14. Archer
ARCHER
I found her sitting on the back patio by the fire pit, wearing a loose-fitting yellow T -shirt and a pair of black sweatpants. Her legs were bent, and her knees were up against her chest. She was quiet, seeming to be contemplating life.
“Alright if I join you?” I asked, walking up to the chair next to her.
I, too, had taken off my wedding clothes and was wearing a pair of gray cotton shorts and a black T -shirt.
She turned, taking the bottle of water I held out, and nodded. “ It’s your house, Archer . You can be wherever you want.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that response, but it was an opening nonetheless, so I took it.
I sat down in the chair next to her and watched her stare into the fire as though it contained all of life’s answers.
It was a gas fire pit, so it had very little smoke, which allowed for the nice ambiance without the smell.
Hoping to break the silence and also get to know her better—which I should have done years ago— I tried to get her to open up. “ Tell me more about your family.”
I knew a little about her foster moms and siblings, as well as a brief bit I had gotten from a background check I ran on her after we got divorced. But I didn’t know the personal stuff. The things a background check couldn’t tell you.
“My two moms were sisters who had grown up in the foster system.” She spoke softly but with a smile in her voice. “ There’s Winnie —who we just call Mom —and Tia —which is Spanish for aunt, so we’ve always called her Auntie .”
She smiled and relaxed back in her chair.
“ From what I understand, their mom would clean up her act and get them back, only for social services to come back a few months or even a year later and take them back into state custody. By the time their mom finally gave them up to be available for adoption, they were sixteen and fourteen. Most people don’t want older kids, let alone siblings, so they were never adopted.
They eventually just aged out, but they still had each other.
They made it their adult life mission to try to take in as many foster kids as they could so that no one had to go through the constant moving around. ”
She filled me in on life growing up on a farm— I had never actually known anyone with llamas or ostriches. I learned all about how she came into the foster system and the whole journey leading up to her adoption with the O’Haras .
The biggest takeaway from all of this was that she’d been rejected and abandoned multiple times throughout her childhood, only for me to do the same to her in adulthood.
She smiled. “ They both still live on the farm. So does my sister Gale .”
“Wow, my memory must be worse than I thought. How old is Gale now? I thought she was the oldest sister,” I commented to her.
“She is,” Ace confirmed, her face full of empathy. “ She had the roughest childhood and is very introverted, so she still lives at home and helps out with the farm. She is a forensic scientist but can do most of her work remotely, which is good for her.”
Her voice was heavy at the end, and I hated that for her sister, but I was also glad she had that safe space.
“Cora is the next oldest, and she is the Nevada State Hydrologist up in Reno . Then comes Iris , and she just got a new job with the National Weather Service as the Warning Coordination Meteorologist , which she is super stoked about.”
Her face lit up while she talked about her family, and I loved seeing her this happy.
“Next up was me in the sister order, and then Hazel . She is currently a marine biologist and lives in a coastal town not far from Mom and Auntie . Cora and Hazel are biological sisters.”
“Only girls?”
“They had some boys in the beginning, but once they brought Gale into the fold, they stopped fostering boys because she had a really hard time with any male presence,” she answered somberly.
There was clearly more to the story there, but I wasn’t going to push on that. I also didn’t want our conversation to end, so I chose to just switch to a new topic.
“So, I know your first choice for a dream wedding…obviously.” I leaned over and winked at her. “ But if you couldn’t get married in Vegas and not remember any details the next day because you were hungover, what would be your second choice for an ideal wedding?”
She snorted. “ Strange question. Umm … I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know? Don’t all girls dream of that kind of thing when they’re little?”
“Some girls dream about other things,” she said so softly I barely heard her.
“Like what? Dressing up like a dinosaur for your dream job?”
She snorted again, smiling as she shook her head at me. “ You’re such a jerk.”
She paused, as though reflecting.
“For your information, I dreamt more about having a family than anything else. Then , once that dream came true, I dreamt about my dream job.”
Annnnd now I felt like an ass.
“Well, now that you have both a family and your dream job, do you ever dream about a wedding? Or having your own family?”
She turned and stared at me for several moments. “ Why are you asking me these things, Archer ?”
Better late than never. “ Because I should have asked you these things years ago. I’m trying to make up for lost time. Plus , I genuinely want to know.”
She turned her head away from me and stared at the drink in her hands for several seconds as though she was contemplating how to answer my questions.
“ Iris always said she wanted to get married on the farm, surrounded by the animals,” she said, breaking through the silence.
“ It’s her idea, so I can’t just take it.
Plus , I’m not sure the animals being that close would bring a pleasant smell to the wedding.
But I thought it was a nice idea. Just being on a beautiful piece of land with friends and family around. ”
I agreed with her on the smell.
“I think I’d like to have my own kids someday. But there’s also a part of me that wants to do what Mom and Auntie did. Help out kids like me who don’t have a family.”
That suited her, but my only response was a nod.
“What about you?” she asked. “ I know your mom died before we met, but I don’t know much about your family.”
As much as I hated talking about this, I guessed turnabout was fair play.
“My mom met my dad in college in Georgia , where they both grew up,” I told her. “ My dad had big aspirations in politics but knew Georgia would be a tough sell since it was a much bigger state and more competition, so they moved to Utah .”
“Ahh, okay. I knew you grew up in Utah so that makes sense,” Ace chimed in.
“Yeah, he started off as mayor of some small town and then worked his way up for the next twenty years, peaking as a Utah senator,” I explained.
“What are your parents’ names?” she asked and I was taken aback that I hadn’t told her that already.
“Aileen and Andreas .”
“And your mom is Frank’s sister, correct?” she asked, making the connection to Vince’s dad.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “ We used to visit Georgia at least two to three times a year. At first, my dad went with my mom and me, but as the years went on, he started going less and less, claiming he had to stay and help his constituents or campaign. I remember overhearing my aunt and uncle talking when I was younger about how they were pretty sure he stayed behind to hang out with his mistress. I didn’t know what that meant at first but figured it out once I got older. ”
“I’m sorry,” Ace whispered beside me.
“Eh, my dad is a dick, so it didn’t surprise me,” I confided. “ Honestly , it was more fun with just my mom and me on the trip anyway.”
I paused, knowing I was about to get to the deep stuff—stuff I hadn’t talked about in years.
“My mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was in college,” I told her, but I couldn’t look at her.
Instead , I just stared off into the distance.
“ The one and only perk of my dad being a high-up politician was that we had access to the best healthcare and doctors money could buy. She got better for a while, but the cancer came back when I went into the police academy.”
She reached over and put her hand on mine. She said no words, but the comfort of her hand was there.
“She died three months later—right before I graduated from the academy.”
“I’m sorry. For both your loss and your dad’s,” Ace said softly, having no idea how much of a prick my dad really was.
“Oh, I doubt my dad was upset,” I told her.
“ On the surface, he played the distraught husband well, but he moved his mistress into his house as soon as my mom’s body was cold.
A month after I graduated from the academy, he asked me to start helping him cover up bribes and anything else that might come up. ”
I heard a gasp next to me, knowing Ace was getting to know the real side of my sperm donor.
“Aside from the moral issues there, you could be fired and prosecuted for breaking numerous federal and state level penal and criminal codes.”
“Correct.” I was surprised she knew all of that, but I assumed she’d likely covered a story or two on something similar.
“He retired right before you and I met after a big fraud scandal involving his mistress,” I added. “ I haven’t talked to him in years, and don’t care to.”
“I’m sorry. Your mom sounds like she was a great mother,” Ace said quietly.
We made some more small talk about my job and hers—trying to bring a little more lightness to our conversation, before we got up to head inside since the mosquitoes were eating us alive.
As we walked back in, she turned to me and paused as though she was unsure of what to say. “ Thank you for telling me about Manny ,” she said gently. “ And for more clarity on the divorce.”
I stepped closer to her, bringing myself to within a foot of her.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I responded sincerely as she closed her eyes. “ For everything.”
Her eyes were now open and full of tears. God , I could feel my heart being squeezed in a vise.
I leaned forward, putting my hands on the sides of her head. “ God , Ace , please don’t cry. I would give you anything in the world to make you never cry.”
Her breath hitched as her eyes made contact with mine before she whispered to me. “ I want…”
She left that sentence hanging in the air, but I knew what she was trying to say.
“I want you, too,” I told her gently, hoping that would give her some confidence.
“I don’t know what I would do if you rejected me again.”
“I never rejected you, Ace . I let you go to protect you, and I regretted every minute of it. Please give me a second chance.”
“I want to, I just don’t know how.”
I appreciated her honesty but knew she was also scared, so I was going to let her take the reins.
“Kiss me, Ace ,” I told her, hoping she would, because I couldn’t be the first to make that move, not when she was this tense.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. She leaned in and brushed her lips against mine. My hands were still resting on the sides of her head, and I began to stroke her cheeks with my thumbs. I reveled in the taste of her, soaking in every moment of this in case she regretted it.
I deepened the kiss while still giving her control. Her hands came to my chest and began to roam up, and then she fisted the fabric of my shirt as though she needed to hold on for stability.
Her lips broke away as she gasped for air.
Not wanting this to end, I moved my lips to her cheek and kissed my way to her ear.
She tilted her neck to the side—a clear invitation that I took, moving my lips in that direction.
I kissed my way to the spot along her neck where I could feel her pulse, spending a lot of time enjoying the taste of her skin.
Her body stiffened under my hands, and I immediately lifted my head to look at her.
“Archer,” she whispered. “ I don’t know if I’m ready to go this fast.”
“Okay,” I told her, backing away slightly but still stroking her cheek with my thumb.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Okay ,” I confirmed. “ Ace …you’re giving me an opening here. I’m not going to screw it up by pushing you too hard, too fast. We go at your pace. I’m here when you’re ready.”
I felt her relax even before she sighed. “ Thank you.”
“No, Ace . Thank you . I’ve wanted this second chance more than you will ever know.”
She gave a small smile before saying goodnight and turning into the house.
Even though my dick was upset right now that we were letting the most beautiful woman walk away, I had never felt better. Ace was willing to give this a try.
I wasn’t going to let her down.