Page 40

Caleb

“ I t’s her loss, baby.” I rub her back, pushing away the rage I have inside me. “It’s her fucking loss.”

“I guess so,” she says, defeat filling her voice, and if I thought I was angry before, I was wrong. Now I’m not only angry, I feel like I could murder someone with my bare hands.

“Why don’t I go and draw you a bath?” I offer as she pulls out of my arms.

“I don’t want to have sex with you right now.” She smiles through her tears, and I see she’s trying to be strong.

“Baby.” I kiss her lips, tasting the tears. “You’re the one who is always jumping me.”

“Did I jump you this morning when I woke up to your face in my crotch?” She puts her hands on her hips.

“Yes,” I confirm. “You were wiggling your ass in your sleep. You basically said ‘eat me, Caleb.’” She rolls her eyes. “So I did.”

“I wiggled my ass in my sleep.” She takes a deep sigh. “This fucking sucks.”

“It does,” I agree with her.

“I mean, I didn’t think she would welcome me with open arms.” She shrugs. “But I didn’t think she’d tell me to take a hike.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” She blinks away the tears, or at least she tries to blink them away. “You are better off. She doesn’t deserve to know how amazing you are.”

“You’re just saying that because you love me.”

“Damn right, I do.” I smile at her. “I love everything about you, and even if I didn’t love you, I knew you were amazing before I fell in love with you.

I knew you were hot.” I hold up a finger.

“I knew you had a wicked sense of humor.” I add another finger.

“I knew you were a pain in the ass with all that attitude you had.” I shake my hand at her with three fingers held up.

“I also knew you are the type of woman who takes all things thrown at her and gets back up.”

“I am that person,” she states proudly. “It’s her loss,” she finally says. “I’m fucking amazing.” I try not to laugh. “And I’m kind, and I’m loyal.”

“You are all fucking that,” I agree proudly, “and you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.” She nods. “Now I’m going to go upstairs and get into a bath, and my man is going to pour me a glass of wine and make me my favorite meal.”

“Um,” I say, “yeah, I am. I just need you to tell me what your favorite meal is, and I’ll make it.”

“Shrimp scampi.” She tells me something that I would have never guessed, not in a million years. “I took out the shrimp this morning.”

“Then I’m going to get on my phone and find a recipe and make my woman her favorite meal”—I kiss her—“after I deliver a glass of wine to her as she takes a bath.”

“You’re very, very smooth.” She winks at me as she starts to walk away.

“I’m the only one with romance in this relationship.” She stops walking and looks over her shoulder at me. “I’m still waiting for you to romance me.”

“I was going to romance you”—she turns on her foot—“and you went and stormed out of the house, so you lost it. Then I took you to the bar, and instead of me romancing you, you mentioned your face in the middle of my thighs and it was all too much to fight.”

“That was two weeks ago”—I smirk—“and you haven’t tried since.”

“Um, Saturday night”—she taps her foot—“did I not romance you?”

“You were semi-drunk from the bar, and telling me ‘I’m going to suck your dick so hard when we get home’ isn’t considered romance.” I hold up my hand. “Even if you did it when you got home. Something I think you would have done anyway.”

She gasps. “But I did.” She shrugs. “Now I’m walking away from this conversation before we start fighting and then have to have make-up sex on my desk—” She stops. “Again.”

I look down at my feet, trying not to laugh at her as she goes.

Going straight to the fridge and pouring her a glass of wine, I take it to her upstairs.

I find her in the tub as the water is filling it up.

She looks over at me as she leans back. “Today sucked,” she declares as I hand her the glass of wine, “and you only brought me one glass and not the bottle.” She shakes her head. “Rookie mistake.”

“I realized my mistake the minute you said today sucked.” I kiss her lips. “I shall get you the whole bottle.”

“And then don’t forget to tell me I’m pretty.”

“You aren’t pretty, though,” I call over my shoulder. “You’re gorgeous, and anyone who doesn’t see it needs to have their eyes checked.”

“Smooth.” She takes a sip of the wine. “Very fucking smooth.”

“Also I’ll break anyone’s face who looks at you. So.” I wink at her as I jog back down to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle and bringing it back to her, before pulling up a recipe. She comes down just as I put the pasta in the water.

She sits on the stool with half of the bottle of wine gone. When we slide into bed, she snuggles into me and falls asleep.

When I get up the following morning, I slide out of bed, trying not to wake her before going down to start the coffee. I’m in the middle of making her a bagel when she comes down the steps. “Morning.” She comes over and wraps her arms around my waist. “You snuck out like a bandit.”

I kiss the top of her head. “It’s like a thief in the night.”

“Either or,” she grumbles before moving away from me and making her own coffee.

“Are you taking today off?” I ask as she prepares her coffee and then takes a bite of the bagel I just finished buttering.

“Yes.” She nods. “I’m going to go down to the local high school.”

“For what?” I ask as she takes a sip of her coffee.

“I’m going to go check out some yearbooks and see if maybe she was from around here. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess she was pregnant when she was sixteen or seventeen, maybe just turned eighteen.”

I shake my head furiously before she finishes, knowing exactly where she is going with this. “Baby.”

“I know her name now,” she says softly. “I want to put a face to the name. It’s like this unfinished puzzle piece.”

I close my eyes and put my head back. “Sierra.”

“I still have a father and, unlike my mother, maybe he wants to know me,” she explains. “Half the battle is done.” She doesn’t give me a chance to say more. “He also has a choice, and maybe his choice is going to be exactly like hers, but I need to hear it for myself.”

“Sierra,” I say her name again, this time trying to sound calmer than before, but probably not.

“Do you know how hard it was to see you in that much pain yesterday?” I ask.

“Do you know what it did to me to hold you in my arms and watch you cry and mourn the mother who you thought you were going to meet? Do you have any idea how much this is killing me right now?”

“I’m sorry, Caleb.” She puts her cup down and comes over to me as I look down at the bagel in front of me.

Her hands go to my hips. “No,” I say. “How would you feel if the roles were reversed?” I ask her, putting my hands on her shoulders.

“If you saw someone hurting me and me suffering from it, what would you do?” I look into her beautiful eyes, falling more and more in love with her.

Wanting and needing to protect her with everything I have. “Tell me, Sierra, what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” she answers softly. “I would feel helpless, and I would do whatever I could to make sure you knew you were loved.” She moves her arms from my hips to around me.

“I would make sure you knew every single second that it didn’t matter what anyone said, that you have someone who is happy to have you at home.

Who will go above and beyond to make sure not a second goes by that you don’t know how special you are. That is what I would do.”

“Nothing I’m going to say is going to change your mind, is it?” I ask her and she slowly shakes her head side to side.

“Okay, let’s eat breakfast and then head on over to the high school.”

“You are going to come with me?” she asks, shocked I’m giving in so easily and equal parts shocked I’m going with her.

“I’ll be there to either help you walk,” I tell her, “or carry you. Either way, you aren’t doing this alone.”

The smile fills her face. “You are so getting lucky later.”

I chuckle. “Baby, every single day I get to come home to you and lie by your side is me being lucky.”

“Okay, enough of that, or we won’t even leave today.” She gets on her tippy-toes and kisses my neck, moving back over to her coffee.

We get dressed side by side, her in a pair of black tights with a thick, knitted, long-sleeved charcoal turtleneck sweater.

Me in a pair of black jeans and charcoal T-shirt, the whole time not saying a word.

Neither of us says anything as I open the truck door for her when we leave the house.

When we get to the school, we walk side by side, and she takes a deep breath when we walk into the building.

Opening the door at the same time the bells ring, we look right and then left, seeing kids coming out of the classrooms and rushing to get to the next one.

I spot one of the teachers walking down the hallway and give him a chin up.

“We’re looking for the office?” I ask as he holds a book in one of his hands.

“Up those stairs.” He points at the five stairs to the side. “It’s the second door on the right.”

“Thank you.” I nod, sliding my hand in hers as we make our way over to the office.

The big sign hanging in front of the open door says “Main Office.” We walk in past the seating area where four chairs are lined up against a wall with windows that show out of the room.

There’s a long desk in the middle of the room, with two desks behind it facing each other. Two office doors are on each side, right behind the desks. There’s a binder opened up at the far end of the counter with a pen and white paper.

The woman sitting at the desk takes one look at us before pushing away from her desk and coming over. “Hi, may I help you?”

“Hello,” Sierra says, “I was wondering if by any chance there is a library where we can go and check out old yearbooks.”

“You would need to sign in”—she points over at the book at the end—“and I’ll take you there.”

I walk over to the book and sign us both in, and she hands us both visitors’ badges. I clip mine to my shirt when she clips hers on hers. “This way,” she urges, walking out of the office and down the same hallway to the end where the library is. “You need to hand in your badges before you leave.”

“We will,” Sierra says. “Thanks for all your help.”

We walk into the library and head straight to the counter. “How can I help you?” asks the woman working behind the counter.

“We were looking to see if we can check out yearbooks from twenty-nine to twenty-five years ago,” Sierra answers, and the librarian whistles.

“Those are going to be in the archives for sure,” she states. “May take me a couple of minutes to get them.”

“Do you need any help?” I ask her and she smiles over at me.

“If you want, I would never say no to that.” I nod at her and give her my own smile.

“Lead the way,” I tell her and she walks around the counter and heads toward the back room.

I follow her as she takes her keys out of her pocket and opens the door before turning on the light and stepping in.

“They are all dated by year,” she says of the boxes that are facing us piled on shelves.

She holds open the door for me as she steps into the room, and you can smell the oldness of the room.

“It will most likely be in this area,” she says, looking at the second shelf.

“Yup, this is from twenty-five to thirty years ago.” She calculates the years written on the box.

I grab the small footstool they have, walking over and grabbing the handle to the brown box before stepping down.

The inch layer of dust on the top of the box shows you this hasn’t been opened in the longest fucking time.

“You can take that box and look at it on one of the desks.”

I follow her out and see Sierra standing there pacing back and forth in front of the door. “I’ll be at my desk if you need anything.”

I look over at her. “You ready for this?” I ask, putting the box on the table. “It’s literally like opening Pandora’s box.”

She takes one look at me and nods, rubbing her hands together. “I’m ready.”