* * *
“WELL, I DON’T want my daughters to grow up seeing their mother not welcomed by their father’s family.” Vaughan shoved a hand through his hair, beginning to pace.
“There’s no way our relationship will work if they don’t welcome you. Not if I stay close with them.” He knew that with utter certainty. “You’d resent me if I didn’t stand up for you.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I did. And I would. I’m not sure how we get around that, but I’d like to try to work out our differences and be nicer to each other if for no other reason than Maddie and Kensey. And I admit it, I want them to like me.”
Vaughan took her hands. There she was, putting herself to the side for someone else and he was done seeing that happen.
“I failed you before. You’re totally right. But you’re also right that my family is a good family. And because of that, I think we can fix this.” Vaughan didn’t believe his mother wanted this tension between them to continue and after his dinner with his brothers at the ranch the week before, he believed they all would welcome Kelly happily.
“I won’t lose you again. I’m not just going over there to eat and then hang out or help Ezra. I’m going to talk to my mom and dad about you. About us. And I’m going to be sure they know the truth I’ve been dodging for a long time.” In just a few days he’d have been staying with them for five weeks. So much had changed. Enough to give him the strength and will to do the right thing.
Kelly’s features lit and he reversed his pacing and moved back to her.
“I broke us. I cheated and betrayed you and then I let my family think the worst of you because I was too weak to bear the weight of what I’d done. I’m sorry, Kelly.”
She sniffled a little and he was glad he’d said it. Sorry that he hadn’t before.
“So, this morning I’ll walk the girls to the bus along with you like we do every morning. And tonight is taco night, so I’ll be back because it’s my turn to pick the food up when you call to say you’ve got Maddie and are on the way home like you did last week and the week before.”
The wonder of that hadn’t gone away yet. The way he and Kelly had begun to work with one another to keep their family running. She trusted him with a little more each week and it was a gift each time.
He’d have tacos with his ladies at six that night just like he did every Tuesday night.
“Okay, then.” She went to her tiptoes to kiss him.
He cupped her cheeks, so pleased she’d let him in so much more. Touched that she’d insisted he continued his relationship with his family. Determined to fix the mess he’d made.
He followed her into the bathroom. “We’ve got about fifteen extra minutes. Any idea what we could do with it?”
The shirt she tossed over her shoulder answered his question and he laughed, quickening his pace to catch up.
“Make sure the door is locked,” she called out as he made to grab her.
“Oops.” He turned around to do that and when he’d come back, she was naked and getting into the shower.
He locked the bathroom door, too, and joined her.
“Now you’re learning,” she teased.
He shucked his pants and joined her, already hard, always wanting her.
This kiss took him deep. He wanted every moment they had, wanted to fill each of them with pleasure, greedy as always.
She slid herself against him, squirting some liquid soap between their bodies until they got nice and slippery.
“Mmm. Taking showers is so much more fun when you live here.”
He laughed, kissing down her neck as he shifted to slide his cock between her thighs and pushed closer, not entering her body, but stroking the head and length of himself against her, hot, wet and oh so welcoming.
She sucked in a shaky breath and he nipped her earlobe. “Feels so good. Everything with you is hotter than the last time.”
She scored her nails down his back as her breathing hitched. As he continued to thrust, taking them both closer and closer to climax, he soaped over her ass and then up, around her hips until he took her breasts in his hands, tugging her nipples the way he knew she liked best.
Her pussy grew impossibly hotter against him as he continued to stroke through the notch between her thighs, taking care to angle the flare of the crown of his cock against her clit, just so.
Her teeth sank into his shoulder as she came. The unexpected edge of pain, the fraying of her control, sent him into orgasm right along with her.
“Better than a cup of coffee any day,” he said as he kissed her.
Laughing, she finished her shower.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AFTER A QUICK knock on his parents’ front door, he let himself in, calling out that he’d arrived.
He followed the smell of food and his father’s hail through to the kitchen where his mom was cooking and his dad had clearly just come inside from the fields. The alfalfa was coming in the following week or so. The ranch was abuzz with activity and had been for hours.
Michael Hurley loved being outside. Loved the land and making things grow. He and Ezra were very much alike in that way. Vaughan loved that the ranch was their land, but not anywhere near the level they did.
He waved a hand at Vaughan. “Hey, son.”
Vaughan hugged both his parents and then got himself a cup of coffee.
“How’s it going? Alfalfa still on track for next week?”
“It is.”
“Kelly and I are taking the girls to New York, but we’ll be back Wednesday. I’ll stay here for a few days to help then.”
“Bring the biscuits to the table, Michael,” his mother said. “Vaughan, grab the butter and jam from the fridge.”
Once all the food had been laid out, they sat down to eat. Minnie camped her fat little belly over Vaughan’s feet, just in case he might drop some food.
“What are you doing in Gresham, Vaughan?” his mother asked as she spooned up some eggs onto her plate.
“I’m getting my family back. Or, maybe that’s not right. I’m earning them, I guess. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing,” Vaughan said.
“Why now? She left you eight years ago. Why does she suddenly want you back?”
“Sharon, honey.” Michael patted his wife’s hand and she gave him a scary look. Vaughan’s father ignored it. “Ease back, now. Your Southern is showing.”
“That girl showed up, made him love her and then stole his children and his money. You tell me why I shouldn’t be outraged by that.”
Vaughan and his father both stared, stunned, mouths agape at her words.
This was a bigger mess than he’d assumed. There was a lot of emotion there and it was misplaced. For so long Vaughan had let this stew and now... “This is totally my fault.” Vaughan ate awhile as he tried to get his words together.
“What is?” Sharon eyed him carefully.
“I should have pushed harder to bring her into the family. We should have welcomed her instead of suspecting her. I was away a lot. Distracted. I didn’t want to make waves and she tolerated it.”
“Tolerated?”
“How can you be so smart about so many things and so, so deluded when it comes to Kelly? What is it about her more than Natalie, Mary or Tuesday that makes you react so vehemently against her?”
“She broke your heart! She stole your children when you were still reeling from that and then she used you for money. She’s got her fancy house here and her multimillion-dollar condo. Her stores. All paid for by my son. Who she hurt.”
“Mom,” Vaughan began but Sharon held a hand up.
“I’m not done, boy. Hold your tongue until I am.”
“I’m going to let that happen. But I’m telling you now, tread carefully.” Vaughan clamped his lips together.
> “That was years ago. She was young and I can understand why she latched on to you. Army brat with a stage mother who pushed her into show business to pay the bills. And you come along. Keep it shut,” she warned him when Vaughan began to argue.
He nodded and his father gave him an approving look. Vaughan knew his father supported his getting Kelly back so that expression said Vaughan was on the right track to let Sharon speak.
“But then, she stayed here. Your daughters are wonderful children. Bright, affectionate, artistic. She encourages that but doesn’t seem to want to exploit their talent. I’ve been a mother with kids who were artists. I know what it takes and so maybe I don’t hate her anymore. Maybe I even appreciate the way she keeps them in our life.”
“I appreciate that you feel better about her and all, but nothing you felt about her until now has been fair. It’s based on a lie. More than one lie. I told her to file for divorce. More than once when she confronted me about my behavior. It was a way to shut her up and keep her off my back. The last time, well, she listened to me. The truth is, I didn’t want to be married.”
Vaughan’s father put his hand on top of his wife’s to stay her response. She was pissed off, that much was clear.
“Kelly wanted it. Wanted kids and picket fences. She wanted welcome mats with dogs in Christmas sweaters on them. I wanted her. But she wanted to be an us.” He put his face in his hands for long moments.
He’d never said any of this out loud. Not even to her on the occasions he’d apologized. It seemed too cruel to say. Too shameful that he’d thrown away a decade because he’d been a dick.
But he’d made a promise to stand up for her and they needed to know everything.
“She caught me in a compromising situation with someone else.”
His mother’s face, if he lived to be a hundred he’d never forget what it felt like to watch her anger fade into disappointment. In him.
“Don’t you sit at this table and use pretty words for what it really was. Tell me what compromising means.” His father’s tone went very sharp and Vaughan winced.
“I cheated on her. She stumbled in on me with a hand that wasn’t my own in my pants.” It was awful, so awful to disappoint them this way. He hadn’t been a good man and then he’d allowed them to think ill of Kelly for years rather than own up to his mistakes.
“‘Stumbled in’ isn’t actually fair. I knew she was coming. She was pregnant with Kensey, had a toddler at home and she came all the way out to see me on tour because I asked her to. Part of me wanted that final push, I guess. That night wasn’t the first time I’d told her to file for divorce if she didn’t like what I did. But she’d always backed down, apologized. But not that time.”
“Obviously not.” His father’s reaction told Vaughan he’d known far more of the truth than he’d let on. Which only made him feel worse.
“I didn’t fight it. I walked away. I love my kids, and I loved them then, too. But she didn’t use them to get money from me and she certainly didn’t steal them from me. Come on, Mom. I left her the work of raising them while I lived my life. If I gave her the apartment in Manhattan and money to finish school it’s because I knew I was wrong. And because she was giving up her career to do my job.” Vaughan scrubbed hands over his face. “In my estimation it was a fair thing to do, even if she did have her own money. You’re going to tell me it’s cheap to raise a kid? Or that it isn’t my responsibility to support them financially? They could be in a place she owned in Manhattan right now. I’d see them three or four times a year. You guys even less. She gave that up to come here and settle. So those girls could see their family more often. She gave up her career and I never even gave throwing money at her a second thought.”
Vaughan wanted to throw up. He’d held all that in for so long and it had weighed his heart.
“I should never have let this go on this long.” His voice caught. Shame burned his cheeks. “I wasn’t a good person. I hurt her and I was selfish and missed out on things I’ll never get back. I make them pancakes before school every Monday. I check homework and listen to a thousand stories about stuff that is incomprehensible to me about dolls and characters and books and singers and games and their friends. I sing with them after dinner and tuck them in every night. I have a family now.”
His father leaned across the table to squeeze Vaughan’s hand. “Shame is an entirely appropriate emotion in this case. I’m disappointed to hear the details. Disappointed in you and your lack of honor. Disappointed you allowed your mother and I to have a very bad opinion of Kelly so all these years there’s been tension. No, you weren’t a good man and I want to kick your behind for what you did to her and to your children.”
Vaughan hadn’t been this close to crying while getting a stern talking-to from his father in a decade or so.
“But,” Michael continued, “you are a good man now. You’re owning up to your mistakes and you’re fighting to get back what you threw away. That I can be proud of.”
It helped a little. Enough that he could continue. “I’m trying. I know I screwed up. A lot. It kills me sometimes when I think about how much. My daughters are getting old enough to know when something is wrong. They see Mary here. They see how much you guys love and support Damien’s family. And you should. It’s important. They’ve come to know Natalie. I expect she’ll be joining our crazy group sooner or later. This is their legacy. All the land we can see from the porch. They love getting dirty and riding out to the fields with Ezra. This is part of them like it’s part of me.”
His mother had remained silent but she was working on something. Vaughan could see the wheels turning and it wasn’t another moment before she finally spoke.
“Then why are you there in Gresham, away from us? If this land is so important, why are you living there instead of here?” she asked.
“Why would I be? Kelly isn’t welcome here.” Vaughan adjusted his tone. He loved his family so much and he wanted things to be better. At the same time, he promised Kelly he’d stand up for her and that’s what needed to happen.
“I’m there and not here because I can’t imagine anything crueler for me to do than to expect her to sit home while everyone else is welcomed here. You both have opened your hearts and the Hurley family to Natalie, Mary and Tuesday. Kelly can see that. It’s not a very nice feeling and I just can’t tolerate it, especially if my daughters could see. They need to see me respecting her and backing her up. That’s what they need in a partner when they’re adults. It’s what you and Dad do.”
He wasn’t so worked up that he needed to miss that biscuit before it got too cold.
After he gobbled it down in three bites he went back to the subject.
“Eight years ago I chose a life of me and not us. Yes, we were young. But it was me who was immature. But I’m making a family with her now. I love her. She’s given me another chance. Even after all the junk I pulled before.”
Vaughan looked back and forth between his parents. “I wasn’t ready then. I was selfish. And the cost... I aim to marry Kelly again. This time with all our friends and family present. I want you to see the Kelly I know and I want my family to be respected and welcomed as it is. Which means with Kelly.”
His mother put some more ham on her plate as she eyed Vaughan carefully.
“Are you moving to Gresham permanently, then?” she asked at last. “We’ll see you and the girls even less?”
“Let me answer the second question first. How often you see me and the girls is up to you. I want to bring them here. They want to come here. Kelly thinks it’s important they grow up with a sense of connection to this ranch and to this family. She told me my love for you all was one of the best things about me. And that’s why I can finally stop farting around and get my act together. I’m doing my best to be a person worthy of all three females I live with. That means we’ll split our time betwee
n the house in Gresham and the house here around school schedules, dance and music classes, Kelly’s business stuff, the busiest times of year on the ranch and working with the band.”
He ate some more, sipped his coffee. “I didn’t protect her before. I let her take the blame when it was me. I should have, but I didn’t. So I’m doing it now. I’m all for making this work for everyone. But not at Kelly’s expense. Not ever again. I nearly lost her. Another man could have raised my kids. He wanted to adopt them. Wanted her to yank them from me, cut me out and raise them as his own. That’s when she broke the engagement. She told him she’d never separate them from me or my family and that she couldn’t marry someone who thought she should. She doesn’t know I heard it.”
“Well, there are a few issues here, Vaughan Michael Hurley.” His mother got up and went to sit on the couch. “You can clear the table and clean up the dishes when I’m done. But that won’t be for a bit. Put your behind on that couch.” She pointed and Vaughan moved quickly to obey.
His father muttered, “In for it now, boy,” as he passed.
“Let me tell you something. My baby shows up on my doorstep with this, this blonde bombshell who barely spoke and looked at you like you were everything. You tell me you met a few months earlier, got the girl knocked up and got married. I knew nothing about her, or your marriage or the baby until that precise moment. You think that was a good way to start?”
“I think it was how it happened, Mom. What do you want from me?” Vaughan asked.
“I don’t want to have been a person who called Kelly a gold-digging whore with more looks than brains. You lied to me and then you let me act like a bitch to your ex-wife,” his mother said.
“You were a bitch to her before I lied.”