He reached down and righted his clothes before joining me on the floor. I took his fingers in mine, and he lifted our entwined hands, kissing my knuckles.
“You were right,” I said before he could speak.
His brows dipped. “Mind telling me about what?” he asked lazily, his face still flushed.
“What could happen when I step out of my comfort zone.” I bit my lip to keep from grinning. “You have no idea what you just did for me.”
He cleared his throat. “I could say the same to you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Stone
I shoved my toothbrush in my mouth. It had been a long day of shooting, and I’d been distracted, half blind with lust as I remembered how it felt when Muriella had her mouth around me the night before, and frustrated that she still wouldn’t talk to me about her past. Now that we’d broken the physical boundaries, I could imagine a time when all the boundaries between us were gone. If she told me everything, she wouldn’t have to live with it all on her own anymore. Easing her pain was about the most important thing to me in the world at this point.
My phone rang from the bedroom. I spit and rinsed off the toothbrush, tossing it on the counter before I hustled to catch the call.
“Hey, Granddaddy.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, son. I know you’re working.”
“It’s okay. We’ve wrapped for the night.” I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Ruby found the letter about the hearing.”
“Oh hell.” I flopped backward and covered my eyes with my arm.
“She’s promised not to say anything to anyone. At the moment, that includes me.” He sighed.
“It’s late there.”
“We had a heifer fall ill. Mitch is doing all he can, but we’ve been preoccupied with that. I left the damn letter on my desk. Your grandmama’s a snoop.” All the affection he possessed filtered through his aggravation. He loved her all the more for being exactly the way she was.
“Mitch said anything to you?”
“Nope. Been awfully quiet, but never mentioned a word to me about…” He didn’t finish the thought. I didn’t particularly want to think or hear the name Randall Hedley myself.
“Mama and Daddy still don’t know?” Only so long that would last given the media coverage that just wouldn’t die down.
“Your mama was on the horn a long time with Beth Birkin last night. If they talked about it, she didn’t say nothin’. I unplugged the router and loosened some wires on the satellite dish so they won’t find out from the TV or internet.”
Damn it all to hell. This situation was spiraling out of control so fast I couldn’t catch it. And with nobody talking about any of it, I was all the more suspicious of just what they knew.
“Maybe we should just tell them. They might see a way out of this we don’t.”
“No. They’ve got enough to worry about. Telling them at this stage ain’t gonna help matters. It’s bad enough your grandmama found out.” Every word he spoke was carved out of worry.
“I don’t like lying,” I admitted.
“It’s called protection, son. Sometimes that means doing stuff you don’t like. What do you like less? Lyin’ or hurtin’ your family?”
When he put it that way, it was hard to argue.
“Heifer gonna be okay?” At the moment, that was a much more palatable topic.
“Think so. Running a low grade fever. Mitch says she’s got a urinary tract infection.”
“Glad to hear it’s nothing he can’t fix.”
“Had a buyer fly in today to look at that stud. He wants us to work with him a little more. Truth be told, I’m not sure I want to let him go.” The old rocking chair on his porch creaked against the wooden floorboards.
“Then don’t.”
He made a satisfied noise after what sounded like him taking a swig of a drink. “Anyway, it’s been a madhouse around here. I was just about to get to the mail when Ruby came in here hollerin’ and wavin’ that letter like a madwoman.”
I nearly groaned at that image. “What’s she gonna do?”
“Lord only knows. She’s like a loose mule.” That was for damn sure. “This doesn’t look good, Stone. We don’t have enough time to get our shit together.”
“I’m working on it. You just take care of Grandmama.”
“Oh, sure. Take the easy stuff for yourself,” he grumbled.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight, son.”
I dropped the phone beside me and pressed my head into the mattress. Grandmama knew. Mitch knew something was up. And there was a good chance Mama did too. I half expected to hear from my sister. Mercifully, she’d left this disaster well enough alone.
“Well, shit.”
I pushed off the bed and wandered down the hall. Tapping my knuckles against Muriella’s open door, I leaned against the frame. She poked her head out of the bathroom, hair pulled back, towel in hand.
“Want a drink?”
“I’d love some wine.” She dabbed her face with the towel.
Rapt, I drank in every move as if it were the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. She never wore a lot of makeup, but her face was free of anything now. Her cinnamon skin was radiant. My eyes drifted down the column of her neck to the peek of her chest the silk pajamas provided.
My cock stirred to life, and I willed it down. I wanted to talk before we were physical again, but he had other plans.
“I’ll pour you a glass,” I said, my throat scratchy.
She gave me an odd look, but I took off before she could ask. I poured a healthy glass of whiskey and slugged back a swallow. If those little sounds she’d made while sucking me off were any indication of what was to come when I licked her into oblivion, I was in deep trouble.
“Sonofabitch,” I said under my breath as I uncorked a bottle of her favorite pinot noir.
More of my fantasies was exactly what I needed to forget about the rest of this shit, but I couldn’t live them out right now and shouldn’t even be thinking about them. Not when we were still vulnerable.
“My Grandmama found the letter about the hearing,” I blurted as soon as she entered the kitchen.
“She didn’t take it well?” Muriella picked up the glass of wine I slid across the island toward her.
“That’s putting it mildly.” I downed a little more of my drink and set the crystal on the counter more forcefully than I meant to.
“At least now she can help you two.” She gave me an I told you so look I didn’t want to see. “What does Mitch think about this?”
“Don’t know.” I shrugged and volleyed my glass between my hands on the granite surface.
“They didn’t tell him either?” She didn’t bother to hide her surprise.
“No, and it’s better that way.” Granddaddy was right. We couldn’t hurt them, especially when there was nothing any of them could do.
“How can you say that? I bet Miss Ruby was terribly hurt about this when she found out.”
A twinge of regret tugged at me. “Mad as a wet settin’ hen is more like it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Furious.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “And you’re still not going to tell your brother?”
“Uh-uh.” I polished off my whiskey and rinsed out the glass.
The glare I got was incinerating. “I can’t believe you think it’s better for them to just wake up one day and find that the power company owns the ranch.”
“It ain’t gonna to get to that point. I’ll fix it.”
“How? So far you don’t have anything.” She dared me to argue with her over the rim of her goblet.
“Zegas is working on it.”
“He doesn’t have anything either,” she said into her glass.
“What am I supposed to do?” I threw my hands up.
“Tell your family what’s happening,” she fired
back. “You’ve seen what secrets can do. Right now, your behavior is no different than Daniel’s.”
I was insulted she’d compare my situation to his when it wasn’t even close to the same. “If it protects my family, so be it.”
She straightened her shoulders. “You’ve seen what that’s done to me. I can’t believe you’d want to do the same to them.”
“It’s different,” I insisted, voice rising.
“I suppose it depends on your perspective,” she said through gritted teeth. “We’ve made a lot of progress in our relationship, but I assure you I won’t ever tolerate being lied to.”
My jaw worked. “I don’t see you jumping up and down to tell me your secrets.” I clamped my mouth shut. Wrong time to bring it up, but it was too late.
Her face turned an angry shade of red. “I told you why I can’t do it.”
I folded my arms over my chest and just looked at her, not saying a word.
“You’ve seen what it’s like for me, but you continue to push.” She lifted her chin in a stubborn set.
“This thing we’ve got, it won’t work if you can’t talk to me about what happened to you,” I fired back.
“Just like you won’t talk to them?”
I hauled in a deep breath to steady my temper. “If I can fix it before they find out, that’s what I want to do.”
“It’s the wrong thing.” Her voice was strength and surety.
“And it’s not right for you to hide from me, either. We’re together now, except you aren’t all the way with me.”
“I am!” she shouted. “But I won’t let my past touch you.”
“It already has.” I softened my tone, desperate to make her understand. “I told you I want it all. Good. Bad. Ugly.”
“I told you I can’t give that to you.” Her knuckles turned white around the back of the barstool.
“You promised you’d try.”
“Last night wasn’t good enough?” she asked in disgust.
I pressed my lips together; this island between us was too great a distance. Rounding the counter, I slid up next to her. I touched her cheek, and she recoiled slightly.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve never felt closer to you.” I swallowed hard. “But it’s driven home that I want more. I need you to trust me, not just with your body, but with your heart and mind. There’s this wall between us that won’t come down until you let me into your world. Your whole world.”
She turned a deeper shade of red.
“How about this for truth?” Her voice was lethally quiet. “You want a family. Well, that will never happen with me.”
Something inside me stilled. I hadn’t seen that coming, but if she just trusted me, we could make her dreams come true. Even the ones she believed impossible. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“What?” She stared at me like I’d sprouted another head.
“What I mean is, there’s more than one way of doing something. Ever think about adoption?” I reached for her, but she batted me away.
“No.”
“It would be okay with me.”
“You’d be okay with not having your own children?” she challenged.
“I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I wouldn’t like to. But just because I don’t share DNA with a kid doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be mine or I’d love them any less.” I leaned against the counter. “If you wanted, we could do in vitro fertilization. I’m up for whatever makes you happy.”
She white-knuckled the barstool. “You can’t talk like this.”
“Because you see the same possibilities I do?”
Unrestrained fury exploded into a scream. “I can’t have children!”
The silence that followed her scream was deafening. Tears pooled in her dark eyes, begging me to take away her pain. In a rush, she disappeared. A door slammed, and I flinched.
The one thing she wanted most, she couldn’t have. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I hurried after her and hesitated with my hand lifted at her door. No noise came from the room. Did she need me to be with her or to let her be? Because God knew, I needed her more than anything.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Muriella
I sat huddled on my bed in the same spot all night. The sun peeked through the windows at dawn until it bathed the room. If I didn’t move soon, I’d be late for school, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. In all the years of being a teacher’s aide, I’d never missed a day without adequate notice. But the fight with Stone had nearly crushed me. I’d warned him when things got difficult, he wouldn’t want to deal with them. That’s exactly what had happened.
We’d spent the night apart. I’d been too afraid of nightmares and too upset to sleep. He’d left me alone, and I was confused by how much that bothered me. I was the one who’d shut my door. He was so vigilant about letting me control the pace. I’d sent the ‘do not enter’ signal. He’d simply abided by it. For once, I wished he hadn’t.
I unfolded myself and slid from the bed, the children motivation enough to get me moving. If I hurried, I wouldn’t be late.
When I opened my door, Stone was sitting outside of it with his knees up and his arms resting on them. Tired eyes met mine.
“Have you been out here all night?”
“I tried to go to bed but couldn’t sleep.” He roughed a hand through his messy hair. “Wasn’t sure if you wanted me in or out. Figured I’d done enough damage for one night, so I ended up here.”
“I didn’t sleep either,” I confessed, sliding down the wall to join him on the floor.
“I’m sorry I took out my frustration about the ranch on you.”
“We’re both tense. I’m not handling myself well.”
“If I’d known, I never would have brought up anything about kids.” His voice was nothing short of pure anguish.
I placed a hand on his arm. “In the heat of the moment, it came out wrong. Physically, I can bear children, at least I think I can.” I tapped my temple. “Up here, I have too much going on. I won’t bring an innocent child into that.”
He dropped his chin to his chest. “I thought—I thought the worst. That someone had done that to you.” His eyes glistened when he looked at me. “Guess it doesn’t matter the reason if either way you can’t have them.”
I hadn’t considered that, really tried not to think of the reasons at all. “I understand if this changes things between us.”
“After everything, you honestly believe I’d walk? I thought I’d made it clear.” His jaw tightened. “I’m here for you. Only you.”
“Do you want to hear something ridiculous?” I didn’t wait for his reply. “I spent half the night angry with you because you didn’t come after me. I’m the one that shut you out.”
“I’m always afraid I’m one move away from losing you for good.” He stretched out his legs and winced as he rubbed feeling back into his thighs. “Can you meet me halfway here? I’m trying like hell to respect your boundaries, let you run the show. But if you need me, come to me. I’m right here, argument or not.”
I planted my hands on the floor. “I need to get to school.”
He nodded, mouth flat as I stood. “I’ll drive you.”
I stared out the living room window from my favorite chair as a taxi cab with a wreath fixed to the front zoomed past. I was exhausted. The lack of sleep had finally caught up to me, but my mind wouldn’t stop working overtime. Stone hadn’t been able to pick me up from school. At some point on my way home, it occurred to me that meeting him halfway was a continual process, not a step to get past and leave behind.
I’d thought being physically intimate was enough for us to move forward. When he’d climaxed in my mouth, I’d felt victory. I thought I’d won and could simply lay down and be happy with the accomplishment. And I had won, but it was only one step in the arduous climb I had to make. Up ahead loomed an even bigger mountain. If I took the risk, made the ascent, what would it
feel like to reach the top of it? Where would Stone and I be as a couple? I couldn’t help but believe we’d be stronger.
I thought I was the only one having to do the climbing, but that wasn’t true. We were on this journey together. Every steep cliff I clung to, he did as well. Every amazing view, we shared. Sometimes I pulled him up, and sometimes he carried me. We had to trust one another if we were going to make it to the summit.
He trusted me implicitly. I was the one with the issues.
The front door clicked closed. Keys landed on the console table with a clang. Boots thudded across the hardwood floors toward the kitchen. I smiled to myself. Everybody looked for me there first.
“Muriella? Darlin’, you home?”
Something clicked in me. The rightness of us wrapped my soul in a protective blanket. My eyes stung, and I blinked a few times to clear my vision. “I’m home.”
He looked tired, as if the day had gotten the best of him, but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Slowly, he sauntered across the room, eyes trained on me.
Meet him halfway.
I scrambled from the chair and glided toward him. In the center of the space, we stopped. He stared down at me. I blinked up at him. Then I rolled up on my toes and kissed the corner of his mouth.
His brow furrowed, but he bent and kissed my forehead.
“Hi,” I said shyly.
He brushed a lock of hair from my face. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“Where do you come up with these sayings?”
“One day I’ll show you.” Stone looked toward the built-in bookcases behind me. “That record player you’ve got over there. Does it work?”
I glanced back. “It used to.”
“Let’s pick something out.” He laced his fingers through mine and led me to the shelf jam-packed with records. “You have anything in mind?”
“Not really.”
He put our index fingers on the spines. “Close your eyes.”
Three Dates (Paths To Love Book 2) Page 18