Chapter Fourteen
She didn’t know how long she sat there sniffing back tears.
Maybe a minute. Maybe twenty.
She only knew that Sullivan was beside her.
Not a knight in shining armor. Not a hero from olden days. Not a guy who thought she needed him beside her. A man who wanted to dance in the moonlight and sit on swings and walk in fields of grass. One who wanted silence and laughter and a million moments of time.
And, God!
Those were all the dreams she’d ever had, all the things she’d wanted that she’d never found. She didn’t know what to do with that or with him, because she could already feel her heart breaking, but she couldn’t make herself walk away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, shifting so that he could look into her face.
“Nothing,” she answered honestly, her throat raw, her chest tight.
“Then, why the tears?” He touched her cheek, his fingers skimming across the damp flesh.
“I just . . .” She shook her head.
“Don’t want to be hurt again?”
“Don’t want to miss out because I’m too afraid to try,” she replied.
He smiled that easy, sweet smile that made her heart stop. Only this time, it didn’t stop. This time it leaped, and she could swear it was leaping right toward him.
“Then, how about you try and I try, and we see what happens?”
“How about we do?” she said, her throat tight, her pulse thrumming.
And when he stood, when he offered his hand, she took it, because what else could she do? Where else would she go but into his arms as he swayed beneath a blue-black sky dusted with silvery stars?
“You are so damn addicting,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers so tenderly she could have cried with the beauty of it. “I could spend every minute of every day with you and it would never be enough.”
“Sullivan,” she began, because she wanted to tell him all the things she’d never said to another man: that she found her best self when she looked into his eyes. That when she was with him, she was finally home. But, her throat was too tight, and the tears were falling again, slipping down her cheeks and splattering onto the grass.
“Did I upset you?” he asked, and she shook her head, because he hadn’t, and because she finally knew the truth: This was the real deal, the happy-forever. This was the thing everyone wanted and few people ever found.
She wasn’t going to screw it up.
She wasn’t going to turn it away.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”
Her hands rested on his shoulders, the cool breeze wrapping them in its velvety embrace, the grass brushing her calves as they swayed to a rhythm only he could hear. She kissed the hollow of his throat, felt his quick, sharp breath, let her lips skim up the side of his neck. When she kissed him, it felt like the first time and the last and every damn time in between.
She could swear the heavens opened, light shone down from above, and angels sang, their voices faint but beautiful.
“What the hell?” Sullivan asked, his voice gruff as he pulled back, bright light splashing across his cheeks.
And, Rumer realized she really was seeing light and hearing angels.
No. Not angels. One voice. Pure and high and haunting. One song, drifting through the quiet morning.
She turned, Sullivan’s arms still around her, saw Heavenly standing near the house, her face lifted toward the heavens, her eyes closed. Light spilled out of the kitchen window and the open back door.
“Heavenly, what are you doing out here?” Sullivan asked, and the teen opened her eyes.
“The dweebs are up. All of them. But, I didn’t want to disturb you, so I told them they had to wait.”
“You didn’t want to disturb us so you turned on the lights and sang until we noticed you?” Sullivan asked dryly, and she grinned.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, but I didn’t want to deal with the dweebs, either.”
“Are they in their rooms?” Rumer asked, imagining all the trouble unsupervised kids could get into.
“No, they’re waiting in the mudroom, because Moisey wants to go for a walk.”
“It isn’t even dawn, yet,” Sullivan muttered, his arms still around Rumer.
“You don’t have to tell me that. She’s the one who’s all desperate and crying.”
“I’m not crying,” Moisey called from somewhere inside the house.
“You are, too!” Heavenly yelled back.
“She thinks starlight can straighten hair, and she wants her hair to be like mine,” she continued more quietly. “I told her I’d trade her. I love her curls.”
“I love you!” Moisey shouted, and then the horde spilled out of the house, four pint-sized bodies running down the back stairs and into the yard.
“I told them not to come out,” Twila gasped as she carted Oya across the yard. “But, no one would listen to me.”
“Because you’re an old fuddy-duddy,” Maddox said, but then he took her hand as they continued across the yard, and the light from the house spilled out onto blond heads and dark ones, curly hair and straight, smiles and scowls and chubby cheeks, and Rumer knew she’d never seen anything as beautiful as that wild, crazy bunch.
“Guess that’s it. Our moonlit dance is over,” Sullivan muttered.
“The moon set before I came out here.”
“Then, I guess we’ll have to try again another night. We might have to try for that silence thing, too, because I don’t think I’m going to get much of that anytime soon,” Sullivan responded, his breath tickling her temple, his hands still warm on her waist.
“If you can’t beat them, join them. That’s what Lu always says. Or, make them join you. How about we take that walk in the field? They can burn off some energy,” she suggested.
“And, we can hold hands and watch the sun rise while they run around like little lunatics exhausting themselves before the day has even begun? Sounds like the perfect recipe for some of the silent moments I was talking about.”
“Exactly,” she said, and he smiled.
“Great minds.”
“You know, Sullivan,” she replied, leaning in to kiss him again. Because he was there and she was, and these moments were the things all her dreams were made of. “I think we’re getting pretty good at this co-parenting thing.”
He laughed and took her hand, calling for the kids.
“Yes!” Moisey squealed when she heard they were going for a walk. “The stars are even still out!”
“Are they?” Sullivan frowned, stripping off his jacket and tossing it around her shoulders.
“I’m not cold, Sully,” she claimed as he pulled the hood over her hair.
“I don’t care about the cold. I care about those darn stars shining on your beautiful hair.” He touched one of the curls that had escaped the hood, tucking it beneath the fabric.
“What do you mean?” Moisey asked, scowling up at him.
“You said the stars will straighten your curls.”
“They will. Just like the moon woke Mom up.”
“I like your hair, Moisey, the same way I like you—just the way it is.”
“Really?”
“Yep. That’s why I want you to keep it covered. I mean, if you really want straight hair, that’s fine, but I think you need to know that every time I see your curls, I smile.”
“You must not see them very much, because you almost never smile,” Maddox said, and Heavenly snickered.
“I also always want to sketch them, because they remind me of how fun and happy you are,” Sullivan continued, ignoring the other kids, his focus on Moisey.
“Did you sketch my curls? Did you sketch me?”
“Yep. A dozen times. One day, I’m going to hang the pictures in my office at school.”
“Can I see them when you do?”
“Sure,” he said.
“At the college?”
“Yep.”
“For real? Or are you just saying that so I’ll go away?”
“Moisey Bethlehem Bradshaw, enough,” he said with a sigh that reminded Rumer of the day they’d met, of his tired eyes and his frilly apron and the way he’d struggled to connect with the kids.
They’d all been strangers then. Now, they were family.
“Wow,” she said as Moisey skipped away. “You really are getting the hang of this parenting thing, Sullivan.”
“We are,” he corrected.
And, she smiled, holding his hand as they walked across the yard together, the kids squealing and chattering behind them as the new day dawned, bright and sweet and beautiful.