Page 79 of Townshipped
Ty nods again.
“I’m am a big boy.”
Paisley nods. “You are. You’re brave too.”
My heart swells and breaks in the same moment. Paisley’s so loving. In place of the shy, unreachable girl she’s been showing me and Em, she’s wide open for her brother. But she’s probably more of a mom to Ty than Van ever was. A mom at age six. We’re going to ease her out of that role. I have a feeling she won’t give it up willingly.
I sigh. Em puts her hand on my arm. She sees it too. The fact that she does makes things feel just a bit more manageable.
I walk into Paisley’s room and squat down to Ty’s level. “Do you like bedtime stories?”
He puts his hands on his hips and rolls his eyes. “Duh.”
Em and I both chuckle.
“Well, my mom got you a bookcase full of them. Let’s go pick one out.”
“Are you coming?” Em asks Paisley.
Paisley nods and walks with us to Ty’s bedroom.
Em and I tiptoe downstairs after the kids are settled. I check the goats and then I come back into the house. Em is in the kitchen waiting up for me.
“Want some tea, or something stronger?” she asks me.
“Tea sounds great.”
“Go sit in the living room. I’ll bring two cups out.”
I would normally resist that suggestion, but I attended a funeral, took temporary custody of two children, and drove five hours across two states after not getting a full night’s sleep.
I sit on the couch, prop my feet onto the ottoman, and lean my head back. The next thing I know, Em is nudging me and her voice is coming through my hazy thoughts.
“Aiden?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Do you want to just go to bed? You’re exhausted.”
“I want to hold you,” I say before my brain has a chance to catch up with my mouth.
Thankfully, Em laughs. “Well, you know what Mick Jagger says.”
“I can’t have what I want?” I’m half pouting, half teasing now that my mind is reviving from the few minutes I dozed off.
The heated look Em gives me is probably banned in fifty countries. Or at least it should be. She wants to be held as much as I want to hold her.
Men have wrecked ships, sold their empires, and traveled to the ends of the earth to have a woman like her look at them with a look like this one.
I feel my resolve unraveling. It’s blowing like little paper wisps into the wind. This woman owns me. I’m shredded for her and I don’t even have it in me to complain or resist.
“You can’t hold me,” she says even though her eyes tell me a different story.
“Well then, give me my tea as a woefully insufficient consolation prize.”
She hands over the piping hot mug and lingers in front of me for a moment, but then walks around the coffee table to take a seat on the opposite end of the couch. I blow the steam off my drink and take a sip. Em curls her legs up under herself and cradles her mug in her hands. We talk about the kids and our plans for the week while we finish our tea together.
This could be us. We could make this work.
