The Mitchell Family Series BoxSet 1-4.5 (38 page)

“No thank you! Jesus, this is not at all how I saw tonight going.”

“Why are you here? Did they send you here for her, because she isn’t leaving.”

“No dumbass. I am trying to plan a wedding and since my mother, Brina, and now Miranda are all here, I flew in to go dress shopping. I left a message for Miranda this morning explaining everything. Obviously someone didn’t check their messages.”

I don’t think Ty liked her attitude. He stood up and walked over to Van. “You really are being a bitch about this. It pisses me off that you get to be happy but we can’t; like we aren’t good enough to have happiness.”

“Screw you Ty. I just think Miranda should know how you promised to love me forever while you had your dick in other girls.”

I put my hands on my face and tried to block the two of them out.

“I fucked other girls because I was never satisfied with you. Get off your high horse and take some responsibility. You’re the one who screwed my cousin in my fucking bed while I lay in the hospital.”

“You were in the hospital because you got caught screwing Heather and stole a car when you were drunk. It was your fault.”

I stood up and screamed. “STOP IT!” Ty and Van looked over at me. “We all know what happened. It isn’t necessary to rehash things. Van is marrying Colt because she loves him and she deserves to be happy. We aren’t going to let anyone know about us until after the wedding. You don’t have to worry about it. And as far as Ty’s cheating goes, well, I have to believe that he loves me enough to not do it. If it happens then he knows he loses me and Bella. I trust him, more than I trust anyone. He has never given me any reason not to. I’ve actually met Heather and I am pretty sure that little bitch knows he’s taken.”

Ty started laughing. “She thought Bella was my kid and it was part of the reason you left me.”

Van put her hands over her face and shook her head. “This is so fucked up.”

“Just spend time with us. I promise you will change your mind,” Ty suggested.

Van stood up and grabbed her purse. “Brina dropped me off so I could get my car. She wanted me to invite you out tonight, but obviously I interrupted you. Just give me my keys and I will come back tomorrow when I know you will be dressed.”

I walked her toward the door and handed her the car keys. “I have to grab the car seat.”

We got outside and she finally turned around to face me. “Ty lies Miranda. I just want you to know that before you get your heart ripped apart. You are one of my best friends and soon to be cousin. I would hate to see you hurt.”

She handed me Bella’s seat and got into her car. “Are you going to tell on us?”

“Honestly, I wish I didn’t know. I won’t say anything.”

“See you tomorrow.” I watched her pull away, but her words haunted me. It took me forever to walk back into the house.  I didn’t want to doubt Ty, but maybe I was being a fool for thinking I could have a perfect life.

Chapter 22

Tyler

Of all the people in the whole fucking world, Van had to be the one to ruin my perfectly planned night with Miranda. To make matters worse, Miranda came back into the house like she had been slapped in the face.

“What happened?”

She shook her head and started cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. “It’s nothin’.”

I grabbed her and pulled her to face me. “What did she say to you, baby?”

She wouldn’t look at me.

“Please talk to me,” I begged.

“Let’s just say that she warned me about you. She doesn’t think I should believe everything you tell me.” When she finally looked up I could tell she was crying.

“I don’t lie to you Miranda. I swear that I love you and I have never thought about being with anyone else. You are all that I want. I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you if I have to.”

She studied my face. “The rest of your life?”

I put my head against hers. “I don’t fucking care what anyone else thinks about me. I am madly in love with you. I only want you. Our relationship is nothing like mine and Vans, you know that.”

She finally wrapped her arms around me and I let out a sigh. “I love you too. I don’t want to doubt you. She has her reasons for not believing you have changed.”

“You changed me. You and Izzy. Do you really think I would risk losing this?”

She shrugged. She fucking shrugged. I let my arms drop and walked into the bedroom. After finding my phone in the pocket of my pants I handed it to her. “Just to start my lifetime of proving that you are all that I need, here is my phone. Take it. Keep it for as long as you want. Go through it. I deleted every girl’s number the first night after we had sex.  I haven’t been on Facebook for months, but I will give you that password and you can delete anyone you want. I don’t care if you delete the account. I have nothing to hide from you. The only secret that I ever had was that I wanted you and fell in love with you. I swear.”

“Do you still have feelings for Van?” As much as I didn’t want her to ask that, I knew it was coming. I deserved to be asked, after all, she was the one who had listened to me cry over her months ago.

I pulled her onto my lap on the couch. “I love three women. My mother, Izzy and you. Van is marrying my cousin and we grew up together. She was my first and I will always care about her, although right now I am pretty pissed off at her.”

Miranda ran her hand over my face. “I have never felt this way and it scares me. It would kill me if I lost you. It would kill Bella.”

“Baby, you aren’t going to lose me. I swear to God that you are all that I ever want. Can’t you just see how much I need you?” I held her so tight. She really was my everything. There had to be a way to convince her how serious I was. A way to prove to everyone that this wasn’t temporary.

I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I would need my mother’s help again. Miranda finally calmed down and we watched a movie before heading to bed. Our night had been so perfect. What was it with people just walking in my door? All of this could have been avoided.

I was so happy once I got the bed cleaned off and Miranda climbed into my arms. I needed to feel her there, especially now that she was having doubts about me. If I could take anything back about my past it would be that I cheated. Then again, if I hadn’t I would have never been able to be with Miranda now. It all happened to get me exactly where I needed to be.

With Van being a ticking bomb, it was only a matter of time before Colt and Conner came beating down my door forcing her to go home. I wasn’t about to let that happen. I needed to make sure there was no way they could keep us apart.

Miranda woke up in a much better mood. She showered me with kisses and talked me into getting a very long shower with her. There was no way I could resist a naked Miranda. I washed her hair and then every single inch of her body. As I lathered up her breasts she began stroking my dick with her hand.  She teased me with her tongue, not letting me kiss her lips. It turned me on and she knew it. She pushed me back against the shower wall, before turning around and sticking her ass against my erection. To have a girl that offered doggy-style was like getting a diamond in a Cracker Jack box. As I thrusted myself inside of her, she put her hands up on the opposite shower wall and pushed against me. The friction from the water combined with how wet she already was enabled me to hit it faster than usual. I grabbed her wet hair and heard her moaning and lost it. The visual of me behind her was burned into my head for the rest of the day and I think she knew it would be.

My mother had gotten up and made breakfast, so Van picked Miranda up for dress shopping while we were all still over there. Van and my mother spoke for only a few seconds. I did notice that my mother purposely hugged and kissed Miranda in front of Van. It was spiteful, but maybe in some way my mother knew that Van would spend the day filling Miranda with doubt.  I walked outside with them and kissed Miranda like we were back in the shower. When she pulled away she patted the crotch of my pants. She knew it was good, hell she knew she was that good.

Once I watched them pull away, I sat back down with my mother. She knew things were about to get serious and gave me all of her attention. My dad took Izzy and headed outside to collect eggs. She loved chasing those chickens around.

“What’s the matter?” She asked.

“Van walked in on us last night. It didn’t go over very well.”

“Well you don’t want her back do you?”

I scrunched up my face. “Hell no, Mom. She got Miranda all upset, telling her that I couldn’t be trusted and that I would eventually cheat.”

“If she spent half a second with you two, she would know how crazy you are about each other.”

I grabbed my mother’s hands. “Mom, I need your help and your blessing.”

She shook her head but still smiled. “I was wondering when you were going to have this talk.”

“I need to have Grandma’s ring changed. I know Van wore it for only a day, but I want Miranda to have something brand new. I know you have always wanted me to use that ring, so I was wondering if we could have some things added to it.”

“I supposed that it can be done. You sure this is what you want? You won’t just be committing to Miranda you know.”

“I have never been more sure about anything in my entire life. I know it’s fast and maybe if the circumstances were different I would wait years, but I can’t lose them, Mom. It would kill me to be that far away from them.”

If I would have known that Van was going to bust into my romantic night, I could have asked sooner. There was still a chance that Miranda would think this was all way too soon and quite frankly say ‘no’.

I had to at least try.

“Well, you know that we love her already. Bella is the cutest little girl. I’d love for her to call me Mimi, like you used to call your grandma.” She looked at me like her heart was full of love. My mother had never liked Van, so for her to be happy about Miranda and Izzy, she must have been excited.

“I have an idea of how I want to do it. Do you think we could call Mr. Harper at the jewelry store. I need to get this taken care of as soon as possible. Is he even open on weekends?”

While my mother got out the old phone book, I headed back to the house to grab my grandmother’s ring. It was just plain white gold band with a solitaire diamond set high in the center. It was a half carat in size, but had a kind of antique look to it. I knew what I wanted done to it, but I didn’t know how long it would take.

Someone in heaven must have been looking out for my sorry ass, because the jewelry store was open. I hated sneaking around behind Miranda’s back, but I felt like us getting engaged would be the only way to make this more permanent, aside of marriage of course.

I’d been so caught up in our relationship to actually look at the big picture. There was one thing that I knew for certain. One thing that I would give anything to have. I needed Izzy to be my daughter. She needed to have my last name. Tucker had given up his claim to her and I would be damned if anyone took that little girl away from me now. Aside from living so far away, I had done everything to be a part of her life since the day she was born. I had no intentions of ever letting her down.  If something happened to me and Miranda, I would still want to be her daddy.

I knew that nobody would understand the way I felt about her, even from the beginning I heard their comments. They looked at me like I had some fetish for small children. Sick Bastards!

I loved that little girl more than anything in the whole world. I had to believe that I was meant to be there when she was born. Everything that happened from that day on had led me right back to her. I may not have supplied the sperm, but it didn’t matter to me. She was my everything.

The jeweler was waiting for us to arrive and when we did, he sat me down and listened to my idea. He said that what I wanted would be easy to do and would take about two weeks. I handed him my bank card and watched as he removed two thousand bucks from my account. I honestly didn’t care how much it cost. I needed it to be perfect.

With the ring being taken care of, all I needed to do was keep my cool until the jewelry store called to tell me it was ready to be picked up. I had time to plan.

Izzy spotted my dad as we pulled back into the farm. My mother really got a kick out of how smart she was. In the past month she had gone out and got herself a car seat for her own car and had my father get some of my old shit out of the barn attic.

“Hey Dad. You got a minute?”

My father put the rake he was using down and walked over toward me. Izzy ran toward him and pointed toward the chicken house. “Chicks.”

“Wait a second and I will take you to see the chicken again.”

“I need your advice.” My father was a quiet man. He stayed out of people’s business and he liked it that way.

“What’s bothering you Son?”

“Would you be disappointed in me if I asked Miranda to marry me?”

He shook his head and removed his hat. Colt did the same thing when he didn’t know what to say.  “I can tell you really love the girl and this little one here too. I reckon after everything you been through that your just coming to a point in your life where you are ready to settle down. You already know that your mom and I approve. Hell, I plan on starting that addition in the next couple of weeks. I appreciate you asking me though.”

“Do you think I am rushing things?”

“Do you think you are?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Sometimes I guess. I mean, I love them so much and I know that they are it for me. I know it’s fast, but I want Izzy to have a daddy. We need to be a family.”

“You already are a family in my book. You take care of each other and you love that little one. I am pretty certain that you are already a daddy in her little eyes.”

I looked at Izzy. She was playing with my dad’s old sweaty hat. She looked so much like Miranda and sometimes I just wanted to hug her and never let go. “Her mother and brother don’t want us together. They will do whatever they can to break us up once they find out we are together. I have to secure their life here.”

“As long as Miranda and you are on the same page, you do whatever has to be done. I don’t want any drama here like with your cousin. You know I don’t like that stuff.” He let Izzy down and started walking away from us. “We will meet back at the house. This little one wants to see the chickens.”

“Don’t be too long. She needs her diaper changed.” I walked back to the house and just sat on the couch. My stomach was in knots and started wondering how much more bullshit Van was filling Miranda’s head with. I went to grab my phone and send her a message, but when I did I realized that Miranda had my phone.

After I got Izzy a fresh diaper we played outside for a little while until she started falling all over the place, crying for no reason. We went inside and laid on the couch together. Within ten minutes she was fast asleep on my chest. I played with her hair and watched her sleeping.  There was no way that I could ever be without them.

It would just kill me.