Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series

by Shandwick, K. L.

  * * *

  My parents insisted the staff never worked on Thanksgiving and we all chipped in to prepare the feast for our Thanksgiving dinner. But this presented a nightmare for Billie as her sense of smell had grown so strong any smell of food cooking made her feel nauseated.

  For a few minutes I watched as she attempted to strain water from the cauliflower, and I’d noticed how hard she’d been struggling to hide how she felt. Knowing we’d gotten this far and not wanting my family to find out too early, I quickly pulled out my cell.

  “Mmm, what does he want?” I muttered just loud enough for people to hear. “Hello?” I asked and gave a long sigh as I pretended to listen to my imaginary caller. “She is but—” I heaved out a sigh. “I suppose so.” Turning my attention to Billie I shrugged. “It’s Logan,” I said in a clipped tone.

  “Logan,” she repeated, setting the huge pot down and wiping her hands.

  “Leave that,” I told her, before I turned my attention to Tammy. “You got that, right?” I asked and winked.

  “Sure,” she replied, looking puzzled as I led Billie out of the kitchen to the great room and opened the French doors. I pulled her out into the fresh air and it was freezing, but I knew it was the quickest way of clearing Billie’s head.

  “What does he want?” she asked, gesturing to the phone. I glanced down at it, closed the screen, and stuffed it in my pocket giving her an impish grin. “I lied, but they’ll forgive me when they find out why. Stand here for a few minutes and breathe in deeply, it’ll clear the nausea.”

  “Did I look that green?” she asked, a wry smile played on her lips.

  “Well, not green as such, just more like you were limbering up to hurl,” I laughed and pulled her into my chest. She shivered and I kissed her hair. “This is the longest fucking Thanksgiving prep in history,” I told her, desperate to tell everyone.

  “Right,” she agreed. “But from my point of view the last five weeks have felt infinitely longer.” She got no argument from me there. Staying positive that both babies would come through the first phase of her pregnancy had kept us both on edge, but also keeping the news from Colby had felt almost as bad, but necessary with the risks associated with multiple pregnancies.

  As soon as Billie had felt stronger and more able to cope she went back to the kitchen, but steered clear of the vegetables and instead volunteered herself to chop fruit for the fruit salad.

  Seven times Colby came up and asked me how long it was until dinner, and at one point I had to take him aside and offer some friendly advice, as he had begun to attract attention to himself like he’d hardly ever been fed.

  A morning had never felt as long in my whole life, and by the time James and Lorna arrived my anticipation had been killing me, and when my mother finally told us to take our seats in the dining room, Billie looked as if she were going to faint. The moment we’d all been waiting for had finally arrived and for some strange reason my nerves had begun to vibrate.

  Once everyone was seated my father gave his usual speech about how he had been blessed with a life of privilege and with it, came an even greater responsibility to society. He talked about how we must not use our wealth to the disadvantage of others or adopt an attitude of entitlement. I knew he thought he’d done well with my sisters and me, but I wasn’t sure he’d felt the same about James, especially not when he was in his twenties and perhaps for most of his thirties either.

  Lately though he had shown maturity and I had felt my father’s wealth of knowledge had been directed more toward the next generation than toward us.

  After he said his piece he gestured to my mother, who also had her usual thanks for family and friends, health, and her beautiful grandchildren. But now she included extra thanks for the joy Billie and Colby had brought to the family and the fresh injection of hope and tolerance their presence had carried with them. I knew instantly she was referring to Billie’s role in James being accepted by the rest of us again.

  As we went around the table each family member gave thanks for their partners, their friends and colleagues, and it felt like a repetition of every year since I’d been twenty, except for the times when Tammy had another baby on the way, but I knew what Billie and I had to say.

  Finally it was my turn, and as hard as I’d tried to look serious, a smile crept onto my face. Turning to look at Billie my smile turned to a grin, and she flashed me a toothy one back before she glanced down at her lap and fiddled with her napkin.

  Immediately I slid my hand into hers and gave it a small squeeze. Clearing my throat, I looked first to my dad then to my mom; their faces looked too serious for what I wanted to tell them and this made me laugh.

  “Sawyer, get on with it, the beans will get cold,” Tammy scolded and thinking of my babies when they had been little more than beans made me grin again.

  “Okay, I’m doing it,” I snapped in mock annoyance.

  I sucked in a deep breath and stole a glance at Colby, he pursed his lips and stopped himself from laughing and I cleared my throat again.

  “Right well … I’m thankful … to all of you, my parents, my siblings, you are at the heart of who I am, whom I have been allowed to be. You’ve been my most avid supporters, despite my unconventional life as a musician, and your faith in me has never faltered. To you, Dad, whose encouragement has always been there for me to follow my gut, to know what I want, and to speak up when I do, I am very thankful for this. To Tammy, for her strength and health and the reminder that we are not always in control of what fate has in store, no matter how careful we think we are. To Caitlin and Lorna, for their steady strength and advice, which I have learned to live by. Their partners too for taking them off my parents’ hands.” I looked at my brother. “I’m also thankful to James for showing me when one door closes a much better one awaits down the hallway. I’m thankful for the beautiful grandchildren my parents have been blessed with, as they are my beautiful nieces and nephew too. However, I guess you’ll all forgive me for saying this year I’m most thankful for my life with Billie and Colby. To say it’s been a doozy of a year with a wedding, a new wife and stepson would be an understatement. This year has given me more than most men could wish for. But … that’s not the end of our news because come June next year … maybe sooner, Billie is going to be a mother again, Colby’s going to be a big brother and I am going to be a father.”

  My mom began to stand but I waved her down as everyone at the table erupted in cheers of congratulations. “Trust me, after Billie has said her piece, we can celebrate but let’s hear what my gorgeous wife is thankful for first. And then we can spend the rest of the day talking about our news.

  Billie squeezed my hand and hers felt a little sweaty so I flipped it over and kissed it. “Your turn,” I prodded, and she looked down at her lap to compose herself before her eyes darted from person-to-person around the table.

  “This is so going to sound like a sob story,” she said, chuckled and shook her head. “Last year right before Thanksgiving I wasn’t in a very good place as I prepared to spend it alone because my ex-husband and his parents had been due to take our son, Colby, on a cruise. This had been arranged long before my husband left and the cruise had been to celebrate my ex-in-laws fortieth wedding anniversary.” Billie stared at me for a long minute like she couldn’t believe what had happened back then.

  “Obviously when Sawyer found out I was going to be alone, he suggested I join him and his band on tour for a few days.” Tammy scoffed and Jonathan stifled a laugh, which made Billie grin. “Yeah, that was an … experience,” she offered politely, and we all laughed when we thought about my bandmates.

  “You deserve a medal for weathering that,” Mom offered good-naturedly, while my dad nodded and laughed in agreement.

  “I want to address the elephant in the room, for me, anyway. When I first met Sawyer I couldn’t believe he was interested in me; a divorcée with a child, albeit a wonderful one,” she said, smiling affectionately at Colby. “But you know Sawye
r, when he wants something he doesn’t give up.” She turned and cupped my face with her hand. “However, I still thought men were trouble and that I should run a mile, but I found where Sawyer was concerned I never wanted to run.”

  “You’re doing great, darlin’,” I mumbled and winked.

  “And I’m so thankful he didn’t give up, because believe me I must have been a pain,” she said after a moment, and I saw her swallow back her emotions. “Anyhow, we’re here now at this point in our journey Sawyer, me, and Colby, and I’m speaking on my son’s behalf also when I say you have no idea how thankful we are for our new family and how very grateful we are to you all. I’m sorry, Tammy, because I’m sure the beans are definitely cold now, except for two… the ones I’m carrying inside me.” Billie rubbed her torso and the look of shock on all of their faces had made saving our news well worth the wait.

  “Two? Two? You’re having twins?” they all appeared to say simultaneously, and Tammy slid back her chair and came running around from the opposite side of the table.

  “Who gives a fuck about the beans, we have a microwave somewhere,” she shrieked, and my eyes flared wide because I’d never heard Tammy react so animatedly before in all of my life. The kids all jumped up and down, Milly holding Colby’s hand as Belle, Bethany, and Brock took the opportunity to play a dancing game until my dad banged the table and calmed everyone down.

  “This truly is a day to be thankful for all the gifts the universe has bestowed on us, but if I don’t get something to eat soon there will be one less person around this table by the time Billie and Sawyer’s babies arrive.”

  As we all settled down and began piling up our plates the food was indeed stone-cold, but no one complained because the news we had given them had sparked a whole different kind of conversation to the one they had expected.

  The women in the family were overjoyed about the news, each of them promising support and I could see them all making mental shopping lists of items they wanted to buy. My parents discussed where we would live, my mom insisting children needed gardens, but Billie gently reminded her there was a couple of years before it came to this, and that we’d been happy in our apartment.

  I had one ear on their conversation and the rest of my attention on Belle, who had made it down from the table. She had been trying to squeeze between my food and me, to climb onto my lap, when James caught my eye.

  “Congratulations, Saw, you’re going to be a great dad,” James said, and I noted his tone was a little off. Scooting my chair back, I lifted my tiny niece onto my lap and as I considered his reaction which had been somewhat less enthusiastic compared to the others.

  At first I had thought it another instance of jealousy, but when I saw sadness in his smile a flashback to the New Year’s killed this thought dead. It suddenly hit me that at one time he’d gone through some of the feelings I’d experienced during that previous five weeks, and those early feelings and building anticipation of being a father. However, James never had the chance to tell anyone and his baby’s dreadful outcome was far less kind than mine.

  With no words of comfort to offer him, I sat staring at him, our similar eyes locked in a moment where I had no relief to give. Eventually I gave him a small nod and accepted his compliment, feeling inadequate at my temporary loss of something to say, when Lorna called my name. This gave me the excuse to break the awkward moment that had grown between us, and I’m ashamed to say I felt relieved to look away.

  A few hours after dinner, my brother skipped out on us, saying he had somewhere else to be, and I wondered if this had really been the case or he’d found being around everyone again too much, as this had been the first time we’d all been together since our wedding. I was trying hard to find the closeness with James that I had with my sisters, but though our years of closeness I mostly knew how the girls ticked, with my brother I had to accept that we may always be a work in progress.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  After an intense negotiation with Colby, I stayed true to my word and committed to decorating the nursery with him, but explained that this would happen before my band’s next tour.

  Initially he’d wanted a room apiece, but after Billie explained twin babies should room in together and pointed out they’d had all that closeness inside her womb, it made sense they’d settle better if they were within a certain distance of one another. As soon as he understood this, he agreed they could stick to one room.

  With Thanksgiving out of the way and my parents and siblings all desperate to meet the new additions to the family, my mom and sisters set about organizing a baby shower for Billie, but she was determined it shouldn’t take place too early, as she was still cautious about carrying two babies.

  A few weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday, I heard Billie sobbing when I entered our apartment after taking Colby to school. My heart stuttered in my chest as it tightened when I thought she’d been hurt.

  “Billie?” I questioned, as I strode quickly down the hallway toward our bedroom and the sound of her sobbing. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did someone upset you?” I asked, as I stepped close to the bed and shoved my heavy leather jacket off. It fell on the floor by my feet. I knelt on the bed and crawled across to her side where she lay. “Talk to me, darlin’, what’s going on?”

  Turning her head to look at me, her red-rimmed eyes glistened with tears, and seeing the hurt in them it brought a thick lump to my throat. “Come here,” I urged, placing pressure on her shoulder for her to start rolling over toward me. Billie took my cue and slowly turned in my direction, her abdomen already looking much bigger than the fifteen weeks gone that she was.

  “Talk to me,” I urged again.

  “I … was thinking about … about Christ … mas,” she finally mumbled. She had been sobbing so hard, her breath hitched twice, and her words sounded broken.

  “Jesus, darlin’, you gave me a fright, I thought something terrible had happened,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her and gently kissing her temple. Her body stiffened in my arms.

  “It is terrible … awful. How do I go to your parents for Christmas lunch and watch everyone fuss over the children with Colby missing?” Immediately after she said it, I got it. I had been thinking about that particular scenario myself.

  “We don’t have to go to my parents if it’s going to upset you.”

  “Don’t you see, I’ll be upset wherever I am?”

  “I get that this is about Colby. I don’t want him to be anywhere else either, but this is one of the horrible situations divorce brings.”

  “Children aren’t belongings, Sawyer. They’re people with rights, thoughts, feelings and wishes. But we as the adults, take away their dreams of feeling secure and protected, and tell them what to feel and how to think. We may not do this with words, but our actions teach them this. A divorce with shared custody forces them to have split loyalties toward the two people they should love more than anyone else. All most kids wish for is the separation, fighting, and division to stop.”

  For a long minute we lay staring at one another. Both of us absorbing the outburst of hurt she had aired and my stomach felt knotted because I knew no matter how I felt, that didn’t matter, not when I saw how devastated my wife was, not to mention how bad her internal feelings were for our babies.

  Taking a sharp breath, I blew it out in a rush. “Okay. I’m going to speak to Logan. I refuse to have you broken-hearted when a solution may be at hand.”

  “He’s not going to let Colby stay here,” she muttered, like she had already resigned herself to this.

  “Trust me, I’ll do my best.” I said, and though my heart ached for her, as far as I was concerned, Logan owed her for the way he’d behaved in the past. As my exhausted wife lay in my arms, my mind spun with what I could do about her anguished state, but it wasn’t only her who had felt the weight of the holiday, which loomed upon us.

  I’d also noticed Colby had begun to close off, spending more time in his room and although I had tried
to talk to him, I felt he’d been holding something back from me. At first I thought it had something to do with Billie’s condition, but he was adamant in his denial and that only left me with one person to consider, Logan.

  Framing her face in my hands, I tenderly wiped away her tears with my thumbs, closed the space between us and pressed soft kisses to her wet, tear-stained cheeks. I waited for a few minutes until I felt she was a little calmer, because no one could have a rational conversation with a woman loaded with hormones when she was distressed. Billie had taught me this.

  “What do you want? Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll try to make it happen,” I said with certainty. If she felt pained, then Colby had to have felt the same. The last thing I wanted was to see her upset if there was a chance I could do anything to fix this.

  No one needed to explain this for me, and it hadn’t mattered that I had no biological children of my own as yet; I still got it. Since Billie and I had been together, I’d already witnessed some of the effects Logan’s choices had brought to our family.

  However, I’d gone into this marriage with my eyes wide open and the situation was what it was. Apportioning blame only added more toxicity into the mix, because nothing I said would ever change the circumstance of the fair arrangement they had made at the time, which had supposedly been in Colby’s best interests.

  “Last year, Thanksgiving and New Year felt excruciating without Colby there,” she muttered. “Where do I find the strength to call my son on Christmas Day and say Merry Christmas without crying?” she blurted and burst into tears again.

  Logan had missed out on Colby for Thanksgiving this time, but he had gate-crashed Billie and Colby’s home on Christmas Day the year before and Billie had been generous to a fault when she’d allowed Logan to spend the day with his son.