Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)

by Anna DeStefano

  “Okay.” She slid out of the booth and stood next to her uncle, not letting herself care what her mom would think if she found out about milk shakes with Kristen, or even Chloe calling Ms. Hemmings Kristen, or Dad driving the assistant principal back to her car.

  You’re an amazing kid, Dad had said. Chloe hugged him around the neck, feeling amazing and loving him for making tonight happen.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  Kristen walked into her condo’s living room to find Law deep in thought on her couch. She’d offered to make coffee while he took a quick shower and changed into the spare workout gear he kept in the truck. She’d sensed he needed a little space before they had the conversation they’d both known was coming.

  They’d ridden back to the park in virtual silence, the cab of his truck warm—from the heater he’d turned on for her, from Chloe’s tentative acceptance of the closeness growing between them, and from their anticipation of what lay ahead.

  Are you sure about this? he’d asked Kristen, after he’d walked her to her Mustang. I won’t be able to stay the night. I don’t want to rush you. And…

  She’d silenced him, putting her finger to his lips, and then she’d kissed him there. I’m a big girl, Law. I know how to say no, if no is what I want. I’m still nervous about a lot of things between us. But not about tonight.

  She set their mugs on her coffee table. She’d changed, too, into jeans and a light sweater.

  “Black?” she asked.

  He’d been watching her, in an absent way, from the moment she’d stepped through the door from the kitchen. His expression shifted from disconnected to devilish now. His grin followed.

  “My thoughts?” he asked.

  “Your coffee. I guessed black was how you liked it.” She shook her head. “You were right. We don’t even know how the other one likes their coffee.”

  “But I know you like strawberry milk shakes.” He tugged her down beside him. “And I can’t wait to see what else makes you fly your freak flag.”

  She settled into him and tucked her head against his shoulder. Neither of them reached for their drinks. She suspected their mugs would still be sitting there, cold, when he left hours from now.

  And Law’s having to leave was okay with her, as long as he came back—just as she’d be happy to stay right where they were the whole time, doing just this, if that was what felt good to him for now.

  Something was troubling him.

  “You have a piano,” he said.

  She inhaled and accepted the distraction for what it was. No use overthinking it. If Law needed more time, he needed more time. She looked across her living room at the baby grand she’d found in an antique store in Athens. Shiny and black and majestic, it dominated the curtainless bay window that framed her landscaped backyard.

  “Yes,” she said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “I didn’t know you played.”

  “I don’t. Not a note. I always wanted to. I thought I’d take lessons sooner or later. But it’s never happened. I don’t regret bringing it home, though. I’ve always loved music so much. It’s…comforting to have it here.”

  He chuckled. The sound rumbled from inside him to her, where her back was pressed to his chest. “Maybe it’s been waiting for me.”

  She thought that maybe it had. “You’ll play it for me?”

  “One day. Who else have you had entertain you with it?”

  That was an interesting segue.

  “No one has,” she told him.

  Law ran his hand up her arm. “You’ve never dated a musician before?”

  “I’ve never brought a date to my home before. This is my private world. No other man’s been here but you.”

  His hand kept up its soothing glide, down her arm to her elbow and wrist, and then his fingers found hers.

  After a while, he said, “I have a confession to make, too.”

  She nodded. She’d been expecting as much.

  “It’s about me and Libby.”

  That she hadn’t expected. But she’d opened up the ex-files, so she waited. When he didn’t go on, she asked, “Can you tell me why you’ve stuck by her for so long, even the last year after your divorce, when she’s done so much to hurt you and Chloe?”

  He had to have loved his ex-wife very much once upon a time.

  “I guess…” he said. “I guess I was just too young when we met to know what real love was. And once we had Chloe, I wanted to make sure my daughter had the best family we could give her. I didn’t trust myself to give her that on my own. I wanted her to have her mother.”

  “Trust is important. It’s everything. I’ve never done it very well, either.”

  He caressed her cheek. The palm of his free hand smoothed down her other arm, brushing the side of her breast and beguiling her into wanting this—them—even more.

  “You’ve trusted this place,” he said. “Chandlerville. You had the shooting at school dropped in your lap. That would have scared most folks off. And if Roy Griffin had had his way, he’d have had everyone believing it was all your fault. But you fought back. You fought to stay. And here you are. The community can’t get enough of you now.”

  “I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last year.” Once or twice, she’d almost let herself leave, no matter what the school board decided about how well she had or hadn’t done her job. “In the end, I couldn’t go. Maybe I should have. It’s been hard ever since to—”

  “Keep your distance? I’m glad you didn’t. You reached out to me last year, you let me get closer, and look at all the good that’s come into my life. You, Fin, the Dixons, Dan, and how much better Chloe and I will be doing from now on.”

  “Yeah. But if you need space now, that’s fine. I totally understand. We don’t have to do this tonight. If you need to slow things down again…” She forced herself to go on. “If there’s still more for you to figure out with Libby before you can be with me and not regret it later, let me know now. I’m falling…I’m falling for you, and I’m not going to be able to stop if we go any further. So don’t let me, if you can still put on the brakes. This is a lot for me. I haven’t let myself be intimate with many men. And when I have, it’s never felt…this important.”

  He lifted her face for a tender kiss. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This is new for me, too. I’ve never…Except for Libby, I’ve never…”

  Kristen sat up, pushing herself around until she was facing him. She needed to be certain she’d heard him right.

  He looked so sexy, his hair wet and curling from his shower, his beard growing in and making him look rough-and-tumble in his wrinkled gym clothes. And his eyes were storm clouds piercing into her, promising her the dangerous, unbridled connection she craved.

  “Libby was your first?” How could someone like Law, who in his teens and twenties must have looked and behaved as bad as a bad boy could, not have had every woman he’d wanted, every chance he’d gotten?

  “She’s been my only,” said her reformed rebel. “I met her practically my first day in college. And before that…Living at home with my parents didn’t exactly make me want to get close to anyone else.”

  Kristen shook her head. “And even since…”

  “Even since my divorce? There’s been no one. Libby had my heart once, a long time ago. I’ve never trusted anyone else with it. Until you.”

  Kristen shook her head again.

  His heart. He was giving her his heart? Suddenly she was in his lap again, facing him, kissing him and settling her body against Law’s, needing to get closer until there was only the needing of him, wanting him, both of them open and vulnerable and no longer thinking, no worrying, just feeling.

  “Be with me, Kristen,” he said.

  He wasn’t promising her forever, she warned herself. He might back away again tomorrow. But he was giving
her his heart tonight.

  “Let me love you,” he said. “Let me show you how good we can be.”

  Law curled Kristen into his arms and carried her to her bedroom, feeling stronger than he had in his whole life. And weaker. He wanted her. He wanted her to want him. But more than that, he wanted them. This moment, this closeness, he wanted it to stretch and stretch into a symphony that they’d never stop playing.

  He settled her onto the softness of her comforter, pressing her body into the mattress and covering her with his. Somewhere along the way, their clothes had disappeared and there was nothing but skin against skin, smooth and rough, tender and hard, her and him. They didn’t know each other, not well enough for sinking into her, becoming one with her, to feel so right. But there was nowhere on earth he’d rather be.

  “You’re perfect.” He kissed her, loved her, deeper and longer. When she shuddered and arched into him, all desire and desperation, he sent his body deeper still. “I never thought…All these years, I never dreamed you’d want me like this.”

  “I…” Her long, endless legs slid up his thighs, her knees hugged his hips, and she found his rhythm, found him, as if they’d been this close countless times. “I didn’t know how to stop wanting you. I couldn’t make it stop. Please…” She gasped, her bottom filling his hands, her sweet center opening, accepting more. “Please don’t ever let it stop.”

  “Never,” Law whispered into her ear.

  She was a promise. She was forever. This was a healing forever, for both of them. They may have only just met, but he had to have her now, tomorrow, always.

  “I’m never going to stop, love,” he whispered. He felt her passion become demanding, overwhelming, calling to his. “I’m never going to stop. I…”

  She trembled. Her lips clung, and then they slid to his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin, marking him, her body clenching his until he couldn’t hold back another second. Driving them both toward completion, feeling her arms tighten around him, holding him, taking him, he pressed Kristen to his heart and held her there…

  Until they both fell.

  “I love you,” he said, as they came undone, knowing she wasn’t ready to say it back, but trusting that she felt it just the same. Because being in Kristen’s arms, he knew now, was the home he’d been searching for his entire life. “God, I love you…”

  “Congratulations,” Law said to Walter and Julia a week later.

  He and Chloe were working their way through the couple’s receiving line at Pockets. The Davises had just renewed their vows. They were about to kick off the community Valentine’s party that they were hosting. There was a dance floor and a DJ and tons of food and decorations and couples and families eager for a night of fun. It was going to be another unforgettable Chandlerville event.

  “You’re so pretty.” His daughter patted the sleeve of Julia’s soft, white-and-red casual dress. Julia had insisted she’d chosen it for a party, not a wedding. Walter had worn a suit, rather than a tux. But Julia was glowing like a bride, regardless. “Thank you for the flowers,” Chloe said.

  “Well, thank you for being one of our flower girls,” Julia responded. She and Walter had decided last-minute to buy three of the girls from Mimosa Lane—Chloe included, now that she and Law were at Dan’s—a bouquet of tiny pink rosebuds to hold during the ceremony. The delicate flowers complemented the larger red ones Walter had presented to Julia, before they’d walked toward the front of the room, through the crowd of friends who’d come to help celebrate. “You and Polly and Sally are so special to us. We thought it would be a nice surprise.”

  The Davises had written their own vows, and they’d taken only a few moments of everyone’s time for the renewal ceremony—not wanting to monopolize the party, Walter had insisted. But Law had watched as their boys and the entire community smiled and held back emotion, while Walter and Julia reminded themselves of why they wanted another twenty-five years together—to learn and grow and fail and succeed and never give up on the love they’d found. Not a single person there had minded the delay in getting to the night’s festivities.

  He’d watched Kristen, too. She’d stood beside him, her hand in his for all the world to see. She’d struggled to keep her silent tears to herself. And even though she hadn’t yet returned his vow of love, he’d found himself wanting the same thing he had that first night they’d made love, and every other moment they’d spent together.

  Forever.

  When he looked at Kristen—when his daughter did, and he saw Chloe thriving again, in part because of how she’d accepted Kristen into their lives—he knew he’d made the right decision, no matter how increasingly agitated Libby had become.

  After Libby had backed down from the scene she’d caused at soccer practice, she’d been careful to keep her litany of complaints about his new relationship limited to his lawyer and to Law in private. She seemed to have rededicated herself to being on her best behavior in the community. There’d been no more public displays, at least as far as he’d heard. Chloe hadn’t said anything, either, and she was opening up to Law more each day. But Libby wasn’t happy, and a day didn’t go by that she didn’t give him an earful about just how selfishly he was ruining her and Chloe’s lives.

  Regardless, he had to believe they were going to work through this. And he was going to convince Kristen to believe in their relationship.

  Since those first few hours at her condo, they’d stolen as much private time as they could. It was never long enough. But every second in each other’s arms had been more perfect than the last. She’d find her way to trusting him, the way she’d said she’d wanted him.

  “You ready for your surprise performance?” Walter shook Law’s hand and clapped him on the back. “The mic’s all yours whenever you want it.”

  “Are you going to do it now, Dad?” Chloe asked. “I want my friends to hear.”

  Law gazed through the crowd still milling about the Pockets café where Walter and Julia had staged their ceremony. Julia had decorated every wall and booth and counter with enough glittery hearts and Cupid cutouts and carnations and crepe paper to tempt even the most jaded of souls to overdose on romance. Kristen had wandered away with Mallory a few minutes ago. Her friend looked as if she might deliver her baby at any moment.

  He didn’t see them nearby or beyond the café, where activities for the kids and family bowling were being set up by Walter and Julia’s staff. But he knew Kristen would be there—close enough to hear him when he started to sing. And he hoped, with her love for music, that her song—the one he’d been tinkering with for more than a week—would tell her everything he hadn’t yet been able to say.

  “I’m going to do it soon,” he told his daughter.

  Chloe had stayed up late with him the last few nights, even though there’d been school the next morning, helping him get ready for this.

  Kristen’s going to love it, she’d said. Don’t be so worried.

  Law saw Dan coming their way—his brother, who’d taken Law into his home and back into his life, and even gone with Law to his first Al-Anon meeting over the weekend. He was bringing Law’s guitar to him now, the way he’d brought back so many of the good memories of their early childhood together.

  “I’ll be ready soon,” Law said.

  “No, you won’t.” Walter squeezed Law’s shoulder. “But Kristen’s worth taking the risk for. She’ll love whatever you’ve come up with.”

  “I’m supposed to be singing a song for the two of you.” Law glanced suspiciously between Walter and Julia, wondering just how much of what he was about to do had actually been their idea, when they’d approached him with the request to perform a song for their renewal ceremony.

  “We appreciate it so much.” Julia’s smile was bright and far too smug. “But you’ve got more inside you than just one song, Law Beaumont. We’re thrilled you’re going to be sharing your talent with us,
and with Kristen. Let her know how much she means to you. It’s the perfect way to kick off the Valentine’s party.”

  “Can I tell everyone about your surprise now?” Chloe begged him as Dan handed over Law’s guitar. “Can I at least tell Fin?”

  Law nodded, only half listening. Her happiness was a fragile thing still. He couldn’t stop worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing, and setting her back. Or that Libby would find a way to shatter the good he was finally doing for their daughter.

  “Fin!” Chloe ran toward her friend. Fin was standing beside Thomas and a few of the guys from their soccer team. “Guess what…”

  “She’s getting better,” his brother said, watching Chloe race away. “You’re making sure of that.”

  “Yeah.”

  Law shook Dan’s hand. He’d never felt more proud of anything he’d done, or more humbled by how lucky he was. He wouldn’t have accomplished any of this without his brother’s help.

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  “You’re welcome.” Dan gave him a one-shoulder hug before heading back toward Charlotte and Sally.

  Law looked for Kristen again, suddenly as eager to get started as his daughter. It was crazy, what he had planned, after not doing this sort of thing since he’d been a kid himself. But music had a way of wanting what it wanted, and his music was back. The song playing over and over in his mind needed to be heard, by one special lady in particular.

  He headed for the mic near where the DJ had set up in the café, picking up a stool and carrying it with him, so he could sit for the most important—and the most terrifying—performance of his life.

  “You’re looking—” Kristen started to say.

  “Huge?” Mallory interjected. “Yeah, I think I’ve gotten bigger since you saw me at school today. It feels like he’s putting on a pound an hour now, and every single one of them is pressing on my bladder.”