Page 55 of Beside the Rolling Waves
Then, to her surprise, he sat down on the other side of her, between the end of the couch and where she was sitting, and put his arm around her.
“We can’t make a habit of this, but for one night, it won’t hurt anything.”
No. It wouldn’t hurt anything for one night, and she was so tired, she couldn’t think straight anyway. So, she snuggled closer, putting her arm around his waist and burrowing her head in his chest.
His arm came around her waist, and she pressed against his thigh. Perfect. This was exactly the way she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
If only she knew he wouldn’t ditch her again.
Twenty-Three
Rodney and Becky got up one other time in the middle of the night to feed the babies. He knew that it would make more sense if one of them did the nightly feedings every other night so one of them got to sleep through the night. But he liked getting up when it was dark and quiet and still, he liked murmuring with Becky and the cozy feeling of being the only two adults in the world, with their babies and them being in this dark cocoon together.
He loved holding her, and after they fed the babies again, they snuggled in the same way.
He knew he shouldn’t. This was where he got into trouble before. This was why he had a woman messaging his lawyer, demanding money.
Not that he was afraid Becky would do that. He was afraid that he would step outside the bounds of what was right. It was better to have guardrails up to keep himself from doing anything even remotely wrong in the first place. One of those guardrails for him was he didn’t stay overnight in a woman’s house. Ever. For anything.
Except when he made a promise to her dying sister on her deathbed that he’d take care of the sister’s twin babies with thewoman he couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t stop loving, no matter how hard he tried.
Yes. He was in a mess. And he couldn’t just leave. He had not explained to Becky why he couldn’t stay all night anymore.
He was awake at six o’clock with Kevin, who was fussing, and he managed to get out from underneath Becky without her waking up and then pick up Kevin and walk the floor with him a little bit.
By seven, he had a message from his lawyer.
Again, a message this early in the morning couldn’t be good news, so he shifted Kevin in the crook of one arm, settled him down a little bit, and opened the message.
The woman who is trying to extort money out of you by saying she has a child by you said that she would agree to your terms, but you had to meet with her. I have the agreement her lawyer sent over, and I looked over it. It says what she said it was going to, that you owe so much money, and as long as you pay that, she’ll give up all rights to the baby. The only condition she has is that you meet with her first. If you agree to this, you can sign the agreement, send it back, and I will facilitate the meeting.
Wow.
Rodney took a deep breath; he wasn’t sure what to say. That was…maybe easier than what he thought it was going to be, but he felt bad. Why was she so easily giving up her rights to the child? Was his son going to be upset about that? How would he feel about not seeing his mom again?
There was no way he was going to know unless he met with Stella. So, it was a no-brainer.
Thankfully, he had to bring his printer from the office to print some other things off, so he had it set up on the counter.
He hit print before he realized that it might wake the girls up.
As it printed, Becky stirred.
He thought about canceling the print job, but it was almost done. It was a simple agreement, only two pages long, and by the time he got it back up on his phone to cancel it, it was done.
Kevin had fallen asleep in his arms, so he set the agreement on the counter and then walked back over to the car seat and set him inside.
“Good morning,” Becky said sleepily, smiling at him a little.
He couldn’t resist. She had pushed up, and the place where he’d been all night was empty, so he glided around the car seat and sat back down, putting his arm around her and pressing his lips to her forehead.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
He heard her breathy chuckle, and her hand came over and wrapped around his stomach.
His muscles clenched involuntarily and then relaxed. It felt good to have her touch on him. He wished she did it more.
“I could get used to snuggling with you all night,” Becky said softly.
