Episode 89

Episode 89

Practice Makes Perfect

JACK

I poured a couple glasses of red wine as Summer got TJ settled into the toddler crib provided by the resort. The Johansen's didn't spare a single dime, booking all of us in lavish suites overlooking a pristine snowy landscape and the mountains beyond. Based on the weather report, we wouldn't have much luck seeing the northern lights tomorrow, but the forecast for the next night looked clear. Due to that information, we decided to let everyone have a night to themselves. The ladies had plans to go shopping in the town tomorrow during the day and we men were going to take TJ to play in the snow and swim in the resort's heated pool. Then we'd all meet up for a family dinner.

Before Summer put TJ down, he'd asked about his mother again. Each and every time he called for his mother, my heart ached. The agony of losing her was always hiding under the surface, and it felt like any little thing made it swell and throb painfully. A consistent heartburn I couldn't shake.

A pair of slim arms wrapped around my waist from behind as Summer pressed her front to my back. She rubbed her face between my shoulder blades. "He makes me so happy and so sad at the same time," she said, her words muffled against the fabric of my sweater.

I turned around, shifting her to my front where I hugged her fully. "Me too."

"It's brutal when he asks about Ellen. And when that bottom lip starts to quiver after I have to tell him Mommy isn't here…" She sucked in a ragged breath.

"It's the same for me. Just when I think I'm making progress, smiling and laughing, I remember that I'll never hear Ellen laugh, and I'm devastated all over again. I'd just come to terms with Troy's loss and now Ellen. When will it stop?"

"Hurting?"

I nodded.

"Oh honey, I don't think it ever stops hurting. When you love someone like you did Troy and Ellen, the pain of their loss never goes away. I believe it morphs into something else. The sharp edge of grief eventually fades, but a dull knife still cuts and so does loss. It creeps up on you. Just when you think you have a handle on it, a reminder pops up. A scent they shared, a song they adored, a good memory you had with them, maybe even a bad one, but that's all part of the process of letting go. Of being able to eventually think about the people you lost as a beautiful part of your own journey and what they brought to enrich it, instead of the pain of no longer having them. But that process takes time."

"You make it sound so natural, but none of this feels natural. It feels like my sister and brother were robbed of a beautiful life together with their son."

"Jack, you're going to spend years and years missing Ellen and Troy. As you should. They hold a big piece of your heart, and always will. They deserve all your tears and sadness because you loved them. Right now, you're still angry. And that's perfectly okay. I'm angry on your and TJ's behalf. But we both realize that this is our new reality. I know you're edging toward acceptance, especially by jumping into raising TJ. Another step in that direction will be putting Ellen and Troy to rest together. Once that is done, we'll find a routine that works for the three of us. Let's just take it all one day at a time for now."

"My fiancée… Compassionate, beyond beautiful, and wise. How did I get so lucky?" I murmured against the top of her head.

She shrugged then eased her upper body back, her nose crinkled. "Ouch, what's this lump I just rubbed my cheek against," she palmed my chest.

A wave of misery flooded my entire body as I dug at the neck of my shirt and pulled out a slim chain. Two wedding rings dangled heavily at the end.

Summer looped the chain through one finger and inspected the rings.

"Are these…"

"Troy and Ellen's wedding rings? Yeah." I slumped against the kitchen counter as the weight of two precious heirlooms slid against her fingers while she inspected them. One was a single diamond perched above a dainty gold band; the other was a larger, thicker, textured style men's ring.

"The funeral home gave them to you?"

I cleared my throat. "Ellen apparently wore Troy's around her neck. I didn't know what to do with them, so I added hers to his and put them around my neck for now. I'm sure TJ will want them down the road."

"That's really sweet, you keeping them together like that."

"Their love was unreal," I smiled solemnly. "They wouldn't be happy if they weren't together."

"Yeah?" She reached for the untouched glass of wine and took my hand. I grabbed my glass and followed her over to the fireplace where the flames were already warming the entire room. Summer tugged on my hand as she sat on the cushy sectional in front of the hearth. "Have a seat and tell me about them. We've talked a lot about how they left this Earth, but not much about how they lived. I want to know Troy and Ellen through your eyes."

She pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting sideways. I followed her lead and got comfortable next to her, one of our knees touching.

"Well, I told you we were childhood friends. We met in the orphanage first, then added Erik to the mix through our school connections. Ellen was at the girls' orphanage and Troy and I at the boys. Since we went to the same school, we all became fast friends. Troy was gone for Ellen from the moment he laid eyes on her."

"Total insta-love, my favorite romance genre," she replied with a dreamy gaze.

"I'm not sure I'd describe it like that, but he certainly would. Ellen was a harder nut to crack. Like most orphans, trust didn't come easy for us. But Troy was determined to prove his intentions. From the time they held hands to their first kiss, he swore to Erik and me that he was going to marry her. His confidence never swayed, not even for a moment. We thought he was girl-crazy, but he would just tell us he was crazy for Ellen. No one rose above her. She was the stars, the sky, the sun and the moon. We were mere humans compared to her."

"When did they get married?"

"Right out of high school. The second they could, they did. The Johansen's helped plan a small affair, being the only nurturing adults in our lives. They even let all of us live with them after we aged out of the orphanage. Erik and I went off to university, and Troy went to flight school while Ellen attended community college. Erik got heavily into the science behind brewing beer while getting a degree in business. I went further, going for my masters. By the time I finished, Erik's beer business had blown up. He needed help, and I needed a job. Together, we grew the company year by year. Eventually we were so big we needed a regular pilot. That's where Troy came in."

"Sounds like the plot to a movie. And TJ?"

With that question, my smile stretched so large my jaw ached. "Ellen had been feeling under the weather for a couple months. Every time we saw her, she looked pale and, frankly, rather gaunt. Erik and I reamed Troy. We told him we knew something was wrong with her, and we were upset they were hiding it from us. We were truly worried. We thought maybe she was very ill. Turned out she was pregnant."

Summer sighed merrily and pressed her free hand to her cheek, her elbow braced on the back cushion. "How did they tell you?"

"It was so cheesy." I laughed out loud, remembering the moment like it was yesterday.

Summer wiggled in her seat. "Tell me!"

I grinned, took a sip of wine and thought back to that night. "Well, we were at Sunday dinner, something we'd done for years. If everyone was around, we'd eat a meal together on Sundays. That day, Ellen was pushing food around her plate instead of eating it. Again, the woman looked like shit but didn't seem unhappy in the least."

"Because they had a secret." Summer waggled her eyebrows.

I chuckled at her eagerness. "At one point, I put my fork down and stood up in the middle of dinner, demanding that they either share what was going on, or I was leaving and not coming back. It was an empty threat, but I'd had it with whatever secret they were keeping."

"Ellen told me to sit my ass down and wait. Then she went over to the Christmas tree—it was a couple weeks before the holiday—and grabbed two brightly packed boxes and handed them to us."

"What was in the present?" Summer breathed, caught up in the story.

"At first, I didn't want the present. I wanted to know if my best friend was sick. Ellen pointed at the present and said our answers were in there. Both Erik and I ripped open the packages and found a picture frame with a black image and a blurry white blob. The frame was garish with little plastic jewels glued all over it. The words "Best Uncle" had been painted on the top."

"Oh my god! That is sooooooo cute."

"Neither Erik nor I had any idea what we were looking at, never having seen an ultrasound picture before. We stared at the picture like a couple of idiots until Erik was brave enough to ask what we were looking at."

Summer started to laugh, covering her pretty mouth as she did so.

"Ellen pointed at the frame and told us to read the words. When we still looked at her like idiots again…"

Summer was chortling and snorting through her laughter.

"Ellen finally put us out of our misery stating they were pregnant, and that we were going to be uncles. She explained that the image was the sonogram of the baby. They had wanted to wait to surprise us at Christmas but realized pretty quickly that we did not miss how sick Ellen had become."

"That's awesome," Summer said.

"I still have that picture sitting on my desk in my office in Oslo. I'll show it to you sometime."

"I'd love that. And to see your workplace."

"Speaking of work, everything okay in California?"

Summer pressed her lips together and looked over at the fire. "Mmm hmm," she said without looking me in the eye.

" Solskinn , you don't ever need to withhold the truth from me. Whatever it is, you can always tell me."

She sighed deeply and sipped on her wine, while staring at the crackling flames. "Dad said there were some problems back home but nothing he couldn't handle from here with the team we have in place."

"Oh, what kind of problems?"

"Some activists picketing in front of the road to our farm."

"That doesn't sound good."

She ran her hand through her golden hair. "No, it doesn't, but it happens every year or two. There's still a major stigma about the recreational use of cannabis, even though it's been legal for years in California. Usually, it's just a small group of religious right-wingers that believe we're growing the devil's drugs. Eventually they burn out after a few days of screaming their views, receiving no attention from the media or us, and then everything goes back to normal."

"And this time is different?"

She bit into her bottom lip. "Apparently a couple of them jumped the fences at night and trashed one of our smaller outside gardens by pouring some kind of chemical over the plants. We lost over two hundred plants before they were caught."

I sucked in a sharp breath. "Is that going to be a steep hit to the business financially?"

Summer shrugged one shoulder.

"Do you not know?"

"Honestly, Jack, I don't really care right now."

That had me abruptly sitting upright and paying close attention. So much so, I set my glass of wine on the coffee table and grabbed hers and placed it next to the other one. Then I clasped both of her hands in mine.

"Summer, what do you mean you don't care? This sounds like a major problem that needs your attention as the owner. Or at the very least, your father's."

She shook her head. "I know I should care. I really should. But after what happened with Ellen and my new role as a guardian…as a mother to TJ…I find I'm just not as interested in Humble Buds as I was before all of this."

Fear, as nasty and ugly as a pus-filled wound rippled through me. "Summer, you cannot start giving up things that matter to you because our circumstances have changed."

"I can't?" She tipped her head to the side. "Honey, I already have. I spoke to my father at length over the past week. The things I find important have shifted. My job now is to protect, nurture, and love TJ and you."

"That doesn't mean you have to give up your dream," I blurted, uncertainty making the hair on my forearms rise.

"I'm not giving up my dream. I just realized my dream has evolved into something new. Now when I picture myself, I don't see myself grinding away day in and day out on the farm. Of course I'll spend time there and work part-time, but until he's in school, I see myself with TJ. Showing him the world. Making a home for us the way my parents did. You see, my mother and father didn't give up anything when they had us. They did change though. Mom lost interest in the things that took her away from me and Autumn. Instead, she spent her time teaching us and building memories. She contributed to the family the way she and my dad agreed upon. He'd make the money; she'd keep the house and home running."

"Summer, I need you to understand that, as my wife, you will have all the help you could ever need. We can hire a nanny, a cook, a housekeeper. Whatever is necessary in order for us to have our careers and our family."

"I know that, Jack. I do. I can afford all of those things myself, but I don't want them." She lifted her hand and cupped my scruffy cheek. "And I will find a healthy balance between work and family, but you and TJ need me present right now. I'm not going to have a stranger raise him. He needs us more than anything, and I'm happy to be here. What I will need, is your expertise in hiring a CEO. One that can take Humble Buds where it should go, while realizing that my dad and I are the brains behind the company's success. We handle the plants and will never give up that portion of it. I can do the work I love, with TJ by my side or with him hanging out with Grandma while I knock out a few hours here and there. It's literally her dream to watch her grandkids while her daughters build their lives. And I imagine, if we're here in Norway, we'll have plenty of backup with the Johansens too."

This woman was a living dream come true. I don't know what I did to deserve her, but she's everything I could have ever wanted. Still, this is a big decision, one that shouldn't be made lightly.

"I want you to keep thinking about it. I can step down from Johansen Brewing too. Between the two of us, we have enough money to live multiple lifetimes. Neither of us needs to work, but we're both committed to these companies because it's part of who we are."

"And it's our legacy to TJ and our future children."

Future children.

At the talk of having more kids with Summer, my heartbeat thrummed like a base drum against my chest. Imagining her rounded in pregnancy, TJ clinging to her leg, not only filled me to bursting with love, but also lust. Plowing into Summer's gorgeous body, impregnating her…

"Fuck," I stood abruptly and adjusted my hardening shaft.

Summer's eyebrows rose up toward her hairline as her gaze took in my not so little problem. "Looks like someone likes the idea of having kids with me." She got up onto her knees and licked her lips. "Should we try right now? The odds are not in our favor yet, but practice makes perfect."

I stood there like a raging bull staring down a matador waving a red flag. My fingertips throbbed with the desire to touch her when I watched her breath hitch, her pupils dilate, and her nipples become erect against the sexy little cotton nightgown she worn.

Before I could say a single word, she stood up, lifted the hem of her nightgown and pulled it over her head. She was blissfully naked underneath. Her skin glowed against the flickering firelight.

"I'm getting cold. You gonna stare at me all night or come warm me up?"

My gaze danced from her perfect full breasts, rounded stomach, nipped in waist and curvy hips. She was the sun, pure radiance, and light. I was the darkness that sometimes eclipsed that light, but never completely, because she was so bright, her brilliance would always shine through.

"I'm going to spend a lifetime loving you, Summer."

"A lifetime is too short. I'm shooting for eternity. Now get over here and show me how good eternity is going to feel being with you."

"My pleasure, solskinn ."