Heartwood (3 page)

I rolled away from the bright nuisance and nuzzled into Molly’s pillow. The familiar scent of her hair permeated the pillowcase, bringing back powerful memories of our makeup sex the night before. I smiled softly as I recalled the moment she rolled over and nestled up close to me. It was a familiar move from Molly, a white flag of surrender. I’d grown accustomed to this type of gesture from her, and understood her silent message.

‘I’m here. I overreacted. I’m still pissed but I love you.’

I’d lifted my arm and she nestled up to me. The firmness of her breasts against my side already had my heart beating faster, and when she lightly trailed her fingertips down my chest, it started to gallop in my chest. I exhaled deeply and stroked her hair, understanding that she was ready to connect with me. She nuzzled my neck in response, and I knew her fervent lips would claim mine soon. I wanted her as badly as she wanted me. Any discord between us hurt, and I had to be close to her to ease that particular ache. Though some days she left me scratching my head, most of the time I felt like I knew her like I knew myself.

I was already rock hard as I watched her silhouette move in the dark room. Then she was straddling me, and her mouth came down on mine. I moaned in response to her urgent, sweet kisses. We did our best to keep quiet, which only heightened my level of excitement. She moved slowly, taunting me with her leisurely pace. Soon, I was so spun up that I flipped her onto her back, caging her between my arms. She proved how well she knew me, revving up my needfulness with all of my favorite moves: trailing her nails lightly down the back of my neck, the naughty sounds she made, that thing she did with her tongue. I returned the favor, stifling her moans with my mouth when she came.

Recalling all the vivid details of the night before, I sat up. Morning wood made my sleeping pants way too snug. Molly was the motivation I needed to get my lazy ass out of bed. I was ready for round two.

As if on cue, I heard one of the babies let out an angry cry. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was already seven a.m. I felt my forehead wrinkle in surprise. The twins
never
let us sleep in this long, and I was concerned that something was wrong. My fears fell away when I heard Molly’s raspy voice reverberate from the baby monitor.

“Ahhh...come here, Eva. Did Logan wake you up
again
?” Her sweetness eased my troubled mind, and I felt all the tension drain from my body. “He kicked you? He’s such a bully.”

I stood and stretched. The days of the twins co-sleeping were coming to a swift end. They’d just turned seven months old, and they’d grown like weeds. In fact, the pediatrician claimed you’d never know they were premies. Eva, who had always been the smaller of the two, was in the fiftieth percentile for length and weight. I figured their impressive growth had everything to do with their recent shift to solid foods and their mother’s ability to make even baby food taste incredible.

Shuffling into the bathroom, I brushed the rotten taste of sleep from my teeth. I knew the minute I saw my gorgeous fiancée, I’d want to kiss that sassy mouth of hers. I also knew that she’d kick my ass if I still had morning breath when I did.

Looking in the mirror, I frowned at my disheveled appearance. I was long overdue for a haircut. Our wedding was just four short weeks away, and I needed to time my trip to the barber carefully. The old guy who cut my hair had a wicked sense of humor, but sometimes he got a little razor happy. Molly pouted when he buzzed it too short, and if mama ain’t happy...

Still, it had been far too long since I’d been in my barber’s chair and I was starting to look like a hippie. Thanks to Molly’s silly refusal to shop for a wedding dress until she was nearly at her pre pregnancy weight, our wedding had been pushed back to late October. We were finally in the home stretch, and I wanted to do my part to make ‘our day’ perfect. Looking good for my girl was a solid step in that direction. Glancing at the calendar on my phone, I saw that I was scheduled to pick up our wedding bands later in the week. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone since I’d already be in the neighborhood.

Wandering out of our bedroom, I passed Eva’s room without a second glance. My baby girl hadn’t slept there, not even once. Her bedroom had functioned as a guest room for weeks after we brought the two of them home. Several of our family members had taken shifts helping with the twins in the early days while Molly was recovering from her C-section. Since the twins did so much better sleeping in the same bed, Eva’s pumpkin carriage crib remained untouched. From the sounds of her indignant caterwauling, I had a feeling that Her Royal Highness would be breaking it in soon.

I crept quietly down the hall, and as I neared Logan’s bedroom I heard my daughter murmur an angry yet unintelligible response to Molly’s cheerful banter. Molly’s reply came without a hint of condescension.

“And he peed on you, too?” Her sympathetic sigh made me grin. “Brothers. Can’t live with ‘em...”

There was more jabbering from Eva, and I came around the corner to see Molly rocking her in the glider. She nodded down at my daughter. “Well, get used to it, sweetie. It just gets worse as they get older.”

Considering Molly’s brothers were my oldest friends, I understood she was only partially kidding. For as long as I’d known them, the Hildebrandt twins lived to torment their little sister. Back when we were in high school, Molly endured pudding in her pillow case, prank phone calls, and countless times her bra ended up in the freezer. Most of the time, Little Molly handled their razzing with the stoicism of a Navy Seal. Once in a while the boys crossed some invisible line of hers, and Molly’s temper boiled over. When that happened, a majestic display of hostility ensued.

Now that we were all adults, Mason and Molly had established a pretty normal relationship. The oldest of the Hildebrandt sons, Mason hadn’t been happy when he first discovered we were dating. He’d nearly shattered my jaw and to be honest, I deserved it. I should have gone to him before he found out about us through the grapevine. In Mason’s defense, I’d been in a pretty bad place for a long time before Molly. He didn’t want me anywhere near his little sister with my self-destructive ways.

Now here we were, nearly two years later, with our own set of twins. Molly’s new role as a mother seemed to pacify Mason somehow, and our engagement seemed to ease any remaining fears. He’d surprised me one day, stopping by the house to shoot the shit out of nowhere. It was shortly after the twins were released from the NICU. He held both of them and I showed him my new truck. We laughed about how badass it would look if Mason dropped the frame to the ground and painted red flames along the sides.

“Not very practical.” I murmured, and Mason gave me a sly grin.

“So Mac’s got something cooked up for your bachelor party.”

“Oh no. No no no no no. Not again.” I held my hands in front of me as if to ward off the tidal wave of hard liquor assaulting the beach of my memories. The foggy recollection of my hellish hangover at my first wedding made me cringe.

Mason nodded, his expression seeming to imply his own recollection wasn’t pretty. “Molly already laid down the law. We have to do it the week before the wedding. She said if she smells a hint of booze on any of us we’ll all have black eyes in the wedding pictures.”

“That’s my girl.” I shrugged. “Tell me he isn’t taking us to the skanky strip joint we started at last time.”

“Hell no.” Mason pulled a face. “Robin would castrate me if I came home covered in glitter and reeking of FDS.”

I laughed, and he joined me. When we wound down, there was a long and awkward pause.

“Dude.” I shook my head and raised my beer bottle up to toast him. “When did we get old?”

“Speak for yourself, asshole.” His comment lacked bite and he clinked his glass against mine.

After some small talk and general beating around the bush, he got to his real reason for stopping by.

“It’s good to see you doing so well, man. My sister seems to be good for you. And you seem to be pretty good for her, too.”

We’d never actually come out and talked at length about the rift Molly had caused between us, so needless to say I was surprised at this turn in the conversation.

“She’s the one, Mason.” I looked him dead in the eye, needing him to understand the gravity of my statement.

His unwavering eye contact punctuated his reply. “She’d better be.”

He was doing his brotherly duty and I accepted it for what it was. Mason had been my best friend for years, and knew what kind of guy I was underneath the grief I’d been carrying around. Once his initial shock wore off, he’d had warmed to the idea of me officially joining his family. These days, Molly seemed relaxed around Mason. She even called him regularly for parenting advice when she couldn’t reach his wife, Robin.

Things between her and her brother, Mac, on the other hand, were as unpredictable as ever. Their drama could be especially annoying since Mac was now co-owner of Good Wood, my woodworking/custom furniture business. He still treated Molly like she was twelve years old, and she wasn’t exactly what you’d call respectful in return. None of this was a new development, but they seemed to get more caustic as the years passed.

When we were kids, Molly used to idolize Mac. She’d follow us around all over creation and laugh at everything that came out of his filthy mouth. Mac enjoyed having a minion, and he put Molly up to all sorts of things that got her into trouble. When the twins still lived at home with their parents, Molly and Mac had usually been the instigators of all sorts of shenanigans, always partners in crime. I often marveled in how alike they still were, both stubborn, and far too spontaneous for their own good. There’d been some bad blood between the two of them when their father passed, and they’d never quite bounced back from it. Nowadays, if Mac said the sky was blue, Molly would traipse outside to double-check.

All thoughts of Molly’s brothers vanished as I watched my beautiful girl run her fingers through Eva’s golden hair. The perfection of the twins never failed to stun me, and my heart soared at the sight of my girls together. Their collective beauty bowled me over, and I silently admired the way the sunlight played on Molly’s porcelain skin. As if she sensed my presence, her blue eyes slid sideways at me and lovingly locked onto mine.

“There’s daddy!” She leaned conspiratorially down to whisper to our daughter. Molly’s hair spilled over her shoulder in thick chocolate waves and I wanted to reach out and run my hand over it. As if she could read my thoughts, she graced me with a stunning smile which seemed to communicate volumes without a word.

“How are my girls this mornin’?” I drawled, crossing to them. The moment I spoke, Eva’s tiny green eyes darted to me and her face split in a toothless grin around her bottle. I like to think I’m a pretty tough guy, but Eva’s joyous expression instantly reduced me to a puddle of goo. With an arm worthy of the major league, she slung her bottle aside and it clattered against the train engine crib. Ricocheting off, it skittered toward my bare feet and I barely dodged it. Logan jumped at the sound and let out a startled cry. Molly rolled her eyes and dabbed at Eva’s chin with a spit cloth, but Eva struggled against her mother’s efforts and she reached out for me.

“Da!” She cried out. Logan stirred in the crib and lifted his head off the mattress tiredly.

“Oops.” I murmured with a sheepish glance at Molly. I quickly scooped Eva out of her arms.

“Serves him right.” Molly remarked, and she stood and hurried to the crib. “First, he peed through his diaper around two a.m. I had to change them both
and
the bed and he slept through the entire ordeal. Then, just a few minutes ago, he kicked Her Royal Highness hard enough to wake her up.”

For all her blustering, Molly’s eyes twinkled as she lifted our son out of the crib. He immediately reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair yanking on it with all of his might. She hissed and tried to pull away but he refused to release it. Logan’s pale blue eyes were identical to Molly’s, and so was his devilish grin. In the past month, he’d lost all of his dark hair. We’d taken to calling him Lex, after the famous bald villain in the Superman comics. We found this especially amusing, since Alexander was his middle name.

Eva cuddled into my chest and I kissed the silky blonde top of her head. “You should have woke me up. I could have helped.”

Logan’s hand snaked out in the direction of Molly’s locks again. She barked out a surprised laugh, pushing her hair over her shoulder and away from his reach. “I was already up makin’ you breakfast. I figured you could use the fuel after last night.”

She wore a naughty smile, and I winked at her. I had serious plans for that mouth, but I filed them away for later. She caught me watching her and a pretty blush spread across her cheeks and chest. Unable to suppress a cocky grin, I pecked her on the cheek. It was a poor substitute for what I wanted to do, but after all, there were children present.

“Why don’t you go on out and give Eva some cereal. I made omelets and there’s some lemon-blueberry bread cooling on the stove.” She suggested. My stomach growled in response to the breakfast menu, and I nodded. I scooped up Eva’s bottle and turned to leave the room. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched as Molly gently place Logan on the changing table, murmuring about how big of a boy he was.

The singsong cadence that she used with him caused a small twinge in my chest. Molly’s nurturing ways came as no surprise, but her limitless love for the twins still took my breath away. Sometimes, I’d come home from work and find her smiling goofily at them while they slept. She doted on them constantly, and watching her with them, it was hard to believe that she’d been so ambivalent when we’d first found out she was pregnant.

I hated when life’s little bullshit got in the way of me appreciating her, but it didn’t stop it from happening. I wanted nothing more than to spend every second with the three of them, but business and mundane tasks made that impossible. When I’d catch myself stressing on the way home, I’d take a deep breath and try to drop it all at the driveway and focus completely on her and the kids.