got Brenda—she’s the silkie with the huge hairdo—”
“I know which one Brenda is,” I scoffed. “Obviously.”
Diesel smiled at me dopily for half a minute, then pulled me in for a quick kiss. “Yeah. I guess you do.”
“The chicken?” I repeated.
“Right, well, Brenda has this totally bitchy attitude, which is why I named her that, so when she first came, I had to spend a ton of time with the girls making sure she didn’t peck anyone to death, and… I dunno. I got to talking to them.” He shot me a sheepish look. “I bet you think that’s crazy.”
I tried hard not to laugh. “Not nearly as crazy as you might think.”
“Anyway, once I got to know them, I couldn’t bring myself to eat them. It seemed inconsiderate.”
I did laugh then. “I can see that. But you’re telling me that our whole relationship was a lie, based on an apology casserole you never even ate?”
“It maybe started out as a lie, but you said it yourself a minute ago: this is real,” he promised, leaning in to taste my lips again. “And I’m gonna take you home and prove just how real, once you’re done watching the butterflies.”
I bounced to my feet in front of him. “I’m ready.”
“But…” He frowned. “Baby, we have all the time in the world. Enjoy your surprise.”
“I will,” I said, looking down into the eyes of the biggest and best surprise I’d ever gotten. “We can come back another time. Heck, we can bring Mari here every week. But if you study butterflies long enough, you learn that they don’t live very long in the human scheme of things. When you find beauty you have to enjoy it while it lasts, with no hesitation.” I pulled him to his feet and told him solemnly. “I’m so happy I found you.”
“Me too. I knew that day in the courthouse that my life was going to change, but I had no idea how good it could be. And finding out I was really married to you was a shock, but it was also the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I sighed, because for once when he said those things, I found it in myself to believe it. He might not be in love with me—it was way too soon for that, no matter what my heart said—but he cared about me. He wanted me. Maybe almost as much as I wanted him.
“So, home?” I asked with a hopeful smile.
“Our home,” he said a little shyly but happily, making my heart flit around like the fiery skipper on a nearby bush. “Such as it is. We might need to add on a room for Marigold at some point.”
Diesel deserved so much more than trying to squeeze the three of us into a house Stix had built for a single man. I wanted to give him the world, and I had a few ideas about where to start.
18
Diesel
After hearing Parrish’s story about Payne, I was floored. How was it possible for the man to end up in two such similar situations? And more than that, how was it possible he’d gone along with my crazy scheme after being thrown over so horribly by that fucker?
“Why’d you say yes when I asked you to pretend to be my fiancé?” I asked later that night. We’d already put Marigold down and had just finished devouring the grilled veggie wraps I’d thrown together for dinner. Parrish hadn’t been able to stop teasing me about the “big vegetarian surprise” as he called it, and I was pretty sure I’d heard every vegetable pun in the English language.
Parrish stood up to take his dish to the sink. “I didn’t. If you recall, I left a Parrish-shaped smoke outline on your front porch as gravel shot out behind my tires.”
“But you came back,” I reminded him, following him with my own dish. “With a Parrish-shaped gift basket full of thoughtful baby stuff and an offer of marriage.”
He tried to hold back a snicker and failed. “Not exactly. The baby stuff was part of my apology for not agreeing to help you. But then you were all adorable and helpless and… I guess I’m a sucker for the helplessly adorable.”
I slid an arm around his waist and pulled him toward me. “Tell me why. Why, after your awful experience with Payne-in-the-ass, would you ever agree to help another useless idiot get custody of a child?”
Parrish’s hands landed on my chest and smoothed upward. His smile