I had to live up to that faith she had at this moment. I didn’t move, but the butterflies in my stomach grew. She’d been the only woman I’d wanted for a long time. I sighed and said, “It was partly my fault but seeing you…trust me again…you’re worth waiting for.”
In the Bahamas where we’d been together, the night before she’d left the hotel, I’d stupidly drank too much, and some woman, Marsha, who didn’t matter to me, had flown in from Tulsa and acted like we’d been more than we were. In my inebriated state, I’d not had the chance to explain that well. If that was holding her back, then that conversation had to happen before I seduced her.
And that could be today as there was no reason to wait. Marsha was long gone and had never been important to me.
Georgie took her blue paisley blanket off, and I saw her naked legs. Last night, I’d peeked when I’d helped her to take her jeans off her for her to sleep better, but I’d stopped myself as she said, “We…look, you’re a professional baseball player.”
How did that come into this? I nodded as she scooted beside me. “I’m good at my job.”
“Jeremy told me.” She stood and walked past me toward the bathroom. “You and I…”
“Are complicated,” I supplied before she shut the door on me. A moment later, I heard her brushing her teeth. I needed to figure out how to steer this conversation when she came out, but then I heard the doorbell. I snuck downstairs, took the delivery, and brought the jug to her kitchen.
Jeremy watched me with those big blue eyes of his as I poured my coffee into the coffee pot Georgie owned and then hid the rest under the sink.
My boy laughed but didn’t say anything, but that smirk that reflected into his eyes was so my father. It was uncanny.
I made a silent return to her bedroom. I closed the door and she flung open the door. My heart raced a little like I’d been caught, “Baseball season isn’t all year.”
I needed a strategy to get her to agree to quench my thirst for her when we could and relive the pleasure we’d both had in each other's arms.
She rolled her eyes at me as she grabbed some clothes from her closet and said, “It’s pretty much a life. I’m not stupid. Your season is months long and then y’all practice for a few months. You probably get like two months off in the winter.”
“That’s true.” My lips pressed together. Life on the road wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t forever.
At least she understood some of my life. She came out in a winter white sweater and pants outfit I swear my mom would have worn to a PTA meeting. Georgie didn’t even blink as she said, “And, you probably spend it in warm places like the Bahamas.”
I helped her with the top button of her shirt though I wanted to rip it off her. The transformation to mother was uncanny and sexy in a new way that hadn’t ever crossed my mind. “You never came back.”
She lowered her head but didn’t step out of my arms. I smelled her rosy scent on me as she said, “I was in mourning, pregnant, and then a single mother. Going back to the hotel in the hopes you might be there was very impractical with low odds and, honestly, seemed like a fantasy life I might lead where I had no responsibilities.”
If she’d gone just once in the last six years at the time we’d met, we’d have been together faster. I held her close now and sparks raced through me as I said, “I was there, waiting for you on our anniversary.”
She stilled in my arms, then blinked as she asked, “Anniversary?”
I traced her spine up and down. She was even prettier now as she'd lost that girliness and was now all grown woman, fleshed out in all the right places. “Of when we met.”
Her face blushed red, and she paused her words, until she said, “Jeremy’s in school. Gallivanting off to hotels is for single women, with no worries. It’s not like I have parents who might babysit.”
We’d figure this out. Her life seemed pretty tame and simple, and we needed to make a deal. “What worries do you have?”
She sucked in her breath, like she didn’t want to say whatever was in her mind and then finally said, “Like what do I do if either of us gets sick? Doctors are pricy and my insurance isn’t good for more than colds and sniffles and, even then, it sucks.”
“Still keep spreadsheets and analyze your decisions that way?”
“Yeah.”
Jeremy had seemed healthy this morning. Had he skipped the butter for a reason? I sucked in my breath and said, “Relax.”
She met my gaze and massaged my back like she was comforting me over her fears as she said, “Look, I have a great life, but one health crisis can destroy us in a second.”
This was her fear? At least my boy was fine. This worry was something I could handle. “I have insurance for Jeremy.”
She lifted one shoulder like she wanted to flirt as she had the first time we’d met but then said, “Maybe that DNA test you want is good for something then.”
DNA tests don’t get him on my insurance alone. More important was us.
I don’t know what exactly she’d done since that day we’d lost touch, but I touched her and knew she was mine, forever. For now, she twirled out of my arms and said, “We’ll get that as soon as we figure out how to set that up. For now, I’ll get breakfast started.”
I widened my stance but didn’t follow her sexy curves as I said, “Jeremy’s eaten. I wanted to ask your permission to bring him to school.”
“What?” Instantly she came back to me, but her gaze was unreadable.
They were
