“This is amazing,” Cady breathed after her first bite.
Coert had no idea if it was the cinnamon “infused” egg batter. It was probably the sprinkle of cinnamon she put on top.
It was definitely the caramel syrup.
But she was right.
He bumped her knee with his and kept his lips over his teeth to hide the chewed French toast behind his grin.
She bumped his knee back and dug in.
They ate.
They cleaned up.
He made her come again with his fingers while they were in the shower.
Then they got ready and went over to her folks’ house.
They were silent on the way home.
She waited for them to get through the door, for him to close it, lock it, and start unwrapping his scarf from around his neck before she started, “To—”
He cut her off not only because he didn’t want to hear that name on her lips but because he . . . was . . . pissed.
“Next year, no.”
Needless to say, Christmas dinner did not go well.
Not with the Webster clan.
It had been four hours and seventeen minutes (he’d timed it) of sheer torture.
Christ, her mother was a piece of work and that brother of hers?
Christ.
“Tony,” she whispered, still in her jacket, her eyes locked to him.
“And when we have kids, Cady, that asshole gets nowhere near them. And by that asshole, I mean Caylen.”
She shut her mouth and started at him, her eyes growing wide.
Coert was too ticked to notice that response or wonder at it.
He just tossed his scarf on the back of one of Casey’s chairs and put his fingers to the buttons of his coat. “Your mom and dad, I’ll have to stomach that because maybe they’ll be better grandparents than they are parents. Your mother starts her bullshit, Cady, it ends for them too. A kid has got to find out who they are. Along the way, they don’t need some battle-ax badgering them to be . . . I don’t know. What the fuck is it she’s all fired up about you being?”
“Having a college education, for one,” she shared.
“Mark Twain didn’t graduate college.”
She blinked at him.
“Neither did Ansel Adams,” he went on.
She stared.
“Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, even frigging Benjamin Franklin.”
Her eyes got round.
“For fuck’s sake, Abraham Lincoln didn’t have a college degree,” he bit out.
“Wow, you know a lot of people who didn’t graduate college,” she whispered.
He did because he’d fought with his own dad about not going to college during the phase he’d had where he wanted nothing to do with it, he wanted to dig right in and be a cop. So he remembered an argument that came in handy now.
Coert had eventually gone but his argument at the time was still sound. Even his father had given in.
Though his mother had said the route to detective might be faster if he had a political science or criminal justice degree.
He’d majored in both.
Obviously, he didn’t impart this knowledge on Cady.
“Have I made my point?” he asked, shrugging off his coat and throwing it over the back of the chair with his scarf.
“Next time I’ll mention that Abraham Lincoln thing,” she said. “And Ben Franklin,” she added.
Had she not just spent the last four hours where he did?
“Next time?” Coert asked.
She bit her lip and shrugged out of her jacket too.
“They hate me,” he declared.
“Tony, honey,” she said softly, tossing her coat on the back of the couch and moving to him.
“They hate me and they don’t hide it. They don’t see what I am to you. They don’t see what we’ve got. And Christ, Cady, you can’t miss it.”
She got up close and laid a hand on his chest, telling him, “Only I need to know that. Who cares what they think?”
“They think it’s gonna be ‘Fast Car.’”
She stilled.
Yeah, she’d delivered her message with that song.
And they’d spent Christmas together.
Now he was all in.
So Coert needed to deliver his message too.
He lifted his hand and wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
“It’s not gonna be ‘Fast Car,’ Cady,” he told her, his voice vibrating.
“I know,” she replied, shifting closer.
“The thing is, the only person who needs to believe is you, and you believe. So if they love you, they should believe.”
“They’re being protective.”
“They’re not being protective. They’re being judgmental.”
“They’ll get it,” she assured.
“They won’t get dick.”
“Maybe not,” she allowed.
“Not ever, Cady, they won’t get dick. And what makes it worse is that they don’t even have it in them to be polite. Jesus, how did they even make you?”
Her other hand went to his waist and started curving around. “I don’t know but that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Don’t be funny when I’m this pissed,” he returned.
“I wasn’t being funny.”
Jesus.
Her hair. That face. Those freckles. Her ass. Her generosity. Her loyalty. Her sense of humor.
Those fucking eyes.
And her not being like her parents was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her?
He took his fingers from her wrist to frame her face with both his hands and he bent his face to hers.
“We’re gonna have to make a decision about them, Cady. This is us. You and me. And I can take it. But I’m not gonna sit at a table or be in a room or even be breathing and know you’re taking it. Not that. Not from them. Especially not that brother of yours. Are you getting me?”
Her nod moved his hands but she didn’t lose his eyes.
She got him.
So he let her go, grabbed one of hers and pulled her to the couch.
“Now we’re gonna find a movie,” he announced. “A Christmas Story or Scrooged or It’s a Wonderful Life has gotta be playin’ on some channel. And we’re gonna erase that Christmas shit with pink rabbit pajamas.”
Cady burst out laughing.
Coert did not.
He collapsed on the couch, pulling her down with him.
He stretched them out, getting her right where he wanted her, tucked close to his front.
And only when he had her there did he reach for the remote.
He did this thinking that the perfume was lame. It wasn’t a cheap brand, like the one she owned, and it was pretty and all her, but it was still lame.
But not more lame than the hundred dollar check her parents gave her.
Her mother handing it over (not even in a goddamned envelope) saying, “We know you need this, Cady.”
They hadn’t even gone out to get her cash. They gave her a check.
And a hundred bucks?
Cady had given her mother a bracelet she couldn’t afford and her dad a Bronco’s baseball cap she also couldn’t afford.
And Coert reckoned what she’d spent they didn’t even reimburse with that lame-ass check.
It blew his mind and not in a good way.
Her brother didn’t even get her anything and she had way less than he did and she’d bought him a bag of his favorite coffee beans and a grinder.
To which he’d said, “I have a Cuisinart at home but I guess it’s the thought that counts.”
Fuck, Coert had wanted to plant his fist in the guy’s face and right then he thought it was a Christmas miracle that he’d managed to stop himself from doing that.
“You want a beer?” Cady asked, fortunately taking his mind from his thoughts.
“We’ll find a movie,” Coert answered, flicking through the channels that going over re
cent memories he hadn’t been seeing. “Then I’ll get us a beer.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It does,” he told her. “I think a funny one. After that shit with your family, we need funny.”
“No, honey, I mean it doesn’t matter.”
At her tone, he looked down at her to see her neck twisted to look up at him.
“What?” he asked.
“This matters. Cinnamon, caramel French toast matters. They don’t matter. We have cinnamon, caramel French toast. And since we do, we can take whatever else comes.”
God, he hoped she was right.
God, fuck, he hoped she was right.
He felt the tension ebb out of him, he relaxed into her and he bent his face closer to hers.
“You’re right.”
“You find a movie, babe. I’ll go get us beers.”
Before he could stop her, she gave him a quick touch of the lips and scooted out of his hold.
She brought them beers and tossed a throw rug over him (because Cady kept the heat down low to save money, even if he was giving Casey money to pay the utilities, something she didn’t know about, so she felt it wasn’t fair to saddle Casey with high utility bills when she felt he was doing her a bigger favor than she was doing for him).
She climbed under it, burrowing into him.
Coert toed off his boots.
Cady followed suit.
And Coert found A Christmas Story.
They’d missed the leg lamp bit but not the rabbit pajamas bit.
And next year, Coert vowed, they’d start their Christmas with cinnamon, caramel French toast, but he’d make sure they had all they’d need to veg out in front of the TV and then make a big feast before they’d again veg out in front of the TV.
This meant no Christmas dinner with her folks (though, maybe one with his).
But next year, they’d start their Christmas like they’d started that Christmas.
And they’d end their Christmas just like this.
You Did the Right Thing
Coert
Present day . . .
THE TEXT CAME IN AT nine thirty on the dot, like she was waiting, not wanting to intrude but wanting to say what needed to be said.
Merry Christmas, honey. Love you. See you guys later.
Coert felt his face get soft as he read Cady’s text and he knew that wasn’t only a feeling, but a look when he felt Kim’s hand curl around the back of his neck.
He bent back his head, her hand falling away as he did, to see her standing beside him where he was sitting on her couch, and she was staring down at him.
“Terminally in love,” she murmured.
His eyes flicked to the tree where Janie was amidst a sea of spent wrapping paper, her bottom ensconced in a flannel mermaid’s tail that was mostly aqua with a pink flipper at the end, her attention centered on taking stick-on outfits off a mermaid drawing (her Santa list that year definitely had a theme).
He turned them back to Kim in time to catch her asking in a whisper, “Is Coert in love gonna make me wanna hurl?”
“Shut up,” he whispered back, feeling his lips twitch.
Her eyes danced. “It is. It’s totally gonna make me hurl.”
“You mind if I text Cady back?” he asked dryly.
“I’d have a heart attack at the thought you’re actually asking if you can do something, but since you aren’t and you’re being sarcastic, then I’ll give you the unnecessary. An answer. That being no.”
He grinned up at her.
Then he bent to his phone and texted back, Merry Christmas, baby. Hope you’re having a good day so far. Love you back and see you soon.
“Daddy!” Janie called, and he turned his eyes to her to see she was holding up her board, the mermaid wearing a purple mermaid outfit, but Janie’s other hand was also up and she was holding a green and blue mermaid outfit. “Purple or green?”
If someone told him that in his life, one day he’d be asked to give an opinion on a mermaid outfit, he might have laughed and silently hoped to God that never happened.
And he would have been totally wrong thinking that.
“Absolutely purple,” he said firmly.
Janie looked unsure, lifted her gaze to her mother, and asked, “Mommy?”
“Purple, Janie. Always purple, sweetie. For sure,” Kim replied, and for Kim it was always purple since that was her favorite color.
Janie put the things down and declared, “I’m gonna try the green, just in case.”
Neither Coert nor Kim were surprised their daughter ignored their advice.
“More coffee?” Kim asked Coert.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, pushing out of her couch. “And I should get on breakfast.”
“Can we have butterly pie for breakfast, Daddy?” Janie asked.
To say his daughter liked Cady’s pie was an understatement.
To say when he and Kim told Janie she and Coert were going to a big family party for Christmas dinner that she was ecstatic even though she had no clue who that family was, was an understatement too.
This proved him correct again. She understood her mom having a big family with lots of people around on special occasions was good to have. And she understood that as fun as it was to go to Jake and Josie’s, with Jake’s kids around (especially Ethan, Jake’s youngest, who Janie had a crush on), or having Coert’s parents there, it wasn’t as good as what her mom had.
And she wanted her dad to have that.
So Christmas dinner with Cady and her family was all good.
If her brothers kept it good.
“Butterbeer pie, Janie,” Kim corrected. “Daddy’s friend Cady made butterbeer pie.”
And Kim was all in with this, something Coert couldn’t wrap his mind around, even if he could wrap it around his feelings of gratitude that she was.
But maybe she was just glad Coert was going to have this too.
She loved him and it was coming clear she’d never stopped, she was just working hard to adjust that into something that was right and good and healthy, not only for Janie, but for her and Coert.
Suffice it to say, Coert had had the best Christmas Eve of his life the day before.
And it wasn’t even ten in the morning and his Christmas was shaping up the same way, because he had hope, real hope this time, that it was just going to get better.
Janie scrunched her nose at her mother. “I’ve smelled Daddy’s beers and that pie doesn’t smell anything like Daddy’s beers.”
Kim chuckled.
As did Coert.
“In a few years, we’ll start reading Harry Potter, sweetie,” Kim offered.
Janie loved her books so she brightened. “You can read it to me now!”
“It can get a little scary,” Kim told her.
“That’s okay. I never get scared,” Janie returned.
That was when Coert let out a bark of laughter, because his baby girl defined scaredy-cat to the point she demanded they go trick or treating at Halloween before the sun went down because some of the other kids’ costumes made her skittish.
And that was when Janie scrunched her nose at him.
“I don’t,” she stated.
“All right, cupcake,” he muttered, grabbing his empty mug, the one from Kim’s hand, and moving toward the kitchen with both.
“I don’t!” she yelled at his back.
Coert stopped, turned and looked, stunned at his daughter’s face set cute . . . and stubborn.
He’d never seen that expression in her life.
And unless she had a genuine need to be heard or was overly excited about something, she’d never yelled in her life.
He felt the surprise coming off Kim too.
The expression melted, Janie looked upset, then a little scared before she turned her head away and whispered, “I don’t.”
“Okay, baby, you don’t. So how about when you turn six next summer, your mom can start reading that to you?” Coert suggested.
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She brightened again and did a little bounce of her booty on her calves in her mermaid tail. “Okay!”
He lifted the mugs. “You want cocoa?”
Her “Okay!” that time was louder.
He glanced at Kim who was still staring at their daughter then he moved into her kitchen.
Kim followed him, having well cleared of the door before she said, “Six is too early for those books, Coert.”
“Haven’t read ’em but she’ll probably forget by then anyway,” Coert replied, replenishing both their mugs from her coffeepot.
He was shoving it back into the maker when he felt her punch his arm lightly.
He looked at her.
She was grinning hugely.
“We’re making a monster,” she said like she was delighted about this beyond reason.
He doubted that was right. Janie just didn’t have monster in her.
But it had to be said, even if it sounded crazy, that her feeling free enough to openly share she was annoyed about something was a step in the right direction.
Coert felt his lips twitch again, handed the mug to her and lifted his to his lips before he said, “We might regret this,” and took a sip.
Her eyes slid to the door of the kitchen before coming back to Coert, and she lifted her mug too, but before taking a sip she said, “Better get on that cocoa for our budding little mermaid princess.”
Coert chuckled.
Kim threw him a smile before she took a sip of her coffee.
“Mommy!” Janie yelled from the other room in a manner they were far more used to. “Can I take my ballerina box upstairs and put my jewelry in it?”
“Yeah, sweetie,” Kim yelled back.
Coert went to the fridge, doing it asking, “How much jewelry does she have?”
“One necklace and a bracelet. But she asked about getting her ears pierced. Get ready for that.”
He looked to Kim. “That’s a no.”
Kim nodded but queried, “Six?”
“Eight,” Coert returned.
She gave him a cocky smile. “Then seven it is.”
Oh yeah.
This new gig with Kim was much better.
“Deal,” Coert replied and pulled out the milk.
“Coert Yaeger’s famous cinnamon, caramel French toast?” she asked.
Coert stilled in closing the fridge door, memories gliding through him in a new way that wasn’t yet pleasant, but they didn’t burn like they used to.
The Time in Between Page 35
