Now And Always (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  No, I couldn’t call Rebecca. “Mom,” I whispered, and with a child’s faith, I suddenly knew that was the answer. If I called my mother, she’d be over in a flash. And she’d know what to do, I was sure of it. For a moment, that was the most comforting idea in the world. Call my mom and let her take care of Seth. And me.

  Then the cold reality of adulthood gripped me. My mother always hosted the annual New Year’s benefit for the library. Pulling her away from that would be selfish beyond words.

  “Seth, you’re okay. Please, buddy. Just calm down.” He’d been screaming for an hour and a half now. Shouldn’t he be tiring himself out? I was exhausted. I trudged over to the couch and plopped down.

  Seth wailed.

  “Willa,” I muttered. Willa had raised her little brother. She would know what to do. I reached for my phone.

  Then remembered it was New Year’s Eve. She’d be at the Crown with everyone else. Not just my friends, but the entire town.

  I set Seth gently on the floor and then buried my face in my hands. The Crown. I wanted to be there right now. I should be there and would be if things had gone according to my plan. Why had I offered to do this tonight, of all nights? Why had I thought I could do this? I needed help.

  I needed Ethan.

  I looked up through my fingers. Where was he? He wasn’t at the Crown, I remembered. How was I so sure he wasn't there again? Because this morning Kelly had gushed about their date tonight.

  In a flash, I had my phone in my hands. This was perfect, I reasoned. Calling him before his date was a totally Claire-like thing to do. It was 8:45, and Kelly said their reservations were at El Cantina at nine. I still had time to make it seem like I was checking in to make sure he was dressed and on his way. It was the perfect excuse.

  Seth screamed so loudly I had to press the phone tight to my ear to hear it ring. I sank my fingers nervously into the couch cushion. Even if he just laughed at me and hung up again, I still wanted to hear his voice.

  The line clicked. I held my breath. Until the familiar script of his voicemail started playing. “Dammit!” I jammed my finger down on the end button and threw my phone across the couch. “Stupid,” I berated myself. “That was a fucking stupid idea.”

  Seth choked. “Shit.” I scooped him up into my arms and patted his back until his cries took on their normal volume.

  Fuck this. I grabbed my phone and hit redial. Pride be damned, I needed him.

  The line clicked. I held my breath, prepared to hear his voicemail again.

  “Claire.”

  My knees buckled in relief. I dropped down on the couch and just breathed, savoring the feeling of being connected to him again. In the background was a clatter of voices and the clink of silverware. I took a deep breath, centering myself. “Did you really pick up in the middle of your date, Bailey? God, you’re hopeless.” My voice was wobbly and unconvincing. I wiped at my eyes.

  “Claire? I can barely hear you. Where are you? Are you with a baby?”

  “How’s Kelly?” I shot back. “I hope she’s in the bathroom right now and you’re not actually ignoring her. Did you remember to dress up tonight?”

  “Claire,” he said through gritted teeth. I could picture his clenched jaw and for some reason his frustration calmed me. “I can’t hear you because there is apparently a baby screaming on your end of the line. What’s going on?”

  “Oh. I’m, um. Babysitting.”

  “Okay.”

  We both fell silent as Seth screamed on.

  I gulped helplessly. “I’m at Finn and Beau’s. This is Seth, Rebecca’s baby. I wanted to…I thought I could help her out. And I need the practice. But I’m…I’m not good at this, Ethan. I mean, you could have probably told me that, right?” A hysterical laugh bubbled at my lips. “You could have warned me I’d be a shit mom.”

  He was silent.

  I wiped at my eyes again.

  “Claire,” he said finally. “Do you need me?”

  Did I need him? YES. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I sobbed.

  “Me neither,” he said quietly. I got the feeling he wasn’t talking about babies.

  I got the feeling I wasn’t either.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Claire

  I went to the door. Ethan stood on the porch outside. Above him, the light shone down, bathing the top of his head in an ethereal glow. Like he was wearing a halo.

  He looked like the guardian angel he’d always been for me.

  I opened the door. Seth screamed on in my ear.

  Ethan opened his arms. “Here. I’ll take him.”

  I gratefully placed the baby in Ethan’s strong, skilled hands. I shook my fingers and rolled my shoulders, trying to bring the feeling back into my cramping arms.

  Ethan expertly folded Seth’s tiny body into his chest, cradling the tiny infant’s wobbling head with his huge hand. “Hey,” he cooed, turning his mouth into the little shell of Seth’s bright red ear. “It’s not that bad.”

  And then he took a deep breath and exhaled, “Sssh,” right into it.

  Seth paused mid-wail, stiffening as if he was listening.

  Ethan took another deep breath and then exhaled a slow, continuous, “Ssssssh.”

  As I watched, mesmerized with exhaustion, Ethan kept his mouth right against the baby’s ear, intoning a rhythmic, “Sssh sssh sssh,” dipping his knees in deep bends in time with his shushing. “Sssh sssh sssh.” A deep breath and then, “Sssh sssh sssh.”

  Seth flung out a startled arm. Then, to my surprise, he folded it in close to his body, tucking his fist under his chin. Then he brought it up to his mouth and started sucking contentedly.

  He quieted, but his eyes were still bright with tears as he stared out at me reproachfully. “Hey, Aunt Claire,” he seemed to be saying. “This was all I wanted. Why couldn’t you figure this out?”

  “How the hell did you know to do this? Are you a wizard?”

  “Ssh.” Ethan pressed his finger to his lips to indicate that he was shushing me, not the baby.

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. As Ethan continued his dipping and shushing, I fell back onto the couch and felt my own eyelids start to droop. The emotions that always seemed so close to the surface these days welled up. Exhausted tears threatened to fall, and for once I didn’t fight them. How many times had Ethan seen me cry now? More than my mother, more than my brothers. More, even, than my friends.

  Ethan is your friend, my brain piped up.

  But no. That was old stuff talking. Old habits, old defenses. Ethan was more than just my friend. My friends didn’t make my heart swell in my chest like this. My friends didn’t make my lips ache with the memory of kisses I hadn’t realized I’d missed.

  My friends didn’t make me shiver just by standing in the same room as me.

  My friends were comforting, but they didn’t make me feel this safe. This cherished.

  I jerked awake. In the silence, I had fallen asleep. The house was dead quiet now, the only light the low glow of the dwindling embers in the fireplace. I rubbed my eyes and looked around.

  For a moment I wondered if he’d slipped out without saying goodbye. After all, he was probably still mad at me for…for what I did with J.D.

  Then I heard a soft thump. I sat bolt upright just as Ethan emerged from the downstairs bedroom.

  He pressed his finger to his lips as he soundlessly turned the doorknob so the latch wouldn’t click.

  I jumped up. “He’s asleep?”

  Ethan nodded. He waited until he’d drawn closer to me to murmur, “He’s asleep.”

  I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He clutched my waist, pulling me close. Dizzy and drowning, my head spun in a whirlwind of heat, lips, and desperate, yearning sounds. I clung to him, feverishly pressing my body to his.

  And then he drew back. I gasped and then exhaled, running my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No,
Ethan.” I looked him in the eye. His face, so beloved, so necessary, was all I could see. I pressed my hand to my stomach and splayed my fingers. Looking down at my hand, I sighed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He dragged his lip under his teeth, then blew out a sigh that lifted his hair from his forehead. Because of course he needed a damn haircut. I wanted to laugh with how…how Ethan-like he was.

  He was him and I was me. It was so elemental, but for some reason we kept forgetting. I frustrated him, and he drove me crazy, and there was absolutely nothing about us I would want to change. He was my Ethan.

  He was perfect.

  “Thank you,” he finally said. “But you don’t have to be sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “No, I guess it isn’t, is it.”

  He took another step forward. He pressed his fingers under my chin, tilting it upward. “But you’re my business.”

  “Uh. Excuse me?”

  He grinned. “You’re my business. I’m gonna butt in your life. I’m gonna stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. And you’re just gonna deal with it, because you’re my business.”

  “Do you—?”

  “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? That’s why I left my date?”

  Oh God… Kelly. “Did you really leave her?” I breathed.

  He shook his head. With his fingers still cupping my chin, he tilted my face from side to side, turning it as if he wanted to look at me from every angle. “She left me,” he said. “Because I wouldn’t stop talking about you.”

  “Oh.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry."

  "That's actually on me, not you."

  "I actually couldn't believe you picked up. When it went to voicemail that first time, I thought you were ignoring me because you were still mad."

  He chuckled. “Yeah. I can see how you’d think that. Given how it’s the only rational reaction to have.” His eyes strayed to my lips. “But I can’t be rational with you, Claire. When it comes to you, nothing I do makes sense.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ethan

  Her lips parted the second I kissed her. She was so eager, and so was I, but I held myself back and kissed her slowly and deliberately, until she was weak in the knees.

  I was powerless against her in every other way. But when my kisses made her sag against me and moan against my mouth, I had some power too. We could almost be equals.

  I spun her around and we tumbled together onto the couch. “Now,” she gasped, tugging at my shirt, then got impatient and yanked. Seams popped, and I had a moment of silence for my one good shirt, then pushed that thought aside because her fingers were at my belt buckle.

  “Claire, Jesus.” I’d thought I’d lost my chance with her, but here she was again, and suddenly her mouth was where I’d always dreamed it would be.

  “Oh my God.” Her tongue swirled; the heat of her mouth drove me out of my mind. I gripped the couch tightly, holding myself back to keep from thrusting too deep.

  She pushed her hair from her eyes and smirked up at me from between my legs. “God, you’re beautiful,” I groaned.

  “You’re only saying that because I’ve got your cock in my mouth.”

  I growled and then pounced. She squealed as I tugged her jeans down, and then gasped as I buried my face into the place I’d been thinking about since that first time in my bed. “No,” I told her, in between desperate, savage licks. “I’m saying it because you are.”

  She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something but lost the ability to form speech when I slid my finger inside of her. I alternated between licking and stroking until Claire threw herself to the side and buried her face in a throw pillow to scream. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  Or it was, until she stood up on shaking legs. With a purposeful look in her eye, she gave me a rough shove to the center of my chest. I fell back on my elbows and watched, stunned and delirious with longing as she positioned herself over me and then sank down bare.

  Bare. I was inside of her bare.

  “Jesus, Claire,” I groaned, trying to sit up. But she kept her hand on my chest, pressing me down as she slowly started riding me.

  That was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. She kept her eyes locked on mine, never breaking eye contact as she fucked me. Because there was no denying that was what this was. I might be the one inside of her, but Claire King was fucking me. She was staking her claim just as surely as I’d staked mine that night in my bed. Equals.

  We were equals.

  And I fucking loved her for it.

  “Ethan, I’m so—” Her breath caught in her throat as she leaned forward. Her fingertips dug into my chest like she was trying to keep ahold of something precious.

  Her hand was right over my heart.

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Her jaw went slack. I watched, mesmerized, as she started shaking, slowly at first, a movement that started down near her toes. Her breath came faster, those gorgeous breasts of hers rising and falling. In the low light of the fire, I could see the rosy blush creep down from her neck and spread across her whole body.

  Then she threw her head back.

  I surged upward, catching her in my arms. She clung to me, shaking, gasping tight, desperate breaths, and wordless babble tumbled from her lips as she fought to stay in control even as she lost it. I couldn’t believe how perfect she was. “Claire.” Her name came out on a groan, and then I was right there with her, mindless, lost in her body, her scent, and the wonderful, maddening Claire-ness that I’d loved forever.

  Claire shivered and clutched the blanket higher. “I can’t believe this,” she sighed, “but I’m actually cold.”

  “I’ll warm you up, baby, c’mere,” I grunted, pulling her to me in my best impression of a caveman. She shrieked, then clapped her hand over her mouth and looked warily at the bedroom door. “Oh God, I hope I didn’t just wake the baby.”

  “If your screams didn’t wake him before…,” I teased, then ducked and jumped to my feet as she smacked me again. “The fire died down, that’s all. I’ll build it up again.”

  “Be careful,” she giggled, as I crouched naked by the fireplace. “Don’t burn my favorite part of you.”

  “I know how to be safe around fires. I was an Eagle Scout, as you’ll recall,” I reminded her as I tossed another log on. I grabbed the poker and stirred the embers around until a little tongue of flame licked up. Satisfied, I turned back to her. “And besides, I thought your favorite part of me was my eyelashes.”

  She laughed as I settled back onto the couch. I put my arm around her, and she nestled herself against me readily. I wondered if I would ever stop feeling surprised and delighted by this.

  She fussed with the blanket until I helped her tuck it around her legs. Then she sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “No, I actually hate your eyelashes,” she murmured contentedly. “Because I’m jealous of them.”

  I chuckled and brushed my fingertips up her arm. “You know my favorite part of you?”

  “Ew, Ethan.”

  “What? Your pinky fingers. I already told you that.” I lifted her hand and gave her finger a kiss before setting it back down again to tease, “Why, what did you think I was going to say? Oh God, Claire, will you get your mind out of the gutter?”

  She laughed again. “I’m lying here on my brothers’ couch, completely naked. How could it not be in the gutter?”

  But she made no move to change this fact. So neither did I.

  We sat in silence for a moment, watching the fire flicker back to life. When the warmth hit our faces, she let out a contented sigh. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of her shampoo.

  The fire popped and hissed. Claire’s breath slowed, regulating into soft, gentle sips. I ran my fingers up and down her arm, stroking her soft skin just because I could.

  Claire. I was holding Claire.

  This had to be a dream. I slid my other hand down to my thigh and gave myself a
surreptitious pinch.

  Claire snuffled and grumbled at being jostled. “Sorry,” I murmured, smiling against her skin before kissing her again. Her head was heavy on my shoulder, and my arm was now pinned helplessly under her hip. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I dozed contentedly, drifting in and out, opening my eyes to check once again that yes, Claire King was still in my arms, then floating back to sleep again.

  "Ow!" I jerked awake and rubbed my side.

  Claire pulled herself free. "Sorry!" she winced, then rubbed my side. "This is happening more and more lately."

  "What? You turn into a prizefighter at night?" I stretched and rubbed my sore rib. A red mark in the shape of her elbow was starting to rise to the surface of my skin.

  "No, my dreams are all weird," she sighed. "And I've started acting them out, too." She petted my side again. "That was me trying to do the chicken dance at Beau's wedding."

  "Pregnancy side effects are so bizarre. When Heather was pregnant with Kate, she scared my nephews to death yelling about zombies in her sleep. I guess I'm lucky you only got my rib. After another of Heather's nightmares, my brother-in-law walked around with a shiner for a week."

  "Damn." She shook her head. "This whole deal is so strange. Like I suddenly like pickles now."

  "Oh that's boring. Every pregnant woman wants pickles. Be original."

  "You want me to elbow you again or what?" she threatened. But then snuggled against me again. I slid my hand across her belly, where a little baby was busily growing.

  And my heart ached because that baby wasn’t mine.

  I pushed that thought from my brain. That ship had sailed, and there was no denying that I thought of this child as my own, so it shouldn't matter.

  But….

  “Claire,” I said, as gently as I could. “You should tell J.D.”

  Her eyes flashed as she snapped her head up to glare at me. “Why the hell would I do that?”