When You Came Home With Me: A Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Blue Shore Book 3)

by Wendy Silk

  When I got to Donna’s door, I could hear hammering in the front room. I stepped in, nervous that I’d see Tim back at work. Instead, my eyes took in the sight of Donna’s husband, standing awkwardly on a ladder, trying to finish the carpentry work that Tim had left behind.

  Donna appeared from the kitchen, holding Maggie’s hand, and hefting Sam, her other toddler for the day, on her hip. “Cici,” she began shyly. “I’m really sorry about what happened this morning. I know you’ve been seeing Tim, and it was all just so uncomfortable. I wish I knew what to tell you.” She set Sam next to Maggie on the rug and advanced to me with her arms out. As we hugged, I felt a small measure of comfort. I might have been gone a long time, but this town was still my home, and the people here might still want to welcome me as one of their own.

  Then it happened.

  It was a moment that could have changed my whole life, and it was one I would never forget.

  With a deafening bang, something gave way in the structure that Donna’s husband had been wrangling together. He leaned back with a shout, and his ladder toppled from under him. In the split second before the boards crashed to the ground, both Donna and I could see them teetering. Tim had planned those cubbies to last forever, I thought in that millisecond. The boards were heavy, even massive, as they loomed over the two toddlers who had curiously drifted across the rug into the work area.

  Donna and I both darted toward them. Maggie and dark-haired Sam had sidled over next to Mr. McCahon’s ladder, in that brief moment when Donna and I were hugging. I couldn’t believe they could move so fast. Now there was a two-by-eight crashing down from overhead, and I couldn’t get there in time.

  I knew I couldn’t.

  Something knocked me over, and I ended up on the rug next to Mr. McCahon’s overturned ladder. The ladder itself hadn’t hurt anybody, and it looked like he was going to be fine. I could see him sprawling on the floor, rising up onto his elbow and rubbing his knee.

  When I reached for Maggie, I found that she and Sam were already safely in the arms of the man I’d been trying all day to erase from my mind. Tim had been the force that knocked me over. He had pushed Donna aside at the same time, as he sprinted through her living room to catch the two little ones and pull them away from the toppling, half-finished set of cubbies. It was Tim. My heart was racing, but my mind accepted the fact without question.

  Maggie was his. It made sense to me, deep in my soul, that he had been there to save her.

  “Tim, how did you know?” My words came out in a jumble, dropping loudly into the room that was now still. I looked over and saw that Kate, Donna’s assistant, had appeared in the kitchen doorway, and was holding a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she took in the scene in the front room.

  “How did I know what?” He looked at me as I cradled the two children in my arms. “I came back to give Donna the papers with my plans for the cubbies. I figured she’d paid for that part of it, if she wanted to hire somebody else to finish the job.” He was rubbing his shoulder, where it looked like he’d taken a corner of the falling board. “I guess I got here at the right moment, that’s all.”

  “How did you know I needed you?”

  “Cici, what are you talking about? This isn’t about you.” He had just saved two precious children, but he wasn’t behaving nobly or sympathetically. Instead, he was gruff. “I’m glad I got these two little kids away from the falling boards. God, I am. But it wasn’t because you needed me. Hey, you know what? I needed you this morning, when Donna was firing me without any discussion. But did you speak up for me? Nope, not a word.” He glared at me. “For crying out loud, why are you always here? You have your own house, just next door, which is more than most of us have. Stop hanging out at your neighbor’s house like a gossipy old biddy, judging people for things you don’t understand.”

  When he said the last words, his scathing glance took in both me and Donna. I blanched. Maybe we deserved that.

  Before I said anything to stop him from leaving, he was gone. That was the second time today that he’d marched out that door without my finding the right words to tell him that he should stay.

  Donna came to me and took Sam from my arms, hugging him close on her lap. She put her hand on my knee as I cradled Maggie against my heart.

  “Cici, I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered. Her hand was still shaking from the shock we’d all had. “I was wrong. You need to find him and tell him that.”

  Chapter 15: Tim

  I headed straight up to my apartment over the corner store. No need to stop inside the store. I didn’t need anything there. Certainly not any of those infernal cookies. That’s right, their petty, small town catering company had lost a customer in me.

  Despite my black mood, the idea that I could teach Cici a lesson by boycotting her cookies made me smile. Who would even notice if I stopped buying their food? Who, come to think of it, would even notice if I left Blue Shore and headed back to the South? Sure, I’d come to love it here for the views and the weather. And I liked working for the Bedloes; they were good guys. And, damn, I loved the hotel, with its stunning architecture and old-fashioned attention to detail in its original carpentry.

  But, seriously. I wasn’t fooling anybody, and I figured the whole town was watching our little drama by now. I had decided to stay here because of Cici. Anybody could see that. It was true that I made a point of never discussing her with anybody here, but I’m sure they had their opinions. And maybe their ideas about us were similar to Kelly’s. If everybody around here thought that I was only after Cici for her bank account, then it was just as well that I was never willing to get into a discussion about her. Hell, I didn’t want to know that.

  And to be honest, anybody who thought that was so stupid that I wouldn’t want to talk to them, on any subject. It wasn’t about my pride, or the fact that I would never take anybody’s money from them. It was the simple fact that anyone who thought that about Cici must be a blind fool.

  She was the greatest prize a man could ever want. She was luminous in every way. God, she was so funny that she’d made tears of laughter run down my face on our weekend hikes. She was smarter than I was. I had no problem admitting that her business sense far outstripped mine. Look how much better her company was doing than my own dumbass T&A Construction had done.

  And more than anything else, she was so sexy that she made every atom in my body want her every minute of each day. Since I’d met her two years ago, there hadn’t been a day that had passed by without my imagining her curvy figure in my bed. I woke from dreams of holding her tight, of running my fingers lightly down her back. I spent mornings at work whistling happily because I was still holding in my mind the image of her leaning over to kiss me.

  So it was a simple truth: anybody who thought I was interested in her because of her money was an idiot.

  I was stomping around my tiny main room that doubled as a living area and sleeping space, going over the injustice of it all, when I heard a knock. Damn. It was going to be Mr. Kemble. No doubt he’d heard about Donna firing me, and he’d want to ask me to vacate the apartment.

  Why would Grant have sold me out like that? It was true that I’d freely given him the information about my prison record. I’d had a lot less at stake then, when I first came to town. So, yeah, I filled out his paperwork and marked the box for “felon.” But I thought those forms were supposed to be strictly confidential. I had been so sure that if I did good work around here that my character would speak for itself.

  With a grimace on my face, I flung open my front door. I was ready to confront Mr. Kemble and tell him that I was already planning to leave town. There was no need to issue me with an eviction notice. No need for whatever little complaints he wanted to lodge against me to make sure my name was even more tarnished around here than it already was.

  But it wasn’t my landlord after all.

  “Tim.” It was Cici, leaning against the doorframe. She was breathing heavily, as if s
he’d run up the rickety exterior staircase. “Tim, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t tell Donna she was wrong about you. This morning, I mean. I should have stood up for you.”

  I stepped back in surprise, and she entered the little room. She stood awkwardly in front of me, her hair rumpled, and her eyes alight with an energy I hadn’t seen before.

  “Cici, it’s ok. You don’t have to come here and say this. I know it looks pretty bad. I let you down, I can see that. You asked me all those times what I was hiding, and I should have just told you. Now it’s out, and that’s fine with me. I’m not embarrassed. I went to prison back in Texas. It happened just after we met.”

  “You mean...you mean that’s why you didn’t meet me? Do you mean you went to prison right then?” She sounded dazed, and a little slow on the uptake.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. When you dropped me off at my place, Aaron was in the middle of the stupidest, most inept drug dealing scheme that the world has ever seen. He screwed everything up for both of us. He got me involved, got my truck impounded, and he sold all our things that we needed for our business. My business. Then you know what? I got hauled down to the station same as him when they busted him. Our apartment was full of so much weed that we both did time.”

  Cici stammered. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was no way I wanted to let you know what happened to me back there. Don’t you get it, Cici? I was ashamed. I look at you, and you’ve got it all together. You’re making a success of your business out here. And you always know the right thing to do.”

  She looked down at the worn beige carpet and spoke quietly. “Except for when it comes to you, Tim. I didn’t know that I should have just trusted you.”

  I held my breath.

  She continued, reaching out to lightly hold my hands. “I don’t care at all about the prison stuff. I mean, I care about you. I want to hear what it was like, if you want to tell me. Whenever that might be. But I don’t judge you for it. It wasn’t your fault. I know you’re not a criminal, for goodness’ sake. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that was what happened. All I’ve ever seen you do is the right thing. You keep saving me, and I keep not understanding how much you mean to me.”

  “Cici, come here.” I held her hands tighter in mine and drew her to me. Our hips were touching. The light cotton of her shirt tickled my arms as I began to put my arms around her.

  “No, wait, Tim.” She sounded hesitant, but resolved. “Before we do this, let me tell you my secret.”

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “No, I do. I’ve watched how much it bothers you. You can see that there’s something that I’m not telling you. It’s been hard, but I want to. I want to be as open with you as you’ve been with me. I haven’t known where to begin, but I think I’m ready now.”

  I could see that she was sincere, but it felt wrong. “No, Cici, you really don’t have to. I want you to wait until you know you’re ready.”

  Before she could say anything more about it, I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers. At first, our kiss was gentle. It wasn’t the first time our lips had touched since we’d been seeing each other in Blue Shore. We’d shared some kisses, but we’d always known that we were going to hold ourselves back. It was an agreement between us that we’d save the really good stuff for when we had dated for a more conventional period of time.

  Oh boy, we’d been missing out.

  As I felt a surge of lust in me, I realized that it was familiar because it was how I’d felt about Cici that night long ago, when she’d led me into her apartment and we’d spent the whole night, and the morning after, making love. Only now it was even stronger. I knew more about her, and I knew I wanted her with my whole being. Back then, she and I had thought we felt something special between us. This time, it was like a fireball ignited around us, enclosing us in a dimension where we felt utter certainty.

  This woman was mine. She was my life, right here in my arms. Everything I would ever do would be for her.

  As my feelings grew stronger, my lips on Cici’s were rougher, more searching. She leaned into me, murmuring, “I feel it, too, Tim.”

  My lips twitched into a smile as they traveled down her neck. “I didn’t say anything, Cici.”

  She laughed throatily, letting her head relax backwards as I kissed and licked down her collarbone to her round breasts. “You don’t need to. I always know what you’re thinking. We do belong to each other. This is right, I’m sure of it.”

  Her words ended in a squeak as I took one of her nipples into my mouth. I rolled it against my teeth, lightly tugging it. Just as a weird question began to form itself in the back of my mind, Cici moved decisively away from me. She pulled me with her, moving backwards to the couch where I slept, and she dropped down onto it, bringing me on top of her. Her hands fumbled at my jeans, urgently working to free my cock. I wanted her more than anything that I had ever wanted in my life before.

  Cici wriggled against the couch, moving her light cotton skirt out of the way and tugging off her panties. She found my rock hard dick and guided it into herself. The slippery heat between us was exquisite. There had been so many nights that I’d remembered this and imagined being with her again. I was finding that I’d forgotten how intoxicating her body was. Being inside her was a whirlwind of passion for me, bringing both my cock and my feelings for her to a fervent pitch that exploded all at once.

  Her hands were gripping my hips as I thrust into her, holding me ever tighter against her, pulling me into her. As I came inside her, she gasped and clenched in her own release. We slowed and caught our breath, looking around at the tangle that our bodies made on the worn out old couch.

  She reached up to touch my face. “Tim, I love you.” Her eyes were full of truth as she looked into mine.

  “Cici, I love you. I always have. You’re everything to me.” I was embarrassed to add this, but I had to. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a condom. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Cici gave a wry smile that was, oddly, tinged with something I couldn’t understand. “No, it’s ok. It’s a safe time for me. We’re fine.”

  I stroked her long hair gently. “I intend to take good care of you, always. We’ll be more careful next time, I promise. I do have some, you know. I bought them in case we...well, in case this happened.”

  She raised up onto her elbows, pushing me off her slightly. “When do you think ‘next time’ might be? Maybe half an hour?” Her broad grin was bawdy enough that it made me chuckle along with her.

  I reached for her, this time rolling us both down onto the floor.

  “Maybe even sooner.”

  Chapter 16: Cici

  It felt like all I could do these days was to hum. I was so happy that I sang under my breath while I picked up Maggie’s toys from the living room floor. I whistled as I bustled around the kitchen, cooking her dinner. And I hummed all the time. All day long, when I was clocked in at our commercial kitchen, when I was loading muffins in the car to take them to an event, and even when I was doing my careful little drop-off dance at Donna’s, still trying to avoid arriving there after Tim had started his carpentry work.

  I kept promising myself that the part about avoiding letting Tim see that Maggie was my baby was going to end soon. I had tried to tell him about Maggie, I had. But it was painful to try to find the words. I’d have to tell him that he’d missed out on so many things with her. Being with me during the pregnancy, seeing the miracle that had been her birth. I’d convinced her to start nursing, to try her first solid foods, to take her first steps, all without him. I couldn’t imagine the pain of being told that I’d been absent for so many bits of her babyhood.

  I was going to tell him about Maggie, though. I was.

  For the time being, though, I was glad that I would be able to stop worrying that he’d see me with Maggie when I was at Donna’s, because he was finishing that work today. It really didn’t seem possible t
hat he’d never noticed that Maggie was always running to me when I was there. Did he think that I was just a kid magnet? That I stopped in so often because I was friends with Donna, and then the little ones were just excited to see me? Maybe that could make sense, if he really had no inkling of the truth.

  Today, though, he was officially completing the cubbies and bookcase project. He’d removed the sections that Mr. McCahon had put in, and then finished the thing properly, according to his own meticulous plans. When Donna had rehired him, she had apologized profusely, not only for taking the job away without hearing his side, but also for her poor judgment in asking her husband to try to take over the project. She’d shaken her head, earnestly pointing out that if her husband had been any good at that kind of work, he’d have been doing it in the first place. We were trying to put the near accident behind us, but I knew that both Donna and I struggled with visions of what might have happened to the kids.

  “Kelly, are you still on for taking Maggie over to that petting zoo today?” I called over to her as I put the finishing touches on my newly tidied living room. Today was the day that I was finally going to invite Tim into my home.

  “Of course I am,” she answered. “Listen, I know we’ve had some trouble getting along recently. I think it’s normal, with the business, and everything. It’s just a lot of different stresses on our friendship.” She paused, as if to gather courage to say her next words. “But I am sorry about what happened with Tim. I guess I panicked, and I thought that I needed to tell Donna what I knew, right away. I’m really sorry that it hurt you.”

  “Nope,” I breezed past her, still humming, to drop some junk mail in the trash. “It turned out to be totally fine. Tim and I are closer than ever now, you know.”

  Kelly smiled at me. “Yes, I can see that. I’m glad that you’re happy. I really am.” She was pulling snacks from the cupboard, packing a bag to take with her on her outing with Maggie. “Ok, I’m ready. I can see that it’s important to you that Mags and I get out of here before Tim gets over. I don’t mean to get into your business, when I know things haven’t been that great between us lately, but can I ask you something?”