Page 56 of Tru Blue
He gazed out across the grass at Gemma, heading his way with his little boy in her arms. She looked sexy as sin in a pair of cutoffs, a white T-shirt, and a purple hoodie as she made her way through the knee-high grass with Kennedy, who looked adorable in a pair of pink leggings and hoodie he’d bought her the first night they’d met. It had been eight days since they’d first made love, and their sex life had gotten hotter and their love had grown deeper with every passing day. Regardless of how tired he was at the end of the day, all it took was one of Gemma’s sweet smiles to rejuvenate him. Every night after the kids went to sleep, they fell into each other’s arms in a ravenous tumble of hunger and need. And later, after they’d devoured each other, satiating their erotic greed, they made love. Two totally different experiences, both intimate and meaningful and both devastatingly satisfying. He was having trouble remembering a time when she hadn’t been part of his life.
Gemma waved a hand in front of him, as if he’d been zoning out, which he totally had, and whispered, “If you keep looking at me like that, you’re liable to burn my clothes off.” She went up on her toes and kissed him.
“And that would be bad because…?”
She shifted Lincoln to her shoulder and patted Truman’s butt. “Save it for after they’re in bed, lover boy. If you burn my clothes off now, we’ll never get to the beach.”
He’d lived there for half a year and he had yet to go down to the harbor. The evening out was Gemma’s idea. The kids need to get to know their community. What better way than a stroll by the water and a cone at Luscious Licks? She knew how to be a family. That was just another of a long list of things he adored about her. Although she spent most nights at his place, when she had stayed at her own apartment, he’d dropped off drawings for her at the boutique in the morning, as he had before. He’d feared sharing the ghosts of his past with anyone, but Gemma wasn’t afraid of the demons that had driven him to create such darkness, and it was cathartic getting some of the poison that ate away at him out of his system. Their lives were coming together seamlessly, and Truman was beginning to feel like he had a real family. If only he could get a handle on Quincy, but he’d dropped off the grid again.
“Ice cweam,” Kennedy chimed in.
Kennedy thrust a fistful of wildflowers toward him, reminding him of what Gemma had said about wishing she’d been allowed to run through a meadow and just be a kid when she was younger. It astonished him that she had no spite in her, despite her upbringing. The love she showed him and the kids was so genuine, sometimes he felt selfish for accepting it so readily.
“We’re going, sweetie.” Gemma smoothed a hand over Kennedy’s hair, untangling a wayward lock from the pink barrette she’d put in it.
That was just one of the little things that Gemma took the time to do for the kids that made him think about her childhood. Who put barrettes in her hair when she was a little girl? Her nannies? Or was that another thing she’d missed out on?
They drove down to Luscious Licks. Another first for Truman. The pistachio-colored building had two giant sculptures of ice-cream cones out front. Truman lifted Kennedy up, and she pretended to hold one while Gemma took a picture. Taking kids out for ice cream was such a normal thing to do for most people. But Truman had been so busy trying to hold his and Quincy’s lives together when they were growing up, ice-cream shops weren’t even on his radar. Now his mind sped down the path of possibilities. Could life be like this? Normal? He wanted that so bad he could taste it.
Carrying Lincoln, he draped his free arm over Gemma’s shoulder and leaned down for a kiss. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
She looked up at him with a curious expression. “For?”
“This is another first for me, and if I hadn’t met you I might have missed out on it altogether.” She’d not only expanded his and his kids’ worlds, but she’d changed him without even trying. He no longer felt as guarded as he always had.
He held open the door for Gemma to pass through, and a pretty woman popped up from behind the counter.
