To be clear—you're pregnant?”
“Very.” She tucked her head again, it was so much easier to talk of these things without looking into Beckett's eyes. “Beckett, did you love her?”
“I did. I was sixteen and I thought she was awesome. But she broke my heart. Not the way you did by paddling away, but by deciding she liked someone else. And it hurt and was awful for a while, but I got over her. Just because she was first doesn't make it important at all.”
“Did you ask her to marry you?”
“I did. When I was sixteen, right before I went into the army. But the contract was my Uncle Jimmy's doing, and—” Beckett's fingers stroked up and down on her arm. “It will take some legal finagling to sort through it all.”
Luna raised her head, frowning, a tear rolled down her nose, dropping to his chest. “It sounds really complicated.”
He said, “It is, it will be, but I'll figure it out. I'm going to talk to her tomorrow. Maybe we won't even need to involve the lawyers.”
Luna tucked her head into his chest again and nodded. “Yes, you should talk to her.”
She sobbed and tears poured down her face and her shoulders shook with her tears.
“Are you crying? I'm so sorry. I don't want you to worry, I promise I can fix this.”
Luna said, “It's just that's been my reason for not marrying you, complications, and here you are complicated with another girl.”
“Yeah,” Beckett kissed the top of her head. “Yeah, I know.”
Chapter 28
Beckett was enjoying the day to day with Luna. Her laugh was beautiful, like it sparked, and maybe he didn't know that before. Watching Chickadee's favorite sitcoms last night, Luna had laughed at every joke, even the lame ones. Or especially the lame ones. Chickadee had nudged Beckett. “Watch her.”
And he had. Luna giggling, sparkling and carefree. Her laugh had traveled through Dilly to Chickadee and then Beckett had stopped watching and had gotten caught up in it.
But today he didn’t have time for laughing. He had to go to Dryden’s house and talk some sense into her.
Luna followed Beckett to the truck, a raincoat over her head. He climbed in and rolled the window down to say goodbye.
Luna said, “Take deep breaths. It's only a contract.”
“Contracts are usually pretty serious though.”
She grinned, rivers of rain rolling down her hood. “Not when Roscoe is around.”
“True. You should get in the house, it's way too wet out here.”
“A little water never hurt anyone. Just don't try and figure anything out or worry too much. We'll get through this, whatever it is.” The rain poured around them.
Beckett leaned his temple on the steering wheel. “I'm kind of tired of just getting through though. I'd like to figure something out before it's a crisis for once.”
Luna nodded. “Yeah, I know. So that's why I'm amending that thing I just said — when in doubt, panic.”
“Panic?”
“Yep, throw a leg over the railing of your ship and bellyflop.”
“How will that help?”
“Element of surprise. You bellyflop in front of a girl and she'll do anything you ask.”
“Really?”
“Worked for me.” Luna leaned in to kiss Beckett on the dimple right beside his smile, and the small lake that had formed on top of her hood dumped into his lap. “Oops!”
Beckett chuckled. She patted the truck door, “I’ll see you when you get back!” spun around, and splashed away up the stairs to the porch, giggling the whole time.
Her giggles rang through his head as he drove the truck down the mountain and pulled into Dryden's driveway. The rain didn't seem like it would ever stop, maybe not ever, and it was getting on his last nerve. What he wanted to do was take Luna for a walk around the land showing her the West Forest and the Highland Trail and especially Bug Boulder. Beckett had found it and named it when he was seven years old because it looked like a big giant June Bug. When he was little Beckett would sit on it, sometimes he would pretend to ride it, and when his Uncle Jimmy had been on one of his terrorizing rampages Beckett would escape to the boulder and would stay there, sometimes overnight, until it was safe to go home.
Besides showing her around his land, he wanted to walk around the farmer's market with her, and the grocery store, and all his old haunts. He wanted to take her on the motorcycle, to Heighton Port to see Dan and Rebecca and Sarah.
Instead he was spending all the time in the house, in the barn, in bed. Out of the rain.
Bed was epic though.
He climbed out of the truck, raced to the steps, and leaned his collapsed umbrella on the porch. He remembered where to put it, in the space that Dryden's mom had long ago designated the umbrella and galoshes place. He banged on the door.
A minute later Dryden's voice called, “Coming!” She opened the door with a whoosh. “Oh, Beckett!” She threw herself on his chest, not minding his sopping wet raincoat, locking her arms around his neck.
He backed up trying to extricate himself from her grip, “Hi Dryden — we should talk.”
“I missed you so much, Beckett.” She clutched him tighter. “I didn't think I would ever see you again. I was so worried.” She avoided his eyes, swooped off his raincoat, and placed it on the hook reserved for guests, right beside his umbrella. She pulled him by the arm into the house. “Would you like something to eat, drink?” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“No thanks, I've had a big breakfast.” The living room was just as Beckett remembered it, orderly and excessively decorated, like how Beckett imagined a mom would keep a living room. Now it looked uncomfortable, but growing up Beckett had thought it was perfect.
Dryden's twittering laugh came from the kitchen. “Well, I can't compete with Dilly's cooking but I aim to try.” She swept back into the room with a tall glass of ice water and put it on the table in front of the couch. “I'm so glad you came Beckett, so so glad.” She gestured for him to sit and plopped down beside him, curled her feet up, and grasped his hand. “I'm just so happy you're back.” She pulled his hand to her lips, kissed the knuckle, and tucked it into her lap.
Beckett gingerly pulled his hand away, clapped it down on her knee in what he hoped was a friendly, yet not-romantic gesture.
“I guess you know why I'm here.” He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to figure out where to rest his hand out of her reach. “Chickadee tells me there's a contract of some—”
“Oh good, you heard. Yes, there's some stupid stack of papers that my dad and your uncle signed months and months ago. I read it, of course. It’s mostly boring legalese, but the point is: we get married and we share our estates. Our family benefits, of course, but all of that is just the extra. We can’t let it distract us from what’s important.” She pressed closer, now a centimeter between her hand on his chest.
Beckett leaned away into the arm of the couch. “What's important?”
“Us, Beckie, me and you. Ultimately the contract is just, you know, like a prenuptial agreement, that's all.”
“Me and you?”
Her hand touched down, the weight of her pressed on his chest. “Me and you. It's a legal document. But it’s just about us getting married. And that part is easy, because we’ve been together since I was sixteen years old. And I know I'm not perfect, that I hurt you, but I was young, I didn't know what I wanted.” Her fingers plucked at his shirt's fabric and rolled it between her fingers. “But I know now. There’s a contract, and so it’s easy. Me and you, together.”
Beckett was so shocked, he had trouble mounting the defense the situation required. Like walking home from the war he lumbered into a catastrophe without a good plan or even a good response. “Um...” He scrambled for what to add.
“I know you might have complications. But, the contract is about more than just our marriage. It’s about our families. Their safety. Since we’ve loved each other for so long it’s awesome that we can be to
gether, and we can help the people around us. It's the Universe's way of saying we're meant to be, I think. Don't you?”
Beckett, pinned on the couch, wanted up, but his brain had ceased functioning. His shoulder leading, he performed a shift and shimmy to standing.
Dryden's eyes squinted up at him in distrust. “Don't you?”
“Don't I what?” Beckett's brow furrowed.
“Think we are meant to be? The first time you asked me to marry you we were sixteen, now here we are, older, wiser, and our families support us. It’s time to do it. Get married.”
Beckett shook his head slowly from side to side. “Our families support us?”
“Yes, our families signed the contract. My dad and your Uncle Jimmy.”
“My Uncle Jimmy was only family in name. You know this Dryden. And as you know, he was a drunken asshole. Mean as a snake. You know this, you saw the bruises, my scars. You know what it was like for me. I don't understand how you can talk about this contract so flippantly like it's a family blessing.”
Dryden dropped her feet to the ground and sat up. “I'm sorry. I know he was awful, but there's this contract, and it's not my doings. I don't have anything to do with it. It's with my dad, and so there's nothing I can do but accept it. Luckily I love you. I always have. So it's easy to think of it as a blessing. The one good thing your Uncle Jimmy did.”
Beckett scrubbed his hands down his face. “You love me.”
“I always have, and I always will.”
“You’ve read the contract?”
“It's pretty basic — there's a bunch of stuff about land and taxes and the war effort. My brother’s war levy would be paid. That’s an extra part. But basically we share everything. But that's okay, right? Because we would once we were married, anyway. That's what you said, years ago.” Dryden fluffed and smoothed a pillow as she spoke.
Beckett took a deep breath, trying to unclench his teeth. “Dryden, I'm not going to marry you. I have someone, that I love, that I intend to marry.”
“That little nomad girl?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
Dryden flinched. “She can't be more than eighteen!”
“She's nineteen and that — that, is none of your business. Her name is Luna.”
“I just assumed she was one of Aunt Chickadee's 'projects' or your Aunt Dilly's love interests,”
“My Aunt Dilly's...what the hell? Dryden—”
Dryden crossed her arms over her chest with a pout. “You can't be serious about her.”
Red crept up Beckett's neck from his shirt collar. “I'm very serious about her, I love her.”
“Well, you aren't allowed to. You and I have a contract that says you're to marry me. My father says so. My brother needs his taxes paid. So you need to act like a grownup and accept that your dalliance with this little nomad girl can't last.” Dryden nervously adjusted the coasters on the coffee table and then looked up at him. “You want to marry a Nomad girl, give her half of everything you own, do you even know her?”
His anger was thudding in his ears. “I know her. I told you, I love her. I will marry her. I'm sorry you had to hear it this way, so suddenly, but this is what's happening.” He dropped into a chair. “You know, when I went into the army you said you loved me, that you always would. But guess what? Then you stopped. You blew me off by letter. You were going to marry someone else—”
“I made a mistake, I'm sorry.”
“But that's not how this works, and...” Beckett stared across the room searching for the words.
Dryden jumped up suddenly, rounded the coffee table, and dropped into his lap, pulling her long legs and awkward angles up, and folding into his un-welcoming arms. “Beckie, we loved each other. We can do this. We need to. Please don't, please.” Her forehead butted against his neck. “Please, we're supposed to get married, you promised.”
She kissed up his neck.
“I was sixteen.”
She nibbled on his earlobe. “Beckie, you loved me. You will again.”
“I can't.” He held his hands up, out, not touching.
She continued to kiss and nibble on his neck, rubbing on his chest, but Beckett sat unresponsive.
After a minute she huffed, shoved herself up, and glowered over him. “I won't allow it Beckett. You can't have her.”
“I don't see how you can say that. I love her. I promise you that. You don't want to marry me when I love someone else. You deserve better than that.”
“You might love her, but you love your house more, your farm, your land, your woods, your Bug Boulder.” Her forefinger punctuated the air as she listed the things he loved.
His eyes grew wide. “What are you saying?”
“I'm saying you can't have both.”
Chapter 29
Beckett slammed through the front door of the house and angrily stripped his raincoat off, tossing it to the ground. Chickadee fluttered in from the kitchen, but at the look on Beckett's face pulled to a stop. “What did that girl say?”
“She said she'll hold me to the contract. Call Roscoe, tell him I want a copy to read. Where's Luna?”
“She's with Dilly, with the goats, there's a birth.”
“Oh.” He grabbed his raincoat, tugged his arms back into it, and slammed out the front door of the house.
By the time he made it to the goat pen he was wet through. It was coming down in cascades. He made out Dilly and Luna leaned against a fence under the only lean-to roof in the whole area and noted to himself: build more roofs, literally everywhere.
When he made it to the fence Luna, seeing the despair on his face, said, “Oh no.”
“I don't know what I'm going to do, she's going to take it all.”
Luna said, “Oh Beckett, love, I'm so sorry.”
“It's like she hates me.”
Dilly said, “Chickadee would say she does, that she's a terrible person, but I can imagine the pressure she's under. Her family is pushing her to make this match. They have a contract. She's caught in the middle. She believed she could strike a deal with you because of your past, but didn't count on you not taking the deal. She's probably very stuck.”
“And my land is at stake.” He scowled, rain dripping down his face. “It's always been my number one priority to protect it.”
Luna gave him a small smile. “I'm so sorry that this is happening to you, but guess what?”
He raised his eyes. “What?”
“Jasmine is giving birth. Right now.” She turned her focus to the goat standing in the middle of the pen.
Beckett leaned on the fence beside Luna, arms wrapped, Luna's head on his shoulder. They watched the goat, standing, breathing, waiting. The scent of the fresh hay and the rain mingled to smell fragrant and new. Expectant. Beckett felt his body relax, until when Luna looked up at him with a big smile, he found himself able to smile back.
She said, “I love you, it's all going to be okay.”
“Thank you. I love you too.” He pressed his lips to her hair and breathed in.
Chapter 30
Beckett dressed up: slacks, buttoned shirt, shiny shoes, jacket, this was a big meeting. His everything depended on it. He stood at the mirror tightening his tie while Luna stretched out on the bed watching. “God, you are the hottest Stiffneck I've ever seen.”
Beckett said, “Thanks, I think? How many have you seen?”
“I've laid eyes on like thirty.” Luna grinned. “But I've only laid one. Speaking of which—” She patted the mattress beside her.
Beckett groaned and then pantomimed being pulled to the bed and struggling away. “I just tied my tie.”
“You also know you're getting ready too early because you're nervous.” Luna pulled her shirt off over her head and tossed it to the floor.
“You know I can't argue when you're naked.”
“I'm not totally naked yet.” She jumped to standing on the bed, like she used to jump to standing on her board, and slowly, teasingly pushed her
yoga pants down. She kicked them to the floor. “Now I'm naked. Plus it will be easier to negotiate contracts if you've been well-loved first. I mean, look at you, one girl takes off her clothes, and you can't even think straight.”
“Not just any girl.” Beckett unbuttoned his shirt forgetting his tie and tugging at it desperately.
Luna bounce walked to the end of the bed and kissed him sweetly while helping him loosen his tie and unbutton his shirt. Her breath was warm in his ear. “You smell really good.”
“I'm wearing an aftershave that I—”
She unbuckled his pants while he wrapped an arm around her legs and pushed her top half back. Luna bounced down to the bed with a giggle.
Beckett crawled over her. “If my sixteen-year-old self could see this, you, here, in my bed, whenever, always...” He kissed down her collarbone to her breast and turned over to his back.
Luna climbed on top of him. “You like having me here?” She buried her face in his neck and inhaled the scent there.
“God yes, you're—”
“Right here?” She gathered him up, and in, deep, and with an exhale whispered, “Because I like being here.”
“Being here — living here—” He raised her hips and lowered them again. “This is your home.”
She nibbled on the tender spot under his jaw. “Yes, I like it.” They shifted and rocked, his hands on her thighs, her hands on his chest, lost in their rhythm, serious, concentrating, lost —
There was a loud knock and Chickadee's voice through the door said, “Beckie, we should get going soon.”
Luna giggled against Beckett's neck.
Beckett called, “Um, out in a minute, Chickadee. I'm almost ready.”
Luna giggled again.
Luna closed her eyes, pressed her temple into the side of his cheek, and continued on — until finally, with a moan, they were through.
Luna lick-kissed the sweat on Beckett's upper lip.
He threw his arms around her back and pulled her close with a laugh. “I don't have time for a shower.”
Deep (Luna's Story Book 3) Page 8
