Rare and Precious Things (32 page)

28th
February

London

“DO you know what today is?” I asked from my spot on the rug.

“Of course I know. I’m good with dates,” she said smugly.

“All right then, what is today, missus?”

“It’s Laurel’s original due date, mister.”

Not a surprise
to me that she knew. Brynne remembered the important things. Our baby girl was three weeks old today, and growing like a weed. She had gained nearly a pound too, which was a good thing, because she was simply too tiny when she was born, in my opinion. But she was a strong little nurser. A fighter, just like her mum.

Right now, the two of us were indulging
Mummy
as she organized us for a photograph she wanted. Brynne was becoming quite the photographer, and took pictures of Laurel and me all the time now. This particular shot was one she’d seen on a pinning site and showed to me, asking if she could recreate the scene with our baby once it was born. Today was the day, apparently.

The first step had been to n
urse Laurel into a milk-coma. Then Brynne strategically placed her on my back while she was asleep, so my tattooed wings appeared to be hers, making her look like a little baby angel. She already was anyway, so why not have a photograph of her as one?

“
How do we look?” I asked, her camera clicking away.

“
Like a smokin’ hot daddy with a newborn baby sleeping on his back,” she sassed.

“Somebody n
eeds to have her mouth kept busy, I think.”

She laughed at me. “I hope that’s a promise you’re going to keep later,” she said sexily.

“My cock heard that, baby,” I teased, expecting some kind of sarcastic rebuttal in return. But the thing with Brynne was that she was not terribly predictable. And really fuckin’ quick on the draw with comebacks. So, usually, when I thought I had the upper hand in a verbal sparring? She swooped in and trumped my hand. Did it
all
the time.

I heard her catch her breath
, though. Made me wonder if she was thinking about my cock, and if it was making her consider
other
things. I sure thought about it, but the reasonable portion of my brain realized she was still healing from a major surgery. I’d just have to wait until she let me know she was ready.

“I am finished here,”
she said, abruptly, setting her camera on the table. “And someone is ready for her crib while she sleeps it off.” The baby was lifted away, and then the clack of the door as she left the room told me I was alone.

I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about how changed my life was from a yea
r ago. The man from last year was two months away from receiving Tom Bennett’s email. He was somebody I didn’t even recognize anymore. And thank Christ for that, because I had no desire to ever return to such an empty life.

The door opened a
gain, and in Brynne walked, interrupting my reminiscent ramblings.

Understatement
. Of. The. Year.

She stood over
me with sexy eyes that looked rather green at the moment, and slowly reached for the hem of her shirt.

I felt the breath empty out of my lungs.

She lifted her shirt up and over her head, and dropped it on the floor. Then she shimmied out of her soft leggings and flung them over her shoulder. Left in nothing but some skimpy pink knickers and a bra, she looked nearly the same as she did before she’d become pregnant, with the exception of her scar and a magnificent set of tits that were even more spectacular now.

I put my hands behin
d my head and grinned up at her, unable to come up with anything particularly clever or witty to say, but mostly because my mouth went dry when she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra.

My beautiful girl let me kn
ow, and showed me, yet again, what a rarity I possessed in her love, as she had from the very first.

Rare.

Brynne’s love was something rare—a gift.

A
precious gift I’d been given, by some divine twist of fate that had brought her into my world…and changed everything about me. About how I saw things, about what I dreamed for the future, about my capacity to move beyond the shadows of my past.

Brynne’s love changed absolutely everything.

SPRING

Take me
down, take me down by the water, water,

Pull me in until I see the light,

Let me drown, let me drown, in you honey, honey,

In your love I wanna be baptized.

Daughtry ~Baptized

26th April

Somerset

IT
was a simple wedding held in the garden, overlooking the sea. The bride and the groom looked very happy, as they should. I winked at Brynne, admiring how delicious she was in her periwinkle lace. The same dress she’d worn the night of the Mallerton Gala, and now getting double-duty as a bridesmaid. She shot me a wink back, along with one of her sexy half-smiles.

Hannah’s dress was rose coloured
, and looking at her reminded me of photographs of my mother. I often wondered what that was like for my father to see in his daughter, the spitting image of his wife, as she would have looked when he lost her. He’d kept his thoughts on the matter private over the years, so I imagined whatever they were, would stay that way.

Today was for celebrating something new, and for that, I was
so grateful, because after finding Brynne, and learning what it meant to love someone so deeply, I finally understood the depths of what he’d lost, and why it had taken him three decades to move on to a new love.

Today
was that day for my father, and he was able to finally make the move forward…with his lovely Marie.

ONE
of my biggest surprises was the dramatic change in someone I had absolutely no hope would ever come around. But, stranger things have happened, I suppose. Didn’t matter on my part, of course, but for Brynne it was critical, and if I was being completely honest, good for my daughter as well.

Watching my mother-in-law holding Laurel captivated on her designer-clad lap, was proof that her heart did indeed beat
, and wasn’t made of stone as I would have sworn it was. She looked…like a real grandmother.

She actually sought me out during the reception
, which shocked the hell out of me when I least expected it.

“Ethan?”

I turned to meet her inquiry with as neutral a stance as I could manage.

“Laurel
is getting fussy and Brynne told me to bring her to you. She also said that Laurel is her daddy’s girl.” She handed my fitful daughter over.

“Right,” I said, adjust
ing Laurel facing outward against my chest how she liked, and rocking her tiny body gently from side to side. “Thank you, Claire.”

“She’s absolutely beautiful, just like Brynne,” she said softly.

I nodded in agreement but didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept quiet.

“Thank you, Ethan.”

“For what, exactly?”

“For keeping my daughter safe, and for loving her so much, and for making her so very happy.”

I felt my eyes grow wide, not believing what I’d just heard.

“
Oh, and for this little miracle right here.” Claire took one of Laurel’s hands and kissed it, before turning to go back to sit beside her husband. I couldn’t envision myself ever getting on with Claire very well, nor forming much of a relationship with her. I didn’t want to be unforgiving, as much as…remembering the many times she’d hurt my beautiful girl so badly, and not ready to let all that go just yet. But for Brynne, and now for Laurel, I would have to try.

THE two of us went to our special place. I’d figured out early on, when Laurel was cranky and tired,
she was soothed by gentle words and the stimulation of simply looking out at objects of beauty. So while the wedding partying was still raging, I slipped away with my little princess and took her into the house. Along the way, we stopped to look at things of interest like paintings on the wall, or flowers in a vase, or the view of the sea shining out from one of the windows.

When we went through the door to my study, she kicked her feet and made a cooing sound as if telling me to hurry my arse up and get there already.

She made me laugh at her baby antics, and she was only three months old. How would things be once she started talking?
Oh God…or walking?

I inhaled and couldn’t find the scent of my clove cigarettes anymore. This was very good.
I was determined to make it off them this time. I hadn’t had a smoke since Switzerland, and no longer craved the scent of the spice. I liked to think my therapy was helping me to disassociate the smokes with being alive. I had real reasons now.

“There it
is, little one. Your favourite.” Laurel kicked her legs out and cooed at the portrait of Brynne in my office. “You know that’s Mummy, don’t you?”

She gurgled happily and gummed two of her fingers.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw her at the art gallery?”

Two little kicks hit my abdomen in quick succession.

“She walked into the room and headed straight over to this very portrait hanging on the wall, and stared up at it. Mummy didn’t know it at the time, but I’d already bought the portrait for myself.” I laughed softly. “Crafty Daddy, I know, but I simply couldn’t help it. It was the way she looked at me from across the room that caught my attention. And she was so beautiful. So beautiful…”

3rd
May

Somerset

“NOW
that it’s my turn behind the camera, I think I can see your attraction to photography, baby,” Ethan told me, as he used my camera to snap multitudes of photographs I couldn’t wait to see. My naked back faced the lens, but Laurel faced Ethan over my shoulder. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out posing for him, though. There was only so much I could do with a squirming three-month-old in my arms.

Et
han laughed softly through the shutter clicks. “I see you, Princess,” he said to Laurel.

“What is she doing, besides trying to leap out of my arms?” I asked.

“Oh my God, she’s smiling so much. It’s like she’s posing for the camera.”

“Well, I’
m sure she knows exactly what you’re doing with that camera. She’s seen it pointed at her constantly since she was born.”

“I know, but she just looks so happy right now,” he said.

He snapped some more pictures of us. The photos were his idea. He asked me if he could do them and I agreed, of course. There weren’t many things I could deny him, and this was something he’d asked for specifically, just for him. He’d asked me shortly after I told him I was finished with modeling. I know my announcement pleased him. Ethan had accepted the nude modeling before, because he’d had no input in my choice for doing it. Now, he’d been given the opportunity to respect my decision to give it up. He was still the same, deliciously possessive, handsome, dominant, and sometimes irrational man I’d met exactly one year ago, and the idea that no more male photographers would see me naked, was a clear-cut positive for him.

Why did I give up my modeling?

Quite simply, I had no need for it anymore. The things that defined me were so much more than physical, and I’d changed and grown throughout the past year while discovering that knowledge about myself. And I’d learned to love.

But most importantly, I’d allowed myself to be loved.

I don’t think any of the good that happened to me in the past year would have occurred if not for Ethan. I believed that with all of my heart. Nobody could have done for me what he did. Only Ethan’s love could have found its way into my desolate heart. Only Ethan’s love gave me the security I needed to trust again, and to love myself again.

Only him.

“Of course she’s happy. She’s looking at her precious Daddy.”