Chapter 10

“Daddy?” Glory poured fake tea into the smallest teacups Archer had ever seen. His finger didn’t even fit through the handle.

“Yes, honey.” He couldn’t help but smile at her serious tone, while she carefully poured the tea, adding both sugar and lemon.

Glory returned to her seat at the dining room table, taking a slice of pizza from the platter and setting it on Archer’s plate. She did the same for hers. “Where are you gonna live now? With Grandma?”

That was a good damn question. He’d been so busy spending time with Glory, and Ally, that he hadn’t even started to look at houses in town. “With Grandma, until I find a place of my own I suppose.”

She set her pizza down, face smeared with tomato sauce. “You could stay here.”

I wish. “I’m not sure that’s gonna happen, kid.”

She grinned and once again Archer thought she was the cutest thing alive. “You could ask.”

He could, but he knew Ally wasn’t ready. Despite their night together, the heated looks and passing touches, she wasn’t even ready to talk about it yet. “Maybe I have a plan.”

“Do you?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s for me to worry about, eat your pizza.”

“I love pizza. Mama feels bad when we have it so we get a lot of yucky veggies on it.” She pouted as though veggies were akin to mud.

“Veggies are good for you. How do you think you get to be big and strong like me?”

She giggled when he flexed his muscles. “I’m a girl, I can’t be big and strong.”

“Sure you can. Do it with me.” He flexed in several poses, smiling bigger each time Glory mimicked his moves. That’s how Ally found them, growling and flexing at each other across a half-eaten pizza.

“Everything okay in here?” She looked from Archer to Glory and then back to the adult in the room. One brow arched in question.

“Everything’s great. We’re big and strong, right Sweetpea?”

She bobbed her head up and down. “’Cause of veggies!”

“Careful,” she took a step closer just in case and Archer worked hard to hide his smile. “What’s this about veggies?”

“Daddy says I can be big and strong if I want.” She flexed again.

“He’s right, but you have to eat them first.” She pointed to the pizza and exchanged a look with Glory he couldn’t decipher, but the little girl sat down and gobbled up the rest of her slice.

“What did I miss?” Because he missed something.

“We’re all going sledding.” The little girl frowned at her father. “Did you wear long johns? Mama says if you want to keep your legs you hafta wear’em.”

Archer frowned and sat up. “No. I can run home.”

“Mama!” Glory smiled at him, head bopping side to side as though in time with a beat only she could hear. “Dad forgot his long johns.” She giggled, looking at him with a secret shining in her eyes.

He grinned and stole another slice. “You’re lucky I love you,” he said and shoved half the slice in his mouth.

Her expression changed, softened as she looked at him with love shining bright. “I love you too, Daddy.”

I’ll never get tired of hearing that.

“Glory bought you something,” Ally said and dropped the bag beside his plate.

One peek inside and he laughed loud and hard, clutching his belly as laughter bubbled out of him. “You’re kidding.” He held up a red onesie, laughing. “This is great. But these, are perfect.” Green long johns with dancing snowmen draped with Christmas lights. “Thank you, honey.”

Glory jumped off her seat and ran to Archer. “You’re welcome, Daddy.” She squeezed him in a big hug and stepped back. “Go change. We gotta go,” she huffed and walked off.

“She’s right,” Ally said, grabbing the plates and coming back to get the pizza box. “You guys have a good time?”

“Always,” he told her, bringing the tea cups and saucers to the sink along with the real ones. “She’s so damn smart. I don’t think I was that smart at five.”

She grinned. “I don’t think I was either. She’s so mature. Sometimes…sometimes I feel like I’m stealing her childhood.”

“Take it from someone who spent the past hour trying to drink invisible tea out of the smallest cup in the world, she has plenty of childhood.” He grabbed her shoulders and pressed a soft kiss to her lush mouth. “And I heard something about sledding, that’s definitely a kid’s activity.” He smiled as he walked down the hall, stepping inside Ally’s room to change.

More time with his girls was always a good thing.

 

 

“She’s down for the count.” Ally couldn’t help the way her heart stuttered at the sight of Glory asleep on Archer’s shoulders, one tiny hand gripping his shoulder and the other curled adorably around his neck.

He grinned, and for just a flash of a moment he looked like the boy she’d loved a lifetime ago. Then it was gone and she was left staring at the handsomer version of the man he was today. “Who knew sledding could be so exhausting?”

She knew, but saying so would dampen the mood. “She’ll probably sleep until morning.” That would give Ally plenty of time to prep boxes for the last shipment before the holiday. “I’ll follow you upstairs.”

“Don’t worry, I can put her to bed. Can you reheat the pizza? Never mind, I’m so hungry I could eat it frozen.”

Ally grinned. “You always said cold pizza was like a pizza-cicle, the best of both worlds.”

“It’s true but right now I’m afraid that parts very dear to me, might fall off if I don’t warm up soon.” He shivered but his hands never stopped circling Glory’s back to keep her warm.

I shouldn’t do it. I really, really shouldn’t. “Take your clothes off and I’ll put them in the dryer while you put on your other gift.” His blue eyes danced with amusement but his mouth never broke.

“You have a burning desire to see me in a onesie, AllyCat?”

She blushed at his use of her nickname. “I don’t have a burning desire to not see you in one.” Satisfaction warmed her at the surprise that crossed his handsome face. “Make it snappy,” she said and shrugged off her coat before making a straight path to the kitchen.

Busying herself, Ally pulled out some left over stew and put it in a deep pot to heat, preheating the oven for bread and unloading the dishwasher. I’d be happy for one day to end with a clean slate. There were always tasks left incomplete, errands that were ignored or reprioritized. Even now, she knew she could do something other than feed the man who’d walked out on her, yet there she was. Serving him.

Again.

“Dammit.” She slammed the scrubbie down on the sink but it didn’t give her any satisfaction. She couldn’t let Archer all the way in, just enough so they could parent Glory together. No more. Any more than that and she would be the one in trouble, and she didn’t want that kind of trouble.

Not anymore.

Life had taught her plenty of lessons about wanting too much and Ally was nothing, if not a good student. I’m just being nice because it will make this easier. Yeah, it sounded like a lie to her own ears, but it was true all the same. They needed to be civil. Civil, not lustful.

“Problem?”

“No,” she bit out much too quickly.

He pushed off the doorway in his red onesie and she tried hard not to stare. “I asked for pizza, not a three course meal.”

“It’s stew.”

“Stew isn’t pizza,” he pushed with a smile.

“I’ll get you the pizza.” She turned away because this was all starting to feel like a life that wasn’t hers. A life that had been ripped away from her when she thought all was right in her world.

“What just happened?”

“Nothing.” Ally kept her back to him, stirring the stew as it began to thaw. “You want salad?”

“No, I don’t want any damn salad. I want you to talk to me.”

She turned, a wistful expression on her face. “I can’t do this with you, Archer. I can sit here and pretend like you didn’t run away with no explanation. I don’t want to pretend like we’re getting the life we’d planned. We’re not.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Because life happened. You left and I learned to live without you.” A long silence stretched between them. “I had to, Archer. I didn’t have a choice because you didn’t leave me one. And this all feels too familiar.”

“You want me to leave?”

“No, I’m just telling you how I feel. I don’t want to confuse things any further.”

“Because we slept together?” His tone had a harsh edge to it.

“Yes. I suspect there will always be some attraction, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It damn well does mean something. We both know that’s why you’re running so fast.”

“Running? I wish! I never got the chance to run, Archer. One of us has to think of Glory.”

He stood and used his height to back her against the counter. “You think I’m not? I think she wants us to be a family. All of us.”

Ally knew that Glory wanted that too, but that was one gift she couldn’t give. “That’s because she…you know, never mind. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it.” She tilted her chin up defiantly.

“Liar.”

Her pulse pounded so loud she was sure he could hear it as her heart fluttered in her chest. She couldn’t look away from the plump set of his lips despite her best judgment. “I’m not lying.”

“You are, and lie to yourself all you want Ally. But don’t lie to me. I can see how much you want me, want this. I feel it in the fluttering pulse right here,” he let his thumb graze the pulse at the base of her neck. “That little hitch in your breath, right there? Tells me that you’re as affected by me as I still am by you.”

“It’s just hormones. It means nothing.”

“It means everything, Ally. Tell me you haven’t enjoyed the past few weeks together. That your heart doesn’t just burst with happiness at the sound of her laughter, at how well we all fit together. All of us.”

She shook her head because she wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. So she turned to the boiling stew and used it to break free of the spell he’d cast on her. “Damn. Ouch!” Ally burned her hand and jumped back, turning to the downstairs bathroom to clean up. Truthfully it was just a small burn and with a little cocoa butter or aloe would be fine. But she needed a moment to herself.

“You okay?”

She jumped again. “You scared me. I’m fine.”

“Let me see,” he took her hand, blowing tenderly on the pink area. Then his lips touched her hand her breath caught.

“Archer,” she moaned. Dammit.

“I know,” he groaned and took her mouth in a brutal kiss that was intense and hungry. Raw and needy. She should have pushed him away, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Instead she kissed him harder, deeper as she clung to him. This time she did climb his body to nibble his ear and lick the strong column of muscle in his neck.

“Archer. Please.”

“Tell me. What do you need.”

She didn’t want to say it. So she teased, nipping his ear and grinding against him. Between her yoga pants and the cotton of his onesie, very little separated them but it was still too much.

“Say it, Ally. What do you need.”

“You,” she growled, gasping when he let her body slide to the floor, dropping to his knees to remove her pants. “Now, Archer.” She leaned against the counter and rolled her hips.

He stood and good god, the man did hungry like nobody’s business. His movements were jerky and quick but the buttons were undone and his whole torso was on display. “Me?”

She nodded and turned to face the mirror, arching her back to tease him. “You. Here. Now.”

He grinned and she watched his face in the mirror, twist and contort in anguished pleasure as he slid deep. Filling her even better than she remembered. And she’d remembered a lot.

Then he hit her pleasure spot and things got blurry. Hazy as his hips moved at warp speed, chasing pleasure deep inside her body. He bit his lip and grasped her hips harder, pounding and he looked so beautiful, like an old Greek warrior, intensely focused on pleasure. “Archer!” She exploded around him suddenly, body trembling violently as she gripped the edge of the counter. He followed soon after, her name a low growl on his lips.

“I’m going to earn your trust again, Ally. And your love. And your friendship.” He planted a soft, wet kiss on her neck and down her shoulder, his body still buried deep in hers.

She was afraid he already had.