After two days, I was sent to work. Colton was home, and since Chase refused to listen to me, it was a welcomed reprieve. If he wasn’t up, trying to do things for himself that he shouldn’t, he was trying—mostly unsuccessfully—to get in my pants. There were a few times where I couldn’t fend off his charms and very persuasive hands… I mean, his penis wasn’t broken, right?
Now, I’m on my way home on a gorgeous Friday afternoon, eager to see what the weekend has in store. Chase had a post-surgery follow-up appointment today and refused to let me go with him. He said he and Colton could handle it, and I’m praying for a positive outcome: partial weight-bearing, with crutch support, of course.
When I pull into the drive, I find Colton’s familiar truck, as well as an unfamiliar black sports car. It’s not like anything I’ve seen around here before, and my mind tries to piece together who could possibly be here for a visit, driving a car like that. I pull into the garage and quickly slip inside the house. I can hear voices, two familiar and one very unfamiliar, as I set my purse down on the counter and head toward the sound.
“So we’re all set?” Colton asks as I step into the living room. I find Chase there, his casted leg propped on the coffee table with a pillow, Colton sitting beside him on the couch, and the mystery man across from them on the recliner.
“All set, Mr. Callahan,” he says as all three men notice me in the doorway.
“Hey, baby,” Chase says, trying to hobble up from his seat.
Holding up my hands, I walk in his direction as if pulled by an invisible magnetic force. “Don’t get up,” I insist, bending down and placing a kiss on his waiting lips. Chase, in true form, refuses to let our greeting be a chaste, quick kiss in front of company, and decides to completely devour my mouth, leaving me breathless and eager for more.
“Knock it off. Milo can see you,” Colton chastises with the hint of a smile in his voice.
I pry my lips from my fiancé’s and turn to see the baby. He’s wide awake, taking in his surroundings and seeming hypnotized by his dad’s voice.
“Babe, this is Donovan Holland, an attorney who’s helping Colton set up his rights to Milo,” Chase informs, scooting over a bit so I can sit beside him.
“Good afternoon,” he greets politely before turning back to Colton. “I’ll file all of the paperwork on Monday morning, and your hearing will be immediate. As long as Miss Matthews doesn’t contest the proceedings, the State is prepared to grant you guardianship immediately.”
“That’s good news,” I state, trying to catch up on the conversation.
“Mr. Holland has a contact at the Department of Family Services. He made a call and they came this afternoon to do a well-check on Milo. Since we already have the test results, they agreed to temporary guardianship because no father is listed on the birth certificate, with full guardianship granted at our court date.”
“In all honesty, even if Miss Matthews does contest it, she’ll have an uphill climb in front of her, considering she abandoned the baby.”
“With his father,” Chase interrupts. “Or his presumed father.”
“True, but there’s a process to follow here, and she’s at risk of serious consequences for her actions,” Donovan states, placing a stack of paperwork in his briefcase.
“I don’t want her in trouble,” Colton says softly, his eyes smiling down at his son. “She did what she thought was best for Milo, even if it was stupid to leave him on a stranger’s doorstep. I just want… my son.”
“And you’ll get him,” Donovan reassures him before standing. “I’ll be in touch after I file the paperwork Monday morning.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holland,” Colton says, picking up Milo and walking him to the front door. They continue to speak, but I turn my focus on the man I love.
“Good meeting?” I ask as he pulls me into his arms and sets me on his lap. I can already feel things getting… hard down below.
Chase nuzzles my neck, inhaling my skin before he answers. “Yeah. Colton reached out to him earlier in the week and got the ball rolling to formalize everything. He said it should be a fairly simple case, if you can really call this bullshit simple.”
“I’m glad. I don’t want to see Colton run through the wringer.”
“You should have seen him today when DHS showed up. He was like a nervous teenager with a girl hidden under his bed when his parents got home.”
“But it all worked out,” I whisper, running my hands over his shoulders and up the back of his neck.
“It did.” His mouth moves once more, taking my lips in a bruising kiss. “I need you so fucking bad right now.”
“You just had me this morning,” I remind him.
“Too long. I need you all day, every day,” he adds as he nibbles on my earlobe.
“That’ll make it hard for me to get anything done at the office.”
“As long as you’re getting me done, I don’t care,” he adds, with an upward hip flex.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Fuck yes, I am.”
“Okay, seriously, knock it off. I can’t keep subjecting my son to this sort of PDA,” Colton says as he rejoins us in the living room.
“You can leave anytime, big brother,” Chase responds, then seemingly realizes what that means if his brother were to leave. “I didn’t mean that,” he adds, glancing down at Milo.
Colton sighs. “No, you’re right. I’ve got a decent savings and already made a few calls and have two places to look at this weekend. One is a two-bedroom apartment on the other side of town, which doesn’t really strike my fancy. But it’s in my price range, so that’s a plus. The other is a house only a few blocks from here, but it’s a little more than I was budgeting to spend.”
“How many bedrooms? Can you sublet one out?” Chase offers, seeming to be a bit excited at knowing his brother and nephew are close.
“Yeah, I considered that, but I’m not sure I really want a stranger in my place with Milo, you know? It’s not like I’m a twenty-year-old college student, looking to sublet my spare room.”
“Yeah, but it’s something to consider. Personally, I like the idea of my nephew having a yard to play in when he gets older,” Chase adds.
“I know,” Colton says, running his hands through his hair, much like his younger brother does when he’s stressed. “Lots to think about. Plus, I need a job.”
“What if I told you All Fit was hiring?”
I glance up at Chase, his eyes dancing with excitement. “I talked to Harrison the other day when he stopped by and he’s interested in taking on another manager and trainer. There’d be some traveling involved, but you can practically set your own hours.”
Hope bubbles up inside me as I look over at Colton. He takes Milo and places him in his swing, the baby’s eyes starting to drop the moment he starts to rock back and forth. “Seriously?”
“You’d have to take a few training courses, but with your background, it won’t be anything you don’t already know,” Chase adds.
His older brother glances back and forth between his brother and his son. “Can I think about it?”
“Absolutely. But, Colt, the job is yours if you want it.”
Colton nods and takes a seat just as the doorbell sounds. “We expecting anyone?” he asks, while heading toward the front door.
Chase sighs. “It’s probably Mom again.” He looks at me. “We’ve already got enough food in the fridge to feed half the town, yet she insists on bringing more so you don’t have to worry about cooking.” He waggles his eyebrows. “She wants you to focus all of your attention on me. I can show you exactly where I need a little attention.”
Before I can reply, Colton enters the living room, his face ashen like he saw a ghost. A woman steps out from behind him and my heart drops into my stomach.
Chase seems just as shocked to see the woman standing in our living room as his older brother. “You are—” he starts, but stutters to a stop.
“Hey, Chase,” she says tent
atively. “I’m Laura.”
He exhales. “You look vaguely familiar,” he replies softly, almost to himself.
It’s my first opportunity to meet the woman who abandoned Milo on our doorstep just a few short weeks ago. She’s young—younger than I had expected—with bleach blonde hair and bright green eyes. She’s on the shorter side and her clothes a bit provocative with a low-cut V-neck T-shirt and short skirt.
Laura glances over at Milo, but makes no move to see him up close. My heart is in my chest as I watch Colton walk over and stand in front of the swing, as if protecting the baby from whatever is about to go down.
“I know you probably have a lot of questions,” she starts, standing in the middle of the living room. She seems cool and calm, but the way she wrings her hands together lets me know she’s nervous to be here.
“You think?” Chase thunders, then quickly peeks over at Milo, who’s still sawing logs in his swing.
“I’m sorry for just dropping him off, unannounced the way I did. I was scared.”
“You were scared? How do you think I felt finding a three-week-old baby on my porch, late at night?”
She looks down, shame marring her pretty features. “I know it wasn’t right, and I truly am sorry. It’s just that, well, I’m not capable of being his mom. I knew it right away, but wanted to try. It was horrible, Chase. I knew I couldn’t do it and wanted him to have a better life. That’s why I left him with his father.”
Chase exhales. “Funny about that, Laura. You didn’t leave him with his father.”
Laura looks genuinely surprised by his statement. “What do you mean? Of course I did.”
“No, Laura. You left him with his uncle.” Chase glances over at his older brother. “Colton is his father.”
I find myself holding my breath as she looks from one brother to the other. Pink tinges her cheeks and her mouth drops open in shock. “What?”
“You slept with Colton that night. Not me.”
Laura drops in the chair as the tears start to fall. “Oh my God, I can’t believe this.” With hesitant eyes, she looks back at Chase’s brother. It’s as if realization sets in. “It was you.”
“Yeah, it was me,” he mumbles.
“Holy shit, I thought it was you,” she says, confirming what we already suspected. “I left the room before it was light out. There was so much alcohol. We were celebrating my birthday.”
“How old are you?” I ask, speaking for the first time since Laura’s arrival.
“Almost twenty-three. My friend and I were celebrating my birthday.”
Colton groans. “Jesus, you’re a kid.”
Laura seems shocked. “I’m not a kid. I was of legal age to be at that club.” Then her cheeks turn an even darker shade of red. “And I might have told you I was twenty-six.”
“Fuck,” Colton groans again, running his hands through his hair until it’s standing on end.
“How did you find me, Laura?” Chase asks, finally voicing the question we’ve all wondered for the last few weeks.
She blushes again. “Oh, uh, I might have swiped your ID when you pulled out your wallet to pay for one of the rounds of drinks.”
Chase blinks. “That’s why I couldn’t find it the next morning. And my cash?”
She looks down.
“So you swipe my ID and cash and then, what? Join us back at the hotel?”
“My friend took a taxi home, but I stayed behind. There were shots.”
“So many fucking shots,” Colton mumbles.
“And in the morning, I woke up in your bed. Or at least I thought it was your bed,” she confirms to Chase before glancing at Colton.
The room fills with silence, the uncomfortable kind that makes me want to say something—anything—just to create some noise. Finally, it’s Colton who speaks first. “You can’t have him back.”
I hold my breath as Laura looks at him. “I don’t want him back. He seems very happy here, well taken care of. I want that for him, Colton, you have to believe me. I just… I’m just not that person to give it to him.”
“I’m that person.”
My eyes fill with tears as he looks over at the woman he created a life with.
“I had hoped,” she says with a sad smile. Laura stands quickly then and says, “Look, I’m fully prepared to sign over my rights. I, uh, spent part of the day at Family Support Services and told them my side of the story. They say the police may want to talk to me… about abandonment.”
“I can’t control that.”
“I know. I made my own bed, and now I have to lie in it.” She pulls out a slip of paper and hands it to him. “I’m staying at the Super 8 in town. This is my number. I’ll be there on Monday for the emergency hearing.”
Colton slowly reaches out for the paper, shoving it in his pocket. Laura turns and heads toward the door. “Are you going to change your mind?” he blurts before she exits the room.
The woman turns and gives him another sad smile. She looks at the baby behind him and says, “No, I’m not. I don’t want to be a mother.” The tears in her eyes make the ones I’ve been fighting fall. While I don’t understand her position, I can respect it. Especially because it leaves Milo with Colton, who will love and adore that boy for the rest of his life.
Colton seems to let go of the breath he was holding. “Thank you.”
She nods and turns to Chase. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”
Chase clears his throat. “I’m just glad things turned out the way they did.”
Laura nods again and glances back at Colton. “I’ll see you Monday.”
He doesn’t speak, but follows her to the door and closes it behind her. There’s so much silent tension in the room, you could cut it with a knife. When Colton returns, he goes over and picks up a sleeping Milo and cuddles him into his chest, as if needing to feel him against him.
“That was… wow,” Chase says, breaking the silence.
“No shit,” his brother responds.
“It sounds like the process should be easy,” I reassure Colton, considering the woman isn’t going to fight him for any rights.
Colton nods. “Yeah. Look, I’m going to give this little man a bottle upstairs and a quick bath. I think we’ll turn in early tonight, maybe watch that new Bruce Willis movie on TV.”
Chase laughs. “Dude, that movie isn’t new. It’s been out for two years.”
Colton just shrugs. “Well, when you’re stuck in a desert for months on end, everything is new when you finally get home. Getting my papers for discharge was easier than being a civilian and new dad,” he adds with a laugh.
We both smile at the oldest Callahan brother, who heads to the kitchen to fix his son a bottle.
Chase tucks me into his chest, his arm wrapping around my shoulder as he holds me close. “I can’t believe all that shit.”
“Me either, but at least we finally have some answers,” I tell him, inhaling the familiar scent that clings to his T-shirt.
“Yeah.”
After several minutes, both lost in our own thoughts, I finally pull back a little and look up into his blue eyes. “So what are you doing four weeks from tomorrow?” I ask, fighting my smile with everything I have.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to check my schedule. I’m pretty busy,” he replies, running his hand through my hair and making goose bumps pepper my skin.
“I want you to meet a woman,” I tell him. That makes him pause. He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“A woman?”
“Yeah, she’s pretty fabulous. Sexy as hell with dark hair and electrifying eyes. She’s a tad on the short side, but I think she’ll fit against you perfectly,” I tell him as realization sets in.
He smiles that dirty little grin and sends warmth flooding my panties. “Yeah? I’m intrigued.”
“She’ll meet you down at the lake, around six o’clock at night. She’ll be the girl wearing the white dress.” My heart hammers in my chest as I look up at the only man I�
�ve ever loved.
“I can’t wait to fucking meet her. Tell me more,” he says, pulling me even tighter into his chest, kissing my forehead.
“She’s very excited to meet you under the arch as the sun starts to dip in the sky.”
“Sounds perfect,” he says, nuzzling my neck and kissing his way across my jaw.
“I thought so too.”
He pulls back and looks into my eyes. “And that gives you enough time? To get everything planned, just the way you want it? Every time I’ve asked these last two weeks, you’ve been a little indecisive.”
“I know. That’s partly because you’ve been recuperating, and I didn’t want to add more stress to the situation. Then I realized, as long as I have you at the end of the aisle, that’s all I want.”
“You, baby. That’s all I want too. Well, you and our child,” he adds, placing his big, warm hand on my flat stomach.
Throwing my arms around his neck, I turn and straddle his waist. “I can’t wait to live this life we’re creating. Together.” I can feel the hardness of his cock returning to full attention and wiggle against it like a cat in heat.
“Together.” He kisses me hard on the lips, his tongue delving deep into my mouth. “I can’t fucking wait, baby. Our story is just starting.”
“We’re just getting started,” I confirm. Chase fumbles with my weight, but easily picks me up and wobbles to the stairs. “Put me down, right now!”
“No way. I’m able to apply a little weight,” he says until he reaches the stairs. “But you’ll have to help me get up the stairs.” The look on his face is pure dejection as he realizes he’s still a long way from 100 percent.
“A little weight does not mean carrying me over the threshold.” Or up the stairs. Whatever.
“But the good news is my cast should be off right before the wedding. I’ll be able to carry you over the threshold properly as man and wife.” His eyes dance with excitement. “In my moonboot.”
Fair Lakes Series Box Set Page 52