by K. L. Kreig
“Well, everyone knows the first two are just water weight.”
“Apparently not everyone,” Killian mumbles while tearing the edges of his paper napkin to shreds. I hate that I know it’s a sign of his building anger and that his own wife has no fucking clue.
“Tell him, Maverick,” she says.
“Tell him what?” I shoot back, pissed she’s trying to drag me into this stupid conversation. And this is yet another difference between my sister and me. I’m a curvy size ten and though every once in a while, when I glimpse a pocket of cellulite on the backs of my thighs, I wish I was smaller, my weight has never once been an issue for me.
“You know. Tell him how good it feels when you lose a few pounds.”
Bitch.
I let my mouth curve into a sugary smile. “Well, I wouldn’t know, Jilly. I’m perfectly comfortable in my own skin.”
Both Kael and Killian start snickering. Jilly just huffs and turns her attention to the booth behind us. When her gaze cuts back to mine, I can already see the blather winding up. Instead of doing anything productive with her life, my sister lives off her trust fund and has deemed herself Dusty Falls’ own Gossip Girl as her full-time job.
“Did you hear that Sally Jameson hooked up with that Isaac Newton?”
Yes. We have an Isaac Newton. His mother is a science teacher at the public high school and apparently wrote her PhD thesis on Sir Isaac Newton’s views on space, time, and motion. She obviously became a big fan.
“What’s wrong with Isaac?” My jaw now hurts because of all the retorts I’m biting back.
“Jillian,” Killian warns her.
“Well, he’s totally beneath her, of course. I mean…he’s a mechanic for God’s sake,” she says in a whisper that’s more of a yell. I think half the restaurant probably heard what she just said. I’m so embarrassed I wish the floor would swallow me. Her. Make that her instead.
“Wow,” Kael mutters beside me. Killian looks like he’s ready to blow, his napkin all but destroyed.
Have I mentioned my sister is a classless, unfiltered, egotistical bitch who is nothing like me? No? #Truth.
“Yes, a talented one who owns his own business. It’s not easy to own your own business, you know,” I challenge loud enough to avenge Sir Isaac.
“I know.” She shrugs as if she didn’t indirectly put down what I do. I’m just a lowly baker, after all. Her words. Not mine. “I’m just saying he works with his hands all day.”
Oh, how I hate her. I can’t believe we share a single cell of the same DNA. More and more, I’m convinced I’m adopted.
Suddenly I can’t take any more. Of her. Of Killian’s not-so-sly examination of every touch Kael’s giving me. Of this godforsaken tension. It’s making it hard to catch my breath. I have no idea why the “Illians” just showed up unannounced, but I’d bet my half of the DeSoto inheritance on the fact it was Jilly pushing Killian into it. She thrives on rubbing it in that she’s married to not only the man she knows I loved all my life but one of the hottest men to ever be bred in Dusty Falls. She parades around with Killian Shepard like he’s some goddamn prized quarter horse. I’m surprised she hasn’t leashed him yet. Maybe that also happens in the bedroom. I can’t even go there.
“I need to use the restroom,” I say, pushing Kael so he’ll scoot over and let me out. I pray as I weave through the tables half-filled with patrons that no one follows me. I don’t need Kael’s soothing or Jilly’s catty digs or Killian’s sorrys. I need five minutes to myself to slow down the boil raging inside.
Taking my time in the stall, I close my eyes. I take long, deep inhales and try to exhale all the angst I feel building. I think of my lake. An immediate peace settles over me. You would think after a near-death experience in water, I’d avoid it like the plague, but I don’t. I still go there sometimes, even as an adult.
By the time I’m washing my hands, I feel slightly better. At least I think I can make it through the rest of dinner. Evidently, I didn’t think this whole marriage thing through to the end. I’ve done a good job avoiding time spent with the Illians for the last two years, but now it will be an impossible task since I’m married to Kael.
When I hear the door squeak open behind me, my heart drops. I’m sure it’s Jilly but catch the reflection of none other than Sally Jameson in the mirror.
“Hey,” she greets me.
“Hey, Sal.” I grab three paper towels because they’re so damn thin, even doubling up won’t work, then turn to face the woman my sister just heartlessly put down. By the look on her face she heard it, too.
“I’m sor—”
“Oh no you don’t. Don’t even apologize for that cow.”
Sally Jameson is five years younger than me and is the daughter of the district county attorney. She’s bright, bubbly, and she’s been through one shit relationship after another. Isaac may be a bit quirky, but he’s a kind man with a good heart. I, for one, hope it works out for them.
“I don’t know how you put up with her.”
I snort. “It’s a challenge.”
“You’re more of a saint than I would be. I think I may have set her on fire by now.”
“Wow.” I laugh. “Harsh.” My sister and I may be polar opposites and she may have gutted me by marrying Killian, but she’s still my flesh and blood. No matter what, there will always be a part of me that can never completely cut her loose because of that tangible bond. Family is family is family. Always. There is a decent human being underneath her thick layers of entitlement and haughtiness. I have to believe that. I try to believe that, anyway.
“Just honest. Say, congrats on your wedding. Kael’s good peeps. You guys look great together.”
A twinge coils in my stomach. Can wine curdle? The smile I force on my lips hurts. I try hard for lighthearted when I say, “Speaking of, I guess I’d better get back. Kael may call a search party in a minute.”
It must work. She giggles. It’s cute. I scoot around her and start opening the door.
“Hey, Maverick.”
“Yeah?” I turn around, the chatter of conversation now flowing through the partially open door.
“I may be completely out of line saying this, but anyone who marries that woman can’t be worthy of you.”
Oh.
Fucking.
Hell.
Small freaking towns.
“Thanks,” I croak. I try to force the corners of my mouth up again, but they feel heavy as lead and won’t move. When I hear the snick of the latch behind me, I lean against the hallway wall surprised to find a tear running down my face. I wipe it away, along with the one that follows it.
The only thing I want to do right now is climb into my car and drive. No destination. No thinking. No guilt. No nothing. I want to run away, but the only person I really want to run away from is me. I wish that was possible. If it was, I’d have lost me long ago.
A few deep breaths later, I’m sliding back into the booth beside Kael. His big brown eyes run over my face, concern scrunching his forehead.
“You all right, Swan?” he whispers sweetly.
I nod, focusing all my attention on the unappetizing lump of meat waiting in front of me along with a beer I won’t drink. I feel the heat of his palm on my thigh before he gives me a comforting squeeze. I force a brief smile, which seems to appease him…for now.
The four of us eat in silence for a few minutes. Blessed silence I needed. I’m just beginning to think I can make it out of here without tearing the roots out of a certain someone’s bleached-blond hair when Jilly’s abrupt—and very unexpected—announcement throws up on my world once again.
Her silverware clangs against her plate before she pushes it away, her half-eaten salad mocking me for the fat-laden forkful of mashed potatoes I just shoved in my mouth. She makes a production out of grabbing Killian’s hand and looking up at him lovingly before she turns to me and says, “I wanted you guys to be the first to know it’s time.”
“Time for what?” I reply evenly, not lik
ing the cat-that-got-the-canary gleam on my sister’s face. I set my fork down on the table, tucking it under my plate for fear I may reach for it and stab her eyes out at what she’s going to say.
With a broad smirk on her face, she tells me something that makes my heart sick.
“That Killian and I are finally ready for a family. We’ve officially started trying to get pregnant.”
I stop breathing. I’m sure I do. I blink, blink, blink. I keep blinking. Maybe if I blink long enough and fast enough I’ll magically transport myself to another place and time where this doesn’t hurt so fucking much.
Killian’s trying to catch my attention. I see him in my peripheral crooking his head, silently begging for me to look into his cheating, Judas-kissed, dream-swallowing chocolate orbs.
I don’t.
Fuck. I can’t. I can’t possibly stomach the silent conversation we’ll have if I do.
I’m sorry, Small Fry.
I don’t give ten fucks.
You do and I hate it when you swear.
I hate you.
I love you. Please forgive me.
I can’t.
You will.
No. I can’t possibly hear more unspoken apologies and platitudes.
After I find my runaway voice, half-hearted congratulations are exchanged. On my part anyway. Kael sounds genuinely—maybe too genuinely—happy. Then I’m forced to pick through the rest of my dinner with Jillian babbling on about nursery colors, baby names, and private schools.
That night, after a round of trying-to-forget-my-fucked-up-life-and-one-Killian-Shepard sex, I go to bed wrapped up in Kael’s arms, warm on the outside, but dead cold in the place it matters most.
“When are you coming back?” I try hard to keep the disappointment from my voice, but it’s tough. I miss him.
“Soon.”
“Define soon,” I push. He’s been saying that for weeks. He took a job in Pensacola, Florida three months ago, leaving my father’s construction business, taking us all by surprise. DeSoto Construction Industries is the largest, most successful, most powerful transportation infrastructure construction company within the entire Midwest. Killian was a top salesman with the political savvy necessary to reel in the large clients and keep them happy.
All of the Shepard men work for DeSoto Construction, actually. Arnie Shepard, Killian’s father, is the CFO and also sits on the board. Kael just recently started as a corporate lawyer and Killian is in sales. Hell, three-quarters of Dusty Falls is employed by Richard DeSoto. Even I work for my father as a project director.
“Mavs, you need to be patient.”
Patient? I’ve spent my entire life drowning in patience, waiting for this man. He moved away to attend college. Then he moved back, but I was still “too young.” Then it was my turn at college, and though I came home from the University of Iowa to intern for my father in the summers, Killian still wouldn’t touch me. Until one night behind the grain bins early this summer when everything changed.
“Two months after I move back from college you leave me here by myself. I’ve been patient for almost twenty-three years, Killian. I’m tired of being patient. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of hiding. I don’t understand why you had to move away.”
“We’ve talked about this, Small Fry. I need to prove that I’m successful because of me, not your father’s name. I don’t want to be under his thumb my entire life like my pops. I don’t want that for us.” Killian’s entire family’s livelihood is dependent on Richard DeSoto and he’s not willing to cross my father. Although it makes me angry, in a way, I can’t blame him.
“I know.” I sigh, knowing he’s right. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“Don’t apologize. And besides, you know he can’t find out about us just yet. He was starting to get suspicious.”
Killian and I aren’t technically “together, together.” We don’t date like other couples. We hook up in the dark. Sneak around like a couple of married people having an affair. It’s ridiculous. It pisses me off, in fact. But my father is not supportive of anything other than a friendship between Killian and me. And what my father wants, he gets. I hate displeasing my father but there’s a big part of me that just doesn’t care anymore. It’s not his choice who I love. It’s mine.
“So when are you coming back to see me?”
“I’ll try to make it back next weekend.”
“Try?”
His exhale is heavy and long. “Maverick, you know what’s going to happen the second I set foot in that town. Pops is already all over my ass to come back to DSC.”
“Fine. Then I’ll come to you. I can’t wait any longer.”
“That’s not smart. Someone’s going to figure it out.”
“Someone” meaning my father.
“You don’t want me to come?” I ask, my voice a little shaky.
“Baby,” he coaxes, “it’s not that and you know it. I want to be together. It’s just not the right time yet. It will be soon. Just not now.”
My eyes wander to my bedroom window, the blinds pulled all the way up. I watch the rain fall. It’s nourishing and cleansing. It usually feeds my soul to listen to the soft pitter-patter of the drops hitting the metal gutters and to know it’s soaking into the roots of corn and soybeans that grow along the windy roads of our rural town. But today my mood matches the weather. Dreary and stormy. I have this impending sense of doom I just can’t shake, and it happened the very second Killian stepped on that plane in Des Moines.
“I miss you so much.”
His voice drops low and smoky. “I miss you, too, Small Fry.”
“I want to marry you.”
“I want you pregnant with my babies.”
I turn giddy when we have this conversation. Our romantic relationship may be new, but I’ve known Killian Shepard my entire life. I know what he wants, how he thinks. “How many?” I prod, already knowing the answer.
“Five. All boys. I’m going to keep you pregnant for six years solid.”
I’m now beaming ear to ear, my dreariness all but forgotten. “You have to marry me first.”
“Patience is a virtue.”
“Virtue is overrated.”
“No. Virtue is what makes you who you are, Maverick. God, don’t ever lose that. That’s one of the things that drew me to you in the first place.”
My throat clogs. “I love you, Killian.”
“I love it when you say my name like that.” I can practically hear the smile in his tone.
“Like what?”
“Breathy and wanting.”
“I am. I’ll show you just how much next weekend if you come home.”
“How about you show me now instead? Let me listen,” he challenges on a soft groan.
I like me a good challenge. “M’kay.”
I tunnel my fingers down, down, down…
I’m jolted from the best part of my memory when MaryLou quips, “You know…maybe this is exactly what you need.” No…what I need is to relive my fantasy in peace.
“What are you fucking on about?”
I lift my eyes from my task to watch her meticulously place a single raspberry just perfectly on each of the mini cheesecakes on the tray in front of her.
Mrs. Kenner is having an early luncheon at the lodge today for the Federation of Women’s Club and ordered thirty-three of these, along with an equal amount of individual ham-and-cheese quiches. We also have two smaller catering orders to fulfill, so I admit…I snipped. Snapped, whatever. And I’m pissier than I have any right to be over news that knocked me into yesterday. I was the one who was supposed to have kids with Killian…not her.
MaryLou stops what she’s doing and looks up. She stares at me for a full two seconds before she starts laughing. “Been a few days, has it?”
Yes. But what I’m referring to and what she’s referring to are two different things. “Fuck off, MaryLou.” I grab my pastry bag and a macaroon, but I pinch the delicate pastry too hard, causing it to crumble in
my hand. She snags my wrist and pushes it down on the counter, but because I fight her I crush about a dozen more cookies in the process. “What the hell, bitch?” I screech.
That makes her laugh louder. “You can make more. It’s just eggs and sugar.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I think that’s exactly the point,” she says matter-of-factly. Picking up a handful of the now-destroyed multicolored disks, she lets them fall slowly through her spread fingers, back down to the workstation. We both zero in on the mess in front of us as if the pattern will now mystically deliver answers to all the world’s unsolved problems…like what happens to all those people who disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and was there actually a government cover-up of a UFO crash in Area 51? Or maybe, just maybe, why I am now Mrs. Kael Shepard and not Mrs. Killian Shepard.
“You need to blow apart everything you thought you knew and start back at ground zero.”
What? Start over? Pretend I was never in love with Killian Shepard?
Is that what she’s suggesting?
There’s no way that answer lies in the crumbs before us.
And how do I do that? How is that even possible after all this time? He’s in me so far and deep, he’s actually woven throughout my every cell.
No. There’s no pretending. There’s no forgetting. There’s only compartmentalizing. There’s then and now. Past and present. Killian versus Kael.
I have so many bitchy things just sitting on the edge of my tongue, waiting to be flung at the one person I feel I can take everything out on and she’ll still love me unconditionally. But that’s not fair to her. Especially when she’s only trying to help.
“I just can’t believe he’s actually doing it.”
“Why?” she chucks back.
“Why? He doesn’t love her. He can barely stand to look at her. Why would he have a kid with her?”
“I didn’t mean why is he having a kid. I meant why do you care, Maverick? Whatever you had with Killian ended the day he came back to Dusty Falls and stood in front of you at your father’s house with your sister on his arm and announced his engagement. You deserved the courtesy of not only some advance fucking notice, but an explanation. You got neither. And even if you did get those things, it wouldn’t have been good enough. Nothing he said would have been good enough to justify what he did. Cut the fucking cord, babe. He’s not worth it. If he wants to procreate with that witch and create a gaggle of little witches, that’s his business, not yours.”
