Dylan's Redemption (30 page)

“Come eat, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

She followed him into the great room and sat beside him on the sofa facing the fireplace. The fire burned bright and warm. The setting sun cast the room in shadows, enhancing the feeling of cozy romance. She leaned over to turn on the side table lamp, but he put his hand over hers, stopping her.

“Don’t. Let’s keep this just the two of us sitting and talking by the firelight.”

“Okay. I like to sit and look at the flames for hours. Sometimes I sit here and carve.”

“Will loves the horse you gave him.”

“You left the rocking horse here.” She pointed at it sitting in the room by the other seating area.

“For the next time Will comes over.” Dylan filled their plates and handed one over to her.

“Why didn’t you bring him tonight?”

“I want to be alone with you.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is?”

He reached for her, tracing his finger across her forehead and over her ear, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s all there is. I wanted us to have a quiet evening together, so we can talk and clear the air.” He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss. She relaxed and gave him a small smile. He popped the top on her beer and handed it to her, and then did the same for himself. She took a bite of food and settled in to eat, making him happy.

“I thought I’d start off by telling you how sorry I am about the last couple of weeks. I never meant to confuse you.”

“I can’t seem to keep up with you. One minute you’re there, or you leave me flowers and notes, and the next you disappear.”

“You had my number. You could have called me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“Did you like the flowers and notes?”

“I loved them. I know I work a man’s job, and usually look like a guy—”

“You could never look like a guy. You’re beautiful, honey. Everything about you screams sexy woman, even in jeans and flannel shirts.”

He surveyed her with pure male appreciation. Her cheeks flushed at his blatant perusal.

She swallowed another bite, leaving her plate nearly empty. “Regardless, I’m still a woman. I like flowers and notes. I especially liked the rose you left on the roof.”

“You sit up there and think about us. Wherever I am, I think about you.”

Her eyes softened on him and she sighed. “I like it up there. You can’t beat the view.”

“We’ve shared a lot of history. It occurred to me today, standing on the roof, you’ve wanted to count on me for a long time. You haven’t been able to do that, even when we were kids.”

“That’s not true. You were there for me when we were young. You’d have been there when I had Hope if you’d known.”

“Let’s not talk about my mother. I don’t want to be angry tonight. What I’m saying is although we’ve always been close, there’s been a kind of disconnect between us because we haven’t been completely honest with each other. There have been things I didn’t know about you and you didn’t know about me.” He took her empty plate and set it on the coffee table along with his own. He took her hands and held them while he looked into her eyes. “Here’s the thing. I don’t want there to be anything about you I don’t know. I want you to know everything there is to know about me.”

“That’s going to take some time. I know a lot about you, Dylan, but it’s been eight years since we’ve seen each other. You’ve grown up. I grew up. Things changed. Maybe we’ve changed too much and what we had isn’t there anymore.”

His fingers slid into her hair at the base of her neck. He drew her close, his gaze locked on hers. His mouth fit to hers and her eyes fell closed and she fell into him. He drew the kiss out, letting her feel the connection between them pulse and build.

“You feel what we have just as strongly as I do.”

One side of his mouth cocked up in a grin when it took her that whole sentence to open her eyes again.

“We need a lifetime to know each other, and that’s what I want with you.”

He stood and pulled her with him. Moving around the coffee table, he pulled her down to sit between his legs. They faced the fire. He liked the way she settled against his chest without any reservations. He kissed the side of her head and gazed over her shoulder at the bright fire.

“Like I said, it’s going to take a lifetime. We have something special. I love you, Jess. I always have, and that’s never going to change.”

“I love you too,” she whispered.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and across her chest. She leaned her head down and rested her chin on his arm, watching the dancing flames snap and pop. The feel of his body down her back and his legs wrapped around hers made her feel safe and protected. Looking up through the skylights above them, night had fallen and the stars burned bright.

“I know you do. I’ve always known.” He kissed her temple and squeezed her to him.

“You said you wanted to ask me something. What is it?” She settled into him and continued watching the fire. His breath whispered against the side of her face, and he sat behind her enjoying the fire and the closeness he’d tried to build over the last weeks, but all he needed was Jessie in this arms.

“Will you take me to see Hope? I want to put flowers on her grave and tell her I love her. I want her to have both her parents visit her.”

She went to the grave often. She’d sit by the grave and talk to her. It always left her drained and depressed. The sadness of seeing her daughter’s name etched in stone and thinking of all the things she’d never see her daughter do or experience overwhelmed her.

“I’ll take you any time you want to go. I go several times a year, and always on her birthday.”

“Let’s go tomorrow. It’s Saturday. We’ll spend the day together. We’ll pick up Will after we go to the cemetery.”

“I’d like that.”

“You like having him around.”

“He’s a great kid. You must have had a hard time taking care of him all by yourself when he was a baby.”

“I had help.” He smiled sheepishly. “I love the fact that you forget completely I’m wealthy. You know I could hire an entire army brigade to take care of Will, but you know me well enough to know I’m a hands-on dad.”

Jessie didn’t care about his money. She had her own, enough to keep her businesses running, a roof over her head, and food in her cupboards. She wasn’t interested in Dylan because he could support her for the rest of her life. That had never been his appeal. No, it was the way he made her feel about herself, all the good he saw in her.

“I hired a nanny right away.” He went on, “She took care of him while I worked and taught me what I needed to know about raising my son. The rest was a lot of luck and practice.”

Jessie tried to get up, but he pulled her back down.

“Where are you going?”

“I have something to show you.” She moved to get up, and instead he took her mouth and kissed her silly. The crackle of the fire faded and all she heard was his breath on her lips when his tongue slid past and glided over hers. He kissed her long and deep. His hand slid up her arm and over her collarbone before slipping down her chest to cup her breast. He weighed her in his palm. She sighed when his thumb swept over her taut nipple. Her arms found their way around his neck, and she held him tightly to her as his other arm banded around her back and pulled her even closer.

“What do you want to show me, honey?”

That soft, silky voice vibrated in her ear and his roaming hands sent warm tremors through her system. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to. She wanted to feel, and then she remembered what she wanted to show him. “Hope’s chest,” she stammered. “I have Hope’s chest to show you.”

He couldn’t get enough of her. Warm and supple, her breast fit his hand to perfection, and the soft firmness of it made his fingers tingle to slide her shirt off and peel away her bra and find the smooth skin beneath. He squeezed her breast and took her taut nipple between his thumb and index finger and plucked at it until she sighed.

He took her bottom lip, sucked it into his mouth, and soothed her by licking the edge. He trailed small, soft kisses at the corner of her mouth and along her jaw.

Her head fell back and she rested her face against his cheek. He smiled into her neck.

“Go get it, honey. I want to see it.”
Then I want to see you.
He didn’t say the last part aloud, but it’s what he intended. He didn’t want to rush her. They had all night. They had forever.

She stood to walk away, but he kept touching her until she was out of his reach. His fingers trailed down her arm and over her hip and down her leg. She turned back to him and smiled, her eyes roaming over his entire body, making him want her so bad he had a hard time sitting still and not lunging for her. God, this woman made him crazy.

She walked to the seating area on the other side of the room. Next to a round side table on the floor sat a wood chest. She bent and picked it up by the metal handles on the side and brought it back. When she came toward him, he grabbed her hips and guided her down so she sat with her back to him again. The chest sat next to them.

He studied the simple design and knew Jessie made it. The name carved on the top humbled him:
HOPE DANIELLE MCBRIDE
. He couldn’t get used to the idea that even though she thought he’d abandoned her, she’d still named their daughter after him.

“Why did you name her after me?”

“She’s your daughter.”

That was Jessie. She broke things down to the simplest truth. Hope had been his daughter no matter if he’d been there or not. It didn’t change the facts or the love Jessie had for him. He should have realized that these last weeks and kept things simple with her. She loved him. He loved her. They should be together, so why hadn’t he just been with her? Because he needed to know she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her. He went back to the simple truth. Jessie loved him and wanted to be with him. Done. End of story. Tonight, he’d stop all this complicated business, trying to give her time and drawing her to him. He’d go back to the easy way things used to be when they were kids. They’d be together. Tonight. Always.

“She was our daughter,” he corrected. “I love her and miss her all in the same heartbeat.” He traced his finger over the smooth wood.

“There’s that little bit of poetry. Only now it’s coupled with a tough cop.”

“You said something similar the night of the prom.”

“I’m a sucker for a poetic tough guy.” She kissed his stubbly chin. “About Hope, I know what you mean. It’s an ache that won’t go away. Some days it’s overwhelming and other days it simmers in the background.”

The kind of pain only they could share because it was the loss of a child they’d created. The pain, like the child, was unique to them. He swept his hand down the length of her hair. She opened the trunk. He glanced over her shoulder and wanted to weep with sorrow. Inside lay Hope’s things. Jessie pulled out a baby blanket, held it to her nose, and inhaled the lingering scent of their daughter. A single tear spilled from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

“This is the blanket I wrapped her in when she was born. They let her have it in the NICU where she stayed. I would drape it over the both of us when she nursed. I held her to my breast and looked down at her sweet face. She’d ball her fist and press it to my skin.”

He slid his hand around her back and over her ribs to cup her breast. Heavy, her nipple tight. Even the memory evoked a physical response in her. He held her breast in his hand and kissed the side of her neck. She leaned her head back against him and gave him better access to her throat. He slid his hand from her breast and over her flat belly where she’d once carried their child.

He liked having her with him this way, sharing something deeply personal and intimate. She didn’t resist, but relaxed into him, his hands on her body as natural as breathing.

She leaned over the chest and took out some of the clothes Hope had worn. He took one of the small pink sleepers.

“I forget how small babies can be. Will’s grown so much. She wore this?”

“Yes. It’s soft and warm. This was actually a little big on her.”

“It’s pretty with the little roses.”

“She looked like a princess.”

The chest held several other dresses and sleepers Hope never had time to wear. He tried to picture his daughter in them. It was hard since he’d only seen a single small photo of her. He hated that he couldn’t bring her into his mind easily, there being only a single memory to recall. Jessie pulled out a thick photo album from the bottom of the chest. He inhaled sharply at seeing his daughter’s name written on the outside cover with a close-up photo of her little face.

“Oh, Jess. You made this.”

“We took a lot of pictures before and after she was born. Looking back, maybe we knew we didn’t have a lot of time. We documented everything.”

“We?”

“We,” she confirmed. “Pop and Greg were with me all the time. I never went to a doctor’s appointment alone.”

He kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you weren’t alone, honey.”

About to open the photo album, she turned and fixed her gaze on him. “No fat jokes,” she warned. The smile on her face bloomed bright and honest. The first real one he’d seen in a long time.

“Are you telling me there are pictures of you pregnant in here?”

“I’m saying there are pictures of me looking as big as a house.”

It hit him again: just how much he’d missed. He’d never gotten to see her belly grow, or feel his daughter kick through her stomach. “Let’s see,” he said, choked up.

His throat constricted, heart aching, he inhaled deeply, catching Jessie’s sweet floral scent. Just that small thing eased him.

Her hand swept over the cover. She opened the book and showed him the first page. It listed all of Hope’s first information.

Hope Danielle McBride

Born: February 27, 2006

6 lbs. 10 oz.—19 in.

A photo showed her and Jessie taken moments after her birth. Jessie held Hope in her arms and smiled hugely at the camera, even though she looked worn out and exhausted.

She turned the page to several photos of her with her belly growing with each picture. They were in succession, starting at three months and every month after until she was, as she said, as big as a house.