by Jessa James
He knew now that this was real happiness. Remy and the kids had changed everything.
That was the nice thing about life, Sawyer reflected. It was always changing. Even, he admitted, glancing at Harper, when you wished to god you could slow it down, or pause it for just a second.
Just then Shiloh came charging into the living room, charged up from a night of rest and whatever crazy dinner the babysitter had fed him last night. He slammed into Sawyer’s legs for a hug, and began telling his dad about all the stuff he’d done yesterday while they were at the hospital.
No chance of hitting a pause button, Sawyer thought, but after yesterday, he intended to make the most of every minute.
He bent down and kissed Harper and Shiloh on the head, then pulled up a recipe for blueberry chocolate chip pancakes on his phone. He had time enough this morning to make breakfast in bed for his beautiful wife.
4
Walker headed down the hall of the hospital toward Arlo’s room, clutching a cup of bitter liquid from the hospital cafeteria that claimed to be coffee. After yesterday, he could use plenty of extra energy, but still, he grimaced every time he took a sip. He hoped Arlo wasn’t eating any food from that cafeteria. One meal from there might finish what the heart attack started.
Down the hall, he could see his brothers huddled outside Arlo’s hospital room. Colt and Sawyer were talking animatedly, oblivious to the hospital staff whirling around them. Walker walked up and clapped them on the back, being careful not to spill his drink. It was shit coffee, but he’d paid six dollars for it.
“Hey guys. Do either of you know what this is about?” he asked them.
Colt and Sawyer shook their heads.
“No, I just got a call from Marilee this morning that he wanted to talk to all of us. She didn’t say any more than that,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, she just said he had something serious to tell us all,” Colt affirmed.
Walker shrugged. With Arlo, there was no telling. He played his cards pretty close to his chest.This could be about anything, but at least they were all equally clueless.
“Okay, should we go in?” he asked, gesturing toward the hospital room.
“We’re waiting for the nurse. She is doing something in there, changing an IV or something. She told us to wait out here for a minute,” Colt explained.
“How’s the coffee?” Sawyer asked. “I was thinking about getting some myself.”
“It’s fucking disgusting,” Walker said with a wry chuckle.
A pretty brunette nurse emerged from the room and laughed sharply, having caught the last bit of their conversation.
“If you think the coffee is bad, try the sandwiches. I think they’re made by the same catering company that does the meals at the jail downtown. Anyway, I’m done here so you boys can go in now,” she said.
The nurse’s gaze lingered appreciatively on Walker for a moment before looked back down at her clipboard. Colt chuckled as she walked off to the nurse’s station and nudged his brother in the ribs.
“Did you see how she was looking at you? Like she could about eat you up!”
“Oh, shut up, Colt” Walker said irritably as he pushed the door open. He really wasn’t in the mood for his brother’s joking right now.
Marilee was sitting in a chair that she’d pulled up close to Arlo’s bed, which was covered in a blue plush blanket. She greeted the boys cheerfully, but it was plain to see she’d hardly slept that night. She had deep bags under her eyes, and fatigue lines were etched around her mouth and forehead. Someone must have brought her a change of clothes, though, because she was no longer wearing her mismatched shoes from yesterday and had on a fresh, unwrinkled t-shirt.
Marilee greeted the boys and chatted for a few minutes.
“Um, mom, did you stay here last night?” Walker asked her.
“Well, yes, I just sort of dozed off in a chair in here, and then I popped out to get some dinner and picked up a few things for Arlo,” she said, pointing to the blanket on his bed and the pillows that, upon close inspection, were much nicer than normal hospital pillows.
“Anyway,” she continued, “by the time I got back, I figured I might as well stay,” she said, fussing with the sheets on Arlo’s bed.
* * *
“Gets damn cold in here, so that blanket came in handy,” Arlo added. “They even tried to tell her she couldn’t bring those pillows in. Said they weren’t sanitary. I told them ‘I’ve just had a damn heart attack. A few pillows aren’t gonna kill me.’ ”
Walker chuckled. Same old Arlo.
Arlo was mostly quiet while Marilee and the boys chatted. After a while, he nudged Marilee, who popped out of her chair and headed for the door.
“Well, now that you’re all here, I’m gonna go grab something from the cafeteria. That coffee looks pretty good.” she said.
“It’s actually terrible,” Walker said.
“Glad to hear it, dear,” Marilee said absent-mindedly as she edged out of the room. Colt rolled his eyes at her.
Arlo looked frail and tired - more so than Walker had ever seen. In fact, he’d never seen his father looking anything but healthy and completely in control. He’d seen Arlo doing heavy work his whole life, and it startled him to see Arlo looking so vulnerable, so...human.
Walker glanced at his brothers. From their faces, he could tell they were thinking the same thing he was.
When Arlo spoke, however, his voice was as loud and assertive as ever.
“You boys want to know why I asked you to come here, I’m sure.”
They all nodded.
“Well, have a seat, then. I don’t want to talk with you all towering over me.”
They all found seats in the room. Sawyer chose the one Marilee had just vacated, sitting close to Arlo.
“The truth,” Arlo continued, “is that this heart attack has made me think about my life. Almost dying will do that for you.”
He looked each of them in the eye for a few long seconds before continuing.
“I’ve always had the best intentions for you boys - but you know what they say about good intentions, right? They pave the road to hell.”
“What I wanted was for you all to become independent, have your own lives and families and be happy. You all did. I’m proud of you boys. I really am. But there have been times when I’ve treated you wrong. Times when I’ve been wrong, no matter what my intentions were. I regret those times. I regret the hard feelings it caused. I’m sorry it took a damn heart attack to make me say it. I guess I’m a proud man.”
* * *
Arlo’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. He paused and wiped them. The boys all averted theirs from this unfamiliar scene, looking at each other instead. They’d never seen Arlo cry like this.
Walker wondered if the heart attack had flipped some switch on in Arlo’s brain. Maybe the one close to empathy. Weird as it was, he was kind of touched.
Arlo cleared his throat and continued.
“I had it before, what you all have right now, you know? I was crazy in love with your mother. She loved me back. We really had something good. It’s not the kind of thing that just comes around all the time. But I screwed up. I ran around, and she wouldn’t take me back. There are some hurts that, once you cause them, you can’t undo. I never thought about that, though, when I was younger. I just thought about what I wanted. I was headstrong, and I was proud, and I really didn’t appreciate what I had until I’d lost it. Maybe I didn’t appreciate it fully until yesterday.”
Arlo stared them down.
“There’s no point in me making all these mistakes if you don’t learn from them. So I want you all to promise me you won’t do what I did. Don’t waste the good love those women are giving you. Don’t fool around on them. You’re all big, strong men - but there’s more to it than just being tough outside. Sometimes it’s tough just to be the kind of man that does it right. Always remember that you have something special, and you have to treat it that way, too. Promise me
that?”
Colt, Sawyer, and Walker looked into Arlo’s eyes and promised. Sawyer patted him awkwardly on the arm. Colt and Walker came up and kissed him on the cheek. Arlo smiled weakly in return.
“That’s all I had to say. I’m tired now. I want to sleep. You all go on home to your families, okay?”
The boys nodded and left the room, unsure how to process what they’d just heard. They hadn’t known what the meeting would be about, but they certainly hadn’t imagined Arlo would cry and list his life’s regrets, or give them relationship advice.
Walker sped past the nurse’s station, obviously trying to avoid the flirty nurse, and over to the elevators. The others followed. They rode down in silence, but when they got to the lobby, Colt laughed out loud.
“I never thought I’d see the day when the old bastard would cry and tell us to be good to our women,” he said. “He’s just full of surprises, ain’t he?”
Walker and Sawyer laughed too. There was no denying it had been an unexpected conversation, and also, perhaps the most emotionally honest one they’d ever had with their father.
“He’s right, though,” Walker said, “and it was kind of nice to hear him apologize, wasn’t it?”
Colt smiled at his brothers. “It actually was nice.”
“It’s funny,” Sawyer said, as they walked down the corridor to the elevator. “I woke up this morning thinking how damn lucky I am to have Remy and Harper and Shiloh. I mean, I felt great. And I was thinking about his heart attack, how it sort of made my blessings so clear to me. I guess he felt the same.”
“We’re lucky men,” Walker agreed, patting his brothers on the back as they walked out of the hospital lobby and into the bright, midday sunshine.
5
It was a beautiful day for a picnic.
After months of grueling physical rehab, studiously nursed along by Marilee and the rest of the family, Arlo had slowly regained his health. Recently, Dr. Stenersen had declared him “out of the woods.”
“Not many of my patients get so much support from their families,” she had said to Arlo as she walked him out of the appointment, glancing at the Romans who filled her waiting room.
“They’re nicer to a sonofabitch like me than I deserve,” Arlo had grumbled, although it was obvious from his smile that he was actually quite touched the doctor had praised his family.
To celebrate, the family had decided to gather at the park in the town square.
They couldn’t have picked a better day. The midday sun was high and bright in the sky, blocked occasionally by floating cumulus clouds. A cool breeze carried the scent of springtime flowers and freshly-mowed grass. Large oaks with branches that leaned all the way down to the ground provided welcome shade, as well as a chance for the bigger kids to show off their tree climbing prowess.
Sawyer carried Harper in his arms as he walked up to where the family was gathered. Remy lagged behind, holding hands with Shiloh, who stopped every few seconds to examine some intriguing insect of plant on the ground. They were the last to arrive. Getting two kids out of the house was work, and then Remy had taken her sweet time getting ready, too.
Not that Sawyer was complaining. She had ditched her at-home clothes today, and was wearing a low-cut, red cotton dress that hugged her hourglass figure in all the right places. She’d also put on a new perfume.
“You like it?” she had asked at the house, holding her wrist out to Sawyer to sniff.
He did. It smelled like cedar and jasmine and the irresistible scent of Remy’s own skin. So irresistible, in fact, that he’d picked Remy up in his arms and carried her, giggling, to their bedroom.
They were already late, he figured, so what was an extra fifteen minutes?
Sawyer slowed down to allow Remy and Shiloh to catch up with them, then grabbed his wife’s hand. She smiled at him and leaned up on tiptoe to kiss him quickly on the lips.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you back,” Sawyer replied.
“And I love what you did this morning, too,” she added mischievously.
“What did you do this morning, dad?” asked Shiloh, who apparently wasn’t as engrossed in playing with an insect crawling on his hand as he had seemed.
“I made those pancakes, remember?” Sawyer replied, winking at Remy.
“Yeah!” Shiloh yelled before launching off into the grass again.
“Good save,” Remy laughed.
They could see the family gathered around the park. Arlo was sitting under the shade of a massive oak tree with Emmy on his knee. Marilee was buzzing around a table laden with drinks and food, laughing loudly at something one of the kids had said to her.
Ashleigh was also sitting down, one hand rested on her enormous belly. She had her feet propped up on a stack of pillows resting on top of a cooler. Walker was making his way over to her with a plate full of food, and she was smiling at him happily.
Colt, Rose, and some others were buzzing around Shelby, who was holding her hand out into the bright sunlight so they could admire her new engagement ring. Even from this distance, they could see it sparkling in the light.
Wolfe had his arm around Shelby and was beaming proudly. Sawyer grinned to see his friend’s excited expression. He remembered what it had felt like when he’d proposed to Remy, like he was on top of the world. Come to think of it, he still felt like that.
As they walked up, people called out greetings and good-natured jokes.
“How y’all doing?” Sawyer said in their general direction.
“Oh man, I was worried you two had gotten lost. I was about to send out a search party,” Walker said, with a wink at Remy.
“I could use a search party to find my feet!” Ashleigh joked, rubbing her massive belly.
“They’re still down there,” Remy said with a smile. She bent down to kiss her sister-in-law fondly on the cheek.
“That is such a great dress, Remy!” Ashleigh said.
“That dress is part of the reason we’re late,” Sawyer said, with a lascivious wink at his wife.
Walker and Ashleigh laughed.
Sawyer could see Shiloh buzzing around Marilee, who was fixing him a plate.
“We had pancakes this morning, gramma!” he yelled.
“Is that ight? Well, you must be ready to eat again, since breakfast was so long ago,” Marilee replied.
“Yeah!” Shiloh shouted, then careened off in the direction of an oak tree where some other cousins were gathered.
Sawyer and Remy made their way over to Shelby and Wolfe.
“Nice ring, Shelbs, but do you have to marry this guy to get it?” Sawyer cracked.
“ ‘Fraid so,” Shelby laughed, moving over to hug Remy and Sawyer.
“Hey, I’m no fool. I told her it’s a package deal!” Wolfe said.
Everyone laughed.
“It’s so beautiful in person,” Remy commented, when Shelby held out her hand for closer examination.
Harper, staring intently at the shiny object on Shelby’s finger, cooed and reached out her hand to touch it. Shelby held her hand up close to the baby’s face so she could see it. Harper responded by adorning Shelby’s hand and ring with a long stream of drool. Everyone laughed again.
“The kid’s got great taste!” Wolfe said with a laugh as he reached out to take Harper in his arms.
“If you don’t mind holding her for a bit, Wolfe, I’m gonna go fix myself a plate,” Remy said.
“Sure thing, hon,” Wolfe responded.
“Yeah, you go on. I’ve been wanting to get some quality time with this little creature!” Shelby said.
Sawyer and Remy walked over to the table and greeted Arlo, who was still sitting quietly with Emmy on his knee. Marilee had gone off in Shiloh’s direction, probably to warn him about the hundred potential dangers of climbing a tree.
“Can I get you anything? Need me to take Emmy?” Sawyer offered his father.
“Thank you, no. We’re just hanging out over here,” Arlo replie
d.
Remy began to make up a plate for herself, but Sawyer wasn’t hungry just yet. He reached into the cooler and produced two beers, opened them, and handed one to his wife with a little gallant bow.
Remy giggled. “Thank you, honey. A beer seems like the perfect thing right about now,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Sawyer replied, clinking his bottle against his wife’s.
Just then Marilee yelled out “Who wants cake?”
A swarm of kids ran over to the picnic table with all the enthusiasm an offer of an unlimited supply of sugar brings to small children. Their parents followed, pouring milk and distributing slices of cake Marilee was cutting, gossiping familiarly and laughing at each other’s jokes.
Shiloh slammed into Sawyer’s leg and began talking about how far up the oak tree he’d gotten before Gramma had made him come down with a promise of cake.
Sawyer looked over at Arlo, worried he might be annoyed by all the chaos, and was surprised to see him smiling bounced Emmy on his knee and surveyed the Roman family. Marilee turned as if in response to a tug from some invisible string between her and Arlo, and smiled broadly at the sight of him and Emmy.
Maybe the heart attack really had changed him, Sawyer thought. He would not have thought it possible, but before, Arlo would have been peeved by the crowd milling around him. He sure as hell would not have been bouncing Emmy on his knee, smiling at her delighted cries.
For the first time he could remember, Sawyer thought, his dad looked at home among his own family. The idea made him smile briefly, before his attention was drawn back to Shiloh’s chatter and the promise of another beautiful day with his family.
Ready for more? Read The Teacher and the Virgin next!
* * *
An older man, a younger woman, an irresistible attraction.
* * *