by Liz Crowe
She let him pull her away as she stifled her tipsy giggles. Joe got them a cab, and they ended up at a classy but forgettable restaurant on the Ohio River. A glass of rich red wine later, she was almost seeing double so she switched to water.
Joe was in full frontal flirt mode, and she ate it up. It had been so long since any man had paid attention to her, other than the man who knocked her up the second he looked at her. Every time Joe mentioned Anton’s name, she changed the subject. It was utterly harmless, this little date. And they did talk about the brewery a lot.
He explained the angel investor’s goals, and how much he was willing to give in exchange for only a small ownership percentage. Joe almost had her convinced by the time he pulled her chair out, helped her to her feet, and guided her out of the place, his large, warm hand steady and reassuring on the small of her back.
They were sitting in the cab in front of a tall building where she presumed he lived. She was shaky, still drunk, but at least not seeing double anymore, thanks to the food and about a gallon of water. Joe studied her for a quiet few seconds. His face was so angular, his eyes that odd shade between brown and green. She fixated on his Adam’s apple, which bobbed when he swallowed.
“I need to go on up,” he said, his hand on her knee. “I’ll pay the cabbie now to take you wherever you want to go.” But he didn’t get out. “Unless, of course, this might be my lucky night.”
She sucked in a breath. The memory of the shadows, of Isabella’s voice telling Anton he should leave, and, of course, the way she had put his cock in her mouth and sucked it danced across her vision.
She waved her hand in front of her face to dissipate the images. Joe caught it, put it to his lips. She shivered and felt her nipples harden, pressing against the pretty new bra she’d bought today. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think it might be.”
They stood apart in the elevator. Lindsay had already begun concocting ways to escape, to not do this terrible, adulterous thing she’d been prepared to do not three minutes ago. Joe held out a hand when the doors parted. She walked ahead of him, stopping when he touched her elbow. He unlocked and opened his door. She hesitated, knowing full well that to step across that threshold would send her spiraling away from the only world she knew—and ruin everything she had in the process.
Not that it had stopped her husband from getting a blowjob from some old girlfriend.
He turned, took her hand, and guided her into his space. “Let’s have a drink,” he said, smooth as silk, while he tugged off his tie and hung it across the arm of an expensive-looking chair. He probably had women up here all the time. A different one every single night. She stood, clutching her bag and gaping at his nice things like a hayseed.
Gathering her memories of herself, of that girl who’d defied her parents and married the wrong man on purpose, she dropped her purse on the table, took the three steps between them, lifted her arms to his shoulders, and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. It was his turn to freeze, but only for a few seconds. He grabbed her, picked her up so she had to wrap her legs around his waist, and carried her into his bedroom.
He set her down and yanked her skirt up, reaching for her panties. But she didn’t care anymore. She wanted it as badly as he did. She felt the sort of yawning emptiness she’d experienced before she first had Anton. Their tongues tangled. Teeth clicked together as he yanked her panties down. She unzipped him and palmed his dick, marveling at the differences, yet knowing the goal was the same.
His fingers teased and tantalized her flesh. He slid the straps of her dress down with his other hand. With a sigh of pleasure he pressed her onto his bed, suckling her breasts, fingering her, giving her the exact amount of pressure and speed she needed until she cried out with pleasure.
“Now, that was very nice.” He put his fingers in his mouth, closing his eyes for a second, then re-opening them. He loomed over her, parted her legs and slid between them, penetrating her so quickly she gasped. Before she could make him stop, reminding herself that this would be the most dangerous time of the month for her to have sex with her husband, much less this man who was not her husband, he reached up high, going slow and rocking against her in a way she’d never experienced.
She wrapped her legs around him, dying to feel every single inch. His chest was mostly hairless, and she found herself comparing him to Anton until noticed he’d stopped moving. He was looking down at her, his arms on either side of her head shook.
“I … need to … oh, God.” He groaned and gave a huge thrust, banging her head into the headboard. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he kept banging into her as he shuddered all over, then stilled. The familiar warmth filled her, and she burst into embarrassed, horrified tears.
Chapter Nineteen
Lucasville
One year later
Aiden Leonardo Love was the easiest baby on the planet. Everyone said so. He slept hours at a stretch almost immediately. His nursing was easygoing, not frantic as Dominic’s had been. He smiled at everyone and would sit and watch the world go by, content even by the time he was crawling to follow his brothers, as much as they would let him.
Lindsay had asked to know his blood type, thinking she’d be safe for the rest of the boy’s life if she could assure herself that he could be cross-matched to hers. Unfortunately, it was not the case. He turned out to be blood type O and, based on her hours spent researching it, she knew the child was not Anton’s biological son. He couldn’t be, since she was type O negative and Anton was AB positive. The only way Aiden could be a type O was if his father had type O blood as well.
She kept those results on a small computer-generated printout, folded into a small square in an old cigar box where she kept her bank book from the Louisville institution that held her Halloran family money. The box was tucked far back on a deep shelf in the bottom basement, behind a stack of blankets, which were in turn stuffed behind a bunch of board games.
Anton had been frantic that weekend of course. He hadn’t asked where she’d gotten the clothes, makeup, and books for the boys and gifts for her friends. But he’d barely had time, since she dropped everything on the kitchen floor, ran to him, and threw herself into his arms a full day before she told Tanya Norris she’d be home.
They had made love three or four times by the time she retrieved her sons from her friends’ house, no worse for wear. Just for good measure, she made him stay home the next day, and when Kieran and Dom went down for a brief nap, after a carefully timed dose of liquid allergy medicine guaranteed to keep even Dominic down for a good hour, she jumped his bones again. He napped afterward, holding her close.
“So we’re good now,” he said when he woke. “We’re clear on the money.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, then turned to him and kissed him, her mind spinning with the horror of what she had done, as well as what she might have done, but keeping the Isabella thing tucked away in case she needed to pull it out for later use.
“We are, Anton. But you should know, I don’t want that Isabella person working at the pub anymore. We clear on that?”
He blinked, licked his lips, and propped up on his elbows. She pressed her fingers to his full lips, those lips she did love, and did not want to betray, even though she had in the worst possible way. “Just fire her. And we won’t have any more reason to discuss it.”
He nodded. The next time Lindsay went into the pub with the boys for dinner, she asked after Isabella and was told she’d been let go. Joe Patterson didn’t show his face much either, to her extreme relief.
Again, life, as it was wont to do, progressed. Her pregnancy, no surprise to her or Anton, was uneventful. Aiden was born the normal way, quickly, and with the usual amount of pain. When she looked into his eyes the first time, she knew. She ordered the blood test just so she would have no reason to doubt that she’d done the worst thing ever. But had gained a true angel of a son a result. A son Anton loved just as much as he did the others—sporadically, fiercely, and with a heavy han
d.
The production side of the brewery did move, about a year after Aiden’s birth, and with the help of the mystery investor. The Love Pub remained downtown, one of the few local businesses unaffected by the steady encroachment of the suburbs from Lexington. With of the monthly weight off Anton’s shoulders thanks to a marked increase in sales and cash injections from the “angel,” he was able to put a new roof on their house, fix up the living room, and buy furniture, a new dishwasher and a stove.
Lindsay didn’t touch her money, swearing to herself she would use every single penny of it on the boys’ education. She allowed herself the occasional haircut and manicure, not the way she had when she was a pampered daughter, but at least often enough that she didn’t feel like the world’s biggest drudge. But she indulged only if she could justify paying for it out of what she might save on other monthly budgeted items.
The boys grew into their personalities, and Kieran began his infatuation with basketball that would morph into an all-consuming obsession for him and his father. Dominic never quite got over losing his coveted “baby” spot to another brother, and even walked baby Aiden around their neighborhood once, trying to sell him to the highest bidder.
Most days were a set of barely controlled hours of chaos, especially after both Antony and Kieran got better at basketball. The house suffered the direct attention of three very active boys, with a youngest brother tagging along the best he could. Lindsay relaxed after Aiden’s second birthday, allowing that she’d made a mistake and the good Lord had seen fit to gift her a son to remind her of it every single day.
The day Lindsay conceived her final child, the daughter she’d always believed she wanted, a snowstorm had socked the Love family into the house. At first it was fine. They gathered at the fireplace, toasted marshmallows, and sang songs. Lindsay let the boys set up a couple of real tents in the living room so they could pretend they were camping out. Marianne brought Rosie, and Tanya threw Paul into the fray while the women sipped coffee and nibbled the cookie dough Lindsay had ready for later treats.
At one point, Lindsay took in the atmosphere—the sound of giggling, happy children in one room, her friends in her kitchen under her snug new roof, her husband off at his successful business. Her heart felt so full, tears prickled her eyelids.
“What’s wrong, hon?” Tanya Norris patted her hand.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m happy, I guess.” She swiped her cheeks, embarrassed.
“Happy as a fat tick on a skinny dog,” Marianne said, licking her fingers. Lindsay laughed.
“As a pig in shit,” Tanya agreed, shocking everyone at the table. She’d been a hard-core Baptist girl until she married Paul Senior. She’d once told Lindsay she joined his church because they liked to make love standing up, and she was afraid her church would think they were dancing.
A loud bang and a cry of pain broke up the happy party. “I’ll go see,” Tanya said, heading for the living room. Lindsay let her go. She was always the best mama to sort out a ruckus. She brought a sobbing Aiden with her. They fussed over him a while, gave him a dab of cookie dough and sent him out to rejoin the group.
“Dominic,” Tanya said, pouring herself more coffee. No more explanation was required. He’d taken it as his prime mission in life to torment his baby brother to tears at least twice a day. Antony had gotten to where he could manage it, usually by punching Dominic, which wasn’t really helping. But as a result, Aiden had latched on to Antony, which only seemed to anger Dom even more.
“That boy,” Lindsay said. “I don’t know what to do with him most days. Anton thinks he can whup the bad out of him, but it only seems to make him worse.”
They made the kids hot dogs on the stove and corn on the cob from Lindsay’s store of frozen vegetables. They were satisfied for about an hour after that, sprawled on the living room floor next to the crackling “campfire” in the fireplace, while Sesame Street played on videotapes Lindsay found at the secondhand bookstore. Then Dom threw his half-eaten corncob at Aiden, calling him a baby for not eating the bun of his hot dog, hitting him square in the eye, and sending him squalling into the kitchen once more.
“Let’s have a little separation time,” she said, picking her youngest boy up and loving the feel of his arms clasping her neck. She got him settled for a nap after a quick read, the book clutched to his chest. Marianne had sent Antony to the bottom basement to fetch the Twister game, and was organizing that while Tanya cleaned up the camp meal by tossing paper plates and plastic ware into the trash, then wiping off faces and hands.
Lindsay put a tray in the oven, and soon the whole house smelled of chocolate chip cookies. Rosie and Antony took turns bossing the other kids through the Twister game for a while, but Lindsay could sense that Dominic was getting too antsy to stay indoors much longer. Moments before she suggested the kids blow off steam in the bottom basement with the little indoor basketball hoop, the front door flew open, sending wind-blown swirls of snow into the lower foyer.
“Daddy!” Kieran shouted, and ran for his snow-coated father. Anton caught him, put him up on his shoulders and headed up to where the others were squabbling over whose turn it was to spin the wheel on the Twister game.
“Who wants to build a snowman?” he called out. The kids cheered and started shouting out ideas for clothes and decorations. Lindsay hauled out the snow gear, putting extra layers of Antony’s clothes on Paul and Rosie. She joined them once she and her friends were bundled up, just in time to catch a snowball to her shoulder.
“Look out, Mama!” Kieran called, ever her protector. She laughed and ducked around the corner, managing to nail Antony in the butt with one and Anton in the face with another. The snow was light and airy, so the balls didn’t pack much punch, which was a good thing, considering Dominic had deadly aim and hit everyone except the grownups in the face with his.
An hour later, the six or so inches of snow had increased to almost ten. They commandeered the trashcan lids, and Anton led an expedition to find a good hill in the neighborhood. Lindsay and the other moms demurred. When Anton grabbed her when she tromped by in the near-whiteout conditions and planted a cold-lipped kiss on hers, she’d pushed him away playfully. “Don’t you get my babies hurt, Anton Love.”
“No ma’am,” he said.
“No ma’am,” Antony parroted, glancing up for his father’s approval.
The women cleaned up the living room, and righted all the furniture, but left the tents up in case her boys wanted to sleep in them tonight. An hour later everyone returned, teeth chattering, fingers and toes freezing. Anton entered last, carrying Aiden, who was covering his left eye and sniveling.
“Dominic,” Anton muttered under his breath, shooting that son an evil eye worthy of Lindsay’s mother-in-law. “Damn kid.”
“Swear jar, Daddy,” Kieran said, shoving Dominic to the floor so hard the kid yelped—a first for him, she figured—before running to Lindsay so he could see what would be Aiden’s impressive black eye by morning. Anton dropped a coin in the huge jar on the kitchen table, and swatted Dominic’s butt as the boy ran by on his mission to find the next trouble and jump into it with both feet.
By about nine o’clock, the boys were passed out in their beds, Anton having vetoed the tent-sleeping plan, saying he wanted to watch basketball and didn’t want the boys up that late. Lindsay was stretched out on the couch when Anton came down the steps from Dominic’s room after tucking him in-slash-warning him not to get up again. “That boy terrifies me, Linds.”
“I know, honey.” She was exhausted, but in a good way. “Would you take that game downstairs and bring me the clean clothes basket, please? I’ll fold while the game’s on.”
He leaned over and kissed her, grabbing her boob by way of gauging her interest. She let him, although she wasn’t sure what her interest level was at the moment. Four active boys in the house equaled very little private time for them lately. It’d been at least a month since they’d had more than quick, take-the-edge-off, middle-o
f-the-night, half-asleep sex.
He grabbed the Twister box and headed down to the bottom basement, whistling the Wildcat fight song. Lindsay drifted, mesmerized by the dancing flames. When she blinked she realized she must have dozed and someone was calling her name. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, trying to figure out what time it was and why Anton hadn’t returned with the clothes basket and wasn’t in his chair, holding a beer and cursing the officials and coaches.
“Lindsay,” he called again. His voice had a strange edge that made her jump up and run down to the basement, terrified he’d fallen or had a heart attack or something. The basement was dark, but a light shone in the laundry room. When she found him, he was leaning against the dryer, a sheet of paper and something else she didn’t immediately recognize in his hands. Her eyes flew to the cigar box on the washing machine. It must have gotten knocked to the floor when Antony was getting the game earlier.
“I don’t know what this is,” he said, his voice ominously low and brandishing the computer printout with her notes about blood types. “But I sure as hell know what this is.” He threw the Stockyards Bank bankbook at her. It smacked her chest and dropped to the floor, lying between them, opened to the page where she’d tucked the initial printed deposit receipt. “And you were going to tell me about this, when, exactly?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. His brown eyes glittered with fury. She stiffened and picked up the bankbook, mind spinning with possible explanations and scenarios whereby she deflected the fact of the two-hundred-thousand-dollar account with only her name on it by telling him that the printout proved he was not Aiden’s biological father. “I don’t know how carefully you studied it but if you did, you’d know I haven’t touched the money, at least not since that first day.”
