She felt a giddy rush of joy shoot through her. She wanted to be cautious, to tell herself to slow down and not take everything he said as an undeclared admission of love for her. But it was hard. She saw him now in the new light of her emotions.
"Why are you smiling at me like that?" he asked.
"You can be very nice sometimes, Dec."
"Sometimes? I thought I was nice all the time."
She just shook her head and leaned over to kiss him. She meant for it to be a light thank-you sort of buss on the lips, but instead it turned into something more. She wrapped her free arm around his shoulders and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him fully.
"Wow, if this is the reaction I get to a bunch of flowers, I'm going to give them to you every day," he said.
She stepped back. The thought of him being with her every day filled her with that same bubbly feeling. She truly felt like nothing could spoil this night and that everything in her adult life had been leading to this moment. The timer started going off in the kitchen and DJ started to cry at the same time.
"DJ or kitchen?" he asked. "I don't mind helping out with either."
"Would you mind getting DJ?" she asked. She thought he'd rather spend time with his son then try to figure out what she needed him to do in the kitchen. Besides, she wanted her dinner and dessert to be perfect.
"Not at all," he said with a grin. He seemed to smile more easily these days than he had six weeks ago, and she hoped that it was because of her.
"Do I need to do anything special to get DJ ready?"
"Um … change his diaper and I laid out a little outfit for him to wear. Can you get him dressed?"
Dec nodded. "I think I can manage."
He walked down the hall and she hurried into the kitchen, setting the daisies on the counter while she opened the freezer to scrape her icy mixture. Then she got out a vase for the flowers and tried not to let the fact that he'd brought them to her mean as much as it did.
The fact was she didn't get flowers that often. Her sisters had sent her a bouquet after she'd given birth to DJ, but before that it had been years since she'd received them. She trimmed the stems and arranged the flowers in the vase before setting it in the middle of the island in her kitchen.
Then she went back to getting dinner ready. She had assembled the ingredients for a fresh and simple sauce for the pasta with basil, cherry tomatoes and some minced garlic. She filled a large pot with water and put it on to boil, and then turned her attention to making the garlic bread.
Since she was watching her weight since she'd given birth-it was a lot harder to take off the baby weight than she'd expected it to be-she was making a low-cal version of garlic bread with thinly sliced French bread that she'd rub a piece of garlic on when it was all toasted.
She realized she was nervous about the food and the table setting and everything else, but what she really wanted was for dinner to be over and for her to talk to Dec. He'd said he had something important to discuss, too, and she hoped that after the way he'd been at the door a few minutes ago he'd tell her he cared for her as much as she did for him.
She felt the first twinge of doubt in her stomach as she realized that she desperately wanted him to love her.
* * *
Dec would have laughed in the face of anyone who six weeks ago would have said he'd be changing a diaper and getting ready to spend the night at home. It just wasn't his scene-or it hadn't been. But tonight with the homey smell of dinner wafting through the house and his ten-month-old son chattering at him as he dressed him, Dec felt like he was in the only place he should be.
That feeling in his soul of the rightness of this moment was what convinced him that he wasn't going to abandon DJ or Cari again. And that scared him because he still hadn't figured out a way to save her job. But for tonight he didn't care about games or a generations-old feud. Tonight he wanted to simply enjoy the fact that for the first time in his life he felt like he was home.
It didn't matter that technically this was Cari's house or that he'd never even been here before. He had that feeling inside that he'd always been searching for and never truly experienced. That emptiness that had been a part of him all of his life no longer felt so cold and barren.
He sat DJ up and looked at the outfit he'd decided on. He had eschewed the romper that Cari had laid out in favor of a pair of elastic-waist khaki shorts and a little button-down shirt that matched his. He wanted Cari to see that he was a part of their lives now. It was important to him that he build as much of a connection between them before the board meeting tomorrow.
He lifted DJ off the changing table and the boy squirmed to get down. Since Cari lived in a one-story Mexican-style hacienda, there were no stairs to be a danger to him. He put him down and followed his son as he crawled through the house to the kitchen.
He thought of Allan and Kell and how his cousins were still untethered to anything but their jobs, and realized that he'd changed. He knew he was going to have to make a hard decision regarding Infinity and Playtone. He also knew that he might have to make a choice.
A choice that would have seemed so simple only six weeks ago, but no longer was.
As DJ crawled into the kitchen and Cari bent over to scoop up their son and then kiss him on the head, the decision seemed to make itself.
"Oh, I like your choice in outfit, sweetie," she said to DJ. "You and Daddy match." She looked over at him with so much caring in her gaze that he felt scared.
She'd turned on her iPod while he was gone and the speaker system on the countertop played "California Gurls" by Katy Perry.
He turned away and rubbed his hands together. She'd looked so vulnerable and probably wasn't aware of it. The burden of not hurting her again felt heavy on his shoulders. "I brought some wine and it's out in the car. I'll be right back."
He turned on his heel and hurried out of her house. As soon as he was outside, he stopped halfway between the house and his car. He was torn as he looked at the Maserati parked at the curb. A part of him wanted to get in there and drive away from this entire situation.
If he left, Kell would find a way to have his revenge and Cari would eventually find a way to move on with her life. And he wouldn't have to choose between his cousin and a lifetime goal-the very thing that had defined his past-and Cari and DJ, who he knew could be his future. But he knew he wasn't going to run off. He was no coward. It was hard for him to believe he'd left Cari in a hotel room all those months ago.
A slight breeze blew down the street in the older neighborhood where Cari lived. There were hibiscus plants growing in the front yard and large palms on either side of her driveway.
He had changed, he thought. Really changed, and it was almost as if he didn't want to accept it. The change was scary because he had something he didn't want to lose. Cari and DJ. He'd never thought he'd be as vulnerable as that, but the truth was there for him to see.
He grabbed the bottle of wine and headed back into the house. He found Cari in the kitchen dancing with DJ to Olly Murs's "Dance With Me Tonight." She glanced up at him and froze mid-gyration. Something moved between them and he knew that no matter what tomorrow held he'd cherish this night forever.
"Dance with me?" she asked.
He put the bottle of wine on the countertop and took both his woman and his son in his arms and danced them around the kitchen while the catchy pop ballad played in the background. DJ giggled and Cari hummed along a little out of tune.
Just like that, everything seemed so simple. They should be together. Though it was the solution he knew he'd been steering toward all afternoon, he was very glad to have his smart little son who saw things so clearly.
He didn't know how he was going to do it, but when the dust settled at the board meeting tomorrow he was walking out of there a Montrose with the respect of his cousins, but he was also leaving with Cari.
* * *
There hadn't been much chance to talk about anything serious over dinner what with DJ there and Dec in a contemplative mood. But once she put DJ to bed and went to find Dec sitting on one of the wooden loungers in her backyard, staring up at the night sky, Cari knew the time to talk was now.
She put the baby monitor on the table before she sat down on the double lounger next to him, and he reached over to take her hand in his. "Thank you."
She gave him a quizzical look. "For what? You already complimented me on dinner."