“Ethan, I’ll be fine. Are you sure you want me to go?”
Of course I wanted her to go. To use Carson’s words, I wanted to show her off to my family. More than that, I wanted her to get to know everyone. But there were a lot of us, and it was going to be overwhelming.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then stop worrying. Carson has given me the rundown and she even quizzed me on who’s who.” Honor laughed.
“How did you do?”
“Not well. You have eight cousins and two of them are married. Plus, your three aunts and uncles, your parents, and your brother. I think I have everyone’s names down but once Carson started with ages and occupations I failed.”
“If it gets to be too much, just tell me.”
I didn’t know why I was so worried. My family was cool, they’d pull her into the fold and make her feel right at home. Maybe that’s what I was afraid of. Either they’d scare her off, or she’d be another level deeper into my life. Making the pain even more unbearable if she left.
The other night when Honor had called me out on my shit, she’d smoothed the rough edges, but I still felt out of sorts. It was like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. My gut was screaming at me that something bad was going to happen. It was only a matter of time before my life was pulled out from under me. I couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Stop worrying. I won’t embarrass you, I promise.”
“Smalls, you’ve met my parents. There’s nothing you could say or do that would embarrass me. My family is loud and the best group of people I know.”
“What in the world is taking Carson so long? Carter’s already at my parents’ she’s normally bouncing off the walls, begging to go.”
Honor took my hand in hers and looked from the stairs to me.
“She’ll be right down. She’s finishing a surprise for your parents.”
“A surprise?”
“Just a little something she wanted to put together. It’s more for your mom, really.”
“Did you have something to do with this surprise?”
“Maybe.”
I stepped closer and took advantage of our rare moment of privacy and kissed her. “Thank you.”
“Wow. If I get kissed like that every time I help Carson with a project, I’m helping more.”
“Honor!” Carson yelled. “I need help. Come quick.”
“Duty calls, handsome.”
Honor jogged up the stairs to help Carson, and, not for the first time, I was stunned. My daughter had called for Honor—not me. Even after Honor and I talked about it, I still couldn’t find the right words to express how I felt. I certainly wasn’t jealous of her. I wanted Carson to forge her own relationship with Honor. I wanted them to have something special between them. But it didn’t make the twinge in my heart any easier to take.
My phone beeped in my pocket, and I pulled it out to find Carter had texted.
Carter: Where the fuck are you, jackass?
Me: Christ you’re impatient. Be there in 20.
Carter: Hurry up. I’m dying to meet your woman. Fair warning, Mom is planning a full-court press. She’s pulled out all the stops to cement Honor to the fam.
Me: Fucking hell. What’s she up to? Will there be a minister to marry us too?
Carter: Marry? That was a jump, brother. Something you’re thinking about?
Me: Fuck off. See you in 20.
Marry Honor?
It was way too soon to even think about marriage. I grabbed a water from the kitchen and thought about it some more. Why was thinking about marrying her so crazy when a few days ago, I admitted I wouldn’t mind if she got pregnant. I was so confused, I needed my head examined and I needed to stop allowing my brother to crawl in my mind and play his games.
“Ready,” Carson announced.
On the drive to my parents’ house Carson continued to give Honor a rundown of our family. By the time Carson was done even I was confused about who was who and I knew all of them. I had no idea Carson knew so much about our family history. She even knew my mom had been taken by bad guys, and my dad had had to save her. When the hell had my mom or dad told her that story? They didn’t tell me and Carter the story of how they met, separated, and reunited until we were teenagers.
The block was full of cars by the time we pulled up. My cousin Nick was getting out of his truck, helping his wife Meadow down when he noticed and waved.
“That’s Nick,” I told Honor. “His wife is Meadow.”
“Meadow has a scar on her face,” Carson added. “She’s so brave. A bad, bad woman hurt her really bad, and Cousin Nick saved her. He’s brave, too. He’s a Special Agent.”
Honor fidgeted for a moment before she turned to me.
“FBI, right? He was working a serial case and Meadow was a victim, turned witness, turn victim again. They used to live in Virginia.”
“Correct.”
Honor turned in her seat and gave Carson a high five.
“Bam! I remembered.”
Both of my girls giggled, and I cut the engine.
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
“I am. I want to go swimming,” Carson added.
Nick and Meadow were waiting for us when we made our way to the front porch.
“Ethan. Good to see you. I heard you made an arrest on the liquor store robberies.”
“We did. Caught him on his seventh hit. His sheet’s a mile long, he shouldn’t have been walking the streets.”
“No work talk,” Meadow said.
“You got it, Red.” Nick smiled at his wife.
“Nick. Meadow. This is Honor Sullivan.”
The three of them exchanged pleasantries before Nick scooped up Carson and walked to the door. When I’d announced to the family I was going to have a child I’d been most worried about Nick and Meadow’s reaction. They’d wanted kids, but due to Meadow’s attack she was unable to have children. And there I was, way too young and in no way ready, but I was having one by accident. When they moved to Georgia, they’d started talking to adoption agencies after I’d explained I couldn’t and wouldn’t give up Carson. Neither of them had been anything other than supportive, but I still wonder if the timing was like a slap in the face.
We stepped into the foyer, and I pulled up short, stopping Honor in the process. The house was utter chaos. I let the sight of my family wrap around me. I lived for these barbeques. We’d been having them for as long as I could remember. Normally, they were for no special reason. But today, I was nervous. I’d never brought a woman to a family gathering. They were sacred, my time to connect with the people who meant the most to me. I’d never met anyone I’d wanted to bring into the inner circle—until Honor.
“There are so many people here,” Honor murmured.
“If you get overwhelmed, tell me.”
“There you are,” Carter said. “Why the fuck are you standing in the doorway?”
“Nice. Honor meet my brother, Carter.”
Carter stood an inch taller than me but other than that we were matched in size. And no one would doubt we were brothers. Much to my mother’s delight, we both looked just like our father. Lily Lenox always bragged about how she had the best-looking men in Georgia. I’d always thought she had to say that about me and Carter because we were her sons. Then middle school came, and both of us got our share of attention. But high school was when I’d realized the opposite sex appreciated the Lenox genes.
He was sizing Honor up, and if I didn’t know his secret, I would’ve warned him to take his eyes off my woman. But I knew something the rest of the family didn’t know. I was about fifteen when he told me, making Carter around seventeen. He made me promise to never tell. To this day, I think the secret is stupid. No one would care. There is one thing this family wants and that is for everyone to be happy. And the thing Carter isn’t, is happy. He had a bad ass job as a Navy SEAL, had great friends, but had zero personal life. And if the same thing rings true at twenty-six as it did when
he was seventeen, he was a choir boy. Considering his SEAL platoon calls him Church, I’d bet it was still the case.
“Nice to meet you,” Honor broke the silence.
“You, too. Come on in, Mom’s been waiting for you,” he told her.
Mom?
Not my mom, not our mom—just Mom.
“There you two are. I thought I saw Carson running down to the basement.”
And, it was too late, my mom had found us.
“Hi, Lily,” Honor beamed. “Do you need any help?”
“Yes. Come on and leave the boys to catch up I’ll introduce you around.”
“Okay.”
Before my mom could lead her away I stopped her, looked around, and not seeing Carson, I brushed my lips against hers. “Please don’t let them scare you away.”
“I’ll be fine.”
I let my mom steer her in the direction of my aunts, Emily, Regan, and Blake, and sighed. Nothing like baptism by fire.
“You’re fucked,” Carter said.
“Come again?”
“You won’t see Honor the rest of the day. Mom thinks she’s hit the jackpot. One of her sons has finally given her a daughter.”
“I think you’re exaggerating a little.”
“Am I?”
“You realize I’ve known her like a minute, right?”
“And?”
“It’s a little too soon.”
“Do you remember the stories the uncles told about meeting their women?”
“How could I forget?”
My uncles told those stories any chance they could. There was a lesson about bravery, family, and love in each union.
“So then you know it is not too soon. Ethan, the fact she’s here, and you allow her and Carson to spend time together tells me you already know. If you’d get out of your own head for two seconds, you’d see it. Mom and Dad do. I do.”
“You met her for like two seconds,” I reminded him.
“That’s all it took. Two seconds and I knew.”
I wondered if he was talking about him or me. He’d been in love with Delaney Walker for nearly ten years. I understood why he hadn’t said anything when he was seventeen and she was fourteen, but now? He refused to believe the family would accept it. His excuse being she was our cousin. But she wasn’t—not really. Not by blood. Just because we grew up with Jasper, Clark, and Levi as our honorary uncles didn’t mean we were related in any way. And he was crazy if he thought we all didn’t know she returned his feelings.
“You know she loves you, right?”
“We’re not talking about me,” he deflected.
“Why not? You never want to talk about you. It’s time we do.”
Over the years there’d been a lot that had changed about my brother, one of those things was his carefree personality and another was he’d perfected my father’s glare. He could bring a man low with just a look.
“I’m leaving in a few days,” he told me.
“Fuck. Where?”
“Back to Africa.”
“How long?”
“At least six months.”
Fuck. The news was going to kill my mom.
“Mom?”
“I haven’t told her yet. Dad knows. I’m sure he’s told the uncles. But I wanted Mom to have her day before I dropped the bomb.”
“And Delaney?”
“She knows, too.”
So, Carter was still in contact with her, more so than he wanted me to know.
“How is she?”
“Same as she always is when I leave. Scared, upset, crying.” Carter faced me and for the first time he tore his mask away and let me see his pain. “It fucking guts me. Every. Single. Time. Now do you understand why I can’t have her? I want her happy and smiling every day. Not worried if her man is coming home or waiting for months to hear from me. She deserves better.”
“That’s her choice, Carter. She’s loved you since she was fourteen. And I can’t think of a better man for her.”
“Wrong. It’s my choice. I told her yesterday it was time to move on. She needs to stop wasting her life waiting on something that’s never going to happen.”
“Wait. Have the two of you . . .”
I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question with sounding crude.
“Yes.”
“Holy fuck,” I whispered. “You never told me that. How long?”
“Years.”
“Boys,” my dad interrupted. “You tell him?”
“Yeah,” Carter answered.
“Not a word to your mother. I want her to enjoy introducing Honor to everyone.”
“Why does everyone keep making a big deal out of this?”
“Because, it is a big deal. My future daughter is meeting the family for the first time.”
Carter chuckled and pounded my back a few times before he walked away to mingle with the crowd. I caught Honor across the room talking to my Aunt Emily. They were laughing but that’s not what had my attention. My gaze went lower to Carson’s hand in Honor’s.
The love that had taken root and had started to blossom, exploded in my chest. I was no longer able to deny it. Honor was mine.
12
“What’s this?” Lily asked.
“Open it, Gran, it’s a surprise,” Carson told her. “Honor helped me make it.”
“I’ll take this out to the table,” Emily said, picking up a tray of burger fixings.
“Thanks, Em.” Then Lily took the surprise from Carson and inspected the wrapping. “Did you do this all by yourself?”
“Yep.” Carson stood a little taller. “All Honor did was hold the sides, so I could tape it.”
“Is there any tape left on the roll?” Ethan asked, joining us in the kitchen.
“Yes!” Carson declared, and I shook my head in the negative.
“What’s the occasion?” Lenox asked.
“Honor said you don’t have to wait for birthdays to give presents. Sometimes you can do it just because. To show someone you love them. So I made Gran a just-because surprise.”
“That was nice, Squirt.”
“I thought so, too.” Carson proudly smiled.
The gift had been her idea, I only helped with the execution.
Lily tore through the paper and gasped.
“Carson Rose!”
“Do you like it, Gran?”
“I couldn’t love it more.”
“Do you see? It spells love.”
Lily held up the sign for Ethan to see.
“Are those pictures from Savannah?” Ethan asked inspecting the letters.
“Yep. Honor printed them out. She taught me how to mod . . .”
“Mod podge,” I reminded her.
“We mod podged the pictures to the letters and painted the wood. Honor said she had to glue the letters to the wood because the glue was poison and I couldn’t touch it. See?” Carson proudly pointed to the piece of wood then to the black and white photos of her and Ethan that covered the L-O-V-E. “It’s me and Daddy.”
“This is the best present I’ve ever received,” Lily announced with tears in her eyes.
“I take exception to that,” Lenox said. “You told me the diamond earrings I gave you last Christmas were the best present.”
He winked at Carson.
“Well, now this is,” Lily huffed. “Lenox get a hammer I know just where I want it.”
“Now? We have a house full of people, woman.”
“Yes, right now.”
Lenox tromped out, muttering something under his breath. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He’d do anything to make Lily happy, including hanging a photo collage in the middle of a party. By the time Lenox returned Ethan still hadn’t said anything, and I worried I’d overstepped. Lenox and Carson followed Lily into the living room.
“Do you like it?”
“No.” His answer wiped the smile off my face.
“No?”
“There are no pictures of you.”
“Me? Why
would I put a picture of myself on the sign? It’s supposed to be about family.”
“I want you guys to make a new one. With pictures of you included.”
“Ethan, I don’t have any pictures of myself.”
“I do.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, tapped the screen. “Here,” he said, handing it to me.
There was a picture of Carson and me with our heads together looking at the back of my camera. We were in Savannah.
“I didn’t know you took that.”
“There’s more,” he told me.
I scrolled through the images and there were dozens and dozens of pictures of me with Carson. Us cooking, me showing Carson how to use my camera, us reading, some images I didn’t know what we’d been doing but we were smiling at each other. Then there were the ones of me alone, I was never looking at the camera. He’d captured me doing everyday things around the house, including vacuuming.
But there were none of Ethan and me.
“Why did you take these?”
“I remembered what you said at the park the first day I met you. I’ll never forget those moments but I still wanted the reminder. I like knowing I can pull up one of those pictures and see your beautiful face and remember how happy you make Carson and me.”
“Thank you. I want these, all of them. I don’t have any of Carson and me.”
“I want those on a new sign for our home.”
“Okay,” I whispered, afraid if I spoke any louder my voice would give away how much it meant to me that he wanted to include me in his family pictures.
“Will you go out to dinner with me tomorrow?” he asked.
“Of course. We should go to the pizza place with the Pac Man game. Carson loves it there.”
“Just the two of us. I want to take you out.”
“Like, on a date?” I laughed.
I lived with him, we’d been sleeping together for weeks, and we’d already talked about both of us wanting to keep moving our relationship forward. Wasn’t it a little late to start dating?
“Exactly like a date. We’ve never been out just the two of us.”
“I appreciate you offering. But we get time alone together every night.” Ethan smirked, and I continued. “You know what I mean. With you comes the awesome bonus of Carson. We don’t need to leave her out.”
Chasing Honor (The Next Generation Book 2) Page 10