Chapter 19
Aaron watched as Miss Pauline laid John Aaron on the home baby scale. “Five pounds and twelve ounces. He’s gaining weight fast, Dr. Kendall. And he’s grown almost an inch.”
“Hey, buddy.” Aaron put his pinkie finger against John’s hand. The baby gripped it. “You’re amazing.”
As far as Aaron was concerned, his adopted son was the most remarkable baby ever. For all the hardships John Aaron had faced, none of them had bested him. He became stronger every day, and for over a week, he’d had no apnea episodes. Energetic when he was awake, he seemed to notice everything, and he would get the most serious expression on his face when Aaron read to him. Aaron loved to watch him.
Miss Pauline fetched a clean romper from the armoire. “You know, I had no idea they made cowboy boots for babies.”
“What?” Aaron lifted John off the scale and laid him on the crib mattress. “Cowboy boots?”
“Yes sir. See.” The nanny retrieved the cowboy booties from the drawer in the armoire. She handed them to Aaron and moved to the crib to dress the baby. “They look like real boots.”
Aaron ran his thumb over the tiny, soft leather boots, complete with a harness ring on the side. Lia. For a moment, a generous ache enveloped his heart. “His aunt bought them for him. They’re too big now, but someday they’ll fit.” He hoped Lia would be home by then.
As Miss Pauline prepared to put the baby down for his afternoon nap, Aaron returned the booties to the armoire and walked across the hall to his bedroom. The pink rock was waiting on the bedside table for her return. Just like me. There were times when impatience gnawed at him. He wanted to pick up the phone, call her, and tell her to come home now. But he didn’t.
He was giving her space just like he had promised. But he hadn’t promised not to stalk her online. That’s how he kept up with what was going on in her life.
He had read the cordial statement that had been posted on both Lia and Dallas’s websites about their breakup as well as some of the reactions from fans and people in the music industry. Some were supportive, while others who were either Team Dallas or Team Lia left vicious remarks. Now Aaron realized what the term “haters” meant and why Lia had tried to keep everything discreet.
He had watched her on a talk show, getting hammered about her breakup with Dallas. She had fielded the questions with grace and admitted only that she and Dallas had grown apart as a couple and they no longer had a future together. He had felt like such a jerk.
After he retrieved a pair of earbuds from a box on his dresser, he headed into the kitchen where Frank had his glasses perched on the end of his nose as he looked at a casserole recipe in a cookbook. Mushrooms, English peas, grated cheese, and green pepper were assembled on the kitchen island.
“You need to have a talk with your brother,” Frank said.
Aaron frowned. “He’s not gonna listen to me.”
“You’re the one paying the bills around here. Garlic.” Frank studied. “I don’t think we have any. I’ll just skip that.” He looked at Aaron. “Stevie’s washing that car again. He won’t let a speck of dust get on it. Every time he goes for a drive and comes back, he washes it. Do you have any idea how high the water bill is gonna be?”
“Shit.” Aaron went out the kitchen door. Puddles of rainwater lingered, reflecting glimmers of sunlight, and several hummingbirds fluttered around Frank’s feeders. Aaron ducked past them.
With the water hose in his hand, Stevie rinsed the soap off the red Jaguar, a car that he loved beyond reason. He had even slept in it the first night he got it.
“Hey,” Aaron called to him. Stevie released the handle of the hose nozzle. “How many times have you washed that car today?”
“This is the only the second time. I got some mud on her.”
“From now on, once a day,” Aaron told him.
Stevie started spraying water on the Jag again. “I can tell you don’t understand love or you’d be working to get your girl back, bro.”
Aaron ignored Stevie and headed toward the backyard. Who says I’m not working to get my girl back. He put the earbuds in and tapped the music file on his phone. He had downloaded one of Dallas’s first albums. Lia had written the songs, and in some of them, she backed Dallas up on the chorus.
I’m a changed man, Aaron thought. He was listening to his rival sing. He was overcoming his past, getting beyond his fears of abandonment, and he was mastering his relentless nature, becoming a new man. All so he could get his girl back.
On the deck, he listened to Dallas sing in his stirring voice about a moment of magic when love became complete. Aaron looked at the tree house. She had loved those fairies painted on the wall. He took off for the tree house, or the fairy house as she had called it.
He climbed the short ladder and stooped as he entered the fairy house. Sitting on the floor, Aaron smiled at the mural. With shimmering slender bodies and colorful wings, the fairies fluttered above a garden of pink and purple forget-me-nots. A couple of the fairies looked directly at him. He grinned as he recalled Lia saying the fairies were watching on that rainy day when the two of them had made the floorboards creak beneath their naked bodies.
Aaron tapped his phone against his knee. He needed to send her a picture of the fairies. He had sent her several pictures, not just of the baby, but other things. The pink rock. The basketball goal. Things with memories. And one of the Remington prints he’d bought because she had always thought he didn’t like the painting of the wild mustangs. He could change.
Sending pictures was not violating his promise to back off and give her space. He didn’t send any message with the photos like “I’m not going to let you forget me,” or “This is to remind you that we had something special, and I hope you’ll forgive me.” All he was doing was letting her know he was thinking of her. Nothing persistent about that.
He removed the earbuds and stuck them in his pocket. Then he aimed his phone at the fairy mural and took the photograph. He checked the photograph. In the center was a dark-haired fairy with a mischievous smile. She was his favorite. He sent the photograph to Lia.
Within a couple of moments, his phone lit up. He glanced at it, and for a second, he almost had a cardiac arrest. Lia had replied. It was the first message he’d received from her since she had left.
I have something to tell you.
His gut knotted. He reminded himself that he was a changed man and then proceeded to type the hardest word ever.
What?
“I’m not through loving you,” she sang. Her enchanting soprano voice surrounded him and the fairies. Thunderstruck, he stared at his phone.
“All I want to do is make love last. I need to feel you deep inside my soul.” The song breezed through the fairy house. “Feel your heart beat with mine.”
“Lia?” He scrambled to the front of the tree house. His jaw dropped as he saw her standing below. Soft, faded jeans hugged her hips, and a ruffled cotton top, cut low, exposed her Cole Younger locket. Her booted foot tapped the grass as she kept singing.
“Tell me we can forget the past. Tell me we can make love last.” One note followed another as he practically broke his neck getting down the ladder. “Tell me you’re not through loving me because I’m not through loving you—”
He swept her up in his arms. Her dark hair tumbled over his arm as he locked it around her neck. “Lia.” He covered her mouth with his.
There was no hesitation in her response. She clutched his back tightly, and he abandoned himself to the longing of her kiss. He crushed her soft body against him as they kissed beneath the fairy house. At that moment, he believed in magic and pink rocks and love.
She was the one who had to break the embrace. “Aaron.” She rested her hand on his chest.
He expelled a pent-up breath. “You came back.” He stroked her hair and her arms as if to make sure she was real.
“I’ve missed you.” She took his hands in hers. “I wanted to come back sooner, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t coming back until I knew I wouldn’t have to leave you again.” She squeezed his hands. “I love you too much to ever hurt you again.”
“Lia, no.” He kissed her as love overflowed in his heart. “God, I don’t deserve you.”
“You’re stuck with me now, Cole.”
“There’s no one else I want to be stuck with, Loretta.”
He gave her a kiss, and she hugged him, wrapping her arms tight around him. “It’s good to be home.”
With his cheek pressed against her head, he agreed. “Yeah, it is.” Home could be a lot of places. Right now, it was in her arms.
“I’m dying to see John Aaron,” she said as they pulled apart.
Aaron linked his fingers with hers. “Come on.”
As they reached the deck, Stevie called, “The next time Aaron acts like an asshole, just let me know.”
“I’m a changed man,” Aaron said.
Lia gave Aaron a doubtful glance. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, I am.” He ushered her in the house.
“I hope you haven’t changed too much. It was the old you who I fell in love with.”
“I’m still the old me, too. Plus the new me.”
She laughed as Frank stepped out of the kitchen and opened his arms for a hug. “I’ve missed you, girl.”
“I missed you, too,” she said as they hugged. “And your garden. I haven’t had a decent tomato since I left here.”
“We’re having sliced tomatoes with dinner tonight.” Frank grinned. “You will be staying, won’t you?”
“She’ll be staying,” Aaron answered, and she rubbed her hand across his back.
“New you,” she murmured.
Miss Pauline stood and smiled when they walked in the nursery. “He’s sleeping soundly,” she told Aaron and Lia before she left them alone with the baby.
At the crib, Lia reached for the baby. “I just have to hold him a minute.”
“You won’t wake him. He sleeps like he eats. All or nothing.”
She sat down in the rocker and gazed at the baby like he was the first one she had ever seen. “He’s grown so much.” She spoke in a whisper. “Doesn’t he have the prettiest face?”
“He looks like you.”
Aaron noticed she was blinking back tears. “Sometimes life is hard to figure out. Like why things happen the way they do. Why Candace left him behind for me to find.” Lia cradled John Aaron close. “Was it because I was supposed to come here? That my life was supposed to change? Gilda says there are always spiritual forces at work in our lives. She doesn’t believe things are random.”
“I don’t think it was random. I think we were meant to be a family.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Me, too.” She pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead. “It doesn’t seem real to have him home. Does he like his things?”
“Yeah. He seems to be very happy, and he loves music.” Aaron pushed the button on the music box that had been a shower gift, and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” started to play. He folded his arms atop of the side of the crib and listened as she put words to the music, singing to the baby while they rocked. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.
John Aaron nestled his head against her chest, and Aaron heard the love in Lia’s voice as she sang to him. It was a moment that overwhelmed Aaron’s heart.
“I want to get married,” he burst out.
She stopped rocking. Her green eyes pinned him with an amused gaze. “Are you asking or telling?”
Oh shit. He raked his fingers through his hair. “I just wanted you to know that I have serious intentions. The new me definitely wants to marry you, but we can take our time. Be sure about everything. No rush.”
She met his gaze and grinned. “It does take a couple of months or so to plan a wedding.”
“How about October?”
* * *
On an enchanted October afternoon, when warm colors filled the woodlands surrounding Aaron’s house, Lia and Aaron were married beneath the fairy house where white roses covered a wedding arch.
Fairy lights twinkled in the old oak tree while garlands of ribbon and flowers decorated the fairy house and the deck. After their first kiss as a married couple, they were greeted with good wishes from the gathering of friends and family who had joined them for their wedding and reception in Aaron’s backyard.
Natalie Harris, who was expecting a baby boy in January, adjusted her camera attached to a tripod as her husband brought her some punch. “Thanks.” She took the plastic punch glass from Brett.
“You feeling good?” he asked.
“Fine,” she replied as she pressed her hand against her rounded stomach. “The Slacker Baby is being rowdy.”
“Natalie,” Brett scolded. “Stop calling him Slacker Baby. You know I hate that.”
She laughed as she drank the punch. “Revenge is sweet, my love.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Now I need all the groomsmen and the groom under the arch.”
As Aaron posed with his father, his three brothers, and Brett, Lia joined her father and Gilda. They admired her wedding dress made of white silk brocade. It had a fitted bodice with a V waist and a full skirt that flared out over the stiff sewn-in petticoats. The sides of her dark hair were caught up by a sparkling headpiece, and the rest of her hair hung in thick ringlets down her back.
“You look just like a fairy princess,” Gilda said.
Julian nodded. “I always knew you’d make a beautiful bride, Songbird.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek before she returned to the wedding arch for pictures.
Julian shrugged as he glanced around and said to Gilda, “She could have done better. Why she wanted a country bumpkin doctor and a baby I’ll never know.”
“Darth,” Gilda scolded him. “Quit being such a snob. He’s her destiny. Her spirit guides opened her heart to him, and the planets all aligned. The rest is history, as they say.”
“Yoda, that’s bullshit,” Julian said as he stopped one of the servers and snagged a glass of champagne.
Hot chick on the radar. Stevie checked out a leggy blonde with a great ass from Nashville. One of Lia’s guests. He sidled up beside her. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“I’m Stevie Kendall, brother of the groom.”
She told him her name, but all he caught was Carly. He never paid any attention to last names. “Say, Carly, we could go for a drive later if you want.” Then he brought out his secret weapon. He pointed to the red Jaguar parked on the grass at the fence line toward the front of the house where all the cars were parked.
“See that red Jag?” Guaranteed chick magnet. “That’s my car. How would you like to take a ride in something that cool, babe?” So far, no girl had refused.
She gave him a bored glance and pointed in the direction of the cars. “See that white Ferrari? That’s my car.” She walked away, leaving Stevie with his mouth agape.
Dr. Marla Grant made her way through the guests milling about the reception area and the deck. She saw her friend, Kayla, on the deck. The tall redhead wore a strapless black maxi dress, and she was with the current man in her life. Those men usually didn’t last long with Kayla.
“Have you seen Carson and Sophie?” She inquired about her husband and their little girl, who had been the flower girl in Aaron’s wedding.
“I think he took her in the house to the bathroom,” Kayla said.
“Natalie is ready to take pictures of her.” While Marla waited on the deck, she and Kayla talked about the wedding. “I haven’t been to very many outdoor weddings, but the weather has been great this afternoon, and the wedding was so pretty. Don’t you love her dress?”
“Yeah. It just fit the whole fairytale mood,” Kayla agreed. “And Aaron is so in love with her. Bless his heart.”
Marla nudged Kayla. “You’re next.”
“No.” Kayla grinned. “Been there, done that, and don’t want to do it again.”
“Mommy!” Sophie ran up to her mother. “I have more rose petals.” She tossed a handful from the basket she carried.
“No, honey. You don’t throw any more.” She smoothed her daughter’s dark curls and the frilly white dress she wore. “It’s time for you to have your picture made with Miss Lia.” She glanced up and smiled at her husband. “I need her play clothes from the car. After the pictures, I’m going to get her out of this dress.”
“Okay,” Carson replied. As his wife and daughter headed toward the wedding arch, the billionaire dad swiped a bite-size petit four and headed to get Sophie’s clothes.
As sun dropped low in the sky, Frank stepped away from his second son, Terry and Terry’s wife. Standing by his garden, where all the plants were gone now and the beds filled with compost, Frank smiled as he watched Aaron and Lia pose with John Aaron beneath the wedding arch.
Lia held the baby, who now weighed almost twelve pounds, facing the camera. John Aaron wore a dressy blue smocked one-piece with white shoes, and he gave the camera a wide-eyed stare. Standing behind Lia, Aaron circled his arms around her and the baby and held them as if nothing in the world mattered more.
Nancy. Frank spoke silently to his late wife. I wish you were here. I wish you could see our boys now. Aaron got married today, and he got the right girl this time. It’s important to have the right girl. I knew that the day we met. Frank gazed at the fairy lights in the oak tree. I still miss you so much, sweetheart.
The entertainment for the evening was twenty-year-old Tyler Stokes, whose career was beginning to take off. The lanky singer adjusted the microphone and spoke to the wedding guests. “If you have any requests, just let me know. I’ll give it try.” He tipped the brim of his cowboy hat to Lia.
She took Aaron’s hand and led him to the open space where the folding chairs and white aisle runners had been removed. “Our song’s up first,” she told her husband as she draped her arm around his shoulders.
With his fingers moving effortlessly over the strings of his guitar, Tyler’s body swayed in a slow rhythm as he sang “Not Through Loving You” for the bride and groom.