Love Like Ours (Sugar Lake Book 3) Page 16

  He leaned in, stealing kisses between bites, one hand resting on her thigh, blazing heat through her jeans. She was sure everyone could feel their passion igniting, but as she stole a glance around the table, she realized they were all too swept up in their own conversations to notice. Except Piper, who never missed a damn thing and was giving her an I-always-knew-you-weren’t-Little-Miss-Pure look.

  Oh boy.

  That look should stop Talia cold, but when she gazed into Derek’s eyes, she was a goner again.

  By the time they finished dessert, her insides were buzzing. She wanted to drag Derek out the front door and make a beeline for her bedroom.

  “Presents!” Bridgette said, starting to move toward the living room.

  Derek touched Talia’s hand and said, “Help me carry these into the kitchen.” He handed her a plate and gathered the other dishes.

  The second they were in the kitchen, he set the dishes on the counter and swept her into his arms, bringing them out of view of the living room. His mouth covered hers, sweet, hot, and insistent. Heat streaked through her, pooling deliciously in her very best spot in between.

  “Your family adores you,” he said in a rush. “And I adore them.” His hands cruised down her body, holding her against him. “But damn, baby. There could be a million people here and you would be the only one I see. Your beautiful face, your happiness when you talk with your family, the way you look at Louie like you want a little boy of your own . . . I see all of you, Tallie girl.”

  She couldn’t believe he’d seen so much, even her thoughts about Louie. She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came.

  Louie peeked into the kitchen and said, “Auntie Piper said stop kissing so Grandma can open her presents!” He dashed toward the living room, yelling, “They weren’t kissing, but he touched her butt!”

  “Oh my God.” Talia buried her face in Derek’s chest.

  He pressed his hands to her cheeks, tilting her face up, and kissed her again, grinning so wide he made her smile, too. “I’ve got this,” he said, and tucked her against his side. They went into the living room, and he said, “You’re right, Louie. I did touch Aunt Talia’s butt. Do you know why?”

  Louie shook his head. “I think it’s what boys do when they grow up, because Bodhi’s always touching Mom’s butt, and Zane smacks Auntie Willow’s. I even saw Grandpa touch Grandma’s butt the other day, but Mom said I’m not supposed to talk about it.” His hand flew over his mouth, eyes wide.

  Everyone laughed.

  Derek motioned for Louie to come closer. “A little bird told me that you like baseball cards.”

  Louie nodded vehemently, eyes wide.

  Derek held out his hand, revealing a package of baseball cards, which he must have had hidden in his pocket. He lowered his voice and said, “Your auntie had these in her back pocket. I was just sneaking them out.”

  Talia’s heart soared at his thoughtfulness and his clever save.

  Louie gasped, snagging the package from Derek’s hand. “Thank you!” He threw his arms around Derek’s legs, hugging him tight.

  Derek tousled his hair, and Talia melted a little more.

  “Boy, he’s good,” Bridgette said softly.

  Louie climbed onto Bodhi’s lap, and Bodhi gave Derek one of those guy looks that told Talia Derek had already come into the fold of their brotherhood, which flooded her with happiness.

  After that they moved to the living room again, and her mother opened her gifts. Talia sat beside Derek on the floor near Ben as her mother gushed over a clay pencil holder that Louie had made and painted for her and a pair of pearl earrings from Talia’s father. She was overwhelmed at the romantic weekend getaway Talia and her siblings had given her and was excited to take advantage of the gift Alisha had given her, a day at a holistic spa.

  Derek handed her mother the gift bag he’d brought. “Happy birthday, Roxie. Thank you for letting me share it with you and your family.”

  “Suck-up,” Ben said with a feigned cough, which made everyone laugh.

  Derek took his teasing in stride.

  Her mother unwrapped the gift slowly, between peeks at Derek and Talia. “Oh, Derek,” she said softly, and pressed a hand over her heart. She looked at Talia. “You told him about this?”

  “What? I haven’t seen it.” Talia went up on her knees, trying to see the gift he’d kept secret.

  Her mother turned the framed picture around. It was one of Derek’s cartoons. He’d drawn their family huddled beneath a tarp, each of them wearing expressions of discomfort or frustration as oversized raindrops splashed in puddles all around them. The tarp was propped up with long tree branches, complete with leaves sticking out like waving hands in the wind. One side of the tarp was higher than the other, causing a stream of water to fall from the tarp and puddle on one side. Exaggerated rivers flowed from inside their tents. He’d drawn Piper and her father crouched by a small tepee of twigs and broken branches, their brows slanted in concentration as Piper rubbed two sticks together. Snakes of smoke danced from her efforts. Their mother was drawn sitting with her arms around Talia and her other sisters, amusement and love evident in her big, beautiful eyes. Talia had her nose in a book, Bridgette was leaning forward, doodling in the wet earth with a stick, and Willow was peering over Bridgette’s shoulder. Ben was sticking his head out from beneath the tarp, eyes closed, mouth open, drinking the rain. In a puddle at their father’s feet, Derek had drawn an oversized raindrop touching a puddle and creating an exaggerated splash of hearts arching out of the water, spelling the word family.

  “Whoa, dude,” Ben said with awe. “Did you draw that?”

  Derek humbly shrugged one shoulder, nodding. “I hope I didn’t overstep. Talia told me about the trip, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was hoping it was a fond memory and not a bad one.”

  Her mother’s eyes dampened, and she reached for Talia’s father’s hand. “It’s one of our favorite vacation memories. Thank you, Derek.”

  “That was Dad’s bonding weekend,” Piper explained. “Our punishment for having lives.”

  “No electronics,” Talia explained. “I didn’t care, but you’d think he was sending the others to jail.”

  Her father laughed. “It wasn’t a punishment. It was a reminder about family and the value of relationships beyond cell phones and the internet.”

  “Well, we sure got close that weekend,” Piper said.

  Bridgette looked at Willow and said, “Remember how loud you shrieked when the tent started leaking?”

  “Yes! And Ben ran through the puddles, splashing all of us,” Willow said with a laugh.

  “I remember chasing his butt around, trying to catch him.” Her father laughed. “And through the whole thing, Talia sat reading, happy as a lark.”

  “It doesn’t take much to have a happy life, does it, Tallie girl?” Derek said sweetly, and all eyes turned on them.

  “Tallie girl?” Willow and Piper said in unison.

  Talia felt her cheeks burn.

  Derek pulled her closer, those big blue eyes holding her gaze, and said, “My girl’s inner happiness can’t be dampened by a little rain.”

  She didn’t care who teased her.

  She was his Tallie girl, and she hoped she would be for a very, very long time.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THURSDAY MORNING DIDN’T go quite as well as Wednesday morning had. Derek and Talia awoke to the alarm on his father’s door at five thirty. Jonah was confused and agitated, and it took Derek a long time to settle him down. Thankfully, Talia remained calm, offering to help in any way she could, while giving his father the physical space he needed to relax, which Derek appreciated but also felt guilty about. Later in the morning, he sat in an armchair in the dining room playing his guitar, watching Talia grade papers at the table, while his father hunkered down over a notebook in which he was drawing. His father had started cartooning at the age of ten, when a neighbor who was an artist had noticed his talent and taken him
under his wing. Derek was glad the disease hadn’t stolen his father’s artistic abilities yet. At least not all of them. Sometimes his father would be in the middle of drawing and forget what he was doing, but in the moments when his muse was present, he seemed content. Happy, even.

  Talia glanced over, a pretty smile forming on her beautiful face. He blew her a kiss, thinking about the call he’d received about an hour ago, notifying him that a room had become available at the small assisted-living facility by their house. When his father was first diagnosed, he’d insisted on getting his affairs in order. If the diagnosis and the dark clouds that lay ahead weren’t enough to tear Derek apart in those first few weeks, the idea of one day putting his father into an assisted-living facility, a nursing home, or hospice when necessary had nearly done him in. Derek had endured lessons in strength and fortitude he’d never imagined in those early days, and many more since. Following his father’s wishes, he’d finally put Jonah on a waiting list for a room at the facility a few months ago, expecting, as they’d told him, that it could take anywhere from several months to a year or more for a room to become available. The call was anything but expected. A knot formed in Derek’s chest—he was torn between wanting a chance to have a normal relationship with Talia without having to navigate his father’s disease at every turn and wanting to be there to care for his father.

  The sound of the front door opening pulled him back to the moment.

  “Good morning, mijo. Good morning, Jonah,” Maria called out.

  Talia had Thursdays off. He was going with her to walk Molly and then they were running a few errands. Their dates were anything but spectacular, but he hoped to make it up to her sometime soon.

  “We’re in here, Maria,” Derek said.

  His father looked at Talia and said, “Eva, Maria is here.”

  “Yes, I hear that,” Talia said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be called his mother’s name.

  And man, that hit him smack in the center of his heart.

  Last night, after he and Talia had made love, they’d lain in bed talking about family, and he’d told her about how Maria had been like a second mother to him. He’d been thinking about mothers and families since seeing Louie, and he still didn’t have an answer to his worries about ending up like his father, or if it was fair to Talia to become even more involved. But as he strummed his guitar, watching her eyes narrow as her pen moved over the paper she was grading, darkness came over him at the thought of not being with her. He had enough on his plate with the impending facility visit and the weighty decision about his father’s well-being looming over him. He swallowed a dose of denial to get through one hurdle at a time.

  “How is Jonah today? And how was dinner with your—” Maria’s dark eyes danced with elation as they moved between her and Derek. “Oh! I guess dinner was very good.”

  Talia blushed, rose to her feet, and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Talia.”

  Derek set his guitar down and stood, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  Maria already had Talia in an enthusiastic embrace. “I am so happy to meet the one who woke up my mijo’s heart.” She touched Talia’s cheek and said, “He is a good boy. Please don’t hurt him.”

  “Maria . . .” Derek glanced at Talia, and then Maria’s arms came around both of them at once and she mumbled a prayer in Spanish, as he’d often heard her do over his father. He carefully pried her arms from around them and said, “You’re going to scare her off with all this mothering.”

  “No, she’s not,” Talia said sweetly. “She’s your Piper.”

  Half an hour later they arrived at Fletch’s house. He lived only a few blocks from Derek, in a small Cape Cod–style home.

  As they walked up to the front porch, he remembered the first night he’d seen her walking Molly and said, “The night I saw you crossing the street with Molly, I thought I’d conjured your image because I’d been thinking about you so much.”

  “Maybe you did. Maybe I’m just a figment of your imagination.”

  He nipped at her neck. “You’re sweet as sugar, baby. You’re no figment of my imagination.” He lowered his lips to hers, and she made a sexy sound that spurred him on to take the kiss deeper. Her kisses made all his worries fade away.

  The sound of a throat clearing snapped him back to reality, and he reluctantly broke their connection, meeting Fletch’s amused light-blue eyes. He was a handsome man, even if he was smirking at their expense.

  “How was breakfast?” Fletch asked.

  Talia rolled her eyes, pink spreading across her cheeks. “Fletch, this is Derek. Derek, Fletch.”

  “How’s it going?” Derek shook his hand as Molly pushed her nose out the door for a pet.

  “Not as good as it is for you,” Fletch teased, studying Talia’s face as they walked inside. “That pink stain on your cheeks is new, Tal. It looks good on you.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “One day you might get lucky and find a woman who makes you blush.”

  “If you tell me Derek blushes, I’m going to have to rethink approving this relationship.”

  “Approving?” Derek gathered Talia in his arms and said, “What’ve you got, all of Sweetwater and Harmony Pointe watching out for you?”

  “Damn right she does.” Fletch cocked a brow and said, “I wasn’t teasing about it looking good on you, Tal. I guess you needed a fake student in your life. What are you guys doing here, anyway? I left you a voicemail this morning letting you know I think I’m okay to walk Molly.”

  “But what if she pulls on the leash?” Talia asked. “Or if she gets free and you have to run after her?”

  “I’ll be okay, but if not, maybe I’ll take a hint from you and try to run over a pretty woman, then woo her with my intelligence and amazing physique.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it,” Derek said. “The best thing that’s ever happened to me was nearly getting run over.”

  They decided to join Fletch on the walk since they were already there. Fletch gave Derek the third degree, showing a little more grit, but Derek didn’t mind. Fletch was a nice guy with a good sense of humor, and it was obvious how close he and Talia were.

  After their walk, as Derek and Talia drove away from Fletch’s house, she said, “Is India seeing anyone?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Really? I was thinking about Piper.”

  “Piper would eat him alive.”

  Images of last night came rushing back—the two of them tangled together beneath the sheets, Talia slithering down his body and rocking his world with that wicked mouth of hers. He lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to the back of it, and said, “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE NEXT WEEK and a half flew by with a mix of laughter, late-night rendezvous, early-morning lovemaking, and a few solid doses of uncomfortable reality. Talia didn’t mind the discomfort. The more time she spent with Derek and his father and the better she got to know Maria, the more adept she became at helping with and understanding Jonah’s needs. That knowledge also helped her understand Derek’s daily life even more clearly. He and his father had already taken root in her heart, and as their lives became more connected, she found emotions that were realer and truer than anything she’d ever known. Relationships with Derek’s friends were also interwoven in this new life of hers. They’d had another potluck dinner last week at Eli’s, and though Phyllis wasn’t able to join them today for their ski adventure, they were taking so many pictures, she wouldn’t miss a thing.

  They were blessed with a perfect sunny Saturday, and thanks to a quick shopping trip with Willow and Piper last night, Talia looked amazing. Her sisters had assured her that if she looked the part of an experienced skier, she’d feel that much more confident on the slopes. They’d even watched skiing videos with her so she wouldn’t be quite as nervous. Their support meant the world to her, and she was surprised how much she’d enjoyed opening up to them about her insecurities. That wasn’t something she�
�d ever been comfortable doing before. But being around Derek and his father brought the importance of family to a new level. She’d gotten so close to her sisters lately, she’d thought about telling them about his dancing, but she didn’t want to give them a reason not to like him or even to question his integrity. She had no idea what her family would think if they knew he took off his clothes for strangers. She was falling hard for him, but she still hadn’t gone back to see him dance. It was too hard to see other women gawking at him. Even though she trusted him completely, she didn’t need to have it thrown in her face.

  As she and Derek waited in line for the J-bar lift with India and Eli, her love for him bloomed bigger, as if the sun fed her emotions. But it wasn’t the sun, the moon, or anything else. It was her beautiful man and his loving, generous heart. She was excited to try skiing again and hoped she wouldn’t make a fool of herself, but as Derek draped an arm around her and pulled her into their millionth scorching kiss of the day, she had a feeling the girls had done too good a job picking out her outfit, and looking amazing would equate to hours of weak knees.

  “How’s my sexy snow bunny?” he asked. “Nervous?”

  “A little, but it’s hard to think about that when you’re standing there looking model-hot in that beanie.”

  “The first time I wore it with you, I ended up lying on top of you. I have high hopes.” He waggled his brows and then kissed her again, slower and sweeter and hot enough to melt the slopes.

  She’d been spending nights at his place, and they’d been satisfying their every desire, but it never seemed to be enough. Would she ever get used to the magnetism between them?

  “Hey, kissy-face couple! Turn around and let me get a pic.” India held up her phone as they both looked over their shoulders, and she took a picture. “Eli!” she called out. He stood in line in front of them, wearing the same hat he’d had on at dinner, only now it had a string tied beneath his chin. He turned for the picture, flashing a cheesy smile.