Happily Even After

by Lena Matthews

  “You’re going to have it.”

  Creigh let out a sigh. She’d done so many things wrong. Slept with a man she didn’t care about in hopes of jump-starting a lagging libido and boosting her self-esteem after seeing Dean out on a date with a younger, thinner, paler woman. Her pity party resulted in a night she wished she could forget with a jerk she wished she’d never met, but also a surprising little gift nuzzled right under her heart. No matter the circumstances of the baby’s creation, it still was Creigh’s baby. “Yes. I’m going to have her.”

  “Her. You know the sex already?” His gaze lowered to her barely-beginning-to-thicken waist, hidden quite well beneath the loose-fitting shirt she wore. “How far along are you?”

  “Four and a half months,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “Four and a hal—” Dean erupted from his chair. “Why did you wait so long to say something?”

  Warily, Creigh watched him storm over to the sink and grasp the front in his large, strong hands, holding on as if his very life, or hers, depended on it. “Superstitious, I guess. I needed to pass the three-month milestone before I could even begin to think of telling everyone. Announcing a pregnancy is easy, but unannouncing one is a whole other ballgame.” A fact they both knew well after their miscarriage three years earlier.

  “Do the kids know yet?” he asked without turning back around to face her.

  Creigh shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “No. I wanted to tell you first. I know it’s not going to be easy for them.” Hell, it still wasn’t easy for her, but nothing worthwhile ever was. “Harlow, especially. She’s never given up on the idea of us reconciling. And of course it doesn’t help she thinks you walk on water.”

  Dean glanced over his shoulder at her. “I’m not exactly thinking Christlike thoughts right now.”

  “You’d be a saint if you were.” And a saint he wasn’t. No one knew that better than her. But her wavering feelings for him had nothing to do with the immediate problem at hand. “This is going to hurt them at first, confuse them even, but in time they’ll adapt. Kids do.”

  “Adapt.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest and turned around to face her once more. Anger clouded his features. Fury filled his voice. “Isn’t that the line you fed me when you decided we should split up?”

  Decide. He made it seem as if making the choice to ask him to leave was as easy as picking out an outfit to wear. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Even harder than sitting before the man she still loved and having him stare at her as if she were branded with a scarlet A on her breast. But it had been the right thing to do. They’d been drowning, coming apart at the seams, and it was all she could do to stay afloat.

  Dean was a stickler for seeing something to the end, and Creigh was afraid his need to make the best of the situation would have torpedoed the thin strand of friendship they had left. If she couldn’t have his heart, at the very least she wanted his friendship. But even that seemed to be asking for too much.

  She tried again to be civil. “If you could make this a little less difficult for me, I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m not handling this as well as you’d like. It’s not every day a man finds out his wife is pregnant with another man’s child.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” he said bitterly.

  “You’re very welcome.” Creigh ran her hand across her eyes and sighed. God, could this go any worse? Tired, she folded her hands together in her lap and looked up at him. “It wouldn’t kill you to be a bit kinder.”

  “And would it have killed you to keep your legs closed?” She gasped at his words, and he immediately looked contrite. “I’m… Fuck.” Dean spun away from her, but not before Creigh saw the look of disgust on his face.

  Shaken, she rose unsteadily to her feet and placed a sheltering hand against her stomach. “And on that note, I’ll say good-bye.”

  Dean turned back to her. “No. Wait. I didn’t—”

  “I just wanted you to hear it from me,” she interrupted, unable to handle much more of his disdain. “I’ll see you Sunday night.”

  Dean let out a heavy sigh. “Creigh.”

  “Just…don’t.” Shaking her head, Creigh turned and walked from the room, head held high, holding on to what little pride she had left.

  ———

  The early dusk of the evening hadn’t turned the night sky completely dark yet, but Dean still needed the lights of his garage to see what was going on under the hood of his 1967 Chevy Impala. Of course, seeing the engine didn’t mean it was running any better than it did the last time he tinkered with the car. It was definitely a work in progress. One that helped put his mind at ease, at least for a while. It also kept him from doing something stupid like driving over to his old house and forcing Creigh to tell him the name of the man who’d dared to touch her. All Dean needed was a name. The rest he could find out for himself. And once he did, Dean would make that slimy bastard pay for ever looking in Creigh’s direction.

  It was bad enough the lowlife had made love to Creigh and impregnated her, but then to have him refuse to step up to the plate was something Dean just could not abide. And he hated like hell that Creigh had to.

  Man, she’d looked tired. Her beautiful brown eyes, normally so expressive and full of life, had been dull, lifeless even. Her mocha-tinged skin was far from glowing. Pregnancy had never been something she’d taken to well, and it didn’t appear as if the third time was going to be the charm either. Yet despite the bags, the dull eyes, and the paling brown skin, there was something about her that took his breath away.

  That was no real surprise, though. To him Creigh was, hands down, the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth. She always had been, and Dean knew she would always be to him. She was the mother of his children, his childhood sweetheart, the woman he compared every other woman to, even now when he went out on dates.

  No matter who was sitting across from him, they all paled in comparison. Blondes did absolutely nothing for him. Back in the day, before they became what they were now, Creigh used to tease him about how she’d ruined him for all other women. That once he went black, he’d never go back. He’d be damned if she wasn’t correct. But it wasn’t just black women in general. It was his black woman he wanted. The one who had the nerve to share her body, the body he still considered his, with someone else.

  Dean released a pent-up breath and tightened his grip on the ratchet, giving the tool an extra torque just to relieve a bit of the tension bottled inside him. The move didn’t help, though. Just as the hole he punched in the kitchen wall after she’d stormed out didn’t make him feel better. Nothing short of burying her former lover six feet under would.

  The shine of headlights heading up his driveway pulled Dean from his murderous thoughts. He lifted his head to stare around the edge of the sleek black car. Dean immediately recognized his older brother Gino’s silver SUV and groaned. Love his siblings as he did, there wasn’t a week that went by he didn’t regret moving onto a block where two of them owned homes. Boundaries weren’t something De Lucas understood very well.

  Standing, Dean placed the tool back in its correct slot, then grabbed a rag and wiped the grease from his hands. He shoved the smudged cloth in his back pocket and waited until the older man turned off the engine to his truck and stepped out before greeting him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in lieu of a customary greeting. It was family. He didn’t have to be polite.

  “I was driving home and saw you fiddling around with this old wreck, so I stopped by.” Gino strolled toward him with a cocky, know-it-all grin on his handsome face. A face that had been on the receiving end of way too many brawls, stitches, and kisses, and left the handsome boxer with scars, trick joints, and a nose broken too many times to count. All factors which fed into Gino’s overbearing personality. Gino never met a conversation he hadn’t had a comment on. And he never understo
od some things weren’t his business. He was old-school in a lot of ways, and if it involved any member of his family, then it was his business too. “You never mess with this thing unless you’re trying to work something out in your mind.”

  Gino knew him so well, but that didn’t mean Dean was going to admit it. His problems were his own, especially when they were of this caliber. “Nothing is on my mind except finally getting this baby running.” Dean patted the Impala lovingly.

  “Lies. You want to try again?”

  There was nothing he wanted to try less. Ignoring his brother, Dean walked back to the open hood and peered in again.

  “Well?” Gino followed him, much to Dean’s dismay. “You want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Dean gestured to the toolbox behind Gino. “Hand me the open-end wrench.”

  “You don’t need a wrench; you need an exorcist for this piece of shit,” Gino grumbled as he did as Dean asked.

  “All she needs is a little love.” And fifty grand to help cover the things love didn’t.

  “And you need to learn to talk to people when you’re upset and not come out here and play with your toys.”

  “While I’m learning that, will you be learning how to mind your own business?”

  “I already do know how. I just choose not to.”

  “There’s a surprise,” Dean muttered under his breath as he began to work anew on his first love. Gino allowed Dean to putter around under the hood for a few grateful minutes before he began to beat the dead horse again.

  “Help me out here, little brother. What’s today?”

  “Friday.” Dean couldn’t see the trap, but he knew it was coming.

  “The kids here?”

  “Yes. They’re inside watching TV.” And thankfully behaving. Unlike their Uncle Gino, though, the kids knew better than to bother him when he was working on his car.

  Gino gave a self-satisfied snort. “That explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?”

  “The mood. The ex-Mrs. strikes again.”

  “You’re way off base.”

  “Doubtful. Even after all this time, she can still push your buttons.”

  Dean stiffened. “I have no feelings about Creigh in any way, shape, or form.” Dean walked over to his toolbox and fiddled around with it for a moment, trying to get his bearings. Maybe if he stayed over here long enough, Gino might get the hint and head home.

  “Right.” Gino snorted and headed over to the small refrigerator Dean had set up in the garage and grabbed two bottles of beer. “Want one?”

  Fuck. He wasn’t going away.

  Instead of taking it right away, Dean weighed the pros and cons. Pro, a beer. Con, an opening Gino would use to grill him. But that was something he was probably going to do anyway, so Dean took the beer, needing the alcohol to dull his senses and make his brother’s words even less memorable.

  Gino opened the bottle of beer and leaned back against the Impala. “Do you want to tell me what Creigh did that has you in such a snit?”

  Dean took a deep drink, then set the bottle on the hood of the car. “She didn’t do anything.” Except fuck some other man.

  “She came by. Obviously that was enough to send you out here to the pit of despair.”

  “As usual you don’t know what you’re talking about, not that it stops you from yapping your gums. I’m just out here working on my car. End of story.”

  “If only that was the case. These days it seems you only work on the beast when you’ve had a run-in with Creigh.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Serge’s noticed too.”

  Dean rolled his eyes. His wet-behind-the-ears brother knew even less about jack crap than their elder brother did. “Well why didn’t you say so? Sergio said something. It must be law.”

  “Don’t go discounting the brat just because he’s younger.”

  “He doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.”

  Gino laughed. “True, but Serge doesn’t miss much. And now he’s working over there with her at the flower shop—”

  “Whoa.” Dean’s head snapped back. “Wait up. Say that again.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.” Dean snatched his bottle up. What the hell was that all about?

  “Creigh gave him a part-time job.”

  “No one told me.”

  Gino arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t know anyone had to. Her shop after all.” Gino tilted his head to the side. “What, you have a problem with that? Think she’ll make a move on him or vice versa?”

  Now that was funny. Creigh and Sergio. “Hell no. Her memory is longer than an elephant’s. She can remember when he pissed in his bed. Not a sexy thing to know about a new potential lover.”

  “That’s true.” Gino laughed. “Serge isn’t bringing the sexy; that’s for sure. Besides, you should think of this in an entirely different way. He can keep an eye on her when he’s at work.”

  “I won’t have him spying on her.” Creigh would hate it, and Dean would hate knowing what she did every hour of the day. Especially things that pleased her. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want her to be happy; he just didn’t need the evidence of it rubbed in his face when it was more than obvious he wasn’t content.

  “Come on. It’s me you’re talking to.” Gino held his hands out wide. “You don’t have to pretend you’re over her.”

  “I am over her. She’s over me.” A fact she couldn’t have made more obvious if she tried. “We’ve both moved on. So drop it.”

  “Move on. Please. You don’t know how to be without her. You’ve been chasing after her since she was Harlow’s age. I sincerely doubt a little piece of paper is going to change all of that.”

  Frowning, Dean pulled his rag out of his back pocket and began to wipe his hands again, even though they weren’t dirty. It was better than knocking his brother on his ass. “Don’t say it like that. It sounds perverted.” Just the thought of boys having the same sort of ideas for his daughter as he’d had for Creigh made Dean nauseated. Not his baby girl. Not ever.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “We were just kids back then.”

  “You might not have known about the birds and the bees, but you knew what you wanted, and it was Creigh. It’s always been Creigh.”

  Dean grimaced. Gino wasn’t telling Dean anything he didn’t already know. He was the one living the life Gino was narrating, after all. “I went out with other girls, slept with other girls.”

  “Only because she didn’t know you were alive. It took a long time for her to graduate from the tomboy stage, but when she did, that was it. You were a goner. Still are.”

  “If I’m such a goner, then why am I sitting here in my garage with you, instead of at my home cuddled up with her?”

  “Because you fucked up.”

  “I fucked up?” Dean tossed the rag on the ground. “She’s the one who filed for divorce, not me.”

  “No, but she didn’t wake up one day and decide to leave you. Things were bad between the two of you for a while there. You know it and I know it.”

  “Oh and that’s my fault?”

  “I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “You guys married too young. Had kids right away, then bam, you go from horny kids to adults. Things are bound to get screwed up when you move fast. Maybe she started to feel neglected and you began to wonder what you were missing out on. Other women started looking good to you.”

  “I was faithful.” Every day of their life together up to the day she kicked him out. But even then he’d waited. Waited and hoped she would come back to her senses.

  “Until you moved out.”

  “She kicked me out.” What was with everyone rewriting history tonight?

  “A fact you used as an excuse to fuck anything standing.”

  His brother couldn’t have
been any further from the truth if he tried. “The hell I did.” Dean wasn’t sure where Gino had gotten his information, but as usual it was all kinds of wrong. Yes, Dean had begun to date, but only when Creigh had made it more than clear he wasn’t welcome back home. Some of those dates had led to more, but they were vastly outnumbered by the nights he spent sitting in his car outside his old house watching his family move on without him. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Instead of answering Dean’s question, Gino plowed on. “You know what I don’t understand?”

  “The concept of bros before hos?” Dean grumbled before taking a deep drink from his beer.

  “Is how,” Gino continued as if his brother hadn’t spoken, “you two have lasted apart this long. To be honest I never thought it would get as far as it did.”

  “Surprise, surprise; you don’t know everything.”

  “It’s apparently hereditary, little brother, because you don’t either, and maybe it’s time you admit it to yourself and to Creigh.”

  “She doesn’t need me to admit anything.” She didn’t need him for anything. A fact she’d made more than apparent.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?” The disbelief was evident in both his brother’s voice and his leveled stare. “There’s nothing you need to say to her? Nothing at all?”

  Dean looked away. Okay, maybe there was something he needed to say after today’s little altercation. Something he’d wanted to get off his chest and across to her before she’d darted out the door. “Well, maybe one thing.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Gino stretched and stood. “You know, I don’t have plans for tonight.”

  “I’ll alert the presses.” His brother was the biggest himbo to ever walk the earth.

  “And to save my niece and nephew from your shitty attitude, I’m going to hang out here while you go have a talk with Creigh.”

  Dean stared at his brother for a few seconds. If he went and did this, he’d never hear the end of it from Gino about how right he was, but at the same time, he’d get some face-to-face time alone with Creigh to do what it was he should have done earlier. It was a no-brainer. He was used to Gino giving him shit, but there was no way in hell Dean would ever allow himself to become used to the look of devastation in Creigh’s eyes right before she’d left. The way he’d acted was wrong, and he had to make amends or risk losing what little feelings remained between them for good. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”