THURSDAY MORNING DIDN’T go quite as well as Wednesday morning had. Derek and Talia awoke to the alarm on his father’s door at five thirty. Jonah was confused and agitated, and it took Derek a long time to settle him down. Thankfully, Talia remained calm, offering to help in any way she could, while giving his father the physical space he needed to relax, which Derek appreciated but also felt guilty about. Later in the morning, he sat in an armchair in the dining room playing his guitar, watching Talia grade papers at the table, while his father hunkered down over a notebook in which he was drawing. His father had started cartooning at the age of ten, when a neighbor who was an artist had noticed his talent and taken him under his wing. Derek was glad the disease hadn’t stolen his father’s artistic abilities yet. At least not all of them. Sometimes his father would be in the middle of drawing and forget what he was doing, but in the moments when his muse was present, he seemed content. Happy, even.
Talia glanced over, a pretty smile forming on her beautiful face. He blew her a kiss, thinking about the call he’d received about an hour ago, notifying him that a room had become available at the small assisted-living facility by their house. When his father was first diagnosed, he’d insisted on getting his affairs in order. If the diagnosis and the dark clouds that lay ahead weren’t enough to tear Derek apart in those first few weeks, the idea of one day putting his father into an assisted-living facility, a nursing home, or hospice when necessary had nearly done him in. Derek had endured lessons in strength and fortitude he’d never imagined in those early days, and many more since. Following his father’s wishes, he’d finally put Jonah on a waiting list for a room at the facility a few months ago, expecting, as they’d told him, that it could take anywhere from several months to a year or more for a room to become available. The call was anything but expected. A knot formed in Derek’s chest—he was torn between wanting a chance to have a normal relationship with Talia without having to navigate his father’s disease at every turn and wanting to be there to care for his father.
The sound of the front door opening pulled him back to the moment.
“Good morning, mijo. Good morning, Jonah,” Maria called out.
Talia had Thursdays off. He was going with her to walk Molly and then they were running a few errands. Their dates were anything but spectacular, but he hoped to make it up to her sometime soon.
“We’re in here, Maria,” Derek said.
His father looked at Talia and said, “Eva, Maria is here.”
“Yes, I hear that,” Talia said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be called his mother’s name.
And man, that hit him smack in the center of his heart.
Last night, after he and Talia had made love, they’d lain in bed talking about family, and he’d told her about how Maria had been like a second mother to him. He’d been thinking about mothers and families since seeing Louie, and he still didn’t have an answer to his worries about ending up like his father, or if it was fair to Talia to become even more involved. But as he strummed his guitar, watching her eyes narrow as her pen moved over the paper she was grading, darkness came over him at the thought of not being with her. He had enough on his plate with the impending facility visit and the weighty decision about his father’s well-being looming over him. He swallowed a dose of denial to get through one hurdle at a time.
“How is Jonah today? And how was dinner with your—” Maria’s dark eyes danced with elation as they moved between her and Derek. “Oh! I guess dinner was very good.”
Talia blushed, rose to her feet, and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Talia.”
Derek set his guitar down and stood, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Maria already had Talia in an enthusiastic embrace. “I am so happy to meet the one who woke up my mijo’s heart.” She touched Talia’s cheek and said, “He is a good boy. Please don’t hurt him.”
“Maria . . .” Derek glanced at Talia, and then Maria’s arms came around both of them at once and she mumbled a prayer in Spanish, as he’d often heard her do over his father. He carefully pried her arms from around them and said, “You’re going to scare her off with all this mothering.”
“No, she’s not,” Talia said sweetly. “She’s your Piper.”
Half an hour later they arrived at Fletch’s house. He lived only a few blocks from Derek, in a small Cape Cod–style home.
As they walked up to the front porch, he remembered the first night he’d seen her walking Molly and said, “The night I saw you crossing the street with Molly, I thought I’d conjured your image because I’d been thinking about you so much.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe I’m just a figment of your imagination.”
He nipped at her neck. “You’re sweet as sugar, baby. You’re no figment of my imagination.” He lowered his lips to hers, and she made a sexy sound that spurred him on to take the kiss deeper. Her kisses made all his worries fade away.
The sound of a throat clearing snapped him back to reality, and he reluctantly broke their connection, meeting Fletch’s amused light-blue eyes. He was a handsome man, even if he was smirking at their expense.
“How was breakfast?” Fletch asked.
Talia rolled her eyes, pink spreading across her cheeks. “Fletch, this is Derek. Derek, Fletch.”
“How’s it going?” Derek shook his hand as Molly pushed her nose out the door for a pet.
“Not as good as it is for you,” Fletch teased, studying Talia’s face as they walked inside. “That pink stain on your cheeks is new, Tal. It looks good on you.”
“Whatever,” she said. “One day you might get lucky and find a woman who makes you blush.”
“If you tell me Derek blushes, I’m going to have to rethink approving this relationship.”
“Approving?” Derek gathered Talia in his arms and said, “What’ve you got, all of Sweetwater and Harmony Pointe watching out for you?”
“Damn right she does.” Fletch cocked a brow and said, “I wasn’t teasing about it looking good on you, Tal. I guess you needed a fake student in your life. What are you guys doing here, anyway? I left you a voicemail this morning letting you know I think I’m okay to walk Molly.”
“But what if she pulls on the leash?” Talia asked. “Or if she gets free and you have to run after her?”
“I’ll be okay, but if not, maybe I’ll take a hint from you and try to run over a pretty woman, then woo her with my intelligence and amazing physique.”
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Derek said. “The best thing that’s ever happened to me was nearly getting run over.”
They decided to join Fletch on the walk since they were already there. Fletch gave Derek the third degree, showing a little more grit, but Derek didn’t mind. Fletch was a nice guy with a good sense of humor, and it was obvious how close he and Talia were.
After their walk, as Derek and Talia drove away from Fletch’s house, she said, “Is India seeing anyone?”
He squeezed her hand. “Really? I was thinking about Piper.”
“Piper would eat him alive.”
Images of last night came rushing back—the two of them tangled together beneath the sheets, Talia slithering down his body and rocking his world with that wicked mouth of hers. He lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to the back of it, and said, “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”