We reach the car and Garrett opens the back door so that I can slide Dylan into his car seat. Then, Garrett opens the passenger door for me and puts the bag that’s carrying our picnic supplies on the floor. I’m buckling up as Garrett slides into the driver’s seat.
“Do you know where the park is?” I ask.
“I did a little bit of recon this morning,” he says with a grin.
“Okay, that’s another one I don’t know. Care to fill me in?”
“Recon, short for reconnaissance.” He starts up the car and looks over at me. “Exploring an area to gain information. When we were on missions, we’d do a lot of recon by foot or with drones. Since I don’t have a drone at my disposal, I used the internet.”
“Just to look up Myer’s park? It’s only a block down the road.”
“We’re not going to Myer’s park,” he says with a mysterious grin. “I found somewhere better.”
“Oh, you did?” I ask.
Garrett pulls out of the parking lot, and I settle back into my seat happily. It’s exciting, not knowing where we’re going. I watch the city fly past us, and within twenty minutes, we’re in an area I’ve never been to.
Soon, I see signs for a nature preserve. When we pull into the parking lot surrounded by grass, tall oak trees, and a field filled with bluebonnet wildflowers, I feel like we’re on vacation, though we’re only half an hour from my apartment.
“Why have I never been here?” I ask, getting out of the car.
“Because you didn’t know how to do proper recon,” Garrett jokes.
We work together to gather up our supplies. Garrett carries Dylan, the picnic bag, and a little cooler while I shoulder the diaper bag. Garrett leads us to a patch of grass overlooking a beautiful pond and we set everything down.
“I can take him,” I say.
I hold my arms out, and Garrett passes Dylan over. Cradling my son in my arms, I watch Garrett spread out the blanket that we’ve packed. Once it’s laid out over the grass, I settle onto it cross-legged, with Dylan still in my arms.
We’re situated under the shade of a large oak tree. Though this October has reached record highs in temperature, and today is no exception, under the shade of the tree and with a breeze from the pond, I feel nice and cool. The tree’s leaves quiver each time the breeze comes through, sounding as soothing as a baby’s rattle.
Garrett is moving our supplies onto the blanket. He works quickly and efficiently. That’s how he does everything, I’ve noticed. In fact, now that I know he was trained as a Navy SEAL, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before. It’s so apparent in everything he does. He’s constantly taking in his surroundings, looking for solutions, and springing into action. His body is like a finely tuned machine.
A kind, muscular, gorgeous machine.
He finishes lining up the supplies on the blanket; then, I watch him walk down to the pond’s edge. He places his hands on his hips and looks around. After a moment, he walks back up to the edge of the blanket. He bends over Dylan and me and places a kiss on Dylan’s forehead.
As he comes in close, I feel a flood of loving energy course through me. I’ve started to feel so attached to Garrett. When he displays affection towards our son in this way, it makes me weak at the knees.
Garrett and I haven’t kissed since he found out about Dylan. I get the feeling that he’s giving me space. I told him that we aren’t dating, and he’s respected the boundary lines that I’ve drawn. He’s not sleeping on the couch anymore. It was too short. Now, he’s camped out on the living room floor.
But as he leans in so close to kiss his son on the forehead, I feel myself wish that he would turn and kiss me. I feel myself imagine that maybe tonight, he could sleep in the bedroom.
Maybe it’s time to take things to the next level.
I look at his face, just inches from mine. I take in his dark eyes, his thick black lashes, and his olive skin. I smell the scent of him—fresh and clean and slightly spicy.
I want him.
He stands again. “There’s some clouds to the west,” he says, looking around. “The radar shows a storm cell moving in around two. That means we have two hours and eighteen minutes of sunshine.”
I laugh. “Will you sit down and relax?” I say. “You’re off duty, Private Lawson,” I tease.
He chuckles and sits. When I point out his military tendencies, he’s always quick to laugh at himself.
“This is Dylan’s first picnic,” I say dreamily, looking down at our son. “Do you think he likes it out here?”
Garrett moves closer. I feel the warmth of his body as he looks over my shoulder at Dylan’s face.
“I don’t think he likes that sunblock slathered all over him,” Garrett says. “And he’s probably embarrassed to be seen in public in that ridiculous hat.”
“We have to protect his skin!” I protest with a smile. The floppy sunhat is pretty ridiculous, and I can see white streaks where I applied the sunscreen too generously.
“Just because you turn into a lobster when you’re exposed to the sun doesn’t mean Dylan will,” Garrett says, brushing my arm lightly. “I’ve never seen anyone in Texas with skin as fair as yours.”
The way his finger brushes my arm tickles me. I giggle. “I guess I have been a little aggressive with the sunblock.”
“He’s like me. He’s built to handle the elements,” Garrett says, sounding proud.
“Speaking of burning,” I say. “Can you get my back? I couldn’t reach. The sunscreen is in the diaper bag.”
“We’re in the shade!” Garrett says with a laugh. “And you’re wearing a shirt.”
“The sun can go through material, Garrett.”
Oh, Lord, I sound so uptight!
It’s kind of funny. Hanging out with Garrett has definitely shown me parts of my own character that I’ve always been blind to. I can be uptight and controlling, sometimes. When I see these things about myself, I’ve learned to laugh. Just like Garrett does.
Garrett has dug out the sunscreen, and now, he positions himself behind me. I feel him lift the back of my shirt up slightly, and then slide his hands up so that he can rub the lotion into my skin.
His strong hands feel heavenly against my back. I close my eyes, imagining that he’s giving me a massage instead of just applying sunscreen. He seems to like the contact, too—we’ve had such limited physical contact since our relationship changed, so abruptly, and he found out about Dylan.
His hands move up and down along my back. I feel the strength and power behind his touch. Even his hands are muscular and strong, like the rest of him. He kneads my flesh slightly as he rubs the lotion in. The friction of his skin on mine creates a tingling warmth.
When he pulls away, I have the thought again: maybe it’s time for our boundaries to shift.
I wonder if Garrett is thinking the same thing. As he moves out from behind me and finds a space on the blanket again, I notice that he’s sitting close to me.
A breeze rustles the tree’s leaves above us. I pick up Dylan carefully and lay him on his back on the blanket. He looks up at the leaves moving above us.
“It’s like the best mobile mother nature could provide,” I say.
“Better than the one above his crib, that’s for sure—more moving parts,” Garrett agrees.
I look up at the leaves, shaking in the breeze, in an infinite array of colors—from bright greens to dark reds. It’s beautiful. When I look back down at Dylan, he has a wide smile stretched from cheek to cheek.
“You like nature, don’t you?” I coo, tickling his stomach.
Dylan blurts out a series of happy sounds, and Garrett and I laugh. Dylan, basking in our attention, starts opening and closing his little hands. He looks like he’s performing a dance for us as his chubby fingers open and close. Then, as we watch, a fly that’s been buzzing around all of us flies into his grasp. Dylan closes his little hand around the bug. As we watch in astonishment, our son lifts his hand and puts the fly into his mouth.
Dylan smacks his lips a few times, swallows, and then goes back to gurgling and cooing his happy, nonsensical song.
I look at Garrett. He’s looking at me, his eyebrows high.
“Did that just happen?” he asks.
“I think our son just ate a fly,” I say.
“Dylan!” Garrett turns to Dylan, looking horrified. “Flies aren’t food!” He turns to me and asks, “Will he be okay?”
I start laughing. Garrett still has the look of shock on his face. Seeing my laughter, though, his face crumples and he joins me. I’m laughing so hard that my sides start to hurt. It’s the hardest I’ve heard Garrett laugh, too.
I thought when Dylan was born that I had everything I could ever want. I thought I was happy. But that was only because I didn’t know what true happiness was. Now, laughing with Garrett and gazing at my son, I catch a glimpse of true happiness. Shared happiness. It’s different than anything I’ve ever felt before.
I love it.
Our laughter dies down. Tears are streaming from the corners of my eyes. I wipe them away. The breeze has tousled my hair; I feel strands tickle my cheeks. After wiping the tears away, I try to straighten my hair. It’s a losing battle.
“Here,” Garrett says. He moves towards me and stretches out his arm. He tucks my hair behind my ear, but then doesn’t pull away. His hand lingers on my ear, and then on my cheek. He leans in, closer.
I feel that same magnetic attraction, building up inside of me.
But the flavor of my attraction to Garrett has changed. Instead of that mindless, animalistic desire, I now feel an even more powerful pull towards him. I like all of him. I’m attracted to all of him. His quirks, his history, his body, and his mind.
Now, as he leans in closer and closer to me, I feel breathless and alive. I feel deep desire, and a sense of attraction and appreciation that I’ve only barely started to become aware of.
His face consumes my vision; the scenery of the park around us disappears. My heart is pounding in my chest.
When his lips touch mine, I know. I know that we’ve crossed the line that was drawn in the sand at five o’clock in the morning as we sipped coffee.
We’re still not dating, but we’re no longer two strangers thrown together because of a child. There’s something here for us—for Garrett and me. It’s up to us to figure out what that is.
I move my lips against his and reach my hand up to touch the side of his face. Tingles run through my body, from my palm to my core. His lips explore mine as if for the first time. The rustle of the leaves, dancing in the breeze above us, is the perfect background music to this kiss—soft, gentle and sweet, like a lullaby.
Chapter 14
Valerie
Over the next two weeks, I learn that Garrett can kiss me in a wide variety of ways.
Sometimes, when he comes up behind me while I’m stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove, his kiss is smooth and sensual. He’ll move the hair away from my neck and kiss me just below the ear, making me melt with desire for more.
At other times, his kiss is quick and playful.
The best kind of kisses are the ones that I now think of as “picnic kisses.” They are sentimental and sweet, and make me think of our day under the shade of the oak tree.
Two weeks pass quickly, and before I know it, the last day of October arrives. I’ve barely had time to think about where all of this is going—how long Garrett will stay, or what our plan for the future will be.
I’m too busy thinking about when the next kiss might come.
“Hold still,” I say.
It’s Halloween night, and Garrett has agreed to dress up in costume.
I got the cutest little bee costume at the drugstore down the road for Dylan. I happened to have a bee-keeper costume for myself, left over from Spirit Week at the high school, years ago. When Garrett said that he would dress up for Halloween, he didn’t ask me what kind of costume I had in mind. He said that I could pick, and so I did.
Now, I’m turning Garrett into a chubby, lovable, bear-shaped container of honey, complete with face paint. We’ve strapped pillows to his stomach, and I made a pointed yellow hat that looks like the top of a bottle of honey.
“Why do I have to be the honey bear?” he asks.
I laugh. “Because you’re so sweet. Besides, the beekeeper suit would be too small for you. Dylan is a bumble bee, so that only leaves—”
“A ninja warrior,” jokes Garrett. “The most badass, tough ninja warrior that a little bumble bee and beekeeper have ever seen.”
I pause my painting while I laugh, so that my shaking hand won’t ruin the pattern I’m creating. “No!” I say. “Bumble bee…beekeeper…honey…you know!”
“Or a knight. You could have been a beekeeper, Dylan could have been a bee, and I could have been the knight in shining armor that—”
“No!” I say, cutting him off.
We both laugh.
Even Dylan, who is strapped into his carrier, positioned on the countertop at our side, gives a little giggle.
“There.” I finish filling in the golden, honey-colored face paint on Garrett’s forehead. He stands up, off of the barstool, and spreads his arms wide.
“Do I look like a honey bear?” he asks.
I step closer to him. “Like the sweetest bear full of honey this beekeeper has ever seen,” I say.
He closes his arms around me and lifts me up off of the floor. “Ever been kissed by a bear?” he asks.
I shake my head no, still giggling.
He plants his lips on me, and just like that, I have another kind of kiss to add to the list.
This one is sweet and silly, fast and mingled with laughter.
Chapter 15
Valerie
“So, I don’t get it…” Chrissy whispers. “Are you guys dating, or what?”
I’m standing in a huddle with Chrissy and Liz. Dylan’s in his carrier, propped on a chair next to us. Thankfully, he’s been napping since we arrived at Verve, the venue of Liz and Charlie’s engagement party.
“No,” I say. “We’re just…getting to know each other.”
“But he’s living with you?”
“He sleeps in the living room. I have the bedroom with Dylan.”
“He is sexy, Val,” Liz says, looking across the room towards the bar, where Garrett is. Chrissy and I follow Liz’s gaze.
Garrett is leaning on the bar, waiting for the bartender to retrieve our drinks. I have to admit, seeing him through my friends’ eyes makes me appreciate Garrett’s sexiness anew. For a minute, I remember how I felt the first time I saw him: awestruck by his looks. Now that I’ve been seeing him every day, I’ve become sort of accustomed to it.
“So, you mean, you’re not sleeping together?” Chrissy asks.
I swat her arm. “Chrissy! I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Yes, you do,” quips Liz. “You’ve been ignoring us for the past month, Val. You owe us an explanation.”
“Having an infant isn’t exactly easy,” I say, rolling my eyes. “And this last week I went back to work. I’m busy.”
“Yeah, busy with your hunk of man-candy,” Liz says.
“No! I’m busy with work.” I protest. Then, I lower my voice more. “Okay, since you’re demanding it…we’re not sleeping together…but that doesn’t mean we’re not doing other things.”
Liz squeals. “I knew it!” she says.
“What kind of things?” Chrissy asks.
I glance over at the bar. Garrett has drinks in-hand, now, and is crossing the room towards us.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I say. “Maybe.”
Liz giggles.
Garrett joins us and hands me my wine. He looks uncomfortable. I bought him a white button-down shirt and a tie for the occasion, and he keeps reaching up and pulling on the tie as though it’s strangling him.
“Where does Dylan stay during the day, now that you’re back at work?” asks Chrissy.
“Sometimes w
ith Garrett,” I say, shooting Garrett a smile, “and sometimes with my mom.”
“That is so good of you,” Liz says to Garrett. “I bet Dylan loves having his dad all to himself all day.”
“We have fun,” Garrett says. His voice sounds gruff. He’s opened up to me so much over the last few weeks, but I can tell that he still feels awkward around my friends.
I interject to save him. “Liz, you must be getting excited about the wedding,” I say. “Have you and Charlie picked out a venue yet?”
Liz starts gushing, as she knew I would, about the process of picking a wedding location. I’m glad to have shifted the focus off of Garrett and me. Because the thing is, I don’t know how to define our relationship. I knew our situation was weird, in the beginning. I knew it would be hard to navigate our situation. And when it’s just the two of us, I feel like we’re doing a good job. We take things a day at a time, an hour at a time, a minute at a time. And as the diaper changes and sleepless nights add up, we’ve reached a strange sort of comfortable rhythm together, punctuated by kisses that take my breath away.
But where is it all going?
When I’m with my friends, my coworkers, or my mother, and they look at me like I’m crazy, I start to wonder if I am.
I try to look like I’m listening to Liz’s monologue, but my mind is on Garrett. I look away from Liz and glance at him. He looks uncomfortable in his button-up and tie. I can tell that he feels out of place here, in this fancy restaurant. The crystal wine glass in his hand looks so small and dainty, as if it might crack under his grip.
I cringe. What was I thinking, bringing him here like this? He didn’t want to come. I had to beg him. Now, with a sinking feeling, I wonder if it was the right thing to do. We’re not dating. He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t have the right to dress him up and take him out as though we’re a couple.
We’re not.
I’m finding it hard to concentrate on—or even hear, really—Liz’s words. Luckily, Charlie approaches and interrupts her monologue.
“Hi, babe,” he says, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and kissing her cheek. “Talking about the wedding venue again, I see?”
Secret Daddy Surprise - A Secret Baby Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 4) Page 10
