Page 78 of Baby One Last Time
When I looked at him, he ran his finger over my lips, then leaned in to kiss me. It was long and lingering and sweet. Only when the tension discernibly drained from my shoulders did I realize how tightly I’d been wound.
“My parents have always liked my girlfriends,” he said quietly, “and trust me, they’re going to loveyou.”
If he was cool with girlfriend, I was cool with boyfriend. My shoulders notched down another half inch. How in the hell had I missed how ridiculously tense I’d been?
“I’m sure I’ll love them, too.” A few weeks ago, I would have argued I wasn’t the lovable type, pointed out my many flaws, and closed down my emotions before I’d even given the Wilder clan a chance. Now I was willing to risk it all, throw caution to the wind, and meet myboyfriend’sfamily. “They raised you, which means they’re good people.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you think that of them after spending the past few weeks calling me a son-of-a-bitch.”
“One, I never said that out loud, and two, I’m not blaming your parents for your less-charming behaviors.”
“How could you when I don’t have less-charming behaviors?” He winked at me in the way that charmed my lacy panties right off me on a regular basis. The way he had the first night I’d met him, last Christmas in Vegas. He’d handed me his business card and promised to give me the night of my life. And he had. But that had only been the beginning.
He leaned close to me. “I do like the smile you get when you’re thinking about jumping my bones, but you might want to look a little less obvious, at least until we get through lunch.”
Harry steered around a curve and pulled up in front of a large, beautiful house that appeared to be carved from wood and stone, born of the rainforest surrounding it. On the wide porch that spanned the front of the house stood three people who looked enough like Derek that I could have picked them out of a crowd. Both his parents had dark hair like his, and his mom had obviously given him his dark eyes. His dad looked like a slightly shorter, blue-eyed, thirty-years-older version of my boyfriend, and his brother had his dad’s eyes and lighter hair than the rest of the family, but the same chiseled face as Derek. Chase leaned on crutches, his wheelchair nowhere in sight.
Derek accepted Harry’s help out of the Range Rover. On his crutches, he led the way to the porch. He hugged his parents, who tsked over his injury and daredevil ways. Given their obvious protective streak, if they’d known half of what we’d been up to, they would have tried to lock him in his room for at least a year. If they tossed me in there with him, I might even get on board with that plan.
Derek threw his arm around Chase’s shoulders. “Going above and beyond to greet us, little brother.”
Chase glanced at me with the same devastating grin his older brother liked to throw around. “Can’t have your new girlfriend thinking you’re taller than I am.”
Standing side-by-side, both balanced on their respective crutches, they were equally matched in height. But Chase ran a close second to his brother when it came to looks and charm. I doubted there was a single hetero woman from their high school who’d made it to graduation without a mean crush on a Wilder boy, or maybe two.
“Definitely a lot of similarities,” I said. “In height,” I added a beat later.
Derek quirked an eyebrow at me, maybe remembering my reaction that first night we’d met, when I’d learned he had a brother and there might be another impossibly hot male somewhere in the world. He stepped back to my side and held both crutches with one arm so he could put his other one around me, maybe a little possessively. “This, obviously, is Cynthia. Cynthia, my mom, Jeannie, and my dad, Tom. And that sad sack over there is Chase.”
“The better-looking brother, as you can see,” Chase said.
“Obviously.” I winked at him.
Harry hefted our bags out of the car and headed off around the side of the house, presumably toward the guest house with the hundred-decibel screaming limit, while Jeannie motioned us into the house. It was larger and beachier inside than I’d expected from the mountain-cabin vibe it gave off from the outside, with wide-planked, bleached hardwood floors and ceiling fans spinning lazily in each room. We passed the formal front rooms—a dining room to the left and a sitting room to the right—and followed his parents into an enormous kitchen with an informal breakfast nook on the left and a cozy family room on the right.
“We’ll have lunch out on the lanai.” Jeannie pointed to the three sets of glass sliding doors that lined the back of the house. They opened onto a stone patio ringed with lush, green plants that were heavy with bright yellow, pink, and white blooms. “Chase, give Harry a call on his cell to make sure he knows to join us. Tommy, have you opened the wine?”
As she continued directing the show, I glanced at Derek, who grinned.
“Remind you of anyone?” he asked.
I nodded. “I do see where you get it. I’ll go see what my orders are.”
“As the new arrivals, we won’t be allowed to help with anything until at least tomorrow.” He swept his hand toward the lanai. “We might as well relax.”
As if she’d heard our whispered conversation, Jeannie glanced at us and made a shooing motion. Derek led the way out the door, moving comfortably with his crutches, while I focused on holding back happy tears. My mom and I have a deep, special bond, and home is still wherever she is. But to be surrounded by a group of people, all of whom looked a little like the bossy, sexy man I loved, a man I almost lost a little over a week ago, gave me a whole new perspective on family. It was a view I quite liked.
When we reached the far edge of the patio, my breath caught in my throat. A completely different view came into focus. Beyond the ring of bushes was a small, neatly trimmed lawn that stopped abruptly about twenty feet away, dropping off into a cliff, and past that, the jewel blue, undulating, endless Pacific.
“I thought we’d driven deep into the jungle.” The salty tang in the air should have been a clue that we weren’t far from the ocean. We walked to the edge of the yard.
“Over there,” Derek said, using one of his crutches to point to little inlet off to our left, “is a cove that’s calm and perfect for swimming in the morning.”
I wrinkled my brow and peeked over the edge of the place where solid ground dropped away and ended, eventually, in a narrow strip of white sand edging the ocean. “Did you bring your rappelling gear to get us down there?”
He frowned. “Of course I brought my rappelling gear. Didn’t you? But it’s probably faster to take the stairs.” He pointed to a series of narrow ledges carved into the cliff with what looked like a pretty rickety excuse for a wooden railing.
I didn’t relish the thought of him on those steps with crutches, but I knew arguing about it with him would be pointless.
