prove that I could and because it will grow my hotel twice as fast. But the real reason I did it was because I wanted to honor my parents. This year would have been forty years.”
Lexi leaned over and gave his shoulder a little bump. “I remember one night when Abby and I were helping your mom in the kitchen, your dad came in the room to check on dinner and…” She swallowed and her eyes went soft, but she didn’t look away. “I had never seen a man look at someone like that before. I mean, he just walked in the kitchen, saw your mom in a dirty apron with spaghetti sauce on her face, and it was magical, Marc, I could feel how much he loved her. My mom fell in love a million times when I was a kid, but never like that.”
Which was why she’d lived in a million places, Marc thought sadly. New marriage, new daddy, new school—at least until she landed in St. Helena. It must have been lonely.
“Pricilla always talks about her great love with my grandpa. But I never knew that kind of love really existed until I met your parents.”
“Yeah,” Marc whispered. His parents had had more ability to love than anyone he’d ever met. Not just their kids, but each other and life. Growing up, watching that kind of connection between two people was a blessing and a curse. There was no way Marc was willing to settle for anything less than what his parents had shared, but after losing them in high school, he wasn’t sure if he had the balls to put himself out there. When you are that connected to someone and they go away—Marc didn’t think he could survive that again. “Did you have that with Jeff?”
Figured he was already raw and exposed, might as well go for bust. But the second he asked the question, he regretted it. Lexi’s face paled, and he watched her throat work hard to keep control.
“No,” she whispered, worrying her lower lip. “I thought I had, wanted so badly for it to be real, but in the end…” She shook her head. “No. And since I don’t remember you asking truth or dare, that is all you get.”
“Fair enough.” He moved so that their shoulders were barely touching. The contact was gentle, but the connection was palpable. “Truth or dare?”
“God, if that was a freebie, I’m almost scared to say truth,” she admitted, but at least she was smiling again.
“Sugar, if truth scared you, dare will have you begging for mercy.”
“We’ll start with truth. But make no mistake, you don’t scare me, pretty boy.”
“All right. Why didn’t you ever have kids?” That wasn’t what he meant to ask, and he didn’t even know why he did. It was just that she and Abby had gone on and on as teenagers about their weddings and babies; they’d even named them. Yet she and Jeff were married for nearly a decade and no kids.
“Um, I, we—” She might not have been begging for mercy, but he was pretty damn certain she was about to cry.
“You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business, and I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. That’s part of the game, right? You have to put yourself out there and risk being embarrassed.” She shrugged as though it was no big deal, but for the first time all night she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I wanted kids, but Jeffery wanted to be financially stable. Actually, you know what? I’m not going to put this all on him.” She turned and looked him straight in the eye. “I wanted kids desperately, maybe too much, but he saw that there was something missing in our marriage and held off. It hurt at the time, but in the end he was the wise one.”
Wise wasn’t a word Marc would have ever used to describe his friend, even back when he’d still considered Jeff a stand-up guy.
“How about you? Do you want kids?”
“I assume that this is your official question. And yes.” He smiled over at her. “I was going to choose truth.” He leaned his head against the wall. “Part of me wants an army, the other part is terrified that I’d somehow screw it up and lose everything. Plus I have to have a, what did you call it, oh yeah, a serious relationship first,” he joked, and before she could respond to his response, threw it back at her.