Chapter Twenty-Three
Tom leaped into the excavator’s cab, shoving Junior out the other side. He worked the levers, getting Peach out of that God forsaken lake and back to shore. Junior wasn’t going to let it be easy. He grabbed the entry handle, came back into the cab, and punched Tom’s ear. The blow was awkward, but it hurt. Still, he didn’t protect himself, using his hands to keep the machine moving his woman to shore.
Junior wailed again and then a third time, this time catching Tom in the eye. When Junior’s arm went up, Tom brought his shoulder into the exposed gut, throwing Junior out to the ground. His gaze alternated between the machine he was running and the man he was going to kill if Peach wasn’t all right. Junior was going to try something else; Tom saw it in his eyes. Nate stepped into view and used handcuffs to put an end to his scheme.
Tom worked fast now, swinging the excavator around until the bucket was waist high over dry ground. He leaped from the cab, noticing Jeb had Stinson and Drug Dealer back to back on the ground. It’s over, really over, he thought as he came around the bucket.
A foot met him, right in the chest. He stumbled back then, grinning, ran back to her. “That’s my Peach. I knew you’d give them hell.”
She was soaking wet, covered in tape, with cuts and bruises everywhere he could see. But she smiled at him as he lifted her out of the metal scoop. She lifted her still-bound hands and touched his cheek. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said in the cracked and ragged voice of a frog.
“Neither are you. Where are you hurt?” Tears filled Tom’s eyes. His hands ran over her body, looking for injuries. “Jeb, give me your knife.”
“My leg. My head. Kind of…everywhere.”
Tom stripped his vest and shirt off. Jeb cut her hands free, and they helped her out of the shirt. Then Tom pulled her tightly against his chest. “She’s freezing. We need an ambulance.”
“It’s on the way,” Jeb said, wrapping Tom’s coat around her and adding his own.
She looked up at him, those beautiful eyes clouded with pain. “Don’t leave me alone,” she said, teeth chattering.
He kissed her forehead. “Never. Never again. I promise.”
Saturday, April 15 eight-thirty p.m.
Lying in the hospital bed, Peach felt like she’d rolled down a mountain. Warming up hurt. On top of it, she was feeling every bump and bruise those idiots gave her dragging her around and hoisting her on the excavator. The bullet hadn’t hit her calf, but it took more than a little digging and a few stitches to get the metal and wood splinters out.
“How about more tea?” Tom brought the sippy cup to her mouth. Her throat hurt worse of all, but the warm liquid soothed the ache.
He hadn’t left her side, even when they ordered him to. That surprised her, just as much as when he claimed to be her fiancé to the floor nurse who wasn’t having any of his shit.
He was here, sitting on her bed, and she was afraid to hope it meant anything.
“You shouldn’t have come.” Her voice wasn’t her own, but the words were. “They were going to hurt you.”
“There were so many things I shouldn’t have done, but coming for you wasn’t one of them.” He took her hand, brought her knuckles to his mouth. “I’m sorry for last night. I know it doesn’t come close to making it right. But it’s important that you know.”
“Why?” she asked voicelessly.
“For almost fifteen years…I’ve been afraid to love a woman. I thought I was in love once, and I asked her to marry me. She didn’t just say no, she…”
Peach felt his pain, as real as her own. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“You’re the only person I do need to tell. Because you changed everything. When she threw everything I offered back in my face and slept with my roommate, she ruined a part of me. I thought I was stronger, more focused, without the distraction of love, but I was broken. I’m done with being that person.”
She dared to hope. It was blossomed like a rose bud, sweet and beautiful. A heavy hand pounded on the door, breaking the moment and earning her scowl.
Jeb, Butch, and Nate stepped into the small room, taking it all up. “What the hell was that?” Jeb barked. “You scare us like that again and I’ll kick your ass myself. You understand?” Butch leaned around his brother and set a stuffed black dog in her arms. Jeb rolled his eyes. “Don’t be nice when I’m giving her what for, Clyde.”
She pursed her lips and tried to look contrite but grinned when Jeb bent down to kiss her. Planting her hands, she tried to sit up.
“Easy, honey. Let the bed do the work.” Tom helped her sit tall as the bed lifted. It was her favorite face, even pale and with worry lines cutting the surface.
“We’ll let you get some rest,” Butch said. “We’re going back to the farm, but you need us, just call.” Peach nodded, pressing her fist to her heart because she knew he meant it.
Nate stood in the background, as much a stranger as she was. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely to him.
Nate nodded. “And to think I was worried civilian life is going to be boring when I get out next fall.”
“You know you have a job,” Jeb said to Nate. “If you want one.”
“I just might take you up on that.”
Peach tugged on Jeb’s sleeve again and then pointed to herself. Jeb raised an eyebrow. “You want a job? With me?” He lifted his eyes to Tom.
She tugged again, resenting that he looked to Tom, as if she needed his permission. “Me,” she hissed.
“We’ll talk,” Jeb said to her and then looked at Tom. “We’re taking the plane back tonight. Let me know when she’s released, and I’ll send it back for you.”
Tom went around the bed and clapped on tightly to the men who had come with him. He walked them to the door and then turned back to her.
She might look like she was headed for the injured reserve but was downright pissed. “You don’t speak for me.” There was heat in her whisper.
“You’re going to hurt your throat. Don’t talk.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need you.”
“That’s fine with me,” he said, tucking the thin blanket around her. “Like I started to tell you, I have no interest in anyone needing me.”
“Go get Jeb.”
He shook his head and lowered the bed. “You don’t tell me what to do, either. Now you rest.”
She pounded her fists against the mattress in frustration. “You don’t understand.”
“I do. Move over.” He climbed onto the bed, curling his long body around her. She lifted her head to accept the arm he offered as a pillow. He ran his fingers through her long hair. “You and I are on the same page. We don’t need anyone, and we don’t want anyone to need us. To other people, that sounds horrible, but it’s just the honest truth. There is an obligation with needing that neither of us is interested in. A mandatory reciprocation. If you need something, you can’t survive without it, like air.”
She touched her hand to her throat and nodded.
“You won’t die if you don’t have me. I won’t die if I don’t have you. So we don’t need each other.”
She nodded again in complete agreement.
“Another honest truth is that we want each other—which is completely different than needing. Wanting is giving yourself freely without obliging the other person. I can admit that I want you. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want you to be the one on my arm when I go out and be the one pinned under me when I stay in.”
She patted his chest, pointing from her to him.
“You feel the same way?”
She nodded.
“Another honest truth is…I love you. I never knew what that was.” He looked in her eyes. “Now I do. Do you think, you could love me back—”
“I do.” It was important he heard it, that he felt it. “I love you. I don’t think I understood that I didn’t love Anderson until I loved you. He embarrassed me, but he didn’t hurt me like you did.”
That was the power love had and why it always scared him. “And I’m so sorry for that. I have to live with it, not you. It was my fault, my issues.” He dimmed the lights and pulled her closer. He took the biggest risk of his life. “I have a proposition for you. Come back to Tennessee. Move back into my bedroom and we’ll spend days and nights loving each other for as long as it feels right to both of us. We’ll live our life on our terms. Poppy stays in his room, unless he wants something more private. We can build him something.”
He looked into her eyes, and what he saw there humbled him. Then she smiled, wickedly, and he worried a little.
“No candles,” she whispered.
He laughed. “Agreed. Do we have a deal?”
“Need to find a job,” she said slowly. “If I can, then yes. Won’t live off you.”
“I think we can find something that fits your talents.” He lowered his head, found her lips, and sealed the deal. He started to pull back, satisfied having her in his arms.
She had other ideas. Her top hand tightened around a fistful of his hair, holding him in place while her bottom hand snaked to the front of his pants. She smiled when he jumped in surprise, tightening the grip on both hands.
A groan rose from deep in his chest as she pulled the shirt out of his waistband and stroked his back. He caressed her, careful of her tender body, but she arched into him, filling his hands with her breasts.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked, willing to deny his own wants, so evident in her hand.
She looked up at him through her thick lashes and smiled, slow, sexy. An invitation.
He ripped the snaps apart on the little pink shift, exposing her to him. He gasped at the blue and purple blossoms that had erupted over her skin. Her shoulders, her ribs, her hips, the swell of her breasts all bore witness to the violence she had survived.
She brushed the hair off his forehead. “Let it go,” she whispered. “You came for me. That’s enough. That’s everything.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her until she straddled him. Then he took his time nursing the aberrant marks, worshipping her battered body.
Her hips rocked over the hard length so obvious through the denim. His hands held her strongly against him as his mouth suckled on her breast. He wanted to replace the aches and pains with something to be remembered. She clawed at his back, drawing his shirt up until the length was bunched in her hands. She pulled it over his head and groaned at the warmth that came with being skin to skin.
He raked her hair with his fingers until it covered both of them. His hands found her hips and the scrap of cotton that kept him at bay. He took her breast into his mouth, teasing her nipple, coaxing her hips.
He tore her panties in two. His fingers found her core and enticed her to the edge. Then he backed off just before she went flying. He smiled up at her when she glared down.
She took matters into her own hands. She lifted her hips and popped the button on his pants. His own need sprung free from the confining material, long and thick. She pushed the blankets aside, used her hand to stand his cock up, and slid down on to him, both of them crying at the intensity of the connection.
She rode him like he was the last horse in town. Her hips pushed him to limits he had never reached before. He was determined to be gentle, to give her a sweet rise, but she took his face in her hands and broke him.
He swore quietly as his body convulsed, giving Peach everything she demanded, everything he had.
She reared up, a thoroughbred mare in her prime. She flung her head back, her hair raining down her back, her hands reaching for heaven as her body imploded.
Her limp body draped over his, heat radiated, chasing any last visage of chill out of the air. He wrapped his arms around her, afraid to hold too tightly. “I love you. Never doubt that I love you exactly as you are.”
She lifted her head, her eyes glassy. “You sure?”
“Absolutely.” He pulled her back to his chest. “Rest now.”
“I hear beeping. Maybe I have water in my ears.”
“Um.” He tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the contraption next to the bed that was going off like a car alarm.
“That can’t be good.”
Tom brought the thin blanket over her as three bodies promptly filled her doorway. They stacked up Three Stooges-style two steps into the room.
Peach looked up at Tom, grinning ear to ear. “Busted.”
…
Two years, three months later…
“This is stupid,” Peach said as she sat at the dressing table in Carolina’s room.
“There is nothing stupid about wanting to make your wedding day special,” Carolina said.
“Not that.” She shoved back from the array of bottles and jars. “This.” She pointed to the beach ball that sat where her flat belly used to be. “All this white makes me look like a life buoy.”
Katie laughed. “You look like a sexy mama. Tom’s going to choke on his tongue when he sees you.”
She looked in the mirror and was blinded by the yards and yards and yards of virgin white that covered her full-term belly. “Why did I think I wanted white? I’m about as close to a virgin as a chicken is to a dog. And why do we have to have this fancy ceremony?” From the window, she watched Tom, Jeb, and Butch mingle with the growing crowd, hugging old friends, making new ones.
Poppy laughed from the middle of a circle of women, his old brown suit pressed sharp and crisp. Fixed to his arm, the Widow Teasdale navigated him through the maze of bodies and chairs. Emily McCormick sat on a white chair cuddling her grandbaby. John McCormick, Sr. chased a mischievous little redhead through the maze of chairs.
From the entryway, a tall couple in military dress stepped into the courtyard.
“Who invited them?” Peach said in a voice too high, too loud.
Carolina looked over her shoulder. “Who is ‘them?’”
She glared over her shoulder. “My parents.”
Carolina pursed her lips. “Tom and Poppy. Or Poppy and Tom. Not sure who was the dog and who was the tail on that one.”
She began pacing restlessly, her hand rubbing her lower back.
“Are you all right?” Katie asked her. “You look a little off.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine. I am.” She sighed heavily. “It must just be being pregnant, because I’m not nervous about getting married. Not even a little.” She stopped in her tracks and stretched her back.
“Does your back hurt?” Carolina asked.
Peach rolled her eyes. “It’s been hurting for six months. Talk about things nobody tells you about. Then it picks today of all days to start spasming.”
Katie looked at Carolina. Carolina looked at Katie.
They both looked at Peach.
“How long have these spasms been going on?” Carolina asked.
“They woke me up this morning. Damn annoying.”
“Have you noticed them getting closer together?” Katie asked.
“Well, yeah. A little. Stronger, too. Why?” Peach’s eyes widened with knowledge. “No. The baby isn’t due until Tuesday.”
“The little guys are notorious for not sticking to a calendar,” Katie said, scraping around the room for a watch. “Tell me when you have another one.”
Peach’s breath hitched. “Now.”
Carolina’s eyes widened. “What do we do?”
She let out her breath. “We move up the timetable and do this now.”
“Peach,” Carolina said, threatening to sound reasonable.
“I don’t want to hear it. Tom and I are going to be married before this little monster comes into the world if I have to sew myself shut!”
“Impressive,” Katie said. “Carolina, go talk to the boys. We are going live in five. I’ll call the doctor.”
Four minutes later, Peach stood with Carolina and Katie in the foyer of Jeb’s wing. The music started. Peach danced anxiously. “We’re next,” Katie said supportively.
“Uh oh.” The color drained from Peach’s face.
“What oh?” Carolina said, spinning on her heels.
“That oh,” Katie said, pointing to the puddle between Peach’s legs.
The music changed.
“Go,” Peach hissed. When her stubborn bride’s matrons didn’t move, she hissed at them. “This baby isn’t being born until I’m married. You’re wasting time.”
Katie threw the door open and sprinted into the courtyard. Carolina started to follow, but a contraction—Peach’s first real one—had the bride crying out as she fell to her knees.
“Katie!” Carolina called. “Get back here.”
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Peach said, using Carolina as leverage to crawl to her feet. “It just caught me by surprise. I’m good.”
Katie opened the door and was one step out when Peach moaned. “Take an arm,” Katie ordered Carolina. She pulled the door opened, propping it with her foot as they carried Peach out into the courtyard.
“What the hell?” Tom yelled, sprinting up the aisle, Jeb at his side.
“The baby’s coming,” Carolina said. “Now.”
“We need to get to the hospital,” he said, taking Peach’s weight himself.
“No! We. Are. Getting. Married. Now.”
Tom looked down at the determined set of her jaw and sighed. He lowered Peach to the ground. “Butch! Get over here.”
“What’s going on?” Butch asked as he came within earshot.
“She’s having a baby,” Tom said.
“Clyde, we’ve known that for months.”
“Now,” Tom shouted. “She’s having the baby now. Put that internet license to good use and marry us.”
Butch dug into the pocket of his suit and pulled out the words he’d spent nights preparing. Jeb put his big body between the happy couple and the crowd of bewildered on-lookers.
“We have a change in plan,” Jeb shouted. “It looks like the baby’s coming a bit early. If y’all just keep your seats, we’re going to get Tom and Peach hitched and then on their way to the hospital.”
“Is Doc here?” Tom asked.
Katie shook her head. “He’s out of town. Quilting bee convention. Who else do we know who can deliver a baby?”
“I read a few books on it,” Carolina said.
“And Nate is trained in field triage,” Jeb said.
“Get him,” Tom said. “Just in case.”
With a nod from Tom, Butch began. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today.”
“Skip to the good part,” Peach said, bearing down on Tom’s hand.
“Who has a watch? Time the contractions,” Carolina said. “Katie, get some clean towels, hot water, clippers for the cord, and a baby suction bulb.”
Butch kept going. “You wrote your own vows. Tom, you first.”
He looked into Peach’s eyes as he stroked her hair. “I, Thomas Riley, promise to keep you foremost in my every thought and action. I promise to love you, each and every day, like it was our first day together and to keep loving you until my last breath. I promise that from this day forward, you will never be lonely or afraid. I will cherish everything about you, from your razor-sharp brain to your mile-wide stubborn streak.”
Tears rolled down Peach’s cheeks as she reached up to touch Tom’s jaw. She was oblivious of the bustle of activity around her. The only thing that existed in that moment was Tom.
“Peach,” Butch prompted.
“I can’t remember the words I wrote,” she said, “so I’m just going to tell you what’s in my heart. I love you. I have loved you from that first night we trashed that hotel room, and I’ll love you long after I’m in a grave. There was a time when I didn’t think there was a place for me. I existed in between the pages of the world but wasn’t a part of them. I know life with me won’t always be the easiest, but you’ll never be bored or alone. You’ll never doubt that I love you more than anyone. I promise to be your partner, to be by your side as we take on whatever life throws at us.” She paused as another contradiction took her breath. “And if you ever touch me again, I’ll cut off your balls and shove them down your throat.”
Tom laughed and covered her mouth with his. “You are doing beautifully.”
“You aren’t going to make it to a hospital,” Carolina announced for her position between Peach’s legs. “Butch, wrap it up.”
Butch flipped the paper once, twice, and then cleared his throat. “By the power vested in me by the Great State of Tennessee, I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The yards of white were pushed out of the way as Carolina made room to work. She couldn’t move fast enough as the little man was determined to make his debut. “He’s crowning. Push, Peach. Push. You’re doing great. Again. Push.”
Peach arched with a roar that was answered by the first cry of her son.
Carolina and Nate worked quickly to wrap the newborn in warm cloth. Carolina cleaned Peach up while Nate carried the precious bundle to the arms of his father.
Tom sat on the ground, awe struck by the baby in his arms. He had a shock of dark hair, and his sun-kissed skin was healthy and perfect. “Look, Mommy,” he said softly. “Isn’t he beautiful?” The baby blinked twice, showing off pale green eyes. Tom leaned down and held their son against his wife.
Tears of joy rolled from Peach’s eyes. “Look what we did, Tom. Look what we did. Happy birthday, Patrick Thomas Riley.”
Jeb’s voice boomed over the courtyard. “It’s a boy,” he shouted to the eruption of cheers and clapping.
Tom sat back on his heels, watching his son burrow against Peach’s warm skin. He looked around the courtyard, one that he had been a part of building with his own hands. The one that Katie and Butch had married in, then Jeb and Carolina. Now he and Peach.
He looked down and squeezed her hand at the odd look on her face. “What’s wrong? Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She pulled him close, burrowing against him. “Something about this feels like the end to me. We’re just three couples, married with children. Do you think the excitement will end?”
He laughed as they cuddled their son. “Look at the cast of characters surrounding us. We have a blonde that looks like a princess, biting her lip as she executes a procedure she’d only read about. A redhead with a touch of mischief in her eye is giggling with the county music star and the soldier. Grandparents are fighting the crowd to get closer to what was theirs. Friends clapping and hooting it up and always, there’s music.” Just as he finished, a hundred-pound black lab made an appearance, looking down at Peach, wondering what she was doing on the ground. Then, deciding it was a good idea, laid his full length down beside her.
She laughed and cupped her husband’s strong jaw. A cocky smile settled in on her lips. “You’re right. I think we are just getting to the interesting part.”
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