Texas Wedding (4 page)

“But you want to fix everything now.” Riley turned the nearest chair around and straddled it. Jack placed coffee in front of him and settled into the opposite chair, Connor climbing him like a tree.

“I suppose so, and I haven’t talked to Liam yet. He may not want that connection near him.”

“I think Liam is stronger than we think. Robbie says he’s project-managing the porch.”

Jack nodded. “He said Liam did the most on the bunkhouse as well.” Jack sounded proud of Liam, and Riley realized he felt a similar emotion. Liam was still quiet, but he fitted in well here.

Connor wriggled and looked back at Riley, and Riley couldn’t help a long indrawn breath. From the stubborn chin, to the stunning blue eyes, to the thick dark hair—this was like a miniature Jack looking at him.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, concerned and ever so slightly frowny.

“Connor looks so much like you.” Riley sipped his coffee. “He’s going to be handsome when he grows into that chin.”

Jack lifted Connor and peered at him, getting a slap on the nose from Connor in the process. “Yep,” he announced, “he’s a good-looking kid.” Jack tossed him in the air a little and made Connor laugh.

“Talking of good-looking kids, and quite apart from the older-date stuff, Hayley wants us to go shopping with her.” Riley swallowed the laughter that threatened. “Dress shopping.”

The look of horror on Jack’s face was so comical that the laugh Riley had been holding in blurted out.

“No,” Jack said. “Seriously? That’s worse than having a talk about S-E-X.”

“Seriously, Eden’s away, and when I suggested Anna could help, Hayley went bright red and said she wanted us.”

“Us? Not
just
you?”

“Honestly, she said us.” Riley gestured between them. “Both of us. Friday after school.”

Jack blanched. “I have a… I need to….”

Riley smirked. “You have nothing, right?”

“No.”

“Then we brush ourselves down, finish work, and take our daughter to find a dress for her first date with an older boy.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “Aren’t we shutting that down?”

Riley snorted. “No, hell. We’ll explain the birds and the bees, talk about sixteen-year-old boys, and pray to anyone who might listen that he’s a good kid.”

Jack snapped his fingers as inspiration hit him. “Wait! What about Logan? She likes him doesn’t she?”

“You hated the idea of her being with Logan.”

“Only because it’s weird.”

“They’re not related.”

“I know that. But he wouldn’t be a strange sixteen-year-old boy—”

“I said the same thing,” Riley interrupted. “Apparently she
is
still marrying Logan.”

Jack groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus, Riley, this is not happening. We need to lock her in her room or something.”

“It’s okay,” Riley said. “We have guns.”

Jack nodded. “And a big expanse of the ranch to bury a body.”

They looked at each other. Abruptly they laughed at the same time as the enormity of everything became one more thing they could handle if they did it together.

The chat with Hayley didn’t go so well. They’d left it until they were in the car on the way to the dress shop.

“He’s sixteen,” Jack said for the third time in the conversation.

“Not helping,” Riley muttered under his breath.

Jack shot him a look that spoke volumes.

“He’s really nice,” Hayley said again.

That was also the third time of saying, and this conversation really wasn’t going anywhere. Riley decided that this round-in-circles talking about things in an oblique way wasn’t working, and decided to come straight to the point.

“We’re worried that he’ll want to have sex with you,” he said, firm and direct.

Silence.

Complete and utter silence. Riley cringed, Jack shot him a look that said
What the fuck?

“Daaaad,” Hayley said with that tone only a teenage girl could get right. “I won’t do that.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Believe me, sweetheart, I know exactly what a sixteen-year-old boy wants.”

“Me too,” Riley added.

Hayley sighed. “I know you both do, and I know what I want, and anyway, Logan told me way before that Cory is more interested in boys than me.”

That was a bombshell which rendered both men silent.

“Oh,” Riley finally said. “And that’s okay with you?” He looked at Jack, who was refusing to look at him, instead focusing on the road. Jack wore a faint smile, and Riley imagined there was a story there. “Spit it out,” he ordered.

“I was fourteen, had this huge crush on this guy in Josh’s year, so I got myself invited as a plus-one with this girl—Tiffany, I think her name was.”

Hayley giggled. “See, Pappa’s okay with it.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jack said.

Riley shook his head. The minute Jack had opened his mouth with the Tiffany story, they had lost control of this. “Just be careful. We’ll be there to drop you and pick you up.”

He waited for some kind of argument, but Hayley sounded a little puzzled when she replied.

“Of course you will be,” she said. “I’m way too young to go home on my own.”

Out of the mouths of babes…
Riley thought. What could he say? Hayley was in a brave new world, and she knew her own mind even at such a young age. Not for the first time, he wondered if she’d always been so levelheaded. He wished her mom were still here to ask.

They arrived at Alison Catterill’s, a smart one-of-a-kind type boutique outside the city. Alison herself was a cheerful young woman with gorgeous long platinum hair and violet eyes. She was chirpy and evidently hyped up on life. Everything was stunning and beautiful and lovely and rainbows. In her world, anyway.

Money was a big part of Hayley’s life, yet she never asked for material things. Yes, she was at private school, but that was a safety concern. Other than that, she was far from what Riley had expected of a typical teen. But this dress? She was a mess of anxiety and excitement that had Riley concerned about what was going on in their daughter’s head.

“And this one.” Alison interrupted his thoughts.

He looked up at a dress he could only describe as puke green.
Maybe it looks better on
.

“I’m not sure about that one,” Hayley said. She was getting more confident with each dress. Alison nodded in agreement, then clearly had a eureka moment. She disappeared and came back with a sapphire dress made of not a lot of material to Riley’s eyes.

“You’re so slim, sweetheart. This is the smallest size we have, but I can certainly alter it so it will fit you like a glove.”

Riley looked at Hayley critically. She had sprouted recently, at least a couple of inches since Christmas. If she inherited his genes, then she’d be tall, but as she stretched up, she appeared to be going in around the middle. Jack had commented on it last week. Only here, standing next to a very slim Alison, Hayley looked tiny in size, despite her height.

So not only was she beautiful, with her long blonde hair and soft brown eyes, but she was heading for having a model’s figure.

“Suddenly locking her in her room seems a good idea, right?” Jack whispered as Alison and Hayley disappeared behind a curtain.

“Fuck, yes,” Riley agreed.

The curtain twitched and Alison reappeared, rummaging for shoes and some glittery thing from the shelf above the counter.

Finally, after some time, the curtain moved fully back and Hayley stepped out. Riley blinked at his daughter, glanced at Jack, then back at Hayley.

“Daddy? Pappa? What do you think?”

“It’s…” Riley couldn’t find the words. The back was a little lower than he would have liked, the hem a little higher, the material so soft on her, the heels perhaps too tall—but all he could think was that Hayley stood in front of him with so much naked hope on her face. “…Beautiful,” he finished.

Their baby was stepping out looking like a teenager, in a perfectly respectable dress, and he wished to hell Eden were here to calm him
the fuck
down. This Cory kid had better keep his hands to himself.

“You look lovely,” Jack said. He was a little more reserved, and Hayley looked sad.

“You don’t like it?” she asked.

Riley was damn pleased Hayley’s laser focus was on Jack and not him.

“I think…. Could it be a little more…?” Jack waved his hands.

“I like it,” she murmured. She patted the skirt which flared from the waist in a circle of material that swung with each step.

Jack reached for Riley’s hand, squeezing it tight.

“I love it,” Jack said.

This time, Riley thought, the same shock that he had felt was replaced in Jack with acceptance.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jack added.

Seemed like both daddies had handled this completely fine, and contentment and self-congratulation stole over Riley. They’d done okay.

Alison took measurements and said the dress would be couriered by the next Tuesday. Dressed back in her school uniform the glimpse of the young woman Hayley would become vanished.

She hugged them both, and they ate at Olive Garden before heading home.

Only in bed at night did Riley start to worry about Hayley, going over the what-ifs. He tried to stop himself by focusing on other things.

“We have that meeting soon, the autism early-intervention one.” Riley ran through the letter in his mind. Neither he nor Jack knew what early intervention was exactly, but Riley had researched and found out as much as he could. He and Jack would be part of a small group of other parents learning about autism, about the techniques to use when Max was having a meltdown or when he was locked in his own head and unresponsive. Recently Max had been having quite a few meltdowns. Riley was proud in a way; Max was testing the limits of his world like any normal kid would do. Not that Max wasn’t
normal
, he corrected himself immediately.
Different. Special.

“I already have the day crossed out.”

“I wonder what they’ll say.”

“Did Carol tell you what happened today? With the cookies?” Jack asked with a sigh.

Riley had heard, and immediately leaped to Max’s defense. “He doesn’t understand.”

“He has to, though,” Jack insisted. “He has to know you can’t put half a container of salt in the mixture, we have to be able to guide him in his world without him having a tantrum.”

“He’s independent,” Riley said. He knew he was making excuses. Max was 95 percent cute and sweet, and 5 percent terror. Riley had found him trying to unscrew a plug socket with a knife only last week. He’d told Jack in horror, and both men had gone silent. The idea of Max with a knife into electrics? Not worth thinking about. Next day Riley organized an electrician to come out and add in circuit breakers on the old system, which had in turn led to a complete emergency electrics overhaul of the entire house. At least Max would be okay if he did it again.

But the point was they should be able to find a way to explain how dangerous it was.

The idea of any of the kids being hurt filled Riley with a kind of fear he had never felt before; an all-consuming, terrifying, breath-stealing fear.

“We’ll ask in the meeting,” Jack rolled over to spoon Riley, and wriggled until they were comfortable together. “Everything will be okay.”

“I worry about Max because he doesn’t understand. I worry about the twins—well, Lexie mostly, because she’s into everything—and as to Hayley and a boyfriend, and that damn dress….”

“She’s careful and sensible.”

“If she’s anything like me….” Riley couldn’t finish the sentence. Hayley wasn’t like him. He’d been a spoiled kid, a boy with indifference to responsibility and family. Hayley was the complete opposite. “She’s like her mom, thank fuck,” he muttered.

Jack tightened his hold for a moment. “Stop that,” he ordered. “She’s like you as well. She’s got a lot of her dad in her.”

“I’d kill anyone that hurt Hayley,” Riley said fiercely, “and the twins, and Max.”

Jack sighed against his back.

“Not if I get there first.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Liam washed the last of the mugs and placed them in the drainer. Marcus was due back in an hour and they were going riding; Liam was showing Marcus the ropes. Marcus had proven to be good with horses, but not so much with riding. He’d already fallen off once, or rather he’d more slid off the horse. Liam had to stop himself from laughing at his lover’s comical expression as he fell to one side, in slow motion. Thinking about that made him smile. Not because Marcus had fallen, but that he’d stood up, brushed himself off, cursed the parentage of the horse and of Liam, and climbed back up.

Liam loved that about Marcus. His absolute dogged determination to never give up. There was an awful lot about Marcus that Liam loved—the way he kissed, the way he spoke, how clever he was, his smile, and his soft brown eyes…. The way it didn’t matter that Liam had all the emotional baggage he did. Marcus was there. Always understanding.

Liam checked his watch again. Marcus was on his way home, and Liam was done for the day. All he had spread out in front of him was time for Marcus and time to relax with a coffee on the steps up to their apartment.

Perfect.

A voice accompanied a knock on the door. “Liam, you in there?”

Darren.

Liam went from relaxed to tense in an instant. “One minute,” he called out.

What did Darren want? Darren didn’t visit Liam’s place. No one visited Liam except for Jack. Liam used the breathing technique he’d learned at counseling, and pasted a ready smile on his face before opening the door.

Darren had his back to Liam. The broadness of the man was never more evident than when it showed in the stretch of cotton against his shoulders. He was looking out from the apartment steps to the big house. He turned as soon as he realized the door had opened.

“Hey,” he said with a smile. Something about Darren always connected to Hank. Liam knew it was irrational, but victims of abuse often made connections in their head that would never shift. Or so his counselor had told him.