Happily Even After

by Lena Matthews

  “So,” Ginny said once the room was clear of the kids. “What’s going on here?”

  Before Creigh could open her mouth to reply, Dean walked over to her side and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I think it’s pretty self-evident,” he said calmly.

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Mom.” Creigh just wanted to get this over with. “Don’t overthink it. It’s not a big deal. Divorced couples hook up all the time.”

  “Hook up?” Ginny’s brows rose almost to her hairline. “I thought you said he wasn’t the father?”

  “He isn’t,” Creigh said at the exact same moment Dean said, “I am.”

  Startled, Creigh turned her head and looked up at him. “Dean.” He gazed down at her, and his eyes were filled with a bit more amusement than she thought the moment called for. “Not helping.”

  “What?” He didn’t seem the slightest bit put out by the flat-out lie.

  Was he really going to pretend…with her? “You don’t have to—”

  Dean squeezed her shoulder. “It’s better we just get this out in the open now.” Dean looked back at Ginny. “Creigh and I are getting back together, and we’re going to raise this child together. Case closed.”

  Creigh felt as shocked as her mother looked. They hadn’t talked about the future, at least not to this extent. “Dean—” she whispered faintly.

  “And the father?” Ginny asked, riding roughshod over Creigh’s faint words. “What about him?”

  “You’re looking at him,” Dean said, his voice taking on an edge as if he was daring Ginny to contradict him. “I’m the father.”

  “I see.” To Creigh’s amazement, Ginny smiled. “I knew there was a reason you were my favorite former son-in-law. Or is that changing too?”

  “None of your business, Mom.” Creigh knew if she didn’t put her foot down now, her mother would never back down. And there was no way such an important decision would be made right here and now without Creigh even having an input in it. “Thank you so much for watching the kids. We can take it from here.”

  “Well, if I would have known he was the reason I was doing it, I might have tried to keep them longer.” She shrugged with regret. “As it is, I have to drop and run. Someone called in sick at the hospital, so I have to cover their shift. I wasn’t looking forward to going in early, but now I have to say I’m happy I did. I would have missed the big reveal if I would have waited.”

  “When there was something to announce, you would have been the first to know,” she lied. Her mother would be in the top five but not the first to know.

  “I’m not even going to comment on that blatant fib. No need hurting my feelings.” Ginny wiggled her fingers in a good-bye wave on her way out the room, leaving Creigh and Dean alone in her wake.

  Creigh shook her head. “Wow, that wasn’t awkward at all.”

  “I didn’t think it was so bad.” Dean leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead.

  Where the hell has he been? Creigh turned on the bed and looked up at him. “It’s only the beginning, you know. Everyone is going to be talking.”

  “Let ’em talk. As long as they do so respectfully in front of you and the kids, I don’t really care what they say.”

  “Speaking of the kids, I think we need to get a few things cleared up.” More than a few.

  “Like?”

  “Like what we’re going to tell the kids.” She couldn’t believe he was being so blasé about everything. “I mean it’s one thing to just blurt out to my mother that we’re getting back together and raising the baby with one another, and quite another to explain the situation to Harlow and Hamilton.”

  “We’ll tell them everything they need to know and not a word more.” Dean spoke as if no further explanation was needed.

  “And what’s that?”

  Dean smiled indulgently. “That we love each other and we’re getting back together.”

  “And by back together, you mean dating.”

  “I mean us remarrying and me moving back home.”

  Creigh gasped. “Remarried!” Suddenly their relationship seemed to be moving at the rate of a speeding train.

  “Yes.” He met her stare levelly. “Why are you so surprised?”

  Eyes wide, she stared at Dean as if he’d grown two heads. Surprised? Why wouldn’t she be surprised? Marriage was a big step, an even bigger one the second time around. “Because we haven’t even discussed that.”

  “What did you think all of this was leading to?”

  He had a good point. Nevertheless, she’d been too busy enjoying their time together to envision what the future would hold. “I…I honestly don’t know.” Creigh slowly rose to her feet and took a few steps away. She needed room to breathe. Space to take it all in.

  “Talk to me,” he said gruffly.

  “It just seems like it’s all happening so fast,” she said, turning to face him.

  “Patience has never been my strongest attribute.”

  “Neither is being subtle.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want me to move back in? You don’t want to remarry? You don’t love me the way I love you?” Dean spoke calmly, but there was a thread of steel underlying his questions.

  “No, of course I’m not saying that.” Creigh was more in love with him today than she ever was. There were many things she was unsure of, but her love and her desire to be with him wasn’t one of them. “I think I’m just in shock. It’s not every day someone proposes to me.”

  “You didn’t get proposed to today either,” Dean reminded her.

  Taken aback by his reply, Creigh furrowed her brow. “But…but…”

  “I may be an insensitive jerk sometimes, but even I know better than to do it like this.”

  Creigh couldn’t help but laugh. What a jerkface. Here she was getting all worked up about moving too fast, and he could put the brakes on. Narrowing her gaze, she stared at him, lips quirked up in a half smile. The big faker. She was willing to bet he’d said what he said the way he did just to freak her out a bit. “You’re such a jerk.”

  “Hey, I have to be me.” Dean held his arms out wide.

  “Fine, then”—Creigh crossed her arms over her breasts—“if this wasn’t a proposal, then when are you thinking of asking me?”

  “At the right time,” he taunted.

  “Which will be…”

  Dean arched an eyebrow. “Now who’s being impatient?”

  “Ugh, you’re such a—”

  “Mom, Hamilton’s being a pest,” Harlow shouted from the living room, interrupting Creigh midrant. Before either Creigh or Dean could reply, Hamilton hollered back, “Mom, Hamilton’s being a pest,” in his best Harlow impersonation.

  Dean put his arm around her shoulders. “We need to go before they kill each other.”

  “Are you serious? You’re going to drop the marriage bomb and then just go?” Creigh felt as if her head was still swimming with everything that had happened in the last few moments.

  “Pretty much.”

  “You’re…evil.” Shaking her head, Creigh uncrossed her arms and placed one around his waist.

  “I know.” He winked. “But you love me anyway.”

  He was right. She did.

  ———

  Life was good, Dean thought as he twisted the top off of his soda and leaned back in his office chair. Very good. Normally Dean was a half-empty sort of guy. He wouldn’t have put the word pragmatist out there, but for a large part of his life he acknowledged if someone else were to say the world on whole sucked big donkey balls, well, Dean wouldn’t have been one to disagree too loudly.

  These days, though, life was going good, and not just things between him and Creigh. Lord knew that was going all sorts of right, but now that the kids were in the know and now that they had both agreed moving back in together and getting remarried was the endgame, all Dean could see was a glowing future in store for all of them.

  The only down part of his day wa
s the fact Trace was still hanging around at work. It really did look as if the other man was here to stay this time. And as much as Dean hated him, even Trace’s presence didn’t weigh him down too heavily. Besides, Dean was beginning to think it was time he remade his entire life, not just his love life.

  And the first step was to find another job. There were a couple of local plants that would offer him a nice signing bonus to hire on with them, but Dean would never do something like that to Roland.

  Hands down, his boss was one of the best men Dean ever had the pleasure to know. He couldn’t remember the first time he’d met Roland. The older man had been around long before Dean had even been thought about. In fact, outside of work, Dean called Roland uncle, as did his brothers and sister and all their kids. That was just how close they were to the other man, and just why it was going to be hard as hell to just walk out on him.

  The sense of loyalty Dean felt toward Roland went beyond the boss-employee relationship. They even transcended play-uncle boundaries. And that was because Roland was all those things and more. The older man and his wife had stepped in when Dean’s parents passed away and helped cut through the red tape with the life-insurance policy, making sure it was divided up squarely among the four kids.

  Then as if that weren’t enough, he’d lent Gino the money to start the bar, and a few years later paid for Annabelle’s wedding and given her away. Added to that, Roland was renting Dean the house he was living in for a price so low it was ridiculous, and he was paying for Sergio to go to school. Roland and his wife were so ingrained in their family, Dean felt as if by leaving, he would be running out on the man who had been like a father to him over the last dozen or so years. Which made the very idea of working elsewhere ten times harder. Dean couldn’t stomach disappointing a man who’d gone beyond the call of duty for kids who weren’t his own. But truthfully, Dean didn’t think he handle being there much longer either.

  Whatever he was going to do, he wanted to do it soon. The baby would be here in a few weeks, and he wanted his house in order before she came.

  She.

  Dean smiled at that. Baby H, as he’d teasingly called her, was making her presence known more and more each day. From her kicks and elbow presses, he could already tell she was as strong as her brother, and from the way she had Creigh on a schedule already, he could see she was going to be as demanding as her sister. Then there would be qualities that were distinctly all hers that would make getting to know her even all the more exciting.

  Two weeks, and all the waiting would be over, and their family would be complete once more. Not that he was waiting on her birth before he made good on his plans to marry Creigh. Oh no, that was happening sooner than she realized, when she least expected. He’d been planning the surprise proposal for a while now, and with the help of the two most devious women he knew, A-mei and his sister, his plan was going to go off without a hitch this weekend.

  Dean was beyond ready for her to wear his ring again, and he was hoping Creigh would agree to make it nice and legal as well before Baby H made her debut. Then, once everything settled down, he planned to approach Creigh about finally revealing the name of Baby H’s donor so the three of them could come up with a legal understanding. From the lack of interest the man had shown so far, Dean was willing to bet it wouldn’t take much to convince him to sign on the dotted line and relinquish his parental rights. Once the deadbeat dad was out of the way, Dean planned on adopting baby H.

  It was all a lofty plan, and of course it was contingent on many things. But Dean’s motto was “go big or go home.”

  In the midst of Dean’s rumination, there was a soft knock on his door. “Come in,” he called out. Sitting up, Dean placed his soda down on the desk next to his uneaten lunch.

  The door opened, and Creigh peered around the frame. “Hi. Am I interrupting?”

  “Not at all,” he said with a smile, rising from his seat. Dean rounded the desk and was halfway across the room to her before she barely had time to close the door behind her. Happy to see her and wanting her to know it, Dean took her in his arms and locked his hands behind her back. He covered her lips with his own and kissed her, with all the passion and desire he felt inside.

  Things were just getting good when, with a soft laugh, Creigh pulled back and looked lovingly up into his eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re happy to see me.”

  “Always. To what do I owe this lovely surprise?”

  “I had a delivery in the neighborhood, and I thought while I was over here, I’d take you out to lunch. Seems as if I arrived just a few minutes too late.”

  “Not at all. I haven’t even taken a bite. I can just pack it back up and have it for dinner.”

  “Or,” she said, playing with his lapel, “you can throw it away and just have dinner at home, followed by breakfast, then lunch, then dinner again.”

  Home. Damn that word sounded good. “Is this your way of asking me to spend the night?”

  “Tonight and every night. It’s time, don’t you think? It feels…” She paused as if she was searching for the accurate word. “Right.”

  “Yes, it does.” Although he’d originally planned to move in right before the wedding anyway, it was nice to know she was as ready for him to come back home as he was to go back.

  Creigh opened her mouth to say something but was cut short by a rapid heavy knock on the door seconds before it was pushed open.

  “Dean, have you…” Roland paused in midsentence when he caught sight of Creigh and smiled. The jovial African American man came into the room with a big grin and shut the door behind him. “Well, well, well. Look who’s here. Creigh, come give me a hug, girl. I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  Creigh left Dean’s arms and went into Roland’s, who hugged her gently before stepping back and looking down at her. “You get lovelier every time I see you.”

  “And you get more silver-tongued. How are you? How’s Sharon?”

  “We’re fine. Fine.” Roland slipped his arm around her shoulders and walked her back over to Dean. “Dean told me the two of you had reunited, but apparently he left something out.” The older man pulled away from Creigh and slapped Dean on the back good-naturedly.

  “I did not.” Dean had spoken to Roland about them dating months ago. The only thing he hadn’t told Roland was the baby wasn’t his, but that was only true for a little bit longer. “Don’t listen to him; he knew. He’s just trying to get me in trouble.”

  “Always,” Roland admitted with a wink. “How’s it working?”

  Creigh smiled. “You’re so bad.”

  “That’s what Sharon says”—he lowered his voice and leaned in closer—“but between you and me, I think it’s the main reason she keeps me around.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Creigh laughed.

  “We need to get together for dinner soon.”

  “Definitely.” The pleasure in Creigh’s voice warmed Dean’s heart. He knew she’d always had a soft spot for Roland and his wife.

  “Speaking of eating, I’m going to get out of your hair so the three of you,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “can get back to lunch. It’s been a while, mind you, but I remember exactly what it was like when the Mrs. was carrying. Don’t tell her I said this, but she had an appetite like a linebacker.”

  Creigh laughed. “I shouldn’t laugh, because it’s so true. I feel like I could eat an entire slab of ribs with a large side of garlic mashed potatoes.” Creigh’s tone took on a dreamy quality that had both men grinning. When she noticed, she frowned. “What? It sounds good.”

  “Yes, it does.” Dean bit back his amusement. “And that’s what I’m going to get you.” Turning his attention back to Roland, he asked, “Do you want to come with us?”

  “No. I just finished eating, actually. But you two have a good time.”

  “I will.” Creigh rubbed her had over her belly. “We’re weeks away from liftoff, so I’m going to enjoy every last second of peace and quiet I
can squeeze out until then.”

  “Weeks away. Already?” Roland’s eyes widened. “Oh boy.”

  “No.” Dean grinned. “Oh girl.”

  His comment caused the other man to smile. “Another girl. Dean, my friend, I don’t know whether to congratulate you or commiserate with you. If this one looks anything like Harlow, you’re in for a world of trouble.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Shotguns at the ready?”

  Dean nodded. “All set and hanging over the fireplace.”

  “That’s my boy.” Roland gave Creigh a brief hug again before heading toward the door.

  Before he reached it, though, Dean called him back. “Roland, before you go…”

  Roland turned back to face Dean. “Yes?”

  “What did you want to see me about?”

  He waved his hands as if shooing away any concerns Dean might have had. “Nothing important. Come find me when you get back, and we’ll talk then.”

  “Okay.”

  The older man gave a slight wave before opening the door and then slipping away. Dean wasted no time gathering his uneaten lunch and tossing it back in the brown sack he’d brought it in. “Let me go drop this off at the break room, and then we can go.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Arm in arm they left his office and headed out of his office. They were about more than halfway to their destination when Creigh drew up short and grimaced. Concerned, Dean stopped and looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said with a rueful smile. “I need to make a pit stop.”

  “Oh what, that whole twelve feet did you in?”