Stone Vows (A Stone Brothers Novel)

by Samantha Christy

  Chapter Forty-five

  By the time we get back to Kyle’s apartment, it’s late. He heads straight for his room and I go put Ellie down for the night before I take a shower. As the warm water flows down my body, I think back on this evening. I would have loved to accept Piper’s invitation to be a part of her wedding. How I long for that normalcy in my life. Will I ever be able to do things like that without thinking about the ramifications?

  For almost a week now, I’ve been Lexi again. And it’s been great. I feel like I can finally be myself. Around them. Around him. And a small part of me, deep down inside, wants to go along with them and file for divorce and full custody. But the very large part—the part that owns my heart—is not willing to take even the smallest chance that Ellie could be taken from me.

  I comb through my wet hair and put on my tank top and undies before I pad back down the hallway to my bedroom. When I reach the doorway, I stop. My breath hitches when I see what’s inside. Kyle is rocking Ellie.

  And he’s shirtless.

  His head is resting against the rocking chair and his eyes are closed as he glides back and forth. He’s completely unaware that I’m standing here staring at him.

  I’ve never seen him without a shirt before. And even though he’s mostly covered by Ellie, I can clearly see the outline of his abs, the strong lines of his chest, the low dip of his lounge pants. Oh, my God.

  I can feel my nipples pebble under the thin material of my shirt and all of a sudden, I’m reminded of my lack of clothing. I start to cross the room to get my robe when I hear his softly spoken words.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he whispers. “She was crying.”

  I look over at him to see his eyes taking me in. I might as well be wearing nothing. And with the way my nipples are poking through my shirt, I might as well be wearing a sign that says how much I want him.

  Embarrassed, I cross my arms over my chest and finish my walk across the room, hyperaware that he’s now seeing my backside, thanks to my teeny-tiny panties.

  I put on my robe, that itself, barely covers my thighs. “No, I don’t mind. Thanks for getting her back to sleep,” I say. “I do that, too, you know—whisper when she’s sleeping.”

  He smiles, looking down on her dark head of fine curls. “It’s amazing to hold her, knowing I’m the one who brought her into the world. I literally put my hand inside you and pulled her out. Isn’t that incredible?”

  I nod, staring at them with tears welling in my eyes. This is how it should be. Ellie should have a man in her life who loves her. Who gets emotional when he holds her. Who thinks she’s wonderful just the way she is.

  I remember how he was with all the kids at Charlie’s tonight. He played with them. Helped feed them. Picked them up and cuddled them when they fell down. He’s everyone’s favorite uncle. This man was born to be a father.

  “You’re good with kids, Kyle,” I tell him. “Maybe you should go into pediatrics.”

  He kisses the top of Ellie’s head and lightning bolts shoot through me, just as if he’d kissed the top of mine.

  “I considered it early on,” he says. “But ultimately, my goal is to run my own clinic. Emergency medicine gives me a better background for that.”

  “Run your own clinic?” I ask. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “You know, for people who don’t have insurance. So they can get better care than most places are willing to give them. So they can feel like normal people instead of being ashamed of who they are.”

  “You mean for people like me,” I say, trying to keep the self-pity out of my voice.

  “There are a lot of reasons people can’t afford health care, Lexi. You are just one example. We’re all just one bad circumstance away from being in someone else’s shoes.”

  I smile at his motto. “Is that why you wanted to help me, Kyle? Because you thought I was down on my luck? But many people are down on their luck. Surely you don’t pay for everyone’s hospital stay.” I motion at our opulent surroundings. “Although it looks like you might be able to afford it. So, why me?” It’s a question I’ve wondered about a lot over the past six months.

  He stares at me, gathering his thoughts. He shrugs. “Just a feeling, I guess. You looked so put together, yet you had nothing. You seemed educated, but you walked dogs for a living. Something was just . . . off. I felt it right from the start. From the minute I saw you sitting on the bench outside the ER.”

  He gets up from the chair and walks Ellie to the crib, gently placing her down to sleep on her back as I watch from over his shoulder. When he turns around, he bumps into me, but I don’t move. Our chests are close and his gaze locks onto me as we look into each other’s eyes.

  His hand comes up to play with a lock of my hair and he stares at it, bemused. He once said he liked me as a brunette. I wonder if he’s thinking about seeing me as a blonde. A redhead. He works my hair between his fingers and all I can think about is what it would feel like to have his hands on me, touching my body like he’s touching my hair.

  His eyes find mine again. They speak volumes. They tell me he wants exactly what I want. To touch me. To kiss me. Kiss me like he did over six months ago on my hospital bed. It was the only kiss we ever shared. The kiss I knew I’d always remember. The kiss that had me seeing my future and forgetting my past. The kiss that had me risking everything to come back and knock on his door.

  He looks at me with a possessive, heavy-lidded stare, the intensity of his gaze winding through my entire body. My breathing accelerates. My pulse races. My insides are on fire being this close to him. I want him. I want him more than I want my freedom. More than I want my sanity. More than I want air.

  His eyes break from mine when he puts his hand down, dropping my hair as he takes a step back. Emotionally. Physically. And it’s now that I notice the front of his lounge pants are tented. I want to reach out and grab him, pull him back against me. Show him how great we can be together. But I don’t, because his eyes are now telling me a different story than they were just moments ago. And it’s a story I don’t want to hear.

  He sighs deeply, grabbing the back of his neck. “I—I’m sorry. I have an early morning,” he says, his apologetic eyes now dark with pain.

  He looks back down at a sleeping Ellie and then pads out of the room, shaking his head along the way.

  I shut off the light, close the door and flop down on my bed in frustration. He wants this. It’s all too evident by the way he looks at me. By the swell in his pants. Why can’t he just let it happen?

  I crawl beneath my covers, anxious and confused as hell, my body wired as tightly as a bow string. I let my hand wander under my shirt; under my panties, thinking of those hazel eyes, that unruly hair I’d like to run my hands through, those naked abs, his tented pants . . .

  Chapter Forty-six

  When I get up with Ellie the next morning, Kyle is gone. I sit at the bar, drinking coffee from the same cup he used. It’s silly and juvenile, I know—the idea of me putting my lips where his have been.

  “Mommy is crazy,” I sign to Ellie.

  She smiles as if she agrees with me.

  “You like him, don’t you?” I ask rhetorically, musing over the question while I shovel a spoonful of pears in her mouth. “I mean, he’s great, right? Much better than the jerk whose DNA you possess.” I wipe her mouth. “I’m sorry, Ellie,” I say and sign. “I’m sorry you drew the short straw with your father. I know someday in the far-off future, you might want to meet him. But I hope by then, you’ve had a good male role model in your life.” I look over in the direction of Kyle’s room.

  “You hit the jackpot with your uncle, though,” I tell her, as she babbles between spoonfuls. “Caden is a big baseball player. One day, he’ll take us to his games and we will cheer him on. Maybe one day you could play softball, like I did.” I ruffle her soft hair. “Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Or that you’re not good enough. Do you hear me?”

  I laugh at my
blunder. “You know what I mean,” I say to no one, rolling my eyes.

  Ellie moves her mouth as if she’s talking. She likes to mimic me when I verbalize words. I do the sign for ‘I love you’ and then I put my face in front of her face, puckering my lips in waiting. She leans forward and lays a kiss on me with her pear-flavored mouth.

  I get up to wash out my cup, realizing just how much time I spend having conversations with my six-and-a-half-month-old daughter who can’t hear me and wouldn’t understand even if she could. “You need a life, Lexi,” I tell myself.

  After reading to Ellie and doing our laundry, I spend the rest of the afternoon doing some work for Baylor. I love my job. Not only do I get to use my education and help out a friend, but I get to read the book she’s currently working on before anyone else. It’s called being a beta reader. She feeds me chapters of her novel as she writes them and I give her my feedback.

  Reading for her is not part of my job, per se, that I do for fun. I spend most of my working hours answering emails on her behalf, perpetuating her social media presence, organizing orders from her e-commerce site, and researching topics she’s asked me to look into for future novels.

  Today, I’m gathering all the information I can on Paris. She needs maps, descriptions of historical sites, names of famous streets, commonly-used French phrases. Basically, anything and everything I can find about the city.

  I asked her why she doesn’t just go to Paris to find all that stuff out. She said one day she might do that, but for now, she’s happy being here with the kids. She laughed and said that if I had a passport, she’d probably send me.

  I can’t imagine ever being able to pick up and just fly overseas. I can’t even renew my driver’s license. Hell, I don’t even have a driver’s license. I dumped it, and everything else in my purse that had my name on it, into the trashcan at the hotel where I cut and colored my hair. I was sure to squeeze a glob of color onto all of it so nobody would be tempted to go through it if they were so inclined. Then I double-wrapped the trash bag and walked it out to the hotel dumpster myself.

  I left no trace of Alexa Lucas. A name I despised.

  If I ever find myself in a position to get a divorce, even if it’s forty years from now, the first thing I’ll do is resume my maiden name. Alexa Kessler. I’ve always thought it had a nice ring to it. Lexi Kessler is even better.

  I look down at my note paper only to see that in my mindless doodling, I had written my name. The only thing is, I didn’t write it as Lucas or Kessler.

  The name I wrote was Lexi Stone.

  I tear out the paper and wad it up, ready to throw it in the trash. He doesn’t want to date me, let alone marry me. And even if by some miracle, that happened, I’d never be able to marry him.

  Across the room, my phone chirps with a text and I smile. One of the first things I did after moving back here, was get a phone. Well, technically, it’s not my phone, it’s Kyle’s. But I insisted on paying my part of the monthly bill. I can afford it now that I have a job. And it’s not one of those old burner phones like the one I picked up at a discount store last year. It’s a nice phone. A smartphone. So now I can text or email or Facetime anyone from anywhere. So many people take those things for granted.

  I’ve vowed to take nothing for granted, not anymore. “For granted,” I think aloud, pushing aside the soft armband that reveals Grant’s hidden name on my wrist. I study it until I remember the waiting text.

  I hop up and walk over to the counter to check my phone.

  Kyle: I’m going out for drinks with Cameron and Gina after work. Didn’t want you to worry if I was home late.

  Gina? As in the one who was his maybe, maybe-not girlfriend? I toss the phone back down on the counter, pouting.

  Maybe he’s with her and doesn’t want to tell me. Perhaps he’s only using his career as an excuse. Maybe it’s not that he doesn’t want a relationship. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want a relationship with me.

  I pick up my phone and tap out a text.

  Me: I’m not your mother, Kyle. Do what you want.

  ~ ~ ~

  Five hours and half a bottle of wine later, I hear his key in the door. I fling myself on the couch, picking up a book that I’m pretending to read so he doesn’t know I’ve been waiting for him. Doesn’t know that I’ve been picturing those brown-green-blue eyes of his looking at her. Those large hands touching her. Those dreamy lips kissing—

  “Oh, hey, you’re still up?” he says, tossing his keys on the counter. The keys slide all the way across the bar and then fall off the counter onto the floor. When he goes to pick them up, he hits his head on the edge of the bar. “Son of a bitch!”

  He quickly looks around the room for Ellie as he’s done every time he curses.

  “She’s in bed,” I say. “Because it’s after midnight. And besides . . . SHE CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

  Yes, I realize I’m acting like a toddler, but he’s obviously drunk, and he’s stupid, and he’s a big dumb guy who doesn’t know anything—and yes, I realize I might be a little drunk and stupid myself, but that’s what happens when the guy you love goes off and sleeps with a smart and beautiful doctor who may or may not be his girlfriend.

  I toss my book on the couch and reach over to refill my wine glass, splashing some wine on the coffee table as I do.

  “Are you drunk, Elizabeth? Shit—Lexi?”

  I hold up the bottle of white wine so he can see how full it is. Or how empty it is. Depends on how you look at it. “Not yet, but another glass ought to do it.” It’s a lie. I’m already drunk. I haven’t had more than a single beer or glass of wine in over a year.

  He staggers over and takes the bottle from me, examining it. “Did you drink all this yourself?”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Stone, I’ll buy you a new bottle.”

  “I’m not worried about the damn wine, Lexi. You’re nursing. You can’t drink that much.” He looks at me like I’m a terrible person. Like I’m hurting someone I love on purpose.

  He’s looking at me like I used to look at Grant.

  I stand up and rip the bottle from his hands. “Pump and dump, asshole,” I say.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Lex?”

  “Pump. And. Dump,” I say to him like he’s a two-year-old. I put down the wine bottle and my glass, then I grab my boobs. “First I pump them, then I dump it down the drain. Got it?”

  He looks somewhat relieved that I wouldn’t serve my baby alcohol-laden breast milk. “Well, good,” he says. “And you don’t need to replace the wine.”

  “Oh, I’ll replace it,” I say, resuming my seat so I don’t fall over. At least that’s what I meant to say, I think it came out more like ‘I’ll replathe it.’ I take another sip. “I don’t need anything from you.”

  “What’s going on here?” he asks. “Did I miss something? Are you pissed off at me?”

  “I don’t know, Kyle. Why don’t you go ask little miss . . . little miss . . . oh, hell, I can’t think of a stupid name to call her. Just go ask your damn girlfriend.”

  “My girlfriend?” He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your squeeze. Your, what . . . Your fuck buddy? Did you get some tonight, Kyle? Did you share some Jell-O with her? Or is that only for hospital patients you feel sorry for?”

  He cringes, looking hurt by what I said. “You think Gina is my girlfriend?”

  “Well, isn’t she?”

  “No. In fact, she’s in love with my friend, Cameron. Has been for months. I haven’t given Gina a second look since I fell—” He runs his hands through his hair. “Shit!”

  He paces the living room floor, scrubbing a hand across his jaw. The jaw that hasn’t seen a razor for days, making him appear even sexier. Then again, maybe my vision is clouded from the wine.

  “What does that even matter, Lexi? What the fuck difference does it make to you if I’m screwing Gina? You left me. You
left me high and dry. I was all in. I was so in I was furnishing my goddamn apartment. I was planning for the future. I wanted you. I wanted Ellie. But you made your decision. You made it for the both of us. There’s no turning back.”

  I get up off the couch, steadying myself so I can try to stand my ground. “How can you say that, Kyle? You know there is more to the story than me just deciding to leave you.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more to it now,” he says. “You being here, I’m just helping out Caden. That’s all there is to it.”

  Tears well in my eyes and my throat stings. “I don’t believe you. I see how you look at me. What happened between us back then—it doesn’t just go away. I loved that time we spent together. And I know you did too.”

  He shakes his head in denial. I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince me, or himself. I’m losing him. And it hurts. It hurts my head. It hurts my heart. It even hurts to breathe.

  “Why do you think I named my daughter Ellie?” I cry. “It’s short for Elizabeth, Kyle. I named her that because being Elizabeth with you was the best month of my life.”

  He grabs me, both of his hands on my upper arms. There’s so much pain in his eyes. There is a battle raging behind them. One I’m not even sure he knows which side he wants to be on. “Then why didn’t you fucking trust me? Why did you leave like that?”

  He’s angry. But his anger doesn’t scare me. It’s not directed it me. It’s almost like he’s angry with himself for not letting himself love me. His eyes are glassy as they beg me for answers.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, tears spilling over and rolling down my face. “I’m so sorry I left. But I’m here. I came back for you, Kyle. I’m risking everything for you now. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see I lo—”

  Before I can get the word out. Before I can even form another thought in my head. Before I realize what is happening, his lips come crashing down on mine.