Fate: A Trinity Novel: Book Five Page 18

  “Oh yes, for me too. I’ll have whatever you’re having, Carson. We seem to like all of the same things,” Misty says, embellishing. “Makes living together so easy. Wouldn’t you agree, sweetheart?” she coos, handing me her glass.

  Sweetheart. Fucking fuck.

  The muscle in Kathleen’s leg tightens so much it lifts my hand. I squeeze back, letting her know I’m with her, right here, just as horrified as she is, but trying to push through. Honestly though, I’m in hell. Actual. Living. Hell.

  Kathleen, the woman I love, the person I want to be with for the rest of my life, is sitting on my left. The woman I will never be able to escape, because we have a daughter together, and she’s pushing her way into my life, is sitting on my right. Sandwiched between heaven and hell. Lord help me.

  Conversation between my family and Misty moves throughout dinner. Kathleen and I stay quiet, both of us feeling the same things for different reasons. I know Kat’s angry. Who wouldn’t be, when faced with your first dinner with a family you’ve missed for years and then being forced to share the moment with the mother of your man’s child? It’s not right. It’s twisted as fuck. I’m going to have to talk to my father about not allowing this to happen in the future. Kathleen’s and Cora’s comfort is my first priority.

  Chloe seems to save the day, talking about work and what she and Kathleen have been working on for Paris Fashion Week. Which, I’m reminded, is in another month. My Kathleen will be heading to Paris without me. Then an idea hits. Perhaps I can go visit her after her week is done and spend a few days just with her, motoring around the most romantic city in the world. Right then, I plan on enlisting Chloe and their receptionist to block off the time in Kat’s calendar.

  Just the thought of having a few uninterrupted days with my woman is exactly what I need. Hell, what we both need right now.

  * * *

  As the night wears on, Kathleen spends time chatting it up with Gillian and the kids, playing on the floor. It’s as if time paused for almost three years until she re-entered my life. I feel as sappy as shit and think all is right with the world again.

  Unfortunately, Misty, who I thought would leave immediately after dinner, follows us into the living room for family time and a nightcap like she owns the place. She chats up Cooper, touching him in a way that could only be construed as flirting. I clench my teeth and try to breathe through my anger. Coop is a douche. Has always been one. Especially when he fucked Chase’s fiancée Meghan on their wedding night over a decade ago. To this day, he’s not exactly sorry. Claims he was saving our cousin from a mistake. I could just see him taking Misty to bed to spite me.

  Misty looks my way and smiles shyly, tilting her chin down while running her finger along the edge of her blouse near her almost bursting cleavage.

  What the hell is her game? Does she seriously think flirting with Coop is going to make me jealous? I groan and head toward Kat and the kids. Kat pulls herself up and into the chair and slumps back, putting her hand to her forehead.

  “My goodness, I’d forgotten what a bundle of energy kids can be when they are all together like this. So much fun though.”

  Kathleen’s smile is huge and brightens even more when Cora rushes into her, hugs her around the middle, and then climbs up onto her lap. My heart fills with pride and joy, and I pull out my cell phone and snap a couple pics of the smiling beauties. My girl loves my woman. There is nothing in the world better than that.

  Out of nowhere, Misty screeches, “Be careful with her!” She scares me, Kathleen, and most of all, Cora, who jolts back with her entire body. Kathleen tries to grab her with her injured arm, a flash of pain crossing her brow when she does, but Cora still slides right through her hold.

  I swear the entire thing happens in slow motion but is probably only a second flat.

  Cora’s little body flies backward over the arm of the chair.

  Her head hits the carpet before her neck, shoulders, and body.

  Misty rushes over and falls to her knees.

  Kat’s eyes are huge and round.

  My baby girl screaming.

  I pick up my daughter so fast you’d have thought snakes were attacking her. She is crying so hard my shirt is soaked through.

  Kat stands up and lifts a hand toward the back of Cora’s head, where I have it clutched to my chest. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. Misty slaps Kat’s hand away before she can even so much as touch a hair on the child’s head.

  “Don’t you touch my daughter. You did this! You’re not strong enough to hold a baby! I’ve seen how you can’t even lift a full glass of wine with that mangled thing, and you tried to hold my daughter. My baby! How dare you put Cora in danger. Do you hate me that much you want to hurt my only child?” she screams at the top of her lungs.

  Tears fall down Kat’s cheeks as I neglect to say a single word. I should defuse the situation, but my baby is screaming, a goose egg the size of a softball is forming on her sweet baby head, and I’m currently doing everything I can to calm her down.

  “I…I…I’m sor-ry,” Kat whispers brokenly.

  “You’re sorry? First you wiggle your way back into Carson’s life. Now my daughter’s. Can’t you see Cora needs a mother and a father?”

  That’s when my brain starts working again. “She has one. And a lot of women and men in her extended family. Kathleen included.”

  “I’m. Her. Mother.” Misty points at herself, emphasizing each word with a tap to her chest.

  I shake my head. “No one is trying to take that away from you. But when you move out, and Kathleen moves in…” I start but stop the minute I feel an ice blast of energy slam into me.

  The timing could not have been more wrong for this conversation.

  Insert foot into mouth.

  “What!” Misty cries out, clutching at her heart. “You’re kicking out your own flesh and blood for her!” She flings a shaky hand at Kathleen.

  I pass a now resting Cora off to Chase. She goes willingly. Chase has some type of voodoo magic with kids. To everyone else, he puts off the asshole-scary-business-man vibe, but with kids, he’s putty.

  “I’m not kicking out my daughter.” I lift my hands in a placating gesture. “But I have found a new apartment for you and her to live in. When Cora is not with me, that is.”

  “So, you’re kicking me out?” Her tone is so cold it could freeze hot water in an instant. “I can’t believe this. You said…you said we’d be a family.” She shakes her head back and forth wildly. “You said I was going to be safe and sound with you and our daughter. Now because of her, you’re kicking me out.” She chokes down a sob, her eyes widening. “Oh my God. You’re going to take my daughter away! And leave her with someone who will hurt her!”

  I shake my head. “I would never take Cora away from you, and Kathleen loves Cora. She’d never hurt her!” I take a huge breath and try to figure out what my next steps are.

  Misty’s hands fly into her hair and tug. “She just did! Look at my daughter. She can’t even keep her eyes open. She probably has a concussion. We should take her to the emergency room!”

  I sigh and glance at Gigi. With all her motherly wisdom, I figure she’d know.

  She shrugs. “It’s an option, but kids are made to be bouncy. Mine fall all the time. Chase, do you think she needs to go?”

  He looks down at Cora, runs long fingers over the back of her skull, and nods. “I think a checkup by our house doctor is in order. Just to be safe. Seems fine though.”

  Finally, with a task at hand, my father enters the fray. “I’ll call him. He’ll be here momentarily. The good doctor lives just down the road from us.” My father leaves the room at a clip.

  I glance around. Chloe is leaning against Coop, steely daggers leaving her gaze resulting in a direct hit for Misty. Coop is all smiles. He thinks my cock-up is funny. Asshole. I can’t wait until one day he’s in a situation. Instead of helping, I’ll be poking the beast and laughing my ass off. Fucker.

  Misty’s s
houlders slump, and she crosses her arms in what I can tell is a protective gesture.

  I really need to get this back on even ground. “See, that’s settled. Cora will be seen by our family doctor. He can be here before we could see a doctor at the emergency center anyway. Now listen, we have got to get past this. Let’s sit and talk it through, okay?” I’m hoping she’ll relax for a solid minute and see that she’s overreacting.

  I was wrong. Dead wrong.

  Misty walks right up to Kat, pulls her arm back, and slaps my woman with all her might, her body moving forward with the effort.

  “Jesus fucking Christ! Misty!” I roar, but it doesn’t stop her from running her mouth and digging a hole she can never get out of.

  “You’re a disgrace,” she sneers at Kathleen. “A homewrecker. And a horrible example of a mother. A mother protects, not harms. You remember that the next time you think about laying a finger on my baby.”

  Kat’s eyes fill with tears once more, and she turns and runs out of the room.

  Gigi follows after her. “Kat, honey, wait! It’s not your fault.”

  Misty turns so fast she reminds me of the Tasmanian Devil in the Looney Tunes cartoons I used to watch as a kid.

  “She had no right. No right to hold our daughter, Carson.” Her normally brown eyes are black as coal. Her lips are set in a menacing snarl.

  I’ve had enough.

  “Shut up,” I growl between my teeth. “Just shut up. You’re making it worse. Kathleen already feels bad enough.”

  Misty’s head jerks as she strides over to Chase and pats Cora’s back. “You saw what she did.” Her voice lowers into a lethal timbre. “She hurt our daughter. I can’t allow someone so completely clueless of her own disability to be responsible for Cora’s well-being. Absolutely not. Over my dead body,” she warns. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”

  “Me? Misty, you’re acting like I promised you marriage and more children.”

  She turns on a spiked heel. “Didn’t you?”

  “No! Not even close! I promised you safety and security. That’s what I’m giving you.”

  “How can we possibly have that when you are all the way across town in your home and Cora and I are in some stuffy apartment? Cora, away from her daddy. The only man who will always protect her!” Her voice shakes and the tears fall. Her shoulders tremble with the effort.

  Fuck. Two women crying now.

  “Misty, I’m going to take care of you and Cora. I said I would and I will. But this thing you think there is between us, you’re mistaken. We had one night over two years ago. I don’t even remember much of it!”

  Her crying turns into a full-blown sob.

  I make my way over to her and lay my hand on her shoulder. “Listen, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to work through this for the sake of our daughter. She’s what matters.”

  Instead of nodding and accepting her fate, she flings her body into my arms and locks on to me in a vise-like embrace. I have no choice but to pat her back and try to calm her down. It’s not good for Cora to see her mother and father fighting.

  Of course, that’s when Kathleen walks back into the room, Gigi holding her at the waist in what I assume is sisterly support. Gillian clocks my position with Misty and glares, her green eyes turning a fiery emerald. Kathleen, on the other hand, is worse. Her entire face goes completely blank, devoid of all emotion.

  With self-preservation in mind, I push Misty back and go to Kathleen right as she’s about to leave. I know when my girl looks like she’s about to run, and there was fire licking at her heels a moment ago.

  “Sweetcheeks.” I open my arms, and she face-plants right into my chest.

  “I’m sorry. I tried, Carson. I tried to catch her, but I just…” Her voice catches. “I just couldn’t.”

  “I know, honey. I know. Cora’s fine. She’s going to be just fine. We’ll wait and see what the doctor says. Okay? Then we’ll take her home.”

  She nods against my chest before firming her spine, wiping at her tears, and looking up at me as though the entire world has just crumbled at her feet.

  “I know you love her.”

  She nods. Another set of tears falling down her cheeks. “So much. I’d never hurt her on purpose. Never.”

  “She’s going to be okay,” I say to her as much as to myself. I put my arm around my woman and bring her into the room.

  The doctor is right behind Kathleen and me, my father quick at his heels.

  “Where’s the patient?” he says, all business.

  The doctor looks over my daughter, with Misty and me and everyone else in the room watching closely.

  “She’s fine. Just a nasty bump on the head. She’ll want to sleep on her belly. Give her some ibuprofen for the pain and keep an eye on her. If she starts to vomit for any reason or cry uncontrollably, or in reverse, act too lethargic or be hard to wake, take her to the emergency room.”

  Father and I thank the doctor and send him on his way.

  Now I have to get Kathleen, my daughter, and Misty back to my house so the three of us can watch Cora and get through the evening. Yippee. Not.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  KATHLEEN

  I adamantly refuse to go home with Carson, Misty, and Cora. Even though my heart is breaking into a million tiny pieces and I want so badly to hold Cora close, watch her sleep, and make sure she is okay, I have to let her mom and dad take care of her. Alone. It is the hardest decision I’ve made in a long time. Carson is totally mad. Mad is not the right word. He is straight-up angry. The stunt Misty pulled by coming to dinner, the after-dinner family time botched, and then laying into me for an accident I have a sneaking suspicion she caused, all sent Carson over the deep end.

  Right after the blowup, I ask Chase if he and Gigi could take me home. Of course, they agree. Carson comes after me like hell on wheels when I make it outside before him. The first thing he does is press me into the side of the shiny black limo with his body and gets into my space. Way into my personal space. Leaving zero space, in fact, and nothing but his delectable hips, abdomen, and chest plastered against mine. This is where he cages me in and dips his face down low.

  “You running?” he growls, his warm breath feathering across my cheek.

  I shake my head.

  “Words. I need the words.” His voice rumbles like an approaching storm.

  With a strength I’ve never experienced before, I wrap my arms around his waist, tilt my head up, and look right into his eyes. I’m letting him see my sadness over the night not going well, my devastation over failing Cora, and most of all, my weakness and hurt over seeing him comfort Misty. It’s all there in one look.

  “Baby…” He rubs his nose against mine. “Please.”

  I swallow down the emotion, even though I want to crumble in his arms and let him make the hurt go away. This time though, I’m going to be strong for him. “Carson, I’m not running, but you need to be with your daughter.”

  “Yes, I do. I’d like to have my woman by my side to help me through it.” His words hit my heart like a sledgehammer.

  I groan. “You have Misty. You two need to talk. Deal with this scare but also set some things straight.”

  “What I need is to get her in her own place so I can have my fucking woman in my bed again.” His tone is harsh and grating.

  A flutter of excitement ripples through me at the possessiveness and need he’s openly displaying. My body betrays me and shivers under his hold.

  “I can feel you like that idea too.” He smiles against my cheek and I close my eyes.

  “I do. Very much,” I admit.

  “Come home with me.” His plea is like a healing balm over my battered soul. Just knowing he wants me there is enough to get me through this and let him go.

  “No. We’ll be together this weekend. Maybe by then you’ll have some good news for me.”

  An animal-like sound leaves his throat. “By this weekend, you’ll be sleeping in my bed, head on my chest, legs
wrapped around my body, and my daughter will be in her fucking crib. The next morning we’ll be eating your world-famous waffles. You got me?”

  I smile and nuzzle against his neck, allowing his warmth to seep into my lips. “I got you, honey.”

  He curls his hand around my neck and slants his lips over mine. The kiss is long, deep, and so good, I lift a leg up to his waist and he grinds against me, his intent very clear.

  Someone behind us clears their throat.

  “Kids are coming,” Chase says, bringing us back to the moment.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He kisses me once, twice, and a third time. “For luck.”

  I grin. “For luck.” Then I get in the car with Gigi, Chase, and the kids. Claire crawls right up onto my lap and straddles my thighs.

  “Why you crying, Auntie Kitty?” Claire purses her lips into a cherub’s pout.

  I didn’t realize I was.

  With the back of my hand I wipe the tears away. “No reason. But you should probably get down, I wouldn’t want you to fall like Cora did.” The memory has me wincing and locking my good arm around her little waist just in case there is a shift in the car or we stop fast.

  “Kat…” Gigi whispers a warning, her voice soft and unhappy.

  Chase, however, has far less tact. “Kathleen, don’t push your niece away. Ever.” He twines his fingers with Gillian’s and hooks an arm around his son, Carter, who’s already falling asleep against his dad’s side.

  Claire smiles, leans her body forward, and lies against my chest. She puts her thumb into her mouth and nuzzles in close, making herself comfy. With an audible wet plop, she suddenly removes her thumb so she can speak.

  “Mommy says when you’re sad, you just need more love and it’s all better. I love you, Auntie Kitty. Like…a whole lot.” Then she puts her thumb back into her mouth and closes her eyes.

  “I love you too, Claire. So much, pretty girl.” I kiss the crown of her head. She sighs heavily around her thumb. For good measure, I lock my arms around her and just let her love me. Turns out my three-year-old niece is right. Remembering I’m loved does take away all the sadness.