Chapter 35
Joel
“Make sure that piece of horse shit has the worst flight back,” I tell Micah’s employee that’s come to collect Ellyn’s son-in-law.
He grunts out an assurance, knowing exactly what I mean. When Jake finally does regain consciousness from my punch, he’s not going to have an enjoyable Christmas Eve.
“I’m going back to check on dinner and the women,” Ace says, knowing that all three of their wives are probably chomping at the bit to know what happened.
Especially Jodi, Micah’s wife. As a trained private investigator and pretty good shot, I know she is probably already armed and ready to cause a scene if she knew what happened just now.
I watch all three of my boys go off and then head up to Ellyn’s front door. She pulls it open even before I have a chance to knock.
A gust of air rushes from me when she throws herself into my arms. I instantly hug her to my body, kiss the top of her head, and stroke her back.
It took all of my strength not to snap her son-in-law’s neck the minute I heard him talking to her or her daughter the way he was.
“Are you alright?” She pulls back, her eyes round and wide with concern.
“I should be asking you that question,” I reply, then cup her face. I look her over, searching for even the smallest of signs that the son of a bitch put his hands on her.
“I’m … better now.”
“I knew something was wrong,” I admit. “I should’ve been over sooner.”
She wrinkles her forehead. “How did you know?”
“You missed our six o’clock call,” I tell her. “No matter what’s been going on this week, you’ve never missed our calls.”
Even with our limited time together this week between family interferences, not one call time went missed.
“I texted a couple of times before our call time because the kids wanted to see if you could come over for dinner.”
I immediately clamp my lips together. I hadn’t meant to add that last part on. My grandkids and daughters-in-law have been asking for days for Ellyn and her daughters and grandkids to come over, but I’ve put them all off.
Ellyn had said Shanice wasn’t ready to interact much with people outside of her mother and sister, and I knew Ellyn wouldn’t want to be apart from her daughter for too long.
It also wasn’t my place to tell them why Shanice was reluctant or what happened between her and her husband.
“Oh,” Ellyn says, looking up at me. Then she smiles. “That’s sweet of them, but—”
“W-We should do it,” a soft voice comes from behind Ellyn.
We both look back to find her oldest daughter standing in the entryway between the hallway and the living room. Her shoulders are slightly slumped and the expression on her face is something between sadness and hope.
“Um …” Shanice looks around, searching for her words. “I mean, Mr. Townsend, it’s my fault my mom hasn’t had a lot of time to spend with you the past few days.”
“Shanice, don’t say—” Ellyn stops talking when Shanice holds up her hand, silently begging for the room to speak.
“Mom, you told us how much you love him just today.”
Ellyn gives me a look over her shoulder, and I tighten my hold on her, pulling her against my side to again kiss the top of her head.
I look up in time to see a whisper of a sad smile cross Shanice’s face.
“I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get to spend Christmas Eve with the man you love. And, well, Mr. Townsend, I made bread pudding earlier and I would love to share it with you all to say thank you for what you just did tonight.”
I glance down at Ellyn and then shake my head at Shanice. “You do not have to thank me for anything. You’re Ellyn’s family, which makes you my family. And I, and my boys, protect our family.”
Shanice looks away, blinking a couple of times. When she turns back to face us, the sheen in her eyes is evident.
“Thank you,” she says before clearing her throat.
“Is Daddy still here?” Randy comes running out from the hallway into the living room. I recognize him from the pictures Ellyn’s shown me of her grandson.
A somber expression passes over Shanice’s face before she kneels down before him.
“Daddy had to leave,” she tells him. “He won’t be able to spend Christmas with us this year. But Mr. Townsend has invited us over to have Christmas Eve dinner with his family. How does that sound?”
“Mr. Townsend?” the little boy says and looks over at me with confusion in his brow.
I drop my arm from around Ellyn and move closer, getting lower to the ground so I’m not hovering over the boy.
“I’m a friend of your grandmother’s,” I say in a low voice.
His eyes go wide.
“Are you the man she spent the night with?”
Ellyn and Shanice both gasp.
“Randy?” Shanice grasps his shoulders. “Where did you hear that?”
He looks at his mom innocently. “Grandma told me she watched a mommy horse give birth to a baby horse with her friend overnight.”
He looks at me, excitement in his eyes. “Is that you, Mr. Townsend? Do you really have horses?”
I push out the breath I’d been holding on a laugh.
“I sure do,” I reply. “Tomorrow night you’ll get to meet some of them,” I tell him. “Maybe if your mom says you’ve been a good boy, you can ride them during our neighborhood Christmas celebration.”
“Can I, Mom?” He jumps up and down on his tiptoes.
“We’ll see,” Shanice says, rising to her feet, her face appearing relieved.
“How about we start with dinner?” I ask.
“I’ll grab the bread pudding,” Meghan declares from behind her sister before scurrying off to the kitchen.
I turn to Ellyn, taking her hand into mine and kissing the outside of her palm. “Looks like we do get to spend Christmas Eve together.”
She squeezes my waist in a brief hug and tilts her head back so that I can press a brief kiss to her lips before she releases me.
Within the next ten minutes, Parker comes running up to us, greeting Ellyn before taking her by the hand.
“I knew you would come. I told you, Mommy,” she tells Savannah.
Savannah swats Parker away and moves in to embrace Ellyn, her two daughters, and Randy and baby Charlotte.
Needless to say, they’re all greeted warmly, and Jodi and Meghan take a special liking to one another. We all eat dinner and talk while laughing at Amelia and Charlotte who look on at one another like anomalies.
After about a half an hour, it’s as if they’ve processed that the other is a baby, just like them, and they begin laughing and playing with one another. Especially when someone turns on Ms. Rachel.
“Ms. Ellyn, can you tell us how you knew you were in love with Dad?” Savannah asks, looking between Ellyn and me with a gleam in her eyes.
“Yeah, Mom. You never told us about the moment you knew,” Meghan says before popping an olive into her mouth. “Because for the past few years you kept telling me there was no chance of you falling in love again,” she adds.
“Meghan, hush up,” Ellyn chides, making all of us laugh.
“She is kind of right, Mom,” Shanice, who mostly remained silent throughout dinner, adds.
“Yeah, you never shared with me what it was either,” I goad.
Gasping, Ellyn tightens her hand on my thigh. “You’re teaming up with them, too? Against me?”
I shrug and chuckle, but then lean in and kiss her. “I’ll tell you when I knew if you tell me when you knew.”
The entire table cheers and urges us on.
Ellyn rolls her eyes playfully.
“He knew my favorite cake,” she says, looking at everyone before turning back to face me. “The moment you placed that slice of coconut cake in front of me on our first date.”
“Wow, your first date?” Jodi asks. “That’s early. How about you, Joel?”
“The moment I picked you off of that bathroom floor,” I confess.
Ellyn’s eyes widen. “You’re lying.”
I shake my head. “I was halfway there the moment you argued with me from your front lawn about not putting decorations up for Christmas.”
She groans. “Yeah, well, we all see how well that turned out.”
I chuckle along with the rest of the table.
“But when I saw you on that floor in the bathroom, looking helpless but also full of pride while bickering with me, I knew,” I say, looking her directly in the eye.
“That was the moment I knew I could no longer keep my vow of never loving or marrying another woman.”
Ellyn’s eyes fill with tears at the same time someone around us whispers, “Marriage?”
But I don’t bother to look around to see who’s just asked that question. Instead, I lean in to brush my lips against Ellyn’s, knowing this is the woman I want to spend the rest of my Christmas Eves and Christmas mornings with.