“You want me to be her macaroni and cheese?”
“Yep.”
I chuckled. “I love you.”
She reached over and rested her hand on mine, giving it a tiny squeeze. “You should.”
“I loved him too.” I blinked and let several tears fall for Craig.
“I know you did. Everyone knew. You have four beautiful souls living on this earth because of that love. I’ve never told you to forgive yourself because there’s nothing to forgive. It’s okay to fall in love. And it’s just as okay to fall out of love.”
Chapter 23
I’m not a goose. I am a duck. And I’m okay with it
“Hi.” Perched on the bottom stair, I smiled at Bella the second she opened the front door.
She paused, eyeing me with an unreadable expression. Then she shut the door and pulled off her boots. “Did you have sex with him?” When she glanced up at me, unzipping her coat, her face wrinkled into pain or maybe it was disgust.
“Yes.”
She blew out a breath as if I’d punched her in the gut. “Oh my god, Mom. He’s young enough to be …”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Twelve. He’s twelve years younger than you. That’s just …”
“He’s twelve years older than you. And at Thanksgiving, you seemed to think that was an acceptable age difference.”
“So you decided to sleep with him because of me? You decided to what? Steal him before I could graduate and have him?”
“You’re going to college. He’s not. I don’t think you were going to have a summer fling with him.”
“It …” She shook her head over and over again, stomping past the stairs, straight to the kitchen. “It’s not about me. It’s about Amber and Tillie. Oh my god, Mom … he kissed you right in front of her. How could you do that to her?” Bella jerked open the fridge door and grabbed a carton of yogurt.
“I had sex with him before he had dinner with Tillie.”
“Stop!” She grimaced, peeling open the yogurt. “Stop saying you had sex with him.”
“Okay … so let’s revisit the conversation we had awhile back. You were okay with me having sex with Mike or Brian as long as I gave you a heads-up. But you’re not okay with Kael? Is it because I didn’t give you proper notice or because he’s twelve years younger than me?”
She shoveled the yogurt into her mouth, stress eating like I used to do. “It’s everything. It’s that he’s no longer the hot new guy with the cool store. He’s now the weird new guy screwing my mom.”
“Screwing me makes him weird?”
“Stop! Don’t say that.” She flinched like my words jolted her.
“Say what?” I laughed.
“Screwing.”
“It was your word, not mine.”
Fucked. I liked the word fuck. However, I had a strong vibe that Bella didn’t want to hear me say that either.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I … I don’t know. Tell me it’s over. Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me he’s going to be with Tillie or Amber. Tell me the rest of my senior year won’t be about you and your young boyfriend. Can you do that? Can you let something not be about your needs for a few more months while I finish school and get the hell out of here? I realize that’s hard for you. After all, you couldn’t hold your tongue last year just long enough to get through the holidays before asking Dad for a divorce.”
It was my turn to flinch. That hurt. Even if I deserved it. It still hurt.
Bella sighed, dropping her spoon in the sink and the yogurt carton into the trash. Then she rested her hands on the edge of the counter and hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s okay if you did.”
“No.” She turned, eyes red, regret bending her lips downward. “It’s not okay. And I didn’t mean it. I’m just …”
“Yes,” I whispered.
She lifted her gaze to meet mine. “Yes what?”
“Yes. I can stop letting things be about my needs. I never intended for my needs to overshadow yours, and it breaks my heart to know that’s what has happened. I’m … truly sorry, Bella.”
She forced a partial smile. It was sad. It was painful. I closed the distance between us and pressed my hands to her cheeks.
“It was just sex, right?” she asked. “You don’t love him. Right?”
I smiled. “I love you. And I love your brothers. And in spite of how things ended, I loved your dad. He was, for so many years, the love of my life. We did great things together.” I kissed her forehead so she would know without a doubt that she was one of those great things. “But sometimes we change, and sometimes the passion dies. This goes against everything I was raised to believe. But I’m not sure if humans are meant to mate for life.”
She pulled back and released a tiny giggle. “Mate for life?”
I shrugged. “The divorce rate isn’t exactly low. And it’s higher for people who get married when they’re young. Maybe it’s because they are young, or maybe it’s just a lot of time to spend with one person. I married your dad when I was twenty. And we stayed married for twenty-two years. Most of them were really good years. We weren’t a failure. Not in my eyes. And you’re proof of that. So are your brothers.”
She didn’t respond right away, but I waited for her to tell me what she needed. I focused on my world—my truest love.
“Was it just once? Like a drunk mistake?”
“Kael?” I asked for clarification. I knew what she meant, but I needed to buy a few extra seconds to respond.
Tell her the truth.
Amie’s words jumped to the front of my mind. I avoided answering the love question because I really didn’t know how to answer it. Or maybe I did, I just couldn’t put my heart through verbally acknowledging it.
“It was more than once. And we were sober.”
“Mom …” Her face soured again. “Whose idea was it?”
I rolled my eyes on a slight chuckle. “It was mutual.”
“Was it here? God … tell me it wasn’t here.”
“Bella,” I stroked her hair. “This is clearly distressing to you. And it shouldn’t be. It’s over.”
Okay, my heart definitely felt that. I had to take a hard swallow to let that truth slide past said heart.
“So …” I continued. “There’s no need to talk about it. If I recall correctly, you don’t like talking about sex with me.”
She nodded a half dozen times. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. Like … ever. And I’m never going into his store again.”
“Good call.”
Curling her hair behind her ears, she headed toward the stairs. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
She drummed her fingernails on the railing a few times with a sheepish grin on her lips. “Maybe just one sex question.”
I braced for it and cleared my throat. “Anything.”
“At your age, is it still…” she scraped her teeth along her top lip several times “…good?”
Restraining my full grin, I replied softly, “Yes.”
Rubbing her lips together, she nodded some more. “Okay.” After climbing two more steps, she stopped. “One more. Then I’ll be done. Promise.”
I slid my fingers in the back pockets of my jeans. “Ask away.”
“Do you think you’ll fall in love again? The kind of love you felt for Dad when you first fell in love with him?”
That girl … she knew how to wring all the emotions from me. “That would be amazing, wouldn’t it?”
“You deserve it. I mean … not until I’m out of Epperly, but someday you should open your heart to fall in love again.”
I smiled. “Thanks. Your blessing means a lot.”
Her grin doubled and she finished making her way up the stairs without asking any more questions.
* * *
Bella didn’t stay for dinner, so I ate alone and focused on how awesome it was to be alone. I had a lot of alo
ne time on my calendar. In fact, I had a good five months until she graduated. Five months of sitting at home with Meadow, quilting, reading, taking walks, and not thinking about my physical needs.
I could do it.
I pretty much did it for the last few years of my marriage.
After dinner, I took Meadow for a walk in the dark because I didn’t care to be seen out and about in the light of day. Not yet.
Maybe it was by chance or maybe it was subconsciously intentional, but I found myself standing in front of Kael’s house all decorated in holiday lights. Making a quick glance around for peering eyes, I hurried up his walk and knocked on his front door.
A few seconds later, he opened it, making a quick inspection of Meadow before eyeing me with a curled lip expression.
“What’s the damage?”
His eyes narrowed a fraction.
“At your store. I broke a lot of bottles behind your register. What do I owe you?”
He nodded slowly. “Is that why you’re here? To write me a check?”
“No. I don’t have my checkbook. I was just in the area, and I thought I’d stop by and ask so I can get you a check tomorrow.”
“Do you want to come inside?”
“Why? Do you have to add up the total?”
“No. I just don’t think that’s why you’re here. So I assume you want to come inside.”
“I don’t. We’re over. This isn’t a booty call.”
“I didn’t figure.” He nodded toward Meadow. “Booty calls don’t usually involve dogs. And why exactly are we over?” He cocked his head to the side.
“Because you had to make a big display, and now the whole town knows.”
“Fuck the town.”
“I can’t. My daughter is in high school. And she deserves better than her mom fucking the new guy or the whole town for that matter. My selfishness took her dad away almost a year ago. I’m not going to make the rest of her senior year a miserable experience because everyone’s talking about her mom screwing a guy who is twelve years younger than me and twelve years older than my daughter.”
A line of concern formed along the bridge of his nose. “That sucks. I’m sorry. It’s…” he nodded behind him “…okay for you to step inside. It’s cold. And to my knowledge, no one is spying on my house.”
I looked around and stepped inside, against my better judgment. But if I were being honest, all of my judgment by that point was bad.
“Lie down, Meadow.” I dropped her leash and pointed to the entry rug. She obeyed as I removed my boots.
“Hot chocolate? Tea? Cider? Wine? Beer?” Kael rolled out the welcome wagon as I removed my jacket.
“I’m good.” I walked around and took notice of all the things I missed the day I was there for sex and only sex.
A fire burned in his fireplace, a Christmas tree twinkled with little white lights in the corner of his living room, modern furnishings dotted the open spaces, and black and white photos accented his bright blue walls.
“I visited Tillie.”
My head snapped to the side, gaze ripping away from the photo of him and his parents. “You did?”
“I did.” He took a seat on his sofa, resting one ankle on his opposing knee.
“And?”
“And she’s good. Disappointed. But good.”
“Disappointed in me or you?”
“Both.”
I frowned.
“Disappointed that I don’t want to go to church with her, date her, and eventually get married. I think it helped when she realized that it’s not her. But that’s also when she realized that you must know this already, so she just came out and asked me if we’d had sex.”
My shoulders slumped. “And what did you say?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “What do you think I said?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m the town whore.”
“No. That’s not what I said.”
I dropped my hand from my face and tried to grin, but I failed. “That’s not what I meant. I’m saying it as a fact, not that I think you told her that.”
“She deduced that on her own, especially after I told her about licking your pussy in the back of your Tahoe on Thanksgiving.”
Nausea roiled in my stomach. For a few seconds, I honestly didn’t know if he was joking or not, probably because I was stunned by his crass and very blunt recollection of that event.
“Joke. That was a joke. Elsie. Take a breath.” He chuckled.
I took a breath, but it did little to make me feel better. “Well … it would appear I’m done going to church here. Or leaving the house for that matter. Maybe Bella will do my grocery shopping.”
“Would it help if I left?”
“What do you mean?”
He rested both feet on the ground, leaned forward, and planted his elbows on his knees, hands folded in front of him. “What if I closed my store and just … moved on? I wasn’t going to stay here forever anyway. We both know that. If I left now, maybe the rumors and gossip would die down quicker. You could leave your house, and Bella could finish her senior year in peace.”
“You just opened your store. You renovated it. Surely you have a business loan for all of that.”
He nodded. “I do. But I’d find work in some other place and pay it off eventually.”
“No. You stay. It’s five months until she graduates. I’ll sell my house. We’ll go stay with my parents in Arizona this summer. And after Bella starts school in the fall, I’ll figure out what to do from there.”
“Arizona in the summer. Sounds miserable.”
“Bella loves the heat. Me? Not as much. But I won’t melt.”
He stared at his folded hands. “You should do what you need to do. But for the record, I will miss you.”
“Until you won’t. You’re not a goose or a wolf or a beaver. You’re a duck. I’m a duck. We’ll find other people to fu—”
“Don’t.” Kael shook his head. “I would never guess you’re forty-two, but if you finish that sentence to make it rhyme, I will buy you denture cream and a girdle.”
“Fuck.” I giggled, shuffling my fuzzy-socked feet to him.
He unclasped his hands and pulled me between his legs. My hands rested on his shoulders and his rested on the back of my thighs. When he dropped his forehead against my belly, I threaded my fingers through his hair.
“I love you, Elsie. And I’m not saying it to change your mind about anything. I’m saying it because I think you need to hear it. And I’m saying it because I hate that we were together so many times and you thought I was incapable of love. So …” He lifted his head and gazed up into my eyes. “I love you. I regret nothing. And I will miss you.”
“You’re no goose.”
Kael chuckled. “I’m not a goose. I’m a duck. And I’m okay with it. I’m just saying right now, and maybe for many more nows to come, this duck loves you.”
“And this duck loves you too. But … I love my daughter more. I love her like a goose would. And she needs me to be boring and practice sexual abstinence until she graduates and moves away from Epperly.”
“I understand.”
Taking a few steps back, I continued inspecting his place. “For a wanderer … a nomad … you don’t hesitate to really make a home. I mean … your walls are painted a blue that I’d bet wasn’t the color on them when you moved in. And all the photos on the wall—it feels homey, and that doesn’t fit the thirty-year-old guy who doesn’t like commitment.”
“I disagree.” He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “It fits the guy who lives in the now. For now, I’m here. And now is all I have. So paint the walls, hang photos, get a few house plants, and a welcome mat—anything less is just waiting for something better.”
I liked his eyes on me even if I never understood why …
So I asked, “Why me?” Adjusting one of the ornaments on his tree, I kept my focus away from his expression. It was a hard question to ask. And maybe it sounde
d insecure, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t love him because he was thirty and looked like Captain America. That would have been attraction. That would have made it easy to have a one-night stand.
“Why Epperly? Why blue paint? Why grilled cheese for dinner? It’s just a feeling. A lingering feeling. Some feelings are fleeting. Some stay with you, demanding you pay attention. They are unforgettable. It was sex …”
“Until it wasn’t …” I whispered, turning toward him.
“Until it wasn’t …” He nodded. “It’s the way you blush and divert your gaze when I say something nice about you. Then, in the next moment, you’re threatening to ‘take me down.’ It’s jumping into a freezing lake then hopping into a hot tub. It’s this invigorating feeling. It’s awakening. And honestly, it feels good to let myself love you, knowing you expect nothing because you’ve already had everything. And you don’t really need me.”
Kael saw the version of myself that I wanted to be long before I got there.
“What makes you think I don’t need you?”
“You’re here.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
He stood and made his way to me, my heart beating faster and harder with each step. I shivered when he gently brushed the palm of his hand over my cheek. “You’re here to say goodbye.”
Tears burned my eyes. “Yes.”
The pad of his thumb caught the first tear. “It was a moment … at Spoons when I turned around and exposed us to all of Epperly … it was a moment. A feeling. I had to jump. I needed to know what it felt like to love you in front of the world. I needed to let us shine, if only for a few seconds before everything collapsed around us.”
I rested my hand over his, leaning into his touch. “How did it feel?”
He smiled. “You tell me.”
“It felt … freeing. It felt … real.”
Kael kissed me, confirming that it was real, reminding me that life was nothing but a moment, and no one was guaranteed more than one. We were real, even if we weren’t forever.
It took a long time to let go. Some moments deserved extra seconds … a few more breaths.
Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set Page 62
