Matched For Love(29)

Deek nodded his approval and then cleared his throat. “Since Lori cooked this wonderful meal, I’m on dish duty.”

“I’ll help you, Deek.” Her brother stood and started clearing the table. Something she’d rarely seen Nick do.

Shelby handed Nick her plate. “Be nice, Nick.” She tilted her face up for a kiss. “Or that couch might get lonely later.”

Lori smiled as she gathered up dishes while her brother kissed his wife like they were alone instead of in her dining room. Shelby was the only woman who’d been able to put Nick in his place, and he loved it. Their whole family adored Shelby for it. She was perfect for him. It made Lori sigh a little as she pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open with her hip.

Would she ever find that kind of love again?



Deek and Asher were almost home before Deek remembered he hadn’t told Lori about Jason the freak. He’d gotten so caught up in the great dinner Lori had cooked, all the nosy questions from her well-meaning family, and then the games they’d played afterward. Playing charades with her family had been so much fun, he’d forgotten to pull Lori aside and tell her what he’d found out about her date. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed an evening that much. “Did you have a fun time tonight, Ash?”

“Yes!” Asher called out from the backseat. “Emily has fun aunts and uncles. And Mrs. Went makes great food. They have a nice family.”

“They do.” Deek met his son’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “And so will we when your mom comes home.”

Asher huffed out a breath. “I don’t think she’s ever coming home.”

A pang shot through Deek’s heart. Asher deserved a family like Emily’s too. “Mom says she is. After the dig is complete. We just don’t know exactly when that’ll be.”

Asher’s forehead crumpled, but he didn’t respond.

Deek poked the remote for his electronic gate at the end of his drive. While he waited for it to open, he turned around and faced his son. “Your mom misses you, Asher. I’m sure she’ll come home as soon as she’s able.”

Asher crossed his arms. “She didn’t even come home for Christmas. I know you just stuck her name on those gifts. I saw them in the closet where you were hiding them.”

Crap. How had he found them?

“Your mom asked me to buy those for you. They don’t have those kinds of toys where she is.” He turned and drove up the long drive to the house, desperately trying to think of something that might soothe his son’s hurt feelings. “Why don’t we call Mom after school tomorrow and tell her how much we miss her?”

“She only has time to talk to me on Wednesdays, not Mondays.”

“That’s not true. It’s just the best day for her to talk.” But Asher wasn’t entirely wrong. Annie told him he had to go back to once-a-week calls yesterday. But an exception was in order so she could reassure their son that she missed him.

After they had pulled into the garage, he turned off the engine and got out. Asher appeared by his side, so Deek slipped an arm around his small shoulders as they stepped inside the house. “I know it’s hard not to have Mom here with us every day. But we do okay, don’t we?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Asher shrugged out of Deek’s embrace and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Night, bud.” Deek stood at the bottom and watched Asher, with slumped shoulders, slowly trudge to the top. He was still upset. Asher rarely went to bed without being asked to.

The sadness in Asher’s body language made Deek mad enough to go to his study and slap the door closed. He needed to talk to Annie. Tell her enough was enough. Asher’s birthday was coming up. She’d better get her ass home for that, or… What?

He slumped into his office chair and laid his head back against the soft leather. If he gave her an ultimatum, it’d backfire. He’d tried it once before and had paid for it ever since. He’d been so angry at her. Who’d leave a five-year-old at home to go on a multiyear dig? He’d told her two years ago that if she left for the dig, she had to marry him first, or he’d take Asher, and she’d never see him again. She left the next morning, saying if that was the way he wanted to act, then he’d have to live with it.

She’d known how much it meant to him for Asher to have a mother, and she’d called his bluff. But he’d feared she’d never come back if they weren’t married. Hell, she’d only been home once since that day. On Asher’s sixth birthday. Happy that she was finally coming home, he’d gone out and bought a new house, hoping to show her how much she meant to him. That he’d become a success, but it didn’t mean anything to him without her to share with him. He’d killed himself for years, designing his game in the evenings and on the weekends until it was finally ready to be sold, garnering the highest price ever paid for a video game to date.