Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) (32 page)

“Mom?” Lucas called, his small voice uncertain.

I cleared my throat. “Yes?”

“Where’s Dad?”

“What’s up, little man?” Luke called.

There was a moment of silence, and then, “Why are you guys in the bathroom
together
?”

I sighed and dropped my head against Luke’s chest.

“Lucas,” his father said, a little exasperated. “What do you want?”

He paused again before responding. “Gracie is awake. She pooped. A
lot
. It came out of her diaper and everything. It’s soooo gross.”

At that, I felt Luke softening inside me.

So, it
does
go down.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I called and sighed again.

Luke touched my cheek and tucked my hair behind my ear.

“I’ll go take care of Gracie. You do whatever you have to do to get us out of here on time.”

“And Kaitlyn spilled the whole gallon of milk,” Lucas added from the other side of the door. “Instead of cleaning it up, she’s being a butt cheek and just sitting in it and crying. She is
crying over spilled milk
!”

“Ughhhh,” I groaned.

Luke tried unsuccessfully not to smile.

“I’ll take care of Gracie, and you can take care of our little drama queen,” he said. “When I’m done, I’ll help you get packed.”

I was grateful for his super-dad calmness, and his ability to keep me calm as well. I kissed him softly. “Thank you.”

He pulled out of me and tucked himself back into his boxers. We put our shirts back on and he lifted me off the vanity and put me back on my feet.

When we exited the bathroom, Lucas was gone, but our bedroom door was wide open. We could hear Kaitlyn’s dramatic cries from the first floor and Grace’s tiny voice calling for her brother.

“Cuss!” she shouted.

“No, Grace! You stink!” Lucas called from his room.

“Hey,” I said to Luke, grabbing his arm before leaving the bedroom.

He looked down at me curiously. “What’s up, babe?”

“Are you…are you okay with everything I said?”

He put his hands on my waist and gazed down at me with an intensity that made my heart skip beat after beat as I waited for his response.

“Emmy, you have given me three beautiful, perfect children and a beautiful, perfect life. I am more delirious with happiness with each day that passes by. I could not ask you for anything more.”

Despite all that awaited us outside our bedroom, Luke kissed me with such passion, that my knees threatened to buckle. I felt every ounce of his love in that kiss.

“Besides,” he whispered in my ear, after releasing me from the kiss. “I am really excited to learn about all those things we can do with more time and fewer disruptions.”

I laughed and hugged him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby,” he murmured and kissed the side of my head.

We walked out of the room, hand in hand, with our hearts full and overflowing with love.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Emmet

Brown skin the color of dark caramel. Light, golden brown eyes. Jet black hair. A frown on her pretty face that instantly broke my heart.

I didn’t even know my little feet were carrying me across the yard until my sister Emmy was yelling, “Emmet! Push Donya on the swing! She doesn’t know how to swing by herself!”

I stopped a couple feet away from her. She ducked her head and peered up at me through her long lashes as her fingers moved restlessly along the chains holding the swing she sat on.

Donya. Her name was Donya and she couldn’t swing by herself. I wondered if she would smile if she were able to fly. I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to do anything to see her smile. I felt as chained to her as the seat was to the steel above. I had never felt anything like it before, a yearning, pulling, and heart-throbbing feeling inside my chest.

“You don’t know how to swing?” I asked her, what felt like hours later, but it was merely a few seconds.

She shook her head and blinked rapidly as if the admission would make her cry. I didn’t know what she and Emmy had been playing, but her fingernails were caked with dry mud and there was a muddy handprint across her shirt where she had probably wiped her hand. She had a little bit of mud on her face and I imagined that if she cried, her tears would leave streaks through the mud as they made their way to the earth.

“You have dirt on your face,” I told her. I reached out to wipe it away and that feeling in my chest grew until it became painful. My fingers that had just touched her soft cheek burned and tingled. I wanted to touch her again to make sure that what I felt was real, but I didn’t.

I walked around her and began to instruct her on how to pump her legs.

“Make sure you hold the chains no matter what,” I told her. “I’m going to push you for a little while until you get it.”

I did what I would have done for Emmy or any other little girl. I put my hands on her tiny waist to balance her and my hands burned and tingled again. I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t comprehend it at all. My hands were so hot, I was tempted to lift her shirt to see if I had burned her, but I knew better than that. My mom would have knocked my head right off my shoulders if I lifted up a girl’s shirt.

I moved my hands down to her back and gave her a gentle push. I pushed her again and again, over and over, even when it was clear that she was getting it on her own. I couldn’t stop touching her because I was afraid my hands would freeze and fall off, dead and blackened.

“You’re doing it, you’re doing it!” Emmy squealed with delight, and she was right. Donya was doing it! She was flying! Soaring! Like an angel against the blue sky. She was so, so
beautiful
, and I realized then that I had never thought that about a girl, not even my mom, but Donya was beautiful!

I stepped away from her and watched her swing for a moment before taking the swing beside her. I kicked my legs until I was flying just as high as Donya and Emmy, but it was Donya I watched the entire time. Her face was lit up with joy. Her hair broke free of her ponytail as the wind pulled at it, and she kicked her little legs with determination.

Eventually, I stopped swinging just so I could watch her. It became evident pretty quickly that she didn’t know exactly how to stop. I was about to tell her how to stop safely when she did the most unexpected thing. She let go and fell to the grass. My heart was ready to burst into a million pieces as I rushed over to her, but when I got there and saw that she wasn’t hurt, I reached out my hand to her.

“I told you not to let go of the chains,” I told her.

She looked down at the ground, embarrassed and sad again. I hated that she was frowning again.

“I didn’t know how to stop,” she said so softly, I almost didn’t hear her.

“Well, that’s one way of stopping.”

Then I did what any boy would do when he likes a girl. I plucked her in the forehead and walked away.

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to do. I mean, I was trying to let her know that we were friends, but maybe I should have just said it instead of plucking her.

As I got closer to the house and farther away from Donya, I felt as if I was leaving part of myself back there with her. It felt like something stretched inside and it was excruciating. I stopped, turned around, and looked at her. She stood there, rubbing her forehead where I had flicked her, but her lovely eyes were on me. That burning sensation that had been in my hands now started in my eyes and moved through my whole body. I felt dazed looking at her. I felt like there was no one else in the universe but me and her.

Then I saw my sister move out of the corner of my eye and snapped out of it. I shook my head to clear it and went inside.

That was the day I began to fall in love with Donya Stewart.

I watched her from across the room as she laughed at something Felix said. I used to hate to watch someone else make her laugh or make her happy, especially Felix Hunter. A long time ago, I considered the man to be a thief. He pilfered from her smiles and laughter—and a few times, kisses—that should have belonged to me alone. I hated him for often jumping into action first and becoming her hero on numerous occasions while I stood on the sidelines. I had despised their friendship and their ease with one another. It hadn’t mattered that she didn’t love him in the same way that she’d loved me. I knew I had her heart and together we shared a soul. No one could ever touch that, but it didn’t stop me from hating Felix for caring about and loving
my
girl.
My
Donya.

Those envious and insecure feelings had been gone for ages. I no longer looked at the man with hatred when he made her laugh, or when he swept her into his arms to embrace her. She may have gifted people with her beauty, her talent, and her laughter and smiles, but as a whole, she was mine and I was hers. What the rest of the world got from her was barely a fraction of what I had with her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no matter the distance that sometimes came between us.

Sensing my gaze on her, Donya turned her head and met my eyes. Without words, she asked the question, “Is it time to go?”

I nodded once and gave her an apologetic smile. I knew that even though we had spent several days in New York with Felix and his family, she wasn’t ready to leave. It wasn’t just him that she regretted leaving behind, but the city itself, the east coast, and all of the various places we had shared memories of.

While Donya said her goodbyes to Felix and his wife Ginny, I gathered Rosa, Emmet Jr., and Emily, who were playing with Felix’s children. Owen, unfortunately, could not accompany us on the trip. Casey didn’t want him to miss any school. Donya and I wanted him with us as usual, but in all the years that I’d been divorced from Casey, we never disagreed about Owen. I didn’t want to start.

“We better get on the road,” I said to Donya when she was still wrapped in conversation with Felix a few minutes later. “Traffic is going to be a beast, and we don’t want to be late.”

“Whenever you’re ready to give up your ordinary life in the Midwest, we’ll be here waiting for you,” Felix said to us with a grin.

Donya smiled, but it was a wistful smile. I could feel what she was feeling, a hint of longing.

As we headed out of the city, Rosa sang softly to her iPod. Emily babbled contently because she loved being in the car, and EJ asked me endless random questions about the city. Through all that, I felt Donya’s longing intensify.

I reached over and took her hand into mine. Her fingers curled around my hand as she looked at me with a sad smile, but we didn’t discuss what had been bothering her until we were on the New Jersey Turnpike, and all of the kids had fallen asleep.

“You miss the city,” I said.

“I do,” she responded and sighed. “I never thought that I would, but I do. I lived there for almost fifteen years. I miss that hustle and bustle, the people, and the places. I miss being close to the ocean and just as close to the mountains. I even miss South Jersey. I have so many memories, so many
good
memories from both places.”

“Maybe we should visit more often.”

She silently looked out her window for a minute before softly responding. “Visiting isn’t enough. Besides, it’s hard to travel with kids, and we can’t keep pulling them out of school. I completely understand why Casey didn’t let Owen come. It can create instability, and I don’t want that for our kids.”

“Do you like this area more than Chicago?”

She looked at me with a wry smile.

“Are you asking me if the subzero temperatures and million feet of snow can compare to the harsh splendor of New York City and the keep-it-real lifestyle of New Jersey?”

I grinned. “Yes?”

Her laugh was soft. “There’s no comparison.”

“Then why did you decide to buy a house and settle in Chicago? You could have gone anywhere you wanted to.”

She shrugged a slender shoulder. “I missed Emmy. I missed you. You were both there, and at the time that was all that mattered.”

“Donya,” I said her name softly, but with gravity. “I traveled halfway across the planet to claim you before. Coming to the east coast would have been nothing in comparison. I would have then, and will forever, go wherever you go.”

I felt a surge of love and appreciation through the bind that connected us, and it warmed me from the tips of my fingers in her soft hands, down to my toes.

“I know that now.” She squeezed my hand in both of hers.

We were silent for a few minutes as an idea began to build in my mind. I wanted Donya to be happy. I knew that she was happy with our family and me, but sometimes there was more to life than that. It took me years of being without my soulmate to understand that, and I still had not forgotten it.

“Donya, do you want to move back to the east coast?” I asked.

She didn’t immediately answer. I felt the tension and apprehension inside her. She was afraid to tell me the truth of what she really wanted, but finally, she did.

“I do,” she said quietly. “I have wanted to move back here since we got married.”

I looked over at her in astonishment.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I had just opened the boutique,” she explained with some exasperation, either at herself or me or maybe the situation as a whole. “Emmya was just getting started and it was so much work. Then, Luke had offered you a partnership in the firm, and we started having babies. We were cementing ourselves in Chicago more and more. I still thought about it a lot, though. I thought maybe we could do it, but then Emmy had Gracie and went into that depression. I know it didn’t last very long, but it scared me. What if we weren’t there? She may have kept it from us just like she did before when she suffered from depression.”

“I understand what you are saying about Emmy, but Donya…” I sighed, hating myself just a little bit for what I was about to say. I loved my little sister, but she did have her own husband, her own family, and her own life. “You have to do what is right for you and us as a family. I am glad that we were there for Emmy, too, but Emmy is fine now. If you want to move to New York or New Jersey, then we should seriously consider it.”

She stared at me as her hands convulsively squeezed mine hard.

“But…you’re partner at the firm, and the Emmya headquarters is in Chicago.”