Authors: Theresa Ragan
For the first time since he’d told Sandy he would watch Lexi, she stopped smiling and that worried him. “How angry is she?”
“I don’t think Jill was ever angry, maybe just a little sad because she’s never been loved the way she wants to be loved. She certainly doesn’t believe you would ever come for her.”
“She’s not exactly waiting by the phone.”
“No, she couldn’t do that again. She didn’t want to go tonight, but she had to go. Self-preservation and all that jazz.”
His heart dropped to his stomach. He felt warm. He took his jacket off and hung it over his arm. “I had to go for the interview otherwise I would have had nothing to offer her and Ryan when I returned.”
“She only wants you.”
“I don’t think she’d mind a little help putting Ryan through college later.” He exhaled. “What time is Jill supposed to be home?”
“She didn’t say.”
“What time are you going to be home?”
“It depends on how things go.”
Derrick couldn’t remember the last time Connor went out with a woman. It was going to be a long night. “Why am I getting the sinking feeling this might not go as well as I thought?”
She laughed at his expense, said goodbye to Lexi one more time, and then headed out the door. Before he could close it, she whispered, “Did you bring a ring?”
He nodded.
Her eyes brightened. “Well, good luck then. You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks.”
~~~
Not long after Sandy left, Derrick moved Ryan, Lexi, and all of her toys over to his apartment so he could get out of his suit and into something more comfortable. For over an hour he’d been watching Lexi hang onto the back of his couch as she jumped up and down. The girl refused to run out of energy. He’d never seen anything like it. Just watching Lexi from his seat on the couch made him tired.
It was nine o’clock.
Where was Jill
?
If she and Nate were only friends, she would have been home by now.
“Howiewood?”
“Yes, Lexi?”
“Can I have more ice cream yet?”
“No way. You already had some and your mom said no ice cream.”
She stopped jumping long enough to turn toward him. She pointed an accusing finger at him and her eyes narrowed. “You are in wots of trouble, mister.”
“Story of my life.”
She turned back toward the window and started jumping again.
“Is Jill home yet?” he asked her.
“Nope,” Lexi said. “Wanna pway more Barbies?”
“No. Ken’s tired. He went on vacation, remember?”
She stopped moving again and looked toward the ceiling. “I think I hear him coming back.”
Derrick followed suit and looked toward the ceiling too. “I don’t think so. He’s in Hawaii right now. I’m pretty sure he rented once of those underwater cages so he could watch the sharks swim by.”
She grinned, a Cheshire cat grin. Then she jumped off the couch and ran down the hall. Fifteen seconds later, she was back with Barbie and Ken. This time she handed him Barbie and kept Ken for herself. She pressed Ken’s face against Barbie’s plastic face and said, “Pweaze marry me.”
He did his best imitation of a high girly voice. “No way, Jose.”
“Why not? I wuv you.”
“For starters, you’re too skinny. I think you eat too many vegetables.”
“I wike brocowi,” she said in Ken’s voice.
“I can tell.”
“I’m Ken,” Lexi reminded Barbie next. “I’m perfect.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
“If you don’t marry me I’m going to eat more ice cream.”
“If I give you more ice cream, Ken,” he squeaked as he moved Barbie’s arms, “then will you go back on vacation and stop asking me to marry you?”
“Yes,” Lexi said.
“It’s a deal.” They both threw down their dolls and ran to the kitchen laughing.
~~~
It was after midnight when Derrick finally heard Jill’s voice outside her apartment. He moved closer to the window, disappointed to see that Nate had decided to walk her to the door.
His window was partially open and he heard Nate say something.
He cringed when Jill laughed and laid a hand on his arm. Nate leaned forward.
Derrick jumped to his feet and ran to the door. The man was going in for the kill.
He opened the door in time to see Nate pick something up from the ground.
“Look at that,” Nate said. “Find a penny, pick it up, and all that day you’ll have good luck.” He looked toward Derrick’s open door. “He’s back.” He tossed the penny back on the ground.
Derrick ignored him. “It’s cold out there,” he said to Jill. “Where’s your coat?”
Jill peered into the dark toward his apartment. “Is that you, Derrick?”
“Of course it’s me. It’s after midnight,” he told her in case she didn’t know.
Jill stood on tiptoes and whispered something into Nate’s ear.
Nate kissed her cheek, sighed, and headed back the way he came, walking quietly down the stairs before disappearing into the night.
Jill turned toward him. Even in the dark he could see her eyes glowing like a wild beast in the night. “You just ruined my date,” she said.
“According to Sandy, the two of you are just friends.”
“God, she has a big mouth.” She shuffled around inside her purse for her keys.
“Ryan and Lexi are asleep in my apartment. They’re in Ryan’s room.”
“Where’s Sandy?”
“I bribed her to leave Ryan with me. If you’re going to get angry with anyone, it should be at me.”
“Okay, I’m mad at you then. You have no right to just pop in whenever you feel like it and take my son. I don’t like that.”
“It won’t happen again.”
She crossed the hall and walked toward him.
He was inside. She was outside. They stood there for a moment, face to face, nobody saying a word.
“What do you want, Derrick?”
He raised a hand to the doorframe. “I’ll tell you what I don’t want.”
“I’m listening.”
“Life has a way of passing you by if you don’t take charge and make every moment count. I don’t want my son to knock on my door eighteen years from now and ask me why the hell I didn’t care enough to be a part of his life. I don’t want my son to think his father didn’t love him enough to fight for him. I don’t want to fight you, Jill. I love you. I’m glad you’re Ryan’s mother. He’s lucky to have you. Mostly, I don’t want to go to court—I won’t go to court—not because I don’t want Ryan just as much as you do or because of the money or the time it would take, but because I love my family, you and Ryan included, and I don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”
“Haven’t you talked to your family since you left the courtroom?”
“I haven’t had time. I’ve been in New York interviewing for a job.”
Her chin came up a notch. She ducked under his arm and made her way into his apartment. Without another word she began to gather Ryan’s things.
He shut the door, locked it, and then watched her pack up to go. “Where have you been?” he asked.
She grabbed the diaper bag and shoved empty baby bottles, towelettes, and a pacifier inside. Leaving the diaper bag on the floor, she walked toward the coffee table. “What do you mean?”
“Your date. Where did you go?”
She picked up the bronzed figurine sitting in the middle of the table. It had a red bow on it. “What’s this?”
“I knew you liked it when you spotted it at the art festival in town so I looked the woman up when I was in New York.”
“You bought this for me?”
He nodded.
“You remembered the artist’s name and then you went out of your way to find her?”
Judging by the serious expression on her face, he wasn’t sure what the correct answer was, but he decided to just go with his instincts. “Yes.”
She moved around the coffee table and marched toward him like a tiger newly escaped from the zoo. For every step he took backward, she took one forward until his back was against the wall. “Did you just say you loved me somewhere in that speech of yours?”
“I believe I did.”
“Then why didn’t you call me or come see me before you flew off to New York?”
“I needed to take care of a few things first. If I could do it all over again, I would have come to see you before I left. I’m a slow learner.”
“You smell like ice cream and Ryan.”
“Thanks.”
It was silent again. Silence at a time like this made him nervous. “What do you want me to do, Jill? I want to make things right between us. I do love you. In fact, if you had come home a little earlier I was going to ask you to marry me. I was wearing a suit and tie, carrying red roses, the whole nine yards.”
“I want a man who knows exactly what he wants. A man who walks into a room and can’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around me and kissing me the moment he sees me. That’s what I want. I want to be kissed for no reason at all.” She poked a finger into his chest. “I deserve to be kissed.”
“I know you do.” He gently moved the hair out of her face so he could get a good long look at her. Her face was flushed, her eyes fiery, her movements restless.
“It’s been too long since you held me in your arms.”
“Much too long.” His hand made a path over her shoulder and down her bare arm. He leaned forward and kissed her neck. “You’re beautiful.” He wasn’t thinking or analyzing or planning. He was just doing. Her skin felt soft beneath his lips.
“I want to feel desired and loved and all those things a woman should feel,” she said.
“I want you to feel that, too.” His lips made a trail upward over her chin and to the side of her mouth. They had a lot to talk about. He should stop kissing her so they could discuss what happened. They should talk about Ryan’s future and myriad other things, but he couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. The way she shivered in his arms made him crazy. The way her skin heated beneath his lips made him hunger for more.
“That feels nice,” she said.
His mouth covered hers and he kissed her again, longer and deeper this time, the palm of his hand cupping the back of her head. Then he pulled away and looked into her eyes. “Do you love me, too, Jill?”
“You know I do.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“We went to dinner at Yang Chow’s, you know, the Chinese restaurant and then he was called into the hospital and I sat in the cafeteria until he was finished.”
“Not that question, the other one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The will you marry me question.” He grabbed the black box from the kitchen counter and opened it.
“That’s quite a ring.”
“You’re quite a woman. I would get down on one knee if I could.”
“The whole bended knee thing is over-rated anyhow. You really want to get married?”
He slipped the ring on her finger before she could answer. “More than anything in the world, I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”
She looked at the ring for a long while, and then looked up into his eyes.
“It’s too late now, Jill. The ring’s on your finger.”
She laughed.
He lifted her into his arms. She felt weightless. Even with his bad knee, he knew he could carry her for miles if he needed to, but he didn’t carry her any further than his bedroom. After setting her on the mattress, he took his time removing her clothes, one piece at a time, until she had nothing else for him to take off, leaving only flawless milky skin surrounded by silky sheets and moonlight.
“I do love you,” she said as she helped him pull his shirt off.
“I love you too. Only you. Nobody else.”
“That’s good to know.”
He smiled at her as he discarded the rest of his clothes. He locked the door and then climbed onto the bed next to her and held her close. He needed Jill much more than she needed him, but he decided to save that small tidbit for later. No need to confess all at this very moment. He could wait until tomorrow to tell her he’d be lost without her. For right now, he decided, he was just going to enjoy the moment and relish in the feel of having her arms wrapped around him, knowing she loved him for who he was, hoping she would love him for years to come.
He and Jill and Ryan would go on many adventures together.
He needed to take Jill skinny-dipping before Ryan was old enough to know that his parents were up to no good. He would spend the rest of his life testing her recipes and learning to like chocolate soufflé.
Life couldn’t get any sweeter than that.
Epilogue
Nine Months Later
Jill and Derrick could not have asked for a more beautiful day to get married.
The sun was out, the clouds were few, and although it was unusually warm for May, a nice breeze kept their guests from getting too warm. The pastoral setting of the Baylor Pony Farm provided a relaxed, carefree atmosphere. As Jill made her way up the grassy aisle wearing a to-the-knee strapless chiffon wedding dress, she held tight to Phil Baylor’s arm. She was thankful to have him at her side, glad to know she could call him Dad. Her parents, devastated by Laura’s decision to join a band, still blamed Jill and thus declined any and all invitations to attend. A quick glance at Phil before he handed her off to his son revealed misty eyes and features softened from decades of love.
She kissed his fatherly cheek and thanked him for everything. Then she turned to Derrick. Although it was not part of the plan and had not been rehearsed this way, he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her as his father took a seat next to his mother.
Before joining Sandy and Aaron, who stood waiting with the family priest beneath the vine-covered trellis, Derrick gazed into her eyes and said, “How is it that you look more beautiful every day?”
She answered with a smile and then cupped his face between her palms. “You didn’t run away,” she half teased. “Thank you for that.”
“All of those ponies you see over there in the pasture couldn’t have dragged me away.”
She smiled. “No cold feet or wobbly knees?”
“My knee has never been better,” he lied, since she’d already heard that he was icing his knee all morning. “How about you?” he asked. “Feeling jittery? Are you going to faint and make me carry you the rest of the way?”