Chapter Thirty – If You Love Her
Chapter Thirty
Parker
IF YOU LOVE HER
Performed by Forest Blakk
NINE YEARS AGO
HER: I wish you were here for the wedding.
HIM: Dad said he’d never seen Rafe so happy.
HER: Sadie unlocked something in him. Maybe I should be hurt that I wasn’t enough to make him really happy, but I’m not. I’m grateful Sadie’s love allowed him to open himself up. She’s made us a family again.
HIM: You were always a family, Ducky. Your dad would have always gone to the ends of the earth for you.
HER: Maybe because he felt he had to, but family should be more than an obligation. Sadie has given us that. She’s given us the freedom to really love one another.
PRESENT DAY
When we stepped inside, Mom was still grinning. As if seeing me kiss Fallon on our doorstep wasn’t the least bit disturbing. As if she was happy to have found us locked in an embrace.
Would she feel the same way when I told her we were getting married? And not at some distant point, months in the future, but today.
She hadn’t seemed disgusted by my inability to keep my mouth and hands to myself.
Had Mom always known, just as Rafe had hinted Sadie had, that Fallon and I were an inevitability?
Was I the only one who’d been blind to it?
Not the feelings or the desire—I’d known those were there for years—but the rightness of a future with her.
How had I not known that the love I felt for her was exactly the forever kind of love my parents had?
“Where’s Theo?” I asked.
“Bathroom,” Mom said, heading back toward the kitchen. “Your dad called. He needs to talk to you about seeing Ike but said you weren’t picking up.” She shot us a look. “I’ll let you be the one to tell him why you were ignoring his call.”
Fallon cleared her throat. “I’m going to put my bags away.”
Mom sent another smirk in our direction. “I guess you’ll be staying with Parker, and Theo will be in the guest room.”
“I’ll call him after we get settled,” I told Mom before scurrying down the hall after Fallon, feeling a bit like the time Mom had caught me with my dick in my hand as a preteen.
I caught up with Fallon just as she started into the guest room. I grabbed her elbow and propelled her into my old bedroom, a door down.
My room didn’t look the same as it had when I’d been a teenager.
Mom had replaced the SEAL and military posters with black-and-white photographs of some of Rafe’s stunning buildings around the world, including the casino here in Vegas.
But it had the same queen-sized bed and a navy comforter similar to the one I’d once used.
“You really think it’s a good idea for us to share a room at your parents’ house before we…you know…?” Her voice drifted away.
“We’re getting married, Fallon. I already told you my conditions. We do this, real and all in, or we don’t do it at all. Outside on the steps, you gave me an out, but I don’t want it. I haven’t changed my mind. Have you?”
Her gaze was pained when she met mine. Dark and shadowed and tortured. My hand surrounded her neck, thumb settling on her pulse as I leaned in to brush her lips with mine. I couldn’t stop myself from doing it after years of denying myself.
“Tell me that doesn’t set you ablaze,” I said as I pulled back, “that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life sharing a bed with me, and I’ll call it off.”
The pulse in her throat thudded against my thumb as I searched her face for the truth. She closed her eyes, hiding from me.
But her voice was painfully quiet when she finally spoke. “I’m afraid.”
“The Fallon I know and love has never been a chicken. It’s impossible for you to start now.
” As her eyes flashed open, I realized what I’d said—the love I’d carelessly tossed out instead of planning and saying it purposefully.
I tried to gloss over it for now, promising myself I’d give her those words in the way she deserved when she was ready. “Don’t make me dare you.”
She snorted out a half laugh. “I always win our dares.”
“Or I always let you think you win our dares.” It wasn’t true, but I liked the irritation it fueled in those warm eyes.
It brought back the confident Fallon I’d loved in a completely non-platonic way for far longer than I’d ever realized.
“Tonight, Ducky. We’re going to say ‘I do,’ and that’ll put us on a new path.
One where you and I decide our futures together. No fate. No curse. You and me.”
She squeezed my wrist before breathing out, “Okay.” She let go and stepped away from me. “I need a minute before I can face your mom again.”
She grabbed her bag and headed into the Jack-and-Jill bathroom that joined my old room and the guest room. For two seconds, I was tempted to follow her, to push a bit harder and make sure she realized I meant what I said and that there was no reason to be scared.
The curse she talked about was non-existent. As soon as we figured out who was responsible for this recent string of attacks and put them behind bars, she’d see it had nothing to do with supernatural forces.
And then, I’d spend the rest of my life making sure she never felt cursed again.
I grabbed Theo’s backpack of toys and strode out of the room. I wanted to talk to Mom before Fallon came out so my mother’s reaction didn’t increase Fallon’s nerves. I dropped Theo’s bag on the couch in the great room and marched into the kitchen on a new mission .
Mom was beside Theo, watching him push a dog-shaped cookie cutter into the dough she’d rolled out. She glanced up at me, that knowing smile returning to her face.
“So, it’s finally happened,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do Rafe and your dad know?”
“Rafe, sort of. Dad, no.”
Theo finished, and Mom helped him transfer the cookies to a baking sheet.
“When can I eat ‘em?” he asked, squatting to look into the oven.
Mom chortled. “They need about ten minutes to cook and a few minutes to cool.”
“Wash your hands one more time, and then get your toys out of the bag I left on the couch,” I told him. “You and Dog can play while you wait.”
After he left the sink, I watched him from the island as he went into the other room and searched his toy bag. I glanced toward the hallway to ensure Fallon wasn’t coming out yet and then turned back to Mom.
“We’re getting married.”
Mom’s brows jerked up, nearly reaching her hairline, and I chuckled.
I ran a hand over the scruff on my jaw that I hadn’t shaved this morning in my hurry to get us out of Rivers and to Las Vegas.
“Tonight,” I added.
Her mouth popped open. “Now, hold on—”
I shook my head. “No. We’ve wasted years already because I was too much of a coward to stand up to Rafe and Dad.
She could have died the other day, Mom, and I would never have known what it was like to be hers and for her to be mine.
I refuse to wait any longer. I refuse to waste more time just so you and Sadie and Lauren can plan some damned wedding. ”
“Don’t cuss at me.”
Mom put up with a lot as a military wife and mother, but cussing was where she’d always drawn the line.
“I know your father and Rafe talked to you when you were teenagers,” she said quietly.
“I wasn’t thrilled about how they made you promise not to do something that everyone knew was inevitable.
But that was different, Parker. She was too young, and there was too much of an age gap between you then. Not in years, but in experiences.”
“I know,” I said, because I did. I understood fully why our fathers had warned me off.
But I’d stuck to the promise for too long.
I’d made the mistake of turning her down repeatedly, and it had sent her running back into JJ’s arms. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself for that.
If I hadn’t been an idiot, the baby inside her might have my DNA instead of his.
When I didn’t say anything else, Mom’s eyes softened. She placed a hand on my arm and squeezed gently. “Is this what Fallon wants? A quick Vegas elopement without her family standing up with her?”
I gave her a curt nod. “Yes.”
She stared at me for a long moment. She tilted her head and considered me.
“I can see this as a typical Fallon move. She’s always tried to prove she didn’t need anyone, but this isn’t you.
You live your life as a unit. Your teammates and your family would like to be there for you as you take this huge step. ”
She was right. I’d never thought about getting married, but if I had, I would have wanted my people—the people I trusted with both my life and well-being—to be there with me.
But the situation wouldn’t allow it, and that was the one piece I couldn’t tell her.
No one could know the baby wasn’t mine. No one. Not even the people we trusted most.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not budging on tonight. This is the way we’ve chosen to handle it.”
“Handle it.” She frowned again. “Like it’s an assignment.”
Fuck. It was. But it also wasn’t. I inhaled deeply, moved closer, and dropped my arm around her shoulders. “I love her, Mom.”
Her eyes filled instantly. She nodded. “I know. Mothers know these things.” She patted my cheek softly. “Your dad is trying to make it home by tomorrow night, but he can’t see Adam at the prison until one o’clock. Wait one or two days more. Let him be here for both of you.”
“I’m not waiting for Dad. I’m not waiting for anyone. I promised her we wouldn’t waste another day. If we tell everyone, they’ll all demand to be here, and I’m done listening to anyone else’s demands when it comes to Fallon.”