This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2) (30 page)

With her back to me, I can’t see her swollen belly but I know it’s there. Just this morning, I rained kisses all over that belly and was met with little nudges against my mouth. Our son will be a playful one like his mother. I can’t wait.

I watch Dad as he opens the ice chest between them on the blanket and hands her a bottle of water. I’m envious of that bottle—her tongue and mouth doing things my cock is now certainly familiar with. With Baylee, each day drives me further and further away from my afflictions. All it took was one blow-job from my girl and I didn’t care if I died an awful death from the worst diseases known to man. It was all worth a few beautiful minutes of her lips on my dick.

And the first time I tasted her, sucked and nibbled on her sweet clit, I was a goner. When it came to her body, I was free. She was a healer, not an infection. I’ll never get enough of what she so gladly offers me.

I’d be a fool though if I said we were perfect. We’re far from it, in fact. Twice a month, Baylee and I attend our counseling sessions. Most times, we go together but on occasion we go alone. There are some memories my girl still has trouble dealing with—the loss of her parents, the fact she was a victim of sexual violence, and the betrayal of three men she cared deeply for. And I tend to flip the fuck out from time to time—the fear of losing the ones I love to disease, accidents, or some freak murderer hangs heavy in my heart continuously and no matter how hard I try to shake it away, I simply can’t. But together, we emerge from the darkness that shadows our minds and we find a way to survive. Happily.

Together we find the light.

Baylee stands and she shields her eyes as she looks up at the house. She doesn’t have to see me to know I’m always watching her. My heart flops when she waves and blows a kiss in my direction. I wish I could run down the stairs now and trudge through the gritty sand toward her. To take her in my arms and kiss her pretty mouth.

Of course I can’t.

Well, at least not yet.

When she turns her back to me again, I drop my gaze down to the glass near the floor. It’s smudged all to hell and gives Greta hives when she comes over. I beg her not to clean them away but she pulls the know-it-all motherly card and says it needs to be sterilized. That I can’t capture every memory in the way of snot and slobber. The memories stay in the heart and mind, she says, not on glass. My how the roles have changed.

I flick my gaze over to the clock on the wall and my heart begins to thump wildly in my chest. It’s almost time. Thirty-eight more seconds before Baylee says it’s okay. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t count the hours and minutes and seconds. I’d lose them all in the scent of blonde curls, bright blue eyes, and slobbery grins.

But I’ve learned my lesson.

When I break Baylee’s rules, we spend the rest of the day battling tears and meltdowns.

So, I count the hours and minutes and seconds.

Twelve seconds left.

Flickering my gaze back to my dad, I smile to see him hugging her. Those two cling to one another and it fills my heart with joy. She’s the daughter he lost. And he’s the father she lost. A perfect pair, those two.

Click.

I’m already stalking away from the window toward my bedroom as soon as the last second passes. The time is now. For kisses and soul-melting babbles.

“Dadadadada.”

I stop in the doorway, frozen by the sight of perfection. My little cherub stands in the playpen, grinning at me with the world’s cutest toothy smile. Her blue eyes glitter with excitement when she sees me and she reaches for me. Stepping over Baylee’s discarded nightgown and one of my shoes, I make my way over to my baby.

“Hey there, angel. Did you wake up?” I scoop her into my arms and kiss the soft hair on her head.

She babbles about her dreams, speaking a language only she knows, while I carry her over to the bed to change her. The sheets and blankets are a mess with Baylee’s psychology books still open to the last chapter she was reading for her college classes. A couple of years ago, I’d have flipped out over the mess. Now, I can’t stop smiling because it means Baylee has left her mark on my life.

“Did you poo-poo? You know Mommy changes all the poo-poos,” I chide playfully as I grab the wipes and a diaper from the end table.

“Mamamama,” she explains and scrunches her nose.

She’s so fucking cute, I laugh out loud. “Fine, you get out of it this time.”

Like the practiced dad I am, I change her with only a few gags that I’m pretty sure are normal for something that smells that rancid. Once she’s in the pink bathing suit Bay left out for her, I carry her on my hip toward the door.

“You ready to go play with Gramps and Mommy at the beach?”

She buries her sweet face against my chest and I melt. My girl has me wrapped around her tiny finger and I don’t care to ever be released.

“Papapapa.”

“Yeah, Gramps will be excited to see you.”

I step outside of my home and inhale the warm, salty air. Once upon a time, I shuddered at such a concept—breathing sea air. Now, I practically need it to survive. Barefoot, I trot down the steps and through the hot sand toward my family. When Baylee sees us, she stands and waddles my way. I’ll never tire of seeing her big and pregnant with our children. Before it’s all said and done with, we’ll have our own little army.

“Hey, honey,” she calls out to me. “Hey, cutie.”

Hannah reaches for her mommy and Baylee takes her. I come around behind her and wrap my arms to touch the sides of her belly. My mouth finds the shell of her ear and I kiss it tenderly.

“Papapapa!” Hannah shrieks upon seeing him and wriggles to be set down.

We both laugh the moment Hannah is free and clumsily makes her way to Gramps who is waiting with an undoubtedly sandy cracker my mother would approve of.

“Mmm,” Baylee murmurs, turning in my arms, “I thought you’d never get here.”

I flash her a grin before threading my fingers in her hair and kissing her deeply. “Believe me, I was counting the seconds.”

She sighs in happiness and together we watch as my dad plays with our daughter. Finally, after a few moments, my wife looks up at me with tears in her eyes and runs her fingertips over the scar on my chest. “War, the battles were worth it. The pain, the blood, the casualties, the paths our lives took. It was all worth it because it led to this. Whatever ‘this’ is”—she motions between me and our family—“I don’t ever want it to end.”

I plant a kiss on her forehead. Making the same gesture of my hand, I explain exactly what “this” is.

“This is love, baby.”

I press a kiss to War’s soft lips and smile at him. Today he’s beautiful in the bright sunshine. A few tiny freckles dot his nose and his navy-colored eyes twinkle with delight. His grin stretches across his entire handsome face lighting up all of his features. The wind tousles his brown hair in every which direction making him a sexy, disheveled mess. Just the way I like him. Simply perfect.

He’s right. This
is
love.

My heart nearly bursts with joy any time my husband bounces our adorable daughter on his knee or rubs my belly reverently. His smiles are frequent and they are a salve to parts of my heart that are still hissing from being burned. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about what led me to War.

Fate had a plan.

The psycho bitch knew we were meant to be together.

What she didn’t tell me was it would cost everything I loved to be with him.

Mom. Dad. Brandon.

And even Gabe.

My therapist tells me it’s okay to miss them. Three men who supposedly loved me but ended up cutting my heart out, each one in their own way, still managed to make my heart ache from time to time. She tells me it’s normal.
I find it far from normal.
The ache for them feels like a betrayal to War. And that sense of betrayal breeds anger.

After all this time, I’m
still
angry.

Apparently that’s normal too.

She assures me eventually I can move past all the anger. That I should forgive them for what they did. Even Gabe.
Especially Gabe.
So I can move on, according to her. By letting go of the pain of my past, I can make room for all the good things my future has in store.

And most days, I am able to find the strength to agree with her. I search deep inside my splintered heart and I seek out the goodness each one had to offer. Before disease and money and stress drove them to carry out terrible atrocities on the one they loved most. Those days, I feel strong. I’m a warrior—a hero in my own story.

It’s the other days that are hard. The days where I feel like I’m the last one on the board protecting her king with the bloodiest damn sword around. Guilt drips from me like blood from all of the casualties in my war. Those days, it’s crushing. Those days, I don’t feel strong at all.

But the war is how I found my peace.

The war was worth it.

War
was worth it.

When I feel our son rolling around in my belly or when Hannah falls asleep against my chest, I know. I know that every single second of this was all necessary in some fucked-up way. The battle was truly ugly but my peace is more beautiful than words could ever describe.

“Oooh,” Hannah babbles and points at the choppy ocean. She toddles closer toward the water’s edge and I trail behind her as War and Land dive into discussion about a new client behind us. My daughter is brave and doesn’t fear the crashing waves. Instead, she squeals and runs toward them. No hesitation. No reservations. No strategy.

She doesn’t worry about the evils of the world because she has two parents who do enough worrying about that for her entire lifetime.

My daughter is free.

War and I will be the parents who protect her.

She’ll never know the terrors we faced. Life, for her, will be perfect. We’ll make sure of that.

“Mamamama!” she tells me with a sweet giggle and splashes into the warm water. A wave rushes toward us causing her to lose her balance and she plops onto her butt in the sand. I smile and reach for her small hands to help her stand back up. Once she’s stable again, I clasp my fingers around her tiny wrist and let her guide me along the shore.

I’m lost in thought, a smile playing at my lips when the familiar sick dread washes over me. A shiver skitters down my spine and I jerk my head over my shoulder. My therapist assures me that because I never had closure with Gabe, I’ll always be paranoid to a certain extent. She tries to get me to relax and not worry about what I can’t control. He’s dead and I need to move on.

Yeah, I get it.

But each time, I look over my shoulder. I expect to lock eyes with his heated coffee-colored ones. To be paralyzed in fear as he descends upon me like the beast from hell devouring his next dark soul—to make me pay for those in my destructive wake. Brandon’s blood on my hands plagues me worst of all. I helped shape him into the dragon that annihilated the sweet boy from my past. And when I had a hand in slaying him, I became the biggest player in Gabe’s twisted mindfuck game.

A game where there were no winners.

Just death and blood and loss.

I’m simply surviving one day at a time with my broken king at my side. Together we fight the dark demons of our past by focusing on the blonde angels in our future.

A rumble of thunder in the distance makes me jump and I squint to see where the storm is coming from. Dark clouds are forming further on down the coast which means it won’t be long before the bad weather makes it here.

War’s laugh cuts right through my sullen haze and wraps itself around my heart. Whenever I let these guilty thoughts infect me, he always finds a way to push them back out and instead fills me with his love.

It’s enough.

It’s more than enough.

And it works.

I can let down my guard and enjoy the moment. As the wind picks up and blows my hair into my face, I close my eyes and let out a small breath. Life is good. This
is
love, like he said. Fate may be the evil bitch but it’s Love who’s the stubborn one. Love doesn’t care if you think you’re underserving or unworthy. Love doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your past or who you’ve hurt along the way. Love doesn’t care if you have blood on your hands.