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“My real dad lives in Florida, last I heard.”
“What…happened?” he ground out when she hit a particularly tight spot.
“I guess family life wasn’t for him. He took off when I was five. I don’t remember him much. I only remember my mom completely redecorating the house we lived in at the time. She let me paint my bedroom pink, and I’d thought it was so cool, having a pink room and my mom all to myself.”
“And your stepdad?”
She let herself smile, even though there was some deep sadness behind it. “Deadhead Fred. He was a great guy, total hippie goofball with long hair and a fantastic laugh. He used to take us camping and fishing—”
“And to terrifyingly dark caverns.”
“That too,” she said, surprised Cole remembered. She shouldn’t have been. He remembered everything. “It always seemed like Fred and my mom were happy together. But then he got a job out of town when I was Ian’s age, and that was that. I guess dealing with a grumpy teenager wasn’t how the wind blew him.” The words lodged themselves sideways in her chest. “I’ve talked to him a few times since then, but I haven’t seen him in years.”
“You don’t think Fred leaving was your fault, do you?” Cole asked, looking back over his shoulder at her again, a tiny pillow line creasing his cheek.
“I definitely did at the time.” While she slid her knuckles up his back, she wondered if she still did. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility. People leave over difficult things like that, like having to help raise a hormonal teenager who isn’t theirs.”Or help take care of another person’s parent.“It happens.”
Settling back down on his pillow, he said, “I guess that’s true. Both my parents checked out once I got old enough to start talking back. Did Linda ever tell you what actually happened with Fred? I bet there’s a story there.”
“No. She never talks about either of them. Even before she started having memory problems, she never mentioned them.”
“What is it with boomers?” Cole asked. “They’d all rather sleep in a bed made of live snakes than open up about anything.”
“They’re allergic to it,” she said. “The only way my mom ever tells me anything is after half a bottle of wine.”
“Speaking of dads, you said Paul wasn’t Ian’s, right?”
Running both hands down the expanse of his back, she said, “No, definitely not. I’ve actually never met Ian’s dad.”
“Huh. That must have made the conception challenging.”
She laughed. “I used a sperm donor.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I’ve always wanted a kid, and I was thirty-five and not getting any younger or any less single. I thought about asking a few of the men in town if they’d be willing to donate, but that seemed like it might have turned into too much of a hot tangle. So I found a donor I liked, and I just…did it.”
Smiling into the pillow, he said, “I love that.”
She set back in on the tight bands between his shoulder blades. “All I know about Ian’s donor is that he was thirty-two at the time, had blue eyes and brown hair, and was a concert pianist.”
“Strong genes,” Cole groaned as she dug her knuckles in. “Mira, your hands are magic.”
“Yeah?”
“World class. It’s almost like you knead for a living.”
“I’m glad you like it, but I’ve saved the best part for last.” Tugging gently on the towel still wrapped around his waist, she said, “Hips up.”
Without hesitation, he raised his hips so she could slide the towel out from under him and drop it to the floor.
“Unngh,” he grunted when she put her kneading skills to use on his adorably round butt.
“Too much?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Don’t stop.”
She didn’t, sliding her hands down his hips, up and over the curves of his ass, taking time to study the way his low back dipped, the way his shoulders fanned out, the tattoo of a bird skull over his right shoulder blade. “Is that your only tattoo?”
