Committed Passion (2 page)

“I gotta go. The prince needs more syrup.”

“Let me talk to him,” Jonah said.

I carried the phone to Travis and watched him listen to Jonah’s voice and smile as if God himself were speaking to him. Another wave of pure joy swept through me. Not only would I soon be married to this wonderful man, but my boy finally had a father who loved him. A year ago, I would never have imagined my perpetual bad luck could change. Now, I was on the verge of having everything my heart yearned for—a complete family and a happy home.

I retrieved my phone from Travis’s sticky hand and scrubbed it clean at the sink. The phone chimed as a message came in. I smiled, imagining Jonah had sent me another of his adorable love texts.

When I read who the message was from, I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. For a moment, I seriously couldn’t breathe.
Clay Peters.

Of all the times for my ex to show up in my life again, just days before my wedding! And demanding paternal rights after all the years he’d been content to let me and Travis make do on our own. Not that I’d wanted or asked for anything from him. I was the one who’d run away from that destructive relationship.

Now Clay had found us here in Lexington. Damned if I’d let him back into our lives or ever have Travis call him Daddy. Jonah was the only father I wanted Travis to know.

But from the sound of Clay’s note, it might not be as easy as just telling him no.

Chapter Two

J.D.

Road trips are more fun when you’re sitting with the woman you love in the backseat, where you can hold hands and make out a little when the others aren’t paying attention. I would’ve enjoyed the trip down to Kentucky in complete ease and enjoyment—if a ring box wasn’t burning a hole in my pocket.

Leah and I had talked about getting married. It was our goal for someday, but I was afraid that sooner rather than later might not fit into her plans. The thing was I didn’t want to wait any longer. I was ready to make that commitment now if she was. Hell, I’d even formally asked permission of her father before planning my proposal, a conversation I’d hated as much as a root canal, all in the hope I could win her parents over a little. They couldn’t despise me forever, could they?

My announcement, which I’d politely phrased as a request for Mr. Schaeffer’s blessing, had been met with dead silence on the other end of the phone.

“I’m letting you know as a courtesy, but I intend to propose to Leah,” I’d added a little less politely.

“Well… I guess you’ll do what you plan to do. There’s hardly any point in asking my permission, is there?”

“You know I love Leah. I’m committed to her, and I’ll take care of her.”

“How, son?” David Schaeffer demanded. “How are you going to support her? You work as a bartender.”

I drew a breath and squashed down my temper. “I’m half
owner
of a bar and making fairly good income now. Besides, Leah has a job of her own. Together we’ll make ends meet.”

Another bone-chilling pause. “My daughter is used to a good deal more than ‘making ends meet.’ She’s used to having certain things. I don’t want her to have to merely ‘get by’ as you’ve been doing this past year.” Schaeffer inhaled audibly. “Honestly, I don’t mean to sound snobbish. Overall, I think you’re a good young man, and I believe you care for Leah. She certainly cares for you. But I worry about the future.”

So did I, although he’d never hear me admit it. Owning a business wasn’t necessarily a key to success. The bar might fail. I might be struggling to make ends meet again. And Leah didn’t exactly make big bucks at her radio station job. Plus she was still working on her degree. She was still dependent on her parents to a large extent. Add in her disability and things grew even more complicated. Schaeffer’s calm, reasonable tone made me doubt everything. Maybe my planned romantic gesture was simply a foolish one.

Still, here I sat beside Leah in the backseat of my brother’s car with a ring in my pocket and various words swimming around in my mind.
Leah, I love you, and I’d like to ask…? I couldn’t imagine spending my life with any woman but you. Would you consider being my…? What do you think about moving up our plan? Do you think it’s too soon for me to give you this?
 

Corny, dumb, embarrassing. I still hadn’t found just the right way to propose. So the ring stayed in my pocket and I remained silent as I studied Leah’s profile against the greenery flashing past outside the window.

She reached out and felt for my hand. “Why so quiet? Are you thinking about seeing your dad again?”

Actually, the thought of facing my delinquent father again didn’t even register on my radar. I was too focused on this proposal.

I looked at Leah’s slender hand and linked my fingers between hers. “Honestly, it should probably mean more to me than it does. The others knew him back then, but I barely remember him. So I can’t really connect to some old guy I just met, you know?”

She nodded.

“I mean, I’m sorry he’s suffering and I hope, for his sake, that he passes on soon. But I’m having trouble feeling anything other than pity for him. He doesn’t seem like my dad.”

“I get that.” Leah paused as if she were going to add something, then changed the subject. “It had to be a big surprise to learn your older brother’s getting married.”

“Yeah, that came out of nowhere,” Micah chimed in from the driver’s seat. “Jonah hasn’t done an impetuous thing his entire life. Now he’s marrying some stripper. Who’d’ve thunk.”

Gina smacked his arm. “She’s more than just ‘some stripper.’ Don’t be mean.”

Leah supported Gina. “We’ve chatted a little online. She seems nice.”

“A new wife and a kid both,” I added. “But I’m sure Jonah thought it through. Like Micah said, he doesn’t do anything on a whim.”

I touched the little bulge in my jacket pocket and wondered if I was proposing on a whim. I knew I wanted to marry Leah. That wasn’t even a question. But was this the right time to formally ask? Was I being hopelessly romantic, or, like Leah’s dad had suggested, foolishly impetuous?

*

Micah

I annoyed the hell out of Gina by coming home late the morning we left for Kentucky. To tell the truth, the gift I’d gone after didn’t take all
that
long to get. I’d spent time just shooting the shit with some guys before deciding it was way too late to go to Gina’s. But, hey, at least I texted her.

Sometimes I baited my girl on purpose because she was so much fun to tease, but other times I pissed her off purely by accident. Dating instead of just bedding a woman was a big adjustment for me. There were expectations about checking in and showing up on time I was still getting used to.

Though I could no longer make spur-of-the-moment decisions without considering another person, I really was glad to have Gina in my life, happy to be with someone who actually cared whether I came or went. Most nights I was content to be in her bed rather than alone—or with some random girl from the bar. But planning around somebody else’s needs and desires did take some adjustment. I hoped she wouldn’t give me the boot before I finished figuring it out.

The drive down from Chicago went fast on clear highways with all that winter snow melted away. Even with restroom breaks—the women sure needed a lot of them—we got to Kentucky in record time. I pulled up in front of Jonah’s new house in an older Lexington suburb, a family home complete with a tire swing in the front yard and spring flowers blooming all over. Never thought my brother would leave Sawville, his weed business, and his bachelor ways behind. It seemed he’d completely reinvented himself. I was intrigued to meet the man Jonah had transformed into and the woman who’d helped that happen.

We piled out of the car, four people who’d spent way too many hours together in a very small space, and stretched our legs. As we walked toward the front porch, J.D. described the yard and house for Leah.

The door opened and a slender, long-legged woman in a tank top and jeans stepped out. “Hi! You’re early. Jonah isn’t here yet. Welcome. Come on in.”

Her words ran together as her gaze darted around to each of us. Nervous. But Rianna’s smile was genuine and welcoming, and the little kid who peeked around her legs was bright-eyed with curiosity.

My soon-to-be nephew clutched a dinosaur in one hand. The T-Rex from the plastic figures I’d hidden in the closet of our old house as if they were a stack of dirty magazines. Except I wouldn’t have had to hide skin mags from my brothers, but the plastic dinos I couldn’t quite let go of had been an embarrassment.

I greeted Rianna with a hello and a smile, then squatted to face her son. “Hey there, Travis. I’m your Uncle Micah. What you got there?”

“T-Rex.” He lunged the dinosaur toward me with a growl.

“Very cool. Did he eat up the rest of the dinosaurs?”

Travis grinned and bobbed his head up and down. He emerged from behind his mother and reached for my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

I winked at Gina, who smiled at me, as I let the boy drag me past his mom and into the house.

While the others carried in luggage and were shown to the bedrooms, I joined Travis on the living room carpet, where my old herd of dinosaurs lay slaughtered by T-Rex. I’ll admit I felt a lump in my throat at Travis’s joy in those cheap plastic toys. I was happy to see the dinos back in play with a new little kid who appreciated them.

I joined in the boy’s imaginative game where raptors ran a helicopter service, carrying other dinosaurs to the hospital. A Lego building and people played that part, and soon I was paging a doctor to the emergency room. A few minutes and a couple of surgeries later, Gina joined us on the floor to sit cross-legged beside me.

Travis gave her the stink eye, maybe afraid she was there to ruin our fun. But Gina jumped right in, taking up a Lego person and acting the part of a nurse. She adopted a funny voice that made Travis giggle, and he relented and accepted her into our club.

I watched my cute girlfriend, the prettiest of all the very pretty women in the room with her snapping brown eyes and wavy dark hair, and suddenly saw our future almost like a vision. We would play with our children like this someday. They’d never be ignored or forgotten or treated like shit. They’d be the happiest fucking children on the planet with parents like us.

I wanted to lean in and kiss Gina right then, but the rest of the adults had joined us in the room, so a PDA seemed inappropriate. Instead, I strutted my Lego doctor up to her nurse and growled seductively that we could meet in the conference room later “to discuss the patient.”

She smiled and answered in an airy voice, “Absolutely, Dr. Player. I’d be happy to.”

*

Jonah

By the time I’d finished dealing with a shipping issue at the distillery, I was running late and the tone of Rianna’s texts was increasingly tense.

The first one stated cryptically:
Need talk before family arrives.
Important
.

I’d been in the midst of a phone conference and couldn’t respond before several more messages came in.

They got here early. Come soon please.

Where are you? Call!

As I drove home, I phoned in. “Hi, sweetheart. Sorry I’m late. I was in a meeting and couldn’t break free.”

“That’s okay. I just… Everyone’s here and it’s kinda overwhelming.” She spoke rushed and quiet. I heard voices laughing and talking in the background.

“I’m sorry. I know you’ve been nervous about meeting them.”

Rianna remained silent a moment. “Your family’s not the problem. Something happened. I can’t talk about it over the phone. I need to see you.”

Adrenaline shot through me, waking me up like a slap to the face. The mild anticipation I’d felt about seeing my brothers and the bigger anticipation of the coming wedding day both evaporated. An anvil lodged in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s wrong? Is it my dad?”

“No. He’s fine. It’s something else. I can’t tell you like this. I need to see you.”

Jesus, it sounded like she was about to cry. Was she having second thoughts about the wedding? Rianna was quite a bit younger than me. Maybe she’d begun to realize she had options she’d like to explore before settling down. But we’d been so happy. How could it all go to hell so fast?

Take a breath
. I knew better. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t our relationship. Rianna and I loved each other. That much I was confident about. I followed my own advice, inhaled, and calmed my racing heart.

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Anything you need me to pick up on the way?”

“No. Just get here, okay?”

I drove fast enough to get a big speeding ticket but luckily didn’t get pulled over. On our quiet street, I passed Micah’s massive old Buick parked in front of the house and turned into my driveway. I hurried into the house where the scent of those apple pie candles Rianna liked scented the air and the happy murmur of voices made the place feel like home. But the homey feeling was spoiled by the urgency in Rianna’s voice on the phone. What the hell had happened?

“There he is. The man himself,” Micah drawled from where he sat, sprawled on the carpet, his back against the sofa. “Tell the ladies about the time you busted that Carpenter kid in the nose.”

“No.” I was too worried to be very wordy as I greeted everyone and hugged both Leah and Gina. I looked over their shoulders, meeting Rianna’s eyes and trying to read a message in them. “Good to see you both again,” I said to the women.

“Same here,” Gina said. “And congratulations.”

“Yeah,” Leah added, her green eyes staring sightlessly past me. “I’m happy for you both. Rianna and I are Facebook friends, so I already feel like I know her.”

“Mm-hm.” I couldn’t make small talk. I was too desperate to find out what was going on with Rianna.

My gaze met J.D.’s where he stood just behind Leah. His eyes read mine, and he gave a little nod. “Hey, why don’t we all take a look at the yard? Travis, you want to show us around?”

Gina shot a
what’s going on here?
look back and forth between me and Rianna and quickly supported J.D.’s idea. “I want to see all those beautiful flower beds.” She offered a hand to Micah to help him to his feet. “Come on, Dr. Horndog.”