be managed. He was just as capable of being a parent as anyone else. He'd just have to educate the right people and agencies when and if the time came.
“It’s a surmountable obstacle,” he said. “And it’s not anything we’re looking at right this minute.”
“Of course,” she said. “I just want you to be prepared, if it comes to that. But Rory, when and if it happens, you can count on me to be in your corner and Daralyn’s.”
That was good to know. Because he loved what his parents had, what they’d built. He wanted it, too. And it was more on his radar than he’d admit to anyone except himself.
“I love it here.” Daralyn put her head on his shoulder, her hand inside the grip of his. “It’s so peaceful.”
“Yeah.” He put his head down on hers. “I’m in love with you. You know that, right?”
He hadn’t meant to say it straight out like that. Hell, not so long ago, he’d reminded her she had the right to make choices about being with him. She had enough trouble with that idea without him throwing out something like him being in love with her. But his heart was so full, with her here like this, with everything that had happened with them so far, he had to say it. He didn’t know how not to say it.
She’d gone really still, and she gripped his hand with both of hers. “I feel like you’re inside me all the time,” she said softly. “Helping me breathe, and smile, and see the world the way you do. Bravely.”
It was so unexpected, he went as still as she did. Then she moved. She slid off her chair, moving down beside his feet, leaning against his leg. She’d kept hold of his hand, and now laid her head against his knee. “And right here,” she said. “I can’t explain it, but this is where I feel the most at peace.”
He stroked her hair, wound her ponytail around his knuckles, let his fingertips graze her cheek. “Me, too,” he said.
They met Julie and Des at the festival the next morning. Julie’s suggestion of arriving early served a couple purposes. It was easier navigation for him, and she also knew about Daralyn’s problem with crowds.
Since Daralyn had become more comfortable attending her classes, Rory anticipated her handling it better than Julie probably expected. Daralyn had looked a little nervous on the way over, but it had been balanced with an eagerness about the festival that would have been notably absent just a short time ago.
Julie was a curvy forty-something with endless energy and a creative mind that never stopped working. The combination had made her a successful community theater manager in the Big Apple, and with the erotic theater she now operated outside the Charlotte city limits. Her decision to accept her friend Madison’s invitation to get that theater running had brought Desmond Hayes across her path.
Though a roofer by trade, Des looked like the roadie for a successful Southern rock band, with long brown hair, a body lean as beef jerky and roped with wiry muscle. He had a quietness to him that steadied Julie’s more erratic moments, whereas she brought out his dry humor.
She and Des were waiting for them at the park entrance, and when she spotted them coming toward them, she bounced forward and engulfed Daralyn in a hug. A pivot on her toe and she’d squeezed Rory in a bosom-suffusing embrace, not a bad thing, since Julie was nicely endowed.
Not that he had any thoughts about her like that, but great breasts were great breasts, and always deserved to be acknowledged.
From the glint in Des’s eyes after she let him go, Rory suspected the thought reflected in his eyes, but Des knew Rory saw Julie only as family. A guy in love couldn’t help the surge of possessiveness, though. Rory knew that himself, watching the way Des’s long, strong fingers molded over Daralyn’s hip and back when they exchanged a hug.
It was a natural thing in their family, everyone greeting one another with a hug, but Rory noted that Daralyn was more shy about it with Des. Just like with Rory and Marcus, her gaze skittered away from a direct meet of his. She apparently picked up on the Dom vibe subconsciously, like animal instinct.
He was picking up the cues himself, the Dom/sub body language between Des and Julie. Once one knew where to look, it was clear. It was in the