Chapter 35

35

He heard the sounds of his son. Gene stood. It was only an hour or so after he’d carried Chantal to the guest room. Calvin must have had a nightmare. He’d almost expected it, after what had happened to Calvin’s best friend.

Gene headed out into the hall. He heard people in the living room. One look into his son’s room told him everything he needed to know.

Odds were it was Genesis out there. She had taken on the role of mother with Calvin since she’d moved home after the storm. That was something he would always be grateful for. His sister had the best heart of anyone he knew. He hoped the man who finally convinced her to marry him understood what a gift he’d be getting when he got Genesis. If he didn’t, well... Gene would have to kick his ass until the guy did. It was what a good older brother did.

But it wasn’t Genesis in the living room.

It was Chantal holding Calvin as she rocked. His son was sound asleep in her arms, like he’d been there a thousand times.

A surge of emotion hit him at the sight.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since everything had changed between them. That was all. Maybe that wasn’t quite long enough to know, but he felt it. Felt it more certainly than he had ever felt it for any other woman. It felt right. Like this was what he was meant to do.

How he was meant to live out the remainder of his days.

The only fly in the ointment—Chantal’s pain-in-the-ass older brother was right there, too. Genesis had brought Chad home with her from the hospital like a stray puppy. And now he stood between Gene and the woman he adored.

But Chad was easily run off.

Then it was just Gene and the woman he wanted. And his sleeping son between them.

He leaned down, and scooped her up gently. She gave a tiny gasp and shifted Calvin. "What are you doing?"

"This chair Grady made years ago—it’s big enough for two. Three, if one of us is pretty small." And he settled in, before pulling Chantal down onto his lap. He grabbed the blanket his mother had knit decades ago and covered his sleeping son carefully. He kissed Chantal on her temple. "You feel okay?"

"I’m good. I came out of the bathroom and he was standing there. We came downstairs looking for cookies. I was only allowed to have two. He told me I can’t ever have too much sugar stuff because it makes me special sick, Gene. Calvin said he had to take care of me, too." Her hand covered Calvin’s head and she kissed him. "He’s wonderful. Beautiful."

"That he is. And he’s mine; I’ll love him until the day I die."

"I used to want two or three."

"Used to?"

"I have to be practical now. I’m thirty. I’m diabetic. And I don’t know if you know this, but I haven’t exactly had a raging social life in the last five years."

"Neither have I. But... we can still... talk about kids, right?" He kept his words low, conscious of the weight of them now. "Because what we did tonight... it will never be a casual thing between us. I want more than casual. I want what George and Ronnie have. And your wingnut oldest brother and that gorgeous blonde terror of his. And what our parents all have. I want that more than anything else, and I want it with you."

He heard the little breath she pulled in. He felt the soft weight of her on his lap. He felt the just damned perfection of having this woman and no other in his arms. "I don’t want to ever let you go again."

She turned her head, her eyes big in the light from the window. "Gene..."

"I mean that, Chan. I don’t want to ever let you go again."

She leaned forward, her arms tight around his son. And she kissed Gene. Softly.

Perfectly.

"We can figure this out together," she whispered. "I’m afraid, but... not enough to run."

"I’d hunt you to the ends of the world if you even tried. I care about you, Chantal Fields. And I always will. I think maybe I could have years ago. But I got scared. Scared of what life really meant, so I started doing stupid things. Maybe even longer than that. Probably about the time we almost lost my sister. It took me a while to get past that. To understand that I couldn’t have changed a damned thing that day. But figuring out what that meant for my life since... well, I’ve been a bit slow at that. Until the day I almost lost you out there. And I realized what I was missing. Now... I want to spend the rest of my life making up for the days I could have had you before."