“I don’t know what I’m saying, August. This has all happened very quickly, and I’m just a little confused.” I kissed him. “The only thing I’m not confused about is the fact that I love you. But everything else needs a little sorting out still.”
His chest swelled with a deep sigh. He was not a happy man at that moment. But I knew I could take his mind off things, at least for a little while.
Running my hands down his arms, I took his hands. “Let’s skip the coffee and go to bed.”
“No,” his word came out sternly. His eyes moved up to meet mine. “If this is all we can ever have… I don’t think I can take that.”
“August, we haven’t even been seeing each other that long,” I argued.
“We’ve known each other forever, Tawny. I want to share my life with you. So what if I have to hire a couple of bodyguards to watch over you and Calum when I can’t? I don’t care about that. Shit, more than half the kids in Los Angeles have them, and most of the wives and girlfriends do, too.” The pad of his thumb ran over my lower lip as he looked at me with adoring eyes.
How could I say no to him when he looked at me that way? His hold on me had my body vibrating with more than just lust—love shook me, and I wanted so badly to make him happy.
But I just couldn’t move in with him—not with my secret still hanging between us.
It wouldn’t be right.
My cell rang. It was in the living room, so August let me out of his embrace, and I went to answer it. “It’s Calum’s school,” I told August, who loomed just behind me. “Hello.”
“Miss Matthews?” a woman asked me.
“Yes, this is she.”
“You were aware of the field trip your son’s class took today, right?” she asked me, her tone tense.
Chills ran through me, my gut telling me something was wrong. “Yes, the trip to Big Bear. I packed him a special lunch for it. Is everything okay?”
“Um, have you watched any news today, Miss Matthews?”
August’s arms encircled me, as I must’ve begun looking a bit pale. “I haven’t watched any news. Please just tell me what’s going on.”
August let go of me to grab the television remote, and he turned it on, changing the channel to one of the local stations.
And there it was. A yellow school bus, along with some other cars, trapped between two lines of wildfire.
I collapsed onto the sofa as the lady finally filled me in, “There are fifteen people in total on the bus with your son—three adults and twelve children. Evacuations are underway, but with the fires moving and the winds picking up…well, it’s a very dangerous situation.”
August took the phone from my hand, as I couldn’t find the strength to say a word or move a muscle. He spoke to the woman on the other end, “We’ll handle it, thank you.”
Putting my phone down, he picked his up and made a call—to whom, I hadn’t a clue. All I knew was that my little boy was in danger. Horrible danger. “August, what if he’s burned alive?”
“Hush, don’t think like that, baby.” He came to sit next to me. I heard a man answer his call and he put it on speakerphone. “Gannon, I need your help,” he said, all business. “There’s a school bus full of little kids—one of them is especially important to me—they’re trapped up in Big Bear by some wildfires. I need some choppers up there to help evacuate them, and my boy is the first to be helped, you got me?”
“I’ve got you. I’ll call my pilot and set things up. Meet us at the Beverly Center Heliport.”
“Got it,” August hung up without as much as a goodbye. “Come on, baby. Let’s go bring Calum home.” He pulled me up with him, and I followed.
My body and mind were numb with shock.
But August had a plan, and that was more than I had.
Chapter 15
August
The thick smoke filling the sky made it impossible to see the ground below us for a few tension-filled moments. I’d left Tawny at the heliport, as she’d demanded to be left behind so there’d be more room for evacuees in Gannon’s chopper.
His pilot and I headed out in the first one, with Gannon and another pilot taking off just after we did. My other partner, Nixon, headed out just after him. Three helicopters that could fit three more riders were on the way to save as many people as we could.
The conditions weren’t great. High winds caused by the blazing infernos made traveling through the air difficult. The birds swung from side to side as the winds pushed us, but the engines were strong and we all made forward progress.
One Coast Guard chopper flew past us as we neared our destination. It felt good to know that their large helicopter could carry a lot more people to safety. Maybe we could get all of them out, and no one would die or get hurt.
The yellow school bus shone through the smoke, and I pointed at it. The pilot looked for a good place to land and found one not too far away. The Coast Guard’s chopper had already landed, but they had to land further away due to the size of the craft.
My feet hit the ground running as fast as I could to reach Calum. The kids were being kept on the school bus, and I banged on the glass door to be let inside.
Only then did it occur to me that I had no legal right to take Calum anywhere, just as a lady who I assumed was his teacher stood up. “Unless you’re with the Coast Guard, we can’t let you take any child who isn’t yours, sir. I am truly sorry.”
Calum stood up, shouting, “August! You’re here!” He ran to me, throwing his arms around my legs, hugging me.
I picked him up and handed my cell to the teacher. I’d hit the button to call Tawny, putting it on speaker in case I could help with her argument. “Hello?” came her frightened voice.
“Um, this is Mrs. Copperfield, Calum’s…”
Tawny wasted no time. “Yes, I know. Let my son go with the man who came for him.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” the teacher replied grimly.
“Are you kidding me? You can, and you will,” Tawny informed her. “I also have Kyle’s and Jasper’s mothers right here, and they want their sons to go with August Harlow as well. He’ll take them all, with your permission or not, Mrs. Copperfield. We’ll deal with the school ourselves, no need for you to worry about your job.”
“I, uh…hell, I don’t know what to do,” the lady said with despair.
“Let us get these kids to safety. Between the three helicopters we brought, we have room for nine,” I told her before looking at Calum. “Where are your friends? Let’s get them and go.”
“Come on, guys!” Calum shouted, and two little boys jumped out of their seats, running to me.
Just as I left the bus with my prize in hand, one of the Coast Guard men came up to me. “How much room do you have, sir?”
“Mine is filled,” I told him. “Two more are behind me. There’s room for three in each one.”
“The children are small,” the man said. “I think you can get two in each seat. Would you try that?”
“Sure will. Grab me three more from the bus, and I’ll see if they fit.” I knew that with that man’s help, the teacher would get over her fear of being fired and let the kids go with us.
In no time at all, we had six kids loaded into our helicopter and were heading back to the heliport. Calum was all smiles as we flew through the smoke, even though the wind pitched us around a bit. The kid was fearless.
When we touched down, I helped them out one by one, and they all ran to their parents—the parents must’ve gotten the memo somehow that the kids would be arriving at the heliport. Calum jumped into his mother’s waiting arms as she cried with relief.
Letting them have a moment, I hung back, making sure each kid had found someone before joining Tawny and Calum.
Calum was talking a mile a minute, telling her about the fire and the helicopter ride and how I was like a hero, coming in and saving everyone.
Tawny looked at me over her son’s shoulder. “You are a hero, August. You always have been.�
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What I’d just done was nothing compared to the things I’d done in the war. But I took the compliment. “Thanks, baby. You ready to head home?”
She nodded, still clinging to her son. “I am. I just want to get my baby boy home and hug him for a very long time.”
“I bet you do.” Wrapping my arm around her and Calum, I led them to the car as the second helicopter arrived, reuniting six more children with their relieved parents.
Although Tawny seemed to still be in a state of shock, Calum was anything but. He rattled on and on about the events, saying how he’d never forget any of it.
Tawny ran her fingers over my arm as tears fell from her pretty green eyes. “How are you, August? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about either of us, we’re good, baby. You look like you need a stiff drink and a hot bath though.” Turning the corner, I headed to my place. Tawny was in no condition to complain, and she needed some tender loving care.
She looked around, then at me. “Where are you going?”
“To my place,” I said with a grin.
“Yes!” Calum shouted. “Finally, we get to see your place!”
“No,” Tawny said. “Go to my apartment.”
“Baby, you need…”
I didn’t get to finish as she said, “No, August. Take us home. I want to go home.”
“Well, I’m already on the freeway, and I’ll have to find an exit, and that’ll take a while,” I tried to stall her.
“Momma, I wanna go to his place,” Calum demanded.
“No,” came her stern reply.
“Tawny, it would be quicker and better if we go to my house.” I took the next exit, turning around to go to her little apartment anyways, but hoping she’d change her mind. “I’ve got a jacuzzi tub where you can relax. And there’s an indoor pool where Calum can play too.”
“I don’t want to go there, August. Please,” she said, and then broke down, crying hard.
“Okay, baby. Okay, you don’t have to cry,” I tried to soothe her. “I’m taking you home, baby.”
My words should’ve eased her cries, but they didn’t. She went on and on, her face in her hands as her sobs continued. I supposed it was because it was the first time she’d come close to losing her son. Leila had been right, there were definitely some differences between a single mom and women who didn’t have children.
“Mamma, it’s okay. You don’t gotta cry,” Calum made his own attempt at soothing his mother.
“You don’t understand. Neither of you understands at all,” Tawny wailed.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “We don’t understand. But I’m taking you home the way you wanted. You can calm down now. I had no idea taking you to my place to pamper you would do this to you.” My response had come out sterner than I had intended, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you—you don’t know how sorry I am.”
That only made her cries go an octave higher, and I had no idea why. Calum was out of danger, and we were getting closer to her home by the second, so I didn’t understand why she was carrying on the way she was.
She cried all the way to her place, and once we got inside, she went to her bedroom and closed the door behind her, shutting Calum and me out. I could still hear her crying, and every now and then she would shout something, but it was always a grief-stricken question like ‘how?’ and ‘why did I do this?’
Did she mean me? Why did she get involved with me?
Calum and I sat in the living room after I’d fetched us both bowls of ice cream. Finding a cartoon on TV that I could stomach, we sat and ate our snack, trying to ignore the sounds coming out of his mother’s bedroom.
“Man, I’m never goin’ on a field trip again,” Calum mumbled then took another bite.
“Don’t let one little disaster stop you from having fun, Calum. Life’s full of them, but we can’t stop living just because bad things happen. If we did, we’d never have fun at all. And I like to have fun.” Running my hand over his head, I nudged him with my shoulder. “And she’ll be okay. Moms, huh?”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Calum agreed, rolling his eyes and sighing, trying to act like an adult.
Lucky for me, Calum liked the same kinds of cartoons I did—having watched my six nieces and nephews grow up, I was no stranger to kids’ shows. Before I knew it, we’d talked over the whole last season of Ninja Buddies. Ninja Steve proved to be both of our favorite.
When an hour had passed, we finally heard silence coming from Tawny’s bedroom. “Maybe I should go check to make sure she’s okay,” I told Calum before getting up to go see if she’d passed out, or what had her being so quiet all of a sudden.
But just as I got up, the squeaking of the door stopped me, and I stood right where I was. Calum got on his knees on the sofa, peering at the hallway. “Momma?”
Her auburn waves were a mess. I could tell she’d been running her hands through it incessantly. Her red-rimmed eyes were smudged black with makeup underneath as they looked at me and then at Calum. Her mouth opened, but then snapped shut.
“Baby, are you okay?” I had to ask. I’d never seen anything close to this side of her before, and I didn’t know what to do for her.
Shaking her head slowly, her lips parted once more. “I’m not okay at all. I’ve done something that I wish I hadn’t.”
“What could possibly be so bad, Tawny?” having asked that, my mind went on a spree through ideas of what she might’ve done to make her look so guilty. Cheating on me was the only thing that sprang to my mind.
My gut twisted at the thought.
Her eyes darted from me to Calum and back again. “You’re both going to be mad at me.”
“No way, Momma,” Calum quickly said, shaking his head.
All she did was nod in response. Seconds ticked by like hours as she stood there on the other side of the room, barely out of the hallway. “I’ve been keeping a secret.”
She had?
Chapter 16
Tawny
I was frozen to my spot as both of their eyes were glued on me. In my complete and utter distress, I’d assumed the words would flow out me, unable to stay inside a moment longer. Instead, nothing came to mind as to how to tell the two people in front of me to the information I knew they deserved.
In hindsight, if I’d have been in my right mind, I probably would have done things differently. But the terror of having my baby boy so close to death, and with August almost stopped from doing anything about it…
Well, something inside of me had snapped, and I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.
“A secret?” August asked, his face full of fear.
He’d begun to assume the worst, and that alone had me speeding up my confession. “August, you’re the only man…” I paused, looking at my six-year-old son, knowing I had to phrase this the right way for his innocent ears.
“I’m the only man, what, baby?” August asked with narrowed eyes. He knew something was up, and that he had something to do with it.
“There’s never been anyone but you, August Harlow. From the night before you left for boot camp until we met again at the Science Center, there’s only been you. I’ve never been with…” I couldn’t say it. Not with my son looking at me.
“Oh…” August murmured. “I see what you’re saying.” He looked at Calum, and then at me. “So, tell us what you have to say, Tawny,” he demanded, a serious yet unreadable expression on his face.
My eyes came to rest on Calum. “Calum, August is your father.”
My son looked at me with so much confusion before he asked, “How do you know that?”
August laughed and picked him up, and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Because mommies and daddies just know, that’s why. I’ve been wondering about you, Calum. We’ve got the same hair.”
Calum looked up at August’s hair, a contemplative gleam in his eyes as his gaze traveled
to his father’s eyes. “And you have my color eyes, too,” Calum said as they looked one another over.
“I think your mom had a good reason for keeping this a secret, because she was worried. But she shouldn’t have been worried. I would’ve been there for you guys. But we shouldn’t be mad at her, okay, buddy? She was young and did what she thought best,” August told Calum. Then he looked at me. “Come over here and get in on this, baby. No one’s mad at you.”
My heart began to beat again, so much relief passing through me that for a moment I couldn’t move. I’d prepared myself for August to yell at me for a while before storming out. And I’d figured Calum would be mad at me and not understand anything. Seems I’d been wrong.
“I’m sorry for not telling you guys earlier. I was waiting for the right time to tell you, but it’s a hard thing to figure out.”
August pulled me to his side, his arm wrapping around me as he kissed the side of my head. “You’re forgiven. I had a very strong idea Calum was my son, just so you know. I was waiting for you to bring it up—I didn’t want to seem rude, if I’d been wrong.”
Relief flooded me with his touch and his words. “Thank you.”
“I forgive you, too, Momma,” Calum said, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “And thanks for telling me. Now when I go back to school, I get to tell all my friends that it was my dad who saved us all. Man, I’m gonna be popler.”
August put Calum down and went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, bringing it back and handing it to me. “Here, you need to replenish your water. I think you cried just about all of it out.”
Taking the bottle from his hand, I said, “Thank you. By the way you guys are taking this news, I can see all that crying was for nothing.”
“Yeah,” August agreed. He took a seat next to Calum, and I took the one on the other side of our son. “You know, I’ve had a nagging worry over those fires since the day I ran into you two. I thought it was weird, as there’ve been wildfires in California before, and I’ve never worried this much about them. Maybe the worry will go away now. Maybe I knew one day I’d have to save my little boy from one.” He shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
Nightclub Sins: A Billionaire Romance Series Page 39
