by Jewel E. Ann
The midwife chuckled as Ronin helped me into the bed. The nurse suggested I relax in the tub a bit, but I just wanted to lie down as soon as possible.
“Look at me.” Ronin brushed my hair away from my face after I grimaced through another contraction.
I saw it … that look. He was going to say it.
“No. Don’t you dare say it.” I grabbed his shirt to hold him close to me, stressing my point.
He loved me. Why wouldn’t I just let him say it? Well, we’d gone over two years without saying the actual words. We said it with a look and a hundred other words strung together. But mostly we said it with a touch. Our bodies said it for us when he lost himself inside of me and when I found shelter in his arms.
It wasn’t our rainy day. Not yet.
The fact that it had been two years made it even more special, like an aging wine. One day, we would open that bottle, and it would be something very special to be savored.
“I wasn’t going to say it.” He grinned. “I was going to tell you that you have to push. I want to meet our son. He’s mine too. You’ve kept him to yourself long enough. It’s my turn. Give me my turn.”
Only Ronin could make me laugh during such physical pain. “Franz will be a mama’s boy. You know this, right?”
He kissed my lips, and as I started to moan with pain, he moved his mouth to my cheek while stroking my hair. Then he brushed his lips against my ear. “I love Franz with my entire being, as I do his mother.”
Sneaky … he snuck that in there without pointing the words directly at me. Real sneaky.
“It hurts!”
The midwife remained in chill mode with a smile on her face and her soothing voice repeatedly reminding me to “open up.” It’s not like I was trying to close my vagina. It didn’t have an actual door with hinges. It was like trying to put a toddler’s sock on an adult’s foot. Sure … it could possibly stretch that far, but probably not without tearing it. And the sock would never be the same.
However, as I knew in the rational part of my brain, my body was designed to do this. Eventually, it wasn’t up to me. I couldn’t not push anymore. When I made peace with that little biological phenomenon, Franz Benedict Alexander came into the world weighing six pounds, seven ounces.
Franz was Ronin’s German grandfather’s name, which had plenty of perfect meanings like Frenchman and free.
Benedict was my grandfather’s name, the lumberjack who built my home.
Lots of solid testosterone in our son’s name.
“He’s perfect, Evie …” Ronin almost made it. Almost …
A single tear escaped as he kissed Franz’s tiny head while I cradled him in my arms.
My tears were too many to count. A million was my best guess.
The midwife and nurse meandered around the room doing post-delivery things to me and Franz without actually taking him from my arms. Within minutes, a lactation consultant joined us to make sure he attached to his food source.
Everything … everything was perfect.
Several hours later, we had company, just family—my parents and grandma and Lila and Graham. Ronin’s parents were scheduled to arrive in two days. Franz insisted on coming out a week early just to mess up their plans of being there for the birth.
“Evelyn.” My mom tried to cry even more tears than I had cried. She wanted to live long enough to meet at least one grandchild.
I had no doubt she would live to meet all of her grandchildren and maybe a few of her great-grandchildren. My mom embodied the true meaning of strength and perseverance.
“Meet your first grandson, Franz.” After being alert for two hours following the birth and eating like a champ, he had drifted off to sleep in Ronin’s arms.
With a bit of reluctance, Ronin handed our son over to my mom. God, I loved how he instantly bonded with Franz. It made me fall for him all over again. It made those three unspoken words multiply with meaning and emotion.
“Congratulations. He’s beautiful.” Lila kissed my head and squeezed my hand as she looked adoringly … maybe even longingly at Franz.
“Thank you.” I squeezed her hand back.
“Congrats,” Graham mumbled without looking up from his phone screen. He wore a gray suit and perfectly knotted tie. The reality of his new position hit me for the first time as I glanced at his security detail stationed by the door.
“How’s the new job?” Ronin asked Graham, resting his hand on Graham’s shoulder.
He took two seconds away from his phone to smile at Ronin, which was more than he gave me—his friend of more than a decade.
“Good. I feel pulled in a million directions.” He glanced back down at his screen.
“Nice of you to come, Governor Graham Cracker.” That finally brought his attention to me.
He smirked. “Governor Porter to you.”
“I would never invite a politician to visit my newborn son just hours after delivery. So you’d better have more to offer than a smirk and starchy suit and tie.” I held out my hand.
Graham sighed, relinquishing his phone to the inside pocket of his jacket before taking my hand and giving me a hug. “Are you still taking care of our Lila?” I whispered in his ear.
He pulled back a few inches, inspecting me with slightly narrowed eyes. “Yes. What are you getting at?” Graham glanced over his shoulder at Lila who had her attention focused on Franz.
My question held no implication other than a simple reminder that I gave him Lila. Yes. That was how I remembered things. I just wanted to make sure that Governor Porter hadn’t forgotten that his most important job was loving my best friend. The greatest gift anyone had ever given him came from me. I gave him Lila.
“What?” Lila caught his gaze on her. Then she looked at me with confusion on her face.
“Just making sure Governor Porter is treating his First Lady like the queen she is.” I winked at Lila.
She didn’t wink back.
He didn’t show any emotion. Instead, he released my hand and fished his phone out of his pocket again. “Ten minutes, then we have to go,” he said to Lila.
I waited for her to roll her eyes or tell him there was no way they were leaving in ten minutes. They just got there. Who flies to Aspen for a ten-minute visit?
She didn’t roll her eyes.
She didn’t argue.
“Okay.” She returned an emotionless nod to Graham before shooting me the most pathetic fake smile I had ever seen.
Like I had done so many times before, I thanked god I didn’t end up with Graham. I wasn’t submissive enough to live under his shadow of control. I didn’t think Lila was either. I thought she would complement him, put him in his place, and build him up when he needed to exert his independence from his family. Since his family liked her, I thought she was the perfect person to do that.
Maybe I was wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Two.
I stuck two candles in the birthday cake. Where did the time go? How was it possible that our little guy was turning two?
“You’re not crying, are you?” Ronin asked, sliding his hands around my waist and kissing my neck.
My teary gaze lifted from the cake, focusing out the window at our family and friends building a snowman out front with Franz. It was all he wanted for his birthday. A snowman. Man … I loved that kid so damn much my heart always teetered on the verge of bursting.
It was another perfect day in our life together. Well, almost perfect. Graham and Lila couldn’t make it. They didn’t make it to a lot of things. Since they got married, my friends took on a new life that didn’t involve us quite as much. Ronin saw Graham more than I did. They skied several times during the winter and managed to play golf once a week during the summer.
Lila took the role as First Lady and ran with it. I was so proud of my friend for walking away from a profession she loved to embrace her own civic duty. She wanted to make a difference in the lives of the great people of Colorado, and she did. Sadly, that meant
I saw her maybe once a month, relying on quick phone calls and texts as our new form of communication.
“I’m not crying. It’s just dry in the house. Did you refill the humidifier?”
Ronin made me turn toward him. “Yes. I did.”
I nodded, averting my teary-eyed gaze. “Good. That’s good.”
“He’s two, not twenty.” Ronin slid his hands into the back pockets of my jeans and pulled me closer to him.
I held out my arms because my hands were a little sticky from frosting the cake. “It’s not that. It’s how bittersweet everything has become in our lives. It’s the change. It’s Lila and Graham being too busy to make it to the party.”
“It’s life, Evie. He’s The Governor. He was supposed to ski with me last week, but he had to cancel. I didn’t take it personally. And neither should you.”
“I’m not.” Well, I sort of wasn’t. I knew Graham and Lila weren’t missing any birthday parties for Graham’s family. I hated feeling like we were growing apart. Family wasn’t supposed to grow apart. It was stupid of me to fix up my best friends, like putting all my eggs in one basket. It felt like I was losing them at the same time.
I sighed, licking the frosting from one of my fingers. “They’re not even done rolling the first snowball for the body. They’re going to be out there for a while. I should throw in a load of laundry since I have a few spare minutes.”
“Or …” Ronin grabbed my wrist and sucked on the finger that was just in my mouth.
“Or?” I questioned with raised eyebrows.
“I could fuck my wife.”
I coughed on my next breath. We were married with a child. We made love. We didn’t “fuck.” Where did that come from?
Ronin kissed along my arm. “Franz is always in our bed. We have very quiet sex with him in our bed. I have to make the tiniest movements as to not wake him. And while we manage to get the job done when the stars align, I miss fucking my wife.”
“Roe …” I whispered a little out of breath as he sucked the frosting from my other fingers.
“I miss that too.” He grinned, releasing my finger. “I miss you moaning ‘Roe …’ as my tongue makes its first swipe between your legs before I finger you to your first orgasm, lick every inch of you, then give you a second orgasm with my cock pounding into you over and over.”
“Roe …” I closed my eyes, fighting my weak knees. His effect on me hadn’t worn off. If anything, the lack of his dirty mouth had only intensified its ability to make me want him so badly.
“Do you miss that too, Evie?” He palmed my ass and jerked me into him.
I nodded a half dozen times while making a quick glance over my shoulder. They were just completing the first snowball for the snowman. As soon as I turned back to Ronin, feeling a bit unsure if we could do it and be finished before anyone came back into the house, he kissed me so hard my lungs burned for air.
I missed kissing him like that. The urgency. The bite of his needy fingers digging into my flesh. He lifted me up, so his erection wedged between my legs as he carried me to the bedroom. He kicked the door shut and reached around to lock it.
Good boy …
We tore off our clothes in record time … some of them actually getting torn, like several buttons on his shirt and my thin, white cotton panties.
He pushed me onto the bed and attacked my mouth and neck, working his way down to suck and bite my nipples causing me to yell his name.
God … I hoped no one sneaked into the house unexpectedly.
He didn’t stay in one place long before kneeling on the floor, jerking my hips to the edge of the bed, and draping my legs over his shoulders while burying his face between my legs. His tongue relentlessly probed inside of me as he hummed like a starving man eating for the first time in weeks.
My body contorted and twisted as he kept my hips pinned to the mattress, slaying my efforts to hold off, ripping an orgasm from me then plunging his cock into me before I could see clearly again or find a single thought to make the slightest protest.
Then … he fucked me. And I liked it.
No. I loved it. I needed it. He was right. After two years of silently tiptoeing through sex with a sleeping child a few feet from our naked bodies, I needed to be taken the way he took me when we first met. Until the padded headboard thrummed the wall, I’d forgotten how it felt to get tipsy from oral sex and completely intoxicated by him fucking me so hard it felt like we were in another dimension.
The hard, concentrated expression on his face as he moved above me.
The slap of our skin.
The taste of sweat.
And the explosion … the string of swear words … and his body collapsing onto mine, pulsing with labored breaths.
“Oh … my … god …” I whispered on a heavy breath, completely exhausted and drunk on Ronin Alexander. “That was …”
Ronin nodded with his face buried in my neck. “Yeah …” His hot breath washed over my skin. “It sure as fuck was.”
That day … it was the day we conceived Franz’s little sister. It was also the beginning of a lot of ends that we never saw coming.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I missed the days of taking the Porter jet between Denver and Aspen. Three hours in the car with two kids wasn’t the highlight of my day.
“Oh …” Mom answered the door to their three-bedroom ranch in Littleton, a suburb of Colorado. “I thought you were coming alone.”
“You said it was important.”
A theatrical smile took over her face as she gazed at three-year-old Franz standing next to me with a backpack full of toys and books and his nine-month-old sister, Anya, asleep in her car seat straining my right arm.
“But I said we should speak alone.”
I pushed my way past her so I could set the car seat down. “I thought that was code for chatting while Dad ate lunch at the diner with his cronies. I have two kids, a working husband, and a business. Today is my day off which means it’s Sue’s day off.”
“Did you check with Lila?” Mom closed the door and helped Franz wiggle his backpack off his back. “Hi, sweetie.” She kissed him on his head.
I chuckled. “No. I didn’t see if the governor’s wife had time to babysit today. I don’t see Lila that much anymore. We chat for maybe ten minutes on the phone each week, and I send her pictures of the kids, but other than that …”
“Life changes.” Mom gave me a knowing, sad smile.
“It does.” I slipped off my shoes and lugged Anya’s car seat into the living room while Franz shuffled down the hallway to the spare bedroom that doubled as a toy room for him.
“Hey, honey.”
I turned toward Dad’s voice as he came around the corner from the kitchen. He handed me a cup of tea.
“You’re here.” I took the tea. “Now, I feel like you’re both ganging up on me. Is this an intervention? I know … I could use a haircut, and my house is a disaster.”
“No intervention.” Dad took a seat on the sofa next to Mom as I sat in the oversized chair with Anya’s seat on the floor next to me, gently rocking her to keep her napping as long as possible.
“What’s up?”
“The cancer is back,” Dad said, reaching over to take Mom’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
I shook my head. “What? No … I mean, how can that be right? Your tests and scans have been clear.”
“That was six months ago.” Mom put on a brave face even though her knuckles were white from clenching Dad’s hand so tightly.
“So …” I focused on Anya. Young and innocent. She represented life. I needed some life in my life at that moment. “Six months. It can’t be that bad. What are we talking? Surgery? Some radiation?”
“It metastasized to my brain. I had some symptoms, but nothing that felt that alarming since everything did seem fine after my last checkup. But honestly, we wonder if they missed something at that checkup.”
“Symptoms?” I asked.
“Headaches that would
sometimes make me nauseous. Memory issues that I just attributed to aging. Dizziness that I thought was from the headaches. But last week I had a seizure.”
“What? How am I just now finding out about this?”
“Because once we found out what had caused the seizure and other symptoms, we had some choices to make. And they’re not easy choices.” Mom talked about her cancer like it wasn’t hers. She had always acted like it was happening to someone else. Always so matter-of-fact.
“Treatment choices?”
They nodded.
“So what’s the game plan? I can see if Ling and Victor will come help with the kids so I can be here for your treatments. Have you told Katie yet? She’ll want to fly out and stay for a while too.”
“We’re using money from your dad’s 401k and going to Italy.”
My head jerked back. “Before the treatment? Don’t they want to get started right away?”
Dad gave my mom a quick glance and blew out a slow breath. “Your mom doesn’t want to go through the treatment. It will only help with some of the symptoms. At best, it may give her six extra months. But in exchange, she’ll be sick from the chemo. Even her doctors feel the best option is to enjoy what time she has left with family.”
Emotion burned my eyes.
My mom … she was dying. Yet, my heart broke for my dad. His strength amazed me. How could life be so cruel to allow cancer to take both the women he chose to love in this life?
“What about experimental treatment? I can talk to Graham and—”
“Evelyn.” Mom rolled her lips together and shook her head. “It’s time. And I’m … I’m okay with it. I’ve spent the past week coming to terms with it.”
“Wow … okay, well …” I looked up at the ceiling while tears blurred my vision. “What if I’m not okay with it? What if I can’t come to terms with you giving up? Do my feelings not matter? Katie’s feelings? She won’t be okay with this at all.”
“We told her last night.” Dad leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “We called her. And she accepted the fact that it’s your mom’s decision. It’s her body. It’s her life.”
