He wondered if the southwest, with its open spaces, breathtaking mountains, connection to nature and opportunities for quiet affected Meggie as it was affecting him. Was her coming here the first step in the changes he saw?
Shoving the last bite of peanut buttery bagel into his mouth, he used the paper towel to wipe off and sighed. Liking it here and feeling comfortable were two different things for him. For some reason, he just didn’t feel part of the land. Wasn’t sure yet if the southwest welcomed him. This was an unforgiving part of the country. Nature could kill a person who didn’t know what they were doing.
Was he overly cautious? Fuck yeah. He might be an arrogant prick, but he knew enough to realize he didn’t know squat about life in the desert. Even when he went off on the dirt bike, he was careful not to stray from the well-traveled path. Maybe it was his paramedic training or a good sense of survival. Didn’t matter. He was careful, period. Tumbling down the side of a mountain, getting lost in the desert, or tending a snake bite were all things he’d rather not have to deal with.
Well, whatever. No more time to dwell on his feelings. He had to shower, dress and get his butt to work. He was going to try out the new smoker grill that old Pete gifted him and Barry. A complete surprise, their benefactor arranged for teams of custom grill experts to create an outdoor area off the kitchen with a world-class brick smoker grill. For him, the dream-come-true equipment was better than getting a pony on Christmas morning.
Life, as he had known it for so long, was becoming a distant memory. He was an Arizonan now. A business man. His future was here, living what till recently had only been a dream.
Maybe like Meghan, being here would bring out the best in him. He sure hoped so because it was starting to feel as though he was becoming the man he longed to be. Being an Irishman in the desert might seem like a bad joke, but somehow it was working for him.
3
“Don’t move,” Lacey instructed in a loud whisper when he appeared in the doorway.
Cam froze, his eyes searching the room for a clue. He glanced at his wife and then followed her gaze till he found what had her so transfixed. There, in what would be the new baby’s nursery, was his son, Dylan—standing on wobbly legs at a low ottoman he’d pulled himself up by.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor a few feet away, she was faking their son out by pretending to fold laundry, but he could tell by the intensity of her expression that she was committing the moment to memory.
Dylan smacked both hands on the ottoman and did a little wiggling as Cam watched in astonished awe while the little guy found his legs.
“Ma!” he gurgled. “Ma! Ma!”
Lacey smiled at him but continued playing it cool.
He took a tentative step—sideways—and shifted his whole body along the ottoman. Between pounding on the furniture, making baby noises, and sticking a finger in his mouth, he kept on shuffling sideways till he reached the end of the safety zone the ottoman provided.
Cam held his breath.
“Ma!” Dylan yelled again. This time Lacey looked up and encouraged him with a beautiful smile.
“What’s up big guy?”
He stomped one foot and gurgled as the finger he was chewing stayed in his mouth. Finally, he smacked the ottoman again, wiggled up and down with excitement and took pretend steps away from the furniture.
That was when Ponytail put out her arms and giggled. “Wanna come to Mommy?”
“Ma! Ma!”
It took a minute or so of mother-child negotiation for his son to push off from the anchor of safety and step into the unknown. Wobbly as he found his center once he was on his own two feet, Dylan Henry Cameron picked up a foot and put it down, followed by the other until three complete steps put him in fingertip range of his mama.
For a brief second Cam thought his heart might burst. His son was taking his first steps. From now on he’d be his own man. And waiting to catch him at the end? The most gorgeous, open-hearted girl to ever live. His wife. And she was pregnant again. This was one of those perfect moments that for most of his life he imagined would be off-limits to a guy like him.
“Come on, sweetie,” she urged. “Just one more step.”
His son awkwardly picked up a foot and started to wobble precariously, but Lacey gave him a fingertip to use for balance. Righting himself, Cam knew a sense of pride completely new to him when Dylan took a deep breath, squared his little shoulders and finished his waddle-march into Mama’s waiting arms.
“Who’s amazing?” Cam crooned as he rushed toward them. The second his blonde haired son saw him the kid exploded with excitement. Smacking Lacey on the shoulder he squealed with gurgling delight. “Da da!”
Cam’s swift approach turned into a stoop before ending on one knee by his wife’s side. At Dylan’s level now, he did the little raised arm happy dance they frequently broke into and then offered up his big hand.
“Give me five, my boy!”
Dylan smacked his little hand with the wet fingers onto Cam’s and bounced in his mother’s arms.
It took him a moment after that to compose himself. Sometimes when he found her like this, with their precious son safe in her loving arms, he was overcome with emotions so deep he was convinced they bore the mark of his soul. This was one of those moments.
The depth of his love for Lacey couldn’t be measured. Same for his son. And secure in his wife’s womb was a new life that would join this happy trio in the spring. Cam knew how lucky he was.
“I guess now that’s he’s one year old, he’s ready to move on,” Lacey sighed. “He’s getting so big. Soon he won’t need his mama so much.”
He wasn’t sure if she sounded melancholy or if it was just his overactive mind. His beautiful Ponytail was having a rough time and not just because of the pregnancy. She’d had to deal with an awful lot over the last few months and he worried maybe it had all been too much.
Cam stroked his fingers along the shell of her ear. She looked up at him with her clear blue eyes.
“He’s a momma’s boy and you know it,” he chided playfully.
Her gentle smile was enough to ease his worry. For now.
She offered her lips for a quick kiss, which he accomplished despite his son grabbing a fistful of his shirt and using it to transfer from Lacey’s arms to his.
“See?” She smirked. “It’s starting already.”
“Ma!” Dylan hollered. The kid smacked him on the chest and did his little bouncing dance. “Da da!”
Planting a smooch on his son’s head, he let the animated one-year-old use him as a climber while Lacey smiled wistfully.
“I was thinking.”
He raised a brow and waited for whatever came next.
“You know how I said I wanted to be surprised when the baby came?”
Oh hell yeah he remembered. Walking back into his life after almost being killed and being injured himself, he found a pregnant wife barely hanging by a thread. Once the initial jubilation of his return passed, he saw right away what rough shape she was in.
Her doctor wasn’t overly concerned, saying the nausea and appetite problems were manageable. It was his wife’s emotional well-being causing most of the problems.
So he catered to every whim. Whatever she needed, she got. Even if it was something silly like getting new bathroom towels because she didn’t like the color of the ones they had. Luckily for him, Betty walked him through a marathon shopping spree at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and within a few days he’d switched out every fucking towel they had.
It also meant when she declared that she did not want to know the new baby’s sex, he went along. However, her not knowing and him not knowing were two different things. She wanted to be surprised, which was fine by him. But this time around he wanted to know. So the doctor told him in confidence—a secret he’d kept from his wife from that moment on.
“Um, well, I think I want to know. I mean, don’t you?”
Oh fuck. Decision time. What should he do? More inform
ation was needed before he knew what to do.
“Why the change of heart, honey?”
She gave a jerky, half-shrug and ruffled Dylan’s hair. “I was thinking about something Heather said. She kind of pointed out that preparing big brother for a baby sibling would be easier if we knew what we were having.”
He smiled and nodded. Heather was turning out to be everyone’s semi-official counselor. It was funny in a lot of ways, because until they had a licensed therapist in the family, it would be fair to say none of them realized how fucked up they were.
Lacey laughed. “And I think there have been enough surprises for the time being, don’t you?”
Which reminded him, “I owe Alex Marquez more than my life.”
“Me too,” his wife murmured. “The Justice Family Trust he set up for Dylan and Daniel is worlds beyond a simple surprise.”
He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around what Alex had done. Neither he nor Drae were without resources. Shit. Justice had made them millionaires and at the rate things were going, all of them were looking at an early retirement.
It wasn’t the money. That was the least of it. It was the permanency and what Alex called the declaration of family that struck the heart of things. Creating the Junior Justice Trust for all the Family Justice offspring ensured a bond between families that went beyond blood.
For a kid raised without family or anchors, and a girl abandoned by her only living parent, what Alex did had serious meaning to him and Lacey. Two years ago, both of them were emotionally, and in Lacey’s case figuratively, homeless. Today, they and their son were part of a big and growing family.
“So what you’re saying is, enough surprises for now?”
Dylan abandoned him and flung into Lacey’s arms with a giggle. “Ma!” he gurgled with a finger jammed in the side of his mouth as drool slid off his chin.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “For the time being, no more surprises. Maybe we can call the doctor’s office in the morning and ask for the baby’s sex.”
Picking up the hem of her baggy t-shirt, she used it to wipe the slobber away. “This is why Mommy can’t wear nice clothes,” she chuckled to their son and then blew a loud raspberry on the giggling kid’s tummy.
Hold that thought,” Cam said. Scrambling to his feet he made a mad dash for the master bedroom and headed straight to the walk-in closet. On a high shelf in his part of the wardrobe, he fished around until his hand found the wrapped box he searched for.
Pulling it down, he turned it over in his hands, smoothed the paper and made sure it wasn’t ripped or mangled from having been tossed into an inconspicuous spot and bolted back to the nursery.
Grabbing a toy he knew would distract Dylan for half a minute, he went and sat down on the floor next to his wife. Prying the baby from her arms he sat him down two feet away and drew his attention to the toy. Diversion accomplished, his attention immediately returned to Lacey.
Handing her the wrapped box he said, “Full disclosure, Ponytail.”
She took the box, put it in her lap and looked at him rather dubiously.
“Oh! Really? Cameron,” she groaned. “What have you done?”
He dropped a quick, firm kiss on her sweet mouth. “I’ve known about the baby since the ultrasound.”
As usual, he’d been a total moron by thinking she’d be mad. Lacey didn’t waste time on mad.
The box instantly forgotten, she grabbed his shirt almost the same way Dylan had and yanked. “What is it?” she questioned with a gasp. “You devil!” She was laughing and shaking her head. “All this time and you said nothing?”
“Name, rank and serial number, darlin’. The rest is on deep background.”
She eyed him suspiciously and then barked, “Well? Are you going to tell me or not?”
Cam snickered and lightly tapped her nose. The only thing close to being as sexy as her moans when they made love was his young wife’s hilariously ineffective attempt at being a bad ass.
“Stop yer’ bitchin’ woman and open the damn box.”
He watched smiling as she huffed and puffed. Muttering about how she didn’t want any more presents and his lack of intelligence, she ripped the plain paper off the package without looking at what she was doing.
Paper removed, she waded it into a ball and tossed the clump onto the floor in front of the baby. He’d have a field day ripping the gift-wrap to shreds.
Then she made a noise. In books it would be called a harrumph, and stared at the box in her lap.
Her brows bumped together in a cute frown. Picking the box up she studied it, turned it over, read, and then flipped it face up again.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured. Pointing her finger, she muttered an unnecessary rebuke. “Don’t you dare make any blonde jokes.”
“Sweetie,” he chuckled with a grin. “What’s in the box?”
She still didn’t get it even after a long second look. Goddamn she was awesome.
“Um, well, it’s a doll with a teacup.”
“What kind of doll?”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, recognizing the clue in her lap. “It’s a Cabbage Patch. Bella has one. Did you know? It was Heather’s.”
He shook his head and pointed at the box to keep her focused on the moment at hand.
“Okay. So,” she muttered. “Cabbage Patch. Teacup. Blonde, blue eyed, top knot with a bow … girl!” She screamed. “Cameron,” she bellowed excitedly as Dylan looked their way. “A girl? Are we having a girl?”
No words were necessary. The wide loving grin on his face said it all. She launched into his arms and pushed him flat on the floor. Crawling on top of him, he felt the bump of her belly on his stomach and melted. His girls.
About a dozen happy kisses later; they sat up and laughed because even with their toddler son feet away, the kissing had turned raw and greedy in record time.
“Oh my god, Cameron. A son and now a daughter.”
Her happy smile gave way to a torrent of tears that shocked him sideways. “I wonder if my mom knew I would be a girl.”
Ah, yes. His wife’s long-deceased mother. A touchy subject. He thought briefly of the gift he was having made and hoped it would be ready for Christmas. Giving Lacey a touchstone to connect her with a past she barely remembered had become an obsession.
Hell, family and everything the word conveyed was on his mind twenty-four seven. And he didn’t mean just his little clan.
Family Justice seemed to get bigger and more diverse every day. What was once a small band of brothers had in less than two years become the focal point of a much larger group. Men, women, kids, dogs. Grandkids! Their little oasis in the desert was now a busy complex spread out over hundreds and hundreds of acres, encompassing not just the business side of Justice life but the expanding family too.
Dylan crawled into his lap and sat his diapered butt down with his back against Cam’s stomach. As usual his son was working a finger in his mouth—he was either constantly teething or had a wicked oral complex—and was watching his mom with avid curiosity. He waved his chubby spit covered fingers in the air to get her attention and let loose. “Mama! Mama!”
“Aw,” Lacey murmured tearfully. “He’s using his big boy words too.”
He could feel her pushing the thoughts about her mother aside. That was his Ponytail’s way. It’s how she survived being a homeless teenager. She didn’t see the purpose in lingering over things past. Things that can’t be changed. Not when life was happening right now. For his young wife, every moment counted as it played out. Being melancholy for a lost parent would have to wait.
He changed the subject just enough to give her space to breathe. “I got a text from Brody. Looks like family night at his house this weekend.”
Lacey chuckled and blew a kiss to Dylan. “Oh, that’s right. How cute. Bella invited everyone to her house. Remember? At Dylan’s party. She’s so darn cute.”
He remembered it well. After his ordeal overseas and coming home to find his w
ife pregnant, all his crazy plans for Dyl’s first birthday melted away. Sure that thoughts of family kept him from getting his ass blown to bits, he switched gears astonishingly fast. For him.
Family wasn’t about circus events or crazy kids’ parties. Especially not Family Justice. Alex, Drae and Cam for different reasons were lucky to be alive. He saw this ragtag mob of characters as a group of survivors. All of them, every one, had survived something along the way. In their cases, they survived a war. In others it could be as simple as a personal loss or crushing regret, or as complex as being an orphan—even metaphorically—or the collateral damage from someone else’s actions.
All he wanted for his son’s first birthday was to celebrate with this crazy family they were part of. No gimmicks. No party planners. A cook out, some cake and ice cream, and a pile of presents.
Things he’d never had and could only fantasize about.
So he and Lacey threw down with an epic Disney themed bash. After lugging home a shit-ton of crap from the party store and getting Ria to make a sheet cake to look like Sulley of Monsters, Inc. fame, they hosted the whole Justice crew and ended the night in their home theater room watching the Disney favorite.
For him it was an incredibly emotional fulfillment of a dream. He’d never been to Disneyland. As a kid in the foster system, shit like Disney was nirvana for others. Not for him. Until he and Lacey were wandering the aisles of the huge party warehouse and found themselves in the Disney aisle, he’d almost forgotten that old wound. As an adult he’d collected every Disney movie he could get his hands on so going balls out with a mash-up of a dozen Disney themes had given Cam a rush.
Bella had been on cloud nine. It was her first time at a birthday party. Knowing that and seeing her ecstatic reaction to the smallest detail, he’d felt a special kinship with Brody’s daughter. At his urging she’d made the rounds and somehow managed to invite all of them to her house for a barbecue. Cam couldn’t wait to see what she managed to coerce Heather and her dad into doing.
Unforgettable (Family Justice Book 5) Page 3