So. Long.: Bad Boy Next Door (80 page)

TWENTY-NINE

I roll over, covers tangling around my legs. The knocking
becomes more insistent.

I crack an eyelid, yelling, “It’s not even fucking dawn.”

Buck’s voice comes through the exterior door. “Loula Mae
Fontaine, open up.”

I drag to my feet, flip the lock, but don’t bother turning
the handle before I flop face-down onto the bed.

The door creaks and a second later Buck’s kiss lands on the
shell of my ear. “Go brush your teeth. We have something important to do this
morning.”

“Well, go do it. I don’t have a thing on my schedule. Let me
sleep.”

He tugs at my shoulders. “C’mon, Lou. I think you’ll be glad
you came.”

I roll over, his smile warming me. “I’ll get up, but under
protest.”

“Protest is fine.”

I brush my teeth and spend a few minutes detangling my
curls.

When I step out of the bathroom, Buck shoves my dress into
my hands. “Here, throw this on.”

“What the hell? Can’t I have a half a minute to wake the
fuck up?”

He drops a kiss on my brow. “Nope. Not this morning.”

I barely get my feet into my boots before he grabs my hand
and drags me out the door. “I love the sundress-combat boot combo, by the way.
Very sexy.”

I grin. “Hey, I worked hard to earn these boots. Besides,
they’re more comfortable than you’d think.”

He ducks in for a quick kiss, his tongue sliding along mine
before he pulls away. “I was serious. You’re hot as fuck.”

Dawn breaks, and a faint gray glow illuminates the tops of
the trees.

Buck hands me the yellow lantern as he pulls a picnic basket
over his arm. “Delores packed up some coffee and breakfast.”

I dig in my heels. “Where are we going?”

He tightens his grip and tosses a look into the woods. “Just
come with me, will you?”

“All right.”

He’s leaving in a few days, and I’ll have a very long wait
before I see him again…
If
I see him again. We’ve pretty much avoided the
subject over the last day or two.

My heart constricts at that thought. I push it away so I can
enjoy every minute with Buck between now and the moment Hollywood takes him
away—again.

We trek through the trees a ways. In the distance,
flickering points of light shine. As we approach our old fort, the trees are
illuminated by hundreds of tiny white lights, wrapping the trunks and into the
branches of our magnolia and several smaller trees in the area.

White ribbons flow through the leaves, some loose, others
with lighted balls of tissue on the ends. Some are tied to jars with lights
stuffed into them, hanging at different heights. Mason jars holding LED tea
lights are set around the clearing. A blanket covers the ground at the foot of
the magnolia, in the same spot the other quilt laid the last time I was here.

A stream of warmth rushes to my pussy, just thinking of that
magnolia tree. My nipples pucker as they remember the way the bark on that tree
rasped across their tender tips as Buck made love to me.

He drops the basket at the foot of the tree. He sits on the
quilt and pulls me down too. When he lies back, he drags me with him so my head
rests on his chest. His heart beats frantically.

We lay in silence until I can’t stand it anymore. “You’re
such a morning person. All this so we can make love under the trees before you
leave? We could’ve done this tonight.”

“No. I mean, yes, we can make love out here later tonight,
if you want. But that’s not what all this is about.”

He rolls to his side, so I shift to face him. We both lay
with our heads propped up on our hands.

His finger draws lazy circles over my bare shoulder. “You
know, I’ve been thinking…this is the place where we played together as kids,
where we pretended to be grown-ups with our own house. This place kept you safe
that—that terrible day. But, I guess that day wasn’t
all
bad. It was
that
day, in
this
place that I first truly wanted to make you mine. I wanted
so badly to keep you safe from the world, to protect you from the unfairness of
your childhood.”

I cover my mouth as tears gather, prickling and stinging as
they try to get loose. All the memories of all the moments we’ve spent under
these trees, too many moments to count, rush to mind.

He’s right. We used to pretend all sorts of things in the
safety of this hidden place.

Buck leans close, looking deep into my eyes. “I bought this
property yesterday, Lou.”

“Wow. That’s—that’s really great.”

“I figured it was time.” Buck rolls to the base of the
magnolia, digging the leaves away from the base of it, scraping away the dirt
from around the roots with a little gardening spade he must’ve brought.

I sit up, peeking around his shoulder. “Time for what?”

He tugs something from the ground and holds out a dirt-encrusted
pickle jar. “Don’t you want to open our time capsule?”

Oh, out time capsule; I’d forgotten.

But do I want to stroll back through the memories that jar
is likely to call forth? I put them in there with Buck, so…

“Sure, we may as well. There’s no telling when we’ll both be
in this spot at the same time again.”

Buck twists the lid off and hands me the jar.

A little kernel of excitement blooms in my chest. “I can’t
even remember what I put in here. Do you?”

“I think so. I think there’s some bubble gum, an action
figure, maybe a picture or something.”

I pull out the first thing my fingers touch, a piece of
notebook paper folded around something.

Holding it up to him on my flattened palm, I ask, “Was this
yours or mine?”

“That must be yours.” His dimples deepen.

I lay the paper aside and move to reach into the opening
again.

Buck’s hand stills mine. “Let’s do this one at a time. Open
it. Let’s see what it is.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

The old paper is in surprisingly good shape to have been in
the ground in a glass jar all these years. I pull the edges, and as it opens, a
pencil and crayon drawing appears, stacked atop another sheet.

I smile. I remember this. It was from school. The teacher
told us to draw what we’d do when we grew up. Heat rushes over my cheeks. Two
stick figures smile up from the page, the one with a top hat, the other wearing
a veil. The childish handwriting labeled them as Buck and Loula Mae.

Buck bumps my shoulder with his. “So you’ve always wanted to
marry me, eh?”

I shake my head. “Naw. I was young and didn’t know any
better.”

“Ah, I see. What’s behind that one?” He flicks at the edge
of the page, pushing it to the side.

The paper on the bottom is blank. In the middle of the
creased page lies a ring. A gasp escapes me as my fingers cover my mouth. I
fumble with the papers, dumping them and the ring onto the blanket as I
scramble to my feet. I back away a couple of steps. My heart fumbles to find
its next beat.

Buck snatches the shiny object from the quilt. He gets to
one knee, holding up the small ring—not the one from the blue box. I know
this
ring.

It’s Nan’s.

I take another step away.

“Loula Mae Fontaine, if you run off on me, I’ll have to tie
your ass to a chair next time. So, just wait. Hear me out, and then you can
decide if you want to run from me, though I’m hoping you’ll run
to
me.”

My heart thrashes and my lungs are on vacation.

“I bought this property. It’s mine, but I hope to make it
ours
.
I want to build a home,
a life
with you. That life we pretended to have
as children, it can be ours—right here. Will you honor me by being my wife?”

My eyes dart from tree to tree, and I check behind me. No
cameras, no crew.

“This isn’t for the show?” Can he mean it?

The rush of blood through my ears almost drowns out his next
words.

“The other one wasn’t for the show either. But you thought
it was, and I decided it was probably best to do this in private. I want you to
know it’s from my heart. Please, Lou, be my wife?”

“Seriously? You want to marry me again? What if…what if it
doesn’t work? We’re so different now. You’re Mr. Hollywood Bad Boy, and
I’m—well, I’m Loula Mae Fontaine and not much of anything else.”

He lifts his eyes to capture my gaze again. “Lou, some things
have changed about us since the first time I proposed to you under this tree. But
one thing has never changed: I’ve loved you forever, and I’ll continue to love
you into eternity. Please, let me do that loving up close instead of from a
distance.”

“But you’re leaving in a few days.”

“Marry me and come with me. Stay with me every day for the
rest of our lives.”

“But—”

Buck stands and pulls me to him. “Do you want to marry me,
Lou? Or do you just want to come up with a ton of excuses and be a total pain
in the nads?”

I bury my face in his muscled chest. “I’m always going to be
a pain in the nads, Buck. Are you sure you want me?”

“Fuck yeah, I want you. Is that a yes?”

I nod.

He takes my shoulders pushing me away and looking into my
eyes. “Yes?”

Giddiness unlike anything I’ve experienced overtakes me.
Breathless, I have to force myself to inhale.

I drop my head back and shout into the canopy above. “Yes.
For fuck’s sake, yes! I’ll marry you—again—you idiot.”

Buck yanks me into his arms, his mouth closing over mine.

He pulls back, his eyes questioning. “So, you love me
again?”

“Lord, you’re dense. Of course I love you. I never stopped.”

EPILOGUE

I spread the quilt under our magnolia tree, the tree where
Lou and I said our vows just days after I asked her to marry me.

I hold out my hands. “Here, let me take him.”

Lou passes Daniel to me as she hikes Maggie higher onto her
other hip.

I settle onto the blanket with my son and run my hand down
the back of his mother’s leg. “I’ll take her too, you go take a nap. I got
this.”

Lou gives me side eyes. “I’m not sure you and these two
won’t find some sort of mischief to get into if left unsupervised.”

“I think I can handle the twins by myself for an hour or
two.”

She narrows her eyes. “Nan’s on her way up, isn’t she?”

I shake my head, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

“Aunt Delores?”

I stand and take Maggie, leaning in to kiss Lou’s temple.
“Go rest. These two are enough to wear anyone out, and since you won’t let me
hire a nanny—”

She grimaces. “I’m not sure—what if they decide to go
different directions? They’re mobile now, you know?”

Every suggestion to get her some help is ignored. She says
she wants to spend as much time as she can with the babies.

I set Maggie on the quilt next to Daniel, who immediately
takes her binky. Maggie’s bottom lip pokes out just before a wail splits the
Louisiana sky wide open.

Lou squats in front of the babies, giving Maggie her
pacifier and popping Daniel’s into his mouth. “See? You need me.”

I sigh. “Do you want to have a nap, Lou? Or do you just want
to come up with a ton of excuses and be a total pain in the nads?”

She frowns. “I’m always going to be a pain in the nads,
Buck.”

Pops calls from somewhere in the trees. “Hey. Don’t worry,
Lou. I’ll help him wrangle those two long enough to give you a break.”

Damn. Cold busted.

She stands, shaking her head, but grinning.

I shrug. “Well, I told you I could handle it. I didn’t say
I’d handle it alone.”

She leans against my chest and I breathe her in. Her sweet
scent still gets me hard in an instant.

I kiss her soundly on her perfectly puffy lips. “Go. Rest.
We’ll be fine.”

Pops comes into the clearing and coughs. “Why don’t you both
go up to the house. Nan and Delores will be up here any minute with a picnic.”

Lou glares at me. “You.”

“I did
not
lie. As far as I knew, it was just him
coming to help me, right, Pops?”

He shrugs and plops Daniel into the baby swing hanging from
the branch above. “Just get up to the house. We’re good here.”

I have to drag Lou away, but she moves a little easier when
Delores’s voice can be heard laughing along with Maggie’s giggles.

Inside, we shed our clothes and climb into bed.

She rolls to me, propping her head on one hand. “I’m glad we
decided to build here.”

I brush the curl from her eyes. “Yeah?”

She gives me a one-shoulder shrug. “Hollywood isn’t too far
away when we can fly, and being here is better for raising our children. They
need their family—our family.”

I lean to her, sucking in her bottom lip and slipping my
tongue in for just a taste. “Let’s not waste our naptime. C’mere, I wanna
practice making babies again.”

My hand slides between her legs.

Lou’s smile widens and she snuggles closer, her fingers
tiptoeing over my chest. “Let me break this down for you. We don’t need any
more practice.”

Pregnant? Again? I catch my breath. “Really? Wow. We weren’t
even trying yet.”

She winks at me. “Well, I guess we’re just so damn good at
this that it doesn’t take much effort.”

I pull her closer, laying a kiss on her collarbone. “We
are
pretty good at this.”

She bites the corner of her lip. “Yeah. Maybe
too
good.”

She swallows hard enough that I can hear her. Her nipple
beads beneath my tongue as I slip my finger into her already damp slit, it
distracts me for the moment.

Her words find their way to my brain. I pull away from her
sweet chocolate kiss shaped nipple. “
Too
good? How can we be
too
good?”

Lou presses her tits to my chest and throws her leg over my
hip. “Twins—again.”

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