"What the fuck do you mean she's gone?" I asked James at the inn two afternoons later.
He had led me into the dining room, and as I objected, casually informed me that it was okay because Cordelia was gone.
He shrugged a shoulder. "The day Myra hired her," he said, sitting down, "we just never saw her again. When she didn't show up to work with Em in the morning, Dev got worried and went up to check on her... and all of her stuff was gone. She had the design plans for the inn and your nursery spread over her bed so no one could make her come back."
"How the hell did you not see her leave?"
"I guess she sneaked out while everyone was sleeping or something. We've all tried calling her, but she's not picking up. I guess she just finally had enough. I had Elliott check in on her though."
"How is she?" I asked, sounding more needy than I should.
"He said she's not great, but that she'll be fine. He's sending her to California in a few weeks."
"No fucking way," I said, shaking my head. Could she catch no breaks in her life?
"I guess it's good for her. Let her life get back to normal," he said, but there was a look on his face that made me not believe him.
"What?"
He shook his head. "Her life sucked, man. And now it's all she's got. She won't even reach out to us. We all got really close when she was staying here. But maybe it's too painful for her. She just wanted a clean break."
Which was probably for the best. She was never going to move on if she kept ties to Stars Landing. But it didn't make me worry any less about her. What did she really have to go back to? An office where she slept on the couch? Endless hotel rooms? Her books?
"If you ever hear from her..."
"I'll let you know," he nodded.
But he never did. And I didn't quite know if it was because he just hadn't heard from her, or because he didn't want me to know what he had heard.
The nursery came together with the help of Cordy's plans and I once found myself staring down at her neat, swirly handwriting for a long five minutes before I shook myself out of it. Myra nested and got bigger and bigger. She ate nothing but chicken noodle soup and oatmeal cookies. She yelled at the baby to pop out already.
Then, one day, he did.
It was the middle of October, almost a full two weeks past her delivery date, she came out to the living room, her eyes big, a bag in her hand. "My contractions are six minutes apart."
I never jumped up so fast in my life. "Why the fuck didn't you wake me up sooner?"
"What were you gonna do? Wipe my brow and look at me with fear in your eyes? No thank you."
A few surprisingly short hours later, there was a screaming little mound of pink flesh, his face all scrunched up in anger as he wailed loud enough to wake the devil. "Aren't you like... supposed to be crying or something?" I asked her as I watched her hold Caleb for the first time.
She rolled her eyes at me then looked back down at her chest. "Listen, I'm sure I'll be whipping a boob out around you a lot in the future," she said with a pointed look as she shifted the wailing baby, "but do you mind just..."
I raised a brow, snorting at her modesty. "I've had those in my mouth before, you know,"
I said and the nurse stifled a laugh.
"Your father is a butt head," she said down at the baby.
"You're mother is a liar," I shot back.
We could make the parenting thing work. I barely had to spend ten minutes with her and Caleb to know there would be a compatibility there. The sarcasm, the light-hearted digs. We got along well. And we would have a similar mindset about the kid as he grew up.
After the fourth sleepless night, the second I walked into the door after my shift at the bar, she shoved him in my arms and stormed off. "But I don't have the milk machines," I called as she slammed the bedroom door.
"Well," I said down at him, wriggling and crying. "I could try mama birding you. Care for some regurgitated steak?"
The door to the bedroom burst open. "How did you do that?" she demanded, her eyes red and small.
"Do what?" I asked, pushing him up on my shoulder.
"Get him to stop screaming? All he does is cry. He never even stops for breath. I'm going to lose my freaking mind."
"Maybe he just likes me better," I teased. "Go get some sleep," I said, shaking my head. "I got him tonight."
I woke up the next morning to her sitting at my feet, the baby clutched to her breast, suckling greedily. She looked warm and maternal and rested.
"So we've reached this level of intimacy," she said, waving a hand toward her chest. "I think it's time to tell me what's wrong with you."
I sat up groggily. "What are you talking about?"
"Well," she said, spreading her feet out on the space I had vacated. "When you were in California, you were cocky and carefree and you had this... light in your eyes." She shrugged.
"But now you seem... weighted and stressed and your eyes are always sad. If it's because of me and the..."
"Stop," I said, shaking my head. "Don't do that. I'm happy to have you here. And to raise that demon you call a baby..."
"Then why are you so wrecked?"
"I'm not. I'm fine," I said, walking toward the kitchen and making coffee. Strong. I was going to need gallons of it to get through the day.
"Listen, if whatever this is with us," she said, sounding reasonable, "is going to work, we need to be honest with each other." She paused and I could feel her eyes on my back. "What's her name?"
"What?" I swung back around.
"That's what I thought," she said, smiling wisely. "I knew it had to be a woman. What else can bring a man like you down a few pegs. Who is she?"
I could have lied. I could have tried to keep up the charade, but I was so tired of it all. "Cordelia."
"What's... wait," she said, sitting up suddenly. "Cordelia Cameron? The decorator? How? When?"
"Before you showed up. We had been dating for a little while and..."
"No," she said, fiercely enough that I didn't go on. "Did you dump her? Because of me?"
"Myra, I wanted to do the right..."
"The right thing is to be with someone you love enough that even now, what, five... six months later... still has that look in your eye."
I shook my head, taking a deep breath. This was the last argument I expected to be having. What woman didn't want you to step up and be a man when you knocked her up?
"Myra," I said, my tone resigned. "Caleb should grow up..."
"With a mother who isn't a pity prize and a father who isn't a miserable wretch because he missed out on having a life with a woman he loved."
"You're not a pity prize," I objected. She was actually pretty spectacular. It bothered me that she thought I thought any differently. "And I think it's important for a kid to grow up with a stable family."
She got up slowly, carrying Caleb into his room and putting him down in his crib. She was still tucking her breast away when she came back out. "Look," she said, sighing, "there are a lot of different kinds of families out there, Dane. Just because mommy and daddy don't sleep in the same bed doesn't mean it isn't as good as a family where they do. There are plenty of parents who hate each other but stay together for the kids. You don't think the kids see that? Feel that? Wouldn't it be better for them to split up and be happy apart?"
"I don't think..."
"I want Caleb to grow up knowing what healthy relationships look like. I want him to see love. I don't want him to see two people who are begrudgingly together because they think it's better for him. He deserves better. And so do you. So do I."
"How am I supposed to help you with him when..."
"How about you let me think about that? You go figure out how you're going to get that poor woman back. I don't think she's going to welcome you with open arms."
She turned to walk away. "Myra," I called.
"Yeah?" she asked, turning.
; "You're going to be a fucking amazing mother."
She smiled slowly, making her green eyes shine bright. "I know."
"Hey," I called as she went to leave again, "aren't you supposed to say that I'm going to be a good father?"
"I don't know. Prove it. Go get your girl back." Then she closed the bedroom door, leaving me standing there a little too dumbstruck to move.
But when I finally did, I knew right where I needed to go.
I threw the door open, smelling the coffee and the fresh brownies from Lena's delivery a little while before.
"I need a copy of 'Pride and Prejudice'," I called into the empty store. He was there. He was always there. I ran my hands over the titles on the shelves, hoping to find it myself and start reading.
"Three shelves over," Liam's voice called. I found the little tan book with two female faces on it, bringing it back to the cafe to be rung up. "That's an odd choice for you," Liam said, eying me.
"Research," I grumbled, having the distinct impression I was buying a girly book.
"What do you need to know?" a female voice asked behind me, making me turn. It was the girl from the inn. Riley something or other. Apparently she and Liam had gotten pretty close. How had I missed that?
"I need to know what 'how ardently' means."
"' In vain I have struggled,'" she started automatically, like she could recall any text from simple memory. "'It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed...'"
"'You must allow me,'" Liam continued and if I wasn't so consumed with finding out the meaning of her tattoo, I would have found their little display hysterical, "'to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.'"
Well hell. That was good news, wasn't it? That she was willing to tattoo that on her body forever? "What's a good quote to go along with that?"
Liam snorted, pushing the book against my chest.
"Just read the book," Riley said, rolling her eyes and going back to something she was writing in a notebook.
"You two should fuck," I said, looking between their shocked faces with a smirk. Then I left. I stood behind the bar my entire shift ignoring customers and reading the book. I finished it by the end of my shift and sat at the kitchen counter in my apartment until the sun was high in
the sky the next morning.
"You figure it out?" Myra asked, going into the fridge to make breakfast.
"Yeah," I said, nodding.
"And you're still here because..."
"Because I need to make sure you have someone to help you with the baby when I'm gone."
She turned to me, putting the carton of eggs on the counter and looking at me like I was an idiot. "When you're ready to go, I'm having Lena come help," she shrugged. "She wants the practice. She's going to be due soon. How about," she said, leaning on the counter, "when there's a problem, you come to me about it. Chances are, I've already fixed it."
I found myself laughing. "Oh, Myra. You're going to make some poor fucker really blissfully miserable one day."
"Yep," she said, bouncing back to the stove and starting to cook. "So when are you leaving?"
"A couple weeks," I shrugged.
"What? Why would you wait so long?"
"I need to settle things with the bar. And I want to spend some time with my son. I'll head up soon. I need to have a plan."
Two days before Thanksgiving, I got in the car and I went to get my girl.
Twenty-four
Cordelia
The Universe couldn't be freaking serious. What did he have some kind of radar? When I was finally starting to be okay again, he showed up and screwed it all up. Uh-oh, Cordy might be happy... better put an end to that before it gets out of hand.
"I can't imagine how it's any of your business if he, or any other man, can give me an orgasm," I said, proud of my even tone.
What the hell was he doing there? He had a brand new baby to take care of. He should have been in Stars Landing being a father, not breaking into my office and commenting on my love life.
Even as I tried to work myself up into an indignant anger, the sight of him was making my stomach do all kinds of swirling and wobbling and fluttering and all those weird things I remembered used to happen around him. It had been almost half a year without him and he still had control over my body.
He was toying with the edge of one of my material swatches. His eyes met mine, amused, arrogant... so Dane that it hurt. "It's hiding away again, huh?" he asked, moving around the desk. "I can guarantee spring is coming."
"Really? A groundhog's day reference?" I asked, trying to not back away from him. "You really..." But I didn't get to finish my sentence. He reached out, grabbing my hips and pushing me back against my desk. His hands hauled the hem of my skirt up and his fingers dove inside my panties. His thumb brushed over my clit making me suck in my breath. God, it had been so long. I thought my body had slowly forgotten what is was capable of. Over time the ever-present aching need slowly started to fade into the background, became a fuzzy memory.
He leaned forward, grabbing my lower lip between his teeth and pulling. His hand went to the back of my neck, grabbing hard as his mouth came down on mine, hard, demanding, full of the promise of dominance that I used to go over the moon for. Two fingers pushed inside me, my head falling backward as his mouth moved to the sensitive skin of my neck. My breath was coming out as husky gasps as I felt him driving my body upward fast. Easy. It was so easy for him.
"You're going to cry out my name when you come," he said, taking the lobe of my ear in his mouth and sucking on it. His thumb pressed against my clit and I was crashing and flying at the same time.
I tried to bite into my lip to keep from letting his name slip out, but he continued to stroke as my body pulsated around him and I lost even the concept of control. "Dane," I groaned, eyes closed, slowly falling back down into my body.
My eyes opened slowly as he slipped out of me. "Told you so," he smirked, looking way too proud of himself.
"You're an asshole," I said, pushing my skirt down and moving away from him. Space. I needed space. Because apparently I couldn't keep my freaking panties on anywhere near him.
"Yep," he agreed, sitting down in my office chair and watching me with those awful, wonderful golden eyes.
I turned away from him, needing a second to pull myself together. Needing to shake off the fuzzy aftermath of an orgasm. How the hell could I let that happen... again? I swore after the last time, pressed against that building, when Myra showed up, that it would never happen again. I would never be that woman again.
My hand went to my face, rubbing at the headache that was forming between my eyes.
Jesus. Poor Myra. She probably had no idea what a horndog she was stuck with.
"Not even gonna talk to me?" he asked after a minute.
"Go home and talk to Myra," I said, wincing at the bitterness in my tone.
"See," he said and I could hear him standing, "that's the thing. Myra and I have talked."
"Congratulations," I said, sitting down on my couch and unbuckling my heels. I needed something to focus on. Until he left. Which was bound to be any moment. There was nothing left for us. If he was here with some half-assed proposition about me being his mistress or side chick or whatever the hell it was called... he was sorely mistaken.
"She's pretty pissed off at me."
"Shocking," I grumbled, kicking one shoe off.
He let out a low, rumbling chuckle I felt reverberate into my bones. "You're really sexy when you're being a bitch."
"Oh, my mission in life," I said, kicking out of my other shoe, feeling brave enough to look at him again, "to be sexy for a man with a woman and a baby at home."
"Anyway," he said, ignoring my comment, "she's mad at me... because I'm not with you."
"What?" I asked, my head snapping up, sure I had misheard him.
"Yeah," he said, leaning on the desk, his hands grabbing the edge. "She's not happy with the idea
that Caleb is going to grow up with a father who lost the love of his life so he could raise him."
The words fell hard inside, smashing up against the steel door where I had locked away all hope of ever having Dane in my life again and busting it open. "What?"
He gave me a small smile, pushing off my desk and moving across the room toward me. He dropped down on his knees at my feet, placed his hands on my knees and looked up at me. "By some weird, random twist of fate, Cordelia Cameron, you're the fucking love of my life. So if you'll kick that new suit guy to the curb, I'd really like you to spend the rest of your life driving me crazy."
"There's not," I started, finding it hard to talk past the pounding of my heart so hard I felt it in my throat. I shook my head. "There's never been anyone else but you."
"I know," he smirked, "it's really hard to find someone even half as good as me."
"Or as humble," I laughed. He reached up to touch my cheek and something caught my eye. "What's that?" I asked, reaching for his arm, the one I knew to be naked. But there were new tattoos there.
He sat back on his heels, shamelessly pulling his shirt up and over his head and dropping it carelessly back on the floor. He turned slightly toward the side so I could look. There on his shoulder was the ink imprint of a tiny little hand. Caleb's hand. I reached out to touch it, feeling Dane's eyes on me. "It's so tiny," I said, smiling. I had never really spent any time with babies. They were these vague ideas I wasn't exactly familiar with.
"Getting bigger everyday," he said, nodding.
My hand snaked around toward the underside of his bicep where words were printed, in the same location as his Kerouac quote on his other arm.
I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.
I felt a fluttering in my stomach as I read it, as I realized the meaning. " 'Pride and Prejudice'," I said, smiling at him.
"It's a good story. I particularly liked Wickham," he said, smiling wickedly.
"I would expect no better from you," I laughed.
His smile faded and he looked over at his arm for a second. "I thought it was time to start a new sleeve. For this new life. Father. Co-parent. Cordelia's lovesick puppy... you know..."
The Stars Landing Deviant Page 20
