Jack watched from the doorway as Ava sat on the side of Owen’s bed and bent to kiss him on the forehead.
“You want me to sing?” she asked, and their ritual made him smile. He knew his son was still a boy, but he was maturing, and the events of the past few weeks had probably sped up the process. Still, a warmth spread through him to see that for these two people he loved, some things hadn’t changed.
Owen’s brows drew together as he chewed on his upper lip.
“He gets that from you, you know,” Jack said.
Ava turned to look at him from over her shoulder. Not wanting to interrupt a part of their life he didn’t quite fit into, he hadn’t announced his presence.
Scully pushed past him and made his way into the room where he hopped onto the foot of the bed and curled up at Owen’s feet.
“I think I tired him out,” Jack said.
She’d left the man and the dog in the backyard when she’d finally put an end to the evening’s activities by announcing that it was, in fact, a school night, and Owen had to get ready for bed. Jack had said he and Scully would follow them in soon, but he was stalling, unsure of his role in what had become, to Ava and Owen, routine.
“Mom?” Owen asked, and she turned her attention back to her son.
“Yeah, bud?”
“Could—could Dad maybe tuck me in tonight? I mean, if it’s okay with you.” He looked up at Jack. “And only if you want.”
Owen’s tentative tone made something in Jack ache—that Owen could think for one second he’d say no.
“I was kind of hoping you’d ask,” Jack said, striding toward the bed. Okay, so it was more like limping toward the bed, but he still felt steady on his feet. He could do this.
He lowered himself on the other side of the mattress and reached for her hand. She grabbed it and gave him a reassuring squeeze before she rose.
“I’ll let you two have some man time,” she said with a grin.
Jack raised his brows. “Fair warning, Shortstop. I don’t really do the singing thing.”
Owen shrugged as Ava pulled the door shut behind her. “That’s okay,” he said. “It’s kind of Mom’s thing anyway. Maybe we could think of something that’s just ours?”
Jack grinned, eyeing his son’s bookshelf where he saw everything from Harry Potter to a baseball card price guide. “How about we read?”
He waited until Owen dozed off against his arm—and then he waited a few minutes more. Finally, after assuring himself he’d get to do this again, he slid quietly from the room in search of his fiancée.
He found her in the extra bedroom, where close to a dozen finished canvases lined the floor against the far wall. He glanced at the one she was working on and winced.
“That is one hell of an ugly tree,” he said. “You ever think about getting rid of the one out back? It doesn’t look like it’s fruit-bearing…or olive-bearing. Is an olive a fruit?”
Ava sighed. “I’ve been trying to paint that stupid tree for the better part of a decade. I thought if I could paint it, that it would be the one and only piece of art worthy of admission to Cal Poly. I thought I had to prove something to myself with a stupid tree.”
“But now you don’t?”
She shook her head. “I already got in, didn’t I? With the portrait of you and Owen playing catch that I painted before it even happened.”
“Because you knew,” he said.
“I hoped,” she admitted.
She crossed her arms, paintbrush still in hand. She was wearing nothing but an oversized white T-shirt he guessed was her regular uniform when she worked on her art. The paint-splattered garment slid down her left shoulder, exposing her pale, freckled skin.
Jack kissed it, then smiled as he felt her shiver.
“You boys have a good time?”
He nodded. “I didn’t sing, if that’s what you’re asking. We did some bedtime reading instead.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked. “What book?”
Jack gave her a wry grin, and she shook her head. “You read baseball stuff, didn’t you? I’m going to be left out of conversations now if I don’t know the Dodgers’ batting order. I’ve basically lost my son to his father and vice versa.”
She swiped the paintbrush across his cheek, but he grabbed it from her before she got the other.
He raised his brows. “Tell me about the tree,” he said softly. “Or I retaliate.”
She shrugged. “I have more brushes.”
“And I’m not going anywhere. So talk to me, Red.” She reached for the brush, but he was too quick, hiding it behind his back. “I’m not leaving,” he said.
Without the brush to occupy her fidgeting hands, she wrapped her arms around her midsection and blew out a long breath. “I bought this house because of that ugly tree.”
His brow furrowed. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because the last time I saw you—when I told you I wasn’t in love with you—” Her voice shook.
He reached for her, but she held out her hand, staving him off for just a bit more. “I have to say this. And you can forgive me or not for all I’ve kept from you. But in order to move forward from this, I need you not to make it easier for me.”
It killed him to do it, but he took a step back. For her.
“That’s where we met,” she continued. “Under that ugly tree across the street from the school. I called you there to tell you about Owen, but instead I pushed you as far away as I could because I knew—after the party and then what happened with Walker—that you wouldn’t survive here if you stayed. So I hurt you more than you were already hurting, and now you’re here, and you gave me this ring, and you want to marry me.” She shrugged. “I’ve been telling you since the moment you got here to face your past, but the truth is, I guess a part of me is still stuck under that tree.”
He dropped the brush onto the table next to her easel and closed the distance between them. His eyes searched hers for the girl who couldn’t let go. “Tell me now,” he said, his voice gentle. “Tell me now what you wanted to tell me then.”
He swallowed past the years of separation, and he was eighteen again. Eighteen and lost until she’d found him.
She glanced out the window toward an innocent tree that had no idea the role it played in her torment.
“Hey, Red. It’s okay. Pretend we’re there.”
She rested both of her hands on her flat belly. “I’m pregnant,” she simply said.
Without hesitation, he covered her hands with his own. “I’m gonna be a father.”
She nodded. “A really good one. I think it’s a boy.”
He smiled. “Who’ll love baseball, and Vin Scully, and have an excellent pitching arm.”
She laughed. “I’d like to name him after your mom.” Her voice caught on that last word, and he watched her struggle to hold it together. For him.
“That means more to me than you will ever know.” He realized he’d never thanked her for making Owen his, even when he wasn’t here.
He kissed her then, and as their lips met, he felt her finally let go.
He scooped her into his arms, her bare legs warm against his hands, and carried her from the room. She narrowed her eyes, and he knew she wanted to give him hell for putting the extra weight on his leg, but he gave her a quiet “Shhh,” warning her that if she said anything now, she’d wake Owen. Besides, he was so quick, she was on her back on top of her unmade bed in a matter of seconds.
Jack returned to the door to gently close it, and she rose onto her elbows. “You are terrible at following the doctor’s instructions,” she said.
He shrugged. “Doc didn’t know I was making love to my future wife tonight.”
She sucked in a breath, and he shook his head. “No more tears.”
“But these are happy ones.”
He stood above her and she tugged at the belt loop on his jeans. “Come here,” she said.
He obeyed, climbing over her, but she shook her head and pushed him to his side so they were facing each other.
“I get that in the hospital you were hooked up to machines, which didn’t leave you much of a choice. But part of this deal”—she motioned between them—“is that you don’t get to be an island anymore. You put everyone else ahead of your needs. And I love that about you. But you’ve got people to take care of you now, and you better let them do it.”
He tilted his head toward hers, the warmth of their breaths mingling between them. “Are you one of these people who want to take care of me?”
She rested her palm on his cheek. “For as long as you’ll let me.”
He kissed her, long and slow and sweet—at first. But when she parted her lips, his tongue slipped between them and he grew hungry with need.
“I missed you,” he said as he came up for air.
Her leg slid between his, and her hand snaked around his back. “I know. A week is too long.”
He kissed along the line of her jaw, nipped at her earlobe, and smiled when she gasped. “Not just this week.” He rose on his elbow, and with his free hand gripped the hem of her paint-spattered T-shirt and tugged it over her head. He was the one who was short of breath now. Because there she was, in nothing but a pair of black panties—and the diamond he’d placed on her finger. He helped her out of the former as quickly as he had the shirt.
“I missed you,” he said again, his voice rough, and the look in her green eyes was one of complete understanding.
She pulled his face to hers. “I know.” She gave him a quick, chaste kiss. “But there’s one thing wrong here.” She looked him up and down.
“What’s that?”
She raised her brows. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes.”
He barked out a laugh, only to be shushed by the beautiful, naked woman beneath him. He was out of his own shirt in seconds, but the jeans over the cast were another story. Together, though, they made it work, and soon he was bare before the woman he couldn’t get enough of.
“See?” she said. “That’s how it works. Letting someone take care of you.”
Without warning, she pushed him down on his back and sank over his erection, burying him to the hilt in her slick heat.
A low growl rumbled in his chest. He pulsed inside her, eliciting soft, short breaths that let him know that even injured he could still get the job done.
She squeezed her knees against his hips, tightened her muscles, and slid up and down his length so slowly he thought he might lose his mind.
“This,” she said, lowering her head to his so she could kiss him. “This is me taking care of you for the next hour or so.”
He raised his brows. “An hour? You think very highly of a man who hasn’t been inside you for a week.” And who felt like he might lose control in a matter of minutes. But that didn’t worry him anymore—letting go with her. He wanted every part of this woman—body, heart, and soul. And he knew without a doubt she’d given all of that to him. What surprised him now was, after all these years of distancing himself from that kind of connection, it was so easy to give back to her.
She rocked against him, her movement slow and controlled. “We’ll just have to do it more than once, then. To work up our staying power.”
He laughed, then wrapped his arms around her so the whole length of her body was flush against his. “I love you,” he said, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs.
She gasped as he tilted his pelvis toward hers. “I love you, too,” she said.
“I always thought I couldn’t be happy here—coming back to this place. But you and Owen changed that.”
She smiled. “You’re really happy?”
She arched her back, and one of his hands snuck between the place where they joined. She cried out as he pressed a finger against her aching center.
“I’m happier than I ever thought possible,” he said. Because he never could have dreamed this—a second chance with the only girl he ever could have loved.
“Promise?” she asked.
He kissed her, and her body melted against his.
“Cross my heart, Red. I’m finally home.”