Forever Promised (19 page)

“Not even a little.”

She nodded. “Good. So you’ll believe me when I say this next part, okay? Because if you believe I know I’m in love with Drew, you’ll believe I know what I’m talking about, right?”

Deacon swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Deacon Parrish Winters, my first love—my first
true
love—was you.”

He had to fight not to shake his head and tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about. She’d just proved it to him, didn’t she? That she knew? If he believed her when she said she was in love with Drew, he had to believe her now.

“You did that really well,” he said seriously, and she inclined her head modestly, like he’d just told her he was proud of her grades.

“Thanks. I’ve been thinking on it for a long time.”

“Why tell me now?” Because this wasn’t comfortable knowledge, not for either of them.

“Don’t you see?” And her careful composure was slipping. She wiped her face with her Kleenex and some of her makeup came off with it. “I spent years trying not to be in love with you, Deacon. I’m not stupid. You started out being my teenage crush, and then you helped me with Parry and I was living with you—I
knew
what it would make me feel. But I also knew that nothing would make you… I don’t know, find another place for us to live, get weird, whatever—just
go away—
like thinking you were hurting me just by being kind. So I made myself not love you. And it sort of worked, right? Because I let Drew in. I love him, for real. I want to marry him. I want to have his children, I want to watch him raise Parry—”

“Then why?” he asked. He’d leaned the pitchfork against the wall, but he couldn’t stand still. He put his hands on the back of his head and paced, wanting to be anywhere,
anywhere
but here.

“Why what? Why tell you?”

“Why offer to… to have this baby! Because I have to tell you, Benny, knowing this about how you feel isn’t going to make me any more comfortable with you carrying my child!”

“But don’t you get it?
Look at me
, Deacon!”

He turned around and shook his head. She was crying, knees to her chest, chin resting on top, and wiping her face against her bare skin.

“I’m looking.” His eyes burned, and his chest felt pressed almost flat. “Benny, I have loved you like—”

“A sister,” she choked. “A daughter. A friend. I know this, Deacon. I know it in my heart. I’ve known from the very beginning that you have loved my brother like your mate, and everyone else is a real poor second. I understand that, okay? So this isn’t about you. It’s about me. It’s about what I need to do to set myself free.”

“Free?” Oh God. He didn’t understand. He didn’t get women on the best of days, but now he was lost, and he was hurt, and he wanted to talk to Crick at the same time he never wanted Crick to know this conversation had ever happened.

“Yeah. Free.” Benny straightened, hopped off the hay bale, and then stood up. Her chin was up, her shoulders were back, she looked as self-possessed as Deacon had ever seen a person, much less the little girl he’d saved, and who had helped him save himself. “Don’t you see, Deacon?” Still crying. She was still crying, and her blue eyes were puffy, and her breath was caught, but still, she had dignity. “All of this… this
mess
”—she gestured around her heart—“it’s all the ways I love you. And I need to set it free. And I figure if I have this baby, I give all of
this
”—again that helpless gesture—“to that baby. And then I can give that baby to you. And you’ll have it. You will have my love. And I’m free—I’ve given you everything I can, and I’m free to love Drew with all my heart, and love our children together, and to not worry that somehow, somewhere, I cheated you, because I was afraid that if you ever knew how I felt, you wouldn’t let me love you at all….”

She was sobbing now, and he opened his arms and gestured, afraid to just hug her now that he knew, but unable to love her any differently than the girl he’d comforted when she was lost and alone and so in need of a grown-up who wouldn’t let her down. She nodded and cried against his chest, and he remembered the first time he’d hugged her like this. She’d been pregnant and afraid and he could still smell the hair dye, because she’d dyed her hair every month back then, searching, searching for the identity that would help her be strong. He’d thought about how young she was, and how she still needed parenting, and how he was a shitty choice for it but he’d step up because she was Crick’s sister, and she needed him.

She was strong now, and not young anymore, and now she was
his
sister, and she was in pain.

“Sh,” he murmured into her hair. “I get it, Benny. I get it. You don’t need to do it this way, but I get it.”

“I do.” She hiccupped. “I
do
need to do it this way. Please, Deacon? Please let me give this to you? It’s all I can give you, and then….”

“Yeah,” he said, hearing her. You didn’t raise a girl like Benny without believing her when she stood up for herself and spoke. You didn’t listen to her when she poured her heart out, without respecting that it was the truth. “Yeah, Benny. If this is the thing that’ll let you and me be square, that’ll let you be my sister forever, so there’s nothing sitting between us?”

Benny looked up at him, her lashes spiked and her eyes red, and nodded. “This will do it,” she said, and he held out his T-shirt so she could wipe her eyes on it. She did, and her nose for good measure, making him laugh. When she was done, she looked up at him again, and he lowered his head and kissed her softly, platonically, on the lips. He pulled back and met her eyes again to see if she’d understand.

She smiled a little. “That’s as good as I’m gonna get,” she said, and he nodded, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say about that. “Fair enough,” she filled in for him, and he crushed her to his chest again.

“It’s gonna be the best baby,” he said, because it was the only thing that made this moment bearable. The only thing that kept his heart from stopping then and there.

“Damned straight,” she sniffled.

After a moment she pulled away, eyes somberly on his face. He pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead before stepping back, because they both needed space.

“What do we do now?” he asked, thinking about specifics, and apparently so was she.

“Well, I made the appointment for next week. I’ve been taking the drugs, and they’ll harvest my eggs then. Your swimmers will fertilize them, and then, when I’m right in the middle of my cycle, they’ll throw the embryo in the oven and bake!”

Deacon took three steps back until he ran into the stall behind him and put his work boot square in a pile of horseshit. “
Jesus
,
Benny! You got this shit
planned!
”

Benny hiccupped one last time and nodded militantly. “Well
yeah
, Deacon! I’ve been taking the fertility drugs since this started, so I figure I get pregnant in two weeks, and the baby’s due in nine and a half months, which is one, maybe two weeks after finals and graduation, so I’ll be done with school, and that’ll give me three months to get rid of the baby weight, and Drew and I can get married next August or maybe September.”

He knew his mouth was open and he couldn’t see very well. “Jesus… I mean…
Jesus
….”

She smiled then, through the puffy eyes and swollen nose, and he saw her, the impish kid he’d known before Crick had taken off for Iraq, the little sister he’d loved since she was probably younger than Parry Angel herself.

“Deacon, I ain’t fuckin’ around. I’m ready for school to be over, you and Crick to be situated, and me and Drew to start living together on our own.”

“You already pretty much live on your own,” he corrected, and she looked sheepish, because they both knew that wasn’t going to change while Drew went to school.

“Okay. Well, I’m ready to be a full-fledged grown-up now, okay?”

He started to laugh, helplessly, almost hysterically. “Benny, I don’t know if you’ve
ever
been anything less.”

She sniffed. “Well, come on. We need to tell Crick.”

He took a deep breath and smiled slightly. “I’ve only got two more stables to muck. Want to lend a hand?”

And it was just like it had been before Crick had come back, when they’d been two refugees on a lifeboat, clinging together through the storm.

“Yeah,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to fall asleep out here like you used to.”

He winked and found the spare pitchfork in the corner. “Haven’t done that in a while, Shorty.”

“Well, after you have a baby in the house again, you might start,” she said, like she was reminding him of something he didn’t know.

His smile grew then, and he couldn’t help it. A baby. A baby like Crick. All of his shortcomings were forgotten in the glow of Crick’s little sister, so grown up his chest ached with it. “I can’t wait,” he said, and she beamed back.

They didn’t say much after that, just worked companionably, side by side in the simple chore, until things were done right and they could go deal with all the excitement to follow.

C
RICK
jumped around the house, elbows and knees going in six different directions, so excited he woke the dog from under the house, and Mumford started running around the yard, barking in confusion. Crick, Deacon, and Benny ignored him completely, and Crick actually hugged his sister voluntarily, of his own free will.

And then reeled when she recited the same schedule to him that she had to Deacon.

“God, that’s fast,” he breathed, balancing himself against the back of a kitchen chair. All of that cavorting may have looked like fun, but it wasn’t exactly easy for him, even now. “Can we do that?” He looked at Deacon. “Can we be ready for a baby that soon?”

His long dark hair was tousled and in his eyes, and he was wearing cut-offs that were too short and a tank-top that wasn’t any longer, and he looked
so
earnest, just like he’d looked when he’d been nine years old and he wanted to help Deacon with the horses.

“Most people have less notice,” Deacon said, swallowing on sentiment. Which was good, because it wasn’t in him not to insert a little bit of practicality into this situation. “And,” he said, looking seriously at Benny, “remember that there is no guarantee this baby is going to be as excited about a September wedding as you are. This takes a couple of tries sometimes, you know that, right?”

Benny grinned, undeterred. “Nope. Doc says we could probably populate Mars. It’ll happen the first time. I’m sure of it.”

Deacon cringed—actually cringed. “Benny, I don’t want—”

She shook her head. “No. There will be no pessimism over this, okay?”

Crick nodded, actually agreeing with her. “Exactly. Let me ask Jeff—I’ll bet he can tell us all sorts of reasons this will work, and—” Crick paused. “What?”

“Not tonight,” Deacon said quietly, smiling. “Can it just be us tonight? Benny, Drew, Parry, you, and me? You can tell Jeff tomorrow, okay?”

Crick’s air of being an overgrown puppy suddenly softened and grew still. “Yeah,” he said, and ignoring his sister, he crossed over to where Deacon stood and kissed his forehead. “The whole world can know tomorrow. Tonight, it’ll just be us.”

Dinner was quiet but not subdued.

“Mommy,” Parry asked, “you’re going to get
fat
?”

“Not fat,” Drew said hurriedly when Benny thrust out her lower lip in a little bit of hurt. “She’s going to get beautiful!”

Deacon pursed his mouth in appreciation. “Good answer!”

Drew nodded emphatically—it had been a close call.

“So,” Parry said, undeterred, “my mommy is having this baby, but it’s not
really
going to be my brother or sister.”

She narrowed her wide eyes, and she looked suspiciously at the grown-ups to see if they were having her on.

“It’s going to be a baby for Deacon and Crick,” Benny explained. “So you and me and Drew will all live together as a little family, and they’ll have this baby to keep them company.”

Uh-oh—those narrowed eyes were now accompanied by a pouty lower lip. “So I’m not going to be Deacon’s only baby?”

Deacon reached across the table and ruffled her hair. “Now Angel, you will always be my girl. But you were such an
awesome
kid that when your mommy and Drew decided to be together, they wanted to give us a kid of our very own so we didn’t miss you quite so much.” Suddenly that sort of condescension that all
adults have when they’re trying to explain things to children fell away. “Crick and I will miss you
very
much now that you’re going to live in the little house. Planning for the baby will help us not miss you so much.”

God. Among other things, Benny and Drew were moving Benny and Parry into the mother-in-law cottage. There was enough room—it wasn’t much smaller than the main house, because in the back of his mind, Deacon had sort of been planning for this contingency when he’d had it built.

Parry’s lower lip began to wobble. “But… I’ll still
see
you everyday, right? You’re not going away like Lila, right?”

Deacon turned sideways and held his arms open, and Parry scrambled out of her chair and into them. Just like her mother, Deacon thought, and the idea was comforting. Parry was still a little girl, and he still had some time.

“Sh,” he murmured. “Yeah, Angel. I’ll be here. I’m coaching your soccer team, right? And Crick is your… what was it again, Crick?”

Crick winced. “Room mother,” he confessed, and Deacon winced for him. When school started this year, someone had gotten a little overzealous while filling out the fifteen zillion little pieces of paper that came home with every grade school child anywhere in California.

“Yeah. We’re not going anywhere for quite some time, okay?”

Parry nodded in his arms, but it took her some time before she was comfortable enough to back away from the table.

Crick and Benny shooed him away from cleanup, although that was usually protocol, and told Parry Angel she could dish up the berries and whipped cream for dessert. It wasn’t until Crick gave Deacon a serious look and a head bob that Deacon realized he had one more uncomfortable conversation to go.