I never had to be the one to make the hard decisions, not early on, not like him. I didn’t like feeling emotions. I used sex to push everything away, and because of that, it crippled me at times. I hadn’t processed our parents’ horrendous divorce, how they treated each other growing up. That’s what I learned. That’s what I saw love was.
Mason got his woman right away. He hid in her.
I hid in sex, drinking, and fighting. And none of it was ever enough for me.
I met Taylor in college, and I still didn’t want to deal with shit.
She loved me despite it all, and I knew she should’ve walked away from me so long ago. She never did.
Mason was strong. Samantha was strong. I’m strong, but fuck everyone because Taylor was the strongest. She endured, and she keeps smiling, and she keeps loving. There’d been a few times when she got worried about things, spoke up, stopped me from doing something stupid, but for the most part, she just loved.
She was coming toward me now, her eyes bright and shining, and she was wearing some sort of dress. She informed me she wanted off-white, but fuck if I knew the reason. She had one, and she tried to explain it in a very articulate way, but I was only fantasizing about taking it off of her. There was a slit up her leg, and as soon as I could, my hand was going there and going up to find its landing strip.
“Are you ready for this?”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away, but I responded to the minister. “Never been more ready.”
Then she was in front of me, and she was blinking back tears. I moved in, catching some of those tears and brushing them away. I smiled. “Hi.”
She laughed, a few more tears falling free. “Hiya back.”
The minister cleared his throat. “Are you both ready?”
Taylor answered this time, “Oh, boy am I.”
Her cheeks flushed, but I stepped into her and touched my lips to hers.
I never wanted them to leave.
She startled, not expecting my kiss, but softened and leaned into me. Her hand slid up my chest, rounding my neck, and I continued to kiss her because I could. This was my woman.
After a few more seconds, after I knew I had kissed away her embarrassment, I stepped back and motioned to the minister. “We’re ready.”
He started.
12
Present
Logan
“Is everything okay with Taylor?”
Nate asked that question as we were in the backyard of James’ house. He’d technically moved to a different house, saying this gigantic mausoleum was Mason’s and mine, but we both refused to claim it. For a bit, we tried to VRBO it, but that fell through. Too many parties. Too much damage. The neighborhood hadn’t liked that either, so here we were, back here. But hearing Nate’s question, I turned and studied Taylor a bit.
She and Quincey were laughing, sitting across from us. They’d gone in to mix drinks for everyone. Taylor insisted on handing them out, but they hadn’t returned to sit with us for some reason.
I studied her a bit, noticing she was holding her back. It was in her posture. She was sitting rigid, a little more guarded than necessary, and I almost wanted to punch Nate because fuck him for noticing when I hadn’t, but that was on me.
I cursed, sitting forward slowly.
Nate snorted and started laughing.
I growled. “Shut up, you asshat.”
“Way to take care of your woman.”
I flipped him off, not caring one bit how old we were. I’d flip off anyone who wanted to scold me on that crap too.
“You guys going to go see her dad?”
I nodded, not having asked Taylor but already knowing. “We always do.”
“If she wants to go alone?”
He was digging at me, and I glared at him. “You know I won’t let her do that.”
He was biting back a grin but sobered and nodded in the direction of the house. “Where’s your dad tonight?”
I snorted. “Ironically, David’s on James Kade babysitting duty.”
Nate’s eyes got big. “Analise’s ex-husband is helping to watch over the current husband? I knew it was bad when you first called me in, but man. I had no idea it was that bad that even Malinda and David got pulled into this shit.”
I sighed, remembering the first phone call, and my gut tightened. “If he had only cheated on her, it might not have been this bad, but it wasn’t just a cheat. It was a full second family. Mason and I have two little brothers with another mother who wants nothing to do with James, Mason, or me. And Helen is her fucking best friend, spewing only God knows what hatred for our dad.”
“He didn’t just lose 100k. He lost the whole fucking bank, in other words.”
I nodded, feeling my gut shriveling up and tightening and starting to try to swallow itself.
I wasn’t James Kade.
I wouldn’t be James Kade.
I’d never do that shit to Taylor.
Ever.
I just needed to believe it now.
But first things first, I stood and glanced at Nate. “I need to figure out what’s going on with my woman.”
He gave me a slight nod back. “Why the fuck are you still standing here? Do an eighth of what that woman does for you and take care of her. Clean her jar.”
I threw him a frown because what the fuck?
He just smiled at me, tipping his beer back and taking a drag.
Okay then.
Mission Clean Her Jar was about to commence, whatever that meant.
13
Taylor
Logan was coming my way, and I knew that face. He realized something was ‘off’ with me, and he was coming to fix it, no matter what it was.
No, no, no.
I needed to tell him about the baby, but not tonight, not here, not in this way.
I knew. I just knew he was feeling certain ways because of the recent James Kade drama, and I could see the second-guessing eating at him.
He was scared he would hurt me how his dad had hurt the women in his life, but Logan never got it. Not completely.
Logan would never do what his dad had done. And because he was so scared of that, he went overboard sometimes helping others because he didn’t want to be his dad in any way.
I didn’t want to tackle that issue tonight.
I didn’t want to be the one to turn the tables and scrape away his struggles, but I also didn’t want to tell him about the baby.
I wanted that night to be amazing and perfect, and tonight in Fallen Crest, when we weren’t alone, it wasn’t that night.
I don’t know. Maybe I was being stupid. Perhaps I should just blurt it out, but Logan didn’t want children. He had told me going into so much detail about how he never wanted to do to his children what his parents had done to him and Mason.
I got it.
So yeah. I was still hoping for the perfect night, though. But I was starting to think that night would never happen.
He came over and pulled me to my feet. He took my drink, handing it to Quincey as he said something to her. I assumed it was something along the lines that we were going to bed for the night. I didn’t know. I wasn’t listening. My heart was pumping so loud in my ears that I couldn’t hear anything he was saying.