Color of Forgiveness (21 page)

“Do you want to get married?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I wouldn’t mind it.
Someday…”

Dylan frowns as he looks down at her. She
has a lot of things to think about. If she stays with Dylan, she
might have to give up her dreams of marriage and children. Is she
willing to make that kind of sacrifice for the man she loves? She’s
not so sure.

* * *

Dylan refills Myra’s wine glass. “You ready
for dessert?” he asks.

“Dessert? Absolutely.”

“Go grab your coat. We have to go outside
for it.”

“
Okay…
this should be
interesting.”

After slipping her coat on and grabbing her
wine glass, she follows Dylan out the back door onto the patio. He
bends down and lights a fire in a small metal fire pit. In front of
the fire pit sits a lounge chair with a blanket draped over it.
Next to the chair is a small table with a box of graham crackers, a
bag of marshmallows and a chocolate bar sitting on it.

“S’mores?” she asks, smiling from ear to
ear.

“Yep, do you like them?”

“I love them.”

“Great. Come here,” he says. He takes her
drink and sets it on the table then picks up the blanket and sits
down in the lounger. Myra sits between his legs and leans back
against him while he pulls the blanket up around them.

“When I was a kid, we used to go camping on
the weekends, and we always made s’mores. My mom had to bring like
five bags of marshmallows because Chad and Nick used to have
contests to see how many they could stuff in their mouths at one
time. Chad stuffed thirty-nine in his mouth one weekend. It was so
damn funny,” he says with a chuckle.

Myra giggles as Dylan opens the marshmallows
and puts a couple on the end of a hot dog skewer. As he roasts the
marshmallows and they make s’mores, he tells her more stories about
the funny things that happened to him and his family on their
camping adventures.

After eating their dessert, Myra snuggles
into his chest, watching the flames of the fire flicker and
dance.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” he whispers
in her ear. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you in my bed, in my
arms, cuddled up next to me.”

She wants to stay with him more than
anything, but the conversation they had earlier comes crashing down
on her. How can this possibly work when they both want such
different things? If they stay together, she’ll be the one that
will have to give up her dreams. She’ll never know what it’s like
to walk down the aisle. She’ll never get to feel a baby moving
within her. She’ll never get to kiss and cradle a child against her
chest. How could they ever compromise on something like that?

So even though her logic tells her to leave
this man now and break things off while she can, her heart tells
her to do something else entirely. With a soft sigh, she whispers,
“Yes, I’d love to,” and prays that she won’t get her heart
broken.

CHAPTER 7

Dylan startles awake, his heart about to
pound out of his fucking chest. He had one of those dreams again
that he used to have… about Mel. He hasn’t had one in a long time.
It’s always the same. Mel’s out in the middle of what looks like an
ocean and Dylan is swimming as fast as he possibly can to get to
him. But he can’t get close enough to Mel no matter how hard he
tries. He’s always just a few inches out of his reach. Then Dylan
watches in horror as Mel goes under one last time, leaving Dylan
all alone with nothing in sight except water.

As he tries to get his labored breathing
under control, Myra snuggles her naked body closer to him. He hugs
her tight, pressing his face deep into her hair, breathing her in.
Within minutes, his breathing returns to normal and his heart rate
slows. He can’t sleep now so he just lays there and thinks about
how the evening went. For the most part, it went a lot better than
he thought it would. He fucked up a couple of times, which was to
be expected. Like when he dropped the bread on the floor and forgot
about that picture of him and Sabrina in the photo album. He felt
really bad about Myra seeing that picture, but it’s been over a
year since he looked at that album and he just didn’t remember
it.

With just the slightest touch of his index
finger, he tucks a strand of Myra’s hair behind her ear, his
thoughts shifting to when they were outside eating s’mores. It was
the best and worst part of their date. He loved snuggling up with
her next to the fire, but it was their conversation that was tough.
Myra asked some really hard questions and he gave her only the
truth. He wasn’t surprised when Myra said she wanted to get married
and have kids because what woman wouldn’t want to have those
things? For some reason, he’d never thought about it before. What
the hell is he supposed to do now? Why would she want to stay with
a guy that’s so fucked up that he can’t give her something as
normal as marriage and kids?

He had an okay marriage as far as that shit
goes. At least up until the accident happened, but that day changed
everything. It changed him as a person. He checked out on Sabrina
that day. He knows he completely failed her. His feelings, his
emotions, his very own soul checked out that day. When his wife
needed him the most, he left her and hid in his own pain. He hid
behind his work and used that as an excuse to distract himself.
What if he did that to Myra? What if he hurt her? He softly kisses
her forehead and rubs the back of his finger against her cheek. He
didn’t mean to hurt Sabrina so what if he somehow hurts Myra and
doesn’t even mean to? He sighs quietly and decides that maybe he
should do like Myra suggested and try out that therapy shit
again.

He might have jumped the gun a little when
she asked him about the marriage thing. He might do it again
someday with someone like Myra, but only if it’s way down the road,
like years and years in the future. But kids? That just can’t
happen. He feels like he’s already had his chance at parenthood…
twice. For some reason, it just wasn’t meant to be. But Myra… she
has no family. She needs children in her life, lots of children.
How can he take that away from her? She needs to be with someone
who can give her those things. If he stays with her, they’ll
probably just fight about it all the time and she’ll end up hating
him.

Maybe he should let Myra go. Let her be with
someone who can give her those things. He frowns as his breathing
accelerates. Fuck that, no way in hell is he giving her up so
easily. He has to be with her. He can’t leave her. Staring down at
her, he feels a crushing sensation in the center of his chest as
his breathing gets shallower. He can’t believe he’s almost having a
panic attack over just
thinking
about that. He squeezes her
tighter and leans down, touching his lips softly to her cheek. He
watches her for a moment as she licks her lips then purses them
before they fall slightly open again. It makes him smile. He never
thought he’d find somebody like her.

He realizes that she’ll have to be the one
to make that decision because he’s not going to be the one to let
go first. He’s going to hang onto her and not let her go. He needs
her. In ways he never thought he’d need someone.

What if she does leave? What if she moves on
and looks for a man that can give her marriage and kids? That
thought causes an icy fear to creep into his veins. Pushing her
hair aside, he softly touches her neck with his lips. He needs her,
needs to touch her, feel her, be inside of her. Slowly, he moves up
her neck until he reaches that sweet spot underneath her ear. As he
nibbles and licks on her skin, she turns onto her back in his arms
and stretches. “
Mm, Dylan
…” she murmurs sleepily. Hearing
her say his name like that causes a funny sensation in his chest,
and his dick to stiffen even harder. He covers her naked body with
his own and stares down at her. Opening her eyes, she smiles up at
him. Leaning down slowly, he barely touches her lips with his own,
just rubbing softly, so tenderly. “I need you,” he whispers against
them.

He pulls back and looks into her eyes. She
reaches her hands up and pulls his lips back down to hers, pressing
her mouth against his. “I need you, too,” she whispers back.

With tenderness, he begins to show Myra with
his hands, his lips, his tongue, and his body exactly just how much
he needs her and what she means to him.

* * *

“Dylan is the dreamiest man,” Susie says
with an exaggerated sigh. “I think he’s even more dreamy than
Desmond, and you know how much I love my Desi. I swear that’s the
most romantic date I’ve ever heard of in all my born days. The
flannel shirt potholder, the garlic bread that bit the dust, the
candles he forgot to light, the s’mores around the fire…” She sighs
again. “He just makes me all swoony and gives me the vapors. Do you
think he could give Jeff some pointers?”

“No,” Myra says with a chuckle. “But there
is something I haven’t told you.”

“What? That you can’t walk today because the
scruffy Greek god tool man pulled an all-night bang-a-thon on you?
I already know what a stallion he is.
Ride ‘em, cowboy
,”
Susie shouts before letting loose a loud neighing sound. She
immediately busts out laughing.

“Quit joking. This is serious.”

“I’m sorry, honeypot. Me and my motor mouth
promise to not make any more rude animal noises.”

“This is serious, Susie.”

“I know. Sorry. Go ahead.”

Myra takes in a deep breath. “We had a talk,
about some serious things. Dylan said he doesn’t want to get
married or have kids. I understand why, but what am I supposed to
do? You know that I want to get married someday and I’ve always
wanted kids. I can’t imagine not having any kids with my family all
gone.”

“Okay, that really sucks some giant rhino
ass. Let me think for a minute,” Susie says. She makes several
‘hmm’ sounds along with a couple of dramatic sighs. “Okay. Dr.
Susie is officially struggling here. Here’s what I think. Dylan has
pretty much lost everything. He basically had two children that
died, and he lost his wife to drugs, so his whole world fell apart.
If I were in Dylan’s shoes, I’d be completely terrified to even
think about having those things again for fear of losing them and
going through all that pain again. Bottom line, Dylan needs to go
see someone. He needs a professional that can help him deal with
his past so that he can move forward with his future. Damn, I can’t
believe how smart I just sounded.”

Myra shakes her head and ignores her last
statement. “We talked about that. I told him about how I talked to
someone after my dad died. He didn’t seem too thrilled about the
idea, but he did say he’d think about it.”

“Well, just keep encouraging him and maybe
he will.”

“But what if he doesn’t? What if he refuses
to go? He said therapy never worked for him in the past. What do I
do then? Do I stay with him? When we both want such different
things? How can it possibly work?”

“Dear Lord, you’re making my brain cells
explode, and that’s not a good thing because you know I’m very
limited on the number of brain cells that I possess. I swear I’m
going to have to start charging you for these sessions; I run a
grand an hour, by the way. All right… here’s what I think. You
should not give up your dreams for any man, period. No matter how
hot he is. So does that mean you should run out and dump the tool
man right now? Definitely not because think about this… What if you
end things with Dylan today and never find another man that you
love as much as you love him, and you miss out on the greatest love
of your life? Or what if you dump him and then never find another
guy and still don’t get married or have kids?

“There’s one thing that I’m completely
certain of and that’s that people change their minds all the time.
Maybe in the future, with some very expensive therapy, Dylan could
get to the point that he might change his mind. But you can’t go
into a relationship with him thinking that. You have to go into it
knowing
that he doesn’t want those things and accepting it
fully. You have to come to terms with the fact that you’re willing
to give those things up to be with him, otherwise, it’ll never
work.”

Myra sighs. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I think you
do
know what to do. Your
heart has already made the decision for you, honey.”

Myra knows Susie’s right. She can’t give
Dylan up no matter how much it may cost her. She just can’t.

* * *

Dylan takes a deep drag off of his cigarette
and flicks the butt out the window of his truck and immediately
lights another one. He’s been chain-smoking like a motherfucker
ever since Ray showed up at his house this morning. Ray followed
Dylan to Boise where they loaded Myra’s cabinets into both trucks,
and they’re now on their way to Myra’s house. Just the thought of
Ray and his fucking mouth in the vicinity of Myra makes him want to
kick the shit out of something. His brows pull together when he
gets struck with a thought. Maybe he can do something about this.
He yanks his phone out of his pocket and dials Myra.

“Hi,” she answers in a sweet voice.

“Hey. We’re almost there. Just stay in the
house and don’t come outside. I’ll have Ray help me unload the
cabinets and then I’ll send him off. That way you don’t have to
listen to his annoying-as-fuck mouth.”

Myra laughs. “Okay. Where are you going to
put the cabinets?”

“Why don’t you pull your car out of the
garage, and we’ll store them in there. Do you mind leaving it
outside for a few days? Just until I can get the cabinets
installed?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Okay. We’re just a couple of miles away so
go ahead and pull your car out and then go back in the house. I’ll
knock once I get the asshole gone.”