Addison pulled Samantha down atop of her; her hands slid up into blonde hair, pulling pink lips against berry red. The redhead claimed her fiancée’s lips in a heated kiss. She poured every ounce of her love, trust, faith, hope, dreams, and need into the kiss. She needed Sam to know she didn’t hold her responsible. Breaking away only far enough to speak, Addi whispered, trying to hold back her tears, “Please don’t leave me...I can’t live without you, Sam. I know you didn’t mean to kill him; he forced you to take action. You wouldn’t have done that. I know you.”
Sam pulled away so that she could look down into stormy gray eyes. “I would have killed him if he had done anything else to you. I swear I would have.” She wiped the tears from her lover’s face. “Don’t cry, Darlin’...if you still want me, we’ll get married whenever and wherever you want.”
“I mean it, I can’t live without you,” Addison whispered softly, tears still clinging to her long lashes. Her vision swam a bit, but she fought back the roll of dizziness. She didn’t need doctors bursting down her door right now, not when she had Sam in her arms. “My memory will come back, but I remember pieces of it.” She had told this of course to the detectives while she blushed profusely. They’d wanted to know so she’d told them, she and Sam had been about to join the mile-high club.
“As long as you are happy and in my arms, I don’t care if you ever remember,” Sam whispered back. She slid over so that she was on her back holding Addi to her chest.
Laying there in the blonde’s arms, she closed her eyes. Her left hand slid up Sam’s shirt, not with the intention of carnal desire. More so with the intention to feel her future wife’s heartbeat, her fingertips sliding over the bra and up into the middle of the woman’s chest. “And...now you’re going to marry me. Say it.”
“I, Samantha Jayne Dupree, take you Addison Gere McCloud, as my wife. To have and to hold from this day forward. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish until the end of time,” the blonde whispered.
“Promise me that you will say that again in front of a crowd. In front of my family, our family. You were looking out for our family. For your wife. For the future mother of your children,” Addi replied softly, sliding up so that she could look into Sam’s eyes. “I love you, I would die without you.”
Sam rested her hands on Addi’s hips. “I will say that in front of whoever you want and as many times as you want.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I am so sick of flying, if it wasn’t the most convenient way of doing things, Nick...” Addison pretended to gripe with a long suffering face as she sat in a tastefully leather-covered chair. She and the assistant were currently flying at twenty-two thousand feet and slowly descending into Atlanta. Gray eyes met the man’s chilled blue as she regarded him over her iPad, waiting for his snappy come back. It was rare she got to fly home during the day so she was looking forward to surprising her son Duke and her wife. Addison idly wondered how the foals were coming along this spring.
“Well, you can always give up racing and stay home to raise horses with Sam,” Nick suggested. “I’m sure that she and Duke would love that.”
“A horse doesn’t go fast enough for me.” Addison smiled as she pushed red hair out of her eyes and placed her reading glasses on top of her head. She and Sam had already had this conversation many times, and her wife supported her fully. The redhead checked her watch for the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes. “Tell the pilot I don’t care if the flight pattern is full, I want to be on the ground.” She pretended to be enraged at the time it was taking to land.
“Sorry, Sweet Pea...he can’t do anything about the flight pattern. Just sit back and imagine that you and your family are at the swimming hole and Sam is in the black bathing suit that you like so much.” Nick didn’t even look up from his iPad as he knew that the younger woman was just blustering.
Addison gave a long suffering sigh before lying back into the chair. She had only just shut her eyes when Nick was shaking her awake again. “I’m up, I’m up.” She yawned, unbuckling her seat belt as they taxied to a stop on the runway. Popping a few joints here and there, the three-time world champion could hardly contain her excitement to get home to her wife and son. She let crew stow the bags in the back of the waiting car at the foot of the stairs, while she packed up her things into her purse. “C’mon, or I’ll hog-tie you and drag you down the steps.” She grinned at Nick pushing on a pair of sunglasses and nimbly hopping down the descending steps.
The assistant shook his head as he headed down the steps. Getting in, Nick pulled out the iPad once more to scan the mail. “There is an offer for the racing team on the table again, and this one is for a pretty penny. They are willing to buy out your contract for an extra ten mill.”
“And who’s waving the checkbook this time?” Addison asked buckling her seatbelt and opening the top to feel the wind in her hair. She then opened her phone to watch a silent video of Duke trying on his first pair of cowboy boots. Was it really three years ago he had been born?
“The usual suspects,” Nick answered. “Do you ever think about quitting?”
The driver ran a thumb over her wedding and engagement bands around her left ring finger as she stared Nick down from behind reflective gold lenses. “I do sometimes, but a part of me would always miss racing. It brought me to Sam, and I love to see the world. Plus, driving fast never gets old.”
“Well, I think sometimes Sam would like for you to stop, but you know that she won’t ever tell you that,” Nick admitted.
“The only way I would stop, ever...would be for her to let me jockey. I’m small enough,” was the soft reply as Addison looked out the window. For her, it always took too long to drive from Atlanta out to the farm.
“And you know how she feels about that. She thinks that it’s too dangerous, and I agree with you in that racing is worse, but it’s Sam and her logic only make sense to her.” The assistant smiled. Sam had gotten very protective of her family ever since Duke was born three years earlier. It was like the mother bear had awoken.
“Then my answer is not to give up racing. She has her ultimatums and I have my own,” Addison’s voice was rock solid as she closed her eyes enjoying the sun on her face. In no time at all, they were pulling up to the main house. She didn’t expect to see Clint or Maddie race out anymore to her. Clint was attending MIT with a double major in electrical engineering and physics; while Maddie on the other hand, was enjoying an afternoon with her friends, no doubt at the mall blowing her spending money like only a ten-year old could.
Nick frowned as he turned to the younger woman. It made him mad sometimes that she couldn’t or wouldn’t see how Sam was just trying to keep her family safe and that there were many times that she wanted to forbid Addison from racing anymore, but didn’t. Sam knew that it had to be her wife’s choice.
Addison waited until she had hugged Neely and let her mother know that she was down at the main house before she asked Nick to meet her in her office which was connected to Sam’s. She knew her wife was down at the barn supervising morning workouts with their son in her arms. She shut the door firmly before walking over to perch on the edge of her desk. “I need to make something very clear to you, Nicholas,” her tone had the same steely edge Sam’s sometimes had.
Nick stood just inside the doorway with his hands in his pockets waiting for the explosion.
The explosion never came. “Nick, I’m not some naive child anymore, I’m a mother. And I’m married now.” Addison sighed as she placed her hands at her sides, her fingers tracing the carved designs on the tables edge. “But I’m clinging to my own piece of my world. Sam has the horses, I have racing. If I give it up to become a housewife...I don’t know if I could live with myself.”
“She’s never asked you to give it up, Addi. She knows how important it is to you, but you have to know how much it scares her now. She used to be just like you, but she changed after Australia and after your father’s death,”
Nick tried to reason with her. “You agreed after you had Duke that you wanted three years, and she’s given it to you without complaint. Duke is getting older and is beginning to ask why you aren’t at home and you know that you are missing out on a lot of firsts.”
Nick had hit a chord with Addison. He was right of course; Sam had agreed to give her that allotted time. And she had missed so many things with Duke. His first steps, his first words, hell, even his first riding lesson. Addison re-crossed her arms thinking his words over with care. “You’re right,” she relented sadly before she twisted a lock of her hair around her finger.
“You have already beaten her achievements and I know for a fact that she wants you here so you can start on whatever you two can dream up so please think about it.” The older man nodded his head at her before he took a step back. “It will be good for you to be a family for a while.”
Addi let him leave her office a minute later as she sat behind her desk and poured herself a stiff drink to think it over. She had loved racing more than anything; it would be hard to give it up. The thought of Duke’s beautiful gray eyes, so like her own, and Sam’s expression across his face had her thinking what else she could pursue instead of racing.
The thought of the blonde woman brought a smile to her face as she walked to their bedroom to change. She pulled on a pair of jeans, a white sweatshirt and her favorite pair of boots. As she stomped her feet, she realized how much she missed dressing so casually. Pushing on her sunglasses, she walked out the back door and across the grass.
It didn’t take her long to make the walk out to the main barn where she could hear the loud whiney from Sunny as the mare raced along the dark fences to greet her owner. Addison gave the pretty mare an affectionate pat before walking through the barn towards the sound of Sam’s voice.
Sam was standing next to a Shetland pony that had a miniature saddle and held a three-year-old blonde-haired little boy with gray eyes. She was wearing a worn pair of jeans and a denim shirt. The child was dressed exactly like his blonde mother.
They were slowly walking through the barn, headed out to one of the paddocks.
The redhead stopped at the barn door to watch the pair for a bit. Duke had Sam’s coloring, but Addison’s eyes. They had chosen the sperm donor carefully so that their child would look like both of them. “Like mother, like son.”
Sam’s head snapped around at her wife’s voice. “Addi...look Duke, it’s Mommy.” She stopped the pony and picked up her son, carefully placing him on the ground.
Addi watched her son run towards her quickly, his little feet covering the ground fast as he bounded into her outstretched arms as she knelt down. Scooping him up easily, she kissed his rosy cheeks as she stared at her son. Duke was the spitting image of Sam except for the stormy gray eyes. “Good grief, what has your Momma been feeding you?” She chuckled, walking towards her wife as she put him on her hip.
“Mommy, I eat all my veggies and I take my vitamins ‘cause Momma says I need to grow up big and strong.” The little boy laughed as he bounced on his mother’s hip.
“Good baby.” Addison kissed the end of his button nose which she figured came from her. His easily tanned skin came from her wife, she thought with a whimsical smile. Her mind easily produced the first moment Sam had held her son. Shaking her head, she walked towards Sam. “You are going to be as big as Papaw.” The little boy loved to wrestle with Addison’s stepfather.
Taking a step forward, Sam placed a gentle kiss on her wife’s lips. “Hi Darlin’, why didn’t you let me know you were coming home? We could have met you in Atlanta.”
“And ruin my surprise? Never.” Addison tried to push down the guilt she felt at continuing to race even though Sam wanted her to quit. “How are the colts coming along?”
“They are fine...I see you took the number one spot back from the Italians.” Sam draped her arm over the shorter woman’s shoulders and held her family close. She was happy that she had gotten out of racing after that final year.
Even though she had ended the season at number one, racing didn’t hold her heart anymore, and after the wedding, and when Addison had gotten pregnant, she knew that she had wanted to stay at home to raise their son. And as much as she wanted Addi to quit racing, she would never ask. The younger woman was addicted to the speed and the thrill so all Sam could do was to wait for her.
“Good.” Addi leaned up and caught Sam’s lips in a long kiss, but broke it before it became indecent. “What are your plans for tonight?”
“Nothing that I can say right now,” Sam murmured as she stared into her wife’s eyes. “Have you eaten?”
“I nibbled on the flight. Let’s let Duke ride for a bit, I’ll watch from the fence. Then we can go back to the house for lunch,” Addison suggested as she smiled up at Sam. She still loved how Sam towered over her after all these years. Looking up into those green eyes always made her heart flutter.
For the next hour, Sam watched carefully as their son rode his pony, Spot, around the ring, putting him through his paces. The little blonde had a serious look on his face as he concentrated on doing everything his Momma had taught him.
“Good job, Duke...pretty soon you’ll be riding a bigger horse,” she called out.
A grin was his reply as he trotted past her.
“Samantha, can we talk tonight?” Addison whispered softly from her perch on the wooden fence. The driver put her chin on her arms as she turned back to Duke a moment later. Her son was every bit the equestrian Sam was.
“Sure Darlin’...want me to see if your Mom would will watch our boy so we can have some alone time?” Sam winked at the redhead.
The serious face Addi wore split into a smile as she thought of the times she’d come home in the past. It was hard to divide time between her son and wife; she wanted to watch Duke sleep all night. The way his long lashes fluttered against his cheeks made her heart weak. How could something so perfect come from her?
But the nights were consumed with trying to keep up with the athletic lover she had married years ago. Even though she was older, Sam could wear her out quickly. Addison shook her head with a laugh, leaning over to kiss the tall blonde. “That would be nice. Do you think Neely could cook those mashed potatoes I love? I missed those.”
Keeping an eye on their son, Sam draped an arm over her wife’s shoulders. “I’m quite sure that she has already planned to. Is there anything else special that you want?”
“Just you.” Addison sighed happily, turning to watch Duke’s adorably serious expression. “He looks just like you. His expressions are all Dupree.” She reached up with one hand intertwining her fingers with Sam’s hand that had been slung over her shoulders.
“Yeah, he’s very serious about certain things. You should have seen him when Sven was trying to teach him to tie his shoes. It was adorable. I took some pictures so I’ll show them to you later.” Sam squeezed Addison’s fingers lightly.
The redhead’s heart squeezed painfully at the reminder of the things she missed while out on the road. And now she had missed him learning to tie his shoes. Something she should have been there to teach her own son. Addi pushed down the guilty feeling, making her eyes sting a bit. “Every time I look into that serious little face; I see you all over again.” She grinned quietly a moment later. “Has he taken a nap yet?” she asked.
“No, he’ll take one after lunch...why? Is there something special that you want to do?” Sam looked at her wife with a gleam in her eyes. She had an idea, but wanted to hear the younger woman say it.
“You are horrible.” Addison pretended to sigh and shake her head as Sam pulled her closer. “But yes, I think the hayloft misses us,” she whispered softly a moment later. “Or maybe a ride together out to the swimming hole.”
“There’s nothing wrong if we want to do both.” Sam leaned down to give her a brief kiss.
Duke trotted up and stopped Spot beside them. “I wanna kiss too, Mommy.” He puckered up his lips and waited.
&n
bsp; “You got it, baby.” Addison bent over, quickly slipping through the fence. A moment later, Duke received an obnoxiously loud kiss on the lips. “I love you, sugar. Mommy is so proud of you, riding Spot all by yourself.” The last time she had seen him he could barely pluck up the courage to go near the small animal.
“Momma said that she used to ride a horsey like Spot when she was little and she rides Turbo now so I had to....” His face creased as he tried to remember what his Uncle Clint told him. “...man up.”
“Oh good grief.” Addison took off her sunglasses turning to look at her wife. “Uncle Clint’s doing, I take it?”
Sam held up her hands and took a step back. “Don’t look at me.” She laughed. Going over to pluck their son off the horse, she placed him on the ground and took the pony’s reins. “Why don’t you to head into the house and start lunch. I’ll be in as soon as I take care of Spot.”
When Duke started to walk towards her with the intention of leaving his Momma to take care of his pony, Addison put up a firm hand. “Oh no little Duke.” She grinned, bending down to kiss his cheek and take off his cowboy hat. “If you ride him, he needs to be taken care of.” She wasn’t going to let him slide. “I’ll go help Neely make us lunch and we’ll see about some sugar-free ice-cream.” Addison kissed his cheek affectionately before watching him run after her wife.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
An hour or so later, Duke was down for the count in the master bedroom. He’d spent twenty minutes falling asleep, just to curl up with his Momma. Addi in turn had almost fallen asleep herself, but she remembered what was waiting for her. Kissing her son softly on the forehead and covering him up with the deep purple sheets, Addi slowly crept out of the master suite and down the hall towards the kitchen.
Sitting at the kitchen table with reports covering the table top, Sam was going over the foaling schedule to make sure that everything was ready. She glanced up at the sound of her wife in the entrance way. “Hey, I figured that you fell asleep.”
Fast Lane Page 44
