Page 37 of Poppy Kisses (Return to Coal Haven #3)

She shrugged and dragged a drumstick through the egg and flour bowls she had prepared.

When the meat was sizzling, she washed her hands and pulled out a chair at the table.

She wasn’t in booty shorts today, but her jeans barely hid how nice her figure was.

Her blonde hair was thrown in a ponytail, and compared to mine, it looked like one of us walked out of the salon. It wasn’t me.

“How have things been with you?”

“Oh, you know.” She scrunched her face up as if she was debating what to tell me. “Jensen and I married pretty young, and that’s probably why we didn’t last. Two kids trying to act like grown-ups.”

Two kids? If they divorced five years ago, they would’ve been in their late twenties. Still, I couldn’t argue that age might’ve had something to do with the dissolution of their relationship.

She crossed one long leg over the other and bounced the heel of her square-toed cowboy boot.

“For the last three years, I've been networking to open my own barrel racing school. I have clients willing to come from all over the country to learn from me.” Pride shone from her blue eyes.

“Look at us. Both going into teaching of some sort.”

“We were always the bossy type.”

Laughter chimed out of her, and I grinned.

I needed this moment of camaraderie, but it didn’t loosen the knot in my chest. She wanted Jensen back.

She didn’t have to say it. Showing up on the doorstep after hearing about his impending nuptials was the first sign.

Add in the way she commented on how young and immature they’d been, that she was cooking for him in his kitchen, and the hard glances she shot my way when I had joked around with her ex, and I could only think one thing.

She let out a soft sigh. “Marriage, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “It seemed like a two-birds, one-stone kind of thing.”

“Jensen always wants to care for those around him.”

“He’s a really good guy.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Not only is he nice, but he’s good in the sack.

Your loss is my gain.

Your arrival is putting a cramp in our style.

I definitely couldn’t say one of those lines, even though I keenly felt each one.

“He’s the best. He’s someone who’s easy to take for granted.” Her attention turned inward, and she dropped her attention to the floor. “I made a lot of mistakes.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine. “But I intend to fix everything.”

* * *

Jensen

Poppy had been quiet all day. We were attaching the last section of crown molding and then we were done for the day. I had looked forward to being alone with her in the Perez house, but if we weren’t talking about carpentry, she wasn’t speaking.

I’d already asked if everything was okay, and she’d shrugged and given me that why wouldn’t it be? look. I hadn’t pushed. We both knew what was going on.

Hassie had stayed at the house most of yesterday and into the evening to tuck Auggie into bed. Poppy had disappeared into her bedroom before Hassie had left, and I’d had to kick my ex-wife out so I could get some sleep.

I pounded the last finishing nail in. “That’s all she wrote.” I tucked my hammer into my tool belt and stood back to study our work. “That really dresses the room up.”

Admiration brushed across her face. “Some of the house’s old elegance has been returned. Thank you,” she finished, almost shyly.

I didn’t like her shyness. Her quiet and subdued demeanor dimmed everything in my world. The fiery Poppy, ready to leap to any challenge, was the original Poppy. Hassie’s arrival stole her sunlight, and I wanted to be the one to wrestle it back.

“You can talk to me.” I loosely hooked my thumbs over my tool belt and waited. If she didn’t talk, was there much hope for us? Were we a flame that couldn’t survive a breeze?

She didn’t speak for a long time. Neither of us moved as we stared at the new crown molding.

“She wants you back,” she finally said, then shook her head, the ends of her puffy ponytail flying. “None of it is any of my business.”

I barely had time to get over my shock from the first part of her statement. The second half kicked my feet out from under me. “How can you say that? We’re getting married.”

“But it’s not real.”

“My feelings for you are real. My feelings for her are dead.”

Poppy’s hazel eyes shimmered when she looked at me. “Are they?”

I almost answered with a succinct yes. End of story.

But Poppy deserved more, and I needed her to understand.

“It was death by a thousand cuts. A million erosions of love, trust, and respect. I wouldn’t have gotten divorced if I was still in love with her.

She kicked that emotion while it was down and then killed it dead for the last time right before I walked out, and she’s done nothing to make me feel differently in the last five years. ”

“She said she wanted you back yesterday.”

I barked out a laugh. “What?” I was sure I heard correctly. It sounded just like Hassie.

“Said you guys were young. She made a mistake. She wants to fix it.” Her deadened tone bothered me as much as her subdued nature.

“Does it matter what I want?” It wasn’t my ex. What I wanted was right next to me.

She let out a long, heavy exhale and prodded her temples. “You have to remember, Jensen, I’ve really only known you as having a major thing for her. Ninety-nine percent of the time I’ve known you, she’s been the center of your world.”

The pressure of the last two nights shot my anger up higher than normal. “You have to remember, Poppy, that you only knew me for a fraction of my life, and none of that was when I was an adult. No one knows what an adult Jensen is like when he dates except for you.”

Her brows drew farther together the longer I spoke. She nibbled on her lower lip, and I wanted nothing more than to draw her into my arms. I'd been there before, and I’d gotten pushed back, both by Poppy and my ex, so I stayed in place.

“So what do you wanna do?” I asked more harshly than I intended. My frustration wasn’t toward her. It was at my ex and at me for not getting through to Poppy that there was no competition between her and Hassie anymore.

Dismay filled her gaze when she glanced up. “You don’t wanna get married anymore?”

“I’m not the one telling the other person that they must want to get back together with their ex-wife just because she’s interested.

” Poppy recoiled, and yeah, my words were filled with heat.

So many emotions tangled in my chest, hooking on my lungs and making it hard to breathe.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I’m upset at all this.

You and I had a plan and now it’s slipping through cracks that I can’t seem to fill fast enough. ”

“I don’t want…” She stiffened and straightened her spine. “I don’t want to be caught in the middle, and I don’t wanna feel like I’m holding you back.”

“For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m going forward, and that’s because of you.”

Her gaze softened. “Really?”

This time, I pulled her into me. “You can trust me, Poppy. I don’t want what I used to have. I want what I was hoping to get back then. But I’m not putting pressure on you. Yes, my ex-wife is in town, but I don’t see why anything should change between us.”

“When I saw her, it felt like everything changed.” Her voice was muffled against my shoulder.

“Nothing did for me.” She stiffened slightly, and I hugged her tighter. “Not when it comes to you.”

“So we’re still going to see where this goes?”

“Yes,” I said into her hair. Stark relief was cool on the back of my neck. “We keep those Saturday date nights, and we keep sneaking around. We keep going like we were, but you and I know what’s changed. No one else gets to interfere. Not anymore. But maybe we can cuddle a little more?”

Soft laughter shook her body. “Is that what we call this?”

“A standing cuddle? Sure.”

She snuggled into me more.

Holding her wasn’t something I got to do nearly enough, and with my ex around and juggling Auggie’s feelings about that, it might be harder to squirrel away these moments between us.

Poppy was sensitive to Hassie and me, and I wasn’t sure what the arrival of my ex meant when it came to my peaceful existence with my son. Add in Poppy, and anxiety churned in my gut. “This is new for me.”

She pushed back to look at me again. “What is?”

“All of it. I had a pretty quiet life until you breezed into town.” When uncertainty flickered in her gaze, I pushed a springy lock of hair behind her ear.

“Suddenly my quiet, single dad life became fun and exciting. I got to date and live with a sexy woman, but I was worried how Auggie would take it. I still am, and I’m concerned over how it’ll disrupt things between us.

I don’t know what I’m doing.” But I was terrified of getting it wrong and sending Poppy careening to another state.

“Just talk to me, okay? We need to talk to each other.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Why?”

“Talking never worked before.” Over and over, I’d ask to have a discussion. I’d ask for validation. I’d ask for love. I’d gotten a divorce for all my attempts.

“Maybe it’d work now.”

“I’ll promise to if you promise not to make plans to move on me.”

“I don’t just move when—” When I cocked a brow, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Fine. No moving and all the talking. Deal?”

“Deal. And you have to build a client list. And come up with a name.”

“You can’t tag stuff on after we agreed,” she joked, but the alarm in her eyes told me the humor was superficial.

She wasn’t keeping her roots shallow to ditch me.

Another failure terrified her. “I know you are. But you have something you didn’t have then—us.

Support. We’ve got your back. You want to change your center’s name?

I’ll make a new sign each time. You lose students?

Auggie will do a commercial gushing about you.

You’ve got this. We’ve got this.” I flattened my hands on the small of her back and smoothed them up and down her body.

Between the waning adrenaline from the last couple of days and having a beautiful woman in my arms, my dick stirred to life.

“You’re amazing. You know that?”

“It means a lot to hear it.”

She snaked her arms around my neck. I got harder, and she ground into me.

I moved us to the wall until her back was against it. “I’m gonna take your pants off now.”

“I was hoping you would. It feels like it’s been forever.”

It had been. I was supposed to hold her after that night in the field. Two days and I was a starved man.

I claimed her mouth and swept her shirt up. I had to feel her satiny, soft skin before I dragged her shorts down. I dropped to a squat as I did it. Damn, she was right at face level. Perfect. A growl left me.

She knocked my cap off and pushed her fingers through my hair. I was hitching her leg over my shoulder when a series of knocks resonated through the house. I jerked and nearly toppled us both over. Her fingers locked around my hair as I steadied us.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Then the front door cracked open and Auggie’s yell filtered upstairs. “Dad? Poppy?”

Crap. Auggie couldn’t catch us. One problem at a time.

“Yoo-hoo!” Hassie called.

This time, my groan resonated with all my dismay.

Poppy shoved my head back, and I landed on my ass. Shit. I grabbed her shorts and tossed them to her. “Yeah? Uh, be right down!” I shouted.

Her eyes were wide as she danced around to get back into her shorts. She caught my eye and the absurdity of almost getting caught like two teens hiding from Mom and Dad hit me. I grinned, giving her a wink.

She rolled her eyes, but a smile played over her lips.

“This is going to be an exciting couple of weeks,” I said and left the room to run interference with my kid and my ex. They might’ve interrupted us now, but I could be a creative man.