Chapter Twenty-nine – When You Say Nothing At All
Chapter Twenty-nine
Fallon
WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL
Performed by Alison Krauss & Union Station
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
HER: Do you believe in curses?
HIM: No. Not any more than I believe in fate. Why?
HER: Uncle Adam says my family is cursed.
That the poker game where the Hurlys lost the land to the Harringtons twisted our futures.
He says it’s why so many Hurlys and Harringtons have died in tragic ways and far too early in their lives.
And now the ranch is nearly bankrupt. I’m struggling to find one good thing that’s happened since the land switched hands.
I can’t find it. I think he might be right.
HIM: You. You’re the good thing, Fallon. Maybe everything had to happen just as it did so you’d be born. All I know is the world is better because you’re in it.
PRESENT DAY
My head and heart were spinning a bit, and it had nothing to do with the altitude or the nausea that had flitted through me this morning.
It was the speed at which Parker was moving.
He’d gone from saying yes to my ridiculous proposal, to getting married today, and now living together at the ranch at warp speed, faster than the Cessna was traveling toward Las Vegas .
I’d gotten what I wanted. But it felt empty in many ways.
A consolation prize.
Then, I remembered the way he’d touched me this morning. The look in his eyes as he’d told me to let go hadn’t seemed like a participation trophy. He’d looked at me as I’d always wanted him to—as if there was love there.
Did he love me? In that way my dad loved Sadie? The way Spence had loved my mom? The way Parker’s parents loved each other? My lungs almost forgot to breathe at even the possibility. A tiny piece of me tried to celebrate the idea before I squashed it. Talk about speeding ahead.
But he said he’d wanted me for years. I’d felt that longing time and again, hadn’t I? I’d even told him he was a coward for not taking what he wanted. The sexual tension had flitted between us long before it should have. He’d just always had the strength to say no.
Holy crap, were we really doing this? Getting married and telling our families we wanted to spend our lives together?
I’d barely broken up with the man I’d been living with.
Would our parents believe us? Would they really think I’d gotten pregnant with Parker’s child almost immediately after getting hitched?
Unease traveled through me.
I could convince Mom. I had years of practice showing her only what I wanted her to see, but Dad and Sadie…I wasn’t so sure. And Parker was extremely close to his parents. They had a relationship I’d always envied, built on love and respect and trust. Now, I was asking him to lie to them—forever.
My stomach flipped again.
Maybe we could tell the Steeles. But if we did, Jim would tell Dad and my father didn’t keep secrets from Sadie. Someone would slip somewhere along the way. That old saying about the only way to keep a secret was to tell no one was true.
The entire flight, I couldn’t shed the back-and-forth doubts.
After we’d landed and loaded our bags in the SUV we kept parked in our Vegas hangar, my emotions still hadn’t settled. Parker insisted on driving, and I was more worn out than I wanted to admit, so I didn’t fight him on it. I just handed him the key fob and climbed into the passenger seat.
The Steele residence was a simple two-story in a middle-class subdivision that had been new at the time his parents had bought it but bordered on antiquated now.
As we pulled into the drive of the stone-and-stucco house, the same thought hit me that always had whenever I’d been here over the years—it was a home in a way the castle I’d spent my childhood in had never been.
It wasn’t like there hadn’t been love in my home.
My parents and Spencer had absolutely loved me, and none of them had clipped my wings as I’d tried to spread them.
If anything, I’d been given more room and space than most kids.
So, I wasn’t sure what had always made Parker’s home seem different.
All I knew was walking into it felt like being doused with a blanket of love and acceptance.
Maybe the simple fact that betrayal hadn’t started his family the way it had mine was the reason.
When we got to the door, Parker’s mom was waiting for us in the opening.
Whitney was taller than me, almost six feet, and she looked younger than her actual age of fifty-five.
She had dark hair and pale-blue eyes that were scrunched now in concern.
She assessed us in a way that both her husband and son were good at doing, as if living with Navy SEALs for most of her life had worn off on her.
After hearing Parker’s dad had gotten us in to see Ike Puzo the following day, she’d expected our arrival, but she didn’t know we were also there to get married. Would she be happy or confused?
When Whitney saw Theo, her entire face lit up.
“There’s my sweet grandson,” she said, holding out her arms.
Theo ran into them, and my heart lurched. She’d already accepted him as part of her family. When she looked at my baby, I knew she’d do the same, regardless of whether or not the baby was Parker’s.
Whitney put Theo down and then unleashed her hugs on Parker.
When she turned to me and squeezed me, she whispered, “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened.”
And those stupid tears I couldn’t seem to shake threatened once more. At least I could blame them on my hormones working overtime now .
We followed her into the great room. It hadn’t changed in the twenty years I’d been coming here for dinners with Dad.
The inside screamed the same middle-class charm as the outside.
Well-made and well-used furniture filled the space, bookcases at least a decade past fashionable housed knickknacks, and framed pictures of Parker and his family in different settings were scattered along the walls.
Some of those photos included Dad and me from when we’d vacationed with the Steeles.
“I’ve got a lasagna prepped for tonight and sandwich fixings for lunch if you’re hungry,” Whitney said, bypassing the living area to head straight for the adjoining kitchen.
The warm wood of the cabinets and the gold granite island and counters hadn’t changed any more than the rest of the house. But instead of looking outdated, as it could have, it simply screamed comfort to me.
“Mom, I need to—”
“Go get the bags from the car,” I interrupted Parker. His brows furrowed, and his gaze burned into me. I shook my head ever so slightly.
Whitney turned from pulling items out of the refrigerator.
“Okay, I have you in the guest room at the top of the stairs, Fallon. I figured Theo can stay with Parker for a couple of nights.” She turned to the little boy.
“Want to help me cut out sugar cookie doggies while Parker and Fallon get your things?”
“Yes!” Theo shouted, stuffing his dog in the air as he always did when excited. His enthusiasm had my lips twitching again, just as his million questions on the plane ride had. The kid had carved himself into my heart just as he had Whitney’s.
“Wash your hands,” she told him.
He hurried over to a stool she’d already placed by the sink.
With a flash, I remembered times when I’d done the same thing.
I wasn’t even sure how old I’d been. I just remembered it had felt different than when I’d helped Mom cook.
That had always felt like a chore. Whitney had made it feel like a reward.
Parker and I made our way outside to the SUV as my nerves continued to rattle.
“What’s going on? Why’d you stop me from telling my mom about us?” he demanded as we hauled our bags from the back. When he tried to take mine from me, adding it to the stack of his and Theo’s, I just glared at him. His jaw clenched, but he let me shoulder my own.
As we returned to the house, I stopped him on the steps with a hand to his elbow.
“I just wanted to give you a chance to change your mind before you tell your mom anything.” I swallowed.
“Everything is so ugly right now in my life… Sometimes, I’m not sure I’ll ever escape it.
My family has a history of bad things finding us.
It’s like fate has decided we don’t deserve anything good.
Maybe Uncle Adam was right. Maybe the day my great-great-grandfather Harrington won the Hurly land in a poker match did curse us. ”
He dropped his duffels, pulled mine from my shoulder, and drew me close. With our bodies touching, it was hard to remember all the reasons I should let him out of the promise he’d made.
“I’ll never believe that murdering son of a bitch was right about anything,” he growled.
“Plus, I don’t believe in curses, and fate isn’t a one-way path.
It might give us a shove in a certain direction, but I believe our free will drives the outcomes of our lives more than anything supernatural. We decide what happens.”
He was so sure. How had he gotten to the acceptance of our marriage so quickly? After living his whole life telling me he would never get hitched. It was like he was the Parker I’d always known and loved from afar and yet someone else entirely.
I met his gaze and said, “I hate the idea of you lying to your parents.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he kissed me like he had this morning and last night, fierce and determined and tender. It was as if he was issuing a new promise every time our lips touched.
His eyes were dark and stormy when he pulled back just enough to look down into my face.
“I’m not lying to my parents.” I started to protest, and he nipped my bottom lip before continuing, “I understand why it’s hard for you to accept that I’m not doing this simply as some answer to our problems. For as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve insisted I didn’t want a serious relationship, let alone a wife and kids, and now it seems like I’ve done a one-eighty. ”
My chest tightened, and seeing the panic that was raging, seeing the doubts, his eyes softened. He tipped his forehead into mine, and my body melted at the tenderness of the move.
“So, let’s be clear,” he said quietly. “The real reason I’m doing this is because seeing you on the ground the other day, thinking you’d been shot…
” He swallowed hard before continuing. “It terrified me, Ducky. It was like I’d been going through life with a hood over my eyes, and someone finally yanked it off.
The simple truth is, I can’t live without you in my life…
not as just my friend or even a lover, but as my person.
The one I belong to and who belongs to me.
The person I wake up next to every day and plan a future with.
Our future. Yours, mine, Theo’s, and our baby’s. ”
The sweetness of the words tore through me, but it was the ‘our’ he’d placed before the word baby that broke me.
Tears poured down my cheeks. Parker’s words were everything I needed to hear—everything anyone would want to hear from the person they’d loved for as long as they could remember.
He made it clear he wasn’t just accepting me but accepting the child inside me as easily as Whitney had accepted Theo, as easy as Spencer had accepted me when he’d married my mom.
So why did I continue to feel like nothing more than an obligation?
Was it simply the baggage of my childhood?
Something broken in me that wouldn’t allow myself to be more?
Not just to him but to anyone. Was that really why I’d never let my guard down with JJ?
Maybe it wasn’t just my infatuation with Parker that had held me back, but the feeling that I wasn’t worthy of being someone’s everything.
“Don’t cry.” His voice was deep and gritty and pained. He kissed the tears, and it only made them flow faster. “I hate it when you cry, because it means I haven’t done my job. I haven’t taken the pain away.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and moved so our mouths collided.
I devoured him the way he’d consumed me this morning and tried to infuse the kiss with all the feelings I’d always had for him, but also the same promises he was making to me.
I would do my best to make sure he never regretted this decision.
“It’s not your job to take away the pain, Parker. Not as my friend or my lover or my husb-band,” I stuttered over the word. “We just have to help each other through the challenges this life throws at us until we get to the other side of them.”
We stared into each other’s eyes for so long that I thought the world had stopped.
Then, he was kissing me again, as if there would never be another time for us to do just this.
We were still locked in the embrace when the door of the house opened behind us, and Whitney said, “Hey, Parker, did you—”
We twisted around to see the astonishment on her face. She recovered quickly and, to my surprise, grinned.
“Are you going to stand outside kissing all day, or are you going to come inside and have lunch?”
There was laughter in her voice and maybe even a hint of joy.
I’d expected Jim and Whitney to be concerned about this sudden change in Parker’s and my relationship, especially considering everything happening with me and the ranch.
But when I was brave enough to meet her eyes, I saw nothing but happiness.
Would it change when she learned we were rushing to get married?
Or when she found out about the baby? Or the factParker was talking about living with me at the ranch as if he’d already left his SEAL team behind?
Because that was what he was talking about, wasn’t it?
That was what waking up at my side every day would entail.
But I wasn’t going to let him do that. I wouldn’t let him be my dad, turning away from everything he’d grown up wanting, no matter what Maisey had said.
I’d make sure Parker still lived his dreams and accomplished his goals, even if it took him from us and the ranch for months at a time.