by Liz Crowe
“So, where is everyone?” Rosalee poured some of the lemony, mint-laced tea and sat, holding the cool glass to her forehead.
“Anton, Kieran, and Dom are out in the barn, prepping the haunted house,” Lindsay said, frankly appraising the future in-laws at her kitchen table.
“Aiden is still at home.” Renee pressed a linen napkin to her lips, her expression smug.
Rosalee raised an eyebrow at Lindsay, who shrugged.
“I won’t let him out of the house until he sends that book out to more agents. It’s not gonna sell itself, I tell him. I’ve been doing my research.” She examined her perfect manicure. “Silly boy keeps telling me he wants to ‘revise’ it, but I tell him that’s just making excuses. Rejection is hard, but I know how to console him. One of these times it’s gonna hit, I just know it, and we’ll be off to New York City for a fancy book-release party.”
Rosalee let the last words flow through her like water until the throw-away “I know how to console him” comment stuck in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She stood, noting Angelique behind the other two future Mrs. Loves making cross-eyed faces.
“Well, you are a very successful businesswoman, Renee.” Lindsay patted the woman’s hand, making what Rosalee figured had to be a valiant effort not to rip into her for bossing Aiden around. “That boy,” she emphasized the word while smiling, “can surely use your more mature advice.”
Angelique snorted and Rosalee coughed to smother the urge to laugh at the not-so-subtle dig. Renee blinked. Lindsay Love had always been a force to be reckoned with. Even diminished by cancer, she remained bound and determined to conquer.
“You do realize,” Melinda said. “That the odds of him actually getting a publishing contract, even after finding an agent are slim to nonexistent. We have a new partner at the firm who specializes in entertainment law, mostly music. He claims that the difference between the number of books that could be published, compared to the ones that are, is vast.” She sipped her tea and somehow managed to appear superior to everyone in the room in her ragged out T-shirt.
“Oh, I have every faith in my Aiden.” Renee spoke to Lindsay but kept her gaze on Rosalee, her emphasis on the possessive loud and clear.
“Okay, Mama,” Angelique interjected, breaking the obvious awkward moment between the two women. “These are done. Where do they go?” She held a basket full of goodie bags.
“Oh, yes, all right then, let’s take them out to the barn. Rosalee, why don’t you come with us? These lovely ladies can hold down the fort a bit longer.”
Melinda heaved a huge sigh. Renee frowned and tapped her finger on the table.
“Sure thing. I need to run those decorations out there anyway.” Rosalee stopped, remembering Jeffrey, hopefully by now asleep. “Um.” She sat, wondering which of these women she’d trust to watch out for her cat, much less her son.
“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Renee stood to rinse out her glass. “I just can’t wait to get a sweet little baby of my own, you know.”
Lindsay coughed then smiled at the room in general before ducking out into the hall.
“Thanks.” Rosalee checked the time, making a mental note not to linger out in the barn long.
By eight o’clock the party was in full swing. Aiden arrived in his Batman costume. Renee had donned a slinky, tight, custom-made Catwoman suit. Melinda had found Kieran, and they were sitting in one corner of the barn in something resembling Popeye and Olive Oyl, holding glasses of lemonade. The woman had her upper lip curled in a permanent sneer at the chaos of kids, costumes, and candy.
Rosalee tried to ignore them all, but Renee had jumped in to help entertain, leading groups of squealing children through the makeshift, and apparently terrifying, haunted house in the back half of the barn. Between her tour-guide shifts, she sat on Aiden’s lap, whispering in his ear or kissing him. The casual hand he kept on her inner thigh, his smile, all made Rosalee want to scream and run out into the warm October night. Mainly because, when not pawing at his fiancée, pissing his mother off with his inappropriate public display, he was staring straight at her.
“Where’s Antony?” His voice so near her ear made her jump.
She’d been assigned the musical jack-o-lantern game, a sort of cross between a cakewalk and musical chairs. “Don’t know.” She blew the hair out of her eyes then sighed when it dropped back into the same place. “Lordy, it is hot in here. I’m sweatin’ like a whore in church.” She held the front of her skimpy Tinkerbell costume away from her breasts, and observed the next group who’d be playing her game before she caught her own gaffe.
But Aiden had disappeared and by the time she paid attention again, Anton, Kieran, Aiden, and Dom were rounding up anyone interested to load them onto the back of the wagon for a haunted hayride.
“Where is Antony?” Lindsay flopped down into a rented chair. “He’s missed all the fun. Y’all will be as cute as a bug’s ear in your costumes.” She patted Rosalee’s bare knee.
“Please. I feel like a five-dollar hooker with wings in this nasty thing.” Hearing the distinct sound of her son whining about something outside, she rose, but Lindsay tugged her back to the chair.
“Aiden will handle him.”
Rosalee glanced at her, alarmed. But Lindsay just kept her calm smile.
“But I will declare that it’s time for a drink. Let’s leave all this for later and go on over to the tent. That Melinda’s supposed to be in charge of making sure the caterers get set up. I suppose she managed it without suing anybody, bless her heart.”
Lindsay linked arms with her as they walked back toward the house and tent from the huge, now-empty barn. The tractor motor revved and she prayed Jeffrey would not freak completely out at the various mildly scary episodes he had in store. He’d never been fond of being startled on purpose, and lately awoke nearly every night, screaming from nightmares in his “new bed” as he called it—the one at Antony’s house where they now stayed.
She could barely stand to drive by her old house anymore, with its “for sale” sign bearing the name of a Realtor she’d once gone to high school with, and who promised her they would get “real value” for the small place in the current market.
The theme from Jaws rolled out of the sound system, and the tables groaned with the food she’d helped Lindsay pick out for the party inside the well-lit tent. Kid-friendly mac and cheese, fried chicken strips and fries sat alongside delicious-smelling barbeque, slaw, and what remained of the secret-recipe beans. Every table had its own centerpiece made of a carved pumpkin and small bowls of candy. A bar, stocked with beer, bourbon, gin, root beer, iced tea, and lemonade, dominated one corner.
“I’ll be back. Need to visit the powder room,” Lindsay said as she passed through the tent.
Rosalee sighed and grabbed a cold Love Brewing lager bottle, holding it first to her forehead then downing half of it before meeting her fiancé’s eyes across the empty tent. He had his hands on his hips and a small smile playing at his lips. She couldn’t help but giggle at his full Peter Pan regalia, including green tights, tunic that barely covered his ass, and jaunty cap with yellow feather. The one thing he’d balked at were the silly slipper-like shoes, so he had on his Timberland boots instead. As always, he was a vision of masculine perfection, her man.
She patted the seat next to her. “Come on over here, Peter, and let me check what you’re wearing under that dress.”
After snagging a beer, he made his way over to her and took her outstretched hand. Smiling in that way that never reached his eyes, he kissed her fingers and sat, letting her keep her hand on his thigh.
“My brothers are going to have a field day with this,” he muttered, tugging the short tunic down, or at least trying to.
“Who knew though? Green legs are a total aphrodisiac for Slutty Tinkerbell,” she said as her hand traveled higher. He draped an arm around the back of her seat and turned to face her.
Relaxation coursed through her at the touch of his now-familiar
lips to hers. He shifted, moving closer, deepening the kiss in a surprising, and not unpleasant, way.
“C’mere,” he said, his voice rough as he pulled her over so she straddled his lap. Running his hands up the exposed outsides of her legs, he held her close. “Who knew,” he whispered, his lips hovering over hers, “That you dressing up like a streetwalker with wings would give me a hard on.”
“Mm hmm.” She sighed with relief that he’d shown up and seemed glad to see her. “I can tell.” She ground down onto his growing tights-covered erection as they kissed. Even after just one beer she had a sort of dizzy, drunk feeling in her head. He gripped her harder, digging his fingers into her ass, and encouraging her to rub against him. One hand let go of her backside and cupped her breast, thumbing her nipple that pressed against the cheap costume fabric.
She broke away, confused, anxious and more than a little turned on. His eyes had darkened with lust. His breathing quickened. But something about the whole scene had a distinctly off-kilter aura. Antony didn’t engage in much PDA. The man would barely kiss her in public. He liked to “save it” for when they were alone. And here they sat, dry-humping in a tent that would, in a few minutes be teeming with people, including his parents.
“Antony,” she gasped when the hand teasing her nipple slid down and under the short skirt between her legs. “Stop.” She gasped when his finger found its target.
“Kiss me,” he demanded. “Then come for me Rosie. I want to feel it.”
Burying her hands in his hair, sending the silly hat floating to the floor, she covered his full lips with hers, opening her thighs slightly, shocked, but more than ready for all of it. She shivered, as the brightly lit tent dimmed, and her ears buzzed.
“Oh, Peter.” She grinned when he took his hand out from under her skirt. “Tinkerbell likes it when you get all naughty.” But he stayed quiet, his dark eyes narrowed, making her uncomfortable. “What?” When she heard voices, adult ones, getting closer she tried to get off his lap so she could get herself presentable.
But he held onto her even tighter, rock hard under that dumb tunic, and she admitted she wanted it, wanted him, needed him so badly she thought she might choke on it. His fingers threaded in her hair, which she’d kept down and loose as he put his lips on her sweaty neck.
“I do love you. I do.”
Alarmed, hearing the “but” on the other end of that declaration, she tilted his face up to meet hers. His eyes reflected a sort of desperate unhappiness that made tears press against hers. They sat, silent, as words that required voice coiled up, unspoken between them.
When Aiden ran into the tent, she jumped up off Antony’s lap as if it were forbidden for her to be there.
He spent a half second scowling at her as she tugged her skirt down then at Antony. “It’s Jeffrey, he jumped off the wagon and lit out across the field.”
Antony got to his feet, but Aiden ignored him—luckily, since there would be no hiding that raging erection in a Peter Pan costume.
Aiden grabbed her hand. “I think I know where he is. Come on.”
She glanced back once at her fiancé. But Antony hadn’t moved. His gaze remained on his brother and it held a strange, uncharacteristic sort of expression—almost wistful, but definitely not pleased.
“Go on.” He waved them off. “If anybody knows all the hiding places around here, it’s Aiden.”
She blinked, unsure, panic rising in her throat—less at the thought of Jeffrey missing somewhere on the Love property, than of the way Antony seemed utterly detached from her at that precise moment.
Chapter Nineteen
They moved quickly out of the tent against the tide of traffic. Partygoers were filing in, lining up for food. Kids ran around yelling in the midst of serious sugar highs. Aiden held onto Rosalee’s hand, dragging her past people she nodded and waved to. She saw more than one person look right at their joined hands. But nothing cut through the layer of ice that had formed around her, at the hard, cold fact of her new reality.
Antony didn’t love her. She understood that now. Or, maybe he did, but not in the way he wanted to, not the same way he did Margot.
What to do about that, Rosalee had zero clue.
Her engagement diamond cut into her finger, but she endured the pain, considering it a small penance for her many transgressions. Her life, as she once knew it, had ended again, just like it had when she’d been visited by two uniformed Marines, her belly huge, and her heart broken by their presence.
She followed Aiden away from the tent, past the pool with the burning tiki torches reflecting in the still water. They hit the gravel drive on the other side, running, still hand in hand. Rosalee looked over at Aiden and tried to process his strange appearance—black cape, attached head covering with funny ears, mask dangling around his neck. When she touched her flaming-hot face, wetness from tears she hadn’t realized she’d been shedding coated her fingertips.
He let go of her hand and slid the large door of the pole barn aside. When he flipped the light switch, the space flooded with bright fluorescence. The old Love family pick-up Antony had driven when she’d been with Paul in high school, sat alongside a horse trailer, a riding lawn mower, several bicycles, a four-wheeler, and a tidy stack of sleds.
A sob escaped her aching throat. What had she done? Had she pushed a perfectly fine man away from her, somehow? Did he sense what she wanted from Aiden—no, did he know what she had gotten from his own brother?
Oh, sweet Jesus, forgive me. Please let me salvage this with Antony.
Aiden glanced back at her and nodded at a set of stairs leading up to a storage space with a window she remembered from her high school partying days. The fact that she’d convinced Paul to take her virginity up there the summer between their junior and senior years, made the irony of all this too close for comfort.
But then she heard it—the distinct sounds of her son, Paul’s son, the baby he would never hold, crying somewhere up in that darkness. She dashed up the steps ahead of Aiden.
“Jeffrey Paul Norris, are you up here?”
“No,” his small voice called out.
She took a breath and forced her reply to sound casual and not blood-curdling furious at him. “Oh, well, honey, folks are kinda worried about you, running off like that and all. Can I tell them you’re all right?”
“Don’t care.”
Aiden put a hand on her arm, restraining her from moving forward. “Hey buddy, you didn’t tell me you were done with the hayride.”
“Jeffrey doesn’t like hayrides.”
“That’s cool. But it’s time to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Had too much candy,” he said, in a small and unhappy voice. “Got a tummy ache.”
Something appeared out of the dark, dashed past her and attached itself to Aiden, who’d crouched down low. Hanging on to him, he took a seat on a nearby bale of hay. As her eyes adjusted, Rosalee saw them clinging to each other both dressed as batman. A slightly hysterical giggle bubbled into her throat. She forced it down when Jeffery’s crying got louder. She sat next to them and draped her arm around Aiden’s shoulders, her other hand on Jeffrey’s small, warm back.
“Jeffrey wants to go home.”
“Sweetie, the party is only halfway over. There’s food and music and….”
“I wants to go home now.” He raised his tear-streaked face. “I wants my old house and my old bed.”
It didn’t surprise her to hear that. Things at Antony’s were, at best, strained between her son and fiancé. Whenever AliceLynn showed up, she’d distract and play with him, and had gotten them both in semi-trouble, swimming in the pond one night after dark. But the trade-off for AliceLynn’s presence meant a near constant hum of anger between her and her father.
“Tell you what.” Aiden patted the boy’s back as he spoke. “You stick with me for a while. We’ll get some mac-and-cheese and chicken, and have a root beer. It’s Dom’s root beer, the kind he makes. I know you’ll like it. And you can
sit with me the whole time, okay, buddy?”
“Mommy doesn’t let Jeffrey have root beer,” he mumbled. Aiden raised an eyebrow.
“It’s okay tonight, baby.” She tightened her grip around Aiden’s shoulders. He moved so quickly she couldn’t draw back before their lips met, briefly, making them both inhale at the same time. But a stone sat cold in her chest at the realization that Aiden remained lost to her, just like Antony, no matter how many more wedding details she formalized.
“Hey! You all in here?” A deep voice rose from downstairs.
“Yeah. Found him.” Aiden got up, his eyes still on hers in the near dark of the pole barn’s attic. Words shriveled and died in her throat.
“All right. Bring him on down. Mama’s freaking out.” Antony kept his voice calm in a way that should have given her clear warning.
Aiden led the way, and she emerged, shaking from the last hour’s worth of drama. Still clad in his ridiculous Peter Pan gear, Antony was waiting, arms crossed, his glare reserved for Aiden.
“Give him to Rosie.”
“No!” Jeffrey screeched, hanging onto Aiden’s neck. “Jeffrey wants Aiden!”
Antony touched Jeffrey’s back, which calmed him as he got handed off to Rosalee.
“Antony, let’s just go….”
“Rosie, please take Jeffrey and go back to the party. Aiden and I need to talk.”
“Honey, it’s….” But she had nothing. What could she possibly say that would make sense? That she wanted only one of them, and not the one who she’d agreed to marry in less than two month’s time?
She sucked in a breath. The men were staring at each other, both dressed for a costume party, with murderous intent on their faces. It would be funny, were it not so distressing.
“This is ridiculous.” She shifted the floppy child to her other arm. “Stand down. I mean it.”
Antony frowned at the tone of her voice. But he only gave her the briefest of glances before pinning Aiden to the wall with his dark, Italian glare. Aiden did not flinch, to his credit.