“She was so perfect and my parents wanted her back so badly. They pushed me to go to Julliard in her stead. Sent me to boarding school so they didn’t have to look at me and be reminded. They wanted me to be like her, and I couldn’t be.” More drips. “Over time, I felt lost in Monarch’s shadow. I can’t even have kids now because of my injuries. They just…it just…” The words leaked out on a whisper. “It felt like I was erased, like they stopped wanting me.” He looked up to realize she was shaking her head. “I sometimes don’t feel like I belong anywhere.”
Pain lanced through him, at the thought of that loss. Loss of a choice to have kids, loss of her parents. In their grief, they’d abandoned a girl who’d needed them more than ever.
“I look at you here, this”—she gestured to his boys smattered on the wall, gestured to her surroundings as if encompassing the whole farm—“and I know things aren’t perfect for you, but you have so much more than you think. And if I had siblings, I know I’d never refuse them if they wanted to help me, because I’d give anything to turn back the clock and take back what I did—”
His lips pressed to her belly. He looked up to see her gazing down at him, wiping her eyes.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’ve never told anyone that except my ex-fiancé, so I promised myself I’d never get serious again.”
His hands deposited her fingers back onto his shoulders, and his palms slid onto her hips. “But you’re giving me a chance.”
“Because you’re giving me a chance. But it scares me a little.”
Tenderness washed through him. These hints of a woman in his life needing him, her essence working its way into the fabric of this place, were…comforting. A week ago he never would have admitted it. Yet irritation bloomed.
“This why you and your fiancé didn’t work out?”
She nodded. “The whole no kids thing was a dealbreaker for him.”
The bastard. He’d abandoned Heart all over again. God, anger spiked in Tyler’s blood.
Lifting her blouse with his nose, his lips returned to her belly. He pressed a kiss to the incision that he now realized wasn’t actually healed, but would it ever be?
“You still want kids?” he hedged.
She sucked in. Her diaphragm depressed beneath his lips and fingers tensed on his shoulders. He finished the kiss and dusted another one farther along on her scar. Then another, until he’d kissed the length of it. Slowly, she relaxed against his kiss, growing accustomed to the attention he was paying it.
He glanced up again, waiting for her answer. He didn’t ask idle questions.
She caressed his hair off his forehead. He tugged on her hips, pulling her down to him, the bench beneath them groaning as he slipped his hands around the backs of her thighs and straddled her over him, pulling her down to sit astride him, and wrapped his arms around her waist. The bench beneath them, old, made a creaking sound—
“Shit!” he gripped her and pitched them forward as the leg gave out from the added weight and the bench collapsed, to avoid a smack of the head to the keyboard.
And slowly, he realized she shook beneath him. He yanked up, alarmed, arms still gripping her head. Was she hurt?
No… She shook with laughter that slowly formed into sound. Relief poured off him. He started laughing, too.
“That’s the second time you’ve saved me from harm.” She grinned.
“Shoot, I saved you from yourself spinning donuts, too,” he teased, pecking a kiss to her nose. He sobered for a moment, gazing down at her in disarray. Wiped his thumbs over her eyes to push away the tears. “You know, my boys still gotta meet you, but—”
Dammit, could he say it? That if she needed somewhere to belong, that this might be the place? He had kids who needed a momma, and fossils. He hated that she didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere, because she’d seemed at home here from the beginning.
“But what?” Her finger toyed with the hair swept across his forehead.
He grinned. Another time. “But we could be dancing right now. C’mon.”
He scooped her up to her feet, took her hand, and did the unthinkable, even if it made his muscles twitch—he left the mess behind him as they booted themselves and swept out the door.
*
T.R.’s music thumpedthrough the speakers, and his cousin smiled at him as he took off the guitar strap and handed it back to T.R.’s guitarist, then dropped off the stage where Heart was waiting to grab him. His cousin turned back toward his audience and the beautiful blond Heart had been dancing with that first night. Charlie. Odd, he’d never seen Thad so taken before.
Heart was a quick study. Deft boots, quick to pick up on the rhythmic footwork as her flirty skirt flared around her thighs.
Her hair swung loose. Earrings sparkled. But the smile? He was so grateful for the smile back on her face where it belonged. Since telling him about her sister, it seemed as if a burden was lifted, and he was strong enough to carry it with her. It was getting late. He had an early up in the morning. Yet Tyler didn’t want to stop spinning her. He hadn’t two-stepped in years. He hadn’t had continuous, monogamous sex with someone in years, or stayed up late just reading side by side or felt so light…ever. And it was as if a primal switch had been flipped.
Electricity coursed from Heart to him, from him to her. The lights marred her cheekbones and collarbones in shadows as her hip rocked against his palm, the laughter on her face. The twirl of her skirt made him want to tear if off. He spun her beneath his arm, the skirt kicking out. Heat flared in his belly, in his stones. Mine.