Lady Luck

  Then he positioned the rings and slid them on her finger.

  Lexie didn’t give him the chance to do what he intended to do and that was put his lips to them. She did a face plant in his chest and he felt her body rear and her breath catch on more tears.

  He let her hand go and wrapped both of his arms around her as she slid her face up and pressed it into his neck.

  Then he waited. This jag didn’t last as long, she got a handle on it and he listened to her pull in steadying breaths. Then she lifted a hand and swiped at her face. Then she settled cheek to his shoulder. That was when he lifted a hand and slid her hair away from her face and off her neck, feeling its softness fall and glide down his shoulder and arm.

  He missed that. He knew he missed it but having it back he realized he missed it.

  Then he wrapped his arm around her again.

  “Now, baby, tell me what you wanna take,” he said gently and heard her pull in another breath.

  Then she asked, “Are you okay?”

  His answer was immediate and he tightened his arms on her when he gave it. “Fuck yeah.”

  He felt her smile against his skin before she lifted up and gave the smile to him visibly.

  Then it faded slowly and she said, “I don’t mean now, honey, I mean with everything that’s going on.”

  His head tilted slightly on the pillows. “Everything that’s going on?”

  She bit her lip, hesitant, unsure and, fuck him, scared.

  Fuck.

  He gave her another squeeze and asked, “Baby, what the fuck?”

  “With Tate,” she stated quickly and he got it. She was bringing up what bought her his anger and caused him to act like one serious dumb fuck, breaking her and nearly destroying them.

  “Do not hesitate with that shit, mama,” he told her. “With me, do not hesitate with any shit.”

  “Ty –” she said quietly, still unsure.

  “Lex, do you think, six weeks without you, I didn’t learn my fuckin’ lesson?”

  She blinked.

  He kept going. “I learned, baby. Lived raw for six fuckin’ weeks, wasting my own goddamned life and yours. Downloading on-line divorce papers…” He shook his head, not going back there, not fucking there, doing that shit cost him too much, he couldn’t go back there. So he finished, “Fuck yeah, I learned.”

  “Lived raw?” she whispered and he felt his brows draw together.

  “Yeah, lived raw, the way a man lives when he fucks up his own life and does it by hurting the woman he loves in a way he cannot fix. A man like that lives raw and I was a man like that.”

  When he was done speaking he saw her lips were parted again but she just stared at him, silent.

  “What?” he asked.

  Lexie kept staring at him so he gave her a gentle shake.

  “What?” he prompted.

  “The woman he loves?” she breathed and it was his turn to blink.

  Then he confirmed, “Yeah.”

  “You love me?” she asked like it was a concept she’d never believe and her response shocked the shit out of him.

  “Uh… yeah,” he answered. “Babe, a man like me who got fucked like me doesn’t share, at all, unless he trusts who he’s sharin’ with, unless their opinion matters, unless they matter and the way I got fucked, no way a man got fucked that way would share with pussy, any pussy and you know that. But with you, I shared. You played me to distract me but I wasn’t hard to distract because I wanted your distraction. Spent five years with ninety-nine percent of my headspace taken up with my grand plan o’ vengeance, I get out, ready to take that on and a few days later I’m tourin’ fucking Vegas then headin’ to Moab and then at the fuckin’ garden center. I fuck up and lose you, I risk it all to go to Dallas to track you down and see to the errand of makin’ sure Shift gets where I’m at, will always be and I do it in a way he won’t forget and I do that by further breaking my parole, committing a crime and beatin’ the shit outta him and two of his crew. Two weeks later, I find out where you are and I pick up a phone and call a man who does not like me because, years ago, I took a fuckload of his money at a table but I know he’s got more money, lots of it. I also know he lives two hours away in Aspen and I know he’s got a private jet, the only hope I got of flyin’ cross country without getting tagged and sent back to California. Luck shines because this man may not like me but I lay it out for him, all of it, mama, and I find this fuckin’ guy is a fuckin’ romantic. He fuels up his jet, lies on flight logs sayin’ Tate Jackson is his passenger and flies me to fuckin’ Florida. This guy is so much of a fuckin’ romantic, I come back to the airstrip without you, swear to fuckin’ God, he looks near as devastated as me. Now, no man does all that for a woman he doesn’t love and definitely not a man like me.”

  He stopped speaking and saw her lips were not parted.

  Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were huge.

  Then she snapped her mouth shut.

  Then she asked, “You beat up Shift?”

  “Bessie called me, told me he was dickin’ with you, got outta bed, hauled my ass to Dallas and, yeah, the one word he spoke he had to spit out a mouthful of blood to speak it.”

  “You beat up Shift.” This time it was a statement so Walker didn’t respond. Then she asked, “You arranged a ride in a private jet to get to me?”

  “Mama, you were in fuckin’ Florida. First, I cannot take that time to drive it, too much of a risk someone findin’ out I’m gone and where I went. I did not want to bring you back only to be sent away. Second, I take that time to drive it and find you’ve moved on, I lose that time. I had to catch a flight and that was the only option open for me.”

  Lexie didn’t speak, she just stared at him.

  So he started, “Lex –” but got no further.

  And he got no further because she whispered, “You know, I love you too.”

  That thing, that thing she gave him that started to settle again, shifted and warmed, digging deep, taking root.

  “Lexie –” he whispered back, his arms convulsing around her but he again got no further.

  “Fell in love with you when I opened my eyes in Vegas, turned in bed and saw you put my bouquet in a vase.”

  Fuck him.

  Fuck… him.

  “Shut it, mama.” He was still whispering.

  “At the pool, when you showed, my day started.”

  His arms now gave her a warning squeeze.

  “Shut it,” he growled.

  “Sitting at the breakfast table, seeing your wedding ring, being able to really look at it on your finger up close for the first time, I had to touch it so I could remind myself I was the one who got to put it there.”

  Fuck.

  Him.

  “Shut it.” This time, it was a rumble.

  “The next morning, when you didn’t show at the pool, I had to find you so I could start my day.”

  He rolled and shifted until he was on top of her and he repeated, “Shut it.”

  “Six weeks without you, I’d wake up and hours later go to sleep and not once did my day dawn.”

  “Baby, shut… it.”

  “You took the shadow off my world.”

  All right, his woman wasn’t going to shut it; he was going to shut it for her.

  So he set about doing that.

  And when she was reduced to making nothing but those sexy-as-hell noises in the back of her throat each time his slowly slid his cock in and filled her then whimpered when he slowly slid it out, he was again ready to talk.

  But he was going to be doing the talking.

  “Look at me,” he ordered after filling his wife with him, his voice thick and her closed eyes instantly opened, the small arch she had in her neck righting and he had her attention. “I don’t give a fuck we’re both still raw. I don’t give a fuck, even without that, we’re still new. I don’t give a fuck we got shit out there pressing in; I wanna plant my baby in you.”

  One of her feet was in the couch,
the other leg wrapped around the back of his thigh, both arms were around him, hands roaming but at his words, both legs curved around his hips and both arms went tight.

  And he had his answer.

  “Ty,” she breathed.

  “We both know we got no time to waste.”

  One of her hands slid up to wrap around the back of his head.

  Then, pure Lexie, no bullshit, no hesitation, she gave even though he already knew he had what he wanted, but even if she said no, he was lying on top of the only thing in the world he every truly wanted and she was filled with his cock.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “You go off the pill tomorrow,” he ordered and she instantly nodded.

  Pure Lexie, no bullshit, no hesitation, she gave.

  Instantly.

  He grinned at her. His woman grinned back.

  Then he slowly pulled out and slid back in again as he watched her eyes drift closed.

  Then he dropped his head and kept going slow, but, lips to her ear, he asked, “How many you want?”

  “Four,” she answered immediately and he quit moving, luckily on an inward glide and his head came up.

  “Four?” he asked.

  “Four,” Lexie answered.

  “Four kids?” he added detail in order to confirm.

  She grinned again. “Four kids.”

  “Shit, mama, good thing we’re gettin’ started tomorrow.”

  She giggled.

  Walker didn’t watch. He dropped his head so he could feel her laughter on his tongue.

  Then he felt her laughter on his tongue.

  Then her laughter stopped because he again got busy.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Official Steel Magnolia’s Rulebook

  Ty

  Ty was still brushing his teeth when Lexie finished, spit, rinsed, reached and shoved her toothbrush back in the holder affixed to the wall between their two basins. Then she took a side step closer to him and he watched in the mirror as her head bent and she dug into some flowered bag that was sitting on the counter between their sinks. She pulled out a pale pink, round case, turned and walked into the little room with the toilet. He heard something small splash into the toilet and again and again and again and this went on awhile. Then she turned, walked out of that little room, dropped the case in the small trash bin and her eyes slid to his in the mirror.

  Then she grinned.

  Then she reached into the shower stall and turned on the water, tugged off his tee she wore to bed and shimmied out of her panties. Then she stepped in.

  He bent his neck, spit, rinsed, reached and shoved his toothbrush opposite Lexie’s in the holder.

  Then he moved to the shower.

  * * * * *

  Ty was standing with a hip against the counter, bowl of sliced bananas, cut strawberries and yogurt held up in front of him, spoon in his other hand shoveling the food into his mouth.

  His eyes were on his woman who was back in his tee and a clean pair of panties, hair wet, combed back but drying fast and wavy in the Colorado air. She was filling a travel mug of coffee for him at the same time eyeing the dirty dishes, the stains and crumbs on the countertops and the piles of mail all the while looking like she wished she could stop eyeing them.

  Before she left, there was a time or two when he came home when their bed wasn’t made but this was rare; a time or two when she’d done a half-assed job of it, yanking up the covers, fluffing pillows and tossing them wherever they’d land but this last was more than he’d ever do. A couple of days would go by where their clothes would remain on the floor where they’d discarded them or tossed them in the preliminaries to fucking. A week might go by where she’d let mail stack up on the side kitchen counter. A few times, she’d leave the dishes in the sink and do them the next morning.

  But under all that was always clean and eventually she’d get to tidying.

  Clearly, six weeks of build up was about five and a half weeks too much.

  He chewed, he swallowed then he spoke. “Fill the dishwasher, mama, and I’ll empty it. I’ll take out the trash. I will not vacuum. I will not clean a fuckin’ toilet. And, on the inside, I had enough of sweepin’ and moppin’ for a lifetime. So, I will kick in in the ways I just said. Other than that, it’s up to you to decide if you can hack it or if we gotta find a cleaning lady.”

  The first words he spoke, her eyes came to him.

  When he was done she asked, “You’ll fill the dishwasher and empty it, did you actually do that while I was away?”

  Even though he sensed she was teasing him, his gut tightened at her tone.

  He’d just got finished fucking her in the shower. Before that, she made a show that she was taking them forward, with him all the way to their next step of building a family. And after she did that, she’d grinned at him.

  But, since their shower, he got that tone and that tone matched the set of her frame. Quiet, pensive, borderline uncertain.

  He’d bought that, being a dumb fuck, treating her like a dick, saying shit to her he shouldn’t have said, comparing her to Misty, a woman he hated and she hated and, it was arguable, but he got the sense his wife hated Misty at least as much as he did. On some level, it could be worse, seeing as Misty was a sister and Misty strapped the sisterhood with the shit he piled on Lexie, shit she didn’t deserve. Misty perpetrated a betrayal to that sisterhood, an unforgiveable one.

  But Lexie was treading cautiously, probably not even knowing she was doing it. Twice, he fucked up, twice he was a dick, twice he lashed out and mouthed off. The first time, she didn’t do shit to deserve it, the second time, she did but his response was way the fuck over the line. Now, he could see, she was going to do everything she could so she didn’t buy a third time.

  Ty would take that tone over the one she spoke to him with when she was on the beach, her voice void, dead, remote. He never wanted to hear her talk like that again, feel the darkness that shrouded her, experience her being so far gone, he knew he could run flat out every day for the rest of his life and never reach her. He never wanted that back, for him or for her, that was so agonizing, he’d take anything else from her, even this.

  That said, he still didn’t like it.

  So he put his spoon in the bowl, set it aside and ordered gently, “Mama, come here.”

  Lexie, being Lexie, came direct to him.

  He wound an arm around her waist, pulling her body to his and her hands came up, flat on his chest, not to hold him back, just to rest them there as her head tipped way back to look at him and his other hand wrapped around her neck, his thumb moving on her jaw.

  “It’s gonna take time for you to trust me again –” he started but she cut him off swiftly.

  “I trust you.”

  His thumb stopped stroking and his fingers gave her a light squeeze as he dipped his face closer. “Baby, you don’t.”

  “I do.”

  He shook his head and asked quietly, “Can you shut up a minute so I can talk?”

  She pressed her lips together but her eyes flared.

  Now that, he liked.

  He beat back a grin and talked. “Drama over, we’re back to us and I didn’t just fuck up, I did it huge, I said nasty shit that shouldn’t have been said and I can’t take that back. The wounds I inflicted went deep and I can only hope to Christ one day they heal over. Until that day, mama, all I can promise you is that I’ll do all I can do to beat that shit back and never do that to you again. But we got a rocky road ahead of us and I don’t know where it’s gonna lead before we get to the other side. The only thing I can give you is, that shit comes outta my mouth and cuts you, you gotta understand that shit was planted in me and I gotta get it out. I’ll try to do it in a way that doesn’t harm you but I obviously am not battin’ a thousand with that so I can make no promises except I’ll try. What you need to give me is to know it is not about you, it’s about me, you gotta suck it up and stand by me, you gotta know, in the end, I’ll work my ass off to make it a
ll worth it to you and you gotta always remember I love you and I have never, not once, said those words to any breathing soul so you also gotta know what that means.”

  She blinked.

  Then she asked, “You’ve never told anyone you love them?”

  He shook his head and answered, “Loved one person in my life, Tuku, he died without me sayin’ those words to him and, to this day, even though he was not a man prone to that kind of shit, I wished I’d said it and I wished he’d died knowin’ what he gave me and all he meant to me.”

  She nodded, her face understanding in a way that made the wound he had from what they went through, a wound still raw, a gaping wound torn open in the left side of his chest, pulsate because he knew from her look she’d learned that lesson the day before.

  He didn’t do that to her but what he did forced Julius’s hand so he had that to make up for too.

  “I can give you that, Ty,” she whispered, her hands pressing into his chest.

  “Thanks, baby,” he whispered back then still spoke soft but firm when he ordered, “Now, I took that shadow out of your life but this mornin’, I see it’s over you. Get rid of it. This is you and me, people live through this shit and if they manage to do it together, it makes them stronger. Power through, mama, and get to that other side with me.”

  She stared into his eyes and kept whispering when she said, “How did you know?”

  He dipped his face even closer, gliding his hand from her neck up into her hair and his arm around her got tight. “My Lexie beams bright and she can do that shit even in her sleep. The Lexie shuffling around this kitchen is doin’ it under a cloud.”

  She held his eyes. Then she pressed closer. Then her lips tipped up at the ends.

  Then she said, “Okay, honey, I’ll turn on the light.”

  He felt his lips tip up at the ends too before he replied, “Okay.”

  She got up on her toes and kissed his throat. He closed his eyes when he felt her lips and the brush of her soft hair on his jaw. Then he opened them when she dropped back to her feet.