AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Kinder Services won’t be able to protect them, and they probably won’t care what the kids want when you apply for custody, either. And I can’t really help you with that. They’ll place them with the next of kin and getting custody will be a long, hard battle. I’m not meaning to be a downer or anything, but that’s—”
“I don’t think that will be a problem. They only have two living relatives as far as I know, a distant cousin and an older half sister.” She lifted her face to his and gave him a hard look, as if she were searching for the answer to an unasked question.
“How much older, because if she’s not of legal age—”
“I’ll be thirty-one next month,” Bella said, smiling at him in that way that made him feel like he was going to lose his balance and never recover.
“You’re kidding me.” But it made sense. It was the eyes; all three had the same deep blue eyes.
“My mom had me when she was only fifteen. Carl was sixteen.”
“So they didn’t live happily ever after.”
“Hardly. I don’t think they even saw each other more than once or twice. My mom didn’t really go into detail,” Bella said with a sigh. “All I know is that he married his wife almost twenty years later and they had Hansel and Gretel. I didn’t even know about it until my mom died two years ago. She left me a journal. I guess she felt I deserved to know the truth. I’d always asked who my father was, but she wouldn’t tell me.”
“Some people don’t deserve to have kids. I’d say she made the right decision,” Heath said, tempted to share his own personal history, something he’d never done outside of his therapist’s office.
“I understand why she didn’t want to tell me, but I wish I’d known earlier, for Hansel and Gretel’s sake.” Bella pulled away from him and started cleaning up the dishes from the kids’ snack. “I wish I could have done something for them sooner, could have really helped them.”
“You are helping them. You can’t worry about what could have happened, only what’s happening now. Otherwise you’ll make yourself crazy.” Heath screwed the lids back on the peanut butter and jelly. Peach jelly. He’d never heard of it before. Damned good stuff. Looked homemade too.
Just another reason he wanted to keep Bella around.
“Actually you’re helping them now,” Bella said with a smile.
“I’ll be on it first thing tomorrow. Unless you have a phone I can use,” Heath said, enjoying the feeling of closeness generated by cleaning up together.
What was it called? Domesticity? Yeah, that was it. Never thought he’d be into getting domesticated, but if Bella was part of the package, then he was ready to enlist.
“No, we still don’t have phone service past the train station,” Bella said. “It was another thing that was on the royal to-do list that seems to have gotten lost in the transition between monarchs.”
“Stupid monarchs.”
“Amen.”
“Are you religious?” Heath asked, amazed at how little he knew about the woman he was falling in love with.
“Not particularly.”
“So I guess you wouldn’t particularly care if I slept in your bed tonight? I mean, seeing as I’m trapped in Deepweeds until the train comes tomorrow morning.”
He turned her around, trapping her between his body and the kitchen counter. He’d had a hard-on for Bella from the second he saw her. He couldn’t wait to get closer, deeper, to pin her against anything that would stand still and show her how crazy she made him.
“You want to sleep in my bed?” Her breathing grew faster as her breasts came into contact with his chest and her mouth tilted up toward his.
“More than I want to breathe. In fact, I’ll hold my breath until you say yes.”
“Very mature.” She laughed. “I want to say yes, but I can’t. At least not right now.”
“What if I keep holding my breath, will that change your mind?” he teased, still holding his breath.
What had he expected? He’d already had more good fortune than one man could expect in a day. He shouldn’t push his luck, but by God, his cock throbbed just thinking about pushing inside her, watching her eyes change color as he rode her until she came hard around him.
“No. Now stop.” She laughed again and gave him the lightest punch in the belly.
“Okay.” Heath let the air rush out of his lungs and tried to smile. He knew she was tired and that things were moving fast between them, but he couldn’t figure out what he had done to make her change her mind.
“Don’t give up,” she whispered, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Just try again in a month or so.”
