by Dee Palmer
Tilting my head and narrowing my eyes, I quip flatly, “Not quite ready to introduce your hooker-wife to the family, hmm?”
“Hope, stop!” His blade crashes against the marble, splashing water everywhere with the force and height of the drop, then jolts me to him with the firmest grip and fingers anchored to the tops of my arms enough to bruise. His earnest tone is heartbreakingly sincere. “Please, never, and I seriously mean never, refer to yourself in any derogatory way, even in jest. I find it painfully unpleasant.” He drops his head, and his grip eases off from death-like to merely eye-watering.
“So you do want me to meet your family?” Pursing my lips, I manage to affect a fairly decent smile, considering.
“I want that very much. Only I thought you might want to see your mother first.”
“She’s back already?” The second genuine smile breaks across my face when Jørgen nods.
“She is how I found you.” He resumes shaving, speaking around the facial contortions.
“My PA did try and find Finn’s address, but apparently, her social media accounts are private and impenetrable. Even the snippets of information on your accounts about her look like they’ve been redacted.”
“They probably have been, Finn’s men are all very protective of her and their privacy.” I’m not joking. I know Charge, for one, would consider that an extension of his promise to keep her safe.
“I feel the same, by the way, so I respect that,” Jørgen says, and for some reason looks like I should be shocked by the revelation.
“I know.” I tweak him teasingly, and he doesn’t flinch. “So mum just gave you Finn’s address, didn’t even ask why you wanted it?”
“I may have looked a little desperate.”
“Really?” I lean forward, intrigued by the unfamiliar bashful expression he’s trying to hide by splashing his face clean with handfuls of water. He takes a clean towel and pats his jaw and cheeks dry, coughing to cover his embarrassment. This is priceless. God, I love him.
“Yes, it was raining hard, and I found myself drenched and desolate, pounding on your mother’s door, demanding to see you. I knew you weren’t there; nevertheless, I hoped she might just help me.”
Oh, wow, just wow! And fuck! Every movie, every sappy love story, even the best TV shows have that very scene, and I missed it.
I grab his hand and tug him my way, so he is now standing between my thighs, and I can easily hook my ankles behind him and wrap my legs securely around his trim waist. I walk my fingers up his bare chest. “With a romantic gesture like that? Are you kidding me? I’m surprised she didn’t start humming “Here Comes The Bride”.”
“Oh, that’s what that was.” His eyes widen with recognition, and I gasp in horror as the visual hits me like a bad dream in 4-D high definition.
“Nooo.” I shudder.
“No, but your face is a picture. Even mortification is better than sadness.”
“You need to stop trying to make me feel better. I don’t deserve to feel anything other than like a big pile of crap.” My head lolls forward, my forehead hitting him square over his heart. I lift, kiss the perfect spot, and then drop my forehead back with a sad huff.
“We can talk about what happened between us, if you would prefer? That has the potential to both distract and make you feel like crap.”
“How is that better?” I screw my face up at the awful idea. It’s done, over, yet that doesn’t seem to stop him dredging up the past.
“Hope, I never meant to hurt you. I love you.” Spearing his hand around the back of my neck, he fixes me with a passionate, demanding, and score-my-soul hot kiss. He’s breathless when he breaks, we both are. Heaving to draw in enough oxygen, he repeats slowly. “You’re my wife, and I love you.”
“You made me feel ashamed.” I know he does love me, and I know I feel the same. However, this feels like a nasty bloodstain, and if we can’t remove it, we need to face it.
“I’m mortified, Hope. I don’t know if I can ever make it up to you, but I will spend every second of my life trying.” His breath washes my face, and his voice catches with the strength of his declaration. Smiling, I cup his smooth strong jaw.
“That’s a good start right there.”
“I’m not saying this is going to be easy, but I will promise my first response will not be to accuse you of anything.”
“That, too, is a good start, and I will promise not to run, and to discuss whatever it is, and to have great make-up sex.” I tip forward to close the distance, lightly kissing his lips. “But when I’m not feeling like the worst human on the planet and can stop crying for at least five fucking minutes.”
“I can wait a lifetime. Remember?” He playfully taps the tip of my nose.
“Fuck! Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long to get my libido back!”
“Let me take you home,” he offers, gently lifting me onto his hips and carrying me out of the bathroom and into the suite. He climbs onto the bed and cradles me in his lap, and I happily let him.
“Yeah, I’d like to see my mum. She may be odd but she’s all I have now.” I muse after mulling over his suggestion.
“No, you have me. And you will have Finn again.”
“I betrayed our friendship, I know you mean well, but I really think I lost my sister today.”
“So we go home?” I can feel him shift to maybe look at me, but I keep myself buried in his chest and shake my head.
“I can’t. I can’t leave with this heavy heart, I don’t have enough money for the weight of the excess baggage charge.”
“I have a private plane,” he counters, making me lift my head with curiosity.
“You do?”
“Yes, and it’s ready to take us back, anytime.”
“Anytime?”
“Yes.”
“Then, can we stay a little longer?” His thumb catches the fresh tear before I’ve finished asking the question.
“Of course.”
And that is why I love him.
Three long days later.
“ANY NEWS?” I CALL OUT from the top of the stairs, rushing down and over to where Charge, Toxic, and Tug are huddled together conspiratorially. Tug is making his way through the large stack of pancakes. The smell alone was enough to rouse me even if I’ve not really been sleeping, just drifting in and out of a sad state of consciousness since Pink left. I hop on the stool next to Toxic and Charge and opposite Tug.
“Angel, I’m sorry.” Charge reaches over to pour more coffee into his mug, handing it to me with an apologetic smile.
“This is killing me.” I take the mug and fight the surge of sadness prickling behind my lids and across the bridge of my nose.
“And I’m going to kill Pink when he returns because of that very thing, angel. Don’t you worry,” he teases. Although his lips only manage the slightest curl, the rest of his face is stony serious.
“I just want him back,” I mope.
“We all do, sugar.” Toxic pulls me into a side hug. Vibrations jolt Charge’s phone to life on the countertop, and his screen lights up with the best ever image. A cute smile, five o’clock shadow on a chiselled jaw wearing mirrored aviators and a cowboy hat pulled just low enough to give him an edge of something not quite so wholesome. My reflexes are on point, and I grab the phone before anyone else, hitting the video call button, hoping I can get to see him, too.
“Pink! Pink, are you all right? Where are you? When are you coming home? Please come home.” Tears burst on to my cheeks, and drawing a shaky breath gives him the chance to reply. His eyes look right into mine, and his sad edge to the bright blue breaks my heart. Come home.
“Hey, hey, darlin’, I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment, and I trace my finger along his image on the screen. It makes him smile. “I’m sorry, and I can see by Charge’s scowl a sorry ain’t going to cut it. I didn’t mean to worry you, darlin.” The background noise of the truck is distracting, and he’s having to shout above the old truck’s engine. The wind whi
pping through the hair peaking out from under hit hats dies as Pink leans to one side and winds his window shut, which makes it much easier to hear him. He intermittently glances between me and the open road. My tummy drops at the realisation his phone is obviously secured high enough for Google Maps to easily direct him farther away from me.
“I’m just happy you called, that I can see your face. Pink, this is all my fault. I’m so sorry, I—”
He abruptly cuts me off. “Now stop right there. It ain’t your fault. You’re perfect, darlin’, and what you have with all of us and with Charge is perfect. I just got carried away wanting more.”
“Pink…” I don’t know what to say.
“It will come. Pretty sure one day it’ll just slap me right across the face, and I’ll have what you have with Charge.”
“That’s what we all want, bro’, ” Tug calls out, his mouth still full of pancakes.
“Hey, guys, I’m sorry I bailed, but it had to be done.”
“We understand, but this lady here didn’t, and you shouldn’t have waited even a day to check in. You knew she would be tearing herself apart over this, Pink,” Charge reprimands, and Pink looks mortified.
“I’m fine, now; it’s fine. You’re safe, and that’s all that matters.” Brushing off the debilitating agony of the last few days as if it were nothing, I don’t want Pink to feel any worse than he clearly does. I don’t want to give him any reason not to come home.
“I’m fine, darlin’, but there is one thing you need to know.”
“What?”
“Hope did nothing wrong.”
“Riiiight.” Sarcasm coats the word like tar, thick and unpleasant.
“I mean it, darlin’. I’ve thought long and hard over the last few days driving. It’s all I’ve thought about, going over every conversation, every look or innocent touch, and honestly, there was nothing. She was friendly; she liked to talk, and she spoke like you. She had those cute British sayings that crack me up, and she even shared some of your mannerisms. Hope is like you in a lot of ways, and you love her so much, it was kind of easy to convince myself that I’d fallen, too, but I didn’t love her, Finn, not really. I was in love with the idea of being in love. I see that now.”
“She could’ve told you the truth.”
“She didn’t tell her best friend, why would she tell me? I’m not saying this hasn’t been painful. It has, but it isn’t her fault, no more than it is mine.”
I scoff. “It’s definitely not your fault.”
“So no one is to blame. Shit happens, and we move on. We forgive, and we move on.” I hear the pointed tone and change the subject.
“So when are you coming home?”
“Did you hear me, Finn? I said we forgive and move on.”
“It’s not that easy, Pink. She broke my family apart.”
“You really believe that?” He tips his head, and the ironic quirk in his lips is not lost on me. I hesitate for a second before replying honestly.
“No.”
“Good, because nothing breaks this family apart.”
“Hell, yeah!” The boys yell out, slapping high fives behind me that fill me with a surge of love I happily let wash over me and soak in the crevices that have been hollow since Pink left.
“You have to forgive Hope, Finn.” He is earnest, and so am I.
“I don’t.”
“Then you don’t forgive me either.” He lines up his arsenal and aims.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Exactly, let it go and move on, Finn, for me.” A direct hit.
“Damnit.” The tension has my shoulders up by my ears, something I wasn’t really aware of until Charge pushes them back into position and squeezes some of the concrete from my muscles. I curse again. The hard edge softens when I look into Pink’s eyes and notice that his smile is a little brighter than before.
“For me.” He needlessly repeats. He knows he’s won.
“Fine, so when are you coming home?”
“I’m not.”
“What? No!” I balk at the sharp return of pain to my chest.
“Calm down. I will come home, only not just yet. I need to get some space, I need to do some thinking.”
“Please don’t do this, Pink.”
“If you love me, Finn, you’ll give me this,” he pleads and hits me again, both barrels this time.
“Damnit, of course I love you.” I sag with the defeat washing over me. I’m being selfish, and I know it.
“Then?”
“I just want you to be happy. Whatever you need to do is fine with me.”
“Thank you.”
“So where are you exactly?”
“Texas.”
“Texas, hmm? Well, that’s a big state, where about?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Okaaay, do you need us to send you some more clothes?”
“Nah, I got everything I need.”
“What about the stables? No one minds helping out, but shovelling shit full-time was kinda your gig, and Jake’s an old man, Pink, he ain’t up to it on his own.” Charge asks over my shoulder.
“I’ve already sorted some help. They need the work and somewhere to park their trailer.”
“They?”
“Max and Clifford, they work as a team.” He’s unable to hear the grumble of disapproval vibrating from Charge’s chest as he continues to explain how bringing a stranger to the stables is a good idea. “Jake vouched for them. He’s known the family for years. Besides, Max grew up on a farm. I’m happy to let them take over while I’m gone.”
“As long as I don’t have to go up there again, I don’t care if Hades himself is mucking out. ” Toxic chips in.
“Copy that!” Tug high fives Toxic across the countertop.
“When are they arriving?” I ask. I may not be ‘high-fiving’ like a teenager, but I do understand where Tug and Toxic are coming from. They have been doing my share of the chores, both inside the house and at the stables.
“In a day or two. You will need to make sure they know you definitely want them. I was a little vague on the phone and didn’t know when I would be back.”
“Which is when?”
“A few months, maybe more. Please don’t push me on this one, Charge. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need to be.”
“Whatever you need, brother,” Charge says, deep affection coating his words, warming me and softening the sting of what Pink is actually saying.
“Call me anytime.” I rush, feeling the conversation ending and reluctant to let it go without a proper goodbye. I wonder if all men have a habit of just cutting off a call when they’re done, or if it’s just my men.
“Sure thing, darlin’.”
“And stay out of trouble,” Charge says, and Pink’s neck twists sharply, looking over his right shoulder and snapping back ahead. Confusion replaces surprise, and his forehead wrinkles with whatever he’s just seen on the side of the road.
“Damsel in a white dress,” he mutters, and I think I’m hearing things. He’s not making sense.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, definitely nothing, and absolutely none of my damn business.”
“Pink, are you all right?”
“Gotta go, darlin’.”
“Wait! Pink!” I squeal a little too shrill for this time of the morning.
“Still here,” He pats the side of his head, wincing and looking remarkably like the others.
“I love you, and take care, and come back soon.”
“Will do, darlin’.”
“And don’t leave it too long, call again soon…anytime!” I’m panicking, and my voice is rising to levels that could shatter glass. “Don’t leave it too long, please.”
He winks and gives me a reassuring nod, holding my gaze for only a second, affording more comfort than giving me an actual return date. “Bye, darlin’.”
“By—”
Click.
I’VE BEEN A D
ITHERING MY arse off since Pink’s call this morning. I’ve picked my phone up a hundred times to make the call to Hope’s hotel, only to cut it on connection and slip it back into my pocket. Man, I can be stubborn. Charge took it from me a half hour ago, and I have managed to sit for at least ten minutes flicking through pages of a magazine I’m not interested in when he appears from his office holding my vibrating phone flat against his palm like it’s exhibit A in my trial.
“Who’s Tony?”
“With a ‘y’ or an ‘i’?”
“An ‘i’, why?”
“Then that’s Hope’s mum.”
“And if it was a ‘y’?”
“I don’t know any Toni’s with a ‘y’.” I reach for the phone just as he mouths something cute, or maybe that I’m cute. I swipe to answer the call before it registers what I’ve done.
Shit! What am I going to say?
My mind is racing over the minefield of questions I’m no doubt going to be bombarded with, and for once, I’m ashamed that I won’t know the answers. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know what she’s doing. The only thing I do know is she’s probably as unhappy about that as I am.
“Hey, Toni, how are you?” I swallow the anxious lump down and put on my best breezy I’m-not-sure-I’m-quite-ready-to-forgive-your-daughter tone.
“Finn, it’s Arthur. Is Hope there? I need to speak to her.”
There’s a moment in a person’s life when the chilling tone of a simple sentence takes away one’s ability to breathe for all the worst reasons. I hate that I’ve had more than one of these moments, and I’m desolate that I’m having another one now.
“Arthur, what’s wrong?”
“Finn, I really need Hope to come home.”
“Oh, god, no! What’s happened?”
“Toni has had a heart attack. I should get back in case…” He drifts off, midway through his thoughts, which sound as confused as they are heartbreaking. “She’s just gone into emergency surgery. I’m sorry I didn’t call straight away.”
“When did it happen?”
“Where is Hope? Toni’s going to want to see her when she wakes. She’ll want to see you both, I’m sure. She loves you both so much. She has such a big heart. How can she—” He breaks, sucking in juddering breaths and failing to muffle the sound of his devastating sobs.
