Prodigal Son (36 page)

Authors: Susan Mallery

BOOK: Prodigal Son

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“Alex, why do you think I came over here tonight? Why do you think I was following a woman I thought was you up the street so I could throw myself on your mercy and beg for a second chance?”

She gave him an arrested look. Had it really not occurred to her that his being here was about her and not simply a coincidence?

“Really? You really came looking for me?”

The hope in her face. The doubt.

“Baby, I’ve been looking for you all my life,” he said.

Then he kissed her, because he needed to more than he needed air. She kissed him back, her arms around his neck, her hands clenched in his hair.

But a kiss wasn’t nearly enough. He needed to feel her skin against his. He needed to be inside her, part of her. He needed—

“Let’s go back to my place,” Alex gasped against his mouth.

“Yes.”

They broke apart. He took the bag of groceries from her hand, then he drew her close and kissed her again. He didn’t want to let her go. But they were standing on a street corner, and public nudity had been frowned upon for a while in the state of Victoria.

A tow truck had arrived, along with a police car. Ethan spared them both a glance as he and Alex turned toward her place.

“I was in the shop when I heard the smash. Must have been pretty scary,” Alex said, following his glance.

He raised their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Beyond scary. The worst moment of my life.”

She squeezed his hand.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he said.

Her eyes were full of uncertainty when she looked at him. “Ethan…”

“A simple yes is more than enough.”

“Since when have we ever been simple?” she said ruefully.

It was a good point.

She copied his earlier gesture and kissed the back of his hand. “Ask me again later.”

It was almost a promise. Almost.

“All right,” he said reluctantly.

He could wait, if he had to. In the meantime, there were things he needed to tell her.

They turned toward Alex’s apartment and started walking. He took a moment to assemble his thoughts, then he cleared his throat.

“I want to tell you about Cassie,” he said.

* * *

Alex listened in silence as Ethan told her how he and Cassie had met, about their instant attraction and how quickly they’d moved in with each other. He described his ex variously as beautiful, fiery, smart, impulsive, and she imagined what it must have been like between the two of them, how in love Ethan must have been. Impossible not to feel a stab of jealousy.

He talked all the way back to her apartment, and when they arrived she led him to the couch and drew him down beside her and sat with her back against the arm so she could see his face and his eyes as he told her about the wedding and the tough few years afterward when he and Cassie had both been working so hard to carve out their careers.

He told her about the house they’d bought together in well-heeled Armadale and their big mortgage. He told her how they’d talked about trying for children once they’d both felt more solid in their jobs and managed to get the mortgage down a little. He told her that there had been problems, but that he’d always believed in the fundamental integrity of his marriage.

She knew he’d reached the tough part when he broke eye contact with her. He kept talking, though, and she reached for his hand and held it as he told her how he’d come home on what he’d thought was an ordinary work night to find Cassie waiting for him with her bags packed and the devastating news that she didn’t love him anymore.

Then he told her about the abortion and she squeezed his hand tight and shut her eyes and simply sat with him in silence, absorbing his truth and his pain.

She could not imagine how he must have felt. Could not imagine the hurt and the anger and the confusion and the self-doubt and the grief. He’d been devastated. Even though he hadn’t said a word about his feelings or his reactions, simply delivering up the bare facts for her edification, she knew he must have been shattered because the man sitting on the couch before her still bore the scars from his marriage. He’d allowed them to dictate his life for the past five years while telling himself all the while that he was strong and tough and cynical and that he would never, ever be abandoned or betrayed or rejected again.

Because she didn’t know what to say, she simply slid closer to him on the couch and put her arms around him. They sat holding each other for a long time. She felt his chest expand when he finally took a breath to speak.

“It was a long time ago.” He said it apologetically. As though there was shame attached to the fact that he was still dealing with the fallout from his divorce five years later.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and caught his chin in her hand. Then she looked at him fiercely, very directly in the eye.

“Don’t ever apologize to me for caring, Ethan Stone. For having a heart. For being able to be hurt. For being vulnerable. Okay?”

He nodded. She slid her hand up to cup his cheek. He was a beautiful man, a lady-killer. And yet he’d been betrayed, had his trust torn to shreds. He’d lost an opportunity to be a father. He’d lost his life as he knew it.

A terrible anger filled her as she processed the enormity of what had happened to him—what had been
done
to him. What kind of a person walked out on her partner of twelve years without trying to fix what was wrong? What kind of a woman told her husband that she had chosen to terminate her pregnancy because it was only when she was expecting his child that she understood she no longer loved him or wanted a life with him?

For a moment Alex was almost overcome with rage on Ethan’s behalf. She wanted to hunt Cassie down and shake her until she begged for forgiveness. She wanted to scream at Ethan’s ex-wife until the other woman understood how much pain she’d inflicted, how much she’d wounded him.

Then the wave passed and all she wanted was to do was comfort him.

She leaned forward and kissed him. She held his face in her hands and kissed his nose and the slope of his gorgeous cheekbones and his eyebrows and his forehead and his eyelids and his jaw and his chin. She pressed a long, lingering kiss to his mouth. She stared into his eyes as he looked back at her, vulnerable and stripped bare, offering himself up to her for understanding and forgiveness and succor.

She could offer him promises and guarantees, but they both knew that words were cheap and that there wasn’t a pledge or vow in the world that could shape and mold the future. There was only who she was and who he was and their understanding of each other right now, right at this minute. It had always been enough for her, but she understood now why it might not have always been enough for Ethan.

“I love you, Ethan,” she said.

There wasn’t anything else to say, at the end of the day.

“I love you, too, Alex.”

She took him into her bedroom then and took off his clothes, took off her clothes and showed him with her body all the things she couldn’t say with words. She told him with her kisses that she was loyal. She told him with her arms that she adored him. She took him into her body and told him that she wanted to share her life with him.

As he moved inside her, she looked into his eyes, never once looking away.

He wasn’t perfect. His trust issues were probably going to be a problem for both of them in the future. But she wasn’t perfect, either. She’d never been great at letting people in and she found it hard to show her weaknesses, even to loved ones.

But they were going to make it work. They were going to be okay. They were going to get married and if Mother Nature was kind they were going to have babies and they were going to grow with their love.

“Yes,” she said.

Ethan stilled, his body warm and heavy on hers.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” she said.

And it was the easiest decision she’d ever made in her life.

Epilogue

“T
he thing about the Stone men is that they don’t do anything by halves,” Kay said.

“No kidding.”

“It’s not a bad thing, really. In most cases it’s a good thing,” Kay said.

“Sure it is.”

“And anyway, it could be worse.”

She and Alex both winced as a loud four-letter word floated across the yard to where the two of them were relaxing in sun loungers beneath the shade of a big old oak tree. The tree dominated the backyard of Ethan and Alex’s new home, an Edwardian weatherboard house in Box Hill, a five-minute drive from where Derek and Kay lived. It was unclear whether Ethan or Derek was the perpetrator, since both men had their backs to the women as they hunched over the pile of furniture parts that might one day resemble a baby’s crib if the two men glowering and swearing over them took the time to read the instruction booklet.

“How could it be worse?” Alex wanted to know, not taking her eyes from her husband’s behind as he bent to sort through the pieces of wood spread across the patio.

“We could be living in Georgian times and Ethan could have you confined to your bedroom.”

“Good Lord. Don’t give him ideas. That’s the last thing I need.”

As though he could sense them talking about him, Ethan’s head came up and he glanced over his shoulder. He was wearing sunglasses to combat the bright glare of the sun, but Alex knew he was looking straight at her. Could feel it in her bones.

Despite the fact that she thought he was being ridiculous right at this moment in time, she smiled. How could she not when she had so much to smile about?

Ethan stood and strode across the grass toward her. His jeans rode low on his waist and his white T-shirt had shrunk a little in the wash and she could see the muscles of his thighs flexing and contracting with each step. He was forty-four now, but he was a man in his prime.

Beside her, Kay fanned herself with her hand. Alex spared her a dry look.

“Pretty Boy strikes again.”

“Hell, yeah,” Kay said, and they both laughed.

Ethan’s shadow loomed over them.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need some crackers? Some milk?”

Alex looked up at her husband. “I was
smiling,
Ethan.”

“It looked weird.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Are you sure? What about some cold water?”

Alex sighed. “Are you going to be like this all the way through my pregnancy?”

“I don’t know. Ask me in six months’ time.”

He squatted beside her lounger and put his hand on her still-flat belly.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay. I know how much this means to you.”

And to him. This was their second pregnancy. Her first had ended in a miscarriage at nine weeks just over eight months ago and it had been a sad time for both of them. Now she was thirteen weeks and counting. The doctor had assured her their baby was doing well at her scan yesterday. With her fortieth birthday around the corner, Alex had her fingers crossed he was right. The moment the doctor had made his pronouncement, Ethan had disappeared to the shops and returned home with enough furniture to fill five nurseries.

“I’m fine. The baby’s fine,” she assured him.

She slid her hand over his where it rested on her stomach. Ethan was silent and she reached out with her other hand to push his glasses on top of his head. She didn’t know what he was thinking when she couldn’t see his eyes.

He looked back at her, love and worry and hope and excitement all intermingled in his gaze.

“I’m going to…you know,” Kay said, waving her hand to indicate she was making herself scarce.

Alex hooked her finger into the neck of Ethan’s T-shirt and pulled him toward her.

“Stop worrying. Whatever happens, we’ll work it out.”

She kissed him. He tasted like sunshine and beer and she made an approving noise. Ethan deepened the kiss and she felt his hand slide up her torso toward her breasts. She’d already seen Kay lead Derek inside to give them some privacy so she didn’t do much more than shift restlessly as Ethan’s hand closed over her breast.

She loved him so much. The past eighteen months of her life had been filled with so much joy and laughter with him by her side. He was her best friend, the most wonderful lover she’d ever had, the best husband she could imagine—even with his overprotectiveness and over-purchasing of nursery supplies.

He made an impatient noise and she scooted her leg out of the way as he dropped a knee onto the lounger and climbed aboard. She felt his weight settle over her and smiled against his mouth.

Then she let out a wild shriek as the legs on the sun lounger collapsed and they dropped half a foot onto the grass. She threw back her head and laughed, clutching Ethan’s shoulders.

He was laughing, too, and she looked into his deep blue eyes and let the small perfection of the moment wash over her. Her life was full of moments like these now, and there would be even more of them to come, she knew.

After a moment they both sobered and Ethan reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did she.

Some happinesses were beyond words.

* * * * *