CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Meg tossed and turned all night long. Each time she fell asleep, a nightmare about Sky and Larissa woke her. It wasn’t until after the sun came up that she realized Quint had slept through the night for the first time. If only I’d been able to sleep as soundly as he did, she thought.
She nursed Quint, then set him down in the portable play yard with his favorite stuffed bunny. She had just begun a yoga routine when Jen entered the room.
“How are you doing today?”
“Quint slept well. I wish I could say the same.”
Jen bit her lip and nodded her head. “Maybe some spa time would do you good. I arranged for massages for us, and Kenny is going to come by to give us blow outs.”
Meg sighed. “Thanks, Jen. That sounds great.”
After breakfast, Meg and Jen retreated to the spa. Meg removed her robe and lay down on the massage table. She inhaled the eucalyptus and rosemary scented oils used by the masseuse, and immediately began to relax. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the soft new-age music, and as the tension seeped out of her body, she drifted off to sleep.
An hour and a half later, she emerged from the massage room feeling refreshed. Kenny greeted her and steered her to the shampoo sink, where he treated her to a refreshing scalp massage and deep conditioning treatment for her hair.
As he began to blow her hair dry, Meg asked, “Where’s Jen?”
“She’s upstairs. Her mom dropped the kids off, and she wanted to see them.”
“Oh my God, I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even realize they weren’t here.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, sweetie. You were beyond stressed yesterday.”
“I was. I still am,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He fluffed her hair, and handed her a mirror so she could see the back of her head. “You look beautiful.”
“If I do, it’s because you made me that way.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for making me feel better about myself.”
She sprinted up to the second floor to check on Quint, who was the center of attention in the play room, surrounded by PJ, Laura Grace and Belle. Mary was overseeing the play time, while PJ and Laura Grace took turns showing Quint their toys.
PJ ran towards her. “Aunt Meg,” he squealed. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
Meg sat on the floor, and pulled him into a tight hug. “I missed you, sweetie.”
“I missed you too. Where’s Uncle Sky?”
Her face fell, and she blinked back tears. “He’s not here. Quint and I came by ourselves this visit.” She was relieved when she heard her name being called from downstairs.
“Meg? Where are you?”
“In the play room, Jen.”
“Can you come down here a minute?”
Meg stood up. “Be right there.” She kissed Quint, and then handed him to Mary. “Thanks for holding down the fort with the kids.”
She met Jen at the bottom of the staircase. “What’s up?”
Jen took her by the arm. “Come with me,” she said, leading Meg towards the library and reaching for the doorknob. “Everyone else is in here.”
Meg’s heart raced, and her eyes darted from the door to Jen. “Everyone else? Who else is here?”
“Well, let’s see…my mom and dad, your dad, Drew, and Gina.”
Meg wrestled her arm out of Jen’s grip. “What is this about?”
“We just want to talk to you. Let you know we’re here for you.” Jen opened the library door. “Come on in.”
All conversation ceased as Meg entered the library. Victor rose from his seat, and wrapped his arms around her. “You may be a grown woman, but you’ll always be my baby girl.”
She accepted the box of tissues her father handed her, wiped the tears from her eyes, and blew her nose. “Thanks, dad.” She looked around the room, and added, “I appreciate all of you being here for me.”
Grace led her to a sofa. “Sit. We’re all worried about you. How are you doing?”
Tears streamed down Meg’s face. “Oh, Aunt Grace, I’m absolutely devastated.” The family members listened patiently as she poured her heart out to them. When she recounted the previous day’s whispers and stares in the supermarket, she said, “I’ve never been so hurt, and humiliated.”
“You know, he addressed the gossip at his show last night,” Gina said. “There are tons of videos posted online.”
Meg’s head snapped up, “From last night’s concert? What did he say?”
“We can look up the video later, but basically he said that none of it was true. He cried when he dedicated a song to you. Look, he’s not here, so I’m not going to get the chance to cross-examine him, but he seemed sincere. He might be telling the truth.”
“But, the pictures…” Meg’s voice trailed off.
“Forget the pictures,” Drew interrupted. “We went over this yesterday. You need to talk to him.”
The rest of her family members nodded in agreement. An awkward silence descended over the room, until Grace cleared her throat. “Meg, how have things been between you and Sky since the baby was born? Is your relationship back to normal?”
Meg’s cheeks turned bright red. “What do you mean by ‘relationship’?”
Before Grace could answer, Drew spoke up. “Peter, Victor, let’s get out of here and give the girls a chance to talk privately.”
Once the men left the room, Grace continued. “Let me ask the question again. How is your and Sky’s sexual relationship? Is everything okay in the bedroom?”
Meg’s jaw dropped at her aunt’s bold question. When she recovered, she shook her head and spoke in a whisper. “It’s not good.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The baby never sleeps. Last night was the first time he ever slept through the night. Sky gets frustrated with me because of all the attention I give to the baby. I love Quint, but having him has killed our relationship.”
Gina tried to lighten the mood. “Okay, so you’re not having sex every day anymore. That happens with all couples, baby or not, right?”
Meg stared at her feet. “It’s not that. We haven’t had sex since before the baby was born.”
Jen stared at her cousin in disbelief. “What?”
“Quint is four months old, and we haven’t umm…you know…made love since I was eight months pregnant.”
“Oh, Meg,” Jen said. “That’s not good.”
“Even I know that five months is too long, and I’m single,” Gina added.
“Men have needs,” Grace added. “You have to take care of your husband, and show him you love and value him.”
Meg lashed out in frustration. “But why is it my fault? I have to take care of the baby.”
Grace moved closer to Meg, and rubbed her back. “I want to share some advice my mother – your grandmother – gave me after I had children. She told me that while it’s important to be a mother, it’s just as important to be a wife.”
Jen nodded her head. “It’s really the secret to a happy marriage once children are born. You have to maintain that connection with your husband. It shows him how much you love him.”
Meg opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak she heard a ruckus, and the shouting of a familiar voice on the other side of the library door.
“Where’s Meg? Where’s my wife? I know she’s here.”
Sky burst through the door of the library and, ignoring everyone else, ran directly to Meg. “Baby, I’ve been so worried about you and Quint. Why didn’t you call me back?”
Silence descended over the room as every set of eyes turned towards Meg.
A combination of rage, confusion, and pain overwhelmed Meg as she stared at her husband. She did not want to admit that she had butterflies in her stomach, too, at the thought of him tracking her down. Instead of answering him, she turned the tables on him. “How the hell did you find me?”
“What difference does it make?”
Meg swung her head in Jennifer’s direction. “Did you tell him I was staying here?”
Jen looked her cousin in the eyes. “Sky sent me a text asking where you were. All I told him was that you and Quint were safe. He deserved to know that much, Meg.”
“And when you weren’t at your father’s house, or at the farm, this was the next logical place to look for you.” Sky turned to Jennifer and added, “It would have been easier if I didn’t have to climb over the driveway gate.”
“Well, you can climb back over the gate and get the hell out of here. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.”
“Meg, baby…we need to talk.” Sky looked around the room, and added, “Alone.”
Jennifer agreed. “Yes, you do need to talk. The two of you should use the pool house. You’ll have more privacy there.”
A chill ran down Meg’s spine at the thought of spending time alone with her husband. “But what about the baby…”
Grace shot her niece a look that could stop a clock. “Remember what we were just talking about. Quint will be fine. Mary has taken care of all of Jen’s children, and Jen and I will be here as well. You’ll only be fifty feet away.”
Meg sighed, and hung her head. “Okay. You’re right.”
Sky jumped in. “Where is Quint? I want to see our son.”
“He’s upstairs. I’ll take you to him.”
Meg walked out of the library with Sky trailing in her wake. They climbed the stairs in silence, and when opened the play room door, PJ ran towards them.
“Uncle Sky! I missed you. Aunt Meg said you didn’t come with her.”
“Hey, buddy,” Sky said, picking up PJ and giving him a hug before setting him back down on the floor. “I couldn’t get here until today.” He turned and scooped up Quint, who began to wave his arms and babble in excitement at seeing him. “How’s my little man?” He kissed his son on the forehead, and said, “Daddy’s missed you so much.”
Mary removed a bottle from the warmer, and handed it to Sky. “I was just about to feed him, but maybe you’d like to instead.”
“Oh…yeah, sure.” Sky sat down in a nearby rocking chair, and began to feed Quint. “Since when does he take a bottle?”
Meg shrugged her shoulders. “Since yesterday. I pumped and froze my breast milk. We also started giving him a little rice cereal. It fills him up, and helps him sleep. In fact, last night he slept through the night.”
Sky’s eyes grew wide as he looked up at Meg. “No kidding. That’s great.”
Meg watched her husband feed their son. This is so awkward. It’s only been two days apart, but it’s been a long two days. It feels like I’m talking to a stranger. Maybe this is what Jen meant when she said I shouldn’t let too much time go by before talking to him, or it might be too late.
She listened to Sky hum a tune she had never heard before, while he rocked Quint and rubbed his back until he burped.
“That’s my boy.” Sky’s voice was barely above a whisper, as he held Quint close against his chest. “Daddy loves you.” He nuzzled his face against the baby’s head and inhaled the faint scent of baby lotion and powder, before standing up and handing him to Meg.
“Kiss our son goodnight. We have to talk.” He walked towards the doorway of the play room, and watched while Meg said goodnight to the baby before handing him to Mary.
He grabbed Meg by the arm and pulled her towards the staircase. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To the pool house, like Jen suggested. We need to have this conversation in private.”
Meg and Sky crossed the back yard at Fair Fields and entered the pool house, where they discovered a note on the kitchen counter from Jen.
Meg read the note aloud. “There’s some food in the fridge. Stay the night here, so you two can sort things out.” She looked out the window towards the main house, then finished reading the note. “And don’t worry about Quint. We’ll take good care of him. Hugs, Jen.”
Sky stared at his wife. “Meg, I don’t know where to begin.”
She whipped around and spat out, “Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me. You had your arms around her while walking up the stairs of your bus.”
“Baby, I told you when we first got to know each other that I’d never lie to you. I never have, and I never will. And I never slept with her. Nothing happened. There’s an explanation.”
Meg’s body began to shake, and she crossed her arms against her chest. “I don’t believe you. The pictures.” She began to sob, and collapsed onto a nearby sofa. “I can’t…they said…”
“Shhh…” Sky sat down and reached for her, but she pulled back from him. His voice was soft as he spoke. “Meg, please, listen to me.”
She reached for a nearby box of tissues and managed to compose herself. “I’m listening,” she said, as she curled into a ball and hugged a throw pillow to her chest.
Sky took a deep breath. “After you left on Friday morning to fly home to Nashville with Quint, I had a talk with Larissa. As it turns out, she has a bigger drinking problem than we thought. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning, but she was pretty plastered, and admitted that she had already had whiskey in her coffee. And it got worse backstage before the show that night. I don’t know how she got through her set, but when it came time to join us for “Heat”, she was barely able to stay on her feet and was slurring the words. Jack had to help her off stage, where she passed out. We took her to our bus, and had Beau stay the night with her there. I slept on Jack and Becky’s bus.”
“Why couldn’t she sleep it off on her own bus?”
“The guys in her band were real ‘hands-y’ with her backstage, and I didn’t want something bad to happen to her. And since Beau is an EMT, it made sense for him to stay with her.”
Meg narrowed her eyes. “If that’s true, then why do all the photos show only you and Larissa? Where was everyone else?”
“They were walking behind me. The photos must have been cropped.”
“That’s a convenient excuse.”
“Goddamn it Meg.” He pounded his fist into the sofa and raised his voice. “It’s the truth. So help me God, it’s the truth.” When she didn’t respond, he continued, “The first night we met, you told me that you didn’t believe half of what the tabloids printed. Why is this any different?”
“Because this time it’s my life. And because I know there are grains of truth to the story. She wants you. She’s got it bad for you, and made sure that I knew it. Even the first time I met her in Las Vegas, she made it clear that she wanted you.”
Sky rolled his eyes. “Just because she has a crush on me doesn’t mean I’m gonna do anything about it.”
“But…”
“And we fired her from the tour.”
Meg’s eyes grew wide. “You did?”
“Yes. She’s a disaster, and needs to get into rehab. I hope she recognizes that she’s hit about as rock-bottom as she can go. Otherwise, her career is over.”
“But what about you, and the band, and your career? The executives at your label are going to go nuts when they find out that you fired her.”
“I don’t care. Our marriage comes first. You’re way more important to me than all that.”
“Sky, you didn’t have to do that for me.”
“Oh, yes I did. There’s only a couple of things in this world that matter to me – they’re you, us, and our son. And even though I love music and the band, trust me, I’d give it all up in a heartbeat if you wanted me to. I’d fly down to Dallas tomorrow and beg my father for a job with the family business, if it would repair our marriage and make you happy.”
Sky’s revelations were like a bucket of ice water being poured over Meg. “No, no…of course I wouldn’t want you to do that. You’d be miserable…”
“Just tell me how to fix this, then…”
Meg’s voice cracked. “I don’t know…”
“I love you. You’re my life, baby. You. Only you.” Sky moved next to her, grabbed the pillow she was clutching, and tossed it to the floor. He put his arms around her, pulled her close, and whispered, “There’s no one else in the world I want more than you.”
Her heart was racing, and the butterflies returned to her stomach. She turned and focused her green eyes on her husband. “Sky…”
“Shhh…” He ran his fingers through her hair, then tilted her chin up so his lips could brush against hers. “Baby, it’s been so long…”
She hung her head. “I know, and I’m sorry. If we drifted apart, I’m the one to blame.”
“No, you’re not. We both just need to make time for each other.”
Meg closed her eyes, and the advice her aunt and cousin gave her earlier echoed in her head. While it’s important to be a mother, it’s just as important to be a wife. You have to maintain that connection with your husband.
“Meg?”
She jumped when she heard Sky say her name. “Sorry…I was just thinking about something.” She snuggled against her husband, and allowed his muscular arms to pull her so tight against him that she could feel his heart beating. She slipped her hand under his shirt and ran her fingers over his chest.
“Oh, baby, what you do to me,” he said, as he took her hand and placed it over the growing bulge in his pants. “No one has ever made me feel the way you do.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Right back at you, Johnson.”
He chuckled. “That’s my girl. There’s the sass I’ve been missing these past few months.” He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, as he felt her fingers massage his crotch. He took her hand in his, and looked around. “Is there a bedroom in this pool house?”
“There is, but aren’t you hungry? You had a long day of traveling.”
He pulled her towards him for a kiss. His lips brushed against hers with a light touch, before he coaxed them apart so his tongue could explore her mouth while his hands roamed her body. “Dessert first, baby.”
Meg stood, and led him past the kitchen and into the bedroom. She grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up and over his head, then raised her arms up while Sky removed her tank top. After she stepped out of her shorts and underpants, she watched while Sky let his jeans and boxer briefs slide to the floor.
“Oh, baby,” he said, as he lay her down and climbed on top of her. He unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. “I’ve missed these”, he said with a sigh, as he nuzzled his head against her breasts. He took one in each hand, and took turns kissing one and then the other before looking up at her. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but there were times I was resentful of Quint, because he got to have access to you and your gorgeous breasts, while I got nothing.”
Meg’s stomach dropped, and she flinched at Sky’s revelation. She ran her fingers through his hair, then rubbed his neck and shoulders. “I’m so sorry about that.”
He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about, baby.” He returned his attention to her breasts, gliding his tongue over each nipple. “Mmm…so good.”
“Oh, God yes…so good.” Electricity coursed through her veins as her husband raised himself to his knees and nudged her legs apart. She spread them wide, and said, “I’m all yours, Sky.”
He reached for her opening, and inserted his fingers deep inside her. “You’re dripping,” he said, as he massaged her sweet spot. He watched her react to his touch, and as she writhed with pleasure, he teased her until she begged to finish. “Not yet, baby. I’ve waited five months for this. I can wait a little while longer.”
She bucked her hips up in an attempt to connect with him. “I can’t take it any longer, Sky. I need you inside me, now. Please.”
He grinned as he grasped his rock-hard erection, and rubbed it against her pleasure center. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”
Meg lost all control over her body as Sky used his manhood to push her over the edge. She dug her fingers into his thighs as she rode wave after wave of pleasure. She was still gasping for air when he plunged himself deep inside her, and the sensation of fullness overwhelmed her.
He pounded away at her body with near-violent abandon. The grunts coming from deep in his chest were guttural, more animal than human sounding. He reached his climax with a roar, and collapsed on top of her as he tried to catch his breath.
His ferocity surprised Meg. As he lay on top of her, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and rubbed his back. She felt his body stiffen, and asked, “Are you okay?”
Sky rolled onto his back and covered his face with his hands. “Yeah. I’m sorry – I don’t know where that came from. Did I hurt you?”
Meg propped herself up on one elbow. “I’m fine, caveman. I get that you were just re-claiming me, and marking your territory. I kind of liked it.”
“Yeah, I was definitely re-claiming you.” He pulled her tight against his body, and ran his fingers through her hair. “Good thing we weren’t in the main house. That was no luau.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Meg purred. She kissed his chest, and sighed when she felt Sky rub her back until she dozed off.
They stirred with the first rays of sunlight. Their limbs were intertwined, and they groaned as they tried to extricate themselves from each other.
Meg stood up and stretched. “God, I’m sore.” She yawned, and added, “And tired. We didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Three times will do it,” Sky said with a smile, as he admired his wife’s naked body. “A new personal best for us.”
“Yeah, it was quite a workout,” Meg agreed with a chuckle. “I hope Jen has a coffee maker here. I’d kill for a big mug right now.”
Sky watched as she took a few steps towards the kitchen. “Yeah, I hope so too, because you can’t go back to the house just yet.”
She turned around and asked, “Why?”
“Because you’ve got a huge grin on your face that will tell your whole family you just had a night filled with lots of hot sex.”
She burst out laughing, jumped back into bed, and pulled him in for a deep kiss. “Yeah, they’ll be relieved to know we’re good.”
“We’re better than good, baby.” His hands traveled from her waist down to her buttocks. “And as much as I’d like to go another round with you here in bed, I think we’ve got to get you and Quint packed up and back to Nashville.”