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Sweet Dreams 2(28)

By:Kristen Ashley


“Yeah, and you have to be together to trap a man into marrying you.”

I gasped. Tate nodded.

“She pushed the marriage card the minute after she skipped her first period. The bitch has been on the pill since she was fourteen. Not even a scare. Religious about it. All of a sudden, she’s knocked up. All of a sudden, that is, after she’d been naggin’ me about gettin’ hitched.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked gently.

“Unconscious self-preservation,” he muttered, took a sip of his beer, swallowed and finished, “thank fuck.”

I drew in a soft breath. Then I sat back, looked into the night and let it go.

Then I told Tate, “Jonas wants to live with you.”

I felt rather than saw Tate’s head turn and his eyes lock on me.

“He tell you that?”

“Says he wants you to know but he can’t tell you. Says he’ll talk to the judge.”

“She finds out, she’ll give him shit. He can deny it technically without lyin’,” Tate mumbled.

“That’s what he said,” I affirmed.

“Throwin’ you under the bus.”

My head turned to him. “Sorry?”

“Someone’s gotta have told me. He said it, he meant it, he’d do it, it gets to that. She’ll know it, she’ll know he didn’t tell me but he told someone who told me and she’ll be pissed at me and that someone who told me. You’ve seen her pissed, Ace. So has Jonas. There it is. That’s you under the bus.”

“He didn’t mean –”

Tate leaned into me and the movement was sharp and angry. “I know he didn’t, Laurie but that’s what she made him do. My ten year old son is playin’ people. At ten... years… old. This is what she does to people. He didn’t like it but he needed me to know and he knew he was throwin’ you under the bus and he had to make that play. Fuck.” He sat back and repeated, “Fuck.”

“Tate, you’re doing what you can do,” I assured him.

“Right,” he bit off.

I reached out a hand and wrapped it around his forearm. “It’s all you can do. Do it. Get him home. He wants to be here. That says a lot. You have support. You just have to be patient.”

Tate looked at me and I knew he was going to mouth off. Then he turned away, took a sip of his beer, swallowed, pulled in an audible breath and on the exhale repeated, “Right.”

I stood and bent over him, my fingers sliding into his hair and he tipped his head back to look up at me.

“I’m going to go take my makeup off. You want me to come back out?”

“I’ll be in in a second.”

“You okay?”

“No.”

I aimed at his mouth in the dark and hit it, brushing my lips against his.

“I’ll be in bed when you get there,” I whispered when I was done.

His voice was less harsh when he said, “That makes me feel better, Ace.”

“What does Jonas like for breakfast?”

“Considering his breakfast is usually sugar clogged cereal or fast food, you make him a home cooked breakfast, he’ll like anything.”

“French toast it is,” I whispered, brushed his mouth again then lifted up and kissed him on the forehead.

I had straightened and started to move away when he caught my wrist, detaining me.

I looked back.

“You let on you knew he was playin’ you?” he asked.

“No. I told him I’d give him my number and if he ever had anything he needed you to know, he could tell me and I’d let you know.”

“Threw yourself under the bus,” he muttered.

“I didn’t think he was playing me, Captain,” I replied. “But even if I did, I’d do it again.”

He didn’t speak but he also didn’t let go of my wrist. Then he lifted it, turned it inwards and kissed the inside. His beard tickled the sensitive skin there. The gesture and how he did it touched a sensitive part of me you couldn’t see because it was deep on the inside.

He let my wrist go and said softly, “Meet you in bed, baby.”

“Okay,” I whispered and left him to finish his beer.





Chapter Twenty

Rollin’ in Her Grave



The next morning, Tate and I were out on the deck drinking coffee.

My chair was close beside his, his legs were up on the railing and he’d reached down and wrapped an arm around the backs of my knees and pulled my legs up on his. As we sat, silent and sipping our coffee bathed in the morning sun, my legs naturally and comfortably tangled with his.

As the time slid by I was thinking I could start every day for the rest of my life like this. I didn’t know what Tate was thinking but I hoped it was much the same.