Chapter 27 Natalie #2
“Hey, Cillian,” Paul says. “Merry Christmas. I thought you screwed things up with my mom, but I’m glad you’re here.” He high fives him and walks through the kitchen and down the hall, like it’s no big deal.
“I did screw up,” Cillian says. “And I’m so sorry. Look, it’s not any excuse, but I’m an only child. I don’t have lots of cousins to set me straight, either. My family was all like Aunt Clara. No kids or if they were lucky, maybe just one.”
“Yeah, but this—”
“Can I finish?” His eyes are big and wide, like that ill-advised puppy I couldn’t bring myself to return.
I sigh. “Sure.”
“You are everything I never had, and everything I didn’t even realize I wanted—I needed—until you were gone.
I’m going to make a lot of mistakes. I’m going to do really stupid things, like buy.
. .” He clears his throat. “Things that you don’t want without asking.
Then I’ll learn, and I’ll try to do better.
” He bites his lip. “I can’t cook. I can’t decorate.
My house looks like a model home, because the people I pay turned it into that, but that’s not what I want.
I hate everything about it. I like being here.
That’s why you’d never seen my place. I don’t even like my place.
I listed it without caring. It was a place to sleep, but I never lived there.
I’m not sure I’ve ever lived anywhere until I met you. ”
Vanessa has walked in behind him, and her eyes look like saucers. “Whoa, you’re moving in here, now?”
Trace whistles. “That’s awesome, dude, congrats.”
“No!” I shout. “He’s selling his place to buy a house. No one’s moving in here.”
Cillian laughs. “But thanks for the support, kid.”
“Any time.” Trace does this weird head bob thing.
Cillian does it back.
Men are bizarre. Sometimes I wonder if the y chromosome warps their brains.
“Look, I know you have a lot going on.” The timer goes off, and Cillian winces.
I pull out the cherry pie. “It’s fine. Finish up.”
“I don’t want to finish,” he says. “That’s the thing. I want to be here with you and your amazing family. I want to eat burned rolls, if I make you burn them, and I want—”
“Wait, did you burn the rolls?” Hannah jogs into the kitchen, her face stricken. “Really? That’s the best part.”
“The rolls are fine.” I exhale and my hair fluffs up, blessedly getting some air on my now-sweating neck. “Can someone open a window? All the ovens are making me really hot.”
“Are you sure it’s the ovens?” Vanessa waggles her eyebrows.
“Oh. My. Word.” I spin around. “Vanessa, you can watch the mushrooms, the rolls, and the ham, right?” I grab Cillian’s arm, and I pull him out the front door, without waiting for Vanessa to confirm.
We nearly plow over Samantha. Her eyes widen. “You.”
Cillian smiles. “I’m trying to do penance.”
She scowls. “What exactly did you do?”
“I sold my car and got that.” He points. “I have a car full of presents for people, including that bridle you talked about, the one with the sparkly bits on the browband. Halter Ego, I think is the company.”
Samantha’s beaming, now. “Well done. Carry on.” She winks at him as she squeezes past.
“Judas!” I shout.
“Oh, please.” She’s smirking. “You’d have sold me out for a Halter Ego bridle, too. Admit it. Especially when he’s clearly really trying.” The sadness behind her eyes breaks me.
I’ve been waiting all day for Richard, and instead we get Cillian.
But the second Sam’s gone, Cillian grabs my arms, and he pulls me close, and he kisses me. His mouth moves slowly against mine. His body presses against me from our shoulders to our waists. His arms wrap so tightly around me that I sink against him.
Then he presses closer.
My heart races.
My knees buckle.
And my toes actually curl.
He finally releases me. “Natalie, don’t push me away, not just for being stupid.
All men are stupid, but I’m trying really hard, and I promise I’ll keep trying hard forever.
” He brushes his hand against my cheek. “I’m greedy, and I’m juvenile, and I’m ignorant when it comes to kids and parenting, and I focus too much on work, but until recently, work has been the only thing I had.
” He kisses me again. “Now I have more, and I swear, Natalie, I want it. All of it.” He stares into my eyes.
“I want you and everything that comes with you.”
I sigh.
“Please give me another chance.”
“I returned your Christmas gift,” I say. “So there’s nothing in there for you, if that’s what this is about.” But I can’t quite help my smile.
“So that’s a yes?” He’s beaming now.
And then I hear cheering from inside the house. When I turn sideways, literally everyone is crammed into the two kitchen windows. So much for privacy.
“Are you sure you’re okay with everything that comes along with being with me?”
He chuckles, and it’s super hot.
“I am.”
Sam trips and drops the mushrooms.
Vanessa isn’t paying attention and burns the third pan of rolls.
Paul waits too long and doesn’t make it to the bathroom in time.
A half-dozen other things go wrong as we prepare for Christmas dinner, but I don’t even care.
Because everything that really matters to me is right here.
So when, after the kids leave to ogle the pile of presents, searching for their names, and the adults stay in the kitchen to clean up from the meal, I’m happy.
Really, really happy.
Cillian walks up behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist. He presses a kiss to my cheek. “Thanks for forgiving me.” He raises his voice. “And thanks for supporting my efforts at regaining her forgiveness.”
Samantha laughs. “I had no choice.”
“Why?” I ask. “You can buy yourself a bridle. Let’s be honest.”
“Oh, I have. But you can never have too many sparkly bridles.”
I can’t argue with that.
“Seriously though, I also need you guys to support me.” Samantha grimaces. “I, um, did something crazy today.”
Shoot. Did she take Richard back, after all my big talk? “What?”
“Yeah.” Vanessa sets down the baking sheet she was rinsing. “What?”
“I applied online with an agency. . .to adopt a baby.”
“You—what?” Vanessa looks stunned.
I think about it for a moment. Probably too long. I should be supportive, but I have to try on the idea. She broke up with her boyfriend, a boyfriend she really liked. She just got divorced, over the summer. And she’s moved to Ireland.
It’s all happening really fast.
But she’s wanted this for two decades, so in that regard, this is really slow. I think about it for a moment, really think about it. “You’re adopting yourself, just you?”
She nods.
And she looks happy about it.
Delighted, really. Her eyes are bright, and her whole face is hopeful.
“I think that’s brilliant,” I say. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“I think whatever Natalie things,” Cillian says.
“Wise man,” Vanessa says. “I tend to agree with her most of the time anyway, at least, to her face.”
I laugh.
“But even if she weren’t here, I’d say it’s a bloody brilliant idea,” Cillian says. “You’re going to be an amazing mother. Any bio-mom would be very wise to choose you for her baby.”
It hits me then that it’s exactly what adoption is—someone has to choose you to ensure the happiness of the child they aren’t keeping. That’s a lot of trust. “They couldn’t choose a better mother.” I smile. “I’m happy for you.” And mad at Richard, but that’s a different issue entirely.
We eat dessert to celebrate her news, and then we open gifts, and we generally have an amazing night.
Cillian’s just leaving when I realize that Mason never showed.
We didn’t really need the cheeseball, but after Cillian’s gone and the kids are in bed, I’m royally miffed to have to drive over to his place to pick up the puppy for tomorrow morning.
Freaking jerk.
If he got drunk and passed out, I’m going to kill him.
But when I reach his place, he’s not alone. There’s another car in the drive. I really am an idiot. How did this not occur to me? I jog up to the door, half-mortified I’m going to have to interrupt whatever this is, when I realize the front door isn’t even closed fully.
He’s arguing with someone, and I can hear it.
I freeze when I realize I know that voice.
It’s my former best friend Tiffany.
“—course the boys are yours. I can’t even believe you’re asking that. You had to have known they were yours. As if my husband could have fathered them.”
“Tiffany, you have a life in Austin. You have a home, and now you’re free to do what you want.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me here, that you don’t want be close to your boys?”
I shift so I can see through the crack in the door. I have to widen it, just a bit, but I can see them, backlit by the kitchen lights.
“Can you keep your voice down?” Mason hisses. “You’re going to wake them up, and imagine how they’ll feel if they hear your wild accusations?”
“What’s next, Mason?” she shrieks. “Do you know how hard it was for me to get here, eight months pregnant?” She wraps her hands around a very large belly. “But now that my useless husband is finally dead, I’m free, and you aren’t getting out of everything this time.”
I’ve become so distracted that I nearly fall over when I feel something warm on my foot. The stupid puppy Cillian bought has crept away from the anger and yelling, and now he’s peed on my foot. I can’t blame him, really. I’m at least as upset as he is.
I crouch down and pick him up, and then, like the coward I am, I sneak back out to my car. It shouldn’t surprise me to hear that Mason’s the father of Tiffany’s boys, but somehow, it does. I’m literally shaking as I drive back to my place.
The math isn’t hard to do.
Eight months pregnant means Mason fathered that child. . .while I was here in Ireland, maybe even the day I saw them together. That child is going to be my kids’ half-sibling, just like Tiffany’s boys. And judging from her words earlier, she’s not about to drag Mason back home.
I think she’s moving here.
My Irish escape is starting to feel like some kind of terrible Irish prison, and even though today was one of the happiest I’ve had in a long time, I sit down in the kitchen with a fuzzy puppy on my lap, and I bawl my eyes out.