Luscious (Topped #1)(57)

Sean had done those things? He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t answer, simply shook his head.

“Forgiveness,” Sean said, his voice hitching with emotion. “She gave me forgiveness and a future and then she gave me a family. None of it could have happened without her forgiveness. This little girl doesn’t exist without the boundless heart of her mother. Is your frame going to be empty, Macon? Will your anger fill it up or will you simply leave it on a desk utterly devoid of life?”

For the first time since that moment when he realized she’d lied, something cracked inside him. Exactly like that split he’d put in his boss’s desk. He could feel the tear.

If he went back to New York, he would lose everything that made him who he was today. He could see his future so clearly. He would work for his father. He could find a society wife who would keep putting off kids until they were too old to have them. He would be trotted out now and again as the war hero, but no one would ask him what he wanted. His future would be set and there wouldn’t be a petite sprite of a woman who walked next to him so she could catch him if he fell. Yeah, he knew what she was doing.

“I wouldn’t return her calls because I didn’t know how to tell her.” She wasn’t alone in the blame. She shouldn’t have lied, but had he forced her hand? “She wanted to know how her brother died and I couldn’t tell her. I should never have told her.”

Sean got up and walked around the desk, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve been where the two of you are. I’ve watched my friends die. I’ve had to rebuild my life from scratch. And I’ve had to stand back and pray the only woman I ever loved could find a way to forgive me.”

“You never were the reason for your friend’s death.”

“Of course I was. I was in the military. I had plenty of friends die and I always thought it was my fault.”

He didn’t understand. “PFC Rowe…”

Sean interrupted. “Took his own life out of either unbearable pain or because he knew you had a better chance without him. We can’t know which so give the man the benefit. He was a hero to the end. He sacrificed so you could live. He sacrificed so you could take care of the sister he loved. He might not have known it at the time, but that was how it worked out. You didn’t make a mistake by telling her. You made a mistake when you didn’t tell his mother.”

“I couldn’t. How could she not look at me and ask why I didn’t spare her son?”

“Maybe, but maybe she would have been proud to raise a child with so much honor. I have a daughter and I want everything in the world for her, but my job as a parent is to raise a good human being. Carla Rowe did that. She seems to have two of them. A woman like that would have seen the beauty in what her son had done. She would have found peace with it. Honor her. Honor him. Find your peace.”

He was aware of the tears in his eyes. His father would have told him it wasn’t manly, but Sean Taggart squeezed his shoulder. “How do I do that?”

“You talk to Allyson. You give yourself time. You do not go back to a life that you hated. Do you love her?”

That was an easy question to answer. He’d questioned a lot in the last week, but never this. “Yes.”

“Do you honestly believe that she loves you?”

A much harder question. It was the one that haunted him, made him surly and angry with everyone around him. “I don’t know. I don’t see why she would.”

“Ask her,” Sean urged. “But you have to let go of the past first or you won’t believe a word she says. Come to Sanctum with me tonight and talk to her. Tell her you won’t allow her to play with Ten.”

That was the best idea he’d heard in a long time. “I f*cking won’t and I’m going to have a talk with Ian. He starts farming my sub out and he won’t see another freaking pie again for the rest of his life.”

Sean grinned. “I believe you’ll discover my brother carefully laid this plan out to get his pie maker back to form. He says your desserts have gone to hell since you broke up with Ally. He can’t put his finger on it, but they’re missing something.”

Macon knew what they were missing. And there was only one way to get it back.





CHAPTER TEN





Ally burped Kala with a soft pat of her hand against the baby’s back. Or was it Kenzie? She gently pulled the baby’s left ear back and sure enough there was a tiny mark behind there. Kala. At least Big Tag had switched from a black to a pink Sharpie.

“You doing all right?” Laurel stepped into the room. She was a lovely woman in her late twenties. She looked a little like her brother, Dr. Will Daley. She had a pack of diapers in her hand.

Ally nodded. “They’re all sweet kids. I like watching them. It’s peaceful.”

Laurel’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right? It might seem peaceful now. You wait until Aidan and Tristan fight over a toy. Or Carys. I’m pretty sure those two are actually fighting over Carys. They’re like alpha babies. It’s weird. I hope Kenzie and Kala don’t turn into warrior princesses before my time of servitude is over.”

Ally looked at the other woman as she placed Kala in the bassinette she shared with her sleeping sister. The twin girls immediately cuddled up like a pair of puppies and slept. “You don’t like kids?”