Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
ELIZABETH
The Love of Family
“Where do you want all this shit?” Fallon swaggers into the kitchen, his arms burdened with a heavy takeout box of food from Ruby’s.
The way he commands a room’s full attention isn’t on purpose; it’s just who he is.
He exudes natural masculine sex appeal. His stunning face, his body, his larger-than-life arrogance.
The way he talks and the things he says.
He’s the forbidden bad boy every father warns his daughter about but who is every woman’s bad-boy fantasy.
“You can put everything down over there.” I gesture with my chin to indicate the breakfast nook since I’m washing my hands so I can start shucking ears of corn to grill.
“Why didn’t you get Ruby’s to cater the entire thing?” Fallon takes out covered aluminum pans from the box and stacks them on top of each other on the table.
That’s an excellent question. My feet hurt from standing in the kitchen all day, I’m sweaty, and I still have brownies to make.
“Remind me of that the next time I decide to throw a barbecue for almost three dozen people. Is Xander coming?” The man is like a ghost. I haven’t seen him since we flew back from Italy.
“He’s not good with crowds.”
So, that’s a no. “Oh, Meredith and Bryce aren’t going to be able to make it. There was some delivery emergency at the bar that Bryce had to handle, and Mandi and Piper are down with a stomach bug. Mer insisted on describing the upchuck fiasco in graphic detail so I could enjoy her trauma.”
“I’m glad I missed out on that part of parenthood.”
He says it unpretentiously, but I hear the sadness tucked underneath.
Scrubbing off the stray corn silks from the cob under the faucet, I set it on a large platter and turn toward him. “Fallon, you would have made the most incredible father. You already have if you count Devon, Knox, Trevaughn, and Butch.”
Those boys love him and worship the ground he walks on. He may not have intended for it to happen, but he became the father figure in their lives that they so desperately needed.
I wish I could give him that. A child of his own. I know it’s a ridiculous thing to think, but he shouldn’t have waited for me. He should have found someone, had a child and a family…like Jayson did.
I shake away the melancholy that brings.
I hope that Jayson and Bethany can find their way back to each other.
After losing Elizabeth Ann, he shouldn’t have to lose another child.
He worked hard to get sober and fight his demons, so I know he has it in him to work just as hard to reconnect with his daughter.
Covering the corn with plastic wrap, I head into the pantry and come back out with two boxes of brownie mix. “Want to help me make brownies?”
Fallon comes over and curves a hand around my waist. “What I want is for you to tell Charlotte or Chris to do it so you can take a break. You’ve been at it since this morning.”
“Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, wait. I did. Marcus is at the shop until four, Christopher is on grill duty, and I sent Charlotte to the store to get more—what are you doing?” I ask when Fallon lifts my hand and places it on his shoulder.
“You know how to waltz?”
I look up at him curiously. “No. Why?”
“Count the triple beats.” He steps forward, and I fly into a fit of giggles when he starts dancing me around the kitchen.
“You never did this at the club in New York,” I reminisce.
“And miss out on watching you use me like a stripper pole?”
“I did not!” I baldly retort, knowing full well I did just that. I got so drunk that night, downing tequila like it was water, hoping it would erase the pain of remembering.
“Agree to disagree,” he says, pirouetting me under his arm.
My cheeks hurt from the huge smile cemented across my face by the time he finishes and dips me low to the floor.
“You just fulfilled one of my Dirty Dancing fantasies,” I tell him.
“Never seen it,” he says, not wasting the opportunity to kiss me.
His kisses leave me breathless. Every damn time.
“We’ll remedy that tomorrow night. I’ll even recreate the sexy kitten crawl.”
My body flies forward when he lifts me upright in his arms, and I catch the heated interest in his gaze. “Have no clue what that means, but I like the sound of it.”
Kissing the hollow of his throat, I ask, “Want a preview?”
His grip around my waist tightens. “Fuck, yes.”
I jump when a throat clears. “Hope we’re not interrupting,” Daniel says from the archway, Drew right beside him.
“You are,” Fallon replies, and I smack his chest before wriggling out from his grasp and launching myself into Daniel’s arms.
“Missed you so much,” I exclaim, then reciprocate my enthusiastic hug with Drew. “Missed you, too,” I tell him, kissing his weathered cheek.
There was a time when we thought we’d lose him to the brain tumor, but with surgery, chemo, and new therapies, Drew won his battle against the glioma.
He’s been in remission ever since. But every cancer is different, and no matter how hard Ryder fought to live—god, how he fought with everything he had in him—the cancer ultimately took him.
I could never go back to my job at Duke after that.
I couldn’t continue to work there, knowing the disease I spent my adult life researching was the one that stole my husband from me.
Daniel holds out his hand for Fallon to shake. “Fallon.”
“Mr. Carter. Mr. Mayfield,” he says to Drew.
Drew loops his arm around me as I balk at their familiarity with one another. Daniel and Drew never met Fallon in person, not even at the wedding, because Fallon stood in the distant background, watching from afar, then left right after Ryder and I said our vows.
“How do you know each other?”
“Business acquaintances,” Fallon replies, but I’m not buying that’s the whole story. “I’ll let you and Elizabeth catch up.” I get a quick kiss before he exits through the back door and out onto the veranda.
Daniel and Drew watch Fallon go, silence filling his wake.
Knowing what’s coming, I busy my nervousness with getting out the carton of eggs and grabbing the bottle of olive oil from the back counter. “Ready to be put to work?” I ask, setting the oven to preheat.
“Delaying tactics won’t work, sweetheart,” Daniel says.
“I can try. How was the conference?”
Finding the baking pans in the bottom cabinet, Daniel passes them to Drew, then starts cracking eggs into the large metal bowl of my stand mixer.
“Eventful.” Drew grabs a stick of butter from the inside upper drawer of the fridge and rubs it over one of the pans to grease it.
“Not as eventful as what we just walked in on,” Daniel comments, his knowing grin way too pleased.
My cheeks flush a solid shade of bright red.
Daniel and Drew are more like fathers to me than my own dad ever got the chance to be.
They’ve seen me at my worst and at my best and every milestone in between.
From walking me down the aisle at my wedding to college graduation to the birth of each of my children to helping me survive after Ryder was gone.
My life has been filled with tragedy, but it’s also been filled with an eternity of happiness and love.
“Funny how she never mentioned Fallon, not once, during any of our phone calls.”
“You know how she is, Dan. Stubborn and wanting to do things in her own way,” Drew replies.
I pop a hand on my hip, elbow bent. “I’m standing right here.”
“We know, dear.”
“So there’s no need for third-person commentary.”
Daniel grins. “In this case, I must disagree.”
Good grief. Fine. Let’s put everything out on the table.
“He found me in Italy.” After whipping the eggs and oil together, I cut open the plastic packages of brownie mix and slowly pour everything into the bowl to mix until the batter is smooth.
“Didn’t she call us several times from Italy? Somehow that escaped her mention,” Drew says.
Wow, they’re laying it on thick with the emotional guilt today.
Closing my eyes, I just say it. “I love him.”
It comes out in a whoosh, as if my lungs are being squeezed like bellows. They are the first people I’ve told—actually said the words out loud—and it’s like a humongous load has been lifted and I can finally breathe normally again.
Daniel and Drew exchange a look, something deep and knowing passing between them before Daniel reaches over and takes my trembling hand. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart. We are so happy for you.”
I blindly nod while swallowing the pebble lodged deep in my throat. “It took me a while to get there. To even let myself feel something for someone else. And there were times that I thought—” I pause, looking down at my wedding rings. “I thought I was betraying Ryder.”
Daniel rubs comforting circles over my back. “Ryder would want you to be happy, Elizabeth. Love doesn’t disappear just because you find it again. Your heart will always love Ryder, but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to love someone else.”
Drew shifts to my other side. “What do the kids think?”
That’s easy to answer. “They need him in their lives.”
“What about you?” Daniel gently inquires.
I blink back tears. Taking a silicone spatula from the rooster jar of cooking utensils, I scrape batter into one of the buttered baking pans and glance out the kitchen window to where Fallon and Christopher are talking next to the grill.
The love that I never thought I’d find again is standing right there, embodied in the enigmatic man who has been an essential thread in the tapestry of my life since I was a teenager.
“It’s terrifying…but Fallon is worth the risk.”
That’s the hardest part—allowing my heart to be vulnerable again. To love someone, knowing better than anyone how they can be taken away in the blink of an eye.
Drew walks over to the breakfast nook table and peels back one of the lids on the top of an aluminum pan, taking a sniff. “You have a lot of food here for seven people.”
Sliding the brownie trays into the oven, I wipe my hands off on a dish towel. “About that. I may have invited a few more people over.”
“How many more?”
I snatch a potato chip from the bowl I left out and munch on it to cover my mumbled, “Maybe thirty or so…including Jayson.”
There’s a lot they missed in the weeks they were gone.
Daniel quirks an eyebrow. “Jayson?”
Munch . “Uh-huh.”
“ Your Jayson?”
He’s not my Jayson anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time. But after the other day, I feel like I’m starting to get him back.
Munch . “Uh-huh.”
Daniel worries his chin in a thinking man’s pose. “Elizabeth, what’s going on? You haven’t heard from him in years. You were devastated when he stopped showing up for Elizabeth Ann’s birthday.”
Grabbing my glass of iced tea from the counter, I chug it down. “Devastated sounds too hyperbolic.”
“But in this case, one hundred percent accurate,” Drew chimes in.
They’re right, but I rush to defend Jayson because they don’t know why. “He was dealing with some stuff. It wasn’t his fault.”
Daniel’s brow arches even higher. “Would you like to share those reasons?”
I set my empty glass in the sink. “Please respect that I can’t. I won’t betray his confidence.”
“Fair enough. I’ll ask him myself.”
“Daniel, please don’t.”
Drew gives me that “dad” stare that makes me fidget like a teenager caught in a lie. “Interesting how two men from your past suddenly show up at the same time.”
I bite my thumbnail. “Yeah, I guess you could say so.”
“Huh.”
“What does huh mean?”
Daniel takes me in a side hug. “It means tonight should be interesting.”
I signal to myself. “Nope. No drama here. I am a drama-free zone. Tonight is about family and good food.”
Drew chuckles. “If you say so, sweetheart.”