inside her bedroom closet, along with Marcy’s birth certificate and her high school diploma. But something was different about this deed…it didn’t have her name on it. Anywhere. Only her father’s name. “What is this? The old deed?” He didn’t answer. “Why do you have it out?”
“No reason,” he answered firmly, reaching out to take it back. But River jerked it away, discomfort settling on her shoulders. “Let’s go inside, River.”
“Yes.” Turning on a heel, she continued to scrutinize the deed. Same dates. Same handwriting. Same everything. The only thing different was the name. When River looked up again, she was halfway up the staircase to her bedroom. From below, her father called her name, but she ignored him, continuing to ascend and walking straight into her closet. A moment later, she had the deeds side by side, examining them with growing dread—dread she didn’t fully understand yet, but it dragged her down, down, underneath roaring waves. “Mine is a copy.”
Until her father released a sigh behind her, River hadn’t realized he’d followed. She stood, the deed held in a lifeless hand at her side.
“Mine is a copy. Is…did you ever actually transfer the deed?” She held the papers up to her face, paying close attention to the name section. “Or did you just white out your name, make a copy…and type mine in? This was never filed, was it?” As she remembered Vaughn’s white face as he stumbled toward the truck, River’s body started to shake. “What does Vaughn have to do with any of this?”
Her father rubbed his eyes with a thumb and index finger. Waiting silently for him to speak was difficult, but she was also semi-grateful for the reprieve. What was coming? Finally he spoke, his voice so low she could barely make out his words. “No matter how many times I told you he wasn’t up to your standards, you didn’t listen. You wouldn’t listen.” His throat worked. “The night he left, we met at the Third Shift. I told him I’d give you the house if he left. He couldn’t give you a damn thing, River. This house was all I had to guarantee you didn’t throw everything away.” The ensuing pause was deafening. “And although the stakes have changed, it still is.”
An agonized sound fell from River’s lips, pressure mounting behind her eyes. “Still is?” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I don’t understand.”
“He doesn’t get to ride in like a white knight after four years, like nothing ever happened—”
“You happened. You.” Hysteria tickled her throat; her legs quivered with the need to give out. “You threatened to take the house back again, didn’t you? That’s why he left.”
Her father said nothing, confirming her fear and wrenching a pitiful sob from River’s throat. Where had he gone? Oh God, what if he vanished again before she could reach him? No…it couldn’t happen this way. Not after they’d gotten so close to having everything they’d ever dreamed of. Love. A family. No time limits.
“Didn’t you ever stop to think how much Vaughn must love me, if he would leave behind everything familiar in a heartbeat, just so I would have a home? Or how much he must love me if joining the Army and getting sent overseas was the only way he could manage to stay away? Did you?” She had to get out of there. Had to go find him. “I want that kind of love for my daughter some day. I’m sorry you’ve let pride turn your heart black. Get out of my way.”
River ran down the stairs, stopping in the kitchen long enough to assure herself Duke’s sisters could watch Marcy until she returned. Then she kissed her daughter on both cheeks and went after her man.
Chapter Twenty-Two
River sat on the motel room bed, wondering if she’d gone insane. Three hours had passed since Vaughn drove away from the curb in front of her house. After confirming he hadn’t returned to the motel, she’d checked the Third Shift, the factory construction site, Duke’s house…but he’d been nowhere. Vanished. Again.
Somehow, she continued to have faith. Faith that he wouldn’t leave her alone again after making so many vehement promises to the contrary. Most of
all, there was a lit candle in her heart, refusing to go out. Maybe it had remained lit over his forty-nine month and three-day absence, too, nothing able to snuff it out. That certainty, that undying need to trust the man she loved, was what led River to renting a room at the motel. Not just any room, though. Their room. The room they’d met in so many times during their youth, making desperate love on the creaking mattress while traffic whooshed softly past in the background.
He would come. She knew he would. And she wouldn’t let him have doubts or worries or reservations about staying in Hook, staying with her and Marcy. If it took forever, she would let him know their fate had been sealed in the Hook High parking lot, and she would never, ever, meet a better man as long as she lived. Just thinking of how helpless he must have felt with her home—a home he’d just needed more time and support to make for them—hanging in the balance…it made her entire body throb with pain.
Being in the same room with her worst memory wasn’t easy. But she would pull out every stop to keep Vaughn from trying to be noble again. If they had to live in this very room to stay together, they would get through it. They would get better together. All three of them. Father, mother, and daughter. Because apart? They were loose ends that were meant to be tied.
When River heard a door slam out in the parking lot, she shot to her feet, her blood already flowing at warp speed. Squaring her shoulders, she went for the door and flung it open, halting Vaughn in his footsteps where he crossed the parking lot.
“Riv? What…” She watched as he registered the doorway she stood in, watched as he tried to decide why. Whatever conclusion he landed on, it propelled him toward the room, his big hand banding around River’s elbow. “What are you doing in there, doll? I don’t want you in there.”
“I’m waiting for you.” She pulled out of his hold and clasped the sides of his face. “Part of me has been here, waiting for you the whole time.”
He fell onto River, giving her no choice but to walk them backward into the room, while Vaughn released heaving breaths into her neck. “I won’t do it. I won’t do it this time.”
Every molecule in her body screamed to a halt. “Do what?”
“Leave. I refuse to leave again.” His voice was rich and deep, just like the relief that clamored through River’s blood, getting it running again. “I must be a selfish bastard, because I didn’t even try.” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “Tell me why you’re in this room. If you’re trying to bring this full circle by ending things where I ended them, I’ve got news for you—it’s not happening. Get it right out of your head. They’ll have to take me away from this town—from my wife and child—in a coffin this time.”
River’s heart rejoiced, lifting and dancing inside her rib cage “Wife?”
“Yeah. Wife. Husband. Forever. No questions.” She felt Vaughn’s hand moving at their hips…and then he raised a ring between them. A gorgeous, old-fashioned, antique-looking ring that instantly became the most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever beheld, despite its slight tarnish. “I’m not going to lie, Riv. It’s from a pawn shop. I’m a pawnshop guy, okay? But I won’t be forever. I’m making good, doll. I’m going to make you proud of me. Proud to call me your man…and Marcy proud to call me dad.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks, but the warmth felt good and healthy, so she didn’t bother swiping them away. How could she focus on anything but the man in front of her? The startlingly gorgeous man she’d loved beyond reason since they’d first locked eyes. “I want to be your wife,” she managed. “Of course I do. I’m in this room because I wanted to propose to you.”
His mouth formed a lopsided smile. “What’s that now?”
“I wanted to paint over the bad memory with something good. Something that should have always been.” She held out her hand, laughing tearfully as he slipped the twisted silver onto her finger. “Vaughn, we can be a family anywhere. We don’t need my parents’ house. Or a house at all. We have love. That’s more important than some pile of bricks. I want to do it on our own.”
He pressed their foreheads together on a broken sound. “You trust me that much, Riv?”
“Yes.” She pushed up on her toes and kissed him, once, twice. “I didn’t think you’d left town. Not for a single second. I knew I just had to wait and you’d come to me. I knew.”
His breath released in a long rush. “Thank you. I don’t know what I did to earn that kind of belief, but I’m going to fight like hell to keep it. I’m fighting already. No more secrets…just River and Vaughn. All in.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he started backing River toward the bed, groaning when she fell across the mattress, and teasing the hem of her dress with coarse fingertips. “Tell me you love me.”
Lightness invaded her chest. “I love you.”
“Tell me you know we can do this.”
“I know we can do this. We can do anything.”
Vaughn closed his eyes a moment, as if savoring the words where they hung in the air. Then he fell forward, planting his fists on either side of River’s thighs, bending down to snap his teeth at her belly button. “Now, tell me to fuck you.”
River’s nipples went so stiff, such wetness rushing to the juncture of her thighs, she released a loud whimper. “Fuck me, please.”
Using one fist to keep himself propped above her, Vaughn reached down and undid his belt and fly, loosing his erection from his pants, where it hung between them like a promise. River parted her thighs, running greedy hands over her breasts while repeating the words he’d asked her to say. Chanting them.
Finally, Vaughn sunk down between her legs, rocking into the valley between them, stretching River’s arms above her head and anchoring them there. “Took your innocence in this bed. Got you pregnant in this bed.” His mouth skated down the side of her neck. “Took you rough both times, didn’t I? So rough.”
“You always do,” River panted, sliding her feet up and down his backside.
“I always will, doll.” His mouth worked the buttons of her dress, popping them free as he thrust against the cradle of her body, guarded only by her panties. “But the first time I take you wearing my ring, it’s going to be slow. If you can’t feel how much I fucking love you in every drive of my cock, you tell me, so I can slow down even more. You with me?”
“Yes.”
Vaughn transferred his grip on her wrists to his right hand, using the left to remove her panties with painstaking care, testing her wetness the same way, until River was a writhing, begging mess on the bed. She strained in her fiancé’s hold as he covered his column of flesh with latex. Eager. So eager.
“Oh, please…” His first pump into her body was far from gentle. No, he filled her with a vengeance, in one swift drive, grunting loudly into her neck. After that, though…it was all slow, grinding movements, rolling River’s eyes to the back of her head.
“My wife. My River.” His mouth worked hers over with desperate glides of his tongue. His eyes were pinched so tightly shut that River felt moisture gather behind her own. And all the while he entered her with powerful but unhurried thrusts. “You feel my love?”
“I feel it,” she gasped.
“You’ll never be without it another day.” His breath bathed her lips. “You never have been. I’ve loved you up one side of forever. Now I’m going to love you back down the other.”
“I’ll love you forever, too.”
“River.” The rolls of his hips grew jerky, frantic. “Don’t let go of me.”
“Never. Never again.”
Epilogue
Someone once said it takes a village to raise a child. Or maybe just a house full of divorcées…and their extremely patient brother, who honestly just wanted to watch SportsCenter.
River’s father hadn’t thrown them out of the house after all, but River, Vaughn, and Marcy had moved out one week ago, despite the older man’s concession. Without Vaughn having to say a word, River had understood his reluctance to depend on her father’s act
of kindness—and while River and Vaughn had accepted an apology from the man who’d raised her, she shared Vaughn’s urgency to be an independent unit.
They had a while to go before they could afford a house of their own, however, so they were paying weekly rent to Duke and living in the two-bedroom guest house across his backyard. Just for now.
At first they’d been hesitant about imposing, but they’d been given no choice, coming downstairs one morning to find Duke and his sisters packing up the living room of River’s house. It had taken some shuffling of the sisters—two of them were now sharing a bedroom—but Marcy had already thrived in the boisterous, family-oriented environment. Even Duke had volunteered for babysitting duty, which had led to a quiet bond between Marcy and the giant mechanic. Just the other night, River and Vaughn had come home from a rare date night to find Marcy passed out beside Duke on the couch, a football highlight reel playing on the television.
Today was Vaughn’s first official day working at the factory. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, Marcy sitting on the vanity with her teddy bear, River fixing the deep blue tie she’d bought him. He would be addressing the factory floor today and going over the new safety procedures he and his partner Milo had put into place. Oddly enough, Vaughn wasn’t the least bit nervous. What did he have to be apprehensive about when he had the unwavering support of a family he’d never dared envision? God, they were…his everything. And when he looked into River’s eyes, he knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Four years apart might have been utter hell, but they were strong in the wake of his absence. They weren’t losing each other again.
River still worked her assembly line job, but after confiding in Vaughn she missed challenging her mind, she’d enrolled in night classes twice a week. Her goal was to earn her bachelor’s degree—no matter how long it took—and an eventual promotion to floor manager at the factory. And while Vaughn still held on to the staunch belief River had the potential for more, he felt her happiness, right in the center of his chest. When River said she wouldn’t be happy anywhere but with him and Marcy, he believed her, the way he should have done years earlier. They weren’t living in the past now, though. Only the present, while looking forward to the bright future they planned to give their daughter.