This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2) Page 21

  I flick my gaze over to the clock on the wall and my heart begins to thump wildly in my chest. It’s almost time. Thirty-eight more seconds before Baylee says it’s okay. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t count the hours and minutes and seconds. I’d lose them all in the scent of blonde curls, bright blue eyes, and slobbery grins.

  But I’ve learned my lesson.

  When I break Baylee’s rules, we spend the rest of the day battling tears and meltdowns.

  So, I count the hours and minutes and seconds.

  Twelve seconds left.

  Flickering my gaze back to my dad, I smile to see him hugging her. Those two cling to one another and it fills my heart with joy. She’s the daughter he lost. And he’s the father she lost. A perfect pair, those two.

  Click.

  I’m already stalking away from the window toward my bedroom as soon as the last second passes. The time is now. For kisses and soul-melting babbles.

  “Dadadadada.”

  I stop in the doorway, frozen by the sight of perfection. My little cherub stands in the playpen, grinning at me with the world’s cutest toothy smile. Her blue eyes glitter with excitement when she sees me and she reaches for me. Stepping over Baylee’s discarded nightgown and one of my shoes, I make my way over to my baby.

  “Hey there, angel. Did you wake up?” I scoop her into my arms and kiss the soft hair on her head.

  She babbles about her dreams, speaking a language only she knows, while I carry her over to the bed to change her. The sheets and blankets are a mess with Baylee’s psychology books still open to the last chapter she was reading for her college classes. A couple of years ago, I’d have flipped out over the mess. Now, I can’t stop smiling because it means Baylee has left her mark on my life.

  “Did you poo-poo? You know Mommy changes all the poo-poos,” I chide playfully as I grab the wipes and a diaper from the end table.

  “Mamamama,” she explains and scrunches her nose.

  She’s so fucking cute, I laugh out loud. “Fine, you get out of it this time.”

  Like the practiced dad I am, I change her with only a few gags that I’m pretty sure are normal for something that smells that rancid. Once she’s in the pink bathing suit Bay left out for her, I carry her on my hip toward the door.

  “You ready to go play with Gramps and Mommy at the beach?”

  She buries her sweet face against my chest and I melt. My girl has me wrapped around her tiny finger and I don’t care to ever be released.

  “Papapapa.”

  “Yeah, Gramps will be excited to see you.”

  I step outside of my home and inhale the warm, salty air. Once upon a time, I shuddered at such a concept—breathing sea air. Now, I practically need it to survive. Barefoot, I trot down the steps and through the hot sand toward my family. When Baylee sees us, she stands and waddles my way. I’ll never tire of seeing her big and pregnant with our children. Before it’s all said and done with, we’ll have our own little army.

  “Hey, honey,” she calls out to me. “Hey, cutie.”

  Hannah reaches for her mommy and Baylee takes her. I come around behind her and wrap my arms to touch the sides of her belly. My mouth finds the shell of her ear and I kiss it tenderly.

  “Papapapa!” Hannah shrieks upon seeing him and wriggles to be set down.

  We both laugh the moment Hannah is free and clumsily makes her way to Gramps who is waiting with an undoubtedly sandy cracker my mother would approve of.

  “Mmm,” Baylee murmurs, turning in my arms, “I thought you’d never get here.”

  I flash her a grin before threading my fingers in her hair and kissing her deeply. “Believe me, I was counting the seconds.”

  She sighs in happiness and together we watch as my dad plays with our daughter. Finally, after a few moments, my wife looks up at me with tears in her eyes and runs her fingertips over the scar on my chest. “War, the battles were worth it. The pain, the blood, the casualties, the paths our lives took. It was all worth it because it led to this. Whatever ‘this’ is”—she motions between me and our family—“I don’t ever want it to end.”

  I plant a kiss on her forehead. Making the same gesture of my hand, I explain exactly what “this” is.

  “This is love, baby.”

  I press a kiss to War’s soft lips and smile at him. Today he’s beautiful in the bright sunshine. A few tiny freckles dot his nose and his navy-colored eyes twinkle with delight. His grin stretches across his entire handsome face lighting up all of his features. The wind tousles his brown hair in every which direction making him a sexy, disheveled mess. Just the way I like him. Simply perfect.

  He’s right. This is love.

  My heart nearly bursts with joy any time my husband bounces our adorable daughter on his knee or rubs my belly reverently. His smiles are frequent and they are a salve to parts of my heart that are still hissing from being burned. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about what led me to War.

  Fate had a plan.

  The psycho bitch knew we were meant to be together.

  What she didn’t tell me was it would cost everything I loved to be with him.

  Mom. Dad. Brandon.

  And even Gabe.

  My therapist tells me it’s okay to miss them. Three men who supposedly loved me but ended up cutting my heart out, each one in their own way, still managed to make my heart ache from time to time. She tells me it’s normal. I find it far from normal. The ache for them feels like a betrayal to War. And that sense of betrayal breeds anger.

  After all this time, I’m still angry.

  Apparently that’s normal too.

  She assures me eventually I can move past all the anger. That I should forgive them for what they did. Even Gabe. Especially Gabe. So I can move on, according to her. By letting go of the pain of my past, I can make room for all the good things my future has in store.

  And most days, I am able to find the strength to agree with her. I search deep inside my splintered heart and I seek out the goodness each one had to offer. Before disease and money and stress drove them to carry out terrible atrocities on the one they loved most. Those days, I feel strong. I’m a warrior—a hero in my own story.

  It’s the other days that are hard. The days where I feel like I’m the last one on the board protecting her king with the bloodiest damn sword around. Guilt drips from me like blood from all of the casualties in my war. Those days, it’s crushing. Those days, I don’t feel strong at all.

  But the war is how I found my peace.

  The war was worth it.

  War was worth it.

  When I feel our son rolling around in my belly or when Hannah falls asleep against my chest, I know. I know that every single second of this was all necessary in some fucked-up way. The battle was truly ugly but my peace is more beautiful than words could ever describe.

  “Oooh,” Hannah babbles and points at the choppy ocean. She toddles closer toward the water’s edge and I trail behind her as War and Land dive into discussion about a new client behind us. My daughter is brave and doesn’t fear the crashing waves. Instead, she squeals and runs toward them. No hesitation. No reservations. No strategy.

  She doesn’t worry about the evils of the world because she has two parents who do enough worrying about that for her entire lifetime.

  My daughter is free.

  War and I will be the parents who protect her.

  She’ll never know the terrors we faced. Life, for her, will be perfect. We’ll make sure of that.

  “Mamamama!” she tells me with a sweet giggle and splashes into the warm water. A wave rushes toward us causing her to lose her balance and she plops onto her butt in the sand. I smile and reach for her small hands to help her stand back up. Once she’s stable again, I clasp my fingers around her tiny wrist and let her guide me along the shore.

  I’m lost in thought, a smile playing at my lips when the familiar sick dread washes over me. A shiver skitters down my spine and I jerk my head over my shoul
der. My therapist assures me that because I never had closure with Gabe, I’ll always be paranoid to a certain extent. She tries to get me to relax and not worry about what I can’t control. He’s dead and I need to move on.

  Yeah, I get it.

  But each time, I look over my shoulder. I expect to lock eyes with his heated coffee-colored ones. To be paralyzed in fear as he descends upon me like the beast from hell devouring his next dark soul—to make me pay for those in my destructive wake. Brandon’s blood on my hands plagues me worst of all. I helped shape him into the dragon that annihilated the sweet boy from my past. And when I had a hand in slaying him, I became the biggest player in Gabe’s twisted mindfuck game.

  A game where there were no winners.

  Just death and blood and loss.

  I’m simply surviving one day at a time with my broken king at my side. Together we fight the dark demons of our past by focusing on the blonde angels in our future.

  A rumble of thunder in the distance makes me jump and I squint to see where the storm is coming from. Dark clouds are forming further on down the coast which means it won’t be long before the bad weather makes it here.

  War’s laugh cuts right through my sullen haze and wraps itself around my heart. Whenever I let these guilty thoughts infect me, he always finds a way to push them back out and instead fills me with his love.

  It’s enough.

  It’s more than enough.

  And it works.

  I can let down my guard and enjoy the moment. As the wind picks up and blows my hair into my face, I close my eyes and let out a small breath. Life is good. This is love, like he said. Fate may be the evil bitch but it’s Love who’s the stubborn one. Love doesn’t care if you think you’re underserving or unworthy. Love doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your past or who you’ve hurt along the way. Love doesn’t care if you have blood on your hands.

  Love is selfish and she always gets what she wants.

  And Love is the one who’s teamed up with Fate. They, for some crazy-ass reason, think I deserve this beautiful life.

  The war in my heart still wages on.

  But this?

  My gaze flits from my daughter’s blonde curls to War’s joyous grin as he watches us from beside his father. I rub my belly and smile back at them. This is peace, baby.

  If you love someone, set them free.

  Whoever made up that crock of shit line should be shot in the head. If you love someone, you should protect them. Watch over them. Make sure they’re happy. You should do whatever it takes to see their breathtaking smile over and over again.

  You most certainly don’t set them free.

  That would be stupid and unsatisfying.

  I know love and it grows each day with every grin on her pretty face—smiles I can’t seem to get enough of.

  “A storm’s rolling in,” a sexy, husky voice says behind me, distracting me from my thoughts.

  I groan in pleasure when she wraps her arms around my waist and lays her cheek on my bare back. Alejandra is my angel. My miracle. And I owe her my life.

  “The beach is still busy,” I muse as my eyes zero in on the little girl playing in the sand farther up the beach. “What do you think? Another thirty minutes and it’ll be pouring down rain?”

  She pulls away and then finds my hand. I squeeze her soft palm before bringing it to my lips and pressing a kiss to the back of it. Alejandra has the hands of an angel. My wife is a surgeon and a damn good one at that. She’s always babbling after a few days’ worth of rounds about the many lives she’s either improved or saved. I listen with rapt attention because I owe it to her. Because at one time, she saved me.

  Her long, almost black hair whips around her in the wind. I remember the first time I saw her. The day I stumbled onto the deck of her old house farther up the coast, soaking wet, pushed through her back door, and collapsed on her kitchen floor. She’d been shocked at first but when she crouched next to me to take my pulse, I’d stared straight into her honey-colored eyes and said, “I’m not ready to die.”

  Her shocked features turned sad for a moment before a look of sheer determination took over. Alejandra saved me that day on her kitchen floor. She performed what I call a miracle and nursed me back to health in her home.

  My wife never asked questions.

  She never probed into my past.

  Alejandra protected me when I was unable to protect myself.

  “God sent you to me,” she’d said with utmost certainty.

  And I never argued.

  Maybe it was divine intervention. God must have been playing in our lives because when I’d seen the wedding photos on her mantle later after I’d healed, I saw her kissing a man with dark, wavy hair and deep brown eyes. I learned it was her late husband. Alejandra was a widow. And her previous husband resembled me. Little did she know, she’d traded in her good guy with one of the bad. But maybe, just maybe, God didn’t care. He knew deep down I deserved a second chance at happiness. I’d always be a bad guy, but bad guys deserve love too, right?

  Long before she moved from Venezuela to California, she’d been married to Johan Cruz-Diez. He’d been the love of her life before a sudden and massive heart attack stole him from the stunning doctor.

  And man, is she stunning.

  Alejandra has curves in all the right places. I love clutching her thick thighs when she rides my cock, her big tits bouncing heavily in front of me. My dick twitches and I smile. She’s also quite a needy freak in bed. I guess losing your husband and then finding him again will make a woman insatiable. I’m all too happy to satisfy her needs.

  “We better close up the patio umbrella so it doesn’t blow away, Johan,” she tells me as she bends to pick up a shell. I admire her big, round ass in her turquoise bathing suit that makes her skin seem more tan than usual. Her ass is fucking divine.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I promise and squeeze a handful of her ass as she stands. “I want you naked and on your knees when I get back inside. I’m ready to fuck my beautiful wife.”

  Her eyes close and she lifts her chin toward the heavens, her thick, red lips parted. I know she’s thanking God for sending me to her. After that day she healed me, she always called me Johan, her dead husband’s name. And I never corrected her. It simply made it easier to obtain an identification as him and fall into the perfect life he left. Into his wife’s tight, gorgeous ass.

  Definitely divine intervention.

  And here I thought God didn’t like the devil. That he was an outcast shunned from heaven. Clearly, I was mistaken.

  “I love you, Johan,” she tells me, a fierce love burning bright in her eyes.

  Tugging her to me, I spear my fingers into her wild hair and kiss her hard enough to steal her breath. When she’s gasping for air, I pull away and flash her a grin. “I love you too, sweet girl.”

  She beams at me before bouncing away back toward our home. I know in another fifteen minutes, she’ll be screaming Johan’s name as I shove my cock into her tight ass. I’ll come all over her back and tell her how much I love her too.

  Of course we both know her love will never measure up. It’ll never be the true love that owns the rest of my heart—a love that’s actually a genetic piece of me. But like we’ve done from day one, Alejandra and I play our parts to indulge the needs of each other. It’s what makes us happy.

  It’s how a perfect marriage works.

  My gaze drags back over to her. The one with the brilliant, bright smile, pretty blue eyes, and silky blonde hair. I ignore the men behind her as they gather up blankets, toys, and lawn chairs. I even ignore the pregnant one—the one with long, pale locks that whip in the wind. The one who used to consume my every thought.

  Not anymore.

  She now shares that place with someone equally important.

  Someone just as perfect.

  And that is true love.

  The last day I was with her, I overheard her telling her stupid, pussy boy ex-boyfriend that she was pr
egnant. Pregnant with my child. She didn’t need to say those words—that I was the father—I knew.

  I frown thinking about ‘ol pussy boy. A better man would mourn his death, feel things like guilt, remorse, pity, but I am not a better man. Quite frankly, I feel nothing for him. I do have to hand it to him, though, for fighting for what he wanted. And he did put up a good fight. But in the end, we were at war. He was in my way, and there could only be one man left standing—no room for boys.

  My thoughts leave the past as I stare at my future. Pride blossoms in my chest and I grin at the little girl playing on the beach. Of course, she can’t see me from this distance, but I know it’s her. I’ll watch over my beautiful daughter each day and then one day, when she’s old enough to understand, I will explain to her who her real father is. Maybe when she’s seven. Her mother certainly seemed well aware of me by that age—the age I pulled my car into the driveway next to her house that first time. Those blue orbs of hers shimmered from her front porch with curiosity and instant adoration. I expect it will be the same way for my daughter when that time comes.

  I will pull her into my arms and never let go.

  I’ll give Alejandra the child Johan was never able to.

  I’m a patient man and will make this happen, in time. Until then, I’ll enjoy my new life. The life Johan wasn’t man enough to hang on to.

  With one last longing gaze at my child who is now saddled on her mother’s hip, I turn and leave her. As raindrops begin to pelt me, I trudge through the sand back to the house and up the steps of the back deck. Efficiently, I work the handle of the umbrella and secure it as I promised my wife I would.

  Once inside, I shove my swim trunks down to the floor and follow the trail of sand that leads to where she’ll be waiting on her hands and knees. With my dick in hand, I smile at how sweet life really is, and fist my cock several times to prime myself for Alejandra’s tight hole.