Page 66 of The Moments You Were Mine
His face lit up. “Would it be mine?”
Her smile widened. “You’d have to eat a lot of vegetables to win an entire horse. But you could visit it anytime you’re here. And once it’s grown up and we’ve trained it, you can ride it.”
Theo’s face was one big grin as he said, “I’m going to win. I hate veg-utables.”
“What does Fallon get if she wins?” I asked Theo.
He turned thoughtful. “I can draw her a picture. Daddy always said I was a real good drawer.”
Before I could say I didn’t think that was an even bet, Fallon stuck her hand out, and they were shaking on it.
And four hours later, after we’d eaten dinner in the hotel’s dining room, and Theo had tasted a little pastry he’d fallen in love with and had been appalled to find out was full of vegetables, he did his part and drew her a picture. He sat at the coffee table in her house with his little eyes drooping as he did it, and when he finished, he crawled onto the couch between Fallon and me, shoving the paper at her.
She took it gently, scrutinizing it carefully. Her face made all kinds of weird expressions as she fought off a wave of emotions. Her voice was rough as she said, “This is the best picture anyone has ever given me.”
Theo beamed and then looked at me with a yawn. “I want to go to bed.”
Shock reverberated through me. Not once in the month he’d been with me had the kid offered to go to bed on his own.
“Okay, then, say goodnight to Fallon, and I’ll tuck you in.”
He hugged Fallon, clutched his stuffed animal to his chest, and headed down the hall to Lauren’s room. By the time we’d returned from the lake, someone had changed the sheets and put up a cot, even though I’d told them not to bother.
“Cot or bed?” I asked Theo.
He eyed the cot as if it was a strange toy and then just climbed into the king-sized bed.
I pulled the covers up to his chin, took a book out of a backpack of toys we’d brought with us, and started to read it to him. He was asleep before I even got halfway through it. I left the bathroom door partially open in lieu of the nightlight I’d forgotten before shutting off the bedroom lights and heading back into the great room.
Fallon had pulled a blanket off the back of the couch, curled up in the corner, and turned on the television. And just like Theo, she’d already passed out. She’d taken her braid out when we’d come home, and her blond hair was a mess of curls cascading about a face that had turned soft and relaxed in sleep. It made her look younger than she normally did—or maybe she actually looked her age when asleep.
She’d changed into a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt, and the whole time Theo had been drawing, the damn top had been slipping off her shoulder, taunting me with glimpses of bare skin, reminding me of just how smooth it had been under my fingers while we’d played at the lake.
I looked away from her, eyes catching on the picture she’d left on the coffee table.
Three stick figures in a blue blob that must have been water. The people had strangely large smiles on their round faces, and Theo had drawn weirdly contorted hearts all around Fallon’s head. Seeing it, seeing the love Theo had tried to capture, tugged at the fleeting images that had flashed by me this afternoon.
Family. We looked like a goddamn family. An impossible one.
Like a magnet drawn to north, my gaze landed on Fallon once more. Her exhaustion had taken her under with the same force Theo’s had. Before I could stop myself, I was twining a silky strand through my fingers. Her hair had always been deceptive. The thick waves looked like they’d be coarse, but they were actually soft and smooth.
The longer I watched her, the larger the ache in my chest grew, until it was threatening to tumble over the edge with the force of an avalanche.
I’d always thought the person who ended up with Fallon would be the luckiest man on this planet, and I’d been pissed she’d let the loser JJ be that man for too many years. He hadn’t deserved her. Not once. But maybe the truth was no man would be worthy of her. This fierce beauty deserved someone who’d climb buildings and soar through the sky for her—a true superhero.
I hated that she’d lost some of that teenage fierceness while living in San Diego. I’d seen it slowly and steadily decline over the last six years, but now, maybe because I hadn’t been around her as much in the last few years, the loss stood out even more.
Coming home to the ranch hadn’t returned it to her like it should have. Not yet. But I’d seen shimmering signs of it today. In her smile. In the dare she’d issued. In the way she’d touched me under the water.
My body grew taut all over again just thinking about it.
Fuck. It was time she went to bed. Time she locked herself in her room and let me shut myself in the one across the hall and forget the words she’d tossed at me.
If I remember, Kermit, it was always you who backed away from the finish line. I had no problem finding my way across it.
My frustration at both of us had me scooping her into my arms with more force than I’d intended. She murmured in her sleep, something soft and incomprehensible, but she didn’t wake. She rolled her head onto my shoulder, lips parting, as I stalked down the hall and kicked open her bedroom door.
A light was on in the bathroom, a single beam streaming across the emerald-green linens. I shifted her so I could pull back the covers and then set her down. When I went to step back, her fingers curled into my shirt, locking me in place, and when I looked at her, sleepy eyes greeted me.
