Carnal Compromise (24 page)

AJ frowned up at him. “How sad.”

“I always thought it was damn pathetic, and I swore I’d never be like him.” He raised a brow. “How do I know one or both of you won’t wake up in a year or two thinking the grass might be greener someplace else?”

When neither of them offered an answer, he went on. “I don’t, do I? There are no guarantees for any of us. But you know what, Joe? I’ve never met two people more worth taking that chance on than you and Ariel.”

Joe swallowed. “I just don’t know if I can do it.”

“Yes you can!” AJ sat down next to him and hugged his chest. “We’ll help you.”

He hugged her in return, burying his nose in her hair. The warm, sweet length of her soaked into his skin, into his very soul, and the sweetness felt way too close to pain as every barrier inside him was demolished by emotion.

And it hurt. Jesus, how it hurt. Like the circulation returning to a limb after it had been asleep for hours, love was pumping through his heart again in thick, prickling surges, and he wanted to steel himself, to shut it back down and run away before the pain got too intense to bear.

Making himself look Brent in the eye, he said in a gravelly voice, “Christ, I can’t even begin to tell you what you mean to me. You’re everything. I love both of you more than you’ll ever know.”

He squeezed AJ and kissed her hair. “But every time I close my eyes, I see Travis crushed by that truck, and Seth lying there all torn up by the header, and I think, ‘That could have been Brent. It could have been AJ.’ And it scares me so damn bad, I feel like I could start screaming and never stop. I wish to hell I was strong and unbreakable, but I’m not. I nearly lost my mind when Travis died. I know if I lost one of you, I’d go around the bend and never make it back.”

“I don’t want to lose either of you,” Brent said, dropping to his knees in front of them. “Ever. But if I do, if I ever have to suffer through that kind of pain, it’ll be worth it. I don’t care if I’m like my dad—hell, I’m lucky to be like him if I’ve found not just one but two people who are so worth loving that I’ll risk any amount of pain.”

“Oh, Joe,” AJ sighed, sliding a hand up to cup his jaw as she kissed the side of his neck. “I love you, both of you, and I’m scared, too. Hell, you guys have quite a few years on me—you’ll probably both kick the bucket and leave me all alone someday. But will I be any less alone if I run away from you now?”

Joe swallowed against her palm. “You don’t know what it’s like…”

“You think I don’t?” She pinned him with a stare. “At least you got to know your son, Josiah. Mine was stillborn.”

Joe flinched. “Aw, Christ, AJ.”

Her blue eyes clouded. “I named him Micah Ray because I knew then that I’d never have another chance to name a son after my father. I was twenty-five and I’d already had three miscarriages because of a birth defect in my uterus. Rob and I tried not to get our hopes up too high at first, but when I made it to six months, we relaxed and started making plans.” She bit her lips and then shook her head. “Neither of us could take any more disappointment so I had my tubes tied, and afterward, Rob and I just couldn’t seem to connect anymore. We were divorced a few months later, and he remarried and had three kids the last I heard. I moved back home and started working with Dad again, and you know the rest.”

“I’m sorry,” Brent said, kissing the back of her hand.

“Well, as much as I’d like to place all the blame for that at his door, I think it was probably just as much my fault as Rob’s. I was just too eaten up with guilt to know how to act with him.”

Frowning, Joe asked, “Guilt about what?”

“About everything. Being a defective wife—”

“You’re not defective,” Joe growled, hugging her fiercely.

“Thank you,” she said with a half-smile when he loosened his grip. “But I felt that way, and really, I
was
defective in a physical sense. When Rob lost interest in me sexually, it only reinforced my already well-developed sense of inadequacy. And I felt so much guilt about losing my babies I could hardly look him or anyone in the eye for a long time.”

“Jesus, AJ, that wasn’t your fault,” he protested.

She raised her brows. “How do you know? Statistically speaking, my chances of delivering healthy babies were excellent, and yet I couldn’t carry even one of them to term. What if it was something I did, or something I didn’t do? What if I ate the wrong—”

Joe cut her off with a stern look. “Ariel, stop. You can’t do that to yourself. You can’t spend the rest of your life picking it apart and wondering how you…”

Blindsided by irony, he lost his train of thought and sat there blinking at her, his heart thudding, his tongue thick in his mouth.

“How I might have done things differently?” she finished with a penetrating look.

He nodded slowly, feeling trapped…and just a little bit foolish.

“Is that the voice of experience speaking?”

“Possibly,” he admitted reluctantly.

Sliding her arm around his waist, she said, “I’m pretty sure all parents who lose a child do that, Joe. It’s like if you can just think about it hard enough and pinpoint exactly where you went wrong, then maybe you can make it so it never happened and everything will turn out the way it was supposed to. But it never does.”

He swallowed hard. “You felt that way?”

“I did. And sometimes when I’m feeling down about other things in my life, it’ll creep back up on me for a little while. But you know what, Joe?” She looked up at him with shining eyes.

“What?” he said gruffly.

“In moments like this one, I can’t help but believe that everything
is
turning out the way it’s supposed to.”

Joe stilled, the truth of her words resonating not just in his head but in his heart.
This
was the way his life was supposed to turn out. Everything he’d done and everything he’d been through had brought him to this moment, to these lovers.

He looked at Brent. “Okay, you win. I guess we do belong together.”

Brent grinned. “Halleluiah.”

Sighing deeply, Joe kissed AJ’s forehead. “How did you get to be so wise, little girl?”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Like we all do, I guess—trial and error.”

He drew back and stared at her. Holy shit, maybe she
was
the freaking Dalai Lama. “You’re starting to make me feel like an emotional midget.”

“Don’t worry,” she told him with a wry smile. “I’ve still got plenty of hang-ups. For instance, I might have come to terms with not having kids, but it has kept me from getting…close to anyone.” When they both looked at her blankly, she added, “Men tend to want sons to carry on the family name. Rob did.”

“Not this man,” Brent said firmly. “I’m not your ex or your dad, Ariel, and I’ve never particularly wanted sons
or
daughters. If my brothers decide there should be more Andersens, they can damn well get married and manufacture some themselves.”

“Not this man either,” Joe agreed. “I had my son.”

“Speaking of which…” Brent pushed off AJ’s knees and stood up, obviously a little stiff from kneeling for so long. “Don’t you think it’s time you told us about Travis?”

Joe glanced at the big empty king bed through the French doors. “He was a great kid so it’ll take awhile. Why don’t we get comfortable first?”

Once they’d kicked off their boots, taken off their belts and emptied their pockets on the dresser, they all stretched out on the bed together, with Joe in the middle.

Joe lay on his back, his arms folded behind his head, looking at the two people he loved most in the world and wondering what in the hell they saw in him. But it didn’t really matter. They wanted him and that was all he needed to know.

“My son’s name was Travis Josiah Remke,” he began, “and the only thing he ever wanted to be was a farmer…”

They were lying there talking when the phone rang more than an hour later. It was Tim calling to let them know that Seth had come through surgery just fine and his prognosis was excellent.

AJ nearly wept with relief, and not just for Seth’s sake. Joe already looked younger somehow, and lighter—certainly happier than she had ever seen him—and Brent literally glowed with contentment. Selfishly, she wanted that to continue, for the three of them to embark on this new phase of their lives wrapped in a mantle of joy, not huddled together under a cloud of grief.

“Thank God,” Joe said. After a long pause, he added, “But I’m still going to kick his ass when he gets back on his…foot.”

Brent tried unsuccessfully to smother a laugh. “That’ll give him some incentive to find a good prosthesis and learn to run.”

Joe grinned. “You got that right.”

“So where do we go from here?” Brent asked, rolling to his side and laying his hand on Joe’s stomach. “Not that I’m in any hurry to climb off this nice big bed. I could really get used to this kind of space.”

“Back to work tomorrow,” AJ said firmly.

“But after that. You said you wanted to buy your own place and settle down someday. Do you still want to do that?” When she looked uncertain, he said, “Being on the road all these years has been great, but I’m getting to the point where it’s more of a pain than it’s worth. Frankly, I’m pretty damn tired of banging my elbows in the shower and taking a dump with my knees around my ears.”

“Amen to that,” Joe said with a grimace.

“I’ve got a nice place down near Goodland,” Brent went on, “and plenty of land to farm if we want to. We could all live there together, maybe build a stable and put some horses in it.”

AJ smiled. “That sounds wonderful.”

She just about swallowed her tongue when he said tentatively, “Should we discuss marriage?”

“All of us?” she asked, sitting up.

He grinned. “This is Kansas we’re talking about, honey. You could only marry one of us.”

She blew a raspberry. “No thanks then.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” he cautioned. “Maybe you should marry Joe.”

“Why me?” Joe asked.

“Because you’re older and bigger.” His grin widened. “All that muscle is bound to turn to fat sooner or later and you’ll probably go to your reward years before I do. I can marry her after you’re gone.”

“Thanks a lot.” Joe rubbed his whiskers, frowning. “You know, I hate to say it, but there’s a certain twisted logic to that.”

She stared back and forth between them and then started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You guys are,” she declared. “I mean, why would two such progressive men limit themselves to a relationship as traditional and restrictive as marriage?”

The men in question looked at each other. “Are we supposed to be flattered or insulted?” Brent asked.

Joe shrugged. “Beats me.”

“Neither,” AJ insisted. “I appreciate the thought, guys, I really do, but offering to marry me is nothing but a knee-jerk reaction to your desire for commitment. It’s old-school.”

Brent sat up. “Hey, if old-school means wanting to protect you from small minds with big mouths, then—”

“Screw them, Brent. It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal, and none of us are given to public displays of affection. Let ’em speculate all they want to—it won’t change what we have.” Then she smiled mischievously. “Besides, I think I’m ready to be the town wild woman. I’ve already wasted too many years trying to live up to other people’s expectations.”

“Fine,” he said, though he still looked troubled. “I just thought that you should be able to inherit from at least one of us as a spouse. Call me old-school, but I think it’s our job to protect you.”

Joe nodded. “Me too, little girl.”

AJ frowned. “Well, hopefully nobody will be inheriting anything for a few decades at least, and I say again, I don’t need your protection. But if you’re that concerned about it, why don’t we just go into business together?”

“Hmm. That’s not a bad idea,” Brent said.

“Think about it,” she said eagerly. “If we form a farming partnership and all invest the same amount of money, we’re all equally bound and vested in the outcome.”

He hesitated. “But partnerships can be dissolved, Ariel.”

“And marriages can’t?” she asked with a pointed look.

“I guess that’s true. But Hake and Mandy might be less inclined to break up a marriage than a partnership.” At her puzzled look, he added with a stern frown, “Yeah, I heard Mandy trying to steal you away from us.”

AJ gasped, blushing. “She was not!”

Joe’s brows hit his hairline and he finally sat up, too. “You’re kidding me,” he said, scooting back to lean against the headboard. “That devious little home wrecker. Remind me to spank her ass the next time we’re there.”

“Well, nobody’s stealing anybody,” she assured him, “so you can both just relax.”

“Glad to hear it,” Brent said. After thinking for a minute, he continued. “Okay, we’ll form a partnership on one condition—we all put in whatever we have and call it equal. Doesn’t matter whether the amounts are the same or not—we’re all equally vested, with equal rights of survivorship. In the very unlikely event someone wants to walk away, we all walk away with a third.”

“That’s not much of a compromise,” AJ complained with narrowed eyes. “You’ll probably both put in a lot more than I can.”

“You’ll probably wind up doing most of the cooking.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Well, when you put it that way…”

“And you’ll definitely be taking care of the livestock,” Joe interjected. “I’m too old for that shit.”

“Agreed.”

Brent held up an index finger. “One last stipulation. If you decide you want kids, we get married first.”

AJ paused and then said, “Having kids might mess with my plan to be the town wild woman. And I thought you didn’t want any.”

“I don’t necessarily,” he told her evenly, “but I don’t want to deprive you of the opportunity just because I’m old and set in my ways. If you want kids, we can look into adoption or something.”

Relieved, she smiled at him. “Oh. Well, thank you, but I think
I’m
too set in my ways now to give up twenty years of my life to raise children. I like my freedom. Besides, as you pointed out, this is Kansas we’re talking about. I don’t think two daddies would go over very well with the school system.”