Page 67 of Their Forever Daddy

“Isn’t love always a bit complicated?” Taylor asked.

“I suppose there’s some truth to that.” Sighing heavily, Edie sipped at her cooled coffee, as much for the time it bought her as the need for caffeine. “I wish I could tell y’all that I know what I’m doing and everything will be fine. But I can’t. Because at some point, Grant and Jesse are going to go back to their lives in California, and I’ll still be here.”

With a growl of frustration, Noelle threw her hands in the air. “Then why are you doing it? Why do… whatever it is you’re doing, just to get your heart broken again?”

“Because it’s worth it,” Carly answered, her blue-eyed gaze locked on Edie’s. The anger had faded, leaving behind the kind of understanding only her Carly-girl could really muster. “That’s what it comes down to, right? Some things are too beautiful to pass up, even when you know it’s going to hurt you in the end.”

Carly always had been too observant for her own good. But then, she’d lived a lot in her twenty-some years, and she’d had more than her fair share of heartache. Edie swallowed down the lump sitting in her throat. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“I still don’t get it,” Nicole muttered. “She hurt you, Edie. And you just let her waltz back into your life like nothing ever happened. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, for starters, I didn’t let her waltz anywhere. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Then un-complicate it for us.” Unlike her bestie, Taylor looked more concerned than mad. “Because we were all prepared to go to war for you and now we’re, what? Just supposed to step back and let whatever this is happen? We just want to understand, Edie.”

Edie McDowell wasn’t a woman who was used to explaining herself. And though her instinctive reaction was to brush off their concern, Taylor’s words made her pause.

These were her girls. All it had taken was a word from her, and they’d banded together against someone they saw as a common enemy. That kind of love was as rare as it was powerful, and she owed it to them to honor that love.

“All right,” she said at length. “I’ll do my best to explain.”

She told them everything that had happened from when she’d seen them last. From the fights she’d had with Jesse, to Grant showing up unannounced, even Jesse offering to let Edie punish her for the way she’d left things.

Well. Almost everything. She skimmed on the details of the spanking she’d given Jesse and the aftermath, but she had a feeling they were filling the blanks in just fine judging by the shocked looks being aimed in her direction.

“And then Jesse said she couldn’t leave again without seeing if we could make a relationship between the three of us work and long story short, that’s what you all walked in on this morning. Us ‘trying to make it work’.”

A long, very tense silence met her explanation. Nerves had her worrying she might not keep her coffee down, but she sipped anyway, determined to give the appearance that she wasn’t nearly as stressed about her… situation as she was.

It was Ginny who finally broke the silence. “Well, don’t hold out on us. Did you make it work? And by ‘it’ I mean the sex, obviously.”

Thank god she’d just swallowed or she might have choked on her coffee. “We did make it work, actually. Pretty damn well, in fact.”

Despite the giggles erupting around her, Noelle was still glowering at Edie from her spot on the couch. “So, what? The sex is good and now all is forgiven?”

“No.” Edie shook her head slowly as she searched for the right words. “I can’t say I’ve forgiven Jesse, not completely. And I’d be lying if I said there’s not a part of me that’s worried this is just history repeating itself. But I have to know, Noelle. I have to at least give it a try, so even if it does blow up in my face again, I can at least say I gave it a shot. I’m sorry if that upsets you.”

“It doesn’t upset me.” Noelle rolled her eyes when Edie cocked an eyebrow at her. “Okay, fine, it pisses me off. But only because I don’t like seeing the people I love doing stupid shit that’s going to get them hurt. That’s all.”

“I know. And thank you for loving me enough to be pissed at me.”

That seemed to mollify Noelle a bit, and eventually the conversation shifted to happier things, like Carly’s delayed honeymoon. But when the conversation inevitably came around to Carly’s little bun in the oven, Ginny quietly excused herself.

Rising to her feet, Edie held up her mug. “Going to get some more coffee. Anyone need anything?”

“I should probably drink some water,” Carly said with a heavy sigh. “I’m already on thin ice with Daddy, no need to pile on the naughties.”

“A round of water, coming up.”

She headed to the kitchen by way of the little half bath where she had a feeling Ginny was hiding out. “It’s me,” she said after knocking lightly on the door.

“Come in.”

It was a tight squeeze, but with Ginny sitting on the closed toilet lid, they managed it. “You okay?” Edie asked, closing the door behind them.

“Yeah. Just needed a minute.”

There was a hint of red around her eyes, and her eyeliner was a bit smudged, but other than that Edie doubted anyone would have been able to tell she’d been crying without really looking. “Wanna talk about it?”

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