The Complete Retrieval Duet

by Martinez, Aly

  I curled my lip. “What the fucking hell is a duvet?”

  “It’s like a comforter. And…let’s just say, the one I told her I liked had big magnolias on it.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. She, of course, giggled at my pain. If I didn’t love her so damn much, I would’ve been offended.

  Gathering up all the courage I could muster, I headed for the stairs. “Pray for me.”

  She smirked. “Do I get the house if you stroke out?”

  “Don’t look so excited. It’s not paid off.”

  She covered her smile with her hand.

  I took the first step up. “Tell my family I love them. Well, except Melanie. She’s pissed at me right now for calling her job and leaving a message with her secretary that her gonorrhea test had come back positive. Maybe wait a week before contacting her.”

  Her mouth gaped. “You did not!”

  I took another step up. “You’re not praying.”

  “Oh, right.” She folded her hands in front of her and closed her eyes.

  Only then did I allow myself to smile.

  Huge.

  I was lying on my stomach on his bed, in nothing but one of Heath’s T-shirts and a pair of panties. My knees were bent, my ankles crisscrossed in the air above me as I flipped through the pages of a huge plastic binder.

  I’d spent over an hour soaking in his bathtub while Heath had taken on the task of getting Tessa settled in her new bed in his bright-pink guestroom that looked like Kid’s Pottery Barn had thrown up all over it. I hadn’t been sure Heath would survive that one. But, of all the rooms Elisabeth and Maggie had decorated in the house, that was the one that bothered him the least.

  He’d peeked his head in the doorway and grunted, “Looks like her.” Then went on to obsessing about the new yellow and black chevron in his bathroom. “Georgia Tech colors,” he’d muttered just seconds before stripping the shower curtain down and throwing it in the trash.

  “I can’t decide how I feel about this,” I called out to him when he came sauntering into his bedroom.

  Maggie had not been lying. My man did, in fact, have a collection of Pokémon cards in the top of his closet. He also had baseball cards, football cards, and some weird Olympic cards that had apparently been popular at some point.

  I knew Heath well—or so I’d thought. But being in someone else’s space is telling on a whole new level. I’d learned that Heath was a bit of a packrat. He was super neat though, so all of his random collections were organized in shoeboxes or binders and stacked alphabetically in his closet.

  Yes. Alphabetically.

  So perhaps neat wasn’t the right word. Anal was probably more fitting. But it was cute.

  Other things I’d learned:

  He didn’t play video games.

  Loved Chuck Palahniuk novels.

  He had a penchant for old guns.

  And he had the most random assortment of spices I’d ever seen. Apparently, he was an experimental cook. But he hated almost all of it and ate sandwiches instead of whatever failed meal he’d attempted.

  “You feel incredibly turned on and are fighting the urge to jump me,” he replied, crawling up the bed on all fours until he hovered over me.

  “She asleep?”

  As his lips pressed behind my ear, I moaned and turned my head so he could kiss my neck.

  “Yep. She was almost out before I finished the first page of the book.”

  “Thanks for putting her down. Your bathtub is amazing.”

  “That’s because you’re small. I tried to get in there one time and I swear my heels were touching my ass. I instantly regretted the garden tub upgrade the builder had sold me on.” He kissed my neck again. “At least, now, I can consider it money well spent.”

  I rolled over underneath him and slid my hands up his chest. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Three years. When Maggie first moved in with me, I had a little two-bedroom apartment. But, let me just tell you, that shit got small. Women are a nightmare to live with.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “You do know I’m a woman, right?”

  “What?” He feigned surprise. “No way.” He shifted his weight onto one arm, using his other to pat down my breasts. “Well, what do you know?”

  I glided my hands around to his ass and dragged his hips down to rest between my legs. The friction of his denim against my barely covered core lit my system up. “I promise not to be a nightmare—all the time, anyway.”

  He kissed me chastely and whispered, “Liar.”

  “Probably,” I murmured back, seductively rolling my hips off the bed.

  He pressed down against me and cussed, but then he suddenly shifted to the side and propped himself on an elbow. “Before we get to that, I need you to talk to me. And I need you to be honest.” He arched a sexy eyebrow. “Can you do that?”

  “I can do a lot of things,” I replied breathily.

  He grinned. His large, callused hand brushed my damp hair off my face. “You gonna be able to sleep with her in the other room tonight?”

  I cut my gaze over his shoulder as a bucket of ice water doused my mood. “Um.”

  No. No, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep a single wink with her in the other room. But he didn’t make me admit that.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “So listen. Me and you, we’ll hang out. Do our thing. And when you start to fall asleep, I’ll go get her and put her in bed with you. I’ll sleep on the couch. My dick might shrivel if I sleep in that neon-pink room of hers.”

  My heart lurched. I didn’t want him sleeping in another room, either.

  Sure, I was playing the part. Putting a brave smile on and pretending I wasn’t scared out of my wits. But the fact of the matter was we were somewhere new, and only a week earlier, Walt had killed a good man in order to send me a message. I trusted Heath implicitly, and I believed with my whole heart that we’d made the right decision by leaving Roman and Elisabeth’s. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still worried.

  “It’s a king-sized bed, honey. We’ll all fit,” I said.

  His face turned soft. “Clare, I love you. And you gotta know by now that I love Tessa too, but I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest for her to wake up in a bed with me and her mom. Yeah, she’s seen us hugging and kissing, and I’m okay with that because I want her to know that love can be gentle. And I want her to see how much you trust me because then she’ll trust me more too. But, a couple of months ago, you were in Noir’s bed—the man she called daddy.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but he talked over me.

  “I know you didn’t want to be there. And I know you were mine even back then. I’ll be damned if she ever calls him daddy again. But she doesn’t understand that shit. I think we need to give this thing between us a little more time to grow before she wakes up in the morning snuggled into my chest.”

  I sat up and crisscrossed my legs between us. “Because that’s exactly where she’d be. Snuggled into your chest. Heath, I love you for the way you make me feel. For the way I come alive under your touch. I love you because you’re smart and funny and thoughtful. You’ve gone through hell and even sacrificed your own job to be with me. You look at me like I’m the only woman you’ve ever seen. And hold me like you never want to let go. You laugh with me. And challenge me to be a better person, but at the same time, you remind me that there is nothing wrong with the person I already am. But that’s why I love you.”

  He cupped my face and lazily trailed his thumb over my cheek. “Jesus, Clare.”

  I covered his hand at my face. “But, Heath, honey, Tessa loves you because, from the first day she met you, you were always kind and gentle with both of us. When she was terrified on that driveway, watching her daddy beating me while Roman yelled at her from the gate, chaos swirling all around her, she ran to you because she knew you’d make it okay. And you did.” I sucked in a shaky breath as my vision got blurry. “For both of us.”

  “Come h
ere, babe,” he murmured, hooking his arms around my waist and pulling me down to lie beside him, my head resting on his bicep.

  “She’s young, but if you think for a single second she doesn’t know what you’ve done for us, you’re crazy.” I smiled, and a tear slid down my cheek.

  Using his thumb, he wiped it away.

  “So, yeah,” I said, “she’s a kid who’s been through hell in her short life, and she might be confused about a lot of it, but waking up between her mom and a man she trusts and loves is probably exactly what she needs.”

  “Fuck,” he breathed, his mouth pressing against mine for a deep closed-mouth kiss.

  I broke it all too soon. “But, if you don’t feel comfortable with her sharing a bed with you… That, I’ll understand. It’ll suck because you two are my life. But you’re right. She’s not yours—”

  “Yet,” he quickly corrected.

  My head jerked back. “What?”

  “She’s not mine yet. She will be eventually.”

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  My nose started stinging as my face contorted into that dreaded chin-quivering, scrunched-up, on-the-verge-of-an-ugly-cry expression.

  “When this is all over, it’s still going to be me, you, and Tessa,” he said. “We’re making a life together. And, in that life, she’s gonna grow up. It’s gonna be me teaching her how to ride a bike. Me bandaging her skinned knees. Me interrogating her first boyfriend. Me teaching her how to drive a car. Me grounding her for sneaking out. Me building bookshelves in her college dorm. And me walking her down the aisle one day when she’s at least forty years old.”

  I hiccoughed a laugh through my tears, and he shot me a smirk.

  “Right now, she’s your girl because I haven’t earned the right to call her mine yet. But I will. And, when I do, she’s gonna be our girl. So, if you’re good with her waking up with me now before I’ve earned that role, then I’m good with it, too.”

  God, he was going to make such an amazing dad, even if he was just Heath to her for the rest of her life.

  And, with that realization, something dawned on me.

  “Do you want kids of your own?” I sniffled, nerves fluttering in my stomach. “Because I…I don’t know that I can give them to you.”

  “I do,” he replied curtly. “And I want them with you.” He gripped the back of my neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze as he rested his forehead against mine. “You’re twenty-eight, Clare. We’ve got a lot of years ahead of us. If a baby comes in that time, great. But, if it doesn’t, that’ll be okay too. I’ve got you. And we’ve got Tessa. The rest is just bonus.”

  A fresh set of tears streamed down my cheeks as Heath’s warmth blanketed me in a way I knew I would never lose. How had I gotten so lucky? How, after spending years of kissing the clock just to survive, had I found a man better than anyone I ever could have wished for? Maybe God hadn’t abandoned me after all. Because whoever had paved our pasts that ultimately put him in that gym with me had known exactly what they had been doing.

  I sucked in a deep breath and held it until my lungs began to burn.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Yes. Utterly. Completely. Thoroughly. Entirely. And an entire thesaurus’s worth of synonyms more.

  And it was only that feeling of contentment that allowed a smile to spread across my face.

  “Yeah, but I have a question. You’re, like, eighty. Isn’t your biological clock ticking?”

  One side of his mouth tipped up as he wrapped his arms around me, muttering, “She’s cryin’, but she’s still got jokes.”

  “It’s a valid question,” I squealed as he began tickling me.

  “It’s not a valid question, Clare. It’s you being a smartass.”

  “And me being a smartass,” I confirmed, laughing wildly and flailing in his arms.

  I stilled when his hand slid under my T-shirt.

  I moaned when his finger slipped inside my panties.

  I cried out when his mouth found my nipple.

  Minutes later, I came with his name on my lips.

  Minutes after that, he came with mine on his.

  And then, just before my eyelids got too heavy to stay awake, he got our girl and put her in bed with us.

  She promptly curled into his chest.

  And I fell asleep without a single worry on my mind.

  Two weeks later…

  “But it’s January,” Clare objected, settling on the barstool on the other side of the counter.

  She’d been visibly nervous all morning and spent a full hour earlier chewing on her thumbnail and staring into space. I couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on, but I figured she’d come to me when she was ready.

  Using a fork, I removed one of the steaks from the marinade and set it on a plate. “It’s almost February in Atlanta. We’re basically a week away from summer. It’s perfect grilling weather.”

  “It’s still cold,” she argued.

  I cleaned my hands off on the gray-striped dishtowel Clare had ordered to replace Elisabeth’s pink ones. “So put on a jacket.”

  She tipped her chin to the plate of meat. “You know I could pan-sear those and no one would have to put on a jacket.”

  “I love your food, but you’ve cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day since we’ve been here. After two weeks, I think I can handle a meal.”

  “But you’ve bought all the food, and Tessa new clothes, and…” She trailed off, biting on her thumbnail again.

  “So?” I drawled.

  “So I need to be pulling my weight.”

  “I’m not saying you don’t. But you don’t have to pull all the weight.”

  “I’m not pulling all the weight. I mean…I’m not sure cereal can even be considered ‘cooking breakfast.’” She tossed me a pair of air quotes.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Did I have to pour the milk?”

  She shyly glanced away. “Well, no.”

  “Then it’s considered cooking breakfast.” I grabbed the plate and headed around the bar. “Besides, you put forty dollars’ worth of steaks in a frying pan, we’re gonna have problems. There’s one way to cook a steak, and it’s on a grill. End of story.”

  She rolled her eyes as I stopped beside her.

  “Now, get up here and give me a kiss, pull on a jacket, and meet me on the deck.”

  She stood off the stool and lifted up on her toes to touch her lips to mine. “You want me to grab you a beer?”

  I shot her a grin. “So you do understand the fine art of grilling.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “I’m teachable.”

  I chuckled before turning away and calling out to Tessa, “Sweet girl, we’re going outside. You want to come, or are you waiting on pins and needles to see if he can actually find the girl to fit the glass slipper for the seven thousandth time?”

  She laughed loudly. “Dis not Cinderella, Heaf!”

  I scoffed. “Oh, well, excuse me. You gonna be able to tear yourself away?”

  “After he kiss her,” she said, turning her attention back to the TV.

  I bulged my eyes over my shoulder at Clare. She was now in one of my hoodies and carrying a beer my way.

  “Why is her favorite part always them kissing? This does not bode well for our future.”

  “She’s a girl, honey. She’ll be chasing boys around the playground, trying to kiss them first chance she gets.”

  I curled my lip and shook my head. “Hopefully, Roman pays well, because I see a private all-girls school in her future.”

  Clare smirked and called to Tessa, “Okay, baby. We’ll be on the deck. Come out when it’s over.”

  “’Kay,” she chirped.

  I was contemplating how hard it would be to check her into a convent before preschool when I felt Clare’s hand on my back.

  “Let it go,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  Begrudgingly, I led the way to the sliding glass door.

  “Hit t
he alarm,” I said, shifting the plate of steaks to one hand so I could take my beer from her.

  After she disarmed the alarm, she slid the door open and we both walked out.

  She started to close the door as I emptied my hands on the side of the grill.

  “Leave it open,” I told her.

  She continued to slide it shut. “All the hot air is escaping.”

  “Babe, leave it open so we can hear her if she needs anything.”

  “I’ll just crack it. I need to talk to you about something private.”

  “What kind of private?” I walked over and caught the top of the door over her head. “Leave. It. Open.”

  She narrowed her eyes and thinned her lips. “Above and beyond wasting money on heating the backyard, you’re going to freeze her out in there if we leave it all the way open.”

  I shoved the door wide open. “Good. Then she’ll be forced to come out here to ask for a jacket and hopefully miss the fucking kiss.”

  She laughed but gave up on the door.

  I twisted the top of the beer off and went to work on the grill. “What’d you want to talk about?”

  “Well,” she started at the same time my phone began ringing.

  Tomlinson’s number showed on my display.

  “Hold that thought,” I said, lifting the phone to my ear. “Light.”

  “We picked up Brock Nolan today,” he stated as his greeting.

  My back shot ramrod straight, and my gaze sliced over to Clare, who was lounging in the white Adirondack chair she had long since claimed as her own.

  Nolan was Noir’s number two. He was one of the few men he’d trusted with Clare. Which was insane even for Noir because, by all accounts, Nolan was off in the head. I wouldn’t have trusted that scum with a goldfish, much less my wife and child. I had often seen him lurking around at the gym. And not just because he was keeping tabs on her. His eyes were always aimed at her ass or tits.

  “He with Noir?” I asked.

  Clare’s attention snapped to mine.

  I pushed the button to put him on speakerphone.