California Dreamin'

Because that’s where our love story grew legs and wings and took off.

But mostly, what my husband doesn’t like is a boy staring at his baby girl, Rose. There have been incidents where if a boy stares at Rosie, say at a store or on the street or something, Graham frowns so fiercely and so darkly that the boy skitters away.

There are many reasons for his possessiveness.

The very first being is that well, Graham is super possessive by nature and Rosie is his baby girl.

Plus we had her after so much trouble. Not to mention I had a very difficult pregnancy, and Graham would go crazy over my slightest discomfort, roaming around the house in frustration, trying to make things better for me, and then trying to apologize for putting me through all that.

Which was so silly, actually. I got pregnant because I wanted to. He didn’t force me. But he’d say, I got you pregnant, didn’t I? I put a baby in you because I’m this fucking beast who’s obsessed with every inch of you and I wanted to see you like this. All swollen with my baby. So it’s my fault. My fucking fault.

But I think the biggest reason for Graham’s possessiveness it that our daughter is just like me, shy and quiet, her nose in a book or in her journals that she loves writing in. She always has headphones on, listening to music, her head in the clouds and away from the world.

So Rosie usually has no idea if a guy stares at her anyway.

But the thing is, I don’t think Rosie is oblivious about Brendan. I think she knows about him staring and I think she likes it.

My shy baby has a little crush of her own. That’s why when we told her that we were going to Aunt Willow’s for Christmas, she perked up.

Her perking up means, she smiled and bit her lip. And as soon as she could, she ran upstairs to write in her journal.

I don’t think Graham knows all this though.

I’m not about to tell him either. As I said, he gets cagey at parties but he does it because of me and I really wanted to see Willow this year. Well, mostly Fallon and Dean since they’re together now.

So right now, my only goal is to get my husband back to our room and get him to go to sleep.

Because it’s midnight and he’s a little too worried about the things that he shouldn’t be worried about.

Plus he’s outside, by the woods surrounding Simon and Willow’s large property. When I found him gone from the bed, I knew this is where I’d find him, out in nature, under the open sky.

That’s how he likes things.

Natural and raw and vast.

I think living in Colorado for the past nineteen years has really turned him into a mountain man. He even chops his own wood.

A shiver goes through me when I think about him wielding the axe with his heavy, muscular arms.

His back is to me so he hasn’t seen me coming toward him but he can sense me, like he always does. Like the air changes around him when I’m close.

He turns his head to look at me and I smile shyly when his eyes find me. He doesn’t return my smile though, which is okay.

Instead of a smile, his eyes change.

They become glittering and intense. They become heavy, brimming with all the feelings.

All the feelings that he has for me.

All the feelings that have grown and changed shape and become larger over almost two decades.

I’d take that over a smile.

I’d take those feelings reflected not only in his eyes but also on his handsome face. The face that has matured over the years. His jaw has become somewhat broader and more square, his cheekbones sharp and sanded with age and his brows marked beautifully with grooves.

But the best part about him is his beard. It has grown thicker and wilder, threaded with silver, just like his dark hair.

Yeah, I’d take his eyes and his face bathed in my love over a tiny smile.

He watches me walk toward him and by the time I reach him, I know my cheeks are all pink. And I know he likes that as much as I like his changing eyes and features.

“Hi,” I whisper.

It’s December and he’s still in his typical plaid shirt and washed-out jeans. And yet somehow, he’s always warm. So warm that I can feel his heat even though we’re standing a few inches apart.

“Hey,” he greets me with a rough, almost sleepy voice.

I step closer to him, clutching the sleeves of his shirt, getting greedy for his heat. “Can’t sleep?”

He brings his arms around my waist and gathers me even closer in his bear-like warmth.

“No,” he replies, rubbing his big hands up and down my back, heating me up. “Did I wake you?”