Roman lost no time locking down Kelly’s startling surrender. Did it concern him that he wore her down and probably forced her change-of-heart? Not in the least.
She was pretending to arrange pillows on the sofa when Matty came into the room. Before buyer’s remorse could set in, he wiped out her last escape route.
“Buddy!” Roman hooted. He and the boy high-fived. “Guess what. We’re taking a road trip, little dude. Kelly said okay. New York City here we come.”
“Hey,” Kelly griped. “Slow down. Nobody said anything about a road trip. I’ve got the house and…”
“Taken care of,” he announced. “I’ll spare the details now because you’ll check with Sam anyhow, but here’s the deal.”
Roman gave Matty a wink. The kid already recognized the signal and fist bumped him in male solidarity.
“Found a caretaker. You know the guy. Bobby Douglas. Sam says he’s cool. You’d be helping a veteran get back on his feet.”
Matty’s blonde head nodded enthusiastically. “Roman says we should always help a beteran.”
Kelly’s knee-jerk correction took the wind out of any possible objection.
“It’s veteran. V like vanilla. And Roman is right,” she assured the boy with a smile.
“Then it’s settled,” he crowed triumphantly. Shit! He couldn’t believe how easy this ended up being.
“New York! New York!” Matty squealed with glee. Skipping around the room he turned into a tiny whirling dervish as the excitement overtook him. “Kiki!” he shouted. “I’m gonna have my birthday at New York!”
Roman saw her face fall. He knew what she was thinking. In her mind New York represented her losing control of their lives. She had plans for Matty’s big day. He knew this because he saw a sketch of the fancy homemade cake she planned to construct. A dinosaur of course, and not just that. Somewhere in the mess of crap in her room was a birthday kit of decorations with some balloons, hats, noisemakers, a paper table cloth and cups and plates, and napkins.
It astonished and bothered him what she managed to do with forty dollars. No way was he going to let her be deprived of her plans.
“Dude,” Roman drawled. Matty’s attention was instantly on him. “Wait till you see what she has planned. I’m totally jealous.” He gave her a reassuring smile, and for the first time since they met, he caught a glimpse of something she tried so hard to cover up.
When all was said and done, Kelly James was far too young to take on so much responsibility when you considered that none of what she dealt with was of her making. It was one thing to fuck up with shitty decisions. Not much choice when it came time to own up. But to step into a whirling Bermuda Triangle of poor choices and fucks ups courtesy of someone else and be the one to make things right? Fuck, but that made him mad. Seeing her eyes fill with doubt and anxiety was not his idea of fun.
Matthew Liam James, Mr. Old Soul wearing Oshkosh overalls went to her and wrapped his arms around a thigh. “My Kiki is the best.”
She ruffled his hair and smiled down into his adoring eyes.
No matter what, I’m going to do right by these two, he mentally vowed. He’d dropped the ball once before and left too much to chance. Not this time. No way.
“Matthew,” he drawled. “I’m feeling Candyland. Why don’t you go set up the board and I’ll find out what we’re having for dinner.”
Because kids are so damn easily distracted, he skipped off and left him and Kelly alone for a minute or three.
“Let’s make sure we pack his party things. And if you give me a detailed list of what you need for his birthday dinner, I’ll take care of laying in supplies.”
“You make it sound like we’re going on a camping trip, but I bet you’ve got one of those HGTV kitchens.”
Only he would end up with the only female on the planet who would grumble about a state of the art cook’s kitchen and do it with a touch of pout that did unbelievable things to his dick.
What could he do to ease her mind? Oh, wait. He had an idea. And it was a good one too.
“Would you feel better if you saw pictures? Of my place, I mean. You might be surprised.”
“You have pictures?”
“Well, no,” he told her laughingly. “But I can get some pretty quick. I’ll text my decorator.” He snickered at what that meant. “She’d be happy to snap some pictures.”
“You have a decorator?”
The barely concealed wonder in her voice was funny.
“Actually, I have a Rhiann. She’s the mastermind behind a lot of what you’ll see. No snotty comments about the antlers.”
Her disbelief continued. “You have antlers?”
He chuckled and drew her into a hug. “I prefer to think of them as a decorating affectation.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Penny jar,” Matty hooted.
“It means,” he told her with his lips hovering over hers, “that from a visual standpoint they scream, look at me. Hence the affectation inside the decorating focal point.”
His kiss swallowed her reaction. When he was sure she’d been silenced, he ended the kiss and swatted her butt playfully.
“The men are hungry,” he bellowed with a Tarzan-like chest thump to Matty’s grinning delight. “Woman of the house. What’s for dinner?”
She whispered in his ear, “Uh, how about your balls on a platter?”
He let rip with a hearty guffaw and swatted her again, this time more forcefully. When she yowled and covered her butt with her hands, he leered suggestively. “No to the platter,” he grandiosely declared. “But yes to your mouth.”
“I give up,” she groused. Throwing her hands up in defeat she marched into the kitchen and started banging pots and pans.
“Kiki,” Matty yelled. “Fish sticks and cheesy macaroni. Okay?”
“Well I don’t know Matty,” she muttered. “I’m not sure fancy men like frozen fish sticks.”
As far as digs went, that one was pretty lame.
“Got ketchup?” Roman asked. When both of them nodded yes, he held up his hands. “Then we’re good. My mom always gave us ketchup for dipping, so that’s how I like them.”
Kelly’s dark scowl was adorable. He had an answer for everything, and it was getting on her last nerve.
Matty was well on his way to cleaning Roman’s clock at Candyland when Kelly called out to them. “It’s your job to set the table.”
He enjoyed the way her ass rocked a pair of curve-hugging jeans. When she bent over to peer in the oven, he swallowed the primitive grunt that automatically rumbled up from his core. As much as he’d enjoyed their furtive sex life until now, he couldn’t wait to bend her sweet little body over the end of his enormous bed and fuck the shit out of her from behind. It’d be even hotter if she let him tie her hands.
Without thinking, he rubbed his hand on the bulge evident in his pants. She turned around at that moment with a hot pan she held by a potholder. She stared at his hand. He stared at her face. Until now he’d managed to keep their shenanigans in the moderately vanilla zone. But it was getting harder and harder to keep things there because his deliciously wanton little lover was pushing for more.
He launched off the sofa and dashed across the room, taking the pan and potholder from her hand before she got burnt. If they were alone, he’d toy with her. Play word games and inflame their passions.
But he was learning to navigate the dad route, and that meant behaving when the kid was around. Well, mostly behaving. He dropped the pan onto the stovetop and glanced back at Matty. He was busy setting the table and wasn’t paying them any attention. He took the chance because that’s what you did when a clear shot presented itself.
Grasping one of her hands he took her fingers and used his big hand atop hers to fondle his bulge. He bit her earlobe and growled, “Interested?”
He had to give it up for timing because she got quite a handful before they had to break apart.
Roman was one of those guys who happily ate whatever was in front of him. He also knew how to make the most disgusting MRE palatable, and wasn’t a stranger to home delivered gourmet. But the pile of crunchy no name fish sticks with the side of gooey mac and cheese was nothing short of bliss on a Melamine plate.
Over dinner, they happily chatted about whatever popped into the conversation.
Kelly shared a truly terrible joke that was so bad even the kid rolled his eyes. Matty informed them that Bob the Builder had a friend named Wendy and for Roman’s part, he explained how to power a light bulb using a big potato, pennies, a scrap of copper wire, zinc-plated nails and a nightlight bulb.
It was remarkably family-ish, and he wasn’t at all concerned by the thought.
“Are we going to live with you?” Matty asked. He was munching on a fish stick like a bunny eating a carrot.
Roman reached for Kelly’s hand and held tight. “Getting a room ready for you right now,” he explained. “And you can decorate it any way you want.”
“What about Kik? Does she get a room?”
No time like the present. “She’ll be staying in my room, with me.”
Matty took this news without missing a beat. “She farts in her sleep.”
“Matthew James,” Kelly shrieked. “Don’t tell him that.”
Roman had to laugh. From the mouths of babes. “Yeah,” he told him in somber agreement. “Found that out. And ya’ know what else? She rubs her snotty nose on my shirt.”
Matty cracked up with giggles.
“Oh. I see how it’s gonna’ be.” She sat back and fumed at them. “Making fun of the girl.”
What came next from this particular babe’s mouth?
“I love Kik,” Matty gushed. “Don’t you, Roman?”
A smart man would have deflected the question, but he wasn’t smart. Not anymore. Not since an insatiable sprite shook his world inside out.
“She’s easy to love, I’ll grant you that.”
Their eyes connected but she flushed bright red and looked away.
“Listen,” he chatted amiably to the boy. “I have a friend who’s going to send some pictures of my place for you to look at. What do you say if we take a selfie to share with her?”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Oh, uh, her name is…” he choked. What would Rhiann be to Matty? Sister-in-law? Shit. That means she’s not an aunt. Okay, so first names were called for.
“Rhiann,” he said. “I call her Rhi. She’s engaged to…”
Kelly’s hand slammed onto the table. “That’s enough.”
Unsure-of-herself Kelly was gone. Don’t fuck-with-me Kelly was in da’ house.
“Take your picture and then clear the table. Matty, you’re on trash duty.”
The determined, slightly adversarial tone she used didn’t do anything helpful for his raging libido.
They smooshed together for a group shot that nearly got derailed multiple times due to Matty’s fascination with Roman’s iPhone. It would’ve been awesome if Kelly made an attempt to smile, but he dashed that thought and instead was grateful she hadn’t flipped the bird.
Clean-up was a breeze, and once the boy had the trash ready for the truck, they gathered in the living room, curled up with a bunch of throw blankets, and watched One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Family time. Pieces inside him that he didn’t know were crooked fell into place. If he just kept them moving forward, one carefully balanced baby step at a time, they had an unbelievable shot at the sort of homemade happily ever after that he was sure could survive the test of time.
With the phone cord stretched to the max, Roman spoke to Liam while keeping an eye on what was happening in the backyard.
Sam stopped by with Bobby Douglas in tow. The three of them, Matty bouncing by their sides, were going through the backyard step by step. He was damn proud of Kelly. She had a head full of doubts, but she stood by her decision and didn’t shrink from what was necessary before they headed out. And that’s what he was explaining to his boss.
“Driving will take too long. Why don’t you fly?”
Roman sighed. “I told you why. We’ve got some fairly significant identification issues. The boy still doesn’t exist as far as official paperwork goes. A vaccination record isn’t enough. We’d get flagged before getting on a plane. And besides, it’s too much of a culture shock. Bringing them to New York from the woods of Oklahoma is a big deal. I’d rather ease them into it.”
“Where’d you rent the truck? Amarillo? Why can’t you drive to Texas and then grab a private flight from there?”
Because he didn’t want to. Because he was looking forward to a week-long road trip with Kelly and Matty. But dammit. Liam wasn’t going to back down. He had it all figured out too. They could do the trip in six or seven hours, spend the night in a hotel, and then hire a plane the rest of the way.
It was the only concession he was willing to give at the moment, so he gave in. It was easier than arguing.
“What aren’t you saying, Roman? Whatever it is, stop playing me. And low blow you son-of-a-bitch for setting my woman on me. You’re a dick.”
Hey. No worries, man. I’m fucking your little sister.
And that kid you’re so jacked up about? Yeah. About that. Got news for you. Your control position with the boy is pretty far down on the pole.
Oh sure. He couldn’t wait to say all of that.
“Can I be straight with you?” Roman pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and pressed the phone to his ear with the other.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Liam grumbled, “but yes, of course. Go ahead.”
“We’ve known each other a long time, and I know better than most how you are. I’m counting on you to remember who you’re talking to before you go off on me, alright?”
“Good lord, man. It can’t be that bad. Can it?”
Telling the Archduke of Control Freaks that he wasn’t going to get a chance to swoop in and take over? Sure, that didn’t sound bad. Not.
“As I said Liam, I know how you are.”
“I’m a big boy. I can take it. Just spit it out, Bishop. Shit. Beating around the bush isn’t your strong suit.”
“Bottom line. And please count to ten before you react. This isn’t about you and what you want or what you think needs to happen.”
“What the…”
He trampled over Liam’s angry growl with a reminder, “Ten, nine, eight…”
When the necessary amount of time had passed, the angry growl continued.
“Says who? You? What’s going on Roman? Why do I feel like I’m missing something? These people are my siblings goddammit. Family. You can’t just tell me to shut up and sit down. That’s not how this works.”
Ugh. He hated the phone sometimes. This being one of those times. Leaning against the counter at an angle that afforded a view of the backyard goings on, he flipped the phone cord around a trashcan before it pulled the damn thing over.
Matty was hopping around like a jumping bean, going from one snow mound to the next. Sam, Kelly, and Bobby were huddled in conversation. The sun was shining, and the white snow covering the backyard looked almost fake.
And on the other end of this call was his friend. Where Kelly and the boy were concerned, he no longer thought of Liam in boss terms. That part of their relationship came to a screeching halt the second Roman’s emotions became involved.
But he couldn’t ignore the fact that his friend was also Kelly’s brother and that gave Liam some standing.
Rock? Meet hard place. What a tough fucking spot to be in.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s just that you don’t know Kelly. She’s not going to fall in line because you think she should. Right now? She couldn’t give two shits and a fart about what you want. Her whole life just blew up in her face. Think about it, man. If I can offer an opinion, I believe you’ve been cast as the boogeyman in this whole thing. She has nothing to hang her reactions on, Liam. She didn’t know her father and shows zero interest in changing that situation. I know you can’t wait to make up for everything she was denied, but she has plans. And you should also know that the money isn’t a bargaining chip. She really couldn’t care less. She didn’t go looking for any of this. You need to be ready for what that means.”
He felt a bit winded after the long speech and hoped he made his points.
“Be a big brother, is all I’m saying.” Roman mentally held his breath and said one last thing. “It’s not your job to be the father she didn’t have.”
Liam grunted. “Shot that one from the hip, didn’t you?”
He chuckled. “Dude. Seriously. I’m fucking square dancing as fast as I can. You want to throw money at this to make things right. Rhi wants pictures. Matthew wants whatever Kelly wants, and she wants none of it. Well, almost none of it.”
Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus. Mother of God. Did those words just spill out of my stupid fucking mouth? Please don’t let him notice. Please.
Wonder of wonders, the comment sailed right over Liam’s head.
“Such is my lot in life, Roman,” he snorted. There was a considerable amount of amusement in his voice. “Beset with females who aren’t impressed with my money. How the hell did that happen?”
“What the hell are you whining about? Imagine the opposite. I can see it now. You being hounded by professional pussy with an eye on your wallet.”
They laughed together with Liam drolly adding, “And then there’s that.”
“So are we good? Can you do the chill-out thing and let me handle this? Please don’t make me owe Rhi anything else. The girl is platinum plus when it comes to managing your snarling butt.”
“Fuck off you old fart. Stop taking liberties with my fiancée.”
“Hey,” he chortled. “Just making sure she knows your uptight bullshit isn’t her only option.”
“If anyone else but you said that, they’d already be on the floor.”
“Lucky for you, she likes the pasty-faced, fair-haired thing better than dark and dangerous.”
“And what about my sister? Dark and dangerous something she can handle?”
Fuck. My. Life.
“There isn’t anything Kelly James can’t handle. No lie.”
“Point taken. I’ll let you go now but one more thing Roman. I’m going to let you handle this. I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to back off, but I will because it’s you.”
He wanted to shake Liam’s hand, but that’d have to wait.
“I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but I’ll promise this. No matter what happens, I’m going to try like hell to do what’s right for everyone. I want you to have the family you wished for, and I want Kelly to not give up on her dreams.”
“Good enough.”
When he hung up, part of him felt better. Convincing Liam to trust him wasn’t easy so when he conceded control Roman was equal parts relieved and uncomfortable. Relieved for obvious reasons but uncomfortable because he and Kelly were so far over the line with their relationship that he wasn’t entirely sure there’d even been a line to begin with.
He heard Matty stomping snow off his boots by the back door and stooped for a better look out the window. Sam, Kelly, and Bobby were shuffling along the walkway to the driveway.
Liam thought it was tough stepping back from afar? Jeez. The guy should try being him for one day. Only in Roman’s case, it felt more like being shoved back.
Kelly steadfastly refused to let him help. In any way. Whenever he tried, his ass was neatly returned on a tarnished silver platter. ‘I’ve got this,’ was what came out of her mouth about a dozen times a day. He’d never felt so useless. And he didn’t like it.
He was boxed in. She wasn’t trying to be a bitch, and she wasn’t playing a game either. In actuality, she did have it. Shit, she had everything. It was all on her. Help was something she couldn’t comprehend. Her standard reaction was to ask bewilderedly why he thought she needed anything at all.
What he did though was do the one thing she allowed which was to step in as a weirdly ironic Mr. Mom and handle the boy. Something he was more than happy to do.
“Hey, Roman!” the kid’s energetic voice yelled from the mud room. The sound of struggling with a coat and boots made him chuckle and head down the hallway to lend a hand.
He found Matty sitting on his butt trying to kick off a pair of heavy snow boots. There were tracks of snow and little piles of the white stuff everywhere. Looked to him like the kid tracked in half of the backyard. When it all melted, it’d be a mess.
Swooping in, he picked up a squealing Matty by the waist and slung him backward over his arm, so the kid’s face was looking at the floor. His happy laughter rang out. Though he wiggled like a fish out of water, Roman still managed to get the boots off. They landed on the mudroom carpet with a thud.
Brushing off the giggling little boy, he made sure he was presentable and then swung him to his feet at the door to the room.
“Stay there,” he told him with a gesture at his socks. “Your feet will get wet.”
Then he grabbed a broom and quickly swept the snow out the back door while explaining in kid terms to Matty why.
It was all so damn domestic.
And he loved it.
Pushing Matty down the hallway to the living room he got the rambunctious lad settled with a pile of books and then gave up on trying to mind his own business and went to stick his nose where Kelly apparently thought it didn’t belong.
“Don’t sweat the details, Kelly.”
Sam was so sweet that she worried tears might start.
“Me and Ginny will pack up your personal stuff and handle whatever furniture and equipment Bobby and his family don’t need.”
“Can’t thank you enough, Ms. James. Really. My wife will love your little house, don’t you worry none about that.”
She offered her new caretaker and tenant her hand. The deal they’d struck was the answer to both of their prayers. Bobby and his family would get the break they deserved, and she got to leave without having to give up her history—no matter how meager it was.
“I’m glad this worked out for both of us, Bobby. I know it’s not much,” she said with a head bob at the modest home, “but it’s a terrific place. You’ll have to slog the kids to the school bus stop out where the county route meets Boon’s Road, but other than that, you’re all set.”
Kelly did a double take when Sam puffed up and slapped Bobby on the back. “Ya’ never know, boy! This might lead to all sorts of good things.”
She wondered what was going on in his mind but shrugged away the thought and made a hasty goodbye. She was freezing her ass off and wanted to get inside. Sam could handle the details. She had enough to deal with just getting Matty and her stuff together for the life-changing journey on which they were about to embark.
She liked thinking about it in grandiose terms. Literary terms that lent a bit of gravitas to something she was barely able to wrap her mind around. So, words like journey and embark flowered her vocabulary.
It was better than every thought beginning with a dark cloud and her mind screaming ‘Fuck!’
As she hurried to the back door, she thought about the snow covered rose bushes planted along the side of the house and how she wouldn’t be here to see them bloom in the spring.
Did that make her happy or sad? It was hard to tell. A little of both perhaps. It’s not like she hadn’t been hurrying toward this point for a long time. She always planned to leave and not look back. It was just happening sooner than she planned, and in a manner she’d never dreamed of.
Pulling her boots off in the mudroom, she left them on the boot pan, rubbed her hands together to generate some much-needed warmth, and dashed for the living room to stand in front of the fireplace.
Matty was curled up at the end of the sofa, wrapped in a quilt. An open book was close to sliding off his lap, his head was cocked back and to the side, and his eyes were closed. She smiled at the sight. He had the ability to fall asleep anywhere.
Snatching the book before it fell from his hand, she tilted him just enough that he’d be cat-nap comfortable and ruffled his hair affectionately. His life was going to change big time. This was what she wanted for him. She just didn’t know anymore where she fit in or what she wanted.
About the only things she was sure of were her love for Matty and her growing attachment to Roman. Nothing had ever felt so right or been so confusing, but she couldn’t work up an ounce of regret. Some things were supposed to happen. It’s where it all goes after that that concerned her.
She flipped around at the fireplace and put her hands behind her as she warmed her backside. Signs of Roman’s presence were everywhere. Not because he left stuff around but because he had an effortless way of turning chaos into order.
It rankled her at first—the way he walked through a room and like some bizarro-world Mary Poppins left everything in perfect order. Mess and dirt were the enemies, but clutter and piles? A closet or some decent storage would have been nice and solved a lot of problems, but when life hands you muddy water, you boil that shit and use a filter. It’s called going with what ya’ got and not being a crybaby about it.
When he started organizing stuff, the only thing keeping her from going up one side of him and down the other was the fact that the military made him that way. The whole wartime thing automatically took most of the wind out of her sails. He couldn’t help it. Order in the midst of bloody mayhem was understandable. But if he started labeling stuff or folding her underwear, they were gonna need to talk.
Speaking of which, where the hell was he?
She went off in search and ended up at the door to her room where she stumbled to a halt and stared. Roman was sitting on the edge of the bed with one of her sketchbooks open and lying across his lap. He was so engrossed that it took him some time to realize she was there.
Some of her earliest childhood memories were of drawing. She remembered the year Deb let her chalk paint a mural on the shed and the handmade gift tags she labored over with a set of colored pencils that were her most prized possession. Her stuff might be a sloppy mess, but her art wasn’t. Hell, she always made sure to empty the pencil sharpener shavings, and heaven forbid if a paint cap wasn’t completely shut.
Two silent steps into the room let her see what he found so captivating. It was a pencil drawing of him. Asleep and sprawled on her bed with nothing but a hastily drawn sheet to protect his dignity.
Of course, if he thumbed a dozen pages further he’d also find a detailed study of a particular part of his anatomy. Oh my god! She had to get that book out of his hands, stat!
“Invading my privacy, I see,” she teased. “Find my diary yet?”
He slammed the sketchbook shut and put it aside. Relief swamped her body. To her delight and amazement, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and tossed it to her. She caught it with one hand like a big league shortstop and earned some hearty applause.
“It’s hard to snoop when everything is out in the open, but you’re right. I didn’t realize,” he admitted to her with a funny face, “how personal the sketches would be.” He gestured to the wallet. “Your turn, lady. Go ahead. Have a look.”
She joined him on the bed when he patted the spot next to him and sat facing his side with one foot tucked under her butt and the other on the floor. Going through a man’s wallet seemed kind of fiendish in a way, so she proceeded cautiously.
Handling the soft leather warmed from his body heat, she turned it in her hands and gave an unimpressed shrug. “Damn. I expected a mysterious Illuminati symbol stamped in the leather.”
Roman shoved her playfully and snorted his amusement. “Illuminati. Good one.”
Opening the plain billfold, she counted the bills first. More than she imagined but less than obnoxious, so she gave him a pass for cash-on-hand.
One by one she pulled credit cards from their slots. A scowl marred her face when she saw that one of them was a business card for the Black Phoenix Group. BPG was Liam Ashforth’s kingdom. Shoving it away, she pulled out a blank blood red card with fancy gold-colored edges that showed nothing except a magnetic strip on one side.
“What’s this?”
Roman looked at the card, went still and then chuckled softly. “Uh, classified,” he muttered.
Interesting reaction. She put the card aside and arched a brow. There was more to it than a one-word answer. She made a mental note and moved on.
Next, she pulled out his driver’s license. Her annoyed growl was a reflex. “And of course your picture would be fine. Better than fine, great. Mine? I look like a redneck serial killer.”
There were some random business cards shoved into a pocket. She picked out the first one she saw, an engraved card with an interesting logo that looked like three flames.
“Justice? What’s that? A superheroes club?”
In a lowered voice she thought sounded awfully mocking, he drawled, “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Smiling, she drank in his cheery reaction and slid the card away. That was when she saw the picture. Pulling the old photo from the jumble of cards, she put the wallet down and stared at what she held in her hands.
It was a picture of a smiling woman taken with the Eiffel Tower in the background. She looked like the rest of the tourists except for the fact that she was obviously pregnant.
Roman was silent. She could hear his ragged breathing. Kelly froze and then turned wide, searching eyes his way.
On a harsh sounding sigh, he told her, “That’s Vanessa. My wife.”
Her jaw fell open. “W-wife?”
“Yeah. She’s uh, dead.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth and stared through the tears gathering in her eyes.
He took the picture from her trembling hand, looked at it briefly and then put it back in his wallet.
“That was a long time ago, in a different life.”
She hated the flat, slow way he spoke—wanted to know more, but was afraid to ask.
“She was killed in a terror attack. Collateral damage was how the police report read. I was off fighting bad guys. Thought she and the baby would be safe. I was wrong.”
No! She couldn’t hear another word. While he was fighting the war on terror, his wife gets killed in the same war? No, no, no. Not Roman. Oh my god. It wasn’t right.
She swung onto his lap and grabbed his head. “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” she mumbled through desperate kisses pressed to his face.
“Kelly,” he grated out. “It’s okay. Really.”
“No it is not okay,” she growled forcefully. “Not at all. Did you love her very much?”
She wasn’t sure why she asked. The romantic lurking in her heart, perhaps. It was weird but at the moment? She just wanted him to have been happy. To be happy.
He took her hands in his and kissed them. Something skittered up and down her spine when he looked her in the eyes and held her gaze.
“There’s a time and a place for everything. We loved the child we made. I hoped that would be enough.”
What was the mechanism for swallowing? She couldn’t remember, so the big wedge of emotion lodged in her throat stayed uncomfortably put.
Now she understood why he was so adamant about them marrying if she got pregnant. Wow. Did this feel like déjà vu to him? Another woman he didn’t love.
The freakishly painful thought made her chomp down on her lip.
Love. Pfft. What was it anyway? Love baffled her, not that she’d had much practice.
Debbie withheld the emotion from her children and let fantasy-love chip away at her life until nothing was left.
She loved Sam and Ginny, so at least there was that. They were family.
But oh, how she loved Matty. Loved him desperately. Until he came along, she’d known nothing but soul-piercing loneliness and an unhappiness that clung to her skin like a damp, wool blanket.
Oh well. Pondering her lack of love and what it meant, if anything, was best left to another time.
“Why aren’t you angry?” she asked curiously.
She understood masks and how everyone wore one. What people saw and the reality of her inner life were very different things. The same was true of everyone.
The glimpse behind Roman’s mask triggered an unusual response from her. It would be stupid to pretend she didn’t like the man. He was easy on the eyes and had a sexual hotness factor that boiled water.
He rubbed her arms up and down. The warmth from his casual touch moved her in a different way than before. As their unexpected relationship played out, she dragged her feet but reached a conclusion none-the-less. She cared for him. The admission meant every simple touch and smile struck chords of emotion hidden away deep inside.
His head ducked for a moment, and then he met her gaze. “There’s enough anger in the world without me adding to it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she told him. “And I just want to…”
Pressing hands to her heated cheeks, she shook her head with frustration when the words failed her.
“What do you want, Kelly? Tell me.”
Oh, my. How to explain the jumble of feelings that she didn’t fully understand?
“I um,” she grimaced slightly. What she had to say wasn’t like her at all but the words were clamoring to be said, so she did. “I want to make the sadness go away. I want you to be happy, Roman.”
He seemed startled and let out a harsh breath. Undoing her ponytail, he spread his fingers into her hair and shook it out. With his hands buried and holding fast to her head, he pulled her toward him.
“You already have, and I am, Carina. For the first time in forever, I am.”
She rushed headlong into the swirling deluge of need his lips inspired when he took her mouth by storm.
Was he saying that she helped his sadness go away? That she brought happiness to his life?
She gave the kiss her all.
He grabbed her hips and held her tight against him. Nothing quite compared to a good man-straddle. Not that she’d straddled any man except the one on whose lap she was gyrating.
They went at it like that for a few minutes before Roman took her hair and gently yanked her back far enough for their mouths to separate. They remained briefly connected through a ribbon of saliva.
“Matty,” he ground out. His chest rose and fell with deep, rapid breaths.
Panting and desperate for air, she sucked in a huge lungful of oxygen, held and then blew it out. He kneaded her shoulder softly and pushed her hair away. His smile melted into a knowing smirk.
“Shut up,” she said, laughing.
“I didn’t say a word,” he quipped.
“This parenting thing sucks sometimes.”
Shocked eyes met shocked eyes, and then they dissolved into a fit of giggles that she tried to quiet by pressing her face into his neck. His big, solid chest vibrated with laughter.
“Well shit,” he eventually croaked. “If I’m up for the role of dad the least the kid could do is let me call him Matty. The Matthew thing is getting old.”
She caressed his bearded jaw and chuckled. “You need me to explain this? Really? I mean, after all, I’m just a girl.”
“Just a girl? For real? Oh, we’re definitely revisiting the spanking thing,” he drawled. “So tell me oh wise one, what am I missing?”
She tugged his earlobe. “Think, fancy man. What was the very first thing he said to you?”
Roman scratched his beard and thought. “Uh, he declared himself man of the house.”
“Right. So a kid that never spoke to strangers takes one look at you and promptly states his status. He’s the m-a-n. Got it yet?”
“Not really.”
She jokingly smacked her forehead. “Unbelievable. Okay, big guy. Here goes. He’s marking his territory. Isn’t that what happens when a new alpha appears? I mean it’s obvious the kid likes you. Shit. It’s all Roman all the time since you showed up. But he has a responsibility as man of the house, right? Maybe when he’s sure, you’ll get the pass.”
“What’s he need to be sure of?”
Only an idiot wouldn’t see this for what it was. “That you aren’t going to hurt me.”
“Ohhh.”
Kelly folded onto his broad chest and snuggled close. “We have to tell him what’s coming. Sam shooed him away, so he didn’t hear us making arrangements with Bobby to take over the land.”
It felt so good when he wrapped her in a fierce hug. “The timing is one hundred percent your call, love. I told you. Nothing happens without you being on board. You’ll tell him when you’re ready.”
She heard what he wasn’t saying. Roman was a patient man. He was giving her all the time and space she needed to come to grips with everything on her plate. She was his priority and Matty, while important, was secondary.
It occurred to her that a ruthless man would have used Matty to manipulate the reaction he wanted.
This Roman Bishop was…an unusual man.
She made a snap decision.
“I don’t want to drag things out. The decision is made. Lingering only creates doubt. And fear.”
Very very quietly, he explained what would happen once she gave the go-ahead.
“We’ll drive to Amarillo from here and spend the night in a hotel. Liam is arranging a private jet.”
“What? Why? No!”
“I know, I know,” he groused. “But here’s why. Both of you are a security nightmare. Your paperwork is a mess. No fucking way are we getting on a commercial flight without iron-clad identification. And driving will take forever. Matty might like the adventure on day one or two but five or six days in and he’ll be bouncing off the walls.”
“I don’t like it,” she snapped. Pursing her lips, she flipped her hair and bit a nail. “The expense makes me uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry babe, but it can’t be helped. The bottom line is this. Liam doesn’t live in a world of price checks, and once we clean up your legal status, you’ll be in the same boat. Resisting facts creates unnecessary struggle.”
She huffed out an angry breath and wiggled off his lap. “Why the hell do you always have to make sense?”
He grinned. “Because I’m the m-a-n.”
“Oh great,” she laughed. “Outnumbered.”
“Don’t worry,” Roman said with a huge smile. “Just wait till you meet Rhiann. Being outnumbered is child’s play to her!”
Things were changing at an unbelievably fast pace. Worry unleashed a dull ache in her middle. She arched slightly for relief. More than anything she hoped she didn’t disappoint.
This was Matty’s chance at a real life. Whatever doubts and fears she clung to had to take a back seat to what was best for him.