Page 78 of The Caretaker
I needed a moment to savor this. A moment to be sure before hunting Solace down with the news. Deciding I couldn’t do any of those things with the cloud of sleep deprivation clogging up my head, I dashed for the shower.
With the steam clearing the fog from my brain, and the water masking the proof of my emotions, I cried and laughed into my hands.
I reached a shaky palm out to touch the phantom image of my now husband dressed in a tuxedo at a hospital charity ball. He was devastatingly handsome, even while being shattered by betrayal.
My breath caught at the vision of him opening the door to his and Patrick’s home. I’d thought he was the one Stacey had been having the affair with, but one good look at him and I knew he’d been broken by it, just like me. One look and I knew I had to be there for him.
I groaned, shuffling forward to press my forehead against the shower wall once I’d reached the memory of us making love for the first time. That lost look on his face that had made me want to take control of the moment. The shy blush of someone untrained in the art of seduction while his body moved with practiced experience. I was a goner. If I hadn’t been before then,thathad sealed my fate.
I’d remembered some of our initial time together throughout the recent years. Bits and pieces that had come to me in fits and shades of gray. Nothing ever worth mentioning, though. Nothing ever worth disturbing the life we’d come to accept. The life we loved. I remembered actual moments now, though. Full-blooded moments from start to finish. I still didn’t have it all, but what I held now was a miracle.
I dried off and dressed quickly, dashing down the stairs and heading for the backyard where I knew I’d find Solace.
“Take my cock! Take my cock!” Igor chirped from his cage as soon as I entered the kitchen.
“Fuck me harder! Fuck me harder!” Elenor piped in, wings flapping. I muttered a curse. Solace and I should have never had sex in the same room as them. Maybe now he’d agree to get rid of them.
“Good morning to you too,” I said dryly to them both, aiming for the open glass doors.
The insolent birds were forgotten when I laid eyes on my husband’s tight rear end as he bent to collect eggs from the nesting boxes. My options were to get my mind out of the gutter fast or be the cause of Igor and Elenor’s raunchy vocabulary expanding further.
Solace thanked each hen by name as he filled his basket.
“Maybe we should reconsider the location of this coop,” I said, leaning casually against the doorframe. “They’re a loud bunch.”
“They’re only noisy when they lay eggs,” Solace said, chuckling as he worked.
“They lay eggs every day, beautiful.”
“But not all day—” He whirled around, dropping today’s batch at his feet. “Wh-what did you say?”
“I said they lay eggs every day, so by your logic, they’re noisy daily.”
“Don’t make me strangle you, Noon.” He approached me as if he meant to do just that, his breathing ragged. “You know what I mean. Say it again.” His voice cracked as he gathered my t-shirt between his fists.
“I said, they lay eggs every day,beautiful.” I spun a strand of his loose hair around my finger.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “You called me beautiful.” He’d stuck to his word, never telling me the term of endearment I’d taken to using for him before the accident. I’d refused to start using a new one. I was glad for it now, because “beautiful” fit him perfectly.
“Yes, beautiful,” I said. He’d get sick of me saying it now.
“You remember.”
I kissed his forehead with significance, pulling back and looking directly into his eyes.
“You remember that too,” he breathed.
“I remember.”
Solace’s eyes searched mine, seemingly asking if I recalled anything else.
“No,” I said. “Not everything.”
“Oh,” he responded, smiling anyway. “You called me beautiful. That’s enough for me.”
If this were some romantic movie, or even four years ago, we would have fallen into each other’s arms. I would have ravished him right where we stood. As parents, we didn’t often get that type of luxury anymore. We wouldn’t have had it any other way, though.
Activity sounded on the baby monitor perched near the coop, and then Pete the bulldog barked from in the kitchen, signaling princess Penelope’s arrival. The other cats and dogs—who hardly ever left her side—trailed her as she padded her way from the downstairs guest bedroom. Solace normally carried her sleeping form in there while he dealt with the chickens. It gave him easier access to her if she woke up, allowing me to sleep in whenever possible.
