Live-In Position (45 page)

“How have you boys been? Have you been good for your mother?”

“Yes,” and “Yep,” they answered in unison.

“That’s wonderful,” she beamed at them. “What have you been up to?”

“We got to go back to Whidbey and stay with Grandma Juliet,” Michael spouted in excitement.

I groaned audibly and heard Collin’s fork fall to the table as William fell into a coughing fit.

“Uncle Collin has been letting us stay here with him until Mommy finds us a new house,” Gregory announced as they both climbed up the stools to start eating.

Ilene didn’t move or speak.

“Mother?” Collin was by her side. “Mother?” his voice rose a little as her tears started to flow. He wrapped an arm around her and walked her from the room.

“Oh,” she hiccupped, “Collin.” Her cry got louder.

“Is Grandma okay?” The boys looked up to William.

“Um, yes, she is just so happy to see you two that she has happy tears.” William dropped his face to his food and began to shovel it in.

The twins looked at William like he was crazy, then looked at each other and went back to eating. I finished cleaning up the kitchen and left to check on Victoria.

I’d been helping Victoria with her math homework for about thirty minutes when Will knocked on the open door.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to thank you for helping with dinner tonight,” he smiled.

“It’s no problem, and you don’t need to thank me,” I smiled at him. He hesitated in the doorway. “Will?”

“Um, have you heard from Allison?”

My brow furrowed.

“Uh, no.” I fought a snort. Like that woman would talk to me unless she was ordering me around. Will’s face became severe. “Is something wrong?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, she met with Jonathan a few days back and didn’t come home that night, but she showed up the next afternoon.” He leaned against Victoria’s door. I approached to talk more privately with him.

“She’s gone again?”

“She left yesterday afternoon, and I haven’t heard from her.”

“Maybe you should tell Collin about it.” He seemed to hesitate at my suggestion and then just shook his head.

“No, I’ll wait. I don’t want to piss her off.”

“But—”

“If I haven’t heard from her by tomorrow evening then I’ll talk to Dr. Bishop.”

“Okay. If you think that’s best, then okay.” I patted his upper arm.

“Thanks.” He leaned over to the side. “Good night, Miss Victoria.”

Her head whipped around and she beamed largely.

“Night, William!”

The remainder of the night was quiet. Victoria finished her homework, and after an awkward shower, keeping her cast out of the water, we sat down to read one of my favorites, “Mary Poppins,” by P.L. Travers.

A little over a quarter through the book, Victoria was fast asleep. I tucked her in, said good night, and headed for a shower. The hot water felt good, and the smell of my body wash was unusually comforting. Stepping from the shower, I dried, brushed and dressed for bed. I was settling in under the covers when Collin entered the room. He was rubbing the back of his head with a look of exhaustion.

“Is she okay?” I asked. His head came up quickly as he approached me.

“Yes, she’s fine.” He climbed onto the bed next to me, still in his suit. “Thank you.” His arm came over me, and I pulled him closer to me.

“For what?” I looked down at the top of his head. He looked up at me.

“You didn’t have to be nice to my mother, and you definitely didn’t have to offer her a place to stay.”

I leaned down and kissed his forehead. His swift movements brought him up, straddling my blanket-covered body. He pressed his lips to mine. It wasn’t a deep or long kiss, but it was perfect somehow. Pulling back, he looked down at me.

“I love you,” his words were soft but passionate.

That’s when my words from earlier this afternoon dawned on me. I told Ilene I loved her son. My face must have reflected every emotion flowing through my body because his face suddenly filled with panic.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” A grin crept over my mouth. “Say it again.”

He smirked at me for a moment.

“Say what again?”

“What you just said.” My smile grew.

“I love you.” He kissed me.

“I love you too,” I whispered against his mouth.

He stilled, and his eyes searched mine. Brightness shone in them like I’d never seen before. A large grin spread across his flawless complexion. The blanket disappeared and, eventually, so did our clothes.

VICTORIA’S AFTER SCHOOL schedule had dramatically changed with her arm injury. She still had her piano lesson, but her left hand was hindered by the cast so she wasn’t able to play as she normally did. Horseback riding was out for the rest of this year. There were still a couple of lessons remaining, but there was no way I was forcing her back onto a horse. Dance was partial observation and a little bit of footwork, but she had to be careful with her arm.

Since this would have been a horseback lesson day, we decided to make a cake. Victoria wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing and vanilla cream in the middle. I wasn’t a professional baker, so I got her to compromise on chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

“Is this how?” she asked, spreading the chocolate icing on one of the cake layers.

“Yep.” I continued to work on the other layer.

“I want it to be super thick on the top.” She grinned widely. I shook my head.

“Halloween will be coming in a week. What do you want to dress up as this year?” I rotated the plate and iced the other side of the cake.

She sighed heavily. “What can I do with this thing?” She raised her arm and tapped the cast.

“You can be whatever you want to be. It’s just a cast.” I couldn’t help but sympathize.

She still didn’t say anything.

“Do you want to be something scary?” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you want to be a princess?” She rejected that idea as well. “Um, what about a fairy?”

“Nope,” she said, popping her ‘P.’

“Well, you’re gonna have to help me out ‘cause I’m running out of ideas.” I put the cake spatula back in the bowl of chocolate icing and licked my fingers clean.

Deep wrinkles creased her forehead as she thought. Soon, her face brightened and her eyes grew large.

“What about superheroes?”

“Sure, you can be a superhero. Which one do you want to be?”

“No, I want us all to be superheroes. Like you, Will, the twins, MJ and Ryan, all of us.”

“Oh, um, I’ll have to call everyone and see if that’s something they’d like to do first.”

“Can we call them now?”

I laughed and nodded.

“You finish with the icing, I’ll make some calls.” Grabbing my phone, I sat next to her as she hummed, smoothing the icing on her layer of the cake.

“Hey, Sophia,” Amber answered happily.

“Hey, how are you?”

“Good, busy, but good. I hear you‘ve been super busy though,” she giggled.

“Huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know, soon-to-be Mrs. Bishop, I have no idea what I could be talking about.”

“He’s worse than a woman,” I laughed. “I’m gonna beat him up when he gets back here with the twins.”

“So, what’s up?”

“Victoria has a group costume idea for Halloween. She would like us all to dress like superheroes. You interested?”

“Please, please, please,” Victoria leaned into my face and pleaded into the phone.

“Tell her we’re in.”

“Thanks. Now I need to call Miranda and talk with Will.”

“I’ll talk to Will. We’re meeting up at the park in a bit. You can call Ella.”

“Will do. Bye.” We hung up and I made my next call.

Miranda was excited about the idea but worried about looking fat. She was only three months so she couldn’t be showing that much. A point I argued.

Once I confirmed everyone was in on the superhero theme, Victoria hurried out of the room and rushed back in with a costume catalogue we’d gotten in the mail.

“I want to be Supergirl.” She smiled and bounced. Halfway through the thick book, she stopped with a squeal.

“What?” I looked over her shoulder after stacking the cakes on top of each other.

“You should wear this,” she pointed to a skin-tight black suit – Catwoman.

“Um, isn’t there something a little less tight,” I asked and flipped through the pages.

“No way, this is perfect. You would look just like her.”

I shook my head. “Maybe the costume place won’t have it,” I hoped.

“Can we go tomorrow after school?” She gave me her best hopeful face.

“Sure,” I shrugged and set the cake on the counter for after dinner. Internally, I prayed to Jesus the store did not carry that costume.

My prayers were answered. The store did not have the Halle Berry version of the Catwoman outfit. However, they did have a more conservative one, if you can call it that. Black patent leather, similar to the one worn by Michelle Pfeiffer. I groaned when Victoria came running up with it.

“Honestly, can’t I be Wonder Woman or something?”

“Catwoman is better!” she insisted.

“I really don’t want to wear something that tight, Victoria. It’s just not my thing.”

“Come on,” she whined. “I even changed my costume so we would match.”

My eyes widened when she picked up a kid appropriate version of the Catwoman outfit. Now why couldn’t they make that costume in my size? I was about to protest again, but she pulled out the big guns.

“I wanted to go as mommy and daughter.” Next came the pouty bottom lip. I folded like a lawn chair.

“Give them here before I change my mind.”

“Yay!” She cheered and hurried to the register.

I could only imagine how embarrassing wearing it was going to be, but what could I do? I loved Victoria too much to disappoint her over a Halloween costume.

C
hapter
T
wenty

-SEVEN

SITTING IN FRONT of St. John’s, waiting for dismissal, I was thinking about everything that needed to be done in preparation for Halloween and prayed tomorrow’s weather would be warmer than the current fifty-four degrees. When the rear door opened, I snapped from my thoughts. It slammed shut, roughly.

I looked over the driver’s seat and back at Victoria. From the look on her face, I could tell she was angry.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t see you coming sooner.” I further examined her face and waited to gauge her reaction. She only shrugged.

“Okay, grumpy, what’s wrong?” I smiled at her and placed my chin on the back of the seat.

“I hate Thomas Grison!” Her arms came up, crossing over her chest.

“And why is it you hate this Thomas Grison so much?” I raised my brow in curiosity.

“He’s a stupid geek,” she grumbled.

“That’s not very nice.” She looked up at me in disbelief.

“He’s not very nice either!”

I nodded slowly.

“Oh-kay, wanna tell me what happened?”

She groaned. “I was talking to Laura and Becca about Halloween,” she sighed. “We were talking about our costumes so I told them how we were all going to be superheroes.” I nodded and waved my hand for her to continue.

“So, stupid Tho-mas,” she drawled out his name, “had to stick his nose in our conversation and start talking about comic books and superheroes.”

I wrinkled up my face in confusion. “Okay, so you’re mad that he butted in on your conversation?”

“No,” she continued, “I mentioned we were dressing alike and that we were dressing as Catwoman.”

“Okay, then what?” I pressed further. Her face flushed with anger.

“He told me that Catwoman is a villain not a hero. I told him she was still awesome and he kept telling me she was a bad guy.”

I hurried to cover my mouth in an attempt to hide my grin and stifle the laughter threatening to erupt.

“Well, I never thought about it, but I guess he’s right.”

She narrowed her angry eyes on me in a hard glare.

I shrugged. “What?”

“I can’t believe it. You’re just like him!” she shouted at me, and that was all I was going to take of her attitude.

“Look, I get that you are angry, but you need to calm down. Watch your tone.” I eyed her carefully.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Who cares if she is a villain? Fact remains that Catwoman is a super villain.” I winked at her. “Plus, she had Batman eating out of the palm of her hand…or, well, paw.”

She began to giggle.

“Why are you letting this boy bother you so much?”

Her shoulders rose and fell, and her eyes looked out the window. I decided to leave it alone. We would talk when she was ready. I wasn’t going to push, but something inside me told me that my little redhead may have a crush on the “stupid Thomas Grison.”

When we pulled into the driveway, I groaned at the sight of all of the cars. Both Allison and Ilene were at the house, which could not make for a pleasant atmosphere.

Allison’s reaction to Ilene staying with us put a nuclear disaster to shame. I seriously thought her head was going to pop off her shoulders. Collin had to step in before Allison physically attacked her. Thankfully, his car was in the drive as well.

Things were strangely quiet inside the house. I immediately got nervous. When I entered the kitchen, I was surprised to find Collin, Allison, and Ilene sitting around the breakfast bar. They were all upset, consoling one another. Collin was on his phone speaking too quiet and fast for me to make out his words. His eyes settled on me, and he took purposeful steps to close the gap between us.

“Wh—?” He dropped the cell phone from his ear and let his lips cut off my words.

After a few moments he released me, putting the phone back to his ear. Over his shoulder, Allison and Ilene watched us with puffy red eyes.

“What’s happened? Are the boys okay?”

Allison sniffed and nodded as I approached. Then she did something I never thought she would ever, ever do. Her arms flew out and wrapped themselves around me.

“Oh, Sophia, Daddy had a heart attack,” she sobbed.

My reactions were delayed. Tears formed and threatened to fall.

I regained my wits and looked around to make sure Victoria hadn’t followed me to the kitchen. Relieved that she had gone straight to her room, I returned my attention to Allison, who was still pinning my arms down.

“I’m so sorry. Where—?”

“He was in Whidbey with Juliet. She called once they reached the local hospital. They stabilized him and he’s on his way to Seattle.”

Pulling myself gently from Allison’s grip, I wrapped my arms around Collin and allowed my tears to finally escape.

“I’m so sorry.” My words were barely a whisper.

“I need to head to the hospital.” Collin was doing his best to hold his composure. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to break down in front of his mother or if this was just how he handled things of this nature. It was still unsettling how much we didn’t know about each other even though we lived in the same house and slept in the same bed.

“Of course.” I placed a quick kiss on the side of his mouth and began to pull away, wiping the stray tears from my cheeks. His arm wound tightly around my waist and pulled me closer to him, while his other hand spread between my shoulder blades and held me to his chest. His lips pressed to the top of my forehead before releasing me.

“Is there anything I can do?” I looked into his sad green eyes.

“Could you please…” He looked over my head to his mother and sister.

“Of course.” Turning around with a large intake of breath, I stepped over to the two women who cried without talking or touching one another.

The moment I was close enough, it was Ilene’s turn to attach herself to me. Her hands clasped onto my left hand tightly as she cried. Then Allison leaned against my right side. I finally received some personal space when Larissa rushed into the kitchen with swollen red eyes.

Allison launched herself at Larissa. I gently removed my hand from Ilene’s to start some coffee and to regain circulation.

“Max went straight to the hospital,” Larissa announced. She and Allison moved to sit next to Ilene.

“Collin left moments ago,” I said over my shoulder while spooning coffee grounds into the filter.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Amber appeared next to me.

“Should we order some food?” I wasn’t sure how soon everyone would leave for the hospital.

“Maybe for the kids?” Her response was more of a question.

I grabbed the phone and called for pizza to be delivered. They said twenty minutes, but I hoped it would be quicker.

Will arrived with the twins. Once he learned what happened, he ushered them upstairs with Victoria, MJ, and Ryan. He stayed up there to keep an eye on the kids while Amber and I tried to help the three women in the kitchen.

The pizza arrived ten minutes after Will. I paid the delivery boy and took the large pizzas into the kitchen. Surprisingly, Allison, Ilene, and Larissa all grabbed a piece, but they only nibbled on them. Coffee was their current fuel.

Amber carried a box of cheese pizza up to Will and the kids. I followed behind with the drinks.

The kids seemed to have picked up on the fact that something was wrong. They were all solemn and quieter than usual. Will suggested a carpet picnic in front of the television, which seemed to bring a little brightness to their faces. Amber stepped out to check on MJ who was napping.

“Hello?” I pulled my vibrating phone out of my pocket.

“He just arrived.” There was so much sadness and exhaustion in Collin’s voice, I ached to comfort him.

“Did anyone call your mother and sisters?”

“Not yet. Max is still back there helping to get him settled into the room,” he sighed. “Can you come down?”

“What about—”

“Bring Victoria with you. She deserves to see her grandfather, just in case.”

Fear caught in my throat. I couldn’t speak or respond. A single tear slipped over my cheek.

“Please?”

“We’ll be there soon.”

“Thank you, Sophia. I love you.”

“I love you too.” It was the only comfort I could provide.

We said our goodbyes, and I went to get Victoria ready to go. Stepping back into the kitchen, with Victoria in tow, I looked around and realized not one of them had moved.

“Where are you off to?” Ilene snapped.

“Collin called. I assumed he was calling you next.” Realization struck me. He hadn’t contacted anyone, and neither had Max

“Has he arrived?” Ilene gasped. I nodded.

“When?” Allison shouted. “Why didn’t he call us?!”

“Calm down. Let’s get going.” Larissa diffused the situation.

We arrived to the hospital quickly and swarmed toward Connor’s room. Max and Collin met us in the waiting area on the ICU floor.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” Max rushed to Larissa and wrapped his arms around her and MJ. She held him as tightly as she could with one arm.

Collin walked toward Victoria and me, but Ilene grabbed his arm.

“Is he?” She didn’t look at him.

“He’s alive and resting,” he reassured her.

“Can we see him?”

“Only two at a time. Right now, uh, Juliet is with him.” The words looked uncomfortable on his lips.

“It doesn’t matter. She’s only one, and if two can be there, I’m going in.” Ilene stepped to the double doors and pushed the automatic button.

“Mother…” Collin stepped forward, but it was too late. She stepped through the doors and the quick click of her heels echoed down the hall. I went to his side and placed my hand on the back of his arm.

He turned his head, swiftly pulling me into his embrace. Claiming my lips ferociously, all of his frustration poured into the kiss. Regardless of the inappropriate timing, my thighs flamed with desire.

“Daddy?” Victoria moved to the side of us and wrapped her arms around both of our legs, leaning in to our embrace.

Collin pulled back from the kiss as everyone settled into seats around the waiting room. He looked down to her and brought her up into his arms, squeezing her close to him. I tried to step back to give them their space, but he reached out and pulled me against them.

“Is Grandpa okay?” she whimpered.

“He’s very sick, honey, but we are hoping for the best.”

Large tears rolled over her round, freckled cheeks. I rubbed her back soothingly, kissing the side of her head.

“I think he is going to be fine.” Collin placed a finger under her chin and kissed her forehead.

The elevator doors dinged and opened behind us. Jonathan.

“What are you doing here?” Allison growled.

“Allison, Connor is family to me.”

His eyes were a hard glare, but they softened when he took in her disheveled appearance. Quickly he moved to kneel in front of her. She tried to pull away, but he grabbed her to him. “Are you okay?”