Bonus Kisses - Freya Barker Page 0,37
a poor dog getting his leg caught in a poacher’s trap. Unfortunately the leg couldn’t be saved, but the dog will live.
There’s no one in the kitchen, so I walk over to the stove to lift the lid off the heavy cast iron pot, and stick my nose in it.
“It’s not ready.” I almost drop the lid at the sound of Taz’s voice behind me. She’s smiling when I whip my head around, but her heart is not in it. “Give it another forty-five minutes and you can have a taste.”
“What is it?”
“Moambe Chicken, I had to tweak the recipe because I couldn’t get everything at the grocery store, but it’s close enough.”
I ease the lid back on the pan and turn fully to face her. “Where are the kids?”
“The four-legged ones are zonked out underneath the coffee table and the two-legged ones are at Kathleen and Brent’s, playing in the pool.”
“Good.” It’s perfect actually.
I reach for her hand and pull her along into the living room and down on the couch beside me. Lilo and Stitch barely seem to notice.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to talk.”
“Again?” She pulls he hand from mine. “We talked this morning, before we went…off track.”
“That’s what we need to talk about.” I reach for her again, determined to get us past this elephant in the room. “I know you haven’t missed the way my body responds to you whenever you’re near. I haven’t missed yours.”
Her mouth falls open in shock, and in the next moment she’s up and standing on the other side of the coffee table, her arms tellingly crossed over her chest. “Don’t…”
“What? Tell the truth?”
“It’s…” she seems to struggle finding the right word until she settles on, “…inappropriate.”
“That doesn’t make it less true,” I insist, trying not to scoff.
“Nicky—”
I quickly press on before she can stop me. “I know she talked to you. She talked to me as well. She knew, well before I was willing to acknowledge it, and possibly right from the start, that my head may have been invested but my heart wasn’t.”
“How can you say that?”
Both dogs startle awake at Taz’s loud outburst and Stitch whimpers confused.
“Because you and I both know it’s the truth, and so did Nicky. There’s always been something between us. I suspect even your mother knows.” Taz claps her hands over her ears and closes her eyes. “Taz…” She doesn’t—or pretends not to—hear me. I get up and step in front of her, peeling her hands away from her head. Her eyes open to reveal them filling with tears.
“It’s not right. She’s been gone less than two months.”
“Normally I’d agree with you, but be honest, Taz, you and I both know whatever is going on between us dates back years, not months.”
“What about the kids? Jesus, my parents? I can’t do this to them again.”
“Stop it,” I snap when she covers her face with her hands. “This is about you and me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not proposing to flaunt anything in their faces. We haven’t even had a chance to discover what we have.” I gently pull her hands away and hold them firmly in mine. “All I’m asking is we at least be honest with each other. That we explore this. I’ve spent nine years hiding in a marriage that was a lie from the start. On both Nicky’s and my part. I don’t want years of resentment to build up between you and me because of lies and misunderstandings. There’s been too much of that already.”
I see the war waging behind her eyes, and it’s so tempting to use her body to force the outcome, but the last thing I want to do is manipulate her decision. Instead I lift her hands to my mouth and kiss first one, and then the other palm, before dropping them. Then I scoop the dogs up under my arms and take them out for a much-needed piddle.
“Where did these come from?”
Clearly shocked, Sarah stops inside the door when she is enthusiastically greeted by Lilo and Stitch.
“They’re ours,” Spencer quickly informs her. “They come from the farm,” he says with a serious face.
“Is that so?” I feel before I see the heat of my mother-in-law’s glare before she pointedly ignores the wiggling fur at her feet and walks straight toward the kitchen. “That didn’t take long,” she says under her breath as she passes me, kids and dogs following her.
I quickly suppress the pang of guilt at her words. I shouldn’t be