Page 111 of The Moments You Were Mine
“There’s my sweet grandson,” she said, holding out her arms.
Theo ran into them, and my heart lurched. She’d already accepted him as part of her family. When she looked at my baby, I knew she’d do the same, regardless of whether or not the baby was Parker’s.
Whitney put Theo down and then unleashed her hugs on Parker.
When she turned to me and squeezed me, she whispered, “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened.”
And those stupid tears I couldn’t seem to shake threatened once more. At least I could blame them on my hormones working overtime now.
We followed her into the great room. It hadn’t changed in the twenty years I’d been coming here for dinners with Dad. The inside screamed the same middle-class charm as the outside. Well-made and well-used furniture filled the space, bookcases at least a decade past fashionable housed knickknacks, and framed pictures of Parker and his family in different settings were scattered along the walls. Some of those photos included Dad and me from when we’d vacationed with the Steeles.
“I’ve got a lasagna prepped for tonight and sandwich fixings for lunch if you’re hungry,” Whitney said, bypassing the living area to head straight for the adjoining kitchen.
The warm wood of the cabinets and the gold granite island and counters hadn’t changed any more than the rest of the house. But instead of looking outdated, as it could have, it simply screamed comfort to me.
“Mom, I need to—”
“Go get the bags from the car,” I interrupted Parker. His brows furrowed, and his gaze burned into me. I shook my head ever so slightly.
Whitney turned from pulling items out of the refrigerator. “Okay, I have you in the guest room at the top of the stairs, Fallon. I figured Theo can stay with Parker for a couple of nights.” She turned to the little boy. “Want to help me cut out sugar cookie doggies while Parker and Fallon get your things?”
“Yes!” Theo shouted, stuffing his dog in the air as he always did when excited. His enthusiasm had my lips twitching again, just as his million questions on the plane ride had. The kid had carved himself into my heart just as he had Whitney’s.
“Wash your hands,” she told him.
He hurried over to a stool she’d already placed by the sink. With a flash, I remembered times when I’d done the same thing. I wasn’t even sure how old I’d been. I just remembered it had felt different than when I’d helped Mom cook. That had always felt like a chore. Whitney had made it feel like a reward.
Parker and I made our way outside to the SUV as my nerves continued to rattle.
“What’s going on? Why’d you stop me from telling my mom about us?” he demanded as we hauled our bags from the back. When he tried to take mine from me, adding it to the stack of hisand Theo’s, I just glared at him. His jaw clenched, but he let me shoulder my own.
As we returned to the house, I stopped him on the steps with a hand to his elbow.
“I just wanted to give you a chance to change your mind before you tell your mom anything.” I swallowed. “Everything is so ugly right now in my life… Sometimes, I’m not sure I’ll ever escape it. My family has a history of bad things finding us. It’s like fate has decided we don’t deserve anything good. Maybe Uncle Adam was right. Maybe the day my great-great-grandfather Harrington won the Hurly land in a poker match did curse us.”
He dropped his duffels, pulled mine from my shoulder, and drew me close. With our bodies touching, it was hard to remember all the reasons I should let him out of the promise he’d made.
“I’ll never believe that murdering son of a bitch was right about anything,” he growled. “Plus, I don’t believe in curses, and fate isn’t a one-way path. It might give us a shove in a certain direction, but I believe our free will drives the outcomes of our lives more than anything supernatural. We decide what happens.”
He was so sure. How had he gotten to the acceptance of our marriage so quickly? After living his whole life telling me he would never get hitched. It was like he was the Parker I’d always known and loved from afar and yet someone else entirely.
I met his gaze and said, “I hate the idea of you lying to your parents.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he kissed me like he had this morning and last night, fierce and determined and tender. It was as if he was issuing a new promise every time our lips touched.
His eyes were dark and stormy when he pulled back just enough to look down into my face. “I’m not lying to my parents.” I started to protest, and he nipped my bottom lip before continuing, “I understand why it’s hard for you to accept that I’m not doing this simply as some answer to our problems. For as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve insisted I didn’t want a serious relationship, let alone a wife and kids, and now it seems like I’ve done a one-eighty.”
My chest tightened, and seeing the panic that was raging, seeing the doubts, his eyes softened. He tipped his forehead into mine, and my body melted at the tenderness of the move.
“So, let’s be clear,” he said quietly. “The real reason I’m doing this is because seeing you on the ground the other day, thinking you’d been shot…” He swallowed hard before continuing. “It terrified me, Ducky. It was like I’d been going through life with a hood over my eyes, and someone finally yanked it off. The simple truth is, I can’t live without you in my life…not as just my friend or even a lover, but asmyperson. The one I belong to and who belongs to me. The person I wake up next to every day and plan a future with. Our future. Yours, mine, Theo’s, and our baby’s.”
The sweetness of the words tore through me, but it was the ‘our’ he’d placed before the word baby that broke me. Tears poured down my cheeks. Parker’s words were everything I needed to hear—everything anyone would want to hear from the person they’d loved for as long as they could remember. He made it clear he wasn’t just accepting me but accepting the child inside me as easily as Whitney had accepted Theo, as easy as Spencer had accepted me when he’d married my mom.
So why did I continue to feel like nothing more than an obligation?
Was it simply the baggage of my childhood? Something broken in me that wouldn’t allow myself to be more? Not just to him but to anyone. Was that really why I’d never let my guard down with JJ? Maybe it wasn’t just my infatuation with Parker that had held me back, but the feeling that I wasn’t worthy of being someone’s everything.
“Don’t cry.” His voice was deep and gritty and pained. He kissed the tears, and it only made them flow faster. “I hate it when you cry, because it means I haven’t done my job. I haven’t taken the pain away.”
