by Eden Butler
“You okay, baby?” he’d asked as she brushed out her hair and he tucked himself under their thick duvet. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”
More like, for weeks, but she didn’t tell him that. Instead she shrugged, climbed in next to him and rested against his chest. “It’s just been an exhausting day and, um… I miss Bobby.” Lame and stupid, Keira. He’ll never buy that.
Kona yawned, still suffering from the carb overload he’d gorged down at dinner. “One week, Wildcat. Nashville is eight hours away and we’ll spend New Year’s with her.” He kissed her temple, pulling her close to him as he rolled over. “You’re worrying.”
Actually, she wasn’t. She wasn’t worried. She was maybe a little apprehensive about giving Kona his gift, wondering how he’d react. She knew he wanted this. He’d talked about it for months, but there was still that small voice reminding her of the last time something like this happened. It hadn’t been the best experience of her life.
She let the minutes tick by and soon, Kona’s light snore fell on her ears as Keira stared at the ceiling, rubbing her fingernails against Kona’s knuckles. Then, he turned, rolled away from her with those snores deepening and Keira watched the rise of his large, beautiful body, the dips and curves of all that round muscle. He loved her. That beautiful man loved her so much. There would be no way he’d be upset.
A quick roll to her side to open the drawer on her bedside table and Keira sat up in bed, spinning the tiny box in her hand and watching Kona’s back, his large arms, trying to muster the nerve to wake him.
Maybe I should wait until morning, she thought, biting her bottom lip. Maybe that would…
“I swear to Christ, Wildcat, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to spank you and it won’t be in the fun, hot way you like.” He rolled over, lifted onto his elbows and the teasing smile on his face vanished when he noticed the way Keira nervously chewed on her lip. “Baby, I’m picking.” He sat up, flicked on the lamp and scooted next to her. “Come on, talk to me.”
“Here,” she said, handing him the small white box tied in a red ribbon. “My last Christmas present to you.”
Those dark eyebrows moved together as Kona grabbed the box. “You can’t sleep because of a Christmas present? Baby, I’d love anything, everything, you give me.”
Keira covered her nervous laugh with a cough that didn’t hide her anxiety. When Kona put the box on the mattress to fold his hand over her fingers, she shook her head. “Just… God, sweetie, just open it.”
He looked wary, concerned, but Kona grabbed the box and loosened the ribbon. Before he lifted the lid, Keira held her breath, watching his face closely, measuring his expression for any sign of disappointment or fear. There wasn’t any.
It took just a few seconds, then Kona’s gaze jumped to hers. He wiped the ball of his palm inside his eye and then sat up quickly, pulling the pacifier from the box. Keira caught the play of emotions on his face, expressions shifting from confusion, then worry, then straight to joy.
“You…” he sat up straighter, tilting his head to stare right in her eyes. “Are you messing with me, Keira because that would be so fucking low?”
She shook her head, squeaking out a “no” when his full lips curled up.
“How long have you known?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“What? You’re serious? Two weeks and you didn’t tell me?”
Kona jumped off the bed and when Keira caught that quick streak of fear drawing down his mouth, her worry leveled up until her chest felt tight.
She hated that he wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t keep his eyes on that pacifier, stared at it like that small piece of rubber and plastic would clear away his confusion. “You’re… why are you mad?” she asked him, hating how weak her voice sounded.
“What? Mad?” And then he was back on the bed, dropping the pacifier, filling his hand with Keira’s hips, kissing up her neck, over her face. “Baby, my heart is about to crack through my chest.” Kona brought those big hands Keira loved so much to her face, and he held them there. She’d never seen him look so happy. She’d never seen that his eyes well up so quickly, or him be so dismissive of the tears that spilled down his face. “I think I’ve never been happier in my life. A baby? You’re giving me another baby? Oh, Keira why in God’s name would I be mad? This is better than winning the SuperBowl, better than being first round on the draft! This is like my birthday and orgasms and chocolate ice cream all smashed together! Mad? Are you crazy? I told you months ago, if it was up to me I’d have a thousand babies with you.”
And Keira knew why his face had become so wet, why Kona kissed her so hard, held her hips still so he could lift up her shirt and lean his ear against her stomach as though he might be able to hear the tiny baby growing inside of her. He’d missed all of this with Ransom. Circumstance, pride, ego, fear, they had all taken Ransom’s start in life from Kona. Keira knew he’d have given anything to get those years back and now they had the chance to relive it, to experience this all together.
“Baby,” he said, sliding up her body, flippantly wiping his face dry. “I’m just… thank you. God. Just thank you so much.” Kona pulled Keira down against his chest curling his arms around her back tight as though she would fly away if he didn’t keep her there. “Only you, Wildcat, only you could give me this. Only you could make my heart this damn full.”
And Keira knew what he meant, how those low spoken words were small compared to the well of joy that moved through them both. He was hers. He belonged to her completely and Keira was happy to never be meant for anyone but Kona.
Their lives might not always be easy, God knew it certainly had been a tortuous, hazardous road to get to that Christmas night snuggled against each other in their bed. But Keira knew she wouldn’t have traded a second of the fight she and Kona had given themselves.
Each struggle was a lesson in learning how to manage without the hope of tomorrow. Each disappointment taught her what mistakes to correct, which to avoid and every moment that they had been apart, every time that she had felt lonely, desperate or scared, each and every time had led her back to Kona, back to her always, to the arms of her beloved.
Shadows have weight. They reach and cover, devour and sometimes, when the shadows are so big, they seem insurmountable and you fear they will consume you. They feel thick, clot in your chest and every time you fail, every time you have to struggle to win, those shadows grow.
My father’s shadow was massive, just like him, just like I was going to be someday. He was not an easy man to follow. His records, his successes were overwhelming achievements fueled by the fear of loss, by desperate ambition. He’d struggled. He’d lost some mighty big battles and somehow those hurdles in his way urged him, made him want more, need more. He’d told me once, “If you’ve ever been hungry, you’ll never be full.” That didn’t come from him. My father isn’t a philosopher. What he is, what added weight to that shadow of his, was accomplishment, gratification and the seemingly impossible reality of honest, real, consuming love.
He found that kind of love with my mother. She, too, cast a large shadow. Even more than my father, my mother struggled, but she did her struggling alone, almost a kid herself, with only the minor support of friends that were equally as lost as she was.
And together? When my parents finally found each other for good and that uncontrollable, blind love that had begun when they were just kids in college, ripped apart anything I thought I knew about love. The shadow they cast together was impossible to walk behind.
I didn’t struggle like them. I had issues, who doesn’t, but other than the desire to seek out my parents’ approval, there was no impetus urging me, no drive motivated by loss or betrayal or the soul-crushing hollow that poverty offers.
I had never had my heart broken.
I had never lost.
I had lived my life, loved fiercely, completely, surrounded by people who thought I could manage anything, be whatever I wan
ted.
But I had never felt the sting of life’s bite.
Not until her.
Not until my stupidity, my ignorance cost me… it cost me her.
And so I took that loss, that aching, never-healing pain and used its weight to bury myself behind guilt, behind anguish. The spring before I turned seventeen, on one ordinary day when we were out doing things that were stupid, I lost my first love. I lost her forever.
That day, the boy my mother raised, the one my father claimed to be so proud of, died. He died and I won’t revive him. I can’t. But I use that pain, the worst heart rending ache there is, to finally understand what my parents had learned on their own: our struggles define us. They make or break us. And now at eighteen it’s that long held pain, that sobering loss, that keeps me running, keeps me fighting, gives me the motivation I need to build something that casts its own shadow.
And there isn’t even the hint of light breaking through it.
Thin Love was a personal book to write. It took me a few months… or twenty years, depending on the day you ask me about it. My Beloved is the wild imaginings of what could have been and an answer to the folks who didn’t understand Keira and Kona’s story, to the ones who thought I was justifying the notion that violence and abuse are remotely acceptable. They are not. So, to those of you who read Thin Love and understood what I was trying to say, the sort of couple I was trying to examine, I thank you. This novella is yours, totally and completely. I am overwhelmed by the love and encouragement you’ve all shown me. It is staggering to me how a book, especially one so personal and raw, could impact even a single person. So, to the readers who got me, who got Keira and Kona, know that My Beloved is the sweet reward for all that damn angst and overwhelming emotion.
Thank you, as always, to Sharon Browning and Karen Chapman for their sharp eyes and sharper minds while editing this novella. Nothing I write would see the light of day if it weren’t for either of you. Thank you to my “Sweet” Team and betas: Trish Leger, Judy Lovely, Carla Castro, Naarah Scheffler, LK Westhaver, Lorain Domich, Melanie Brunsch, Michelle Horstman-Thompson, Allyson Lavigne Wilson, Chanpreet Singh, Heather Weston-Confer, Betsy Gehring, Allison Coburn and Sammy Llewellyn for lifting me so high, I have to look down to see Heaven. I love you all dearly.
Thank you to Kayla Jagneaux, Jennifer Jagneaux, Juli Wright and Joy Chambers for cheering me on endlessly. I could not be a prouder aunt or feel more love than what you’ve given me. Thank you so very much to my book bestie Kele Moon and her lovely mother for all the clarifications on pidgin and the proper Hawaiian locales and customs. Thank you to Chelle Bliss, Lila Felix, Penelope Douglas and Trish Leger for supporting and encouraging me without fail. Merci beaucoup to Alex Fraser for the beautiful artwork and to all my Facebook, Twitter and GoodReads friends who promote, spread the word and participate in my endless marketing misadventures. To Marie, Sherry, Barbra B., Sarah and Kalpana, work buddies and book fanatics, thank you so much for always encouraging me. Many grand and massive shouts of gratitude to Michelle Monkou of USA Today’s Happily Ever After blog for always telling her very large audience exactly why she likes my stories. I am so grateful to you, doll.
Thank you to Angela McLaurin for yet another gorgeous format and to my family for their constant and continuous love and support. I am a lucky, lucky lady.
P.S. Don’t worry. Ransom will get out of his funk… eventually.
Eden Butler is an editor and writer of Romance, SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-time great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum.
When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden writes, reads and spends too much time watching rugby, “Doctor Who” and New Orleans Saints football. Currently, she is imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in Southeastern Louisiana.
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