I slanted my lips over his and kissed him. I didn’t wait for him to kiss me back. I just took. Pressed my tongue against his lips and delved in, deep passion-filled licks against his tongue. So much that he lost his footing and fell to his butt in the sand. I landed right on top, straddling his hips. Not deterred in the least, I nibbled on his bottom lip until I heard the telltale growl I always received when I kissed him. He nipped on my top lip, and I gasped, sucking in air. We spent what seemed like forever there. Sitting in the sand, kissing like a couple of teens.
Wes tasted of mint and the sea air. His skin was cool to the touch against his cheeks, but the slab of his chest pressed against mine was warmed by the sun’s golden rays. I hugged him close, sucked his tongue, and groaned into his mouth.
He pulled away and we took deep breaths. “Man, you’re a feisty one this morning. I shouldn’t have left you in bed.”
I nudged his nose with my own and pecked his lips through rough breaths, still not wanting to be far away from his lips. “Why did you then?” His answer probably meant more to me than to him.
He tickled my thighs, and I giggled into his mouth. “You were sleeping so soundly. I didn’t want to wake you.”
I inhaled slowly, attempting to slow my rapidly beating heart. “Was that the only reason?”
He cupped both of my cheeks. “Last night was pretty intense. Maybe I needed a moment to think about it.”
I adored him more than ever for admitting it.
Nodding, I leaned back, looping my arms around his shoulders. “Did you come to any conclusions?” I worried my lip with my teeth. He lifted a hand and used his thumb to gently pull the bit of flesh down and away then leaned forward and sucked it into his mouth, soothing it with soft lashes of his tongue.
Running his hands through my hair, he took in my entire face. “I think you’re good for me.”
I chuckled. “Well, I’d hope so!” I playfully nudged his chest.
He shook his head. “No, sweetheart. Last night was eye opening. You took me out of hell like usual, but this time, I was in control in a different way. I wasn’t commanding your body to do my bidding or to allow me to lose myself in you. Instead, you brought me back from the nightmare and reminded me of what I had to live for. When you asked me why I loved you, the millions of reasons rushed through my mind, obliterating every evil thought and replacing them with something beautiful. Something that was real, alive, and honest. My love for you.”
Tears pricked at the edges of my vision. “That sounds like a good thing.”
Wes chuckled and nuzzled my neck, rubbing his chilled nose against the skin there. I held the back of his neck, keeping him close. “Very good thing. And then, after yesterday, dealing with Gina…” He shook his head, and the words trailed off though his hold on me tightened.
“Tell me. It’s okay. I can take it. Remember…I’m strong enough to carry the load with you. Makes it lighter.”
He sighed and placed his lips near my ear. “Baby, they hurt her in so many ways. They tied me up and forced me to watch them gang rape her. So many of them. It was like an evil line of destruction. And sometimes, several of them would brutalize her at the same time.” He choked down the tears I could feel starting to wet the shirt at my back. I clung tighter.
“They would stand her up, tied to a beam at the ceiling, and two would fuck her at once. She’d scream so loud they’d tape her mouth shut so snot and tears would fall down her dirty cheeks. Eventually, she’d pass out from the pain. I thanked God for those times. When she was no longer conscious to feel what they were doing to her…” He coughed and hiccupped into my neck. Tears and emotion clogged up the words he was trying desperately to get out.
“Oh, God…Mia, they’d leave her hanging there for us to see. Blood dripping down her legs, pooling at her feet. Sometimes I wished they’d kill her, so she didn’t have to relive it time and again. They raped her every day. Every single day I watched a piece of her die at the hands of madmen. It’s the worst hell I could ever imagine. And she lived through that.” His fingers dug into my ribs as the memory haunted him. I pulled him close and hugged him to me in a vise grip, wanting to give him my strength and take away his pain.
Tears that I didn’t know I’d been shedding poured down my cheeks. I held Wes as he held me, and sitting on that beach together, we let out the devastation, the fear, the heartache that clung to every minute since he’d returned.
Drained in every sense of the word, I got to a point where the tears would no longer come. Wes leaned heavily into me, but I wasn’t even sure if he was awake anymore. His breathing was slow and steady against my chest. Some of my fingers were numb and others were tingly from gripping him so tight, and I was pretty sure I’d have finger-shaped bruises on my ribs where he clung to me. I’d wear them proudly.
Unraveling my arms, I ran my fingers through Wes’s unruly hair. After a couple minutes, he groaned and hummed into my neck. That noise fired up my libido in a second flat. “Do you feel like you can get up?” I asked him.
He snorted into my neck. “I’d rather lean on you for the rest of my life.”
I chuckled and kissed his brow. “You can, only not when we’re sitting in sand. Can we move this party to the bedroom?
His stomach growled, interrupting my plan to attack him physically. “How about we move this to the kitchen. I’m certain Judi is whipping up something amazing right now.”
The thought of one of Judi’s special homemade breakfasts had me salivating. Begrudgingly, I lifted off my man and held out my hand. He looked at it and then at me before placing his warm palm within mine. Then he stood and pulled me upright into a hug.
“You amaze me.”
I snorted. “How so?”
“I tell you something vile, the thing eating at my insides, and somehow you take it on with grace and strength. I don’t know how you do it.” He shook his head and held my hand.
“Easy. I have you to fall back on. That’s part of being us, I think. The good, the bad, and even the ugly can end up being something beautiful if we deal with it together. Apart, we have no chance. Together, we can survive anything.”
He tugged my hand and started walking toward our home. “I believe you’re right.” He lifted our hands and kissed the top of my palm. “With you, Mia, anything is possible.”
* * *
“Let me get this straight. You have to come up with the segment concept, write it, and tape it before next Friday?” Wes asked around a mouthful of homemade Belgian waffles.
“Mmm, Judi, you’re a goddess. These waffles are the bomb!” I called out, licked my fingers, and then took in the smiling face of my man. “Yeah, that’s right. Crazy, huh?”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaned back, and sipped his coffee. “It is, but not impossible. Do you have any thoughts on what you want to do for the first one?”
I shoveled in another bite of heaven on a plate, chewed, and swallowed before responding. “Well, since I don’t have a ton of time, I was thinking of doing the first episode on stay-at-home mothers.”
Wes’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”
Sitting on my foot and leaning forward, I traced patterns in the tabletop with my finger. “I don’t know exactly. But I was thinking about how all these moms pretty much give up everything for their kids, careers and hobbies, all to raise their children. That alone is beautiful. Many of them volunteer at the schools, run PTAs, Girl Scouts, play chauffeur to sports activities. I don’t know. It’s kind of a thankless job. I mean, obviously their kids appreciate them, and I imagine their husbands do too, but there’s such a stigma to the phrase stay-at-home-mom, you know?” I sipped my coffee and set it down. The wheels in my head were spinning like mad.
“Where did you come up with this?” Wes swirled his waffle in a ridiculous amount of syrup. How about a little waffle with your syrup? Instead of saying anything, I bit my tongue. He was doing his best to gain a little weight back, and if a load of syrup was going to do it, I was all for
it.
I shrugged and continued eating. “You know, when I was with Max and Cyndi at their ranch, I watched how much Cyndi did. She cooked all the meals, did all the shopping, cleaned the entire house, took care of Isabel, all while pregnant. On top of that, she was a badass at crafts. She didn’t just sit Isabel in front of the TV all day. Of course she allowed her to watch a few shows and play some video games, but on top of that, she spent time making headbands and bows.”
“Headbands and bows? For what?”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? Are you that much of a guy?”
Wes chuckled and pointed to his sculpted chest and raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah.”
“Okay, you’ve got a point.” I licked my lips and shamelessly took in all the eye-candy that was my half-dressed man. Yummo.
“Don’t look at me like that, or you won’t finish your breakfast or your idea. Now continue.”
I snickered and went back to what I was saying. “Anyway, she made hairbands and ties and bows, things that a little girl Isabel’s age loved to wear. And when Isabel went to preschool a couple days a week, she’d give them to the other parents as little gifts from Bell. It was cool. She did the crafts with her daughter and then made someone else’s day by giving them a gift. And when I went to that class with her to pick her daughter up, half the girls in there were wearing Cyndi’s unique gifts.”
“That’s really cool. But how are you going to make it interesting enough that the viewers would want to watch it?”
“I figured you could help me with that part.”
He sat back and looked out the window, pursing his lips. Man he was pretty. I knew men didn’t like to be thought of as pretty, but Wes just was. Sure he was handsome, hot, sexy as fuck, but he was also beautiful. I guess love does that to you. Makes you see everything about your mate through rose-colored glasses.
“What if you followed a mom around with a video camera?”
“Like a reality show?”
He nodded and the hamster started spinning the wheel.
“Find a mom you know who does something you consider beautiful. Interview her. Video her throughout her day, how much she does for everyone else, and show the beauty you’ve seen to the rest of the world. The people who watch the Dr. Hoffman show will eat it up. The odds are, a very large portion of that audience is stay-at-home moms. I’ll bet the producers eat the idea up.”
“Will you work on it with me?” I batted my eyelashes and held my breath. This was phase two in me getting him back into the field. No, it wasn’t exactly movie-making or writing a script, but it was in the same realm, for sure.
Wes smiled and placed his hand on top of mine. “If it would please you, I would.”
“It would. Very much. This is so awesome!” I stood up and danced around.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” He laughed.
I jumped around for a bit more and then hopped over to his lap and flopped down. “At least I’m your brand of crazy.”
“That is true. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter Seven
Wes was one hundred percent correct about the good doctor. Drew Hoffman and his team of stuffy executives ate up the concept. They thought it was really unique. Which was great, since I was doing the filming that day with the mother I’d found. Oddly enough, that had been the hardest part. I didn’t know anyone in LA aside from Wes, his family, my old agent, and my Aunt Millie. I had absolutely no idea on Earth how to find a stay-at-home mother who would fit into this segment. It’s not like I had a kid with play dates, and I didn’t live close to Cyndi, my new sister-in-law, who could help.
Having a pity party for one, I went to the grocery store planning to indulge in a cupcake, or a half dozen, when I literally rammed into another woman’s cart. She had a baby tied to her chest and a toddler wailing in the cart. I apologized profusely but followed her around like a creeper. She wasn’t super young, maybe in her early thirties. Her brown hair was pulled back into an easy ponytail. A pair of yoga pants that were a bit too tight clung to her thighs, and a pair of wicked cool flip-flops adorned her feet. She was one of those women who loved bling on the tootsies. Fake diamonds sparkled as she clopped to the garden area of the store, the back of her shoes smacking against her heel as she went.
She surveyed the flowers and plants, testing the dirt, and then she did something that surprised me. She took her water bottle out of her ginormous purse, which might have actually doubled as a diaper bag, and squirted the contents into the pots. Then she plucked the yellow leaves out of the other ones, went to the water fountain, filled the bottle, and repeated the process on a few more.
“What are you doing?” I asked her while pretending to sniff some daises. You couldn’t really smell them, but it didn’t stop me from using them as my cover.
“These needed more water or they’d die. And these, if you don’t pluck the dead leaves off, it could harm the rest of the plant’s growth process.”
“How would you know that? Are you, like, a gardener or something?” I asked.
She shook her head and her cheeks pinked up. “Nope. Just a stay-at-home- mom.”
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. And we have a winner!
Those were the magic words. Instantly I perked up. “And, uh, do you have a green thumb?” With the level of familiarity I was taking with this woman, I expected her to balk, cringe, and then ignore me, but she didn’t. Actually, she seemed happy to be chatting about something of interest to her.
Again the rosy hue rose from her neck and flushed her cheeks at my question. “People have told me that my garden rivals that of Martha Stewart.” There was pride in her tone but no snobbery. That alone was hard to find in this town.
Hmmm. “Is that right? I’d love to see it.” I took a chance and spent the next thirty minutes talking to the woman about what I was working on. I told her that my production company would pay her a few thousand dollars to allow me to follow her around and tape her. Dr. Hoffman had sent over an email detailing the budget for my segment. I thought I was the budget but no, I had about ten thousand to work with if needed for wardrobe, props, and whatever else I might need.
Funniest thing was when I offered the mother some cash, I was taken aback by her answer. “Oh, you don’t have to pay me. If it helps other moms see how important raising their children and being the heart of the home is, I’m happy to help.”
Of course she would. But I knew that the Dr. Hoffman show made bank, and after having been to her house, I knew she could use a few extra grand in the kitty. I’d make sure that money appeared in her account shortly after we taped.
* * *
Coolest thing about this new job? Bring your boyfriend to work day! The smile on my face had to rival that of the Cheshire Cat. There was happiness, and then there was this. Abso-fucking-lutely ecstatic. I had trouble keeping my cool when we arrived at the home of Heidi and David Ryan at the butt crack of dawn. Wes said, if we were going to get her in her natural element, we needed to start when she started her day.
The home was a two-story stucco home painted a rich terracotta color. It sat all of twenty feet from the next stucco home quite similar to the Ryan’s only that one was sand-colored. All the homes in the cul-de-sac were varying shades of earth tones. Some were two levels, others one story, but they were definitely built as part of a master community with tract style design, perfect for families and suburban life.
We were in Cerritos, California, a good thirty to forty-five minute jaunt to downtown Los Angeles if traffic was playing nice. As I exited the car, a paperboy riding on a BMX bike tossed a paper, which landed perfectly on the Ryan’s front stoop.
I hooked a thumb at the kid, who continued to blow me away with his mad paper throwing skills. Wes laughed and hooked an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, city girl.”
“I’ll have you know I’m more of a desert and sin city girl.”
“They don’t deliver papers in Las Vegas? I think they do.”
; Pursing my lips, I shrugged. “Never to my house or the houses in my neighborhood. Too poor. And yours magically appears on the table every morning. Do we have a paperboy on a bike?” My eyes lit up thinking about it.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’d have to ask Ms. Croft. She handles those things. but I’ve never seen a boy hoofing it up our hill to toss a paper over the gate,” he snorted
I pouted. He had a point. An annoying one.
Shaking off my annoyance with my know-it-all boyfriend, I knocked on the large chocolate-colored door. David Ryan opened it and frowned. His tie dangled unknotted around his neck, his pinstripe dress shirt was untucked, and his feet were bare. “Um, can I help you?” he asked.
I frowned. “We’re here about the segment. This is Heidi Ryan’s home, correct?” I asked, feeling a bit uncertain. Behind me, Wes kept his hand at my lower back. Behind him was Wayne, the cameraman. I joked that he reminded me of the Wayne on Wayne’s World that cult classic from the early nineties. He had long hair and wore a cap, a plaid shirt, and pair of cargo shorts. The concept of a dress code was totally lost on him.
Behind David’s obviously surprised face, Heidi appeared. “Mia! Hey, come on in. I thought you guys would come later.”
Dave opened the door more to let us in, and Wayne flipped on the camera.
“Not yet,” I warned. “Let me chat with them a moment, make sure we’re not intruding too much. This is still their home and their life.”
I informed the couple what the plan was and left Heidi to confirm everything was on the up and up with her husband. When they returned a few minutes later, he actually held himself a little straighter and smiled. “Sorry, about that. She mentioned something about this last night, and I was a bit out of sorts after a long day in court.”
“So are you cool with us starting now? Not everything will make it into the segment as it’s only fifteen minutes, but we definitely want to get some shots of Heidi doing her normal routine, if you don’t mind.”
Calendar Girl: October: Book 10 Page 7