Up in Flames (Rosemary Beach 13)

“I wanted to be the one with you. Not him. I pushed him to get close to you, all the while terrified he would.”

I stared at him, letting his words play through my head. Soaking in the realness of all this. Understanding that so much of what I thought wasn’t true. I had been played in many ways. Tricked so much but for what? To protect me? To prove my innocence? Was this man taking care of me, cooking for me, and showing me more love than any man ever had worth forgiving? It was a lot to forgive. I knew the answer, though.

Yes. He was.

I was imperfect. I was pregnant because of my selfish choices. I had gone after him when I thought he’d knocked up another girl and wouldn’t take care of her. I had begged him to fuck me over and over, knowing nothing about him. He held his secrets close, but I wanted him anyway.

Yet he loved me. With all the craziness he knew about me. He still loved me. He accepted my faults and my mistakes and my selfishness. He took it all and loved it. He found beauty in it. In me. When no one else had ever done that. He was my gift in this world. My one stroke of luck. Sure, he was screwed up and possibly insane, but so was I. We fit perfectly. A match, just like he said.

If he left me now, I would never recover. The little I’d been given of him wasn’t enough. I wanted it all. Looking at him, I said all of that without words. I knew he could see it in my eyes. He would be my reason for waking up every day and smiling for the rest of my life. I couldn’t lose this. Not now that I had found it.

He dried off his hands while watching me. I dropped my gaze and acted like I wasn’t looking at him, but it was hard not to. I liked the way he looked and how his body moved. It was hard not to watch. He was hard not to want. I was done trying to pretend I didn’t. I thought I had proven to both of us that I wanted him very much.

When he started to come around the bar, I tensed, unsure of what he was going to do next. The space between us had been my last safety net. Now that my decision had been made, I would need to trust him without question.

He stopped inches from me and cupped my face in his hands. “I’ll love you until I take my last breath. No one will change that. Not even you.”

The sincerity in his voice and the way he looked at me broke down the small wall I was still trying to maintain in hopes of protecting myself. There was no point. You couldn’t protect your heart from everything. Loving Cope might be the biggest chance I’d ever take, but it would be one I would never regret.

With him, I felt complete.

“I love you,” I whispered, needing to say the words aloud.

“I know.”

Cope

Seven months, two days, and five hours later

He had ten perfect toes and ten perfect fingers. The head full of blond hair and the pink cheeks almost made him too pretty to be a boy. But then, looking at his mother, he had no choice but to be beautiful.

Nan was sleeping after ten hours of contractions and thirty minutes of active pushing. She had been just as strong as I’d expected, although I could see the fatigue on her face near the end. When the doctor had placed Copeland Finlay Roth, a.k.a. Finn, in her arms the first time, she had smiled so brightly that I would swear there was nothing that breathtaking on this earth.

I had never held my last name with pride. Once I’d made my way in the world, I had dropped it, not needing more than a simple name. Until I’d needed a cover in Vegas, I hadn’t used my last name. When Nan and I had stood before a minister, with family and friends surrounding us, and I’d given her my last name, it had once again become important. Something I was proud of, because it was me giving Nan all that was me.

Now, as I held my son in my arms while my wife slept, my name meant even more. It was a part of him. The man who had given me that last name wasn’t a father. He’d never been more than a sperm donor. But that name was mine, and I’d make it something my wife and son could be proud to carry, too. My past was a part of the man I was today. It couldn’t be changed, and I didn’t want to change it.

I had been given a life men dream of, and if the road I had to travel was what it took to get me here, I would cherish it. Because this was worth it all.

Finn opened his eyes and stared up at me with pale blue eyes. I could see parts of me in him, but mostly, he was his mom. That only made him even more special, if that was at all possible. He had two parents who hadn’t been raised with a parents love. We were both damaged in our own ways, but together we had found the happiness we deserved. We had healed each other.

“You’ll be loved even when you color on the living-room walls, break a window with a baseball, and get a speeding ticket you can’t afford. I look forward to every moment,” I whispered, before pressing a kiss to his nose and then one to his forehead.

“He’d better not color on my walls,” Nan said with a smile in her voice.

I looked up, my eyes locking with hers. “He probably will do worse than that. I’m his dad.”

She laughed softly. “Good point. I need to prepare myself, I suppose.”

We had a lifetime of memories before us. I couldn’t wait to experience them all with her by my side. “You like me, don’t you?” I asked.

“A touch,” she replied.

Life didn’t get any more perfect than that.