Page 56 of Past Due

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I know that’s not a possibility. I’m not naïve. I know what it means to love you. I know what it means to tie myself to you and to your family. This world isn’t new to me.” She grasped his hand. “What I want is for you to give me the respect you give others. I want you to give Rina the respect you give others. We just want to control our own lives.”

He considered her passioned plea. Everything she said made sense. Deciding to be unnaturally vulnerable, he confessed, “I don’t know if I can be the man you need me to be, Marley. I’ll try. I will. I will try to be more...,” he searched for the right word, “equitable.”

He took her other hand and lifted them, reverently kissing both. “It’s hard to change. It’s ingrained in me that a man keeps his wife and daughters protected, that he keeps them close and shields them from the world.”

“I know,” she said, moving her hand to his cheek. “I love that about you. The way you love your family, your loyalty to your family, the way you want to keep me safe. I don’t want that to change. That’s one of the best parts of you.” She leaned in and kissed him tenderly. “Just, you know, back off a little. Trust me to make safe choices for myself. Trust Rina to make safe choices for herself.”

“I’ll try.” He touched his forehead to hers. “You’ll have to keep me on track.”

“I will,” she promised with a soft laugh. “I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t have a problem calling you out when you deserve it.”

“Very clear,” he replied before pressing his lips to hers. Pulling back, he used his thumbs to clear away tracks of tears drying on her face. “I’m sorry I made you cry.”

“It wasn’t just you,” she said, as if trying to lessen his guilt. “I was already upset, and then I couldn’t get a call to go through to my mom or Aston. I got emotional.”

“You can use the landline.” He brushed strands of her hair escaping her loose braid behind her ear. “I’m sure Aston is worried about you.”

Marley bit her lower lip. “Aston is going to be so upset when she finds out we’re getting married.”

“Why?”

“Because we always planned to be each other’s maids of honor,” she explained.

“I’m sorry, Marley. I have no right to ask you to give up that dream.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.” He hated that the situation in Houston meant she couldn’t have what she wanted. “I could see about having Jet or Devil take over so Ben can fly over with Aston. I doubt she would want to fly alone while pregnant.”

Marley shook her head. “Ben needs the experience of being in charge, especially if you ever want to take me on a fall tour of the northeast.”

“And why would we take a tour of the northeast?” he asked, certain she would have some very amusing reason.

“To see the leaves change color, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“And maybe take a tiny little detour to Salem and then another teensy-weensy detour to Sleepy Hollow,” she added, holding her forefinger and thumb only a few millimeters apart.

“I suppose that’s your way of telling me to clear off my schedule for next October?”

“Is it working?”

“Maybe.” He kissed her twice. “Probably.” He caressed her face and kissed her lovingly. “Are we all right?”

“Yes.” She slid her hand along his shoulder to the back of his neck. With a playful smile, she said, “I think this was our first big fight.”

“Yes, and I didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t either, but we talked it out like adults so that’s encouraging. You didn’t call me names, and I didn’t throw a lamp or hit you with a baseball bat.”

He could tell she was trying to make a joke, but he sensed the pain behind her words. “Spider and your mother?”

She nodded sadly. “If you knew how many holes I patched in that double wide where I grew up...”

“I never would have taken Spider for the type to hit a woman,” he remarked, trying to imagine the biker striking Marley’s mother with a bat.

“He wasn’t,” Marley corrected. “My mom was the violent one. She beat the hell out of Spider any chance she got—and he would take it. He might call her ugly things, but he never struck back.”

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