Chapter 26
Goldie
Davis has complained every single day for the past two months about having to delay our wedding. I simply refused to walk down the aisle in my gorgeous wedding dress, bruised black and blue with stitches all over our bodies, both of us wearing casts on our broken hands. Lily was miraculously unharmed, thank all that is holy, though she understandably does not tolerate being put down much.
Our friends have needed time to recover as well. Apparently, it was Russell I’d kicked square in the nuts when I thought he was a stranger trying to steal Lily when really he was trying to help me up and get us to an ambulance. Oops.
I’d never seen Wyatt so mad as when I apologized the first time I saw him after everything went down. I hated that he ended up with a broken left leg after he was T-boned by Matt and Mrs. Fitzroy, pinned in his driver’s seat until firefighters used the jaws of life to get him out of his fancy, lifted, no doubt expensive truck, which was totaled.
The look on his face was even scarier than when he was staring down Mrs. Fitzroy on that crazy day in Dallas. He’d pointed at me and said fiercely, “I’d sacrifice anything and everything for my family. Don’t you dare apologize for that.” And then his expression had cleared, and he swept Davis and me into a hug that made my cracked ribs scream, even as I was filled with the warm and fuzzies at being considered his family .
The other thing that had given me the warm and fuzzies? Ms. Judy scolded me for reverting to calling her Ms. Judy after the pain medications cleared my system and I stopped confusing her for my non-existent mother. So now, I’m not only an honorary Granny’s Girl but an honorary daughter . I hadn’t bawled like that over being so intensely loved like a child since the day I moved in with Aunt Lydia, and I’ve called Ms. Judy Mom and Dolly sister ever since.
And Dolly’s not my only sister. Amanda is, too. I have a new brother, as well, after Roman forced her to marry him at the courthouse when we were discharged from the hospital and able to attend. The uppity ice queen had melted as soon as the judge announced them officially husband and wife.
Roman’s mom and dad put on a massive party at their house, music and food flowing well into the early morning, though the newlyweds didn’t show up until hours later with Amanda’s hair tangled in serious knots on the back of her head, her face blanching as soon as they walked in. I ended up falling asleep with Lily in one of the spare bedrooms with the rest of the little kids, who tuckered out before the party was over. The neighbors’ noise complaints were brushed off with half of the officers in attendance.
Davis was grumpy that they got married before us, and Roman was grumpy when Amanda said she wasn’t going to change her last name. She graduated medical school as Dr. Freeman and was going to stay that way, really firing up Roman’s caveman tendencies…so the man went and changed his last name to hers so that they’d have the same one as soon as they flew back to Michigan, where they’ve been settling in together until coming back for our wedding.
And now, here we are. Today’s the day. The only downer, so far, is the cold, hard look Amanda keeps giving me every time we make eye contact in the lighted mirror as I’m getting dolled up for my wedding with Mom’s help while Layla keeps Lily entertained. The bridal suite at the venue Violet was able to book, thanks to the delay, is gorgeous with its bright white interior, pink and gold accents, and large windows letting in the early spring sunshine, warming the room. But it’s hard to appreciate with Amanda’s attitude souring the atmosphere.
I throw my hands up and spin in my padded vanity chair to stare Amanda down, where she’s holding herself stiffly on the velvety pink chaise lounge. “Ok, what gives?”
She tips her chin up in the air and crosses her arms over her asymmetrical, cocktail-length dress the color of summer wine. All the women in attendance have been asked to wear shades of purple and pink—just none that are close to the blush color of my dress.
“You,” she says in an accusatory manner. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
Dolly bursts out with a giggle, startling us and her newborn, Weston, in her arms.
I snap, “Forgive me for what?”
Amanda deflates against the arm of the chaise, holding her stomach while she breathes deeply through her nose. “If I hadn’t gone on that car chase with you, Roman never would have gotten the chance to…” She clams up.
“Bend you over the back seat of the Ford and fuck a baby into you?” Dolly asks, laughing louder as she unclips the top right of her pink orchid maternity dress and puts Weston to her breast. Mom rolls her eyes up to the ceiling and shakes her head at Dolly’s choice of words.
Amanda straightens her spine again. “Jesus, Dolly, do you have to be so crass?”
So Dolly straightens as well and lifts her chin, adopting a terrible and inaccurate British accent. “My apologies, Queen Amanda. I should have said, ‘Coupled with you in the back of the royal carriage and produced an heir’.”
My mouth falls open as my eyes dip to Amanda’s stomach. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes,” she whines miserably.
Dolly snaps her fingers. “Ha! I knew it.”
Amanda turns wide eyes on her. “How?”
“Roman is as bad as the rest of the men.” Dolly waves her hand toward Amanda’s form. “Plus, you’ve got that ghostly pale look.”
Offended, Amanda asks harshly, “What pale look?”
“Like you’re trying not to puke your guts up, same as Goldie.” Dolly looks my way. “Well, more pale than usual.”
Amanda scowls and clutches her stomach.
It’s my turn to be offended after spending a not-so-small sum on a professional makeup artist. “I do not.”
Dolly cocks her head. “Yes, you do.” She settles on the chaise and waggles her brows as she bumps shoulders with Amanda. “But, hey! At least this way, your kid will have cousins close in age, and they’ll all get to grow up together, even if you’re way up in Michigan. Bet they’ll grow up to be best friends if you plan on visiting more often.”
“ Cousins ?” I stress the S . “But I’m not—” I slap a hand over my mouth, my belly fluttering.
Dolly frowns. “You didn’t know? Hey, where are you going?”
I tighten the belt of my white satin bridal robe and race out of the room, knowing Lily is safe with the women. I cross the reception hall, which the staff is still setting up—ivory table cloths and golden candlesticks with white tapered candles centered on the round tables—to the other side with the groom’s suite and burst through the door.
The men all turn as one from where they’re sitting in a semi-circle made up of a dark leather couch and several oversized armchairs in the middle of a toast with their glass tumblers of whiskey and bourbon. Russell clears his throat and slowly stands, motioning to Wyatt, Roman, and Jared to stand as well, while Davis’s mouth hangs open, looking me up and down with a heated gaze.
“You…you…how? I’m on birth control!” I screech the last part, my chest heaving as I press a hand against my belly, finally acknowledging the recent firmness. I’ve been on birth control since I was able to covertly get my prescription filled at the hospital’s pharmacy before we left, hiding my pills so Davis couldn’t tamper with them.
Wyatt drops his head back with a laugh, then loudly clinks his glass against the other men’s. Roman grins and claps Davis on the back as they filter out of the room.
Davis’s lips twitch with a smile, his expression vacillating between rapture and a smug look like he’s gotten away with something as he finally stands, sets his tumbler down on a glass side table and approaches me in his slate gray suit, a marigold boutonniere pinned to his jacket.
For every one of his steps forward, I inch backward until he has me pinned to the wall next to the open door, which he closes and locks from the inside. “You’re pregnant?”
I slap his hand away and try to cross the sides of my robe over my chest when he tugs my belt loose. “Stop it! This is serious.”
Davis grips my wrists and pins them to my sides so my robe falls open. “Oh, I know it is.” He lets go of one wrist to lay his palm against my lower belly above the lacy white thong that he’s not supposed to see until later tonight. “I get to marry my woman with my baby growing in her belly.”
And then he slants his head to kiss me, letting go of my other wrist to yank the right side of my robe open further so he can cup my bare, sensitive breast. We’re both breathing hard when I finally gather my wits and shove against his shoulders.
“How?” I scream the question, my lipstick smeared across his clean-shaven jaw.
Davis rocks his pelvis against mine, squeezing my breast until my milk starts to bead at the tip of my nipple. “I wore you out with orgasms as often as I could so that you’d fall asleep before remembering to take your pills. I’d say I did a good job.”
I growl and throat-punch him, making him stagger back and clutch his neck.
“Rule number two, baby,” he says with a scratchy voice. He grabs my waist to haul me up in the air and drops me flat on the couch, coming down on top of me between my thighs before I can scramble away.
It’s uncomfortable with the curlers in my hair digging into my scalp, but that’s the least of my worries when Davis crushes my lips as he fumbles with unzipping his slacks and yanking the slim fabric of my thong to the side. I arch my back, pressing my breasts against his chest, the material of his white button-down top beneath his jacket scraping my nipples deliciously. When he eases his cock inside me, instead of slamming home like I expected him to, I give him a silent, questioning look.
“As much as Daddy would love to punish you for punching me, I gotta go easy on you now that you’re pregnant.”
My outrage softens at the tenderness in his expression and slow lovemaking. He flinches when I raise my hands to cup his face, and I’m overwhelmed with unbearable shame. “I’m sorry for punching you. I won’t ever do it again. Not ever.”
He nods, and then his lips are on mine. He hooks his hand under my knee to hold it up against his ribs as he rocks in and out of me. I moan with my release after he brings me to an almost agonizingly slow orgasm, and Davis pulls his cock out before he cums. He kisses down my neck and collarbone and follows the curve of my breast until he can take my nipple into his mouth, massaging the underside with his tongue as he suckles and swallows my milk.
I slip my fingers into his hair as he nurses, mussing his previously tidy strands. Right on the verge of cumming again with his fingers inside me, Davis suddenly jerks back, grins wickedly, then flips me over onto my stomach. He delivers a lightning-quick slap against my ass.
“Hey! I thought you said you were going easy on me!”
Davis lifts my hips before pushing inside me, then drapes himself over my back, bracing a hand on the arm of the couch. “I won’t get rough with your golden pussy, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting out of your spankings.” He drops his forehead on my shoulder. “Besides, you like it when Daddy spanks you, don’t you?”
I huff. “No. I don’t.” Smack . My pussy clenches around his thick shaft, and I moan.
“Rule number four.” We do not lie to each other . And then he shoves his hand beneath me to find my clit, massaging it with his middle finger until I get my second release, and he cums with a muted roar of my name.
My eyes flutter shut, my body sated and warm and drowsy under Davis’s weight. He nuzzles the crook of my neck with his cock twitching inside me as it softens.
“Tell me you’re happy, baby,” he whispers with sudden vulnerability. “That you want this. Because, for me…I’ve never been happier in all my life than right this very moment. The only thing that could possibly make it better is you and Lily changing your last names to mine.”
I swallow. “I’m…I’m…” A sob bursts forth, and Davis rears back enough that I’m able to twist and roll over. I circle his back, pulling him down on top of me again after I part my legs, welcoming him between my thighs. I fist his wet cock, working my hand up and down his length until he’s hard again, and then line him up with my entrance. Davis breaks out into a brilliant smile when I tell him, “I’m happy. I’m so happy. I want you. I want this baby. I want our house and town and friends. I want this life.”
He nods. “I know you do, Goldie. I want this life with you, too. Forever.”
Davis is even slower and gentler with me, as I am with him, as we speak the vows we were meant to save for the ceremony. It’s even more special and intimate and private this way. And so when I walk down the aisle that ends at the floral arch with the lake he spent so much time at with his dad in the background—tears in Davis’s eyes when he gets his first look at me in my wedding dress—I’m already wearing my gold wedding band, same as him.
Happy is too weak of a word to describe what I feel, staring into the eyes of the man I plan to spend the rest of my life loving. Most of all, there’s peace. A sense of belonging. Of being loved to the very core of my being. There’s no better feeling in the world, and I know I’ll never, ever take it for granted or give Davis anything less than what he’s given me.
Forever.
Davis
My cheeks ache with the smile I can’t stop wearing. Violet has gathered half the town for our wedding, including every emergency responder who showed up to help us the night Lily was kidnapped. We’ve reserved three chairs at the front, each with a gold framed photograph—one of my mother in her wedding dress, staring at my dad; one of my dad in his tux, staring softly at my mother; and one of Aunt Lydia’s glamour photos from when she was in high school that Goldie had tucked away in her backpack.
The only time my smile falters is when I spot Goldie’s dad standing to the side of the reception venue, shaded beneath a large Magnolia tree. He’s dressed in a nice black suit, one hand scrubbing his chin. I open my mouth to tell Goldie to look up as we start walking down the aisle away from the altar, but he shakes his head. He holds up what looks to be an envelope, then lowers it to the ground, propping it against the wall, then turns and disappears toward the parking lot.
I reach for Lily in her pink dress as we pass Layla, who Russell hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off of on the other side of the aisle. I smile proudly while holding Lily in one arm, slipping the other around Goldie’s waist as the wedding photographer walks backward, taking shot after shot of the three of us— four , technically.
At the end of the aisle, I turn Goldie around and dip her with a kiss, Lily between us, knowing this will be the picture I’ll blow up to the largest size available to hang in our living room. Maybe also our bedroom. Also, Lily’s future room and the nursery and…
Since we can’t do the traditional Father-Daughter or Mother-Son dances, we’ve gone with the next best thing—Goldie dances with Ms. Judy, and I dance with Amanda.
Amanda clears her throat and looks at my chin. “I, uh, took care of Dad’s remaining medical bills as my wedding present to you and Goldie.”
I come to an abrupt spot. “You did?”
She urges me on. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”
“Amanda, this is a big deal. You didn’t have to do that.”
She shakes her head. “I should have done it a long time ago. You have Goldie and Lily to focus on, and you shouldn’t have had to carry the burden of—”
“Taking care of family is never a burden.”
She finally looks up, tears brimming her lower lashes. “All the same…I’m sorry. I should have done my part.”
I chew my cheek and hope this time she’ll finally answer my question after almost twenty years. “Why did you stay away? Did Dad do something…” My heart squeezes in my chest.
Amanda drops her forehead on my shoulder, and I pull her closer. “No. I just…I didn’t want to face him. See how disappointed he’d be.” I stay silent, giving her space to build up to what she wants— needs —to say. “I was pregnant,” she whispers.
An electric shock jolts down my spine, and I almost can’t believe what I heard. “Pregnant? You had a baby?” I can’t make sense of it. I don’t think there’s anything else she could have said that would have knocked me off my feet more than this.
She shakes her head, turning to lay her cheek against me while I rub her back as her shoulders start shaking. “No. I lost it right before I left.”
“Was it Roman’s?”
She sniffles and nods. “That’s why we broke up.”
I plant my feet, hot anger sweeping through me, and my muscles tense, gearing up for a fight. “I’ll kill him.” I start to pull away, swinging my gaze around until I find her husband standing off to the side, talking to Wyatt. His brows go up at the murderous look on my face.
Amanda grabs my wrist and digs her heels in. “No!” She lowers her voice with a frantic tone. “He didn’t break up with me because I was pregnant. I broke up with him!”
“What? Why?”
Amanda pulls me further away to the other side of the dance floor and down a short hallway. “Because I thought it was my fault I lost the baby. He didn’t even know I’d gotten pregnant.”
I rub my brow, more confused than ever. “How the hell was it your fault?”
“Because I didn’t want it. Not at the time. Not when I was planning to go to college and eventually on to medical school. I couldn’t have done all that with a baby. At least, I didn’t think so.” She shoves her hands in her hair and walks off a ways. “And Dad would have blown a gasket if he found out I’d gotten pregnant ‘out of wedlock’. He’d have disowned me if I told him I was thinking of getting an abortion.”
As much as I’d like to tell her she’s wrong, I know she’s not. There’s no doubt that our Dad loved us, but he had his faults, some worse than others. His reaction and harsh judgment would have hurt Amanda more than Amanda hurt him when she went all the way to Michigan instead of a school close to home, as planned, without explanation.
I don’t even have to ask why she kept it a secret from me at the time. I would have pushed her to tell Dad the truth. We both know it.
I’ve never seen such anguish toward oneself on a person’s face when she says, “And then, I lost it, and I was devastated. I didn’t know I’d react that way. And I…I couldn’t tell Roman what I’d done. So I broke up with him. He deserved better—”
Roman comes charging out of the shadows with his finger pointed at Amanda with his own anguished expression, tears slipping down his cheeks. “All this time, you’ve been carrying this on your shoulders? Thinking you somehow caused a miscarriage?”
Amanda nods, her body trembling as she chokes on a cry. “That’s why I didn’t want children. I’m so scared…” She splays her palm on her belly. “What if I lose this one, too?”
Roman grabs her by the shoulders and smashes her to his chest, winding one hand behind her back and cradling her head with the other. “No. You can’t think that way, Mandy. And what happened in high school—I would have supported you, no matter what you wanted to do. I’ve always loved you. Would have stood by you if I’d known.” His voice cracks when he says, “I wish you would have told me.”
Amanda breaks down in his arms, and I figure it’s time I give them their privacy to work this out, which I know they will. They’re soulmates, just like Goldie and me. Like all the other wonderful couples we know, including…
I clap Russell on his shoulder when I spot him after exiting the hallway. He’s cleaned up nicer than I’ve ever seen, wearing a navy suit and actual dress shoes instead of boots. I lean in to bark, “Get your head out of your ass before you get any older, old man.”
“The fuck?” He rounds on me, yanking his hands out of his pockets and fisting them at his sides.
I nod to Layla, who is dancing with Goldie, Dolly, Violet, and Faye in the middle of the dance floor, passing Lily, William, and Weston around as they loudly sing Any Man of Mine by Shania Twain, which is an interesting song to play at a wedding. Then I nod to the group of firefighters who are standing opposite, watching the women as well. Among the ladies dancing, there’s only one who is still single, so—if they’re smart and don’t want to die—that means there’s only one they’ve got their eyes on.
“Get to it before someone else gets there before you,” I tell him.
Russell clenches his jaw, and I leave him with a wink before I twirl my wife away in my arms, her dad’s envelope burning a hole in my back pocket that I’ll give to her later when we’re alone. It contains a printout of the payment plan he’s set up to pay off Goldie’s hospital bill, as well as a photocopy of a certificate of completion from rehab. There’s still a lot for him to make up for, but it’s an amazing start to possibly re-building their relationship…though there’s still only one man she’ll be allowed to call Daddy , and it’s not him.
“What’s that look for?” Goldie asks.
“Just thinking about all the ways I’m going to make you moan for Daddy tonight, Mrs. Freeman.”
Goldie steps back. “Tonight?”
I nod and discreetly readjust my dick.
My wife takes another step back and gives me a sly grin. “Why wait for tonight?” She spins and picks up the skirt of her dress. She tears across the venue, pushing between our guests on the dance floor and around the packed dining tables, everyone hooting and hollering as I give chase.