me a sleepy stretch with a smile. “Happy. Really, really happy.”
“Me, too.”
She rolled again so she was on top, grinning down at me, her hair a curtain that surrounded us. “I bet I can make you even happier.”
Then we started all over again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ella
Letter #20
Ella,
So Colt wants a tree house, huh? I bet your brother and I could handle that.
Don’t worry that your mind automatically goes to Maisie. I would worry if it didn’t. What you’re going through consumes just about everything. Hell, I think about you guys a ton, and I’ve never set eyes on you.
But here, let’s give you a little distraction. I promised a couple months ago that I’d tell you the story behind my call sign. So here it goes. Chaos. That whole state of dysfunction where everything blows apart without rhyme or reason, right? That’s pretty much me. Exactly. Growing up, I got into trouble wherever I could, or sometimes it just found me. They called me Chaos, because when I showed up, destruction inevitably followed. Usually property, but sometimes people. Too many people. Someone gets attached, I can’t let them in, and I go into self-destruction until they walk away. I’m old enough to see the patterns but not worried enough to really change them.
So your brother and I go out to a bar right after selection, and he starts hitting on a woman. I don’t see her face, just a body poured into a dress that shows pretty much everything. He assumes she’s a prostitute—don’t ask me why, because I have no clue—and then it turns out she’s actually one of our instructor’s wives.
Yeah, all hell broke loose. The guy lost it, the bar got tossed over because I jumped in, and once noses were broken and bottles stopped flying, I turn around and realize she’s someone I grew up with. So she just looks at me and says, “As usual, walking, talking Chaos. You walk in, and it all goes to hell.” Your brother and the trainer heard, and it stuck.
So yeah, that’s the definition of me. I walk in, and it all goes to hell. Still sure you want me to come visit? Just kidding, you know I’ll be there.
I hope you’re getting presents wrapped for the kids and trees trimmed and all that. I’m loving the little battery-operated lights Colt sent and the tiny pink tree from Maisie.
Catch you later,
~ Chaos
…
I stretched, feeling deliciously sore in places I hadn’t felt since—
A warm, strong arm draped over my waist and pulled me back into the curve of a very firm, male body.
Beckett.
I waited for the panic to rise, the oh-shit feeling when the mistake had already been made and you couldn’t do anything but deal with the fallout, but it never came, because it wasn’t a mistake. Just a sweet contentment and the ache of well-used muscles.
How many times had we lost ourselves in each other last night? Three?
I’d told him we’d sort it out today, and I meant it. This was my kids’ dad, the guy who built not one but two tree houses, who showed up no matter how many times I doubted him.
And no matter the lies, the deception, and everything that had come to light, I loved him. That had never changed. And truthfully, I’d forgiven him long ago for the lie. Once I could step outside the hurt, I reread the letters. Saw the self-loathing he masked, the true feeling that he wasn’t worthy of love and couldn’t connect to people.
When he finally connected to Ryan, and then lost him, he went into a spiral. I just happened to get caught up in the vortex.
And as for the trust? He’d painstakingly rebuilt it over the last six months, never once wavering and always declaring his intent. That kind of relentlessness was impossible to ignore, and now that Maisie was cancer-free, it was time to figure out what Beckett and I were going to do about each other.
I could take a moment to be my own priority for the first time in years, and what I wanted was him.
“Mom! Come on, we’re going to be late!” Maisie called from the hallway.
I craned my neck to see the alarm clock.
“Oh crap! Beckett, we’re late!” I flew out of bed, running for the bathrobe I kept hanging on the back of my door but never used.
“What?” He shot up, the covers falling to his waist.
Good God, that man was gorgeous. Really, mouth-wateringly beautiful. This is exactly why you’re