“What do you know about parenting?” he seethed in a voice so dead calm it sent her stepping backward.
“Douglas Masters, you hush your mouth right this second.”
They both turned at the sound of Rose’s voice. She stood in the bedroom doorway wearing a pair of black spandex pants and a shirt that had YOGA GRANNY emblazoned across her chest. Emery’s heart swelled and ached at once. She’d made such progress, and this was what she was forced to endure?
“Mother, sit down.” He rushed to her side, towering over Rose, and tried to usher her toward the couch. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
She swatted at his hands. “Douglas!”
He stilled, breathing hard.
“Do not touch me.” Rose smoothed a shaky hand down her chest. “I have sat by and watched you treat other people badly for a very long time. I am ashamed of that, but I’m more ashamed of the fact that despite years of love, years of me teaching you right from wrong and supporting your endeavors, you turned out to be just like your father.”
“He was a great man,” he said adamantly.
“He was a pillar of strength,” Rose agreed. “A great pediatric neurosurgeon, but he was not a great man.” She walked over to Emery, and his jaw hung open with disbelief at the sight of her walking, unaided, standing straighter than she had in who knew how long.
“Emery Andrews did what you could not. She helped me. She listened to me when I told her that I knew I’d be able to regain my mobility, and she believed in me. She is a great woman. You could learn a thing or two from her.”
“Mother—”
Rose silenced him with her palm and a glare so powerful Emery held her breath. “You are my son, but you are not God. Please do not do to your son what your father has done to you.”
His angry gaze moved between Emery and Rose, and Emery swore she saw sorrow beneath the anger flaming in his eyes. But that might have been wishful thinking. She was about ready to pass out. He straightened his spine once again, lifted his chin, and stormed out the door without a word.
The air rushed from Emery’s lungs, and sobs followed. She collapsed onto the couch. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “Oh, Rose, I’m so sorry.”
Rose sank down to the couch beside her and gently wrapped Emery in her arms. “Come to Grandma Rosie.”
“I’m sorry.” Emery cried on her shoulder, soaking in her comfort and feeling guilty at the same time.
“I’m not. He needed a good wallop in the ass. You were the only one strong enough to give it to him.”
“I’ve ruined everything. He’ll never make up with Dean as long as I’m in his life.”
Rose held her tighter. “I’m his mother, and this hurts me to say, but he doesn’t matter, sweetheart. You and my grandson are the only two people in your relationship that matter. Don’t you let his bitterness spoil your beauty.”
Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, Emery stayed with Rose long after she finally stopped crying. Rose comforted her, and they talked about the changes Dean’s father had gone through and how she believed he’d fought them for as long as was humanly possible. They talked about Emery’s family and how she hadn’t missed them as much as she’d thought she might until recently. But she knew being with Dean was where she belonged. They talked until Emery built up the courage to go home and tell Dean what had happened.
As she drove down Dean’s street, she thought of the first day she’d arrived at the Cape and how her heart had leapt at the sight of Dean standing in the yard looking at her with what she knew now had been love in his eyes. She’d been so blind. But her eyes were wide open now. She had to get to him before his father made her seem out of her mind—
Oh, fuck.
She parked beside the shiny black Lexus, panting as if she’d just run a marathon. Fuck, fuck, fuck! She might have lost her mind back there, but she’d meant every word she’d said, and she wasn’t going to let him twist it into something more horrible than it was and try to poison Dean toward her.
She threw her car door open, charged up the front steps, and flew through the front door, hoping she could save their relationship. Three men pushed to their feet.
Dean, his father, and the mini-me beside him had to be Jett.
And by the look on Dean’s face, she was too late.
DEAN FELT LIKE he’d been run over by a Mack truck. First his brother knocked him off-kilter by showing up out of the blue because “You needed me, bro,” then his father stormed into his house unannounced, and now Emery blew in, looking like she was facing a firing squad.
Firing squad my ass.
It sounded to him as though she’d already faced that fucking nightmare.
He ate up the space between them and wrapped her trembling body in his arms. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry! I tried to be nice, but—”
“But you can’t do anything but be brutally honest,” Dean said in her ear. “And I adore you for that, doll.” His grandmother had once told him that the woman he’d fall in love with wasn’t the one who would keep him up all night doing dirty things or building up his ego. Though she may do those things, she’ll be the one you want to last forever for a million other reasons like the way she listens, and makes you think, and the way she makes you a better man. The woman you fall in love with will be the one you cherish and protect, like your mother’s treasured dolls. “You are my perfect match.”
She pulled back, her eyes darting erratically from him to Jett.
Jett lifted his chin and said, “Hey, spitfire.”
Her confused gaze slowed only long enough to reach his father. Her fingers curled tightly into Dean’s side as the man who had dismissed her career, thought she was a distraction to his son, and had tried to use her as a weapon against Dean lowered his gaze to the floor.
Dean couldn’t believe his eyes. His father never lowered his gaze. Not for anyone.
Emery pushed against Dean’s side, like she needed his strength to remain erect as her shaky voice threaded from her lips. “I’m sor—”
His father stepped forward, silencing her with his mere presence. His gaze was soft and apologetic as he opened his mouth to speak, then wordlessly closed it again.
Tension hung in the air like a ghost suffocating them all.
“Dad, you owe—”
This time it was Dean his father silenced, with the lifting of his large hand. “I know, son. Give me a minute, please.”
Dean tightened his grip on Emery, who seemed frozen in place.
“I am many things,” his father finally said in a regretful tone Dean had never heard until his father had appeared on his doorstep an hour earlier. “And until earlier today, I thought being a strong man was at the top of my list. Now I am beginning to understand that I have been mistaken.”
Emery’s nails dug into Dean’s waist, but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Dean was pretty sure she couldn’t. Things were not fixed between him and his father, and definitely not between his father and Jett. But this was a start. When his father had stormed through his front door ranting about Emery, Dean had challenged him, and his father had collapsed in a chair, shaking his head, and said, You don’t understand, son. She’s right about what she said. She got under my skin. I have a lot of thinking and making up to do with too many people to count, but this is where it starts, and it’s because of that doll of yours.
“You’ve done great things,” she conceded.
“Don’t do that,” his father said sternly.
Her nails dug deeper into Dean’s skin. He ground his teeth together, willing to take whatever pain he needed to in order for her to get through this.
“Don’t back down on your convictions,” his father demanded. “I’ve achieved great things in my professional life, but you were right. I did so at an expense so great, I’m not sure it will ever have been worth it. But I want to try. I’m going to try. And I owe you a great deal of thanks.”
Tears streamed from Emery’s eyes as her hand slipped
from Dean’s waist and she wrapped herself around his father’s chest, dwarfed by his size. His father’s arms hung stiff by his sides as he stared down at the top of her head, but she didn’t relent. She simply hugged him tighter.
His father’s gaze met Dean’s, and Dean said, “She only knows one way to be, Dad. As real as the day is long.”
Emery pushed back, and his father stopped her with an awkward, but well-meaning embrace.
Sometime later, after a more-than-slightly uncomfortable conversation and promises to work on figuring things out, Dean closed the door behind his father, feeling like he could breathe for the first time in years.
“I never thought I’d see the day…” Dean pulled Emery into his arms and hugged her.
“This hasn’t been a great way to get to know you,” Emery said to Jett. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I promise I’m really not a crazy person.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Look who you’re with.” Jett winked at Emery. “He didn’t know I was coming either. But when Mom told me what happened at the benefit dinner, I knew my brother needed backup.”
Jett pointed at Tango, who was creeping under the couch skirt with the white thong Emery had worn to the benefit dinner hanging from his mouth. “Is that…?”
“What the hell?” Dean dropped to his knees, lifted the decorative flap, and peered beneath the couch. “Holy shit. Em, you’ve got to see this.”
She and Jett dropped to their knees on either side of him and looked under the couch at a stash of Emery’s underwear, her necklace, headbands, two sets of keys—Emery’s and the set for the golf cart—and one of her pink flip-flops.
“Your place isn’t the Bermuda Triangle after all.” She laughed as she pushed to her feet, and holy fuck it was so good to see her smile. “You just have thieves for pets. Oh my gosh, you guys…”
They followed her gaze to Cash prancing out of the guest room dragging Emery’s missing yoga strap, and they all laughed.
“Our place,” he reminded her. “I guess there were bigger forces than me trying to keep you here.” He pulled her close and glanced at Jett. “Now, if we could just get rid of this guy, maybe we can leave some more things on the floor for our kitties to steal.”
Epilogue
EMERY PULLED HER legs up to her chest, her fingers tucked inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt. The temperature had dipped with the mid-September sun as all their friends gathered around the table in Desiree’s yard for a late dinner. She couldn’t believe she’d been at the Cape for four months already. Her brothers had come up to visit in August, and after a brief banging of chests with Dean, they realized he was just as alpha as they were, and they could trust him to take care of her. Austin continued to call Dean Viking. And when they were out dancing at Undercover, one look at all the cute girls and her brothers threatened to never leave. She missed them, but she was enjoying what she and Desiree had deemed as their grown-up lives. She knew her brothers were only a phone call away and nothing would ever come between them.
Cosmos pawed at her leg, and she lifted him into her lap. “I’m still convinced you had something to do with Tango and Cash’s thievery, in some sort of animalistic matchmaking scheme.” The pup cocked his head and licked her chin. She leaned down and whispered, “Thank you.” The kitties had continued stealing Emery’s things. Since she’d moved in with him, she and Dean had discovered another stash of items under Dean’s bed that they hadn’t noticed had gone missing—pens, hair clips, underwear…
Dean’s laughter drew her attention like music to her ears. He still wore her necklace around his wrist, and they’d added his elemental sign to the mix. Her strong, stable man was an earth sign. Their love even made astrological sense. While she lifted him from the confines of reality, nourishing his sillier side and showing him the intangible, magical side of things, he kept her grounded. And like the banks to a flowing creek, he supported her creativity and ideas so her dreams could flourish, while she continued believing in miracles.
And one miracle seemed to be coming true.
Things between Dean and his father weren’t great yet, but they were working on it. They were talking more, and his parents had come for dinner twice since she’d moved in. His father was so blown away with Rose’s progress now that she was out of her wheelchair, he’d even relented about the value of yoga back-care. Just last week, after observing one of Emery’s yoga classes at LOCAL, he had proposed that his practice refer patients to her. She considered that a major milestone. But everything wasn’t coming up roses on all Douglas Masters Sr. fronts. Jett wasn’t as accepting of his father’s apologies as Dean had been, though Emery hoped one day he would be. No man could have raised three sons as loving and remarkable as Dean, as affable as Jett, and as kind as Doug—whom she’d had the pleasure of meeting via Skype the week after she’d moved in with Dean—without possessing a large amount of kindness, patience, and tact. Their father simply needed to dig out from under years of mistakes to find and nurture those sides of himself again. But he was making strides in the right direction, and for that she was grateful. They all had a long road ahead of them, but she knew it would be worth it.
Emery snuck a piece of a corn muffin from Dean’s plate, but he was too busy giving Drake and Jett a hard time about not having steady girlfriends to notice, as if he’d become the authority on the subject. Jett was down for a visit, but Dean was doing his best to convince him to stay for a few weeks.
Desiree leaned closer and said, “Rick found a plate big enough for two in one of the wedding catalogs that says HIS and HERS on opposite sides. We should get you guys a few of those.”
“Why bother?” Dean said as Emery snagged another piece of muffin from his plate. “She’d eat only from my side anyway.” He pressed his lips to hers. “Right, doll?”
“I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
“I’m always paying attention to you.” He kissed her again.
“We need to get going if we’re going to make it to the drive-in,” she reminded him.
She’d recently enjoyed a girls’ night with Rose, Magdeline, and Arlin, and they’d watched Dirty Dancing. Afterward, as they were discussing movies, Rose told her all about how much Dean had loved the drive-in theater as a boy, and how his mother used to make popcorn sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon for him and his brothers to eat during the movie. Emery had gone one better. With all of the hullabaloo around the benefit dinner, she’d forgotten to show Dean what she’d bought for them in the back room of Devi’s Discoveries. Tonight, that edible lingerie would come in handy—and it just happened to be cinnamon flavored. After all, her man did like her hot. A little thrill darted through her with the thought.
“You guys are going to the drive-in?” Jett asked.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“Because I called Mom to see if I could swing by and pick up something from the attic, and she said she and Dad were going to the drive-in.”
“Holy hell,” Dean said with a grin. “I guess old dogs can learn new tricks.” He glanced at Jett and said, “You know that land you have overlooking the bay?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Now that things are getting better with Dad, maybe you should consider moving back here. Build yourself a place. Get a real life again instead of living out of suitcases,” Dean suggested.
Jett scoffed. “Getting better is not exactly good.”
The sound of a car door brought Serena to her feet. “Oh good. Harper’s here.”
Drake pulled her down by the back of her shirt. “Why is she here?”
“I told you she was coming by to talk with me about taking over part-time while I get back into interior design.” Serena swatted his hand away from her shirt and ran toward the fence, waving.
Violet came outside carrying a tray of desserts. She took one look at Drake as she handed out the bowls and said, “Careful, boy. You’ll crack your jaw.”
“Hey, Harp!” Serena yelled. “Over here!”
Jett whistled. “I’d like to harp on her for a while.”
Dean glared at him.
All the girls got up to hug Harper, and Jett got in on the game, pushing between the women and embracing her.
“Jett Masters, at your service.” He pulled out a chair and said, “You can sit right here, pretty lady.”
“Put your tongue back in your mouth,” Serena said. “She’s here to talk business.”
“Who says I’m not talking business?” Jett arched a brow at Harper and said, “I’m especially good at risky business.”
“I need to give you guys a lesson in pickup lines,” Violet said. “Don’t use them.”
Harper giggled.
Emery glanced in the bowl Violet set before her and gasped with delight. “Karamel Sutra!”
She looked at Desiree and in unison they said, “Who needs men when we have Ben?”
The girls all laughed, and the guys groaned.
“Come on, doll.” Dean handed her a spoon. “Let’s finish this who-needs-men shit, because I’m pretty sure you need me.”
She gave him a chaste kiss. “You know it.”
They all dug into their ice cream.
“I want that orgasmic core.” Emery stuck her spoon right into the middle of the bowl, and it clinked against something hard. “Hey, what the…?” She dug around and uncovered a clear plastic bubble, the type toys in gum ball machines came in. She picked it out and wiped it off with a napkin. Her eyes caught on a sparkling ring inside at the same time Dean sank to the ground on one knee. Her heart skidded.
“Dean? You’re not…?”
“I most definitely am,” he said with a serious expression.
There was a collective gasp from everyone except Violet, who was taking pictures, and obviously in on the plan. Emery was shaking as he took the plastic container from her.
She. Couldn’t. Breathe.
“Emery Andrews,” he said with a slightly shaky voice, which made her heart tumble even more. “Ever since the first day I set eyes on you, you have consumed me. And every day since, you have filled me with happiness, frustration, horniness, and so much love. I’m not sure how I can ever love you more than I do right this second. But I know that in the next second, and the next, and for years to come, my love will continue to grow. Because you are my perfect. You are smart and beautiful. You’re fun and inspiring. You make me think and feel and hope…”
Bayside Passions (Bayside Summers Book 2) Page 30
