One to Tell the Grandkids (21 page)

“But it’s not just me, it—”

“Taryn. Telling me what you want isn’t the same thing as making a choice. It’s okay to wish for something even if it’s not a good idea.”

“Okay. Okay.” She fidgeted. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I want him. I don’t even know what it means to want someone, to want
more
.”

Melanie’s grin was blinding. “Great. Now you know.” She patted Taryn’s arm and got out of the car.

“Wait.” Taryn hurried after her. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“Don’t know what to tell you. Caleb doesn’t set off any warning bells, so as a friend, I can only support whatever decision you come to. If he’s a decent guy and he’s what you want, the rest is semantics.”

“But . . . Slate.”

“Semantics.” Mel stopped short and wrapped Taryn up in her arms. “You’re a better person than you give yourself credit for. I trust your judgment. You should, too.”

“What if,” Taryn started, but she couldn’t finish the sentence. There were too many variables to fill in.

“Life’s not a guarantee, but you know that. The worst that can happen is everything can go horribly wrong, and what can I say? That’s true of anyone’s life at any given time. But you have friends, and that’s what friends are for—to help you pick up the pieces.”

“So helpful.”

“Yeah, but you know what the opposite of disaster is?” She nodded to where Caleb stood talking to Slate. “This could be the start of something really great. Your timing sucks. I mean, wow, that’s bad, but so what? You may as well see if it’s something you can get past. If it’s worth it. If he’s worth it.”

They had been there for twenty minutes, and Taryn had yet to talk to Caleb. Person after person, his relatives and friends, came to express their condolences. She couldn’t hear what the others were saying to him, but it couldn’t have been anything good. If she was reading the tense set of Caleb’s jaw, he was about ready to explode.

“Okay. I’ve got to do something,” Taryn said to Mel and Slate as she pushed off the wall.

She pushed through the small crowd. “Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me.” When she got to Caleb’s side, she reached out to put her hand on his arm. “Hey.”

He turned, and when he saw her, she thought she saw relief cross his features. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Ryder, but there’s just the smallest, er, matter we need to speak about.” She leaned away from the crowd as if expecting Caleb to follow.

“Right.” Caleb turned to the man he’d been speaking to. “Sorry about that, Dave.”

Dave waved his hand and patted Caleb’s shoulder. “Always something, right? Don’t worry about it. We’ll catch up soon.”

Caleb fell into step beside her, and Taryn led him away from the mortuary’s three viewing rooms and into the office area. She ducked into an office she knew was both empty and unlocked.

To her surprise, Caleb reached out and pulled her close. He cupped her face and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, desperate, until she kissed him back. Then he relaxed. His body slumped toward hers. His thumbs stroked her cheeks. His mouth moved more gently as he kissed her again and again. Taryn pressed one hand against his shoulder blade and let the other rest behind his neck.

When they parted, he only let his hands drop to her waist. He kept his arms looped around her in a loose hold. “Thank you for that.”

“You looked like you could use a break.” She brushed his cheek with her fingertips. “What’s wrong? I mean, that’s probably a stupid question, but it seems like it’s more than what’s to be expected.”

“I don’t know. Nothing, really.” He swayed them back and forth a bit as he spoke. “I haven’t seen any of these people in years. None of them saw Annie after she got bad off. But they’re all talking about how it’s been so long, time flies, they meant to visit, blah, blah, blah.” He gritted his teeth, but just as quickly as his anger flared, it faded again. “I’m sorry I’m so angry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s hard. On the one hand, it’s human to be so hypocritical. We all say stupid things at funerals, as though we’re going to stop taking our loved ones for granted. But all your family had advanced notice. They could have come and said everything they wanted to say to Ann before she died.”

“Yeah.” He lifted his head to look at her and took her face in his hands again. “That and I really hate this whole process. This viewing. The funeral.”

He kissed her again, and Taryn let him. She’d missed this, longed for this after their night together. She’d worried those kisses, that precious little time, was all they had.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking their kiss. “I know I’m not being fair to you with this.” He brushed his nose against hers and pecked her lips. “I wish we could go somewhere. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do any of this. This whole thing. The funeral tomorrow.”

“I don’t blame you.” She threaded her fingers through his hair, combing it back off his face. “Do you want to sit in the back with Slate, Robin, and me?”

He looked like he wanted to say yes, but he sighed. “I don’t know. My family would expect me to be up front.”

“Your extended family should be here for you. This is your loss.” She stroked her thumbs behind his ears. “Yours and maybe your dad’s, but you know what? Screw him. Today, just screw him and what he needs. You were there for Ann the last years of her life. You deserve whatever you need to get through this. Stay for the viewing, because I don’t want you to have regrets, but let them come to you.”

His arms tightened around her. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She found his hand and threaded their fingers together. “Let’s do this, then.”

They walked together back toward the chapels. The lobby had emptied out, and everyone was sitting in the pews, waiting. Before they walked through the doors, Caleb dropped her hand. It stung, but Taryn understood. Besides, when she took a seat at the very back of the room beside Melanie and Slate, Caleb took the seat beside her.

This was about him, she reminded herself. Today was about what he needed.

Everything else would have to wait.

Chapter Twenty-One

C
aleb wasn’t normally a morning person. It was why owning a bar had always suited him. The night he could deal with, but he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the morning.

This morning, Caleb woke but didn’t open his eyes right away. His muddled mind struggled for information. What day was it? Did he have an appointment? Was an alarm ringing? His bed was comfortable, and he wasn’t keen on moving. He spread his hand wide over a pleasingly soft, warm shape, feeling a nudge against his palm his brain didn’t translate for minutes on end.

Oh.

Caleb breathed in deep as consciousness took a firmer hold. He pressed his palm against the swell of Taryn’s belly where the baby stirred beneath her skin. There was enough distance between their bodies that his skin wasn’t clammy from the heat of the night. Still, he was warm and content where he was. Closing the small distance between them, he buried his nose in her hair and pressed his lips to the back of her neck.

In the last five weeks, Caleb had discovered many inconsequential things about Taryn Sato. For instance, if he nuzzled his nose against her hair and let his breath tickle her skin, she would come alive under his hands. When he woke her like this, she made the softest whimper, like mews from the tiniest of kittens. She squirmed; she rubbed her feet together and arched her shoulders.

Taryn brought her hand down to rest over his. “She’s an early riser,” Caleb rumbled in her ear.

“Just my luck.” She shifted, and her body brushed against his. “Though it looks like she’s not the only early riser here.”

Caleb smirked and brushed her hair back so he could kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear. For minutes, the morning was quiet except for the smack of his lips against her skin and the rustle of the blankets when she reached her hand back to run her fingers along his length. When laziness gave way to lust, they moved again, a dance they had gotten good at the last five weeks. Caleb rolled onto his back and helped her find her balance when she straddled him.

What a pretty picture she made. Her hair was hectic from sleep, her cheeks pink with exertion. The curves of her body pleased him. This early in the morning, he could get no more poetic than that. He liked the way her hips filled his hands, the bounce of her breasts as she moved over him, and, of course, the thickening at her midsection. She was at that adorable stage where her bump was perfectly rounded.

He would have been happy just to look on her, but he wasn’t going to complain about morning sex.

“You have an early appointment today?” Caleb asked when she had collapsed against him again, sweaty body to sweaty body.

She laughed. It wasn’t the first time she’d told him his ability to segue right into the middle of a conversation post-coitus was disconcerting. “Um.” She rubbed her eyes, still tittering. “Eleven. I have to be at work by eleven today.”

Anything Caleb was about to say fell away when her tummy growled. They both giggled, and Caleb wondered why they had skipped the whole stage where they pretended to be embarrassed by their bodies, if it was because they were more friends than lovers, or if it was just Taryn. She stroked her belly, not self-conscious at all about the gurgles.

“Patch-monster is hungry,” he said.

She yawned. “I suppose I should feed her before she starts devouring my insides.”

He slid down her body and pressed his ear to her belly. “Monster says leftovers are fine. Warmed or not?”

“Seriously? You’re going to feed me day-old Chinese?” She smacked the back of his head playfully. “Take a shower. Forget what the monster wants. Momma wants eggs and pancakes.”

“I can make you pancakes.”

“It’s fine. You’re better at French toast.”

He pushed himself up. “I’m better at French kisses,” he said, waggling his eyebrows a split second before he claimed her lips.

Her protest was drowned against his mouth. She pushed at his shoulders, but they were halfhearted shoves at best. She sighed when she gave in and tangled her fingers in his hair for a morning-breath make-out session.

Minutes later Caleb was alone in the shower. There, his thoughts caught up with him. This was the other problem with mornings. In the nighttime, when the world was most quiet, anything was possible. In the harsh light of day, there was no hiding from reality. That day it struck Caleb as he hefted his shampoo from where it sat beside Taryn’s.

After Ann’s funeral, Caleb had turned around from watching his friends leave, headed back to LA and their normal lives, only to see his father being engulfed by the family he’d replaced him and Ann with. The sight didn’t make him angry as much as lonely. The only arms he had to return to were those of the recliner in his living room. Even though he’d lived in that house alone for years, the idea seemed terrible.

Then Taryn had been at his side. Her hand found his, and when she asked if he wanted to stay with her, it was the easiest thing in the world to accept. They both had the most innocent of intentions. Taryn was midway through the traditional spiel about where the towels and extra blankets were when Caleb pulled her down on the bed in the guest bedroom.

Five weeks had passed since then. They’d long ago dropped the pretense he was just a guest. Except for the days Slate visited, Caleb was at Taryn’s house. On the weekends when she visited Slate, Caleb now slid in his bed beside her instead of sleeping on the couch as he had been. His shampoo and body wash stood with hers in her shower, but they had yet to talk about what was going on between them.

The aftermath of death was tying off loose ends. Caleb had those in spades. It wasn’t only Anne’s life he had to settle, but he was left to tidy the remnants of their mother’s life and sweep up whatever was left of the family they’d once been. There was the house to sell and belongings to sort. He had to find Spencer because the little boy should have something to prove he’d had a mother.

He could have called it comfort coming home to Taryn. She seemed to be able to read when he needed to be distracted and when he needed to sit quietly with his head on her shoulder and her fingers running through his hair. He wasn’t without his uses to her, either. He knew how to take care of a pregnant woman. He massaged away her aches, satisfied her cravings, and kept the place cleaner than it had been. It was all very comforting, but this wasn’t only about comfort. He didn’t want to think about it, but he knew.

Happiness was too fragile for words.

When Caleb emerged from the bedroom, dressed and minty fresh, he followed the delicious smell of breakfast to the kitchen. Taryn had her back to him. Her hair was piled on her head, and she stood at the stove pouring eggs into a pan. A stack of pancakes sat off to the side along with a plate of bacon. He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her back against him and tucking her head under his chin.

Only then did the stiff way she held her body seep into his consciousness. It took him another second to realize she had her Bluetooth in her ear. The low buzz he heard was someone talking.