Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (226 page)

When he pushed the door open, she decided that she liked her apartment even less.  The carpet was a nice midnight blue color and it was springy, not worn down as if a thousand pairs of feet had walked over it for years.  The living room was good sized.  There was a large window that was without blinds or a curtain at the moment, so she could see that it gave a nice view of the front yard.  The walls had been painted off white, but the job was much more carefully done than it had been at her apartment. 

She held back a sigh as she followed him into the kitchen.  The kitchen table from their apartment was already set up.  The cabinets were in good shape, the counters were spotless.  The stove looked relatively new, as did the fridge.  The tile was a blue color with veins of green through it that complemented the color of the living room carpet.

He led her back to the bedroom.  His suitcase and older than the hills duffel bag were in the closet.  There was a new looking dresser and a curtain on the window but no other furniture.  The bathroom was clean and the shower had a nice sliding door, with a good sized tub. 

She was silent as she followed him to the second bedroom.  The walls were sky blue.  The shade was close to the color of her eyes. 

“This would be the baby’s room.”

“Kiefer.”

“Even if you don’t want to move back in with me, the kid would need a room here.”

Delphina sighed.  “Yeah.”  She turned to leave the room.

He touched her arm.  “Wait.”

“What?”

She turned back to him.  He pulled a velvet covered box out of his pocket.  She closed her eyes and then opened them again as he popped open the box.  She didn’t want to look at it.  She didn’t like to think of all of the times he’d promised to marry her before.

“Del, aren’t you even going to look at it?”

“Why?  We can’t get married.  I don’t want to be the laughingstock of the town because I was dumb enough to marry a guy who doesn’t bother to pretend that he doesn’t stick his penis anywhere he wants to.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since you left.”

“How dumb do you think I am?  You’re a sex addict.  If we went more than a few days without having sex, you went looking for it somewhere else.  Even when we were doing it all the time, you still looked for it elsewhere.”

“There was one woman.  But that was right after you left me.  I was drunk for three days straight Del.  She didn’t mean anything.  I can’t look at a woman anymore without comparing her to you.  I love you.  I want to be with you.”

She turned away from him.  She had made the mistake of looking at the ring.  It was very pretty.  The styling wasn’t modern, but she didn’t like much modern jewelry.  It looked old and romantic, like something that had been passed down in a family for generations.  She wondered briefly where he had found it before she told herself to shut the hell up in her head. 

“I don’t want to be with you.”

He slid his hands up and down her arms.  It sent shivers down her spine.  “I think you’re lying.”

She moved away from him.  “So what?  There is a sensible part of my brain and an emotional one.  The emotional part of me is what kept me with you for so long.  I do love you, but I can’t be with you anymore.  It hurts too much.”

“It doesn’t have to hurt Del.  I’m never gonna be perfect, but I promise that I will be a better man.  I want to be a good husband, a good father.”

“I want you to be a good father.  But you’re going to have to find yourself another wife.”

Kiefer sighed.  “Can we compromise?”

“No.”

“Women.  I will back off.  But I want you to know that if you decide you want me back, I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Kiefer.  Ah, never mind.  I’m not going to bother to say it.  I have to go.”

“Let me take you out to dinner.”

“No.”

“I’m getting to you aren’t I?  That’s why you want to run away from me.”

“You know how men walk around thinking with their penises all of the time?  Sometimes women think with their hearts.  But all too often it only brings them heartache.  So I’m telling mine to shut the fuck up.  It’s getting easier every day.”

Kiefer shut the ring box and pressed it into her hand.  “I want you to have this.”

“Give it to the next girl that you decide to sleep with.  It doesn’t look like a regular engagement ring.  They’ll never know that’s what it was meant to be. ”

“I picked it out for you.  I knew that you didn’t like the kinda stuff that most other women like.  I could have bought you some generic engagement ring like all the other guys buy for their girls.  But I didn’t want to do that.  I was actually thinking about you when I picked it out.”

Delphina shook her head and shoved the ring into her purse.  “That would be the first time.”

“You don’t need to be such a bitch.  I know I was an asshole for three years, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or that I need to be treated like shit when I’m trying really fucking hard.”

“I’m sorry Kiefer.  I’ll be civil.  I promise.”

“Thanks.  I guess I’ll let you go home now.  Does that place have cockroaches?  It looks like it would.”

“No.  Do you have anything to sleep on before you bring the rest of your stuff down here?  There’s a thrift store downtown.”

“I don’t need to buy a bed.  Our bed is comfortable and it’s got a lot of good memories.  You crying out my name in the heat of passion, the way you look when you’re moving on top of me.  You’re the only woman that I’ve ever been with that always keeps her eyes open during sex.  That is so hot.”

“Shut up.  I have an air mattress that you can use until you bring the bed.  You can keep the damned thing.  It’s not very comfortable.”

“I can buy my own.  Wait, it probably smells like you.  I love the way you smell too.”

Delphina shook her head.  “I said I would be civil.  That doesn’t mean you need to talk about our relationship and especially not about our sex life.”

“You can’t pretend it didn’t happen Del.  We had three good years together.”

“You had three good years.  I had three years of you lying and cheating and going to jail.”

“I went to jail three times in three years.  I went to jail way more than that before I met you.  I only went to jail when I was drunk anyway.  It won’t be a problem anymore.  I know that it’s really hard for you to remember the good memories around all of the bad, but we did have good times.  You don’t need to let them stay hidden.  Do you remember that picnic I took you on last year?”

It wasn’t something that was easy for her to forget.  They’d been fighting for weeks beforehand.  Then he’d surprised her and taken her on an evening picnic.  It had started to rain and they’d made love on the grass in the park.  The experience had been incredible.

“None of that matters anymore Kie.  Even the worst relationship had some good times.  I’m going home.  Do you want to follow me so I can give you that air mattress?”

“Yeah.”

Kiefer followed her outside.  She drove back to her apartment and he followed her.  He insisted on going up to the apartment with her though she practically begged him not to.  He made a face, but didn’t remind her that she could live with him.

He thanked her for the air mattress and then left.  She knew that he’d wanted to kiss her.  She had let him get away with hugging her, but she couldn’t let him kiss her.  She was feeling way too vulnerable as it was.

She went to her first doctor’s appointment.  She made it on a day when she knew that Kiefer couldn’t come and then ended up feeling bad because she’d been able to hear the baby’s heartbeat.  Her job was going well.  She felt more comfortable every day.

When she was three months pregnant, Kiefer talked her into having dinner with him.  Delphina had a good time, but it only reminded her of how much she missed him.  It wasn’t a feeling that she appreciated. 

When she was six months pregnant, he invited her over to decorate the baby’s room at his house.  His new job was going well, and he was still sober.  She was very proud of him, but still had doubts as to how long it would last.  There was talk around town that he was seeing a woman.  She had made a few friends at work and they all knew who Kiefer was.  All of the single women in town seemed to think he was hot as hell.  Even Delphina had to admit that he looked even better than he had before.  He had cut his hair and was clean shaven most of the time. 

They were sitting in Kiefer’s living room after they’d finished the baby’s room when Delphina asked him about his new girlfriend.

He gave her a strange look.  “I don’t have a girlfriend Del.  I haven’t gone this long without sex since I was a virgin.”

“Yeah right Kiefer.  It’s going around town that you’re seeing someone.”

Kiefer chuckled.  “Did it ever dawn on you that they might be talking about you Del?  We’ve been out to dinner a few times and you’ve let me go to your last few doctors’ appointments.”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

He shrugged.  “I’m not the one that said it.  But you could be my wife if you wanted to be.”

“We’re not going to discuss that again.”

“Del, don’t tell me that you don’t miss me being your man.  I can see it in the way you look at me sometimes, that you want to kiss me.  Right now I think you want to do a whole hell of a lot more than kiss me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“How about I kiss you and we can find out?”

Her heart started to beat faster.  “No.”

He brushed his hand over her cheek.  “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me.  Tell me that if I took you back to the bedroom and made love to you that you would just walk away from me again.”

“I don’t want you Kiefer.”  But the words didn’t sound true even to her ears.

He smiled.  “You’re lying.  You looked at me for two seconds and then you looked away.  We’ve been together too long for me not to know when you’re lying.”

“We’re not together anymore.”

“I’ve been good to you haven’t I?  I’ve obeyed your wishes and I haven’t bugged you all the time about getting back together.  Give me one more chance Del.  I promise you that if I fuck it up I won’t ask for another chance.  We don’t have to get married right away.  Just let me be your man.  I can make you proud of me.”

Delphina sighed.  “I am proud of you Kie.  You’ve been doing so well lately.  I’m too vulnerable right now.  I think I need to go.”

“Baby, do you know how proud it makes me that you’re the woman that’s having my baby?  When I messed around, I was terrified that some trashy slut was going to get knocked up with my kid because I was drunk and didn’t think about using a rubber.  It wasn’t just because I didn’t want to have to pay some bitch child support for 18 years.  It was because I knew that when I was ready to have a kid, I wanted it to be with the right woman.  You’re the right woman Del.  You’ve always been the right woman for me.  I knew it the first time I looked at you, I was just too stupid to realize what I was doing to you, how I was making you feel.  I can never tell you how sorry I am.  Let me make it up to you.  I will do anything if you’ll just give me one last chance.”

“I can’t do this right now.”  Delphina grabbed her purse and got up off of the couch.  Tears were running down her face by the time she made it out the door.  Kiefer called out to her, but she ignored him.  She couldn’t face him.  She wanted nothing more than to be in his arms at that moment.

She drove home and cried until she had no more tears.  Two hours later, she was standing on his doorstep.  He answered the door and gave her a cautious smile. 

“Hi.  I didn’t mean to make you cry.  You know that I never could stand to see you cry.”  He moved out of the doorway so that she could enter the house and when she had he shut the door behind them.

She tried to ignore the fact that he was wearing nothing other than a worn pair of flannel pajama bottoms.  She sat down on the couch.  She took a deep breath and then let it out.

“If I give you another chance, it will be the last one.  If you cheat on me even one more time, I will walk away from you and never look back.  You will always be the father of my child, but that doesn’t mean that you always have to be my man.  If things go well enough between us, I’ll move in here after the baby is born.  I don’t want to marry you right now.  It may take another three years for me to trust you enough to want to marry you.”

Kiefer was silent for a minute.  Then a grin broke out on his face.  “You’ll really take me back?”

Delphina nodded.  “Yes.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

“Please.”

He kissed her slow and easy, but it only left her wanting more, so she turned up the passion a notch.  He pulled back from her several minutes later and gave her a cocky grin.

“You’re horny aren’t you?”

She hit him with the pillow from the couch.  “So what if I am?”

“I do still know how to take care of that.”

She shook her head at him.  “I’m sure you do.  That doesn’t mean that I need to hop right back into bed with you.”

“How about I kiss you again and we let nature take its course?”

She nodded, because she couldn’t speak.  There was so much passion in his eyes that it made her almost dizzy looking at him.