Losing You (Stars On Fire Book 4) (44 page)

But she didn’t. She stayed asleep in his lap the entire ride home. He pulled into the driveway after the most torturous ride ever. Each bump had her head moving against his cock. Each bump had him wishing she’d wake up and do something about it.

Brushing aside her fiery hair, he called out her name. “We’re home, Elizabeth.”

“Mmm,” she moaned against his leg and he swore his dick twitched. Maybe even poked her in the damn eye.

“Sleeping beauty . . .” he said, then tickled her nose.

“Marc!” she shouted, lifting her head off his lap.

“Home,” he said, pointing ahead.

She looked at her house then back at him, a pensive light to her beautiful eyes. With each moment she remained silent, the more on edge he felt. What was wrong? “I don’t want to go in without you.”

“Elizabeth . . .” he said, unsure of what she meant, afraid to believe it.

“Marc . . . I never want to go into my house without you,” she admitted, sweet tears in her eyes. “I want you by my side. Not just as my friend, but as my lover. I don’t want to fight what I feel anymore. I don’t want to waste any more time without you. I want to take this gigantic step towards you and our future together. But in order to do so, I need you by my side. So . . . will you stand by me?”

Did he just hear all of that? She wanted him . . . as her lover. She wanted a future together . . . with him.

He smiled. She wanted it all with him. His dream was finally coming true.

“Elizabeth, I’m already by your side. I’ve just been waiting for you to be ready.”

“I’m ready, Marc,” she said through her tears. “I love you.”

He cupped her face and fused his lips to hers. The sweetest mouth he’d ever tasted. The only mouth he ever wanted to taste for the rest of his life.

Still holding her face, he spoke words he hadn’t said in over two years. “Elizabeth McCullough, I love you. All I ever wanted was to spend my life with you.”

“Fulfilling all our fantasies?” she suggested, crawling over and onto his lap. Her hands slid between them and tugged on the button to his jeans.

“Mmm . . .” he groaned as her hand wrapped around him. “Yes . . . every single one.”

Lizzie

Thirty years later . . . July 22, 2040

Sometimes she wondered why she still did these Sunday breakfasts. It seemed to always end in disaster, Lizzie thought, regarding the very gross looking pot of oatmeal. At least, she’d smartened up and had a couple coffee cakes in reserve.

“Mama!” Maddox called from the living room.

And that was the reason why she kept up the tradition. It had definitely changed over this year. Her middle child, Grainne, moved to London a few months back. She was an interior designer, and the lure of a position with a top company had her shipping off across the ocean. Holden, her baby, hadn’t technically moved out . . . yet. Many of his belongings still in his room while he was at Columbia, getting his masters in literary history. His plan was to teach someday.

Maddox played first base for the Chicago Cubs for the past 8 years. They compared him to Mark Grace, one of the best Cubs of all time. Tom would have been so proud to see his son on the infield of Wrigley Field, game after game. Lizzie had a feeling Tom did see every single game. Maddox had a ball in his hand from the moment he could roll one back and forth to Marc and Ollie. Those two men infused that passion for baseball into him from that day, constantly playing with him and taking him to games.

Her children were so different from each other. Holden and Grainne didn’t have an athletic gene between them. Grainne was an artist from the moment she could grasp a crayon in her hand. Holden was her scholar. He loved books, loved being around his father’s office, reading everything he could get his hands on.

The one thing they did have in common was their loyalty to their family. Maddox protecting Holden from bullies and Grainne from jerks, Grainne and Holden attending every game of Maddox’s that they could get to, and Maddox and Holden always running to help when their sister called.

Lizzie was so proud to call those three hers.

“Mama!” bellowed her oldest.

Lizzie dropped the spoon into the oatmeal and it bounced back at her. Damn spoon didn’t even want to touch the grossest oatmeal ever to exist. “In the kitchen,” she called out.

Maddox entered the room and she smiled. He was taller than his father but not by much, and when he entered a room, you could feel his strong and charming presence. But today it was different. He looked like hell. Hair all over the place, like he hadn’t slept.

“What’s wrong, Mad?”

Her son ran his hand through his blond hair the same shade of blond as his father. “Mom . . . I love her.”

She stayed silent and listened but her eyebrows definitely rose at her son’s confession of his feelings. She wanted to ask so many questions. Lizzie knew of whom he spoke—that was a given, but what she wanted to know was why now . . . what happened that seemed to cause this panic within her steady son?

“I never thought it would happen to me. I mean, I saw you and Dad and wanted that for myself, some day, but finding it for myself, especially after being blind to it for so long . . . Mom, I’ve known her
forever
. How could I have been so blind?”

Lizzie looked upon her grown son, just a couple years younger than his father had been when he’d died. Maddox was the spitting image of Tom. Everything . . . including his voice. And for one short moment, Lizzie heard Tom, not her son. It was a weird feeling.

Lizzie toyed with the ring on her right hand, the engagement ring that Tom had bought for her all those years ago, as her son continued to speak. When he paused, she slipped off the ring. “Here,” she said, holding it up to him. “This ring . . . Tom, I mean, your father, bought this for me. He never had the chance to give it to me. He died with it in his pocket. It has stayed on my finger all these years, but it’s time for it to go to you—to his son . . . for you to give to the woman of your heart. Don’t waste time with your questions of how or why. Make this choice . . . take this step towards your future and don’t look back. Make Stella your wife.”

That big, wide smile full of the whitest teeth popped up over her son’s face. “Stella. My wife. I like the sound of that,” he said, taking the ring from her hand. Then he exhaled loudly. “Mama, I’ve got to go! She’s in Indy this weekend for her mother’s birthday. I need to do this.”

“Be careful. Please.”

“Don’t you know it, mama.”

“Call me later.”

“I will,” he said, kissing her cheek then turning to run out the door. “Hi, Dad. Bye, Dad.”

“Uh . . . bye, Mad,” Marc said, spinning around at his son’s quick departure. “What was that about?” Marc asked when he reached her.

“Maddox is head-over-heels in love with Stella.”

“Knew that,” Marc said, continuing on and sitting down on the couch. Then he patted the space next to him. “Come here, beautiful.”

Once beside him, he took her hand and brought it to his lips. “So, tell me why he raced outta here like the place was on fire.”

“He’s going to ask her to marry him.”

His eyebrows raised at that.
Ha! He hadn’t expected that one.
“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. I may have given him the ring,” she said, showing him her empty right hand.

The wheels started to spin on that revelation. She smiled as he put it together. “Tom’s son and Mia’s daughter . . . married?”

“Yeah.”

“I have a feeling they’d really find that fitting. How do you feel about it?”

“I’m all for it. I want him happy. She’s been his friend since she could talk, hanging on his every word. And he has always looked out for her. I’m surprised it took as long as it did to sink in for him . . .”

“Timing’s everything, Elizabeth. He wasn’t ready. But he is now.”

“Kind of reminds me of you,” she said, leaning over and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I’m glad you were ready at the same time because being ready for you . . . then losing you, that would have destroyed me. I was meant to be yours, Elizabeth.”

“All mine,” she said, kissing him again. “And I’m yours.”

“Yeah, you are,” he said, pinching her ass.

“Dirty bird,” she said with a laugh.

“Oh yeah,” he said, pulling her fully onto his lap. “It’s been a good thirty years, don’t you think?”

“It’s been the world to me. I’m glad that I spent my life living out my fantasies with you.”

“We may be old, but you got any fantasies left?” he asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Maybe . . .” she said with a wink. Then she stood up and looked down at him for a moment and turned towards the stairs.

“Don’t hold out on me, woman!” he exclaimed, a smile on his face.

“Meet me upstairs and I’ll show you.”

Losing You
was the first book I started in the
Stars On Fire
series. It spawned a lot of stories in the process. I’ve mentioned that while working on this book that I fell in love with Mia and her story took over the reins.

Now that you’ve read this, you’ll probably understand that there was another reason why I stopped with this book—Tom. I absolutely love him, yet when the stupid idea occurred to me, I couldn’t shake it. He was so loved by everyone in his life . . . the effects of his death would be far-reaching. I had to do it for three storylines:

• Lizzie
  
• Marc
  
• Mia
  

These three people would most feel his death. If you’ve read the
Never Over You
Series, you’ve seen how Mia handled Tom’s death. Whereas that was absolutely brutal for me to write, writing about it in this book was so much harder.

That’s the reason I stalled FOR YEARS to complete this. I’m not kidding—YEARS. Staying over in Mia’s world was easier. I could sort of be detached from Tom.

But the time came to finish
Losing You
—to complete Lizzie, Marc, and Tom’s stories. I needed to get full circle.

I was really flying along with my rewrites but as I approached the time for Tom’s death, I’d find myself standing back and just staring at my manuscript, trying to, one, get in the place I needed to be, and two, trying to also find the strength to write it. I
knew
I was going to shed some major tears. I knew it was going to hurt like a motherfucker.