Luscious - Lexi Blake Page 0,74
always thought it was my fault.”
He didn’t understand. “PFC Rowe…”
Sean interrupted. “Took his own life out of either unbearable pain or because he knew you had a better chance without him. We can’t know which so give the man the benefit. He was a hero to the end. He sacrificed so you could live. He sacrificed so you could take care of the sister he loved. He might not have known it at the time, but that was how it worked out. You didn’t make a mistake by telling her. You made a mistake when you didn’t tell his mother.”
“I couldn’t. How could she not look at me and ask why I didn’t spare her son?”
“Maybe, but maybe she would have been proud to raise a child with so much honor. I have a daughter and I want everything in the world for her, but my job as a parent is to raise a good human being. Carla Rowe did that. She seems to have two of them. A woman like that would have seen the beauty in what her son had done. She would have found peace with it. Honor her. Honor him. Find your peace.”
He was aware of the tears in his eyes. His father would have told him it wasn’t manly, but Sean Taggart squeezed his shoulder. “How do I do that?”
“You talk to Allyson. You give yourself time. You do not go back to a life that you hated. Do you love her?”
That was an easy question to answer. He’d questioned a lot in the last week, but never this. “Yes.”
“Do you honestly believe that she loves you?”
A much harder question. It was the one that haunted him, made him surly and angry with everyone around him. “I don’t know. I don’t see why she would.”
“Ask her,” Sean urged. “But you have to let go of the past first or you won’t believe a word she says. Come to Sanctum with me tonight and talk to her. Tell her you won’t allow her to play with Ten.”
That was the best idea he’d heard in a long time. “I fucking won’t and I’m going to have a talk with Ian. He starts farming my sub out and he won’t see another freaking pie again for the rest of his life.”
Sean grinned. “I believe you’ll discover my brother carefully laid this plan out to get his pie maker back to form. He says your desserts have gone to hell since you broke up with Ally. He can’t put his finger on it, but they’re missing something.”
Macon knew what they were missing. And there was only one way to get it back.
CHAPTER TEN
Ally burped Kala with a soft pat of her hand against the baby’s back. Or was it Kenzie? She gently pulled the baby’s left ear back and sure enough there was a tiny mark behind there. Kala. At least Big Tag had switched from a black to a pink Sharpie.
“You doing all right?” Laurel stepped into the room. She was a lovely woman in her late twenties. She looked a little like her brother, Dr. Will Daley. She had a pack of diapers in her hand.
Ally nodded. “They’re all sweet kids. I like watching them. It’s peaceful.”
Laurel’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right? It might seem peaceful now. You wait until Aidan and Tristan fight over a toy. Or Carys. I’m pretty sure those two are actually fighting over Carys. They’re like alpha babies. It’s weird. I hope Kenzie and Kala don’t turn into warrior princesses before my time of servitude is over.”
Ally looked at the other woman as she placed Kala in the bassinette she shared with her sleeping sister. The twin girls immediately cuddled up like a pair of puppies and slept. “You don’t like kids?”
Laurel reorganized the changing station. “It’s not that I don’t like them. I’m just pretty sure I won’t have them and I’m trying to get to the point that I’m okay with it.”
“You can’t have kids? You could always adopt.” She knew the power of having a loving but non-biological family. Alex and Eve McKay adored their son though he didn’t share DNA with either of them.
Laurel sighed. “I’m in love with a man who doesn’t want them. Of course he also doesn’t want me, so it might be a moot point.” Her lips tugged up. “But I’m hopeful. About the wanting me part. He’s too stupid to know he wants me yet. I don’t think he’s going to move on