Over the steady hum of the engine she calls back, “It’s here whenever you’re hungry, Rye. But maybe Captain Jack can find a calm nook where we can drop anchor.” She gets a wave from Jack, a man who knows his way around.
Ryder and Jimmy return to talking, their swim trunks flapping in the wind, Ryder’s handsome face is to us as his friend’s shoulders shake with laughter.
Jen smiles like she wishes my nephew was a little boy still. I can see it in her eyes. They sharpen as she turns to me. “You have to give this girl a shot, Tanner. I need more children in my life.”
I rake my hair and stare off. This is the first time the thought of children didn’t make me wince, and I don’t like this change. “You’ll be waiting a long time. Her father and I had…an altercation years ago. He won’t let me near her.”
“Did you take over his company?” she asks before sipping.
“No, my friend had hired him. I visited the work-site a couple times because I was sleeping with a woman in town…” I trail off.
“So why fight? I don’t understand.”
Water gently laps against the boat as we slow to a float in an alcove of tulle weeds and rocks. I lower my voice and confess, “I was never sure. We’re both naturally gruff, stubborn, alpha-males. I assumed when he came at me that I’d said something he didn’t like. Didn’t really matter. I was happy to fight, back then. Had a lot of pent up aggression, and I’m ten years younger so I wanted to prove myself to him. We’re both perhaps a little…arrogant.”
Jen adjusts her ponytail. “So dumb.”
“She’s all I can think about. But even if her father wasn’t Jake, she’s in Atlanta, and I’m here. She has a large family. I doubt she’d want to live in San Francisco. And my penthouse has had so many women in it I wouldn’t want to dirty our time together with those ghosts. She deserves better. Plus it’s too dark. I’d want to see her smile inside a house with more light, like the first property she showed me, or the modern one where the sunlight made her hair look golden brown.” I stop because my sister is smirking at me. “What?”
“You don’t even know you’re head over heels.”
“I am not!” I set the glass down and break the stem. Eyeing my fingers for blood I hear my sister sigh.
“Oh, Tanner, the mighty fall the hardest. You need to go back to Georgia and make this woman’s family like you. Does she return these feelings?”
Captain Jack interrupts us. “I’ve dropped anchor, and I’m going to go below deck, leave you to your lunch, folks. If you need me, I’ll be reading.”
We nod as Ryder and Jimmy stroll up, coming into earshot. My nephew sees me tossing the broken glass into our trash bag, and asks, “You drop it, Uncle Tanner?”
“No, just…don’t know my own strength,” I mutter, wiping up what splashed out.
Distracted, Jen instructs them which sandwich is theirs, based on the scrawl she wrote on biodegradable wax paper.
Rising up I walk to the front of the boat for a moment alone. I know from the scream that Emma gave, just as much as from those kisses, that she returns the feelings I have for her. It punched me, that sound, and I have to admit that it may have been the only thing that could have gotten through, when I was in that stubborn headspace. If it was a tantrum it wouldn’t have worked. It wasn’t that. It was a primitive unleashing of disapproval, refusal to accept my stubbornness, and maybe even pain.
And then she stood there and informed me that I needed to get my act together. No pouting. No crying. No signs of immaturity, begging, desperation, none of it. Just a woman saying she had had enough and it was up to me to step up or get out.
I loved it.
CHAPTER 26
EMMA
“G ive me my niece!”
Ethan sets the swaddled little love in my arms while his wife, Charlie looks on, exhausted but eyes shining. I’m not alone with them—that wouldn’t be possible today. This hospital has been taken over by the Cockers, chaos and all. After what happened to Gabriel, the paparazzi, Uncle Jaxson going to jail so Dad could stay here, Kaya is finally born and surrounded by the loving faces of our immediate family, while cousins, aunts & uncles, Grandpas and Grandmas, and of course dear old Grams, wait for their turns.
Eric tries to take Kaya from me. “Give her here.”
“No way,” I whisper, stepping back in between our parents. Mom and I smile at the baby while I tell my father, “I see why you called me your baby love, Dad. I just want to love on her little fingers and toes forever. And look at those long eyelashes. I guess you guys are grandparents now!” I bump my hip to Mom.
As she pulls the soft blanket back a bit, so we can see Kaya better, Mom says in her sweet southern drawl, “I thought it would be you who’d give me my first. Eric maybe. Never my naughty Ethan.”
Both brothers crack up as Charlie smiles from the bed, straight red hair damp around her face. Dad chuckles, too, his deep voice rumbling beside me. “Just because Emma’s the oldest doesn’t mean she has to pop out puppies first.”
“Jake!” Mom grins, “I swear, you can be so crass. You do it just to shock me.”
“You love it.”
Stroking Kaya’s forehead with the pad of her index finger, Mom whispers, “I do.”
Ethan reaches for his daughter, telling me, “I have to hold her some more.”
“You’re going to have her every day, all day!”
He grins, “I know. I can’t wait,” as I relinquish her to him with my lower lip stuck out. “C’mon Emm, everyone’s going to be swarming around in here all day…”
Mom lifts Kaya into
