for children. It’s tireless work, but I do believe I am up to the task.”
“You’re a goofball.”
His arm wrapped around her shoulders so he could pull her closer to kiss her head. “But I’m your goofball.”
“What about you?” Darcy asked. “Have you thought about where you’ll be in ten years?”
He met her gaze. “Surrounded by hordes of children with a wife whom I love to distraction.”
Darcy tried to pull away from him. “You’re making fun of me.”
He drew her closer and wrapped his arms around her. “I want to make something of myself. How I’m going to do that, I don’t know. When I look into my future, the only thing I see clearly is that you’re with me.”
“Are you teasing me?”
He framed her face with his hands. “I am being completely serious. You are my constant.”
Lucien was jolted out of the memory when someone spoke his name. He looked up to see Kyle.
“Hey.”
“Sorry, you looked deep in thought, but I wanted to thank you for hooking my band up with your friend. We’re working on making a demo.”
Lucien gestured to the chair across from him. “I heard. He called me right after he heard you play. He hasn’t been this excited about a band in a really long time.”
“Thanks for putting in the word and getting us a chance.”
Lucien grinned. “Just remember me when you’re accepting your Grammy.”
“If we ever get that far, you can be damn sure of that.” Kyle was silent for a moment. “You okay? You look like someone just kicked your dog.”
“Do you have a girlfriend, Kyle?”
“Not at the moment; never met anyone I liked enough that I wanted to stick with after a fight. Why?”
“I’ve been profoundly stupid when it comes to the most important person in my life. I’m pulling her close one minute and pushing her away the next.”
“That seems like a normal reaction to me.”
Lucien didn’t hide his confusion when he asked, “How so?”
“It’s crap when people say you shouldn’t try to change someone. The whole nature of a relationship is compromise, and compromise is change. It can be scary as hell changing what you know to fit with someone else, so I think you’re entitled to drag your feet a bit.”
Lucien chuckled with self-deprecation at Kyle’s simple truth because damn if he didn’t recognize himself. “That was remarkably insightful, Kyle.”
“I’m a regular Dr. Phil.” He leaned up and rested his elbows on the table. “I’ve never met anyone I was even willing to brood over, so the fact that you’ve found her . . . Don’t drag your feet too long. It’s not likely she’ll come around again.”
Lucien signaled the bartender before his gaze turned back to Kyle. “If your music career doesn’t take off, you could always become a television shrink.”
“Well, now that’s comforting. Then you can buy rounds until my residuals start coming in.”
“With pleasure, and thanks, Kyle.”
Kyle’s grin came in a flash. “One good turn deserves another.”
Tears rolled down Darcy’s face as she blew her nose into a tissue. Ember was sitting next to her, sobbing softly. The credits to Beaches were rolling on the screen, but Darcy couldn’t see them through the tears in her eyes.
“Why the hell did you make us watch that?”
“Your troubles don’t seem as bad now, do they?”
Darcy knew she was looking at Ember like she had sprouted wings, but she realized Ember wasn’t wrong. “I guess not.”
“We could watch Bram Stoker’s Dracula next.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s a relationship to cry over.”
Darcy laughed, but it came out in more of a gasp, and then she sobered. She didn’t mean to blurt it out the way she did. “I lost Lucien and my baby when I was seventeen.”
“Oh Darcy.”
“Lucien found out about the baby and thought I had given our child up.”
A look of disbelief crossed Ember’s face. “That’s quite a conclusion to jump to.”
“Exactly.”
“Of course, Lucien learned that he had fathered a child, so I imagine it was easier for him to accept that you gave up the baby than to take the leap that the baby he had just learned about had died.”
Darcy felt ill. She hadn’t even considered Lucien’s feelings. He may have learned after the fact about their child, but it didn’t make the pain of loss any less, even all these years later. Shame filled her that she could have been so selfish.
Ember seemed to be a mind reader. “Sometimes it’s hard to see a situation clearly when you’re in the middle of it.”