Change of Heart (25 page)

“But there are a lot more older kids than there are—”

“It doesn't have to be a baby,” Bram said, shaking his head. “Just younger than Arielle. When Kate was little, my parents fostered this older kid.” Bram swallowed hard. “He attacked her, and he could have really hurt her if Alex and I hadn't found them.”

“I've heard that story,” I murmured.

“After that, my parents didn't foster any kids older than us. So I'd just feel more comfortable if we did that. Only kids younger than Arie, okay? They don't have to be babies.”

I dropped my head to his chest and shuddered as I tried to hold back the sob in my throat. I was overwhelmed. Excited. Terrified.

Bram just held me like that, letting me get my shit together as he started rubbing his fingers over the top of my shoulders.

“Twice-a-week blow jobs,” I finally promised, raising my head. “I'll even swallow.”

My lips twitched, and Bram immediately rolled on top of me, laughing hard into the side of my neck.

H
ey, little sister,” I answered my phone as I walked out of the grocery store with a pack of diapers. Apparently Ani had forgotten to pick any up earlier in the day, and Arielle was down to her last one.

I usually didn't step foot in the grocery store—Ani preferred to do all of the shopping since I'd moved in almost a month before—but I didn't mind doing it. It seemed like Ani worked harder once she was staying home with Arielle than she ever had managing the office.

It had only taken a week for me and Trev to hire a new office manager. It was the same guy who'd filled in for Ani when Arielle was born. Even though Ani bitched about the guy doing something to her files while she'd been on maternity leave, she didn't argue when we told her he had things handled. She was so fucking ready to spend her days taking care of Arie and fixing up the house. It was a work in progress, and I hated when I'd come home to find her standing in the driveway sanding kitchen cupboards while Arie sat bundled up in her bouncy seat on the porch, but I didn't complain because she loved it and she was really good at it.

“Did you know Trevor was coming down here?” my sister asked accusingly, stealing my attention from the memory of Ani bent over those cupboards.

“Yeah,” I replied, throwing the diapers into the passenger seat of the truck. “He was going to go down a couple weeks ago, but he ended up having to push the trip back. Why?”

“Is he coming to see that woman? Henry's chick?”

“That's the plan, yeah.”

“Ugh!” Katie growled. “He refuses to give me her name!”

“That's because he doesn't want your crazy ass stalking her.”

“I wouldn't stalk her!”

“Yeah, you would.”

“Only on Facebook!”

“I rest my case, Your Honor.”

“You guys suck,” Kate huffed, and I imagined the pout she'd perfected when she was little.

“How are you guys doing?” I asked, changing the subject. “Everything good?”

“Yeah, this deployment feels longer than the other one, but we're hanging in there.”

“Thanks for the shit you sent up for Arielle,” I said, pulling into the driveway of our house. “We won't have to buy clothes for the rest of the year.”

“No prob. Shit! Gunner, get off the counter!” she yelled in my ear, making me grimace. “I gotta go, Bram. Have Ani call me.”

“Will do.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up, grabbed the diapers, and hopped out of the truck. The light from the living room lit up the front yard through the windows, and I smiled as I thought about Ani painting the bottom half of the trim on the inside when she should've been in bed. They'd looked like complete shit then, but they turned out all right when she'd finished them.

“You'll probably be taller than me,” I heard Ani say as I quietly came in the front door. Her voice was coming from the kitchen, and I could tell by the tone that she was talking to Arielle.

“Your birth mom is taller than me, and so is your paternal grandmother.”

I stopped in the doorway as I took in the sight that greeted me.

Arielle was in her swing in the corner of the dining room while Ani talked to her over the little island that separated the kitchen space from the dining space. Ani looked like she was trying to make some sort of dough—probably biscuits that would turn out hard as a rock—and her hands and face were dusted with flour. So was the shoulder of her T-shirt, which didn't surprise me because my woman was constantly on the move, and a little flour on her hands would never stop her from doing fifteen things at once.

“Your daddy is tall, so it's not like you'll tower over us like a giant or anything,” Ani said seriously while Arielle looked toward her like she was listening intently while sucking on her hands. “You're going to be gorgeous, I can already tell. You're happy and sweet, and those are the prettiest types of girls.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I murmured, startling Ani. “I like the sarcastic and rude girls.”

“You would,” Ani snorted, smiling as she rounded the counter and moved toward me.

“Hey, baby,” I murmured into her mouth as she went up on her toes to kiss me.

“Hey, did you get diapers?”

“Of course.”

“Father of the Year,” Ani teased, sliding her hands into my hair and getting flour everywhere.

“Is there a reason you're discussing birth parents with our three-month-old?” I asked, pulling back a little to look at her face.

“Bethy called today,” she said quietly, making my heart thump hard in my chest. The reaction was instinctual, even though Ani was Arielle's legal parent forever and ever, amen. “She asked me to send her a picture of Arie.”

“Did you?”

“I waited for you,” she said, one side of her mouth tipping up.

“Thank you,” I breathed, my shoulders slumping. “I don't care—send her as many as you want—but thank you for asking me.”

“Yep,” Ani chirped.

“I wish Shane would hurry the hell up and get home so we could get married,” I groaned, lifting Ani onto the counter so I could step in between her thighs.

“Only a few more months,” Ani laughed, kissing my cheek.

“You feel like kissing someplace else?” I asked as her hand slid down the front of my jeans.

Ani's eyebrows rose, but just as she opened her mouth to agree, Arielle squawked loudly from her swing. After grudgingly helping Ani off the counter, I turned toward our daughter, whose face was scrunched up in a supremely pissed expression.

As I lifted Arielle into my arms, I called over my shoulder, “We're taking a honeymoon, right?”

W
hy are we going to this shit again?” I asked my wife as she messed with her makeup in the passenger-side mirror.

“Because it's important to your cousin.”

“She's not my cousin,” I reminded her, switching lanes.

“Fine. It's important to
Kate
,” she answered, losing patience. “I don't understand why you're being a dick about it.”

“How often do we get out of the house with no kids, Rach? Rarely. I'd rather not spend our one night alone at some fucking coffeehouse filled with eighteen-year-olds.”

“Damn, you're on a roll tonight,” she murmured in annoyance. “Kate asked me to this thing weeks ago. I didn't know you'd be home.”

“Right, plans change.”

“I promised I'd go! I drop everything for you every time you come back from deployment. You know I do. I can't believe you're acting like a jackass because of
one night
that I had plans I couldn't change.”

“I highly doubt Kate wants me here,” I mumbled back, pulling into the little parking lot that was already filled with cars. “She's going to hate it when I see her crash and burn.”

I hopped out of the car and walked around the hood to help Rachel out of the car. I never understood why she insisted on wearing high-as-fuck heels while she was pregnant—it made me nervous. She looked hot as hell, but one day she was going to fall and I was terrified I wouldn't be there to catch her.

“You really have no idea, do you?” she said, laughing, as I took her hand and pulled her gently out of her seat. “How in God's name did you grow up together and you still know so little about Kate?”

“You know I didn't grow up with her.” I slammed the door shut and walked her slowly toward the small building. “I moved in when I was seventeen and left town when I was nineteen. She's not family, for Christ's sake. She's the spoiled,
weird
niece of the people who took me in for a very short period of time.”

Rachel stopped short at the annoyance in my voice. “She's my
best friend
. My only friend. And she freaking introduced us, in case you've forgotten.”

“Not on purpose.”

“What's that supposed to mean? What wasn't on purpose?”

“She was pissed as hell when we got together.”

“No, she wasn't,” Rachel argued. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. It's not important.”

“Can you please,
please
, just be nice and not act like you're being tortured when we get in there? I don't know what your deal is with her—”

“I don't have a deal with her, I just wanted to take my gorgeous wife out to dinner tonight, and instead we're going to watch her friend sing for a bunch of teenagers. Not exactly what I was hoping for.”

I reached out to cup her cheek in my palm and rubbed the skin below her lips with my finger. I wanted to kiss her, but after all the lipstick she'd applied in the car, I knew she wouldn't thank me for it.

“We'll go somewhere else afterward, okay? I think she's on first, so we won't be here long,” she assured me with a small smile, her eyes going soft. She knew I wanted to kiss her; my hand on her face was a familiar gesture.

“Okay, baby.” I leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose gently. “You look beautiful. Did I tell you that yet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you do.”

She smiled and started walking toward the building again, and I brushed my fingers through the short hair on the back of my head.

It wasn't that I disliked Kate. Quite the opposite, actually. When we were kids, we'd been friends, and I'd thought she was funny as hell. She had a quirky, sometimes weird sense of humor, and she'd been the most genuinely kind person I'd ever met. But for some reason, all those years ago, she'd suddenly focused in on me, and the attention had made me uncomfortable.

I wasn't into her, and her crush had made me feel weird, uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but shit, she just didn't do it for me. She was too clean-cut, too naive and trusting. Even then, I'd been more attracted to women who were a little harder, a little darker, than the girl who still had posters of fairies on her walls at seventeen.

So I began avoiding her as much as I could until she'd brought home a girl wearing red lipstick and covered in tattoos after her first semester in college. I'd ignored the way Kate had watched me with sad eyes as I'd monopolized her friend's time and completely disregarded her hurt feelings. I'd never liked Kate that way, and I hadn't seen anything wrong with going after her new friend.

I'd ended up married to her roommate, and from then on I'd acted like Kate and I had never been friends. It was easier that way.

“Come on, baby,” Rachel called, pulling me into the darkened coffeehouse. “I see a table, and my feet are killing me.”

Why the fuck did she insist on wearing those damn shoes?

“Can I get you anything to drink?” a small waitress asked us. Like, really small. She was barely taller than the bistro table we were sitting at.

“Can I get a green tea, please?” Rachel asked.

“Sure! The green we've got is incredible. When are you due?”

“Not for a while.”

“Well, congratulations!”

“Black coffee,” I ordered when the friendly waitress finally looked my way. Her smile fell, and I realized my words had come out shorter than I'd intended.

“Sure thing!” she chirped with a tight smile before walking away.

“Seriously, Shane?” Rachel growled in annoyance.

“What?” I knew exactly what. I'd been a jackass, but I wasn't about to explain that the crowded coffeehouse was making me sweat. People were laughing loudly, jostling and bumping into each other around the room, and I couldn't see the exits from where we sat.

“Hey, San Diego,” a familiar voice called out over the speakers. “How you guys doing tonight?”

The room filled with cheers, and Rachel's face lit up as she looked past me toward the stage.

“Aren't you sweet?” Kate rasped with a short chuckle. “I dig you guys, too.”

The crowd grew even louder, and my shoulders tightened in response.

“There's a coffee can being passed around, who's got it?” She paused. “Okay, Lola's got it now—back there in the purple shirt with the Mohawk. When you get it, add a couple dollars, if you can, and pass it on.”

The crowd clapped, and Kate chuckled again over the sound system. “I better get started before you guys riot.”

I still hadn't turned to look at her. Frankly, I didn't want to embarrass her if she sucked. I didn't—

The clear notes of a single guitar came through the speakers, and I froze as the entire room went silent. Completely silent. Even the baristas behind the counter stopped what they were doing to watch the stage as Kate began to sing.

Holy shit. My head whipped around, and I felt like I'd taken a cheap shot to the chest.

Her voice was raspy and full-bodied, and she was cradling her guitar like a baby that she'd held every day of her entire life. She was completely comfortable up there, tapping her foot and smiling at different people in the crowd as they began to sing along with her.

It was incredible.
She
was incredible. I couldn't look away. This wasn't some silly idea she'd had on the spur of the moment. She knew exactly what she was doing, and these kids knew her. They freaking loved her.

And she looked gorgeous.

Shit.

Her hair was rolled up on the sides in something Rachel had attempted a few times. I think they were called victory rolls? I'm pretty sure that's what Rach had called them when she couldn't figure them out. Her skin was smooth, and she wore deep-pink lipstick that made her teeth bright white under the spotlight. She was wearing a T-shirt that hung off her shoulder and ripped jeans that were so tight, I wasn't even sure how she'd managed to sit down.

I blinked slowly, and she was still there.

“I tried to tell you she was good,” Rachel said smugly from my side.

“Did she write that song?” I asked, turning to look at my wife.

“Babe, seriously? It's a Taylor Swift song.”

“Oh.”

“This one's a Kenny Chesney song.”

“I know this one,” I murmured, looking back toward the stage. “Does she only sing country?”

“Hell no. It's mostly other stuff, but it's usually got a theme. Tonight is obviously about kids…teenagers, since the donations are going to some stop-bullying charity.”

I nodded, but my eyes were on the stage again as Kate danced a little in her seat, tapping out the beat of the new song on the front of her guitar. Had Kate been bullied? I didn't remember anything like that, but like I'd told Rachel, I'd only stayed with Kate's aunt and uncle for a little over a year before I left for boot camp. Maybe I'd missed it. The thought made me grind my teeth in anger.

Kate pursed her bright lips then, blowing a kiss with a wink for the crowd.

My breath caught.

Jesus Christ.

I pushed my seat back from the table and grabbed Rachel's hand, pulling her over to sit on my lap.

“What are you doing?” she whispered with a laugh.

“If I've gotta stay here, I'm getting some perks.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” I leaned in and kissed her hard, ignoring the lipstick I could feel smearing over my lips. I slid my tongue into her mouth and felt her nails dig into my shoulder as she tilted her head for a better angle. God, kissing her still felt as good as it had the first time I'd done it. I hadn't known that loving someone so much was even possible before I'd met her.

“Rain check?” she asked against my lips as she reached out blindly and grabbed a couple of napkins to clean off our faces. Her face was flushed, and I wanted nothing more than to leave that fucking coffeehouse and get her alone.

My wife was the most beautiful woman I'd ever known, and it wasn't just her looks. She'd grown up like I had, scrounged and fought for every single thing she'd needed—and I was proud of the family and the life we'd built together. We'd come a long way from our nasty upbringings.

“Can we go home yet?” I replied with a smirk as I wiped my face.

“Hey, you two in the corner!” Kate called into the mike, interrupting the incredibly sexy look Rachel was giving me. “None of that, I've got kids here.”

The crowd laughed, and I glanced sharply at the stage.

Kate was smiling so brightly that she looked giddy. “That's my best friend, right there. Isn't she gorgeous?”

The crowd cheered as Rachel laughed softly in my ear and blew a kiss at Kate.

“I wanna know who the guy is!” a girl called out from across the room, making everyone laugh.

“Eh, that's just her husband,” Kate answered flatly, making the crowd snicker. She met my eyes and winked, then grinned before looking away and starting in on the next song as if she hadn't just made my stomach drop.

We watched her for almost an hour as she fucking killed it on stage. Then I ushered Rachel out of the building without saying good-bye, making excuses about wanting to beat the rush of kids.

I had the distinct impression that I knew very little about the woman I'd been avoiding for the past ten years, and I wondered how I'd missed it. She wasn't the awkward girl I remembered, or the sloppy woman in sweats and tank tops that Rachel occasionally invited over to the house when I was home.

The Kate I'd seen on stage was a fucking knockout—confident and sassy. I knew then that I'd continue to avoid her, but for an entirely different reason than I had before.