I knew he was right. It just sucked. Why Carlie would do something like that didn’t make any sense. And for the first time I started to wonder if she really knew what was right for her kids. Was she even better? Didn’t manic depressives go on highs and lows? Was she on medication to regulate her moods?
There were too many questions I needed answers to, and I just didn’t have them. I suddenly felt very territorial and protective of Caleb and Savannah. I hadn’t ever met Carlie, but I’d started to really care for her kids, and I needed to know they were safe.
“Are they okay?” I asked Josh quietly, fighting to keep the worry out of my voice.
“They’re fine,” he told me, but I was concerned that he wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
“You’re sure?”
He sighed. “I don’t know, but I have to trust that Carlie loves them, and she wouldn’t hurt them. She’s never harmed them in ten years.”
“Okay,” I said, still not convinced, but helplessly unable to do much else but agree. “I guess I’ll come home then.”
“That sounds good.”
Josh even sounded defeated, and he wasn’t the kind of person to let things get him down very often. It seemed those two kids had worked their way into both of our hearts, and there wasn’t a damn thing either of us could do about it.
* * *
“You look amazing!” Casey shrieked when she came up behind me.
I spun around and smiled at her. “You came!”
“I wouldn’t miss it, dah-ling,” she said, as she leaned forward to air-kiss my cheek, careful not to smear her bright red lipstick, that matched her bright red strapless dress.
“Let me see this gorgeous dress you’ve been bragging about for days,” she said as she took me at arm’s length and looked me up and down.
Just for the opening party, I’d bought an emerald green short, strapless dress with a bubble skirt and paired it with sparkling gold heels.
“Love the shoes! How very pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
I grinned. “They are fairly fabulous, aren’t they?”
“I am looking forward to taking them and this dress off later,” Josh said, as he snuck up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
He set his chin on my shoulder, and the intimacy of his closeness, combined with the scruff on his cheek scratching me, and the fact that we hadn’t had sex in forever made me want to see if I might be able to drag him back to his office for a quickie. But then I remembered my birthday and thought better of the idea. Besides, we were the hosts. People would notice us missing.
“Hey Josh,” Casey smirked.
Our friends were still getting used to seeing us together because outside of the first two weeks we were dating, we hadn’t been out, so although we’d been together for six weeks and playing house like a married couple for four of those weeks, our relationship was still new to them.
“Hi Casey,” Josh said. “Can you believe how lucky I am?”
She winked at him. “It’s the luck of the Irish, matey.”
“Case, that’s an Australian accent,” I told her.
Josh laughed in my ear. “Says the girl who speaks Scottish fluently.”
“Hey, we all have gifts,” I told him, and he kissed me on the cheek.
“Okay, I have to go speak to some people, but later, you are all mine,” he told me as he pulled away.
“You’ve got a deal, Mr. Nolan,” I told him in my crappy Irish accent, and he just laughed as he backed away from me and almost collided with a server and a tray of appetizers. The waitress dodged him, and Josh winked at me before he turned around.
I laughed at him as I appraised the crowded bar all around us.
I couldn’t believe how packed the place was, and there was a line outside. We were turning people away. The re-opening of the bar was a complete success. There were no two ways about it. The turnout was more than we’d expected, everyone was raving about the new look of the place, and they loved the updated drink and food menus. I was glad Josh had let me keep ‘The Taylor’ on the menu, but I noticed he’d renamed it ‘Josh Loves Taylor’, and because he knew I was still upset about what had happened with the kids earlier in the week, he’d been plying me with drinks all night.
“This turnout is amazing, chica,” Casey said as she grabbed a ‘Josh Loves Taylor’ from a passing tray.
“I know, right,” I said, taking liberal sip of my own drink.
A part of me kept thinking I needed to be responsible because I had to get up in the morning, but then I’d remember I had no obligations, and Josh and I could sleep in as long as we wanted. That combined with the fact that I couldn’t let go of how unsettling the Carlie situation was had me taking more liberal sips than I normally would, and having not been drunk in a month, my tolerance had slipped tremendously. I was not the same party girl I once was, and this was not a night for me to let go, so I decided to stop drinking and enjoy the fact that our risk wasn’t going to be a risk at all.
I loved our bar, and I loved that Josh and I had done it together. We’d sent Stu pictures earlier in the day, and he’d been so proud. I’d been concerned that since we’d changed his bar, his baby, he’d be upset, but he’d made a clean break with that dream and was on to the next.
A few hours later, everyone slowly trickled out the door when we closed at two in the morning. Josh thanked the servers and the bartenders for making the night a success, and then he sent them home, telling them we’d worry about the mess the next day. He received a fair amount of high-fives as our employees left for the night talking about continuing the party at one of their apartments.
I was exhausted since I’d been up early that morning and had spent a good part of the day setting up for the party. And it seemed since Josh was being chivalrous, I’d be back early the next day to clean up with him. Nice job, boss.
“You do realize we’ll have to clean this all up tomorrow,” I reminded him, and he grinned at me. “What?”
“I hired a cleaning crew. They’ll be here at ten. I just have to come over and let them in,” he said, as he smirked at me coyly.
“I love you,” I said, as I appraised the mess all around us.
Josh started to close the distance between us, stalking toward me with a determined look in his eyes, and all I could think about was getting him home and in bed. As soon as he reached me, his arms encircled me and pulled my body flush against his. The sudden hardness between his legs made me all squirmy, and I wondered how soon we could leave. Surely there were some office things to contend to, and even though we’d run through the closing procedures, Josh’s hooded eyes and full lips had my mind failing to remember what any of those steps were.
“I have a surprise for you,” he told me very covertly.
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded. “Go into the office. It’s on the desk.”
I bit my lip. “Okay.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be scared. It’s not anything that can bite.”
I rolled my eyes at my own skittishness. “Fine.”
He smiled at me as I ventured forward. When I walked into his – well, I guess our – office, I noticed everything was brand new – the couch, the desk, even the wall décor. He’d completely redone everything with the whitewashed furniture he knew I loved, and there on his desk was a picture of the two from a trip we’d taken to New Orleans with our friends the year before. We had piles of beads around our necks and Hand Grenades, the most potent drink available on Bourbon Street, in our hands. It was a really cute picture, even though we’d just been friends at the time. We hadn’t had a chance to take a picture since we’d started dating.
“What do you think?” Josh asked from the doorway.
I spun around to face him. “I love it. But why did you redecorate?”
He pushed off the door frame. “Because this is our office, and in my opinion, the only people I want having sex in our office is us. Besides, I wasn’t sitting on that couch after C
ole’s bare ass had been on it and God knows what else they left behind. I tossed that thing the next day.”
“True,” I said, as he descended on me.
His hands reached for mine, and he laced our fingers together. “So what do you say?”
“About what?”
“Shall we christen our bar?”
My lips curled up into a smile, as his blue eyes danced with excitement. “Only if you bend me over this desk and have your way with me,” I challenged, as I slid back onto the desk and opened my legs just enough to entice him.
Josh stared at me wide-eyed for a moment before saying, “Jesus, that’s hot.” Then he dove forward and pushed me back onto the desk in one fluid motion.
Chapter 25
Josh and I slept until he had to get up to let the cleaning crew into the bar. Then he got up, and I went back to sleep for another two hours. He came home when Brad got to the bar to get ready to officially open at noon and climbed back into bed with me. We’d go back that night for the traditional Irish party we were hosting, complete with a local Irish band. It was going to really fun, I just knew it.
After letting him have his way with me again once we got home the night before, Josh and I had stayed up talking about the bar and how excited we were for the potential it suddenly had. Although Stu had always made a profit, he’d never pulled in the kind of business we were anticipating. And our bar was different. It wasn’t a neighborhood Irish pub. It was trendy and fun and a cool place to hang out. Our crowd would be totally different than Stu’s, and with any luck, they’d be the type to spend a lot of money on our expensive drinks, and we’d have made the best decision of our lives to open the bar. I couldn’t wait to see the kind of paying crowd we’d reel in that night.
“Hi baby,” Josh said, as he snuggled back in next to me and pulled my body against his.
“Hi,” I mumbled, still half-asleep.
“This is nice,” he murmured, as he pressed his lips to the spot right behind my ear. “The door to the bedroom is open, you’re half-naked, and no one is going to potentially walk in on us.”
“It is nice,” I echoed. Then I hesitated. “But it’s weird too, right?”
Josh sighed. “Yeah, it’s weird. But we knew it would be a temporary situation. We just have to get used to the idea. Soon we’ll forget all about what it was like to have kids living with us. And then down the road, we’ll probably even be crazy enough to want one of our own.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure I foresee that in our near future.”
“Nah, but like in ten years, we’ll see.”
“We’ll see.”
My phone chose that moment to ring on my nightstand, so I reached out and grabbed it, wondering at first who could be calling me that early, but then I realized it was almost noon, and it wasn’t early.
“Hey Tare,” I said to my sister, as Josh whispered that he was going to get in the shower.
“I told them,” Taryn responded, as I turned on the speakerphone and set my phone on my chest.
“You told who what?”
She sighed. “I told Mom and Dad about the baby.”
“Oh. Okay.”
That was a surprise. She wasn’t showing yet, and she still hadn’t told Noah. I still felt like he deserved to know. It was his kid after all. She should have told him before telling our parents.
“So, you’re having it?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m twenty-two. I need to own up to my own idiocy and be a responsible adult.”
“I’m proud of you, but why did you tell them? What did they say?”
She laughed a non-humorous laugh. “I didn’t plan to tell them, but I was throwing up when I was over there for dinner last night, and then Mom served lamp chops, and the smell made me almost lose it right there at the table. She knew. I mean, come on, after four kids, she knew, so I came clean, and that was that. They were supportive, but I could tell they weren’t thrilled with the circumstances.”
“They’ll come around to it. Lots of people are single parents. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Yeah, it would be better if they actually liked Noah, but whatever. It’s fine. Tanner’s excited that he won’t be the baby of the family anymore.”
I laughed. “Aww, that’s sweet. He’s been the baby for so long. It’ll be good for him to get to play big brother. He was really good with Savannah.”
“So they’re gone, back with their mother?”
“Yup. They sure are.”
“You’re not thrilled,” she deduced.
“I’m adjusting, I guess, but it’s more than that. I’m not convinced Carlie is fit to take care of them. I mean, she tried to kill herself, and now, a month later, she’s acting as if life is one big party. She just jetted off to Key West with the kids.”
“Well, maybe she realized that she has a second chance, and she wants to make the most of it.”
“I guess, but I’m not convinced. I’m glad they’re coming back today, though. We’ll get to see them, and I can finally meet Carlie and hopefully be reassured that she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Taryn insisted.
“Yeah, I know she probably is. I’m just overly worried for no reason, I’m sure.”
“Ah, spoken like a true paranoid mother.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Taryn.”
She just laughed. “Well, I know you’ll miss having them around, but if you ever need some kid lovin’, I’ll have one you can love on in about six months. You can babysit any time.”
I laughed. “I might take you up on that,” I said, surprised at how much my feelings toward kids had changed in a short period of time. Not that I wanted any of my own, but I realized they weren’t as scary as I’d originally feared. “So are you going to keep the tradition going and name your kid something that starts with the letter ‘T’?”
Taryn groaned. “Hell no. The sheer cheesiness of naming your kids names that all match is not a tradition I’m going to uphold.”
“It think you should seriously consider Joshua if it’s a boy,” Josh chimed in as he entered the room wearing just a towel and looking seriously hot with wet tousled hair and a glistening chest.
Jesus, even my mind was starting to get cheesy about him. I was smitten to say the least.
“I’ll add it to the list,” Taryn told him, laughing as she did. “At this point I have a few names, but I’m narrowing down the list after I find out what I’m having.”
“Can I come with you?” I asked, knowing she’d want me there.
“I’d love that,” she said, and I knew she was smiling.
Chapter 26
“Call Caleb again,” I urged Josh.
It was late on Sunday afternoon, and Carlie was supposed to be back with the kids. We knew she had to stop by our place, because we had the keys to her apartment and some of their stuff, so we’d been hanging around the house all day waiting for her to get back knowing that we needed to change and be at the bar by six o’clock. Josh had been calling Caleb’s cell every few hours, but he hadn’t been answering, and we were getting worried.
“I just called him five minutes ago.”
“Then call Carlie.”
He shook his head. “Her phone’s been going to voicemail for days. She probably hasn’t even charged it.”
I sighed and leaned back against the couch. Then my phone ringing had me jumping out of my seat. “It’s Caleb,” I said, sighing in relief as I glanced back to see Josh visibly relax. “Hey Cale!”
“Hey Taylor,” he said, sounding scared. My excitement immediately dwindled.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
“Um, we’re going to be at your house in about an hour, and you probably don’t want to be there.”
My heart almost stopped. “Why not? Caleb, what’s wrong?”
He took a deep breath, and it seemed like he was carrying the weight of a man four times his age. “My mom’s been talking all weekend about Josh and how they�
��re going to get together, and we’re all going to live at his house.”
I swallowed hard, and my heart started pounding. “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
He let out a long unsteady breath. “I shouldn’t even be telling you. She’d be really pissed if she knew, but she loves Josh.”
I glanced over at Josh who was sitting up straighter on the couch eyeing me carefully.
“Caleb, doesn’t she know Josh and I are together?”
“She does now. Van brought you up, and Mom asked who you were, and I told her, and she got really mad. Like really mad, Taylor. She said she and Josh are supposed to be together. It’s why when my dad died, Josh was there for us, and she said that he’s Savannah’s father.”
My eyes bugged out of my head. This chick was bat-shit crazy.
“Caleb, that’s not true.”
I looked up at Josh eyeing me with a mix of concern and interest. There was no way that was true. Josh wasn’t Savannah’s father. Carlie was off her rocker.
“I know,” Caleb agreed. “But she thinks it is, and she told Van that, and it made her cry.” He sniffed once. “Taylor, she’s not better.”
My heart sank. I knew it. I freakin’ knew it.
In the background I heard a shrill voice yell Caleb’s name.
“I have to go,” he mumbled. “Just go somewhere else. Don’t be at the house when we get there. Please.” And then the line went dead.
I realized I was shaking as I slumped down onto the barstool next to me.
Josh was by my side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
I looked up at his blue eyes so riddled with concern and took a deep breath, not sure how to tell him what I had to share. Something in Caleb’s tone had rattled me. It was the way he’d say ‘please’.
“It’s Carlie,” I finally said.
“What about her?” Josh asked warily, his eyes searching mine for more information.
“It’s bad. Caleb told me that I shouldn’t be here when they get here.”
My hands were shaking so bad.
“What? Why? I thought you guys were okay, and he wasn’t mad at you anymore.”
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