“What happened, Moira?” His voice is a lot gruffer now.
I’m making things worse by not answering. I sigh. “Okay, can I just turn on the coffee thing? I haven’t even had one cup yet.”
He hugs me tighter. “You’re adorable when you wake up. You’re grumpy with your black eye.”
I laugh. “I have a black eye?”
He loosens his grip so I can turn on the coffee machine—priorities—then glance at myself in the shiny chrome of my toaster. Yikes. God, Eva should be a boxer. My poor eye isn’t as swollen as it feels, but it is slightly puffy. Under it are two purple smudges, one on the inside, the other on the outside that shifts upwards and into the crease of my lid.
“Wow.” I smile and glance up at Shane. “I look like a bad ass.”
He grins but shakes his head, trying to look tough with me. “Tell me what happened. And what the heck are you wearing? Are you even in there?” He gathers a handful of my former maternity nightshirt, but even with him stretching the fabric, my body doesn’t become apparent until he’s got about a yard of it in his fist.
I laugh. “I wore this when I was pregnant with Liv and Jamie. I miss them.”
He glances up from the bolts of cloth in his grasp. After making a pointed frowny face, he says, “Sorry. It’s tough when they’re gone.”
I nod.
“Ever going to tell me how you came to sport that shiner? Or should I just guess?”
“Guess first.”
He sniffs. “You walked into a door.”
I roll my eyes. “Come on. Aren’t you an English professor? Don’t you encourage creativity? You can get a lot more imaginative than that.”
He smiles and grabs my hips as I place a pod in my coffee machine. “You’re the newest James Bond and do your own stunts.”
I softly chuckle, settling my hands on his chest. I adore how warm and hard he is. “You want a cup?”
“Already had a billion before I came here.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. I can’t feel my tongue.”
“Nice.”
He growls. “Spit it out, woman.”
I think about grabbing my very freshly brewed coffee but then just tell him. “Your mom slapped me last night.”
His eyes widen with horror. “She what?”
“I wasn’t being nice, either. We kind of had a weird verbal thing. Kind of a fight. She told me…something, then I told her I’d been…we both said things that weren’t nice.”
“You ever notice how you defend people who get violent with you?”
I open my mouth to retaliate, but then tilt my head to the side, thinking of what he said.
He purses his lips into a thin line. “Did you slap my mother back?”
I shake my head.
“So you don’t get violent? Except with Joe and me.”
I place a hand over my mouth. I’d nearly forgotten the crazed person I’d been yesterday. “Oh god, I’m so sorry—”
Shane hugs me again. “It’s okay, Moira. I’m teasing.”
“It’s not okay. I’m not okay with violence. I’m not okay with me striking out.”
He tunnels his fingers through my hair, holding my head against his chest where I hear his beating heart, his calm breathing.
“I’ll never hit you or Joe again. I’ll never…”
“You’re forgiven, Moira. And I know. I know.”
I pull away to look up at him. “How can you? I’m so sorry.”
“Joe and I talked a lot last night. We looked at the situation from your point of view. Or tried to, even though you weren’t there to confirm our assessments. But…we were both trying so hard to do right by each other, we overlooked how you’d feel about…everything.”
“Where is he? Joe?”
Shane slightly stiffens, his grin growing forced. “At home, finishing the greenhouse.”
I nod. Only then do I wonder why Shane came here alone.
“Anyway.” He sniffs. “You might want to stop hanging out with people who grab you or slap you.”
“That’s your mother you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, and I’m a much better person since I wrote her off.”
I know I’m looking at him with my jaw open, but I can’t help it. “You wrote her off?”
Shane takes a long inhalation. “Maybe not all the way written off, but…I can’t care the way I used to because I’ll never get answers why she did the things she did. Why she still does the shit she does. But, Jesus, I’m sorry she did this.” He reaches down and gently kisses the outside of my eye. “What did you say before she slapped you?”
I bite my lip. “That…Joe and I…”
Shane nods. “Did you tell her about me?”
“I was a tad shocked after she slapped me.”
He smiles. “I can’t wait to tell her.”
“You’re going to tell her…and tell her what exactly?”
He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it up. “That’s why I came over here, actually. I thought maybe you wanted to talk…talk about things before you made up your mind…or maybe you just need time alone.” He does it again, where he rakes his fingers through his hair, making it look really wild and fun. “I mean…what Joe proposed…that’s not the right word—I shouldn’t have used that word. What Joe talked about yesterday, about all of us…I can’t fucking talk right…shit.”
“You are an English professor?”
He smiles. “Smart ass.” He shakes his head. “It’s you, you know? I get so fucking tongue-tied around you. I hurt when I look at you. I feel so…fucking much. And then out comes this primitive language along with the weird syntax. Jesus, I almost never sound like this. I’m articulate. I’m kind of respected for being smart.”
I caress his face. “I know you are. I was teasing, but I shouldn’t’ve.”
He places both his hands over mine. “I love it when you tease me. So don’t stop.”
We stare into each other’s eyes.
“I want to kiss you.”
I roll my lips inward.
He groans. “Now, I really fucking want to kiss you.” He bends his head down then takes a giant step away. “But I came here to talk to you, see if…this is too weird. Maybe it is. I mean, I thought about it last night. I couldn’t think of anything else. Well, I thought about making love to you. A lot. And it’s kind of weird my brother’s okay with that. So I can’t stop thinking about doing that. God, I want my hands on you. But I came here to just talk.”
I shake my head. “You’re making it almost impossible to just talk with speeches like that.”
“Really? The not-at-all-coherent speech?”
I nod.
He sighs. “Grab your coffee. Let’s talk.”
I do as told and follow him to my sunroom. He sits on the couch where he’s watched my children as I went to my AA meetings. He was the first one I told I was an alcoholic. He…what do I think of sleeping with both him and Joe? Granted, I’ve thought about it. I thought about it a lot. I am a red-blooded woman, after all. But those are fantasies. What about reality?
He pats beside him, but I’m already there, sitting close, leaning against his shoulder as I sip my coffee. He wraps an arm around me. We just sit in our silence for a long time.
“Do you think you could ever love me?” His voice is rough when he asks, and he has to clear it.
“I told you—”
“But it’s hard for me to understand.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s me, Moira. I’m not my brave and bold brother. I’m…angry and awkward and—”
“Are not,” I say like my daughter might, which makes him silently chuckle. But then I answer him. “I already am, in love with you. I know it.” I don’t look at him, and I can tell he’s not looking at me. We’re talking with our hearts pouring out, but it’s so intense, so—even with Joe giving us permission—guilt-ridden that it’s too much to say while looking at each other.
He does
, though, squeeze me closer. I fit in the niche at his side. Like his brother, I just fit.
“I—maybe this is too romantic or over-the-top.” He clears his throat again. “But I think I loved you when I first saw you. You were chatting with my mother on the hammock in the backyard. You had your eyes closed so you didn’t know I was there. God, the way the sun hit your hair, making it look like…rose gold, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
I smile and snuggle my head against him all the more. “I thought you were very handsome.”
He snorts. “Until I opened my fucking mouth.” He laughs. “I saw it in your eyes. When you first looked at me, I saw how you were surprised, maybe even a tad attracted, but then I opened my goddamned mouth. What was it I said to you? Something about how you needed to get out of the hammock because you were drinking? Jesus. And then I couldn’t stop. I just kept pestering you about how you needed to learn how to speak French. What an arrogant ass. Did you think I was an arrogant ass?”
I’m shaking with my soft giggles, trying really hard not to laugh too much at his expense.
“And every time I saw you—” he shakes his head, “—I was either telling you how you were mispronouncing a word or telling you how you needed to learn more about something I don’t even know.”
I glance up at him, surprised by his admission. “Do you speak French?”
“I can ask where the bathroom is. That’s it.”
I smack him playfully. “Hypocrite.”
He smiles. “I was trying to impress you.”
I point at his chest. “This impresses me. Who you really are impresses me.”
He takes hold of my hand, looking deeply in my eyes. His gold orbs darkening. “Really? Do you really think you love me?”
I know by looking at each other and saying these things out loud something will change between us, our dynamic, but I can’t keep any more secrets. Not from him.
I nod. “Really, really.”
“Watch Shrek much?”
“All the freaking time.”
He smiles. “I love your kids, Moira.”
I swallow. “They’re part of the deal that comes with me.”
“Does that mean you’re willing to think of this…scenario?”
“Being with you and Joe?”
He nods.
“What do you think of it? What do you think of me being with Joe?”
“Well, I’ve had time to get over the fact that you’re with Joe. But at first, I was jealous as fuck. But I already said that to you.” He shrugs. “Kind of hated him for a couple days.”
“A couple days?”
“He’s my brother. Can’t stay mad at him for too long.”
I hug Shane. It’s awkward since we’re sitting next to each other, and I have my coffee mug in one hand, but I do hold him. “I love that about you. I love how much you and Joe love each other. I don’t want to do anything to interfere…”
He envelops me with his strong arms. “What Joe’s offering—I don’t know what to make of it. I want you so…god, I want you. I resigned myself to a life of celibacy and pining over you.”
I pull away enough to look at him. “That sounds terrible.”
“Tell me about it.”
I smile. “I don’t want you to live that life. You can’t just give up—”
“Are you saying you don’t want me?”
I sigh. “I feel terrible about the way I…the way I think of…you. I feel like I’m betraying Joe.”
“Because you do want me?”
I nod. “A lot.” Then I inhale. “Not just sexually. I haven’t objectified you. I don’t think I have. I might have a little.”
He softly chuckles. “Do you…fantasize about me?”
I nod and pull away so I’m no longer holding him, realizing how this line of questioning is getting a little hot.
“I told you how much I fantasize about you.”
“The thing is…” I’m a little embarrassed I find myself confessing so much to him. But that’s our dynamic. He swoops into my life and I find him unbearably perfect—watching my kids, ensuring they have fun and feel safe to be themselves, watching me, ensuring I have fun and feel safe to be my myself. Before Tony, I doubt I would have known what a gift it is when a person allows you to just be yourself, who wants to know you without limitations, without telling you the you they want you to be. And because I know how precious both Shane and Joe are, I find myself saying everything. “I—okay, so I saw your pickup, the one you and Joe own. You know, that day Joe thought he’d killed Marty—thank god, he’s fine now. That day when I…oddly, got lightheaded, kind of fainted. What I never said to you or even Joe is I had an intense fantasy about that pickup.”
Shane wags his dark brows a few times. “What were you doing to the pickup?”
I roll my eyes and playfully smack him on his chest. “Pervert. I wasn’t fantasizing about sex. But I saw it, the truck, and before I knew it belonged to you two, I saw me. In the future, I guess. I was close to the truck. And my kids were in a big garden, the kind you’re hoping to grow. Beside a greenhouse, the kind you and Joe are building. And I saw how happy my kids were. How happy I was.”
Shane holds my hand. “You had a vision.”
I look down, not sure how to handle the words. Being here, in Wyoming country, where Native Americans have so much influence, having a vision, the kind I think Shane is referring to, means something sacred.
I have to swallow and try to handle what he’s said.
“That was your vision?” Shane asks.
I shake my head. “Liv was playing with her new…sister. In the dream, I had a baby. A daughter.”
“Do you know with whom?”
I shake my head. “That’s why when you told me the pickup belonged to you, I kind of swooned, I guess.”
“How Victorian of you.”
I roll my eyes.
“Let me get this straight.” He shifts, so he’s looking at me more squarely, and I do the same. “You saw yourself in the future, you saw your kids at my house, my garden, the place where Joe and I share ownership. You had this…vision after you saw the pickup that Joe and I share?”
I look down to my cooling coffee and nod.
“Do you feel pressured to be with both Joe and me because of that?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“Do you want to be with both Joe and me?”
I blink, taking a shaky breath. “I—I do. But—”
“But?”
“But I feel so bad about the way I feel. It can’t be good for Joe. It can’t be good for you. It’s not fair. It’s not…right.”
“Says who?”
I shrug.
He places a calloused palm on my knee. His knuckles look a little beat up, a scratch running along his thumb. He’s too rough on his body. On his hands. But I want to cradle his long, rough fingers against my cheek.
“As I already told you, Joe and I talked a lot last night.”
I nod, not too sure what to say.
“Joe and I…You know, when I was with Abby, maybe I was working out my mommy issues. I don’t know. I just fell for her without really knowing her. I mean, I thought I did. But she and my mother were and are a lot alike. Abby never took me seriously.”
“You don’t think your mother takes you seriously? I think she does.”
He smiles and gently touches around my puffy, tender eye. “You’re like a real-life Pollyanna. It’s kind of awe-inspiring to be around you and how you have such hope for people, or even a person who’s slapped you. But I also want to shake the living hell out of you for that hope, for that—excuse me—that kind of naivety.”
I gasp and frown. “I’m not naive. I’m divorced.”
He smiles. “A lot of other women wouldn’t try to be friends with their ex-husbands. They’d try to make life difficult for their ex, like my mother is with my dad. And I’m not saying that’s wrong or right. But what I am saying is…you—you are good
to Tony. You talk to him, try to reason with him. You keep trying. You defended him when he hurt you. You defended my mother when she hurt you.”
“You defended me when I hurt you.”
He closes his eyes, wincing slightly. “I hope this doesn’t offend you, but you didn’t hurt me. Or Joe.”
I cough a laugh at first, surprised he’d say as much, but then I sober, realizing what I had done. “Oh god, that’s so like my mother.”
“She’d hit you?” His voice is higher than normal, angry-sounding.
“Not hard. It was more for shock value, I think. Which makes me feel even more horrible I—”
“Moira, Joe and I are over it. You’re going to have to forgive yourself now.”
“That’s the hardest part.”
He smiles. “I know. God, do I know.” Shane holds my hands even tighter. “You do know there’s a difference between a mother who doesn’t have any better tools for parenting, versus a woman who’s kind of—and she’s my mother who I’ll always love but know to keep my distance because she’s kind of a sociopath. I mean, she’s not a serial killer, but she doesn’t think about much other than herself. I don’t mean that in a cruel way. I’m not trying to be hateful towards my mother. That’s just who she is. I finally came to terms with that. And because I’m scared you can’t see that, I want to wrap you in my arms and protect you for the rest of your life.”
I shake my head. “I see her. Now. I know who Tony is. He’s similar to Eva. In a lot of ways. And it’s kind of perfect that they’re a weird couple—” I cut myself off, holding a hand over my lips. But I’m shocked to see Shane frowning. Not in the surprised way I thought he would be. I tilt my head to the side. “You knew about them?”
He winces. “Joe and I had no idea how to tell you.”
“Joe knows too?”
“It’s a small town. And my mother’s been stalking your ex-husband for a while now.”
“Stalking?”
“Well, I think he doesn’t help by having sex with her whenever he feels like it, but, yeah, he shuns her, breaks up with her, whatever, then takes her back for a little while, then…on and on. Are you mad we didn’t tell you?”
Awake: Book 3 of the Wild Love Series Page 31