Bedroom Diplomacy(37)
“I will, and thanks again.”
One night before the senator came home, and then they were back to their pool house rendezvous until he went back to England.
When Rowena tucked Dylan into bed, he asked, “I gedda a big-boy bed?”
“Guess what? Mommy ordered you a big-boy bed, and it will be delivered in two days,” she said, holding up two fingers.
His eyes went wide and his mouth formed a perfect O. “Not a baby bed?”
“Nope. A real bed. Two more sleeps and it will be here.”
“Yeah!”
She knew that wait would probably feel like an eternity, so she told him, “You have to promise that until then you will not try to climb out of your crib. You could hurt yourself.”
“’K, Mommy.”
“You promise?”
He nodded. “Pwomise.”
Despite that promise, she walked into his room the next morning to find him sitting on the floor playing with his blocks.
“I cwimed out, Mommy!” he said, excited and beaming with pride. He was just too young to grasp the danger, and since scolding him hadn’t worked the first time, she didn’t bother now. Before he went to bed that evening, she would take the mattress out of the crib and have him sleep on the floor for a night, until his big bed arrived. He would be safer that way. And the baby gate she’d ordered to keep him in his room would arrive this afternoon.
Dylan wasted no time telling everyone at day care about the new bed he was getting, and she had never seen him look more proud.
“So, you finally caved,” Tricia said after the morning snack, while they watched the kids darting around on the playground.
Rowena told her about the crib fiasco and how she didn’t have a choice. “I’m not ready for him to grow up.”
“Ready or not, you can’t stop it.”
“I know. I wish he could be a baby forever.”
“You know, you could just have another baby. Speaking of, how is Colin feeling?”
Rowena shot her a look. “That’s not funny.”
“Did he spend the night again?” she asked, her tone dripping with innuendo.
“He didn’t. He insisted that I sleep in my own bed.”
“And there wasn’t room enough for two?”
“And wouldn’t it have been fun explaining that one to Dylan?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I see your point. So you guys are still just having a no-strings-attached affair?”
“Yup.”
“And that’s enough for you?”
“Even if I wanted more than that, he’s going to be gone soon.”
“What if he asked you to go with him?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“But what if he did?”
“Relationships are really hard, and they take tons of work. And after all that, most don’t even last. The last thing I want to do is get out from under my father’s thumb and jump under someone else’s. I just want to be…me. Take care of myself and Dylan. I just need to know that I can.”
“It’s going to be hard leaving the day care, huh? This is your baby.”
Tears burned Rowena’s eyes. The way they did every time she imagined leaving this place and all the amazing children she had come to love, who she had watched grow and change for almost two years. But if she was going to leave, there was no doing it halfway.
“I’m working this weekend to get the spare room all cleared out.”
“If you need help, let me know.”
“Won’t this weekend be Colin’s last weekend here?”
“That’s the plan.”
“So where would you rather be? With him, or cleaning with me?”
“Good point.”
“You know, it’s going to happen, Row. You’re going to meet a man who loves and appreciates you, someone who will be an awesome father to Dylan. And you will get your happily ever after.”
Rowena didn’t bother telling her that fairy-tale endings didn’t happen in real life.
Not in her life anyway.
*
Colin had a problem, and currently she was curled up against him, warm and soft and sexy with her head on his chest. It felt as if Rowena were made to fit against him, and the most disturbing part, the thing that should have had him throwing on his clothes and getting the hell out, was that it wasn’t disturbing at all.
A serious romantic relationship was something he’d always gone out of his way to avoid. Not that women hadn’t tried to tie him down. He just never saw the point.
Get on, get busy, get off, get out.
Crude as it might have been, it was the motto he and his mates lived by. Why would they tie themselves down to one woman when there were so many other fish in the sea? But one by one over the years, he had watched his friends begin to marry off, have families. He was the only one who seemed to be at a standstill.