Heartwood (22 page)

“Herb! Honestly!” His wife muttered, shuffling away from the vehicle.

We wandered around, snapping pictures and holding hands. I kept stopping for a better view, but Joe seemed pretty bored.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I sighed, when we’d finally hiked out to the waterfall at Fox Canyon.

He shrugged. “It looks like west Texas.”

“I think it’s cool.” I replied, snapping some pictures.

“You were away too long.” His lips curled in a sexy, Elivis-like snarl. “All that time in Washington State made you homesick for barren lands and stunted trees.”

“There’s no place like home.” I shrugged, cuddling up to his side. I pulled away from him and stripped off my top. “I’m going for a swim. Are you coming?”

I didn’t have to ask him twice.

“Don’t look now, but I think you’re starting marital bedlam.” Joe said, and I saw the elderly woman storm off in the direction of the Jeep. Her husband was trailing after her, but he was looking over his shoulder at me in my swimming suit.

“That poor man.” I mumbled. “I hope we’re never like that.”

“I want to grow old and grouchy with you.” He replied, and I laughed a little too loud.

Once we were canoodling in the water, he asked. “So you really like it here?”

“I love it. Thank you for bringing me.” I wrapped my entire body around him, glad for the buoyancy of the water as well as the privacy.

“Think we should move here?” He joked. “Wrapgasmico Mexicano?”

I huffed out a laugh. “I’m not going anywhere. Austin is the most beautiful place in the world.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes in disbelief.

“I’m serious.” I splashed him. “It’s where we fell in love.”

He blinked his droplet covered eyelashes and brushed a wet strand of hair off my cheek. “I love you, baby.”

We stopped at a brewery on our way back for lunch and Joe and I tasted the local beer. The brews were delicious, and we both agreed we could live happily in Mexico without ever drinking the water.

Our trip continued to be relaxing and carefree. Every time we checked on the babies they were doing great. I started sleeping a full eight hours, and I actually felt more rested than I had since before I married Draven.

When Joe and I weren’t on an adventure of some sort, we spent a lot of time at the swim up bars. I discovered that my husband had a thing for sweet girly drinks and teased him about it, singing the lyrics to Escape (The Pina Colada Song). He tickle-tackled me and kissed me to shut me up.

When we weren’t at the pool, we were lounging in our private beach bed. The bed was a large wicker canopy with flowing curtains. Though there was a great deal of snuggling and some pretty heavy make out sessions, we refrained from taking things too far on the beach. Joe was afraid the footage would end up on the internet and his employee, Nick would see it.

Our nights were spent alternating between ferociously hot sex and relaxed, languid love-making. I tried out every piece of lingerie I was given for my bachelorette party, and they all seemed to do the trick. Joe’s favorite seemed to be a black see through baby doll with a matching thong. It was the only one of the ensembles that he left on me for more than ten minutes.

Sometimes we were late to excursions because one of us decided
we
were more important than someone else’s itinerary. Oddly, no one ever left without us. I guess the word was out that we were honeymooners, and there was a certain expectation that clocks didn’t mean as much to us. Everyone, locals and guests alike, seemed willing to give us a free pass.

A couple of nights before we were set to come home, we rented a car and drove an hour down the coast to San Jose del Cabo. The town square and the architecture of the cathedral made me swoony, and we ate some great authentic Mexican food. We had to turn down two or three drug dealers who offered us pot and ecstasy, but we found some terrific local art galleries intermingled with the strip clubs. I quickly became obsessed with the painting of a particular artist, and decided to buy a large canvas with cacti and bold desert flowers painted across it.

“Where the hell are you gonna put that?” He joked, as I picked it up and carried it to the counter. “In your carry-on?”

“Nope.” I replied. “It’s going in our bedroom.”

“The hell it is.” He plucked it from me and headed back to put it in its rightful spot.

“Please?” I whined, trailing after him. “Joe, it’s amazing! I want to wake up to it every morning.”

“You’re joking.” His cocked eyebrow told me that he didn’t think it was as aesthetically pleasing as I did.

“No, I’m not. I want to open my eyes every single morning and see you lying on one side of me and that picture hanging on the other.”

He frowned down at the painting, and I ran the pads of my fingers along the back of his neck.

“Every time I look at it it’ll remind me of our honeymoon.” I added quietly in my sweetest voice. His eyes swept my face and I blinked at him demurely, watching his resolve slowly wither.

“How are we gonna get it home?” He moaned, as if I were a monstrous burden to his good time.

I smiled. “They’ll ship it.”

“You owe me, woman.” His deep, virile voice held much more promise than threat. As he marched it up to the counter and pulled out his wallet, I admired the view of him from behind.

Our last day was perfection. In the morning, we swam with the dolphins and I was so moved by the experience it made me cry. Joe wouldn’t let it go.

“Sure...no crying at our wedding but the
dolphins
bring you to tears.” He teased.

I wrinkled my nose, dunked him, and then swam away as he tried to grab me. The wide smile he wore as he stroked the smooth sleek dolphin gave him away. He seemed to have been as touched by the experience as I was.

We went back to the room for a midday nap. As expected, nap time digressed into a sweaty, scream-inducing romp.

As we lay panting side by side afterward, laughter erupted from me like Old Faithful.

“Do I amuse you?” Joe’s dry impression of Joe Pesci made me laugh even harder.

“It’s really no wonder we got pregnant, is it?” I asked, and he began to laugh too.

“Ready to make another one?” He asked, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I grabbed a pillow and smacked him in the face with it.

We spent our final night walking along the beach before our candle lit dinner at a private table set up next to our beach bed. The only person around was our server, and only when we needed him. We sat watching the sunset and savoring impeccably prepared seafood. A light breeze made the palm fronds sway hypnotically, and I tried to commit every detail of the scenery to memory.

“I miss the kids.” Joe confessed, tossing down his cloth napkin onto his partially eaten plate.

“Me too.” I murmured.

“Ready to go home, baby girl?”

“Almost.” I sipped my wine and allowed my eyes to travel down to the spot where his buttoned up shirt ended. “There’s one thing we haven’t done yet that I have my heart set on.”

His eyebrow arched, and I saw his jaw working as he suppressed a smile. “Is that so?”

I nodded.

“I think we’re done.” Joe called to the server. The man nodded with a knowing glance in my direction and hurried away with the plates.

“So sex on the beach?” I asked, standing and offering him my hand.

“Naughty girl.” He growled, and backed me up to the beach bed. “Why don’t we go back to the room?”

“Come on, Joe.” I purred, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

THE SECOND WE landed Molly had her phone to her ear.

“Robin. We just touched down.” Her speech was rushed and her pale eyes sparkled. “Can you bring Logan over to the house? We need to stop and pick up a couple of things, but it shouldn’t take long.”

I saw her nodding as I grabbed our bags down from the overhead compartment.

“Great. Thanks so much, hun! We’ll be home in an hour, okay?”

Following my wife’s lead, I called Tamryn as we lugged our bags to the car. Tamryn asked if she could meet us halfway between our place and theirs, since she had to get her girls ready for school in the morning and their ranch was pretty far outside of town.

“Sounds like a plan.” I replied. ‘Thanks for keeping Eva, Tamz.”

“She was an angel.” Tamryn replied.

We swung by the small grocery store closest to our house. I took off down the aisle to grab milk and eggs. Meanwhile, Molly picked out some fresh fruit and vegetables. She snatched up a can of formula and a bag of diapers and hurried to join me in line for check out.

“We can come back for more later.” She insisted, looking eager and exhausted at the same time. “Right now I just want to get home to the kids.”

“I feel ya, babe.” I ran my hand down her back as we waited in line. She leaned against me for support, and I lovingly stroked her long hair. Though we’d both agreed during the flight home that the trip couldn’t have been more perfect¸ we were both ready to hug our babies and sleep in our own bed. “Why don’t I drop you off and go grab Eva? You can put this stuff away and you can spend some one on one time with Logan. I hate to drag him back out.”

“Alright.” The soft, sweet lilt in her voice made me want to kiss her right there in the middle of the grocery store, but it was inappropriate. I had to recondition myself from the honeymoon to being back into the real world. My mature and reasonable decision to behave was one I would soon regret.

We pulled into the driveway and saw that Mac and Mason had returned my truck. We climbed out and I trotted up to inspect my vehicle. As promised, it looked and smelled better than it had when I’d parked it for the wedding.

Molly was on her way into the house with the groceries when Robin pulled up.

“How was Cabo?” Robin called, opening her back door and removing Logan. “Did you get any tattoos?”

“Yep.” I replied, as Molly came back out. “I got a tramp stamp that says ‘Molly’.”

“Ooooo. Sexy!” Robin replied, as Molly went to claim our son.

“Hello, big boy!” She exclaimed, and he flailed with excitement when he saw her. “Look at how much hair you have! I think we’ll have to stop calling him Lex, Joe.”