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“Me too. Love you two. Sleep well,” Tulsi said as Mia and Sawyer turned away from the fire and her thoughts continued to tumble, tangling her heart into tighter knots.
On the one hand, she’d been lying to Mia for years, so it shouldn’t be that unthinkable to consider lying to Pike. But her lies to Mia had been different. Tulsi had truly believed she was doing what was best for Clem by living that lie. If she lied to Pike, she would only be doing what was best for herself, protecting herself from the fallout that would rain down if she told the Sherman siblings the truth.
In the long run, she might be able to make Pike understand—he realized he’d played his part in the death of their relationship—but Mia never would. For years Mia had stood by her, pitching in and helping out because she believed Clementine’s father was a deadbeat who wanted nothing to do with his daughter.
If she realized that Tulsi had known Pike was Clem’s father all along, Mia would hate her.
Mia doesn’t hate anyone, not since her crazy ex-boyfriend got what he deserved. If you beg her forgiveness, she’ll eventually forgive you. That’s what it means to be family.
Tulsi’s gut said she should trust in her love for Pike and Mia—and their love for her—to carry them all through the hard process of bringing the truth to light, but she couldn’t help thinking about her friend Marisol. Marisol had made a mistake, never intending for it to hurt or embarrass her family, but it didn’t matter. Her father had still disowned her and cast her out. Now, even years later, only one of her brothers would talk to her on the phone. Marisol had lost almost everyone who had once called her family and it didn’t look like those wounds would ever heal. Before Marisol and Bubba met and fell in love, she had been completely alone in the world.
The thought made Tulsi shiver, despite the heat warming her outstretched fingers. She would never make it alone. She wasn’t that type of person. That’s why she’d put up with years of Daddy’s painful jabs and disappointed looks. She needed her father, even if he wasn’t perfect, even if he didn’t love her the way she wished he would. She needed her reserved, soft-spoken mother, she needed her angry, hard-to-get-along-with sister, and she needed her best friends and her daughter most of all.
Clementine was only six years old, but she was a brilliant kid who felt things as deeply as Tulsi did. If the truth came out, Clementine would realize that Tulsi had kept her father from her. She would realize that she’d done without something all her friends had because her mother had lied to the people she loved. Clem would always love her—Tulsi had no doubt about that—but this was the kind of news that might dull the adoration in her daughter’s eyes.
Tulsi couldn’t bear for that to happen. If Clem ever looked at her with the same mixture of disappointment and distaste that Dale did, Tulsi would lose her mind. It would kill something vital inside of her, something she needed in order to get up every morning and fight to be the best mother and person she could be. And that would be no good for Clem or anyone else.
This see-sawing had to end now. She either had to tell Pike she’d changed her mind and send him back to St. Louis alone or she had to lock the truth away deep inside and do her best to forget about it.
“Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.” Pike’s soft voice came from just behind her chair.
Tulsi turned, looking up to see the dying flames flickering across his impossibly handsome face. When she saw the love and worry mixing in his eyes, she realized there was only one choice to make. It wasn’t just Clem she needed to protect, it was this wonderful man who had all but ripped his heart from his chest and handed it to her for safe-keeping. Pike had always been romantic, but he wasn’t the kind to beg. The way he’d humbled himself today left no doubt in her mind that he was in every bit as deep as she was. Whether they were soul mates, meant to be, or just addicted to each other, it didn’t matter. Neither of them was ever going to find forever with anyone else and they deserved that. They deserved love and happiness after all the years of pain.
“No,” Tulsi whispered. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Then let’s go,” Pike said, reaching for her hand. “I’ve got a lantern and my sleeping bag is already laid out by the river.”
Tulsi rose from her chair and took his hand, threading her fingers through his as they moved quietly across the campground. This was their chance to reclaim everything they’d lost and she’d be a selfish monster to take that away from Pike, or herself. Yes, she’d made a mistake, but she’d suffered for it. She’d been lonely for Pike for so long that she’d become numb to the misery in that corner of her heart. It wasn’t until he touched her yesterday that she’d realized that the wound from losing him had never healed. Even now, when they stopped by Pike’s sleeping bag and he set the lantern down and drew her into his arms, there was as much pain as pleasure in the embrace.
“I’ve missed you so much.” Tulsi wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, pressing her face into the soft fabric of his tee shirt and inhaling his Pike smell, that amazing smell that was home and happiness and heartbreak all wrapped together. “I can’t believe you’re mine again.”
“All yours. And I’m going to make you believe it,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as his big hands skimmed up and down her back. “I promise.”
“I wish you could make me forget, too.” Tulsi swallowed hard as she tilted her head to look up at him in the near dark. “I was thinking by the fire… All this time I’ve blamed you for shutting me out after that fight with your dad, but I did the same thing. I was hurt and scared and instead of telling you why, I shut you out and lost the most important person in my life.”
“This is the past thing again, Tuls,” Pike said gently. “I thought we agreed we had to leave that behind. Beating ourselves up isn’t going to change anything. We just have to move on and know that this time we’re going to fight like hell to hold on to what we’ve got.”
Tulsi reached up to cradle his face in her hands. “I will. I swear I will. But I need you to promise me something first.”
“Anything,” he said, turning his head to press a kiss to her palm.
“Promise me we start fresh tonight and nothing either of us did before matters,” she whispered. “Promise me, Pike, and I’ll never mention the past again.”
“I swear it,” he said in a strong, steady voice. “We start right here, right now, and when we look back on our lives fifty years from now, neither one of us is going to regret giving each other a clean slate. The only thing we’ll regret is holding on to things we can’t change.”
“I’d rather hold on to you.” Tulsi pressed up on tiptoe, twining her arms around his neck.
“And I’d rather hold on to you. Forever.”
As Pike’s tongue slipped between her lips and his hands cupped her bottom and his hard, muscled body pressed against hers, Tulsi let go of everything but the man in her arms. She let go of the pain and the hurt. She let go of her worry and doubt and embraced the warm, delicious feeling spreading through her chest, promising everything was going to be okay.
As her clothes fell away, her fears did the same, until she was naked and weightless in Pike’s arms, softly crying out his name as he gripped her hips in his hands, guiding her down on top of his erection. Tulsi impaled herself on his hot, rigid length with a sigh of gratitude and delight, bracing her hands on his strong chest as she began to move.
“You’re so beautiful,” Pike said in a hushed, reverent voice. He cupped her breasts in his hands, teasing her nipples with his fingers, making Tulsi’s breath come faster and her tempo grow more urgent. “Lean down, I want to taste you.”
Tulsi leaned forward, but instead of kissing her, Pike bent until his lips were level with her breasts. He pulled one rigid tip and then the other into his mouth, suckling her with deep rhythmic pulls as his hands continued to urge her on. Heat flowed down Tulsi’s thighs and her blood pumped faster, faster, until her back arched and she came with a cry, her body pulsing in tight, delicious waves around Pike’s cock.
Before she found her way back down to earth, Pike rolled them over in the sleeping bag and hooked her right knee over his elbow, shifting the angle of his penetration until he hit that electric place deep inside of her. In moments, he had driven her back to the brink and by the time he came inside her—pulsing so hard he drew out her own release into one long, perfect, head-spinning tumble through space—Tulsi’s bones felt like they’d dissolved. She was nothing but warmth and pleasure, a puddle of happiness in Pike’s arms.
