“Yeah? Is he okay?” she asked.
“He is. He and my mom are coming back to Last Stand—they are thinking of moving back here,” Red said.
Emma took a sip of her wine. “That’s great.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. Why had he brought this up? Was there a way to get her opinion without sounding like he had issues with his parents?
The truth was he wasn’t okay with them coming back. He thought about the hoops he was jumping through in order to get to see Molly and his parents could have just seen him every day and hadn’t.
“You sound like you’re not sure. What’s up?”
Red leaned back in the chair and glanced up at the tree and the lanterns. “It sounds small when I think it, so saying it out loud will probably make me seem like a douchebag.”
She started laughing. “The man who made me a Because of Winn-Dixie tree isn’t a douchebag and parents are complicated. I told you about mine. How the couple that pretty much everyone thinks are the gold standard, in reality aren’t. You can talk to me, Red.”
“I know I can, Em. I think that’s why I brought it up to you. It just makes me so… I’m not mad so I don’t know the emotion really. Just why are they moving back here now. I mean my mom has never lived in Last Stand. Not once during my entire childhood. She was in France or in California depending on the winery she worked for but never in Texas and now she’s going to move here?” he asked.
Wow, until he started talking, he hadn’t realized how much resentment he had from all those years. He’d had a good childhood. He wasn’t going to make himself into a martyr, but he could have used his mom when he was growing up, in addition to his dad.
“I get it. I wondered why she never lived here. Or why your dad didn’t take you and go live near her. Did he ever suggest that?”
“No. I don’t know what their arrangement was. And I don’t want you to think she doesn’t love me—she does. She’s just never been a daily person. Her career was always important to her and I’m proud of her. She was one of only a handful women sommeliers who broke new ground and opened the wine world to women.”
“That is remarkable. You know our parents are flawed and it’s hard for us to sometimes reconcile those two pieces of them, but you and I are justified in our feelings. You’re allowed to be upset about the things that bother you.”
He smiled at her. “I am happy they are moving here.”
“I bet you are. As annoying as my family can be, I do love that whenever I need them, they are right here,” she said.
“Even if it means sneaking around with your boyfriend?” he asked.
“Even then. I don’t want to sneak around anymore. I know we sort of discussed it earlier and if you have time on Sunday, I’d love to bring you to brunch at my parents’ house,” she said.
“Brunch. Wow, that’s going from being your dirty little secret straight into the spotlight.”
“You were never my dirty little secret,” she said. “Did I make you feel like that?”
“No,” he said, hastening to reassure her. “I was just trying to be funny. I am a little nervous at the thought of being there as your boyfriend and not just part of a group, but what I feel for you is real and I think it’s time everyone knew it.”
She took another swallow of her wine and then leaned forward. “What do you feel for me, Red?”
What did he feel? Hell, he wasn’t sure he knew how to put it into words. He thought about how he was worried about the future and how to hold on to Emma and keep her with him while he tried hard to get Molly into his life. He wondered if there were words for that.
“I just like you and I can’t picture my life without you in it,” he admitted. “I don’t know what that looks like because there are still things…”
He had made up his mind to tell her he was a father. But he didn’t know how to gauge that the moment was here. He had to come clean and he knew that as soon as they went public with their relationship, she’d be hurt that he hadn’t told her about Molly.
But if bringing up his parents was awkward this would be even more so.
*
She took a deep breath. This was the moment that she’d been thinking of since she saw the lantern tree. She had to trust Red. To believe that what they felt for each other would be enough for them. That without worrying or forcing him to tell her every detail of his life, they’d be okay. And that was harder and conversely easier than she expected.
But she’d decided that anyone who could remember a book she’d loved in middle school was a man she could trust. She didn’t need to pry his secrets from him. She doubted he had anything even a bit like her parents’ secret had been and if he had…well she’d survived learning the truth about Amelia; surely whatever Red was dealing with would be easier for her to handle.
“I want that too,” she said. “I know earlier I was pushing hard to get you to talk to me about things you’re not ready to discuss and I realize how unfair that is to you. For myself I know that I have to come to terms with the big things in my head before I can start talking about them with anyone.”
“Thanks, Em,” he said.
She smiled over at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s why I was so mad at Memaw when she told everyone I didn’t wave to you. I mean you and I were just getting to know each other like this and I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I hadn’t even figured it out in my own head yet. Then Mom was mentioning it and Amelia—and honestly I was ready to just scream. Mom and my sisters would get it but I just didn’t want to be in the spotlight with you. Not yet. I wanted you to myself.”
He laughed when she said it and then nodded. “I know the feeling. Bray has been pushing me to ask you out for months, but things had to be right. I’m not a man who just drops his line in the water and expects luck to do the rest.”
She smiled. Leave it to Red to think of dating the same way he did fishing. But honestly if she needed anything else to reassure her about him, she had her answer. He was the kind of man who was thorough in all of his endeavors because he thought them through and her pushing him to tell her whatever was going on with his lawyer had been unfair.
“You are probably the only man who would look at it that way,” she said at last.
“Are you offended? Finn said I shouldn’t mention that dating and fishing were similar.”
“Why were you talking to Finn about dating?”
“It was back at Christmas when Bray was trying to win Lea,” Red said.
“Did you give him fishing advice?” she asked, intrigued.
“Well, sort of,” Red said. “I was saving it for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how this works,” she said. “What kind of fishing advice did you apply to me?”
“All of it,” he said. “I mean there are parts that might not seem like they’d translate too well to you but they all sort of work.”
“Like?” she asked, intrigued.
“Finding the right fishing hole, using the right bait, giving you enough line,” he said. He leaned forward and wriggled his eyebrows at her. “I don’t want you to slip away because I was too short with the line.”
She sat back in her chair. It was flattering and a little bit amusing that he’d done that, but another part of her worried he’d been manipulating her. But really it didn’t seem as if he’d done it for a bad reason. He liked her and they were very different people. She hadn’t even thought of wooing him with fishing.
“I wouldn’t want you to slip away either,” she said. “I’ve been rereading Pride and Prejudice and there are so many allegories for modern dating in that book. It’s kind of ironic to think of how much society has changed and yet how little we have.”
“I agree,” he said. “It’s ironic to think my 1950s A Texan’s Guide to Fishing is helping me figure out how to date a woman.”
She shook her head. Red’s grin said it all. He knew she wasn’t going to be upset by that because fishing an
d Red were pretty much synonymous in her mind. “You are something else.”
“Good. I don’t want to be like anyone else,” he said to her. “I never have wanted that.”
“You never have been. I think about other kids in school who had trouble learning and were angry or tried to hide it—you just always said I can’t read. The words make no sense on the page and then you found other ways to learn. I admire that about you, Red. You’ve always just lived your life by your own rules.”
“They aren’t my rules, Em. I can’t change the way my brain sees words and I have done a lot better with reading since I learned some techniques but it’s still hard. I can listen to audio books now and or watch a video on something, which makes learning a lot easier, but back then, I did struggle.”
She reached over and took his hand in hers. “It never seemed that way. I always admired you for the way you handled your learning disability. Also, I felt a little bad that you wouldn’t know the worlds I came to love in books.”
“I learned them through you,” he said. “You always were looking for someone to talk to about what you’d read.”
“And you always listened,” she said. She was just now realizing how much of her life had been spent with Red. They might not have been a couple but that underlying friendship was one of the cores of her life. And she hoped it had been for him too.
They ate dessert and then he suggested they go lie down on the double lounger and watch the night sky. There was a comet that he’d heard would be visible.
The best relationships balance prudence and passion.
~lesson learned from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice
Chapter Twelve
Red sat down and pulled Emma onto his lap so that she sat between his spread legs. She rested against him, her long brown hair against the side of his neck. He just held her, wondering what had happened to change her mind about knowing everything that was going on with the attorney.
She rested against him, holding The Blue Fairy Book he’d given her and as she settled against him, he was more than a little turned on. She smelled of fresh lilacs and the summer breeze. For a minute, Red rested his head on the back of the lounger and closed his eyes. It was easy to believe when he held her that this was meant to be. That there was no way the universe would deny him Emma and his daughter.
But he’d never been one to put much stock in fate. He’d always been a man who made things happen with action and as she read to him, her voice soft and sweet, he knew that as tender as this moment was it wasn’t real.
Today was special for some reason he couldn’t understand but it would change. In a moment it would all be different, and he’d have to figure it out. He could enjoy this. Listening to her reading to him about Beauty and the Beast. The actual story a bit different than the Disney version of the tale. But he liked it. It made sense to him in a way. Was he the beast to her beauty?
Of course, he was. He may not actually be an animal, but he was rougher than Emma, always had been. He was someone who took what he wanted and to hell with the consequences, and as his daughter weighed heavy on his mind and the fact that he hadn’t mentioned her to Emma, he knew that he needed to. He needed to bring it up even though it might send her running from this place. But could he do it?
Could he sacrifice this almost perfect night to do what was right?
Or would he take this for himself and deal with the fallout later?
Even as he asked himself that question, he pulled Emma closer in his arms, brushing her hair to the side so he could rest his chin on her shoulder and look down at the pages of the book. Some of the words formed properly but many were just jumbled letters. As much as he wished his mind was different when it came to words, he was just as happy to sit here and let her read to him. To listen to her weaving the tale. She paused and added inflection to make the story more exciting.
“No wonder the little kids love story time at the library. You’re very good at telling them,” he said.
“Thank you. I really like the way that stories sound out loud. For me reading is like dipping into another world and when I read it’s sort of my way of trying to bring others along with me,” she said.
She did bring him along with her. So many times in his life when he was lost, it was Emma who had provided a guiding light even with just her soft smile and her kind words. Those times hadn’t been him looking for a mate or wanting her to be his girlfriend. Until now he hadn’t realized she could be that for him. She turned the page and on the right, there was a color illustration of the beast—he looked injured and maybe even dead. Beauty leaned over him, cradling him in her arms, her face sad and distressed. He didn’t want that to be a corollary for himself and Emma.
He took the book from her hands and set it aside. Turning her in his arms so that they lay facing each other on the big padded double lounger. He’d never thought of himself as a lounge-chair man but when he’d seen this in one of the catalogs that Emma had given him, he’d known he had to have it. Had imagined the two of them lying on it and in his secret, most hidden dreams, he’d imagined them with the daughter he’d yet to meet.
“Don’t like that part of the story?” she asked.
“Not really. It’s hard to look at the two of them and not see us.”
“I’ve never thought of you as a beast,” she said, putting her hand on the side of his face as she liked to do.
“You haven’t?”
“No. You’re really handsome and sexy so not scary to look at,” she said, with a smile.
“Thanks,” he said sardonically.
“No problem. Also, your personality is very take charge but not in a cruel way,” she mentioned, running her finger lightly over the stubble on his jaw and then lower toward his mouth.
Her touch set off a chain reaction in him that didn’t stop. Sensation spread down his body and he got hard just holding her. But that wasn’t surprising. Everything about her turned him on. Which was why he thought he was struggling. Lust and long-term had never gone hand-in-hand for him. But with Emma it felt…almost as if it could.
“You are a bit furry,” she said with a wink as she caressed his neck and the opening of his shirt with his skin and a bit of chest hair showing. “But I like it.”
“I’m glad. It’s just who I am,” he said.
“That’s why I like it,” she said. “You could never be the beast, Red. Though I have to admit I would love it if you gave me a huge library. But what girl wouldn’t want that?”
He had to laugh. He could think of a lot of women who wouldn’t want a library but of course they weren’t her. They weren’t this woman who was winding her way into his heart with each passing day. Making him want to be a man he knew he couldn’t be. Making him want to share the secrets that he wasn’t ready to divulge. Making him want to never let her go.
*
Tonight was like something out of one of her dreams. She knew that every day with Red couldn’t be like this, but she was truly living in her perfect world. A dinner setting that was out of one of her favorite childhood books, reading while Red held her and with the evening sky clear above them.
It felt like they were the only two people in the world. She had always loved the story of Beauty and the Beast and honestly had never thought of Red as the beast. He was too much a part of Last Stand and for all his alpha-man qualities there was a kindness to him that belied any beastliness.
Lying on her side facing him she could see how intense his blue-gray eyes were and that his eyebrows weren’t just red but also gold, and white blond. His nose was strong, almost Roman in appearance, his eyelashes thick. His mouth. She had avoided touching it earlier but it was strong and firm—the perfect mouth for kissing, she thought.
He had one of his arms underneath her and his hand was in the center of her back. His other arm rested loosely on her waist, and she felt the heat of his body all around her. The evening was warm. It was Texas summer after all, but she liked feeling Red’s heat. Liked the way
he held her as if he had all the time in the world to listen to her enumerate his qualities.
“Wouldn’t having a library at home be a little bit like work?” he asked. “Nah, scratch that. I know that I wanted this house on the river so I could fish whenever I wanted.”
“Yes. That’s what I’d like—just endless shelves of books that I could go and sit with. I love the smell of the library. All the paper and binding…I really can’t describe it but it’s one of my favorite smells.”
“I feel that way about the river in the morning. The water has a clean scent.”
“What other smells do you like?” she asked.
“Lilacs,” he admitted. “You always smell of lilacs.”
She flushed a little as he said it. “It’s my favorite scent too. I also like your aftershave.”
“You do?” he asked. “It’s a new one to me. It was on sale when I was picking up my groceries last week.”
She laughed. That was so Red. He wasn’t a man who bothered with those kinds of things. “I’m glad it was on sale then.”
“Me too,” he said. His hand was languidly stroking her arm and tiny goose bumps spread out from where he was touching.
He followed them up her arm and over her collarbone where the scoop neck of her top left the top of her chest bare.
His finger moved along her skin, his touch so gentle and soft that she could almost believe she was imagining it. He slipped the tip of his finger beneath the ruched neckline and she felt him slowly stretching his finger further under her top until he touched the lace of her bra.
She had made an effort for this date tonight. Had taken her time getting ready and had decided this time she would wear something sexier than her comfy cotton underwear and bra. She’d gone over to Whiskey River a few days ago and went into Fallen Angel’s to buy a matching lace bra and panty set. It was strangely enough lilac colored. She wondered if Red would like it.
“Take your shirt off?” she asked.
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