Soaring (35 page)

“Conrad made love to me the night before he told me he was leaving me,” I whispered and watched Mickey’s jaw go hard.

“Fuck, he’s a motherfucking asshole,” he bit out.

I curled my hands tight on his biceps and asked, “Does all I’ve admitted honestly not cause you alarm?”

“That you’re human?” he asked back.

And again, Lawr was right.

“I guess,” I said quietly.

“Anyone can find themselves in a place they don’t wanna be, and even knowin’ they don’t wanna be there, they can’t get out. It’s findin’ it in you to get out that says it all about you, Amy. So no. I’m not alarmed you’re human. In fact, knowin’ this shit, I went from likin’ you to likin’ you a fuckuva lot more.”

I couldn’t believe that either.

I wanted to believe but it seemed too easy.

“Really?” I asked, my voice pitched higher.

His face again dipped lower as did his voice. “Yeah, baby.”

“It was ugly,” I reiterated.

“Life isn’t always beauty,” he returned. “Most of the time it’s shit. But you keep fightin’ to turn it around, that says it all about you. And you’re fightin’. As a fighter too, I fuckin’ love that in you.”

Oh God.

It
was
that easy.

My voice dipped lower too when I said, “I love it that you understand.”

“I love it that you had the courage to give that to me,” he replied.

Oh God!

I was going to start crying.

In case that happened, I ducked my head and shoved my face in his chest.

Mickey started stroking my back with one hand as he said into the top of my hair, “You got your face in my chest, we can’t make out on the wharf for the five minutes we got left before we gotta go get my boy.”

I instantly took my face out of his chest, but even though I wanted a kiss, that wasn’t why I did it.

I did it to beg, “Don’t go home and think on this, Mickey, think on it and decide differently. Decide I’m some whackjob, psycho, crazy lady you’re worried about starting something with, worried about her being around your kids. Because I might not have known who I was before I moved to Maine, but I’ve spent a lot of time figuring it out once I got here, and that is
not
me.”

He stopped stroking my back and used that hand to cup my cheek. “Good I got your assurance on that, but don’t need it. I’m thinkin’ I knew who you were before you knew, and you’re worried about something that’s just not gonna happen.”

“Okay,” I said shakily as the vision of him started getting misty. “Now I like
you
a fuckuva lot more.”

I got his misty smile before he dipped his head and then I got his warm lips.

He kissed me.

It wasn’t wild and hard and amazing.

It was slow and sweet and amazing.

And apparently it lasted five minutes, because when he ended it, he lifted his head and whispered, “Gotta go pick up Cill, darlin’.”

I held on because I had to (slow and sweet also did a number on me) and I nodded.

He gently pulled away but held my hand as he walked me down the wharf and to his truck. He put me in. He got in. He backed out. I took deep breaths.

Then I let all that settle inside me.

I’d fretted.

I’d worried.

And Mickey made it easy.

That was when I smiled.

We drove and got Cillian, who hefted himself into the backseat, crying, “Hey, Amy!” then took up the entire conversation babbling all the way home.

Mickey didn’t drive to his driveway. He drove to mine.

Then he turned in his seat and said to his son, “You can get out and run home or you can hang and I’ll drive you there, but not makin’ Amy walk in her shoes.”

“Wiped so I’ll hang,” Cillian said to his dad and looked to me. “See you later, Amy.”

I turned in my seat too. “Later, kiddo.”

I got Cillian’s grin, which also brought relief since the last time I saw him he was far from grinning.

Then Mickey and I got out and he again held my hand, right in front of his son, as he walked me to my front door.

When we got there and I got it open, he surprised me by stepping in with me.

He also surprised me by shoving me to the side.

It wouldn’t be a surprise after he did this when he took me in his arms and kissed me again, this time hard and deep, but short. So I knew he shoved me to the side so not only could Cillian not see us from the drive, but if Aisling was home, she couldn’t see us from their house.

When he lifted his head, he noted, “Your turn to have us over to dinner, Amy.”

“Tomorrow okay?” I replied instantly and got his easy grin.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“Good,” I whispered back.

“Kids wanna go back to Dove House,” he told me.

I nodded. I wanted them back too, and so did the oldies.

“I’ll talk to Dela and arrange it with the kids tomorrow night.”

“Great,” he murmured, eyes dropping to my mouth.

That was when I said something I didn’t want to say.

“Cill’s in the truck, honey.”

His gaze lifted to mine. “Right.”

I pressed closer in his arms, tightening mine still around his shoulders. “It was a good night.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“We’ll do it again, Amy.”

We’d do it again.

I smiled.

He smiled back, dipped in, touched his mouth to mine and let me go.

I walked him to the door, stood in it and watched him walk out.

He was two steps out before he twisted his torso my way.

“Need to wear that dress when I can take it off.”

Wet flooded between my legs and I latched onto the edge of the door with my hand in order to remain standing.

“Yeah, baby?” he prompted.

“Yeah, Mickey,” I replied breathily.

He gave me my favorite grin of his, the one filled with heat and promise, before he turned away, lifting a hand in a short wave.

I lifted mine back before I looked to the truck and waved at Cillian.

He returned it.

Unsteadily, I closed and locked the door.

Moving into my dark house, I walked to the kitchen and turned on the pendant lights.

I looked across the space I created that was all me and I did it feeling something I’d never experienced feeling.

Light and airy, like I was floating above the ground and didn’t have my feet solidly under me.

It should have felt scary.

It was exhilarating.

The weight of my life had been lifted. The weight of my upbringing. The weight of the mess I’d made of my family.

All was not right in my world, but I’d discovered me and found that I’d done something right along the way.

I’d built a support network, new and old, of people who cared about me and were generous enough to take care of me, listen to me, understand me. And I was able to build this because I was me.

And that said everything. Everything about me.

Not the me I wanted to be.

The me who had always been.

Not to mention I was walking on air because Mickey liked my dress.

As in,
really
.

Chapter Fifteen

Soaring

“Marriage counselling?” I asked my phone sitting on the kitchen counter beside where I was working.

Lawr was on the other end and we were talking on speaker so I could continue to make my chocolate chip cookie sandwiches stuck together with chocolate buttercream frosting. A double delight. A real winner. And something I was making because the next day was Mrs. McMurphy’s ninetieth birthday, and she might think I was a Nazi, but I was going to be a Nazi bringing her birthday treats.

“Marriage counselling,” Lawr confirmed.

I slathered buttercream frosting on the back of a cookie and asked, “Are you crazy?”

“No,” Lawr replied with a smile in his voice.

“Okay, you think that then I’ll ask, is it working?”

“I’ve learned she doesn’t mind my working hours because, in three sessions, she hasn’t mentioned them. However, it annoys her that I sometimes don’t hit the laundry basket with my dirty socks. This is something I can’t imagine why it would be annoying since she has a woman come in twice a week who cleans and does laundry so she doesn’t even touch my socks. However, now I make certain I hit the basket with my socks.”

I knew long hours. My ex-husband had worked them too. I hated it but he loved his job, had wanted to be a neurosurgeon since his uncle, who also was one, allowed him to stand in an observation room and watch a surgery when Conrad was sixteen.

Alas, now I knew that those long hours weren’t all about patients.

I’d also had a cleaning lady and Conrad hadn’t even bothered to throw his clothes anywhere near the hamper. I didn’t really care. He worked. I didn’t. I had the time to gather clothes and dump them in a hamper.

If we had marriage counselling, I might mention the work hours…tentatively.

I wouldn’t give a fig about the laundry.

“Lawrie—” I started.

“It’s got to be done,” he told me.

I scrunched the top cookie on and set them aside, asking, “Why?”

“Because I have to tell myself, and my sons, that I did all I could do.”

I shut my mouth but I did it fuming.

He was correct. He should do that so he could live with whatever came of this, but also so his boys could see him giving it one last go with their mother before hopefully he made the decision to leave his wife and find some happy.

But I hated the idea of whatever that witch would put him through in the meantime, including during those sessions.

I mean
socks
?

Really?

“So, if you’re committed to this, then I take it Thanksgiving is out,” I remarked, irately snatching up another cookie.

“I talked with Mariel about going. We’re considering it.”

I threw up a little in my mouth at the thought of the Wicked Witch of Santa Barbara tainting my whimsical, beachy guest bedroom with her malevolence.

When I powered past that, I declared, “If she’s coming, I’m inviting Robin. Her ex has her kids this Thanksgiving. She’d be all over it.”

“MeeMee,” Lawr stated irritably.

“Mercer and Hart love Robin,” I reminded him, and they did. My nephews thought she was a hoot.

“She drives Mariel up the wall,” he reminded me.

“Of course she does, due to all the sexual tension that’s crackling between her husband and a beautiful, vital woman who’s learned how it feels to have a jerk break her heart so she’ll know it’s worth any effort needed to make a good man happy.”

“You do realize you,
and
Robin, lost your minds when your husbands cheated on you and now you’re attempting to set me up with your best friend right under my wife’s nose.”

I didn’t care what it said about me that this didn’t cause me the slightest unease.

And I explained to my brother why, “I’d have qualms about that if your wife gave indication she’s still breathing. Heck, if she gave indication she was still
human
. I’m uncertain of the law, you’d know better, but I don’t think you can cheat on the undead whose sole purpose on this earth is to spread evil. In fact, I’m uncertain your marriage is even valid. Can you pledge your troth to a vampire?”

“Christ, you’re in a bad mood,” Lawr observed, and I could hear the humor in his voice, which made me settle more firmly in my belief he needed to leave his wife. No man who still loved his spouse would allow anyone, even his little sister, to talk that badly about them.

But he wasn’t wrong. I was in a bad mood.

A very bad mood.

And this was because, according to me, things with Mickey were not going very well.

And
this
was because we had not had sex, something that was admittedly hard to do since I rarely
saw
Mickey.

It started off so promising and continued that way…for two days.

The first, dinner at my house, had changed to dinner at Mickey’s because Ash wanted to cook something, wanted me to help, and she knew her kitchen so felt more comfortable in it.

Of course, I went over there. It wasn’t hard. It was just walking across the street.

And I’d had fun cooking with Ash.

But it was more. Me being there before her dad got home from work was me being an adult and taking some of the onus off her taking care of her family since she watched her brother while her dad was away. She also liked female company it was plain to see, and while we cooked and chatted, we bonded. She came out of her shell a little bit, lost some of her timidity, and we’d had a marvelous time.

Mickey got home and it got better, mostly because he was Mickey and he was home. But also because this wasn’t a formal dinner gathering. It was an informal gathering of family having dinner. We ate Ash’s meal in front of the TV, Mickey doing this sitting beside me. He was not demonstrative, something I agreed with as it was too soon for that in front of his kids, but he sat by me and it was a thrill to feel the heat of his thigh pressed to mine and have him close, even if he wasn’t really touching me.

When that was done, he walked me home and we made out behind my closed front door, doing it hot and heavy.

He ended it, saying, “Gotta get back or those two’ll know what we’re up to.”

Again, appropriate.

Again, I agreed on this propriety.

But also disappointing.

During our dinner, we’d made arrangements for the kids to go with me to Dove House the next day, which happened the way it did before: Mickey dropping them off and picking them up. The kids had been just as helpful and charming and the residents and staff again had enjoyed having them around just as much as the first time.

But this was when it started going bad.

Understandably, Mickey couldn’t spend all his time with me when he had his kids or shove me down their throat constantly.

This began our days of brief phone conversations where we said absolutely nothing, their entire purpose, from what I could tell, was reminding each other we knew the other existed.

There were also texts, which were obviously briefer.