Second Chance Baby (Crescent Cove #18)

Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Interrupting the brothers and then leading the way to Rita’s had been a sudden impulse. Even if listening to them playfully gripe as they followed me down the hill was endlessly entertaining.

“Did Carrington think what I’d done so far passed muster or what? Not that I got super far.”

“Oh, she loved what you did so far. Though she said you forgot to put up one of the witchy flamingoes before she got a call from her friend, Missy, and she said she’d be back soon.”

Loudly, Travis cleared his throat. “Imagine that. Tell her to look in Rita’s shed. No, don’t. I’m only kidding.”

I looked over my shoulder at them, and they both looked oddly consternated.

Sometimes boys were inexplicable. Of course, so were women. But Rita had seemed so nice at the shoot.

“Party number two today.” Rita called, turning on the patio lights.

“Sorry to invite myself over. Just I overheard you were staying down here, and we didn’t get to talk much. You have such a cool career. Have you been an author long?”

She shot a slightly panicked look at Penn, who only shrugged. “For years, actually. It’s not for the faint of heart, we’ll say. Yours seems even more fun. Well, assuming you like the model you’re working with. Which you obviously do.” She looked past me toward Travis and cleared her throat. “Also, I actually asked your agent if you’d possibly do another shoot. An outdoor one this time. For my books, not me, personally.”

I couldn’t keep the surprise from my face as I twisted my hair over my shoulder. “I was thinking about cutting back on modeling since we’re trying to have more kids, not to mention I’m tired of trying to watch my weight.” I laughed. “My agent has been shopping a memoir, actually. I was going to use that to ease out of modeling if anyone picked it up. But no nibbles yet.”

“Things you learn,” Travis muttered.

“Oh! Well, you know, you could always self-publish. More and more authors are taking control of their careers that way. Hell, if Taylor can do it, why can’t we?”

“Damn straight,” Penn offered. “Or maybe even Duality Press could hook you up. We’re thinking about forming an imprint for fiction, and maybe non-fiction.”

I couldn’t help shifting my attention to Penn with wide eyes. “No way. Elaine will shit bricks.”

He laughed at that, as did Travis. “I mean, we aren’t Macmillan or anything, but we do our best to keep our authors happy. We’d be honored to take you on, Brig.”

I cupped a hand over my mouth. “Holy shit, really?”

“Yes, really. We will have to read what you have first, of course, but I have no doubt we can make this work for all of us.”

I rushed to grab him in a giant hug before whirling around to hug Travis too. “Sorry, I’ll let you read it first, of course. Just so much was going on, and I didn’t even think about work.”

“That’s just fine. We have an entire lifetime to get caught up.” He cupped the base of my head against his shoulder. “I love you. I’m so proud of you.”

I sniffled loudly and squeezed him super hard.

When I turned back to Rita, she was rubbing her hand under her nose as if she was a little misty too.

“You have to come over this weekend,” I suggested, glancing back to Travis to see him nod, so I reached out to link fingers with him. “We can have a celebratory cookout. That work for you guys? We can offer many mini marshmallows for s’mores, if we go shopping.” I let out a hitching laugh.

I threw myself at her too, unabashedly hugging her and rocking back and forth in a damn near explosion of happiness. How many good things could happen for me at once? “Sorry, I’m an emotional mess,” I said, swallowing a sob as she gripped my hand. “I was basically the biggest ass ever and ran away from my family, but somehow, they seem willing to take me back. And even new family too?”

I looked between her and Penn, clearly out of my damn gourd. They were probably in the earliest days of their relationship, and here I was, practically marrying them off.

I waited for him to tell me off, but he only reached over to clasp our joined hands in his much bigger one.

Not saying yes, but definitely not saying no. Just keeping the possibilities all the way open.

“We’ll let you both enjoy the evening now, but I’m so glad I eavesdropped and came down here.” To my utter relief, Rita laughed freely, indicating she had no problem with my nosy neighbor syndrome. Penn and Travis laughed too, although I’d been pretty sure they would be okay with it. “So, are you going to stick around here now? Spoiler alert—they don’t make small towns better than Crescent Cove.”

“Yeah, as long as you’re okay with little people,” Travis put in.

“Like real little people?” Rita frowned. “You know, like smaller ones?”

Penn laughed heartily. “You’re about as little as they come here. She means kids. Many babies in the Cove.”

“Oh.” Rita wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I haven’t given those much thought.”

“You’ll be thinking about them now.” With a wink, I patted her arm. “I’d love having you close. I’m kind of in the market for some girlfriends.”

She exchanged a look with Penn that I couldn’t quite read. “Funny, me too.”

“Well, seems like our timing is good here all around then.” Travis slung his arm around my shoulders. “We have Halloween decorations to fuss with before our kid gets back, so we’ll just leave you to…whatever.”

“Whatever works for me.” Penn’s smirk made me laugh before we waved and headed back up the hill toward home.

The minute we were a few feet away, I whispered, “Pretty sure we will be friends. Don’t you think?”

“Yes. I do. Rita had some sadness in her eyes at the shoot, so if I’m on the right track, she could use one.” Travis squeezed my hand. “She could use you.”

“Aww, yeah? You really think so?”

“I really do. You don’t know how much untapped awesome you have inside of you, but I have no trouble reminding you hourly if needed.”

I gave into a sniffle. But I was still smiling. I might never stop smiling again. Maybe coming back home had turned me into a sap. I wasn’t going to make any apologies for it. In fact, I was sadly overdue.

“I can’t believe you announced we wanted more kids.” He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “Whatever has gotten into you, I love it.”

“Well, you’re the only one who’s gotten into me, so maybe it’s due to you?”

He turned me toward him on the path, brushing my hair out of my face as he tilted my chin upward. “You’re so gorgeous in moonlight.” He looked up at the crescent moon in the spooky dark blue sky scattered with wispy clouds. “Harvest moon,” he said softly. “Halloween will be here soon.”

“Yeah. Halloween as a family.” I shut my eyes for a moment. “I’m so grateful for all I’ve been given. I never expected to get so lucky. I know how badly I fucked up…”

“ Shh . My mom is big on couples’ therapy now as I mentioned before, and when and if we want to go deeper, we can try that. But I don’t want you to beat yourself up anymore than you already have. Learning and growing is more than half the battle. So, let’s just enjoy that, okay? And maybe watch a movie while Carrington is out.” He waggled his eyebrows, and I pretended not to understand.

“Another Halloween one?” I asked in my most innocent voice.

“No. A French one. We’ll get our fill of Halloween with finishing setting up the decorations.”

“If you insist.” I leaned up to nip his chin, stroking his growing in beard with my fingertips. “I like this on you. You don’t have to shave.”

“Oh, I don’t, do I?”

“No. Feel free to get as woolly as you want to. Since it will be winter soon, might as well grow hair for warmth.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “I’d rather you keep me warm.”

“That can be arranged too. But I’m enjoying the little bits of silver here and there.” I gave into my urge to pat his cheek, laughing a little as he growled playfully.

“I’m not a silver fox yet.”

“But soon maybe?” I looked up at him hopefully. “Hey, does your dad have silver hair now?”

He laughed openly at me. “He actually went salt and pepper on his way to pure white, where he is right now. Sadly, you missed the silver days.”

“Eh, not thinking about your dad so much, more you. But I’ll definitely get to see your silver rainbow on the way to white-haired-old-man-yet-still-sexy Travis.”

“If you say so. Daphne already warned me I’d probably find more work if I aimed for the silver fox market, since I’m heading into my upper thirties. Instead, I planned on doing construction with a friend.”

“School friend?”

He shook his head. “John Gideon—he’s married to the coffee queen of the Cove. I like the thought of sticking closer to home. Then I ended up doing a shoot with the most gorgeous fucking model in the world, which I guess sent my stock soaring a bit.” He grabbed my hand as we started walking up the trail again, swinging our linked hands between us like the old days.

“We don’t have to do anything that doesn’t work for us, right? A couple extra shoots might be fun.”

He pushed the tree branches out of our way. “Is that right?”

“I happen to enjoy rolling around with you.” He tried to drag me in closer, but I had to get this out. To let him know that I was thinking of us and our future. “But I love the idea of you home with us. Us raising Carrington together—and maybe a few more kids. And I’ll hopefully make some cash with my memoir before I go back to teaching, which will be sooner rather than later.” I bit my lower lip. “If they’ll take me back.”

“ If ? There is no if. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to even dream of refusing you.” He spun me into his arms, hauling me clear off the ground before he sealed his words with a kiss that damn near had me sliding bonelessly to the ground.

Relief unfurled inside of me. Making plans with Travis felt so good. So different from when we’d stopped communicating. Slowly freezing each other out with doubts.

“Can it be this easy?” I asked, framing his face between my hands as he set me down again. “Can we just kind of join our lives and keep going? Isn’t it supposed to be harder?”

“Baby, loving you has been the easiest fucking thing I’ve ever done.” He held up his index finger then pointed at me. “Do not cry. Do not even get misty. No more tears. We’ve filled our lifetime quotient.” Then he made a face. “Wait, no. I want you to feel like you can express anything to me, because you can. That’s where we went wrong. I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t come to me with your fears or your triumphs. I want to be here for them all.”

“Trav.” I didn’t deserve this man, but I was keeping him.

“Even if you have to cry. Which will kill me, but nothing is off-limits.”

I kept my face serious for half a minute. “What about butt stuff? Is that not off-limits, either?”

He matched my seriousness for a moment before he barked out a laugh. “You are unreal, man. In the best way.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s definitely not off-limits. We can discuss that later after the French movie.” He lowered his voice. “What’s it called again?”

I repeated the title. “The adventure in French,” I said, tugging his hand to lead him around the back of the house to the front. I followed the sound of voices to the unreal display.

“I don’t care what he wants. This is clearly going to be a vehicular hazard. There are too many lit things in this yard. In my opinion, we should reduce the total by at least twenty percent?—”

“So, you’re sure you’re okay with anal sex? You don’t have some sort of objection to it? It’s okay if you do, of course.” I paused as Christian directed a horrified glance our way before glancing back at Murphy.

“We’ll just be going then. We will leave the rest of this to you two. Since you have ladders now and most of these eyesores—I mean, lovely Halloween decorations—have already been put where you want them.” Christian began hotfooting it backward toward the driveway. “You guys are good now? Please tell me you’re good.”

Travis was laughing so hard he tried to speak twice before giving up and just holding up a hand. “We’re good. Thanks for your help. You can go too, Moose,” he said to his stalwart youngest brother, who clearly didn’t know if he should stay or go. “We’re all set. We really appreciate you guys coming out, but we can take it from here.”

Playing up my role to the hilt, I wrapped my hands around Travis’s arm, leaning up to kiss his ear in a slightly vampy way that I knew his modest brother wouldn’t be able to endure. And that was even now that he’d been married for years with many children. “Oh, yeah, we can definitely take it from here. Thanks so much, Moose.”

“You’re both welcome. So welcome. And Bridget, it’s good to have you being back,” Moose added hurriedly, already heading to his minivan. “If Travis is happy, we’re happy. I mean, I assume he’s happy with…all of that talk. So, yeah, I’ll just leave you both alone. My love to Care. Bye.”

Travis coughed into his fist then waved to his brother before hugging me enthusiastically. “I’ve never seen any of them beat such a hasty retreat. Usually, I need to shove one or more out the door bodily. Not that they don’t like being home, but my place was always the quiet one locally. Since no babies here anymore. Yet.” He kissed my temple. “Never thought to try talking about anal with them. Takes a woman’s touch, obviously.”

“Not touching that one.”

He snickered. “Gotta give you props for going for gold right away with them. Not that those fuckers don’t probably do all the things that they claim to be so shocked by. Damn hypocrites.”

“Not hypocrites, just happily married men not wanting to imagine what their brother is doing. Can’t blame them, really. Not sure that would work on Penn, though.”

“No, he’s practically impossible to embarrass. Hell, he’d probably pull up a front row chair and chime in with a story of his own.”

“Never know what he’ll get up to with Rita.”

Suddenly quiet, he shuddered comically. “Don’t want to know, thanks. So, is it movie time yet?”

I had to laugh, but then my breath caught for a whole different reason. The front yard was incredible. From the ginormous animated grim reaper near the driveway to the stacked pumpkins and ghost tethered dead center of the yard, it was all over the top in the best way. I was pretty sure the entire lake could see our lawn from every vantage point, thanks to the trillion lights scattered all around the trees.

Guess they got Penn to climb the trees, after all.

There were even perfect small details too. The lit witchy flamingoes popped out of the bushes like little pink demons. One even dangled from her hat from one of the trees on what had to be fishing line.

Travis and his brothers were so creative.

That wasn’t even all. There was a Coraline with her freaky button eyes, plus the huge Jack Skellington Travis had insisted on getting. A dozen skeletons marched across the lawn in varying rude poses that only men would do.

I really hoped Carrington didn’t know what some of them were doing.

I tipped my head to the side. Might try that reverse cowgirl position one that had been tucked into the tree.

Some even seemed to crawl across the roof, legs kicked into the air. One was doing a handstand on the edge of the garage, tacked to a gutter. Orange and purple lights, Penn’s handiwork, were slowly glowing on and off in an eerie way that made me shiver.

“Oh, we still gotta set up our skeleton beach scene,” I reminded him, “but I gotta say the yard does seem rather full.”

“That’s the whole point. I can’t wait to make a little graveyard so those cool skeletonized hands can crawl out of the dirt. Also, Christian can suck it. I’m adding more.”

I faked a gasp. “How could you defile an officer of the law so rudely?”

“Eh, my right as his brother. Now let’s go watch the fucking movie. Or fuck during the fucking movie. Whichever. Just let’s get a move on before Carrington comes back before I’ve even seen a single subtitle.”

I tried not to shiver. This time, not from desire as much as nerves. How was he going to react once he realized the direction of the movie? It truly could go any possible way.

But I’d agreed to let him see it, come what may.

Showtime.

We went inside and changed into comfy clothes, which for me meant an old pair of Travis’s flannel pajamas. Big on me and super broken in, laced with his delicious ocean scent and shampoo and just a clean soapy smell that made me want to bury my nose in the fabric.

Then we curled up in bed and he turned on the TV, tuning into the streaming channel I’d told him to go to.

Twenty minutes later, he was swearing a streak that was even making my ears hot.

“Didn’t you say it was on this streaming platform?”

“It was yesterday. Maybe they took it off. Or maybe you misspelled the title?”

“I know freaking French.”

When he was about to throw the remote, I calmly plucked it out of his hand and typed the name in the search bar. And voila, there it was.

I just clicked play and did my best not to hide my face as the credits ran.

“No way. What did you do?”

“Just put in the name. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go soak my head until I can face you again.”

He just held out his arm and motioned for me to come closer. Which I did. Because I might’ve been a coward, but no way would I give up the best seat in the house.

Not anymore.

He was utterly silent through the whole thing. From the opening scene where my character Blair met the other main character in the café, through our sitting and talking and getting to know each other over expensive cups of coffee. Then adjourning to her home and then to her bedroom, and everything that came after that. I tried to keep my gaze on the movie, but it was hard. I knew what happened, after all, and I was constantly trying to see it like he would. Eventually, I just gave up and curled up with my head on his chest, placing my cheek right in the spot where his nightshirt was open so I could breathe in the scent of his skin with every inhale.

My eyes closed and I didn’t fight to keep them open any longer, just let myself drift.

Dimly, the slam of a door made me startle before I heard the plaintive call of my daughter. He just brushed a kiss over my forehead and paused the movie, saying he’d be right back.

The loss of his warmth beneath me made me shift under the covers and then I was out again, the last image in my mind the still he’d paused the movie on. I wasn’t naked, but damn close.

And I just went back to sleep.

I tried to drum up nerves, but they just couldn’t be summoned at the moment. I was too warm and fuzzy with sleep and happiness.

Sap .

The next time I opened my eyes, the room was dark, the movie off, Travis breathing softly beside me. I headed to the bathroom, taking the time to brush my teeth since I’d neglected to before the movie a few hours ago. Then I crawled back in bed with Travis and gave into the need to open his flannel nightshirt and kiss my way up from his navel to the top of his chest, rubbing my cheek against the soft hair between his pecs just because it felt so good. He said something unintelligible in his sleep, slipping his hand into my hair to cup the base of my skull.

Turning my head to nudge down his bottoms felt so natural I didn’t even question the urge. I simply scooped him out and shifted my kisses to that part of him until he roused in my grip. Then I parted my lips, sucking him in and down, using his low groans as a roadmap. Sucking him hard as I reached beneath him to feather my fingertips over his sac then coasted up to knead his stomach muscles. I nipped his inner thigh, reveling in his rolling groan as I shifted my attention to the head of his shaft. I licked the tip over and over, alternating my pace and pressure, learning my man once more. He gripped my hair and tugged until I groaned greedily when he took my mouth.

“I fucking love when you taste like me.”

I kissed him again, rolling onto my side to part my thighs. I waited until his gaze settled on mine in the moonlight before I skimmed my hand down his length, throwing my leg over both of his to bring him inside me. I couldn’t restrain my gasp, but he swallowed it, driving into me with subtle urgency, his hips a relentless piston against my own. I laced my fingers into his hair, dragging my nails over his scalp. And I couldn’t help whispering over and over how much I loved him.

Love didn’t even cover it. What a weak, inadequate word for what felt like an inferno inside me.

But somehow, he seemed to accept my words and return them in the darkest part of the night, when even the moonlight seemed to bear witness to our confessions. And I didn’t fight to hold back my tears, because he should get those too. There was nothing I wanted to hold back from this man.

Not anymore.

Here, where it was just us, the love and the pain and the need were inexorably linked. And I needed to release them all to finally breathe again.

With my eyes locked on his, I let him lead me away.