I can’t help the tears that well up in my eyes. I look to see that Callie is having the exact same reaction. She raises a judgmental brow and shakes her head at me disapprovingly. Then she pats Maddox on the head and leaves the room.
“No, Maddox,” I say. “He will always be your daddy. Forever. No matter where he is.”
He gives me a small nod. Then he gets up and walks out the back door to play soccer. He’s left me, along with his uneaten cookie, sitting speechless at the bar.
“You’re only confusing him, you know.” Callie appears from around the corner. “You’re confusing him and hurting Gavin.”
My eyes fall to the beautiful orchids in the center of the table. “What am I supposed to do, Callie—lie to everyone? I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s best for Maddox and me.”
“That’s bullshit!” she yells, walking over to me. “You’re supposed to do something, anything. It’s been two months, Baylor. You can’t keep stringing him along like this.”
“Ugh! I—”
“No!” she shouts, holding up a hand to shush me. “You’re going to sit your skinny ass down and listen to me. If nobody else has the balls to tell you this shit, fine. But you are going to hear me out.”
She looks pissed. More pissed than I’ve ever seen her. I stay silent. I’m pretty sure she would bitch-slap me if I didn’t.
“You have trust issues. I get it. We all get it. But Gavin never cheated on you. He never walked away from you. He never left you that god-awful note. He never did anything but love and take care of you. Then and now.
“All of your relationships since him ended simply because you couldn’t trust a man enough to let them in. I mean, come on, Bay, Roger was a catch. He worshipped you, he loved Maddox, and let’s face it, he was pretty damn easy on the eyes. But you pulled back so far, you put yourself out of his reach.
“Every time you get close to a man, it’s the same thing. But Gavin didn’t break you. Karen did. And you are letting her win again if you don’t let him in. She’s getting exactly what she wants, Baylor.
“Gavin loves you. He adores Maddox. You have a son together. You could be the perfect fucking family if you would just get your stubborn-ass head out of the ground and let it happen. For crying out loud, Baylor, you love him!” she shouts. “I know you love him. Everyone knows you love him. The only people that don’t know you love Gavin are you and Gavin.”
Tears soak my sleeve as I wipe them from my face. Everything she’s said is true. Karen wins if I don’t let myself love Gavin. She doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of taking away one more second of my happiness. My hand comes up to cover my heart. The heart that has now been ripped free and pulled away from the walls surrounding it. My tears turn from those of sadness to ones of realization that I can’t spend another day without Gavin. Without the man I love. Without the only man I’ve ever loved. I run past Callie down the hall to my bedroom and retrieve the shoebox from my closet. When I open it, I let my heart out. I let Gavin’s heart out. I grab the plastic Dave & Buster’s ring and place it in my pocket. Then I search around for the key card to suite 309.
I grab my purse as Jake and Collin stand up, one of them always ready to follow me. Callie, who has been silently witnessing my epiphany, finally asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to get all his stuff from the hotel and bring it here. Where it belongs,” I say.
She smiles at me with glistening eyes. “It’s about fucking time!” she cries, striding across the kitchen to pull me into a hug.
When I walk towards the garage, calmness washes over me. It’s a feeling I’ve never experienced. Everything I had bottled up inside and pushed down to protect myself is bubbling up and cascading out of me. Suddenly, it all becomes clear. I turn back to Callie with a smile. “Want to move to L.A. with me?”
The last thing I see before walking through to the garage is Callie’s jaw hitting the floor.
I’m sitting on the couch when I hear the key turn in the front door. I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m . . . happy.
Collin goes to the door to make sure it’s just Gavin, and then, as instructed, he walks through to leave for the night. “’Night, Mr. McBride,” he says on his way out.
Gavin nods at Collin, locks the door behind him and then puts his duffle bag on the floor of the entryway. He walks around the couch and sits on the coffee table so that he’s directly in front of me. He tries not to smile as he stares into my eyes. He’s waiting. He’s waiting for me to say it. And I know he won’t speak until I do.
When he got to the hotel tonight, he was given an envelope and told his bill had been paid and that he was all checked out. Inside the envelope was a key to my house and the Dave & Buster’s ring.
I’ve never been any good at staring contests. I lose every time. This time is no different. I break his stare, roll my eyes and say, “Fine! I love you, okay? I love you so much that it hurts my heart when you aren’t around. I love the way you love Maddox. I love the way you take care of us. I love our stupid little french fry game. I love the fact that you kept my keychain after all these years. I love that I kept the silly ring. I love that you have never complained about flying across the country every week for the past two months. I love the way you said you’d do it forever. I love all of that,” I say through my tears as I stare at his glistening eyes.
“Sorry,” he says in a husky voice. “Can you say it again, I didn’t quite get that.”
We laugh through our tears as he cups my face in his hands.
“I love you, you big cowboy.”
His eyes close briefly as he absorbs my words. “I love you, too, darlin’,” he whispers into my mouth as his lips softly take mine.
I let his lips possess me until I can no longer breathe. I break the kiss and tell him, “There’s more.”
“More?” he asks, distracted by his mouth going down to tease my neck with his tongue.
“I moved you out of the hotel,” I say.
“I know. They told me.” He smiles as he feathers kisses across my skin.
“But I’m not unpacking your stuff here,” I say.
He stops kissing me and looks up, confused.
I tell him, “You’re taking it all back to L.A.”
His eyebrows furrow and a frown overtakes his smile. But before he can get a word out, I explain, “Along with all of our stuff.”
His confusion turns to shock. “What?”
I smile and take his hand in mine. “That is, if you want Maddox and me to come with you.”
“You’re coming to L.A.?” he asks, incredulously.
“We’re not just coming there, we’re moving there,” I say. “I can write anywhere, Gavin. It makes perfect sense. Callie is from L.A., so she’s over the moon. We can make it work there. We’ll come back a lot to visit everyone,” I ramble. “What do you think?”
“I think I fucking love you, Baylor Christine Mitchell,” he says, picking me up to carry me back to my bedroom.
Uh . . . our bedroom.
chapter forty-one
I gaze out the window onto the pillowy clouds below and think of how the past few weeks have gone by in a whirlwind. Turns out, it’s pretty easy for us to up and move on a moment’s notice. My agent and publisher are both based in the city, but it’s not unusual for writers to live far away from their support team. We can easily communicate with all the technology available to us.
Gavin and I decided to keep the house. We will visit often, so we wanted a place to call home when we do. Plus, it’s the house I grew up in and maybe my parents will want to retire there someday.
After talking extensively with my family, our security team and the police, we decided to not make it known that I’m moving. Officially, if anyone asks, I’m on an extended vacation. Because of this, we said goodbye to Collin and Jake, deeming private security unnecessary being three thousand miles away from my stalker.
I look around the private jet Gavin chartered
to fly us all out. He didn’t want to ship our belongings, so we loaded up our suitcases along with twenty or so boxes, into the cargo hold of the small but luxurious plane. I left my furniture and many of our things at the house in Maple Creek. Gavin assured me that he’d taken care of everything, breaking his lease on the bachelor pad he secured only a few months ago to sign a new one on a four bedroom condo by the ocean.
Callie came with us, of course, as she grew up near L.A. and after three years away was happy to be going back. She’s agreed to stay on as Maddox’s nanny, but she won’t be living with us anymore. She’ll stay at her parent’s house until she finds a place of her own.
As I watch Gavin and Maddox play a game of scrabble to pass the time, I can’t help but worry about how all of this is affecting our son. He was more than excited to find out we were moving to California to live with Gavin full time. But I wonder after the newness wears off, if he will become homesick for his friends. For Grammy and Papa. For Aunt Skylar and Uncle Chris.
And for that matter, will I?
Gavin wasn’t lying when he said he took care of everything. Walking into our new home, a tenth-story condo overlooking the waves breaking on towering rocks below, I’m impressed at what he’s pulled off in a mere two weeks.
Maddox comes running out of a bedroom down the hall. “Mommy, Mommy, come look!” he yells.
I raise my eyebrows at Gavin who simply shrugs at me as we walk towards what must be Maddox’s new room. I stand in the doorway, letting my eyes fall on every single part of the first chapter of my son’s new life. There are framed and signed posters of professional soccer players adorning one wall. There is a collection of trophies, presumably Gavin’s, along another. A mural has been painted on the largest wall, depicting a man and a boy dribbling a ball on a large soccer field. And in the far corner stands what I can only imagine is every seven-year-old’s dream—a stairway that leads up to a large bunk covered in soccer-themed bedding, under which appears to be some kind of ‘kid cave’ with all sorts of game consoles and a flat-screen T.V.
I turn to Gavin, fully prepared to scold him. He holds up a hand and whispers in my ear, “I told you. I told you I was going to spoil the shit out of him.”
All I can do is laugh. He’s making up for seven years and it’s the least I can do to let him. I turn to walk out of the room and tour the rest of the condo, scared of what other over-the-top extravagancies might await me.
As morning light streaks through a crack in the heavy drapes on our bedroom window, I lean over and place a kiss on Gavin’s cheek when he starts to stir. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us.”
“There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you, darlin’,” he says, kissing my eyelids.
“You didn’t have to give me the best room for my office,” I say. “You should have taken it for yourself, for your own study.”
“Not a chance,” he says. “You’re an artist. You need inspiration. And what could be more inspiring than the view from your office window.”
It’s true. The view is breathtaking. Especially at night when the sun is setting and the rocky beach is being illuminated in its bright colors. Gavin purchased me a huge corner desk with the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat in. Along one wall, he had a carpenter build floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and he even had Jenna express deliver hundreds of my books to fill them with. Under the large picture window is a sitting bench, padded with numerous cushions and a throw blanket. Next to it are two conversation chairs to round out the room. He nailed it perfectly. If I had designed it myself, it wouldn’t have been nearly as nice. He even special-ordered the chairs and cushions because the catalog didn’t offer them in orchid-purple.
“I don’t think I’ll have trouble writing in that room,” I say. “I don’t think I’d have trouble writing in any room these days. The words are just flowing out of me like a dam has been broken.”
He raises up a hand to cover my heart. “It has.”
I revel in the feeling of lying in Gavin’s arms, knowing this is exactly where I belong and that nothing or no one is going to stand in our way. Then I remember the one road-block to our ultimate happiness. “Have you heard anything from her lawyer?” I ask. “Did they file the required paperwork?”
He shakes his head, not needing me to qualify who her is, then he kisses the top of mine. “No. In fact, her lawyer filed a four-week extension.” My body stiffens. “I’m sure it’s only the typical red tape. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on. She can’t dispute her lies, darlin’.”
“Well, it can’t happen soon enough for me,” I tell him. “I just want it over and done.”
He runs a hand along my arm, down to my fingers. He holds them up. “Me too,” he says. “I can’t wait to put more than a piece of shit plastic ring on this beautiful hand of yours.”
I laugh, thinking about the silly ring that has somehow earned itself a place of pride on the bookshelves in our bedroom.
He turns serious and says, “I was thinking . . . hoping, actually, that you’d let me go ahead and change Maddox’s last name right away.” He bites his lip and raises his eyebrows at me like he’s just asked his mommy for another cookie. “And for that matter, I’d like to persuade you into taking it, too. When we get married, I mean. I know you have to write your books under the name Mitchell. But I’d really love it if, officially, you became a McBride.”
Baylor McBride. It’s a name I dreamed of having so long ago. I remember sitting in class, doodling all over my notebooks with different renditions of my name. Baylor Christine McBride. Baylor Mitchell McBride. Baylor Christine Mitchell McBride. It was a dream that died long ago. But now it’s really happening, and I’m only too happy to give him what he wants.
“Maddox and I would be honored to take your name,” I say. “Your name is already listed on his birth certificate so it shouldn’t be that hard to request the change.”
He pulls me into him, spooning me tightly against his hard body. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for making me the happiest man alive.”
“Right backatcha,” I say.
Then he puts his hands on my breasts, causing heated sparks to shoot through me. “You are definitely not a man, Mitchell.”
I giggle.
Over the next hour, he shows me exactly how different from a man I truly am.
Yesterday afternoon had Gavin giving Maddox and me a tour of Los Angeles in the new SUV he bought for me. I’d been here several times before and had already seen some of the city, but nothing like what I saw yesterday. Late in the day, we ended the tour at Bay Watch Productions’ studios. Gavin showed me around while a stage hand kept Maddox busy having fun with the green screen. By the time we left, Maddox had a DVD of himself walking on the moon, flying with Superman, and climbing Mt. Everest.
Then last night, after we got an excited Maddox into bed, Chris called to tell me that a woman had come to the restaurant earlier in the day, asking about Maddox and me. He followed her to the parking lot and wrote down her license plate number, giving it to the police. I immediately placed a phone call to the Connecticut State Police, who had a detective call me back with information that a Francis Laraby, of nearby Westport, was questioned and warned to stay away from me and my family. They started a file on her and will be keeping tabs on her, but there was insufficient evidence to make an arrest. The detective suggested that I seek a restraining order the next time I return for a visit. I told him he could bet on it.
Today, being Monday, reality had Gavin going off to work this morning, and I’m now walking Maddox into his new elementary school to get him registered. We make our way along the sidewalk as I look around at all the women dropping off their kids. I’m struck by the fact that apparently, in L.A., one is supposed to dress up to take their children to school.
Women are clad in vintage Versace or Dolce & Gabanna, looking like they came right from a day at the spa. I look down at my feet sporting flip flops, and then at my yoga pants and t-shirt
I’m sure I bought somewhere like Dillard’s. It doesn’t take them long to notice me as dozens of eyes follow me when I walk up to the building. I wonder if they are staring at me because they know I’m new here, or because of my glaring deviation of the school-drop-off dress code.
I provide all the necessary paperwork to get Maddox enrolled and they quickly assign him to Mrs. Worthington’s second grade class. There are only two months left in the school year and I hope that he will settle right in and begin to make friends. They call a student from his class up to the office to show Maddox the way.
Like the big boy he always claims to be, Maddox simply says goodbye and waves back at me as they walk off. But not before I hear the boy say to him, “Why do you have such a stupid accent?”
Back in my car, my phone rings and I hit the answer button on my steering wheel. “Hello?”
“Baylor? This is Angie Wilson.”
“Oh, yes,” I say. “Hi, Angie. How are you?”
“I’m good, thank you. How are you settling in?”
“Pretty well, so far,” I say with a sigh. “L.A. is a different world for us. It’s going to take some getting used to.”
Her delightful laugh comes through my speakers. “That it is,” she says. “I was wondering, if you’re free, would you like to meet for lunch today? I know it must be hard to make friends in a new place and I want you to know that I’m totally here for you. Whatever you need.”
It takes a minute for me to wrap my brain around Karen’s BFF welcoming me and wanting to make friends. She must take my silence as a rejection. She says, “Listen, if you’re busy, it’s all good. We can do it another day.”
“No, it’s not that,” I say. “I’m definitely not busy. I know three people here, Gavin, Callie and Maddox. It’s just that . . .”
The Mitchell Sisters: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 28
