Chapter 17
Goldie
My heart beats fast as warmth blooms at the center of my being and spreads until I’m completely consumed by the fire blazing in Davis’s eyes and his claiming words.
Mine.
My voice is soft when I ask, “I’m yours?” I hold my breath and wait for confirmation of the truth.
“Yes, you’re mine. My woman. Mother of my daughter, Lily. Mother of all my future children.”
“And that means you’re…” I leave the rest of my question unspoken because I want him to tell me himself.
“It means I’m your man. Your family. Blood or no blood, I’m Lily’s true father and the father of all of your future children.”
“Future children…” Davis nods, and his half-hard cock jerks inside me, our combined cum already slipping out to wet our thighs. I’m finding it harder to take a full breath. My voice is higher pitched, on the verge of hysteria when I say, “Don’t say that unless you mean it. Because if you regret being with me after this, I’ll be a single mom of two, and it’s hard enough with just one on my own.”
And then I remember what the doctor said at the hospital right before I was discharged, and I can breathe again. Thank god I can’t get pregnant when I’m still breastfeeding, especially since I haven’t gotten my first period back. Phew .
My pulse refuses to slow, though, with the way Davis is looking at me as if he hadn’t heard what the doctor said, even though he was standing right next to me while we discussed it. Weird .
Davis
A million thoughts flicker in Goldie’s eyes too fast for me to read. But I do know one thing—she needs my reassurance. I just hope she believes me.
“I mean it, honey—every single word. Leaving you was the worst mistake of my life. I should have kissed you, told you I love you, and promised you the world. I didn’t then, but I’m doing it whole-heartedly now.”
“Love…?” Her brows pinch, and I can’t tell if what I said scares her as her body shakes within my arms or if it fills her with as much joy as it does me.
I soften my voice. “It’s ok if you aren’t there yet. I know I have a lot to make up for. But I’m there. I’ve never felt this way about another woman. Not anywhere close. I love you. And I’m going to prove it.” I tip her head up with my fingers under her chin and slant my lips over hers. “I love you, and I love Lily, and we’re going to figure out the future together. Always together.”
“Davis…”
“Say it again, just like that, honey.”
“Davis.” A beat. Then louder, “Davis. Davis.”
I groan, and my cock fully hardens inside her. Goldie’s growing smile is breathtaking as she strokes my cheek, but then she must hear something I don’t, and she drops her forehead to mine. “I need to take a shower before Lily wakes up.”
“You want to take a shower together?”
“No.” She gives me a sultry smile. “Well, yes, maybe next time.”
I lift and carry her down the hallway with my cock plugging her pussy. Each step feels fucking phenomenal, and I’m pretty sure I could cum with her just walking around like this, but there’s no time for that right now. I stop before the bedroom door and waggle my brows, the heaviness of what all just transpired easing into something calmer, more relaxed, almost giddy.
“I’d be happy to clean you up myself.”
Goldie shakes her head. “I have a feeling I wouldn’t be any cleaner than when we get in if I let that happen.”
She’s right. If I end up in the shower with her, I’d fuck her against the tile wall and dirty her up again. I huff but resolve to carry her quietly through the bedroom into the bathroom and leave her with a kiss before making my way into the hall bathroom to take a quick shower myself.
I finish before Goldie, resisting the urge to say fuck it and join her anyway. Lily is wide awake by the time I pull on a pair of clean jeans, and I can’t help but smile as I scoop Lily up, her head resting against the calla lily tattoo I got in memory of her grandmother. I wish Mom were alive to meet her. Mom would be as in love with her as I am. So would her grandfather.
I drop a kiss on Lily’s forehead, then change her diaper and take her out into the living room. Holding her carefully in one arm, I dig through the duffel bag I left by the front door when I got home last night and take out the blue long-sleeve shirt and pants patterned with tiny silver football helmets I bought for her while on the road.
She’s starting to get fussy since she’s hungry, and Goldie, dressed only in my brown top from yesterday, joins us in the living room. Even though Goldie and I had sex— made love —for the first time thirty minutes ago, if Lily were still asleep, I’d inch the material up her thighs to find out if she’s gone without panties as well as pants.
You know what? I might do just that when she settles on the recliner with Lily to nurse after unbuttoning the top few buttons. I slowly kneel before her and grip her knees. Just a little peek is all I need.
The heat rising within me banks when Goldie chews her cheek and won’t make eye contact, staring at my chest instead. “I’m sorry about the house. How messy it was when you got home.”
Bewildered, I tell her, “Don’t apologize for that.”
“But I let it get so bad when you were letting us stay here for free, so I should have taken better care of it. And obviously, you must have cleaned up instead of sleeping after being on the road for over a month. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Hey, hey.” I straighten on my knees and palm Goldie’s cheek, directing her to look at me. “If I’m going to be honest, I expected a lot worse. I know it had to be overwhelming doing everything by yourself. I couldn’t sleep anyway. Too excited to be home. Too worried about you and Lily and what we’re going to do moving forward. So I didn’t mind picking up.”
“This was a lot more than just ‘picking up’. The house was a wreck.”
“Eh. It could have been worse. Actually, I should be the one apologizing. I should have thought of hiring a cleaning crew to come in and help since I wasn’t around like I should have been.”
“‘Should have’…Davis…you’ve already done too much. Been so generous. I should have been able to do this one basic thing—”
Our ears perk up at the sound of a vehicle pulling into our driveway. I stand and grin, holding up my index finger. “That’s one.”
“One?”
“One spanking. For thinking bad about yourself.”
Goldie rolls her eyes, though I catch the small smile she tries to hide. “Not this again.”
I go to the front door when we hear a car door open and close. “That’s two. For the eye roll.”
Goldie growls, and it’s as cute and effective as a kitten.
“Keep it up, baby. Daddy loves making your ass turn pink,” I say just before our visitor knocks on the door. I swing it open like a jackass without checking the peephole first, expecting it to be the landscaper I called earlier to give me a quote on cutting back a tree with roots that are creeping too close to the foundation of the house.
I don’t get a chance to ask who the older woman is before she tries to push her way inside. She screeches, “Where is she?”
I fill the doorway, and the woman bounces off my chest, dropping a packet of papers that scatter on the porch in the chilly breeze. I wave to the papers. “The fuck is all this?”
“I demand to see my granddaughter!” Alarm bells are blaring inside my mind as the tiny woman produces manicured claws and attempts to rake them down my torso.
I catch her by her skeletal wrists and back her up to the porch steps.
She snarls, “Don’t touch me, you fucking hillbilly! Let me go!”
“Fine by me.” I let go with a little shove that sends the skinny blonde chihuahua stumbling down the short steps onto her ass on the dewy front lawn. I’d feel like shit about pushing a woman if it weren’t for the fact that I’m one hundred percent sure this is Goldie’s ex’s mother who tried to take Lily yesterday.
I have my phone out and dial 9-1-1 before the woman has recovered enough to reach her feet. Goldie might not have wanted to get the cops involved yesterday, but with the woman tracking her down and attempting to force her way inside our house, I won’t let her get away with this or try anything else.
I whip my head around when Goldie raises her voice and says, “Oh my god, what is she doing here?” Goldie hugs Lily close to her chest, her eyes so wide with fear that the whites completely surround her irises. “Davis!”
I swing my head just in time to find the ankle biter trying to dart around me to get to Goldie. I catch her around the waist and walk her away from the porch while she kicks and screams, and I dump her again on the lawn. I can’t hear a damn thing the 9-1-1 dispatcher is saying, but I’m pretty sure they get the drift with the banshee hollering up a storm in the background.
Before I’ve even hung up the phone, Sheriff Gibson arrives, parking his cruiser at an angle behind Mrs. Fitzroy’s white sedan, which looks to be a rental. My blood boils when I spot a car seat buckled into her back seat. The crazy bitch thought she could just waltz in and out with Lily.
If the cops don’t deal with her soon, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I’ve never thought about killing someone before, but I know without a shred of doubt that I’m willing to kill for my family, consequences be damned.
The thing about our small town is that everybody knows everybody, and it usually doesn’t take too long for Sheriff Gibson to show up on someone’s front porch—whether that’s a good thing or not, depending on their situation. Mrs. Fitzroy and I apparently both find it to be a good thing as she stands, dusts off her dirty white pants, and charges at him, hollering just as loudly and unintelligibly as before. She ought to be grateful he showed up when he did before I took my murderous thoughts any further and decided to drag her into the woods behind the house.
I walk back to the porch to help Goldie onto one of the rocking chairs when she sways on her feet. I stand at Goldie’s side with my hand on her shoulder, watching the scene unfold until she shakily hands me the papers she had picked up. I crumple them in my fist when I see that they’re documents for the termination of parental rights. I will never allow that to happen.
Sheriff Gibson is a bulldozer of a man and doesn’t take too kindly to Colton’s mother waving her arms about in his face. And he certainly doesn’t tolerate her jamming a finger in his puffed-out chest. He catches her wrist, spins her around, and cuffs her hands behind her back in the blink of an eye.
For half a second, she goes silent with shock, and then she loses it, kicking and screaming, “Get your hands off me, you dirty hick! I’m going to sue you and this whole damn town. Just wait until you hear from my lawyer!”
Sheriff Gibson says nothing—he just wrestles her into the back of his cruiser and slams the door shut. Despite the temperature, he wipes sweat from his forehead beneath his Cowboy hat and joins us on the porch.
We shake hands, and I ask, “How did you get here so fast? Two minutes has got to be some kind of record.”
“I was already on my way after an interesting conversation with Wyatt this morning when he called in a welfare check since he couldn’t get ahold of you. Goddamn, Davis, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
“It’s a long story I’ll have to save for later,” I say, pointedly looking toward the old rabid animal in the cruiser, trying to kick the window out. The woman is clearly fucking mental, because who acts like that?
Not for the first time, I’m glad the universe sent me to Goldie. I’m sure her dad wouldn’t have been able to stop the woman if she’d found her at his apartment.
Actually, that reminds me—we haven’t had that discussion yet, and I feel like I’m failing Goldie all over again. What the hell was she doing in Dallas in the first place? I bet my bottom dollar her piece-of-shit father had something to do with it.
Sheriff Gibson shakes his head, and his dark brown eyes drift to my Goldie. “I take it you’re Marigold?”
She nods, and he shakes Goldie’s hand, which is white from the cold. I hurry into the house and drape the afghan from the couch over her. Once I have Goldie and Lily warmed up, Sheriff asks for Goldie’s side of things before he deals with the psychotic chihuahua again.
I cock my head while Goldie spills everything about being abused at the restaurant by her dead-beat ex’s mother, who—she stresses—tried to coerce her into getting an abortion. I hadn’t known until now the lengths Mrs. Fitzroy had gone to, going so far as to drive Goldie to a clinic herself and even offering to pay Goldie to go through with the procedure, then punishing Goldie by kicking her out of the car and leaving her there among protesters when she refused to do so.
I know it’s her choice to make regarding her pregnancy, no matter what lawmakers or anyone else might think, but physically and emotionally, I want to vomit thinking about Lily having never been born…and then hire someone to abort Mrs. Fitzroy and Colton, so to speak.
I cup the back of Lily’s head and lift Goldie’s chin to lay a long, hard kiss on her lips right in front of Sheriff Gibson. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“For what?” she asks, equally as low.
“For choosing to keep our daughter.” Goldie parts her lips, and I can’t help but kiss her again, then remain by her side, squatting with my arms around my family as Goldie tells the Sheriff about Wyatt and what must have been Dolly helping her at the restaurant yesterday. I’m grateful they were there just in time to help her, but I hate that I wasn’t the one to do it because I wasn’t with her like I should have been.
Goldie’s voice gets real small, and she darts her gaze to Sheriff and away a few times when he asks why she hadn’t called 9-1-1. “I was scared. Mrs. Fitzroy…she said I was unfit to raise Lily. That I was trash for ‘shacking up’ with Davis. She has the money to hire a lawyer, and I thought Lily might be taken away if the cops showed up and saw the papers she had.”
I hand Sheriff the crumpled documents. Sheriff reassures her that wouldn’t have happened, but we all know money can buy people’s way into all kinds of things that aren’t right or legal.
Mrs. Fitzroy has worn herself out and slumps low in her seat by the time Goldie finishes. Sheriff huffs as he looks over the documents. “Hell, these aren’t even from a real lawyer. Probably downloaded off the internet and poorly edited to make them look real and scare you into signing.”
Goldie leans forward. “How do you know?”
“See here?” He points to the 555-555-5555 phone number on the letter included with the documents, signed by a supposed lawyer named Dr. Mr. Colson Royal . “She might have money, but she ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, I take it,” Sheriff says, then folds up the papers to push them into his back pocket.
Goldie slips inside the house with Lily after Sheriff finishes taking our statements, and I follow him to his cruiser. “You need to take her down to the courthouse on Monday and file a restraining order,” he tells me, raising his left hand and thumbing his wedding ring. “And if you’re serious about her, while you’re there, you might consider—”
“Already part of my plan.” It’s the one I came up with while cleaning the house last night. I know what I need to do.
“Good. Might strengthen your case if Fitzroy does hire a real lawyer to come after y’all for custody of Lily, though I can’t imagine a judge would grant her so much as visitation rights after the stunts she’s pulled.” I nod. “Well, alright then. I’ll keep y’all updated on the situation.” He nods to the white sedan. “I’ll send a tow truck to get the car. You take good care of your girls,” he says, tipping his hat toward the house.
I clap him on the shoulder. “Will do, Sheriff.”
Always .