Page 150 of The Complete Truth Duet
“Right? Just imagine how fly you’ll look on the beach this summer.”
She curled her lip. “Did you say fly? Nobody says fly anymore.”
My mouth twitched as I suppressed an unlikely smile. I loved that kid. She was a pain in my ass every minute of every day. If she wasn’t arguing with me or pushing my buttons, she wasn’t living at all. But she was a good kid. With a good heart, and I was going to make damn sure she had a good future.
“They will when they see you in your bathrobe.”
“Cora,” she whined, begging for backup.
“Okay, okay, you two. Simmer down,” Cora said, wading in. “I’ll take you bathing suit shopping.”
“Who says you’re not going to be wearing a bathrobe too?” I asked her, my chest filling with warmth.
I loved that crazy woman too. On the drive down, we’d played a seven-hour-long game of Truth or Lie. Which for us was really a game of Truth. We swapped stories, strategically trying to stay away from the heavy stuff.
When Cora had eventually fallen asleep, River took over for her mom.
Before we’d left, Cora had made the tough decision for us to tell River about Lisa being Lexy. I’d have given anything to spare that little girl from more pain. But since we were heading to the beach house, where pictures of her were still hanging on the walls, there was no way to hide it. River had taken the news in stride, putting on a brave face and saying that she understood.
But the minute we were semi alone in that truck while everyone else slept, she laid into me with an interrogation. It was obvious she’d cared about Lisa more than I’d realized because most of her questions were disguised statements blaming me for what had happened to her. But there was no amount of blame in the world River could pin on me that I hadn’t already taken on myself.
So I told her, “River, what you have to understand is I didn’t let Lisa do anything. I was her husband. It wasn’t up to me to decide how she lived her life. The only thing that role guaranteed me was the chance to live mine at her side. She knew exactly how I felt about her doing that kind of investigative work. And guess what? She did it anyway because that was important to her. You walk into a marriage thinking you can change the other person, I can promise you the only thing that is going to change is your divorce record. She was who she was. There are a lot of things that I beat myself up for on a daily basis. But how I let her chase her dreams is not one of them. That was never up to me.”
She got quiet for a while after that, until she softly asked, “Are you going to let Cora chase her dreams too?”
I glanced at Cora while she was peacefully snoozing with her head propped against the door and replied, “No. Your mom has done enough chasing to last a lifetime. From here on out, whatever she dreams about, I’m gonna figure out a way to give it to her.”
“My dad gave her the stars,” River replied.
Nic Guerrero had given Cora shit, but I wasn’t about to tell his daughter that.
Instead, I shrugged, “I guess that means all there is left is the moon.”
She’d smiled and then stared out the window for the next fifty miles. I knew because I’d smiled and stared in the rearview mirror at her.
Silently, I watched as all the girls got out of my truck and clambered up the driveway to the house, Drew and Catalina leading the mission.
Cora was fast to get back into the truck, and her hand came right back to mine, intertwining our fingers like she’d never left.
“You want to talk about it or just sit here for a while?” she asked.
I did not—in any way, shape, or form—deserve that woman.
But I was going to keep her for as long as she would have me.
With a sigh, I dropped my head back against the headrest and turned to face her. “This has to be weird for you. Being here. Her stuff is still in the closet, ya know? I’ve never done anything with this place since she died. I don’t know why I brought you here. We should rent a condo or something.”
She grinned. “You want me to say I’m uncomfortable so you don’t have to go in there?”
She knew me too well.
Chuckling, I lifted my finger in the air and pinched them together. “A little.”
“Okay. But, Penn, you slept under Nic’s stars for months. You made love to me while I was wearing his necklace. And you’ve taken care of his daughter without a second of hesitation. You think women’s clothing in a closet is going to bother me?”
