“Watcha doing?” I find her curled up in one of the club chairs; her laptop perched on her knees. I sit down on the armrest and look at the screen. She starts to close the lid, but I stop her and point at one of the couches, a dark tan, leather sectional. “I like that one.”
“So much for the surprise,” she mutters under her breath.
“Surprise?”
She tilts her head back to look at me. “Your birthday is in a few weeks, I thought…never mind. It was a stupid idea.”
“Not stupid at all. I can imagine a lot of fun things we could do on that couch.”
“The kids,” she hisses in warning.
“Are busy eating their lunch.”
I tilt her chin up and lean down for a kiss. I plunder her mouth, fueled by images of Taz bent over the armrest of the leather couch, her lush ass in the air and my cock sliding in and out of her, slick with her juices.
A sharp intake of breath functions like a bucket of ice water on my libido.
Fuck.
Taz
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
Mom is standing in the open front door, looking at us with hurt in her eyes.
“Mom…” I scramble to my feet, setting the laptop on the table, but Mom holds up her hand, pressing her eyes closed.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she repeats. “Not from that nasty cow, Sheila. Never could stand the woman. But when Mrs. Myers hinted at the same thing this morning in church I started wondering. I’d noticed a change—a word, a touch—but I convinced myself it couldn’t be. No way you would betray Nicky’s memory like that.” She looks up, her face marred with disappointment. “Now I know they were both telling the truth. How could you?”
“Grandma?”
My head swings around to find Sofie standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking confused.
“Why don’t you drop the kids off at Kathleen’s.” My voice is flat, almost resigned, as I turn back to my mother.
“I’m not lea—” Rafe starts to object, but I cut him off.
“Please, Rafe. The kids.”
I wait for a tense minute, my eyes focused on my mother’s, until finally I hear Rafe gathering up the kids, mumbling to them in a hushed voice.
“She’s barely cold in her grave,” Mom says in a low voice the moment the door closes behind them. “I’m almost glad she doesn’t have to know how her own sister didn’t waste any time moving in on her family.”
“Mom, you don’t know—”
“I don’t?” Her voice is shrill as anger starts to trump disappointment. “I know plenty. I know how you threw yourself into Rafe’s arms when your sister was pregnant with his child. I know how you tried to put a wedge in their marriage three years after that, when she was expecting Spencer. I know you cared so little about us you stayed away for years—years. I thought you’d changed. Thought maybe this time you came back for the right reasons, but boy, was I wrong.”
Tears burn my eyes as every word she says slices like the crack of a whip, but I swallow them down.
“I came back because I love my sister and she wanted me here. I came back because I hoped, maybe, I could make up for time lost with you and Dad. With the kids. I never intended to…to…”
“Take her family? I can’t even stand to look at you.”
“That’s enough, Sarah.”
Her head whips around at the sound of my dad’s voice. “How did you get here?”
“Hitched a ride with Kathleen after church. After you took off like a bat out of hell when Cynthia Myers did what she does best; stir the pot. Dammit, Sarah.”
“Do you know what your precious Baby Girl did, Ed?” I flinch at the way she spits out his nickname for me, like it’s something dirty. “She finally got her claws into Rafe. Her sister’s husband. The love of Nicky’s life.”
I sink back down in my chair and drop my head in my hands. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to change her perception, and I will not betray my sister by speaking ill of her in an effort to clear my own name. I won’t do it.
“Bullshit,” Dad barks, surprising me. “He was no more the love of her life as she was his. You’d have to be blind not to see that, Sarah.”
“You knew about this?” she snaps incredulously. “This…” she agitatedly waves her hand, “…sordid affair? Oh my God, those poor children.”
I keep my head down so I don’t see Rafe coming in, but I hear him.
“The only reason the kids are upset is because you came in here making a scene,” he says sharply. “As for Taz and me, we were coming over to talk to you after we dropped the kids off at Kathleen’s. Luckily she drove up with Dad so I was able to send the kids with her. They shouldn’t have to witness their grandmother tearing apart their aunt.”
“You’re blaming this on me?”
“This scene? Hell yes,” Rafe says in a surprisingly controlled voice. “The past nine years? No. We are all to blame for those.”
“Amen.” I almost start giggling at Dad’s solemn voice. I feel like I’ve landed in the middle of a horrible daytime soap opera.
“Now sit down, I’ll get us some drinks, and maybe we can have a normal conversation.”
I look up to find Mom doing as instructed, I imagine a little stunned at Rafe’s uncharacteristic confrontation. Dad sits down beside her on the duct-taped couch and winks at me. I bite off a smile.
Rafe walks in with the Glenfiddich, the bottle of port, and four tumblers. Mom doesn’t say a word when he hands her a generous glass of port. When the rest of us have a glass of whiskey, Rafe sits back down on my armrest, his warm hand resting in my neck.
“It’s not right,” Mom mutters, shaking her head at Rafe as tears well up in her eyes. “You belong to Nicky.”
“Mom, I love you like the mother I never had, but I never belonged to Nicky. I loved her, but not the way I should’ve. What’s more, she didn’t love me like that either.”
“Don’t you dare say that about my daughter!”
“Hush, Sarah, let the man speak.”
I stay silent; knowing anything I say will only inflame the situation like it always did in the past when Mom and I had a disagreement. Maybe it’s a sign I’ve grown up.
Rafe takes a deep breath in as he gives my neck a little squeeze. “Nicky wanted this for us. I never told her how I felt about Taz, even nine years ago, but somehow she knew. We both thought we were doing the right thing, getting married, and we tried. Both of us did. This is something I never intended to share with either of you, but given the circumstances I think I should. We were filing for divorce right before Nicky had her heart attack.”
“Convenient. You say that now.” Mom is desperately hanging on to her vision of Rafe and Nicky’s marriage and part of me understands. She’s already lost a daughter. I recognize it’s pain that has her lashing out. At Rafe this time.
“Mom,” he responds gently. “I can show you the paperwork. It was by mutual agreement. We’d been living in separate bedrooms for nearly a year.”
She sniffles and Dad fishes out his linen handkerchief, handing it to her. “Can you blame her? You may as well have cheated on her.”