Kristen Ashley - Dream Man 02 Read online

“Can I be your flower girl when you marry Uncle Slim?” Ellie asked.

  Again, my body, lungs and heart went completely still then the latter two started pumping and when they did this, they did it hard.

  Damn! Now how did I answer that?

  I decided on honesty.

  “Right now we’re just seeing each other, Ellie, but I’ll keep a line open to you if it looks like it’s getting serious,” I promised and she giggled.

  Then she placed her order. “Okay, but I want my dress to be pink.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her and she grinned at me.

  She had a milk mustache too.

  I grinned back.

  The door swung open and people flooded through starting with Laura and ending with Fern, Brock sandwiched in the middle. He came direct to me, eyes on my face and my eyes slid away. Fern went direct to the table to gather glasses. Laura started herding kids.

  “All right, kiddos,” Laura started, snatching a towel from a rack, “wipe off those milk mustaches and inspect Uncle Slim’s living room for your stuff. We’re packed up and in the car in five minutes. March!”

  Grady grabbed the towel, swiped his face, tossed it vaguely in his mother’s direction and raced out. Dylan followed suit. Ellie skipped to her mother like she had all the time in the world to tiptoe through the tulips, rubbed the towel across her face once mostly smearing milk and not lapping it up then she skipped out.

  “So sorry about crashing your date, Tess,” Laura said, pushing the towel back on the rack.

  “We were just driving by, saw Slim’s truck and bike and that’s unusual so we took our shot.

  We’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

  “Not a problem,” I told her on a smile, feeling Brock leaning into the counter with a hip, the front of his body facing my side but I kept my eyes glued to his sister at the table.

  Laura smiled back and stated, “I’ll have to bring the kids to your bakery. They’ll love it.

  I’ve been in a couple times but never with the kids, just to pick things up. Ellie talks about your pink cupcakes all the time.”

  “Give me a warning call and I’ll batten down the hatches,” I quipped and her smile got bigger as Brock’s body got closer and when I say this, I mean his arm circled my ribcage, he turned me so that now I was leaning one hip against the counter and the rest of me was pressed back against him.

  Laura’s eyes dropped to his arm, they warmed then she looked back at my face and was grinning like a madwoman again.

  At this point, Fern dampened the mood by proclaiming, “Slim, I hope that doesn’t happen often.”

  I turned my head to see her at the sink. She had rinsed the glasses and loaded a rickety dishwasher which might, though I wasn’t certain, have been the first of its kind, and she was currently shutting its door.

  “Mom, we’ll talk about it later,” Brock said in a warning tone.

  She turned and tipped her head back to look at her son. “Does it happen often?”

  “Did I say we’ll talk about it later?” Brock asked.

  “Simple question, Slim,” she returned and he sighed.

  “If you mean does he stop by? Not often. But he does it. If you mean does he ask for money? No. Not anymore,” he answered.

  “Not anymore?” Fern prompted and Brock sighed again.

  “He saw my truck and bike just like you, Mom,” he said quietly. “He’s an old guy with not a lot of friends left that he hasn’t fucked over. He comes by. We sit around, drink beer and watch a game. This does not happen often but it happens.”

  She stared at him. Then quietly back, she stated, “I remember a time when you wouldn’t even look at him.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve grown up. He’s my father. I don’t like that he’s lonely. What can I say?”

  Brock replied softly.

  Fern studied her son. Then her eyes shifted to me. Then she seemed to realize this was not the time or place and that was when she sighed.

  Then she said, “I’m sorry, Tess. You must think we’re all nuts.”

  “My parents are divorced, Fern, and my Mom hated my Dad from when I was nine to the day he died and even then she announced she wanted to go to his funeral so she could spit on his grave. Luckily, the next day, she got the flu and was bedridden for a week or she might have done it,” I told her, she stared at me, Brock’s arm got tight around my ribs then I finished, “I guess what I’m saying is, I get it.”

  Her eyes warmed and her mouth got soft. Then she nodded.

  Then she whispered, “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  “Mom! Dylan’s pulling my jersey!” Grady shouted from the living room.

  “Cue exit,” Laura muttered and I looked at her. “See you later, Tess?”

  “Yeah, Laura, nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” she replied then rushed out.

  Brock pushed me gently in front of him, slid out from behind me and went to his mother, bending low for her to kiss his cheek.

  “Have fun, honey.” I heard her whisper.

  “Right,” he murmured and she moved away from him and her eyes came to me.

  “Have a nice night, Tess. Lovely to meet you.”

  “You too, Fern,” I replied.

  She made to move out; Brock caught my hand and followed her, pulling me behind him.

  We hit the living room and got separated as the kids shouted good-byes to me, went into attack mode in order to give Brock’s legs hugs (this, he allowed from his nephews but he swung his niece up in his arms, gave her a fierce hug while he kissed then blew into her neck through which she giggled with childish abandon and while observing this I fought a tidal wave of warm gushiness), a brief period of pandemonium ensued for what appeared to be no reason at all then I stood in the middle of Brock’s shabby living room as he closed the door.

  Then he locked the three locks (knob, deadbolt, chain) and turned to me.

  “Your Mom wanted to spit on your Dad’s grave?” he asked, eyebrows up.

  “In the bitter divorce department, although your folks clearly have a frontrunner, my folks beat anyone by a mile.”

  He grinned at me.

  I tipped my head to the side and asked, “So, Rex and Joel?”

  His grin spread to a smile then he moved and before I knew it, in fact, even after it happened I wasn’t sure how I got flat on my back on the couch with Brock on top of me. All I knew was that I was there.

  “Rex and Joel,” he stated, his eyes holding mine, his holding mirth, his hands moving on me in ways not conducive to relaxing or having a life sharing chat. “My boys. I was married to their mother for five of the most miserable years of my life. Then I was divorced from her for five of the second most miserable years of my life. Then, two years ago, she got remarried and now she’s making her new husband’s life miserable and, lucky for me, she’s not able to multitask. Rex is ten, Joel is twelve. They’re good kids, I get them every other weekend, two weeks in the summer and whenever Olivia’s at the spa, which, considering her new victim is loaded, is often and this works for me because I think the world of my boys and clearly my genes are dominant because they aren’t pains in the ass like their mother is.”

  “I’m reading from that you two did not have an amicable divorce and remain friends,” I noted and the mirth in his eyes hit the room and also hit his body which shook over mine with suppressed laughter.

  “Yeah, babe, sorry I didn’t make that more clear.”

  “So being with her was the five most miserable years of your life?”

  “Yeah, and she made being without her miserable too but being without her was not the miserable part.”

  “So why did you marry her?”

  His head tipped slightly to the side and his face got slightly more serious.

  Then he answered, “Because there was the Olivia I met, dated, fell in love with and asked to marry me. Then there was the Olivia who I went on my honeymoon with. Night and day.

  Dark and light. Ki
d you not, sweetness, it was like she wasn’t even the same woman. It was whacked.”

  I stared at him, shocked and intrigued by this story.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really,” he answered.

  “That’s kind of…” I hesitated, “scary.”

  “You’re tellin’ me,” he stated with feeling and I thought about Ada and Vic and how Ada showed Vic everything he wanted to see then the minute she got his ring on her finger, Ada showed him Ada and set about making him the Vic she wanted him to be.

  “Why do women do that?” I asked.

  “Seein’ as I have a dick, I was hopin’ you’d answer that question,” he replied.

  “I’ve no idea,” I told him and his mirth came back through his smile and his body shaking on mine.

  Then he asked, “Are you gettin’ it yet?”

  “Getting what?” I asked back.

  His roaming hands stopped and one came to frame the side of my face as he dipped his close.

  Then, he whispered, “With Tessa O’Hara, what you see is what you get. No bullshit. No games. No masks. No lies. No nothin’. Just her, all her. I’m forty-five years old and, baby, I gotta tell you, I’m so sick of that shit you wouldn’t believe it. Meeting a woman who doesn’t have a clue how to even initiate a play was fucking refreshing.”

  Oh my.

  At that point, for some totally unhinged reason, my mouth blurted, “Ellie has ordered a pink flower girl dress.”

  Brock stared at me. Then he burst out laughing and shoved his face in my neck to do it.

  Then, while still doing it, he rolled to his back so I was on top and I lifted my head to watch as the laughter died to chuckles and his hands came up to gather my hair at the back of my head.

  And when he controlled his hilarity, his warm, quicksilver eyes locked on mine and he said quietly, “There it is. My sweet Tess doesn’t have a clue how to initiate a play. No bullshit. No games. No masks. No lies.”

  “Brock,” I whispered.

  “Thanks for dealin’ with the kids so I could deal with Mom and Dad.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said softly and he pulled my face to his for a lip touch then moved it back an inch whereupon I informed him, “Just a head’s up. Grady hears stuff, so much of it, he might go out of his way to listen and he doesn’t forget much.”

  He pulled in a breath. Then he shared openly, “We got dissension. Laura and my older sister Jill want my Dad back in the fold. My younger brother Levi, Laura’s husband Austin, Jill’s partner Fritz and obviously my Mom disagree. Austin because he’s overprotective of Laura. He met her two years after she was raped, she was still raw but he liked what he saw, put on the kid gloves and hasn’t taken them off. He’s a good man, a family man and he loves her. He doesn’t like the history and he didn’t like it when my Dad came around and asked for money. Fritz because Fritz likes his money and that’s because he works his ass off for it and anyone comin’ around and askin’ him to give it away isn’t real popular. Levi because my brother hasn’t worked shit through, he’s got a short fuse, carries a mean grudge and takes loyalty to extremes. Shit’s comin’ to a head. There’s a lot of talk. Grady’s a smart kid, he feels deep, he loves his Mom and he’s gonna hear and be confused.” He paused then said,

  “I’ll have a word with Laura.”

  “Why is this happening?” I asked. “I mean, you’re all adults. Can’t those who want your Dad in their fold do it and those who don’t –?”

  Brock cut me off with, “Dad’s got cancer, Tess.”

  My body stilled on top of his and I whispered, “Ohmigod.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered back. “This is the second time. It’s come back. First time, he beat it easy. This time, they say it’s more aggressive. He wants to make amends, wants his family back, wants peace in case he passes. There are those in our ranks who question his motives and timing. There are those who see our Dad is gettin’ old, he’s sick, he’s not only fucked us over but also a lot of other people so he’s lonely and he’s a social guy but even if he wasn’t, lonely isn’t good when you’re sick. So we got dissension, it’s bringin’ up shit that’s been buried awhile and emotions are high.”

  I slid my hand up to curl my fingers around his neck as I whispered, “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “I am too. This shit sucks.”

  “Yeah it does,” I agreed, still whispering and I saw his eyes intense on me.

  Then he asked quietly, “How’d your Dad pass?”

  “Hepatitis C,” I answered. “No one knows how he got it but he was an EMT when he was younger so maybe something happened on a call. He had it for ages before they caught it. He was close to dying when he got a donor liver but it attacked the new one and still, he lived twelve years after that before it beat him.”

  “And your Mom hated him because…?”

  “Mom hated him because he fell in love with his partner in his ambulance and they got married two weeks after the divorce was final. She was humiliated and I get that. But he also genuinely loved Donna. I mean truly, he adored her and it just sucked that he found her after he found Mom. Mom isn’t a bitch or a crazy person, she just wasn’t his other half and Donna was. He felt guilty all his life and made that clear but she never let it go. She isn’t like that with anyone else but unfortunately, for her, Dad was her other half and she genuinely loved him, truly adored him so her heart just broke and never mended.”

  “Makes you wonder why we do this shit,” he muttered and I had to admit, there were a lot of times I agreed.

  Though, the four months with him and the last three days, I didn’t.

  “Why does your brother want to break your ex-wife’s neck?” I asked and he shook his head but smiled.

  “Because he loves me and she made me miserable for ten years. The four of us kids were close growin’ up and sometimes, honest to God, Tess, sometimes I could swear the only things Levi wants in life are to see Jill, Laura and me happy. He’s not married, never has been, has dedicated his life to his career, his summer softball league, his season tickets to the Broncos, gettin’ laid as often as he can and his family. He’s the one we all call to babysit, he’s the emergency contact at all the kids’ schools, he never fails to prop his latest piece in a chair at the dining room table at Mom’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and he runs his ass ragged to get to every house on Christmas.”

  “I don’t know if that sounds nice or a little crazy,” I shared cautiously.

  “You and me both, babe. I get his struggle. There were times I wondered if I’d grow up to be Dad and let a good woman down and fuck over my family because none of us know why the fuck he did all the shit he did and, as a man, you watch the man whose seed made you and you think that shit’s in you. Then again, you also gotta live your life and if that beast lives within, you gotta have the balls at least to try and tame it. But the beast doesn’t live within.

  This is not to say that I didn’t think of steppin’ out on Olivia who was a pain in my ass but I didn’t have it in me. And when it got so miserable I couldn’t take it anymore and I had the choice of eatin’ shit my whole life and teachin’ my sons eatin’ shit was the right thing to do, which it isn’t, or getting out from under that mess and showing them it was important to be a man and find my own happiness, I made that choice for me and for them. Levi doesn’t get that life will always be fucked one way or another and you can’t run away from it. He’s living a life that’s been over for years. We aren’t livin’ with Mom and doin’ our homework at the kitchen table. That family’s changed and that life is gone and he needs to make his own life and his own family.”

  “Have you told him this?”

  “Getting my brother to listen is like convincing him to let it go about Olivia or Dad. It is just not gonna happen.”

  “My sister lives in Australia and my mother lives in Florida,” I told him, he grinned and let my hair go as his arms wrapped around me.

  “Finally, two things that show my Tess can b
e lucky.”

  My body relaxed into his and I shared, “I miss them every day.”

  His eyes moved over my face as he murmured, “Yeah.”

  “Thanksgivings suck. I either go to Florida, where it’s just Mom and me and that’s okay but that isn’t like having a full table with kids being loud and wondering what girl your philandering brother is going to bring to dinner. Or she’s in Australia and I have to find a friend close to mooch dinner from. Those are worse.”

  The skin around his eyes went soft and he muttered, “My poor Tess.”

  I moved my face a half an inch closer and my fingers tensed into his neck for a second before I said quietly, “I guess what I’m saying is, all this seems like it sucks but it doesn’t.

  It’s all based in love and history and loyalty so really it’s kind of beautiful because the alternative would be not having any of that and then where would you be?”

  Brock didn’t answer. No, instead, his eyes looked into mine for long moments before his hand slid up in my hair, his body rolled me so I was again on my back, he was again on me and his mouth had captured mine and he was delivering a hard, deep, wet kiss that took my breath away.

  When he lifted his head, I fought for my breath as well as control of several areas of my body and he asked, “You hungry, babe?”

  “Yes,” I breathed because that was the truth, I was, but I was happy to eat later, as in, lunch the next day.

  Brock grinned and the sight of it with his handsome face close, his hard body pressed the length of mine and my lips (and other places besides) still tingling from his kiss, I again lost control of those several areas of my body.

  Therefore, to move my mind from him and what he was doing to those places, I blurted, “I think I’ve got popsicle juice on my back.”

  “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

  “That’s okay. I kick ass with hand wash.”

  He grinned again.

  Then he asked, “Snickerdoodles?”

  From the look in his eyes I knew that he knew I’d marked they were his favorites.

  Therefore I shrugged and said, “The first time I made them, you ate, like, seven and you gravitate to cinnamon. It doesn’t take a mind reader to figure out you like them.”