Leeland’s hand feels so tiny in mine. “How come yer stayin’ with us? Are you gonna live here? Where’s yer room?”
Questions. Questions that I wish Tuck were here with me to help answer. “Well, Leland.” I carefully choose my words. “I’m here because I met your daddy and I fell in love with him.” I glance down. “And he fell in love with me. When that happens with two people, they want to be together a lot. They want to live together.”
I can almost hear the cogs turning in his little brain. “So yer gonna live here with us then? ’Cause you love my daddy?” Ah, so simple.
“Yep. I hope that’s okay with you.”
“Do you get yer own room?”
“Your daddy and I are gonna share his room. We’re gonna get married.”
Leeland struggles with the knob but then proudly opens the door to a room, obviously his own, based on the toy cars and décor. Twin bed with a Bob the Builder comforter. Matching drapes. “I gots my own room.” He’s distracted for a few minutes as he searches through a pile of books on the floor. Looking more than a little triumphant, Leeland pulls out the familiar yellow book and brings it over to show me. “I hope I doesn’t have to share my room when I grow up.”
“I think you only will if you want to.” I can’t help chuckling. There’s so much about little boys for me to learn. “Do you want to put on your pajamas before we start reading?”
He contemplates his answer for a few seconds before answering. “I usually don’t wear my jammies till after my bath.”
Ah… and who gives him his bath?
“I better waits for Cassidy.” Of course.
“Well then.” I swallow the sick feeling I’m beginning to experience every time I hear that name, and then I open up the book. “We’ll just go ahead and read then.”
I read out loud with as much feeling as I can muster. I remembered loving the crazy hijinks of this lovable monkey… but in the back of my mind I’m feeling a little crushed. Why hasn’t Tucker considered some of these issues before I came out here? As much as I love him, I’m irritated with him right now.
As though my annoyance summons him, a shadow falls across the floor.
I don’t have to look up to know it’s him. Glancing over the top of the page, I meet Tucker’s gaze.
When he watches me with that expression– as though I’m the beginning and end of his world– my frustration with him melts away.
“Daddy, Isa’s reading Curious George to me.” Leeland notices his father as well. “Does I has to take a bath?”
Tucker pushes himself away from the frame of the door, where he’d been leaning, and enters the room. My guy moves with this stealthy casual grace. He reminds me of a panther, or a fox… I can’t explain it, but it’s one of the sexiest damn things. Makes me think about him pouncing on me.
He glances toward the clock on the nightstand. “How about we skip baths tonight, buddy?” And then to me. “I wondered where you’d gone off too.” So much promise in those words. I can’t stop the shiver that ghosts down my spine.
“Cassidy gonna tuck me in too?” Bless this child’s little heart.
Curse that woman downstairs. Except… is this her fault? Can I blame her for falling in love with them all?
I can. Of course, I can. And I do. She doesn’t want to let go of them. She wants Tucker, and I have a feeling she’s willing to use his boys to get him.
Tucker looks over his shoulder as though the lovely lady herself might be in the hallway. “I imagine she’ll come up for a spell.”
The blood in my veins turns to ice. How does he not realize what’s happening here?
“Does Cassidy give the boys their baths every night?” I ask Tucker innocently. Except I don’t bother to hide the steel from my eyes.
He glances over at me and at first looks confused. But nope. There it is.
A flicker of guilt crosses his face.
Oh, yes. We’re definitely going to have to talk.
Not because I want to fight with him on my first night here. I have so many other things I want to do with this man.
But because I want this to work more than anything else in the world. And if we can’t begin this marriage with complete honesty, we don’t stand a chance.
