Chapter 34
Emma
The secret lake is showing off today.
It’s glittering under a bright blue sky. There’s a soft breeze coming off the water, rustling the pine needles and bringing a scent of ponderosa pine with them.
Butterscotch.
I haven’t smelled them in almost three years without thinking about Jonas. He still smells like butterscotch too.
White fluffy clouds drift by overhead while we sit in the shade of a willow tree, and all is peaceful as Bash drifts off to sleep on the picnic blanket.
We’re not the only people out here, but everyone else is local. They’re friends.
While they give me a second glance after realizing exactly who Bash and I have hiked out here with, they all play it relatively cool and leave it at nice to meet you when I introduce Jonas.
They also give us a wide berth, picking spots far enough away around the two-acre lake to give us privacy after introductions.
I know Sabrina has dirt on every single one of them, but I also know that when I request that my friends, neighbors, and acquaintances here please respect our privacy, they will.
Sabrina and Laney aren’t the only people around here who feel like they need to take care of me, and taking care of me involves making sure I never go viral again.
Plus, the security guy trailing us at a distance is a little scary.
And not just because he saw me half-naked waving down a bear that he was ready to take out last night.
Bash sighs his I am dead to the world, completely fast asleep for my nap sigh, and I smile down at his little face. “Sleep well, little one,” I whisper.
“Two speeds,” Jonas murmurs with an amused smile as he, too, watches Bash sleep. “Stop and go.”
“Were you two speeds when you were his age?”
“No idea. I know I crawled under a table of food in the middle of a shoot and fell asleep there once when I was two or three, but I don’t know if I was stop and go about it.”
“That must’ve scared everyone.”
“One of the crew saw me duck under the table and made sure my mom knew I was there. Still have the pictures somewhere. Apparently I took a donut with me and cuddled it.”
“Have you ever been alone?”
His expression goes thoughtful. “I don’t know that I ever wanted to be.”
“Never?”
“It’s also possible I have an unusual expectation of what alone means.”
“How so?”
“Alone to me always meant give me an hour . Or I’m going home to sleep and I’ll be back first thing . But for the past twenty years, anytime Hayes says he wants to be alone, he means I’m disappearing for at least a month and I don’t want to see any of your faces or I’ll claw my own eyeballs out .”
I start to smile, but he doesn’t. “Seriously?”
“We are complete and total opposites. Makes me feel like my version of alone isn’t alone at all.”
“Does his wife know?”
That earns me a laugh. “She’s the exception to his leave me alone rule.”
Bash snores softly.
He is out .
Not really a surprise. He insisted on walking the entire trail out here himself, and then devoured two fried chicken drumsticks and an entire container of chickpea salad.
He’ll probably grow two inches next week.
“Are you comfortable being alone?” I ask Jonas.
“Mostly.” He flashes me a grin. “Until I don’t want to be anymore.”
“Has it been hard hiding from the world the past few weeks?”
He glances out at the lake. We’re sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder. I could lean into him or hold his hand or rest my head against his without disturbing Bash.
“No,” he finally says. “Not since you opened a door and let me in.”
I’m blushing.
I can feel it, and I can’t stop it.
Which is ridiculous.
I practically begged him to give me an orgasm in the hot tub last night. We have a child together. I know he likes me. I know he knows I know. I like him, and I know he knows that too.
But it’s been a long, long time since I had full faith in anyone’s insistence that my presence in their life made it better.
In a man’s insistence that my being in their life made it better.
It’s not something I thought I’d trust again after Chandler.
“I like you,” I whisper, “and I’m terrified you’ll get bored of us.”
Those warm brown eyes shift to look at me head on. “If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”
“Right now?”
“No. With your life. In general.”
I blink. “I—I don’t know.”
“Lifelong dreams?”
“Being a mother.”
He aims a tender smile at Bash, then back at me. “Anything else?”
There is.
There’s something else I’ve always wanted, but I shake my head.
He lifts his brows.
I shake my head again. “I don’t want you to give me things just because you can.”
That doesn’t ruffle his feathers in the least.
Actually, I’m not sure anything short of a bear climbing into a hot tub with us or a chicken scaring the crap out of him at seven in the morning could ruffle his feathers.
“If I could do anything in the world,” he says, holding eye contact without blinking, “I’d take you and Bash to Razzle Dazzle Village to watch him ride the kiddie roller coaster.”
Razzle Dazzle Village has been on my not a fucking chance list for about two and a half years. But I’ve told Laney and Sabrina more than once that as soon as Bash is old enough to appreciate it, I want to take him to Universal Studios or Disneyland.
I’ve even been saving for it. A little here, a little there, knowing it’ll take a few more years before he fully enjoys and remembers the experience.
At least.
“If I could do anything in the world, I’d buy you Sabrina’s grandparents’ house and build you a bigger chicken coop and install a maybe not as extreme hot tub in the backyard.”
I squeak a small protest. “ Who told you ?”
Truth? I shouldn’t have any interest in that house. It’s also Chandler’s grandparents’ house.
But I loved the house before I even knew who he was. And I have so many more memories there of Laney and Sabrina and me than I do of Chandler and me.
He rarely took me there.
Sabrina did far more often.
“You did,” Jonas says. “In Fiji.”
“You are not ?—”
“Yet,” he finishes. Smugly. “I’m not buying you a house yet .”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Would that make you happy?”
“I hear it needs a lot of work.”
Sabrina’s family has used it as a vacation rental property since her grandmother passed away and her grandpa moved into a retirement community. And I’m guessing Grey or Theo told Jonas it’s still in the family. Or possibly the triplets.
I nod at him. “It does.”
And there’s that smile again. That world-class, happy-go-lucky, rob-me-of-my-breath smile. “Do you know I’ve never had the chance to try to fix things on my own before? It’s fun . I like it. I think that’s some of what I always loved about acting. I get to learn something new with every role.”
“Sounds fun.”
“That part was. But the Razzle Dazzle films—they started to get old. Monotonous. Wasn’t new anymore.
Wasn’t anything left to learn. Even the biopic on Darwin?
Once I learned everything I could about his life, it was still just acting.
The idea of renovating and fixing up an old house?
Turning it into a home? For you and Bash? Yeah. That would make me happy.”
My pulse cranks up to eleven. “What about when it’s done?”
He glances out at the lake again, then back at me. “Seems like there might be another thing or seventy-six to learn around here. Anything in the world, Emma. Big or small. No limits. What would you do?”
I don’t know what Emma of yesterday would want.
I don’t know what Emma of tomorrow might dream up.
But Emma of right now wants one thing.
And I’m not ready to ask for it.
Not directly.
I look down at Bash and brush his light hair off his sleep-warmed forehead. “Can you really keep the media away?”
“Not completely, but?—”
I try to suppress a small shiver and don’t quite succeed.
He notices.
I know he notices because he scoots closer and links his hand in mine.
“ But ,” he continues, “I have all of the resources in the world to help make it more bearable.”
“Private jets and homes on every continent,” I murmur.
He squeezes my hand. “Yes, but I meant media specialists and coaches and therapists.”
I glance back up at him. There’s no judgment, no silent you were too weak last time coming from him.
Just a man getting caught glancing at my lips before he lifts his gaze back up to meet my eyes.
“I’ve had media training since I was born,” he says quietly.
“My parents knew if I was going to be in the spotlight, I needed to be able to handle it mentally. They gave me all of the tools I needed. They did the same for Hayes, but we’re built different.
Just are. Complete opposites, the two of us.
No matter where you and Bash fall on that spectrum of what you can, will, can’t, and won’t tolerate, I’ve got you covered. We’ve got you covered.”
We .
I haven’t met his parents, but his brother and sister-in-law have welcomed Bash and me. They’ve supported us too. The same way I’d expect Theo and Laney to welcome anyone into my life. The way I expect them to welcome Jonas .
So long as he keeps passing all of the tests and not raising red flags.
“You still ran away from it too,” I whisper before I can stop myself. “You ran away from the press to hide in Fiji.”
“Didn’t say that’s never an option. Just that it doesn’t have to be the only tool in your tool kit.
What you went through was awful. If it’d been me in your shoes then, even with a lifetime of being trained to handle that kind of attention, I would’ve been on a private jet going somewhere even more remote and secluded the minute I left the altar.
It won’t be that bad again, Emma. And if it is, we have those houses on every continent to escape to while the noise dies down. ”
My pulse has climbed onto a wild horse and is racing erratically.
Can it be that simple?
Not that coaching and counseling and training is simple . You can’t just become unafraid of something because someone tells you oh, just ignore it .
I know it’ll be a process.