Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later, under the sustained cold shoulder of a determined fourteen year old, Delia cracked. “Okay,” she said to Ethan over the phone a few hours after she’d dropped a sullen, uncommunicative, hunger-striking Connie back to him late Friday afternoon. “You win.”
Ethan’s pulse spiked and he gripped the phone harder. “This isn’t a game,” he said wearily.
There was silence for a moment or two. “JJ was right, Connie does hate me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” he said. He didn’t owe Delia an ego boost, and God knew she didn’t deserve one, but if this phone call was about what he thought it was, then he could afford to be gracious. “She’s angry with you.”
“I just wanted to be her mother … I thought, with Paris, she’d wanted that too. Edward warned me I was pushing too far too fast but … I was just trying to make up for lost time.”
“There’s a lot to make up for, Delia.”
“I know …”
Ethan thought he heard a soft sob but he couldn’t be sure.
“I do know what a lousy mother I’ve been. I know that you think I lack insight, but I don’t. I know that I hurt you a lot and worse than that, deserted my child. I know I was spoilt and selfish and that I have a lot of making up to do. But …”
There was very definitely a sob this time and what sounded like a nose being blown.
“I do want to be here for her now. I’m just so scared she’s never going to want me after … after leaving her the way I did. I guess I felt if I forced her then she wouldn’t have a choice. I’m sorry. I don’t want her to hate me. I want her to want to be with me. I want her to be happy.”
Once upon a time Delia’s tears would have undone him, but that Ethan was long gone. Still, her dejection was promising. In the past she’d been bitchy, arrogant, self-centred and spoilt. It was good to hear her so uncertain.
Now she sounded human. Like a parent. Like a mother, putting her kid first.
“Give her time, Delia,” he sighed.
“That’s what Edward says.”
Ethan grunted. “I always did like him.”
“I’d still like to see more of her,” Delia said.
“And we can talk about that,” Ethan confirmed. “But you’re going to have to start from scratch and win back some trust.”
Delia gave a sniffling half-laugh. “I don’t think Edward can take any more time away from the property to go to Paris again.”
Ethan smiled. “She doesn’t need Paris. She just needs to know you’re sticking around and that she’s your number one priority.”
“She is.”
Ethan nodded at the conviction in her voice. The thought that Connie might have her mother back in her life suddenly didn’t feel like so much of a threat. “Okay then.”
“I’ll call the lawyer first thing Monday morning and withdraw my custody petition.”
Ethan hadn’t dared believe until he’d heard the actual words. He sat down at the kitchen table, his legs suddenly unsteady as relief wooshed, light and airy, through his system. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
“Just don’t screw it up this time, Delia.” Ethan knew a desertion now would cut much deeper. “Connie’s not two anymore.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Delia assured.
Ethan hung up the phone, unable to believe his luck. He’d been girding his loins, preparing for the whole horrible ordeal, scared out of his brain that a judge would take Delia’s side.
And now it was over.
And he was free.
He grabbed the phone to call JJ. She’d be ecstatic. She’d want to know. He could almost hear her sexy huh, vanquished bitch coming from her mouth and he smiled to himself as he waited for the phone to pick up. When it did the background noise made it almost impossible to hear Mitch when he answered. “She’s crazy busy at the bar,” Mitch yelled. “The place is going off tonight.”
Music and the hum of a large crowd crackled down the line. There was a band playing tonight. “Okay, no worries. I’ll see her when she gets home.”
He hung up and called her mobile. He knew she wouldn’t answer but he wanted to leave her a message for later. The phone rang for ten rings then went to messages as he knew it would. “Baby, have I got the best news for you. You better be naked when you get into bed tonight and don’t plan on getting any sleep.”
He grinned to himself as he hung up and looked at his watch—eight-thirty. It would be another six hours before JJ got home with Jarrod and Selena who were going to see the band with Coop and Lacey. They were bringing JJ home then going to crash next door at her grandmother’s house.
With Connie asleep the house was quiet. Quiet enough to hear the buzz of anticipation hum through his system.
JJ waved goodbye to Jarrod and Selena as they let themselves in next door and she let herself into Ethan’s. It was two thirty-nine when she crept into his bedroom. She was exhausted, she was partially deaf from the thunder of country rock, she reeked of alcohol and her feet were throbbing. She needed to get out of her clothes, she needed a shower, she needed a sleep.
But Ethan, as usual, stopped her in her tracks. Even in his regulation boxers and T-shirt he was distracting as hell, taking up all the room in the bed, the sheet tangled in his legs, one arm thrown above his head, his face turned towards a meaty bicep.
The words from his message played over in her head and her belly clenched. The way he’d called her baby had melted her heart and, although she was curious about the news, the second part of the message was of more interest with him all laid out before her like this.
Oh, the things she could do …
Her feet throbbed a sudden reminder and she dragged her eyes off him to quickly shuck her T-shirt, jeans and bra. She reached for her gown hanging on a hook on the back of the cupboard door. In a house with only one tiny, communal bathroom she’d found it easier to wear a gown there and back and dress in the bedroom.
“I think you forgot your undies.”
JJ started at his deep sleepy rumble and looked down at him as his eyes fluttered open. “I thought you were asleep.”
He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her naked breasts, and her belly stirred. “Not now.”
Her gown was in her hand and she could easily have put it on but she was enjoying the way his eyes ran over her like he knew every millimetre of her skin, like he wanted to know it some more.
“Well,” she demanded, dropping the gown to the floor as she shoved her hands on her hips, and thrust out her chest a little in a deliberately provocative motion. “What’s this news?”
Ethan shook his head. “Undies first.”
JJ’s pulse tripped as his gaze settled on the garment in question. Her hands shook as she wiggled out of them and stood in front of him completely naked.
“Well?” she repeated.
“Better,” he muttered, his hand shooting out to grab hers, giving a tug, toppling her down along his length before rolling her under him. He kissed her and she let him, sucking up every last tasty morsel of him.
“I need a shower,” she protested breathily when they came up for air. “I smell like a brewery.”
“I like how you smell,” he murmured, nibbling down her neck. “I like you smelling of beer and rum and bar.” His hand stroked against a taut nipple and JJ moaned. “It’s intoxicating,” he said and she could feel him smiling as he strung kisses from one shoulder to the other.
She laughed. “You’re crazy.”
He looked up at her and captured her gaze with his and JJ sucked in her breath at the intensity she saw there. “Certifiable,” he agreed.
Still with their gazes locked, he reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a foil packet. She was amazed at his ability to get the condom out and on, all one handed, and in good time. “Impressive,” she murmured as he settled back against her, his pelvis aligning with hers, the hard length of him gliding along the slickness a
t her core.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said against her mouth, claiming her lips as he thrust inside her.
JJ moaned out loud, gripping his shoulders hard, her legs locking around his waist as desire tugged her in a hundred different delicious directions.
“Hey,” she panted, breaking away from his mouth, as he stayed still, high and hard, building a delicious tension in her belly. “You said you’d tell me the news if I took my undies off. You owe me.”
He moved inside her, deep and slow, just the barest of thrusts as he said. “You wanna know?”
JJ shut her eyes as he pulled out a little more and slid home again. “I want to know,” she said.
“You really want to know?” he asked again, pulling out more, pushing in again.
JJ gasped. “Yes, damn it.”
He pulled almost all the way out then slid all the way in again. “Delia’s dropping the custody petition.”
JJ opened her eyes. The tension building in her pelvis from his slow deliberate assault was almost at breaking point, but the news was too stunning to ignore. “Really?”
He kissed her hard and she kissed him back with everything she had, so full of him and her love for him.
“Really,” he said. “Really, really, really.”
He punctuated each word with a slow steady thrust and then he stopped talking altogether, just thrusting and thrusting with slow deliberate strokes and JJ gave herself over to the push and the pull. To the heat and the build. To the pound of her pulse and the saw of her breath. To the sensations bursting like pop-rocks in her belly and thighs, spiralling up and out from where they were joined, and showering her in pleasure like bursts of fireworks into the night.
He joined her in the tumult, his guttural groan vibrating against her neck, his breathing heavy, his movements jerky as he emptied himself inside her, holding her close. And when he collapsed against her, spent, she felt like she’d never be the same again. Like he’d turned her inside out and made her a different version of herself.
JJ ran her fingers through his hair as they lay in the aftermath, both still breathing hard, his weight pinning her to the bed. Her head buzzed and her blood fizzed through her veins and endorphins invaded every cell with peace and goodwill.
She was so damn high she felt like she was going to combust. I love you. It filled her head like a mantra and it sounded good and right and perfect.
“I love you.”
It was Ethan’s sudden stillness that alerted her to the fact that she’d actually spoken out loud. And then he shifted off her, rolling onto his back, staring at the ceiling for a couple of moments before vaulting upright, his feet hitting the floor. He stood and got rid of the condom, reaching for his underwear, his back to her.
JJ felt her high evaporate as she watched the play of muscles in his back. Crap.
Crap, crap, crap. What the hell had she gone and said that for? She’d kept it to herself for decades, for crying out loud.
He crouched and picked up her gown, handing it to her as he turned around. JJ sucked in a deep breath and took it. She slid out the other side of the bed and wrapped herself in it, before she turned to face him. He looked grim and she swallowed.
“Did you mean what you just said?” he asked, his voice low, conscious she supposed of Connie asleep down the hallway.
JJ’s pulse thundered through her ears. She had two choices—lie or tell the truth. She could brush it off, pretend it was said under the influence of sexual inebriation. Or she could cut the crap and just ’fess up. She looked at him across the bed where they’d loved each other for weeks. Even if he didn’t want to think about it like that, she knew what they’d shared.
“Yes.”
He sucked in a breath and she almost recanted at the shock on his face. The thought that she could lose him altogether cut her to the quick. But she couldn’t let that be a factor any more, not when she’d come this far.
She had a chance now—her one real chance to take what they had these last weeks and turn it into something real. Something solid and good and right. She’d been a coward too long, keeping her love a secret.
Well, no more. He might not want to hear it, but she wasn’t going to pretend any longer. It was time to rock the boat.
“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you.”
Ethan actually went pale at that admission, but hey—in for a penny, in for a pound, right?
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
JJ nodded slowly as his words battered like a ram against her heart. He didn’t need to say anything—his recoil told her all she needed to know. She wrapped her arms round her waist. “Well, if you don’t know what to say then …”
Ethan frowned. “No, it’s just that …” he stopped, looking like he was trying to find the right words. “You’re JJ … I never thought of you like this. The sex thing has been hard enough to get my head around …” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve only ever loved one woman …”
JJ felt that blow to her chest even harder than the first. She thought how unfair it was that he should look this damn fine while he was telling her he loved another woman.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, “you are still in love with Delia.”
What an idiot she’d been. She’d known that he’d been tangled up in the other woman for a long time, but being with him these last weeks she’d really thought he was over her.
Ethan recoiled. “What? No!” He stalked around to her side of the bed. “Absolutely not!” He stopped in front of her. “I loved Delia, yes … but not for a very long time.”
JJ shook her head. “And yet, you haven’t found anyone else,” she said accusingly. “One of Jumbuck’s most eligible single guys?”
He snorted. “Do you blame me? After the complete fucking disaster that was Delia?” He shook his head. “She scarred me for life. You think I’m going to put myself in front of that train wreck again? I don’t think I can even feel love anymore.”
Another blow punched straight into her heart. “Don’t be ridiculous. You love Connie. And your family.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of love. And neither are you.”
JJ scrunched her hands by her side as the overwhelming urge to touch him, to place her hand on his arm, rose like a tidal wave inside her. “There are plenty of amazing, loving, long-lasting relationships out there, Ethan. Your parents had one, remember?”
He nodded. “Sure. But I have a kid who takes up all my time and whose needs I have to prioritise above my own. I don’t have time for trial and error and I can’t bring a string of women in and out of Connie’s life looking for the one who might be able to stick the rather unexciting life of wife of a small-town cop—because Delia sure as hell couldn’t.”
A surge of anger at Delia rose in JJ. But also at Ethan. She’d have been his one in a heartbeat. He’d just been too blinded by lust to see it.
“You know Delia may have been a spoilt, selfish little princess but you have to take some responsibility there too. She’d always been materialistic and flighty and you knew that as well as the next guy. But you just couldn’t wait to get your hands on those D cups and check out what was under her itty bitty skirt. She led you a merry dance, but you followed willingly. With your tongue hanging out.”
She’d never had the courage to say that to Ethan before. She’d always been his shoulder to cry on, his ear to listen to. Good old buddy JJ.
And it felt good.
“You think I don’t know that?” he hissed. “That’s the bloody point. I was utterly blinded by her. By a ridiculous hormonal surge. I learnt a long time ago not to trust that. I don’t trust love,” he said. “It just makes fools of us.”
JJ heard the finality in his words and she knew she didn’t have the ammunition to fight that. Not right now anyway. Delia had scarred him—a great, big, ugly, impenetrable, keloid scar. And she didn’t know how to fix that. She was too tired, too angry, too used up.
/> She didn’t know what was going to happen to them now she’d laid her heart on the line and he’d stomped all over it. But she did know she couldn’t stay here a second longer.
She skirted around him and headed for her clothes. She shrugged off her gown and climbed into her underwear then her jeans.
“JJ … what are you doing?” he asked as she reached for her bra.
“I’m going to the pub.”
Ethan rubbed his hands through his hair. “You can’t leave here in the middle of the night.”
She hooked her bra on. “Watch me.”
“It’s after three in the morning.”
“I know,” she said, shoving her head into her T-shirt.
He sighed. “I’ll take you.”
JJ reefed her shirt down. “No you will not,” she hissed and didn’t care who she woke up in the process. “I’m perfectly bloody capable of driving myself to the pub.”
“And what do I tell Connie in the morning?” he demanded.
JJ shook her head. “Tell her something came up and I had to go in early. I don’t know. I don’t care.” She shoved her feet into her shoes and picked up her bag. “This thing was going to end anyway, with the custody case dropped,” she said wearily. “We’ll talk about how to approach things with Connie tomorrow.”
“JJ … at least stay until the morning.”
The plea in his voice was soft and reasonable and it took all of JJ’s strength to shake her head. She needed to go somewhere her heart could break without an audience.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she headed out the door, uncaring that it banged loudly in the still of the night.
By the time Ethan pulled up at the pub late that afternoon the post-lunch lull had hit and he was feeling more under control. He had a plan, and a speech, and he was pretty sure JJ would see its merits. He could fix this.
He’d lain awake thinking, turning the problem over and over in his head. Trying to come up with something so they both could get what they wanted. Having JJ around the house—helping with Connie, revelling in the crazy drop-in culture of his house, heating up his bed—had been some of the best weeks of his life.
Some of the best weeks of JJ’s life too, he suspected.
And he wanted that to continue.
So maybe they could still have that? Maybe they could get married for real. Then she’d get a bit of what she wanted—his official declaration of commitment with a certificate to prove it—and he could have her in his house and in his family and his bed.
They could be really happy this way—he was sure of it.
It was sensible, reasonable and practical. And JJ was all of those things.
Surely she could see the advantage in it?
Ethan spotted her behind the bar as soon as he entered, and was dismayed to see her scowl. She looked tired and puffy around her eyes and really not in the mood for a chat. But whether she liked it or not, they needed to talk and the bar was light on customers.
“We need to talk,” he said as he leant on the bar. “Now.”
She looked like she was going to argue for a moment but then her shoulders sagged in resignation. He already missed the days she’d grinned at him when he strode inside, welcomed him with some bar gossip and a joke.
If she rejected him now, would their future always be like this—her scowling at him?
“Mitch,” she called through the window that separated the bar from the kitchen. “Can you take over here for a few minutes?”
He was conscious of her following him down the corridor to her office. Conscious of how fast he had made her come against the door as it shut behind her. Conscious of what was at stake as she walked the few paces to her desk then turned and sat on the edge, her palms on her thighs. “I’ve been thinking about what we should say to Connie,” she said.
“I’m not here to talk about Connie,” Ethan dismissed. “Well not entirely anyway. I’ve come to talk about us.”
He watched as her throat bobbed and she rubbed her palms back and forth along denim thighs. “Oh?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About loving me.” He paused, swallowed. He had to get this right. “I think we should get married. For real.”
JJ blinked at him and her mouth actually dropped open. She looked at him with confusion in her eyes.
“Just think about it,” he implored. “I know you’ve enjoyed your time at the house. I know you’ve been into that. And I’m not just talking about the sex. You’re part of our family now. Well, you’ve always been part of it, really, this will just make it official.”
Ethan stopped. Gathered his wits for a moment. “You get me and Connie, which is what I know you want. And I want that too. We need an adult female influence in our house—you’ve been like a ray of sunshine these last weeks. And I will promise to be a good and loyal and dedicated husband. We don’t even have to be … physically involved. It can be in name only. Probably more sensible than messy grandiose passion anyway,” he added.
Not that he really want the in-name-only thing. But he understood that when he wasn’t offering her the love match he knew she really wanted, that he too would have to make compromises.
And he was prepared to do that for the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time.
He watched her carefully for a reaction. She hadn’t said anything, she hadn’t moved. She just stared at him. And he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“I think this is a really practical solution to our … dilemma,” he continued. “And the one thing I’ve always admired about you is how pragmatic you are. After erratic and irresponsible, I really need someone solid and reliable and dependable.”
A little frown formed between her brows now and he started to panic again. “I only wish I’d fallen for you all those years ago.”
JJ’s knuckles whitened as she clenched her flat palms into fists before slowly standing. “Get out,” she said.
Ethan blinked, his heart beating a crazy tattoo in his chest. Crap. “JJ … maybe I didn’t explain myself well enough.”
JJ shook her head at him and he noticed that her hands were shaking and she clasped them together in front of her to stop them. “Oh, I think you have.”
“So …” He didn’t need to be some kind of seer to know she was pissed off, and that he needed to proceed with caution. “You don’t think that could work?”
JJ glowered—literally glowered—at him. “I don’t want to be solid and reliable and dependable,” she said through stiff lips. “For fuck’s sake, you make me sound like a freaking Volvo! I want to be sexy and … foxy and irresistible. I want you to be so undone by me that you can’t think straight. I want you to be crazy about me. Like you were crazy about Delia. I love you. And Connie. And I want to be the family that you talked about. But I want it in the fullest sense of the word. Not some platonic friend that ticks all the right boxes.”
“Okay,” Ethan jumped in, eager to keep the dialogue open, to find a happy medium. “We can negotiate this.”
JJ’s face screwed up, twisting into a very unladylike snort. “You can’t negotiate love,” she said and the despair in her voice cut into him with surgical precision. “It either is or it isn’t. This isn’t just about me being in a safe place where I can love you, Ethan. I need you to love me back.”
She walked to the door, careful to skirt around him, and pulled it open. “Please, just go.”
Ethan blinked. He’d delivered such a practical solution to their problem. A win/win. She should be in his arms right now, kissing him.
He’d offered to marry her for real for crying out loud.
“JJ … please,” he said as he joined her at the door.
She looked at him and her gaze was filled with such disdain he couldn’t bear it. “I think you need to drink at Joe’s in future,” she said.
And she didn’t wait for him to leave her office, she walked out ahead of him and didn’t look back.
Ethan had a
sudden hankering for overproof Jack.