As soon as I bring it to my lips the onslaught begins.
“How long has this been going on?” he asks.
I bring the glass forward, letting the whiskey still in my mouth, but actually it’s me that feels like my body has stilled in water. I’ve got two choices here…play his game and possibly drown, or fight for her future with her father. She needs that and as a man I’m the responsible one here. I should have told him earlier.
I swallow down the alcohol. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I’m not sorry I love her. She’s the one for me. I knew it from the moment I saw her.”
“At her birthday party?”
I take another sip, letting his lacerating question sink into me a little deeper, realizing just how bad this sounds.
“Yes. It was at her party.”
He says nothing, his face just staring off into the back yard with a kind of detachment I’ve never seen from him.
“But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t pursue it. It didn’t seem right.” I pause. “But in the end I just couldn’t resist, and my need for her took over just over a week ago when some boys were bothering her at the mall.”
“Your need for her, huh?” he says. “Yeah, I went through the police files on my laptop. Seems like you put the full court press on the chief to get stationed at the mall…to provide protection. Were you expecting a frenzy for this year’s Tickle Me Elmo, or did you just want to put your hands all over my daughter?”
“It’s not like that,” I say. “This is real. I know it’s going to be hard to see that, but you have to believe me. I wouldn’t risk everything we had if it wasn’t.”
“Had or have?”
“Have.”
“You said had. It’s almost as if you know that this is the end of our friendship, like you’ve already thought it through and made your decision.”
“I don’t want that and it doesn’t have to be that way, but…yes, if that’s what it comes down to. She’s the most important thing, now and she always will be.”
“So you plan on just taking her from me and everything being fine?”
“I plan on letting her make her own decision and if people here can’t deal with that then we’ll move somewhere else. Plenty of places in the country that need a good cop. Work wouldn’t be hard to find, and she can study at plenty of good colleges in the country. We’re mobile, but the bottom line is we’re in this together.”
“What if she’s forced to choose and she doesn’t chose you.”
“That would never happen.”
“Then why haven’t you put the choice in front of her already?”
“I was going to tell you yesterday. It was my day off, but then things got hectic.”
“Yesterday, huh? How convenient. So since…things got hectic…you just decided that you’d kiss her in front of the whole world, including tons of reporters, and that’s the way you’d quote unquote tell me.”
“It’s not like that,” I growl, starting to get angry. I’m trying to be patient with him, but my patience is running thin.
“Not like that? Because you’d rather show me than tell me. Is that some new way that younger people do things these days?”
“I’m thirty, I’m not exactly young.”
“Yes, I know how old you are, and how much older you are than Jade.”
I see his hand tighten around his glass as he processes his own words.
“It’s the same as us. Twelve-year difference. Look how well we’ve gotten along. Age never meant anything to our friendship and our pursuit of justice for the city that we care about and protect each and every day. And those same twelve years aren’t going to matter between Jade and I. If anything it’s a positive. I have knowledge and wisdom, plenty of it learned from you, and no I’m not trying to patronize you one bit. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve learned. I’ll help Jade through the labyrinth of life, helping her avoid pitfalls in her pursuit of what she wants. Yeah, the age gap is shocking at first and she’s really young right now, but she was forced to grow up fast,” I say, not wanting to mention anything about her mother or her mother’s passing, but it’s the truth. “And she’s an adult. You work in the legal system. You’ve tried eighteen-year-olds for unthinkable acts…put them away for life. If they’re capable of making decision that shape the entire course of their lives at that age, then why can’t she?”
He says nothing.
“She’s legally ready and she’s ready from a mature standpoint. And I’m ready. I’m not just ready, I’m already well beyond that. I’m already in deep with her and it’s the best feeling in the world. I found my perfect partner for life and she’s it. I’m sorry, but other people have to either accept that or accept that they’re not going to be a part of what we have. I want you there, for both of us. And I hope to get your blessing, but I know I fucked up. I should have come to you earlier, and I’m sorry. But I’ve learned, not that this is a process I’ll ever repeat again, because once I put a ring on her finger that’s it for me. She’s the one. Hell, she already is. And I’m going to make her my wife and start a family with her. That’s all there is to it. It’s cut and dried and that’s that,” I say.
I tip back my whiskey and stand.
“I best get going,” I say.
“Yeah, you should,” he says.
I purse my lips and show myself out.
“And put a lock on this gate. Keep yourself safe, and most importantly your own daughter,” I say, feeling pissed off about everything now.
I turn over the car engine and drive. I just go, not thinking about anything other than her.
This was supposed to be my day off.
This was supposed to be a day of happiness as we were both given awards together.
This was supposed to be something special.
I drive for two hours along the interstate when finally I just turn the wheel hard and hit the off ramp.
You know what? Today is going to be all those things.
I said what I had to say to Jeff.
He’s had two hours to make up his mind, which is more than enough.
How do I know?
Because when I was most sure of something, when I saw her on her birthday, I knew instantly.
And I’m just as sure now as I was then, and I will continue to be that way forever.
And forever starts now.
CHAPTER 15
Jade
Everything okay? You left kind of abruptly.
Where are you, he texts right back. Usually he punctuates his texts. This one has a more urgent feel than normal, and his text normally feel urgent as is.
About to walk in the front door.
Don’t. Meet me on the corner at the coffee shop in five.
Okay
What in the heck is going on?
Five minutes later he pulls into the parking lot and is immediately out of the car.
He marches right up to me wrapping me up in his arms, hugging me tight and kissing me hard.
He takes my hand and guides me over to the passenger side of the car where he opens the door and helps me inside.
Okay?
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“It’s time,” he says.
He flips on the radio in the car and Christmas songs come out of all the speakers.
It feels fun, festive, and just like the holidays.
But the look on his face is anything but. He’s a man on a mission, but for what I don’t know.
I reach over and put my hand on his knee, trying to calm him, but he quickly scoops up my hand in his and bring it to his lips where he kisses the inside of my wrist hard…over and over and over again.
“Did you drink an entire pot of coffee?” I ask, with a giggle.
“The last thing I need since I’ve met you is caffeine. I have more energy than I know what to do with.”
“I know what we can do with some of it.”
He leans over and faces me. I give him a quick kiss and his eyes go b
ack to the road.
I imagine myself crawling up on his lap and riding him, helping him take the edge off, relieve whatever it is that’s on his mind, but I can’t.
I know he’s all about safety and although he is very adventurous, he’d never do anything that would endanger another person.
Plus the chance that a truck driver or someone in an elevated position looking down could see me in a sexual state or potentially undressed would have him coming unglued.
He doesn’t share anything when it comes to me and the rest of the world.
We drive for a good half hour with the radio up loud. It’s fun. I even get him to sing along with me to a few of the Christmas songs. He handles all the low notes and I get the higher ones.
He sounds better than Bing Crosby and croons better than Nat King Cole, and that’s really saying something.
It just goes to show we always make a great team, no matter what we’re doing.
Suddenly in the middle of “The Christmas Song,” he takes a sharp right down a gravel road covered with a light dusting of snow.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask. My anticipation levels have reached a fever pitch.
“Same place you took me…the top of the mountain.”
I look at him curiously, but five minutes later that’s exactly where we find ourselves.
He pulls over and we step out of the car.
“Where are we?”
“This is a Christmas tree farm, but not for another few years.”
“That’s why everything is so perfect?”
“Yep. It takes firs about ten years to be big enough to be a Christmas tree. These are probably seven or eight years old.”
He takes me by the hand and we quickly walk to the absolute peak of the mountain.
“Whoa,” I say looking out across the postcard worthy sight of all the trees growing in the valley and along the side of the hill. “How did you find this place?”
“Same way I found you, beautiful. It was right there under my nose the entire time…just like you.”
“Awww,” I say cuddling up to him.
“I came out this way to think and clear my head when I was a child, and I’ve been coming back ever since. It’s my solace. It’s the perfect place. Apart from the years where they harvest the trees I’ve never once seen another human being up here. And that’s what this is all about.”
“What this is all about?”
Suddenly he drops down to a knee and removes a small, velvet, black box from his pocket, opening it and a magnificent diamond sparkles in the late afternoon sky.
“There are seven billion people in this world, but to me there are only two that matter. Us. You and me. And just like these beautiful trees in this beautiful place I want nothing more than for you to be my beautiful wife, so we can plant trees of our own….children. Nurture them together and watch them grow up to be big and strong, and then to watch as they leave us and go out into the world and do great things…bring joy to the world as we sit back and take joy and pleasure in what we created…a perfect family. And just like me to this place, our children will come back and visit us for the rest of our lives because no matter how far and how high they go in life, they’ll always know, and hold a special place in their hearts, for home. And home is where they’re mom and dad are. Little momma, be my baby momma for real. Let’s not wait another day. Let’s plant our seeds now so we can grow a forest full of love, laughter, and happiness…a forest known as our home. And a home that revolves around the most beautiful and perfect woman in the world. You’re the one who’s made me feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth. This Christmas, let’s transcend that. Be the angel at the top of my tree, at the top of my mountain…forever. Marry me,” he says.
I am completely overwhelmed at the beautiful, heartfelt, unrehearsed words from this manliest of men.
My man.
And as soon as I can catch my breath and utter one single word we’ll officially belong to each other forever.
“Yes,” I say.
He slides the ring on my finger just before I take his face in my hands and pull him up to me.
His kisses me possessively, knowing I’m his forever, just as I kiss him with the same kind of ownership, knowing he’s mine.
He scoops me up in his arms, our lips still locked, as he spins me around.
I feel like Julie Andrews on the hilltop in The Sound of Music, but better, because my heart isn’t just filled with the sound of music, but with love.
Because this Christmas I gave the most special man in the world my heart, and I know he’ll never ever give it away, because he gave me his too.
He’s mine and I’m his…forever.
EPILOGUE
Jade
Three months later
I pull up close to the house, but stop a few doors down.
I take a deep breath, preparing myself for what needs to happen when I see Jaxon.
I close my eyes and try and calm myself, but I can’t because I hear…a basketball?
I open my eyes and move my head to the left, looking forward, so I can see further down the street.
And what do you know?
Jaxon and my dad are going at it, playing one-on-one basketball in the driveway and it looks like it’s a pretty heated game.
I just smile.
Three short months ago, when I went back home to tell my dad I was engaged, he “kicked me out.”
That was pretty funny considering Jaxon already had plans for me to move in that night, and the following day he had the title of the house put in our names. It’s weird to think I’m a homeowner, but I am. Realistically I know Jaxon did the hardest part…making the money to buy it and everything that goes with owning a home.
But as he told me it was just a house, a place to sleep, until I moved in. He said I turned four walls and a ceiling into his favorite place in the world, because we lived there together.
A week after my dad kicked me out Jaxon reached out to him. My dad was still sulking a bit, but he started to come around. At about a month and a half after they went fishing, and then at two months they went to some car show.
At two and a half months Jaxon took my dad to the pistol range, a place where cops like to hang out.
Putting a gun in my dad’s hand in the same shooting station as Jaxon seemed like a terrible idea, but in reality it was just something to joke about.
Neither my dad nor Jaxon would ever do anything to harm the other and of course the day went off without a hitch. If anything I can put my finger on that day and say that was the day things fully recovered. My dad shot extremely well, thanks to a few pointers from Jaxon.
The coolest part was Jaxon got authorization after to let my dad come and shoot at an actual police competition. Jaxon sponsored him in as an honorary cop for a day, and my dad was very excited about that, although he tried to hide his enthusiasm. Yeah…he didn’t do too good a job of that.
My man knows my dad better than anyone else in the world, even me. And right now it looks like Jaxon knows that my dad can’t play good defense going to his left, and Jaxon is making him pay for it.
I watch as the two men battle for baskets as I smile, just glad that they’re having fun together again. As a matter of fact there’s still snow on the ground and Jaxon must have cleared the driveway just so they could play, or more than likely so I could park safely at the house.
He’s always out there in the morning shoveling snow so I have a perfect pathway. He says he needs to make sure my health is tip top at all times as he’s sure there’s a baby inside my belly.
And?
According to the doctor’s office I just came from…he was right all along.
I just sit in my car thinking how lucky our baby is going to be. She or he is going to enter this world with the most loving, awesome dad and a fit, sharp as a tack grandpa who will shower our child with love.
Our child. Our house. Our life.
Ours. One word, so powerful�
�just like the big strong man that made it all happen.
My possessive Christmas cop.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Jaxon
Fifteen years later
I pull the cruiser into the gym parking lot, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one’s around.
Possessive Christmas Cop: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 87) Page 7
