An Innocent Thanksgiving (Holiday Heat Book 2) Read online

  There it was. My entire story, out in the open. My mom was nodding slightly, like she was looking back over the last five years and filling in all the gaps, all the things that had confused her about my behavior.

  Dad had his jaw clenched, and I honestly wondered if he was going to clock Cal in the jaw. Or yell at me. Either option looked likely. I hoped that he would yell at me, actually. Cal’s behavior after the sex had hurt me. It had made me not trust that he wanted his daughter in his life. But the actual initiation of it all? The seduction? The choice to keep Fern? All of that was on me. Sure, he’d said yes, but he wasn’t grooming me, he wasn’t seducing me, he wasn’t being creepy. I needed them to know that. I needed Dad to look at me as an adult and accept that I had a hand in this.

  “But when he saw Fern…” I shrugged. “He realized the truth.”

  “She does look like him,” Mom noted quietly.

  Dad’s jaw ticked and he looked like he might leap out of his chair.

  “That’s why I moved down to Nashville,” Cal said, jumping in. The knot in my stomach loosened a little bit. I was grateful that he was taking over the story now. “I realized that Fern was mine on Thanksgiving and I confronted Maggie about it. She was reluctant to let me into her life and I don’t blame her. I was awful to her after our one night together.

  “But I wanted to be in my daughter’s life. Now that I know about her, I want to be there. So I moved down and I worked to prove to Maggie that I could be reliable, that she could depend on me with Fern. And, well…” Cal’s mouth twitched and went stiff like he was struggling not to smile. I noticed that he carefully kept himself from looking over at me. “The spark between Maggie and I… rekindled.”

  “I’ve got no interest in hearing about whatever damn spark you think is there between you and my daughter,” Dad said curtly, cutting Cal off.

  Ah, yeah, this was what I’d feared would happen. My stomach heaved and I had to swallow a few times to keep the bile down. I had never felt this awful in my entire life, and I had been pregnant. I’d gone through a four-hour labor. But that had—that had be pain, sure, but pushing for something, and this was just fear and feeling like absolute shit, feeling shame and horror.

  Cal started to speak, but Dad stood up. “I’d like you to leave now,” he said, and while his words were theoretically polite, his tone was far from it. The message was clear—if Cal didn’t get out right that minute, Dad was going to force him out.

  I had never seen my dad get physical with anyone. My dad was a logical guy who thought doing the Sunday crossword was the highlight of his week. But this was obviously a limit that he had been pushed beyond, a betrayal from two people he had trusted most in the world besides my mom, and he was close to losing it.

  “Dad.” Just keep breathing. “I know that you’re upset. And you have every right to be. But please, I’m the one that you should be upset with. I lied to you, and I lied to Cal. I started all of this, and I didn’t tell you the truth about Fern. This is really on me, not him.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Dad snapped. He turned and walked away, out across the backyard. Fern glanced up, confused about what her grandfather was doing, but then went back to swinging, now reciting the alphabet backwards.

  Mom looked after Dad, then turned to us. “I’m sorry about this.”

  I didn’t know why she was apologizing, of all people. “Mom, really, it’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, but it also wasn’t her fault.

  Cal stood. “I should go. Thank you, Violet, for all your friendship and support over the years. It really does mean a lot. I’m sorry for whatever part I played in hurting you.”

  He looked at me, and I felt my breath catch. I wanted to reach out to him, remembering all the wonderful things he’d said to me earlier, how loved he had made me feel—but now really wasn’t the time.

  Dad would absolutely lose his shit if he saw the two of us being all… well.

  Cal ended up just nodding at me, and then he left, going back inside the house. A moment later I heard the front door open and close, and the muffled sound of Cal’s car starting up.

  I got up as well. “I should go inside.” My voice sounded small and distant. I didn’t want Fern to see me cry—if she did, she’d want to know why, and how could I lie to my daughter? But how could I tell her the truth? Especially right now with everything falling apart?

  Mom didn’t say a word, but she got up and followed me. I knew that Dad, angry as he was, would still keep an eye on Fern. I intended to go upstairs, but I only got as far as the living room before bursting into tears.

  “Oh, honey.” Mom gathered me into her arms.

  “You don’t have to…” I started, wiping at my eyes.

  “Shh, no, I’m your mom, of course I’m going to comfort you when you’re crying, honey. C’mere.” Mom guided me to sit down on the sofa. “There we go, cry it out.”

  “I knew he would be angry. I’m surprised you’re not angry too.”

  Mom rubbed my back, and sighed. “Well… honey… I’ll be… I guessed, actually. Or suspected, I should say.”

  I looked up at her. “What?”

  Mom gave a little shrug. “Well. I could see that you had a crush on Cal. You were always trying to get his attention and looking at him with stars in your eyes. I mentioned it once or twice to your father. I didn’t think Cal had noticed. If he did he wasn’t treating you any differently. But your father brushed it off, said I was seeing things. I think he’s… upset with himself, a bit, thinking that if he had listened to me maybe he could have spoken to you. Maybe I should have spoken to you. I’m not sure.”

  “I know that what I did was stupid. It wasn’t fair to Cal to just show up at his house like that.”

  “Well, he also could have kicked you out of the house when you showed up. It sounds fifty-fifty to me. I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much.”

  “I’m the one who lied, though. I’m sorry. I lied to you about Fern’s father all this time…” I wiped at my eyes again as my eyes filled with more tears.

  Mom sighed. “I’m not going to pretend that it’s not… that it doesn’t hurt that you didn’t tell us the truth. But I can understand why you didn’t. I thought Cal might be the father after—well, you had such a crush on him, and then you didn’t even talk about him. You avoided him when we said he was going to come over. And I knew you weren’t the type to go to parties and have one night stands. You were always so serious about your studying. It just… seemed logical. And Fern does look like Cal. I know it’s not something you really think about, but I have spent the last three decades being friends with the man, I’ve seen him almost every day.”

  “I feel so obvious now,” I grumbled, and Mom gave a small laugh. She took my hand.

  “Honey, I think it’s best if… if your father gets a chance to let off some steam. I’ll talk to him, and we’ll work it out. You should go be with Cal. Are you two serious about pursuing this relationship?”

  I nodded. “I wasn’t sure about it at first. I really wasn’t. Cal had to beg me to give him a chance. I didn’t want to give him a chance to hurt me again even though now that I’m older I understand why he panicked and was upset. But he really is serious about Fern and about me. It’s…” I found myself smiling. “It’s really wonderful. It is.”

  Mom gave me a small smile. “Then I’m sure that… well I know that I will try and understand. You should go to Cal for now.”

  I hugged her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Mom called Fern in and I hugged her, telling her to be good for Grandma and Grandpa while I went to help out a friend. Fern was totally okay with that—she had no reason to feel that time with her grandparents was anything other than fun. If she noticed the recent tear tracks on my face, she didn’t say anything about it, thank God.

  I drove to Cal’s house with my chest feeling all tight and full, like a well about to burst open. I had cried with my mom but I felt far from done.

  Why had I slept with him that first ni
ght? It had gotten me Fern and that was the one reason that I was’t regretting it, but God, it felt like in some ways the craziest, worst decision of my life. I had ruined my parents’ relationship with Cal and with me, and I’d betrayed their trust. I felt like I’d been such a stupid little girl.

  Cal looked surprised when he opened the door and found me standing there. To my shame and horror—but really not a lot of surprise given how I was feeling—I burst into tears.

  “Oh, baby.” Cal opened his arms at once and I stepped, or rather flung myself, into his embrace. He held me close and tight, shushing me, kissing my hair and stroking my back.

  “We’re going to get through this,” Cal promised me as he led me inside. “You need to rest, babe, it’s okay.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was rest, what with my thoughts running around like hyperactive hamsters on a wheel, but I also felt exhausted. I let Cal lead me to his bedroom—a place I had never been before, despite daydreaming about it plenty as a teenager—and we all but collapsed onto the bed. I clung to him like he was a buoy in a raging sea, like if I let go, I’d drown.

  But Cal would never let me drown.

  He pulled my clothes off slowly, even as I tried to speed it up. “Shh,” he told me. He kissed me again and again, until I began to relax in spite of myself. “We have time, darling.”

  I had never imagined someone calling me something like darling. In all honesty, I’d thought it a nickname that was a little… over the top. A bit sappy. But when Cal said it, it sounded so natural.

  He kissed me slowly all over, like he didn’t want to leave a single inch of my skin untouched by his mouth. Little by little, I began to relax, and yet it didn’t feel any less intense for it. I was feeling… worshipped, honestly, and it was like being swept in by the ocean, overwhelmed, drowning. But I welcomed it. I had never imagined that I could ever feel this way, that anyone could ever want to be this way for me—but Cal did. At every turn, he was surprising me with new ways to make me feel his love and devotion.

  He pulled my breasts into his mouth, nipped at my stomach, and licked into the core of me, until my thighs were draped over his shoulders and I was gripping the bedsheets tightly, overwhelmed by the feeling of his hot tongue and fingers inside of me. “I’m coming,” I warned him, but he didn’t stop, he just kept going—and kept going. It was like he was determined to make me come as many times as possible, like he had some kind of point to prove about how much he wanted me to be pleasured.

  After the second time I came, shaking and sobbing, my eyesight completely blurry, he retreated a bit, kissing up and down my thighs, soothing me. His fingers stroked my stomach, and I felt incredibly held. Cherished.

  “You look so beautiful when you come,” he admitted, his voice a bit hoarse. He massaged my thighs and I sighed into his touch. I was so relaxed after coming twice, he could’ve slid right into me without any more prep. I hoped that he would. I wanted him to. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” I replied, breathless.

  Cal chuckled, still massaging my thighs. “What do you want?” he asked. As if he wanted nothing more than to keep making me feel good. It made my heart melt.

  Well, I had only one answer to that question. “You.”

  25

  Cal

  Maggie’s expression when she sighed, you, made my heart stutter. God, she was so fucking beautiful. I could hardly believe, in some moments, that this entire thing was real. It felt like it had to be a damn dream, some fantasy that I’d conjured up. How could one person be so damn perfect for me? How could I be so addicted to her?

  I was enamored with her. Lovestruck. All those stupid, ridiculous phrases that I’d scoffed at when I was younger. Younger and foolish, I now knew. I wanted to forget about the rest of the world and just spend days in bed, worshipping her body, fucking her every way that I could think of and then only stopping to sleep with her beside me.

  But we didn’t have all the time in the world, unfortunately, and Maggie had asked for me to fuck her. I wasn’t about to leave her hanging, so to speak.

  I moved up her body, kissing as I went, addicted to the feel of her skin against my lips. I had marked her up, covered her in hickeys and red spots from my stubble, and it satisfied a possessive side to me that I hadn’t known existed. I wanted to go around to everyone that we met and tell them that she was mine and I was hers. I wanted to bring her to every dinner, every gallery show, every museum or get-together that I attended. I wanted the world to see that we were together.

  Maggie wrapped her arms around me, sighing happily into my mouth as I finally kissed her there. Our tongues tangled, slid together, then apart, and for a few moments I just got lost in the joy of kissing her. Making out was kind of something you did as a teenager, before you knew what else you could do, and then you got to the whole sex stuff and you sort of forgot how nice it was just to kiss someone for the sake of kissing them, over and over.

  Eventually, though, my hard-on couldn’t be ignored. My cock had been twitching with need for ages now, and it felt like my entire body was on fire with wanting. I kissed Maggie a final time and then pulled back, bracing myself as Maggie wrapped her hand around my cock and guided me inside of her.

  God, she felt so fucking good. It felt natural for me to do this, for us to join like this. Like this was what we were supposed to be doing with each other. All of our sex had been intense, been pleasurable, but it was starting to feel familiar, and I loved it. We were learning each other’s bodies and it was amazing. Sex with new people was overrated. Sex with people where you loved them and they loved you and you knew and understood each other’s bodies—okay, yeah, I sounded like a sap. Fuckin’ sue me.

  Maggie wanted me to speed up now and again but I kept it slow, kept it deep and intense. I wanted to make this last. She was oddly quiet this time, but not in a bad way. I was quiet too. It was like we were joining in something that was too intense for words, too much for sound.

  I let out a long, low groan as I came, and I felt Maggie inhale sharply and shudder, clenching around me. We came together, and I had never felt more damn complete or satisfied in my life.

  That night, I got to have Maggie in my arms again. It felt just as good as the first time—no, even better. She stayed cuddled up in my arms all night, clinging even in her sleep, like she needed my comfort, my support. I wanted to tell her that I would give it to her always, unconditionally. I was here to stay and I wasn’t giving her up.

  It took me a lot longer to fall asleep, while Maggie was out like a light almost immediately. What with all the damn stress, I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t sure how much I could blame Mark for his anger, but I also wanted to grab him and shake him, to tell him that Maggie was tearing herself apart, and couldn’t he forgive her?

  Maggie woke up before me, seeing as she fell asleep before I did, and I groaned when I woke up and realized that she wasn’t in bed anymore. For a moment I wasn’t sure where she was, but then I heard Maggie’s soft voice coming from the bathroom.

  I sat up, straining to hear. I didn’t want to eavesdrop but I was also worried. If Mark was being an asshole to her and I couldn’t help defend her…

  “We’ll be over soon,” I heard her, and the bathroom door opened as Maggie emerged, hanging up her cell phone.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  Maggie nodded, sitting back down on the bed. “That was my Mom. She called to invite us over for breakfast.”

  That didn’t sound right. “Are you sure that she meant both of us?” She probably just meant Maggie.

  Maggie nodded. “Apparently Dad’s ready to continue the conversation.”

  That… that was a lot sooner than I had expected. I suspected that Violet had done a lot of talking to him. But was Mark really ready to listen to us and be understanding?

  We got to their house and I could smell the warm, delicious breakfast scents wafting out from the front door. My stomach rum
bled. Dammit.

  Fern opened the door for us. “Hi!” She was beaming. “We got pancakes and bacon! I missed you last night.”

  “We missed you too,” Maggie promised her daughter. “We just had stuff to take care of. Where’s Grandma?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  Maggie went to say hi to her mom, hugging her hello. Violet gave me a look. “Mark is out back,” was all she said.

  Right. Okay. I could do this.

  I left Maggie and Violet in the kitchen and went out to find Mark sitting on the back porch, a cup of coffee in hand. I always used to say that the day that I saw Violet making breakfast, or anything really, in the kitchen and not Mark was the day the apocalypse came.

  Guess the apocalypse was here.

  “Hey.” I sat down next to him. “Good morning.”

  I wasn’t sure how to proceed from here. There wasn’t really much I could say that hadn’t already been said on my part, or on Maggie’s part, last night. Now was my turn to be quiet and listen.

  Mark turned to me, and I could see circles under his eyes. “I didn’t really sleep well last night, as you can imagine.”

  I nodded.

  Mark took a few sips of coffee, staring out across the backyard. “All I could think about was how I’d been lied to. I understand—Maggie was an adult. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. And I trust that when you say it was her… initiation. But that doesn’t change the fact that—you slept with my daughter and you didn’t tell me. For five years, you didn’t tell me.”

  “I know.” I started to say more, to say how sorry I was, but Mark held up a hand.

  “But then I thought about how you’re not just the man who slept with my daughter. You’re the father of my grandchild. And I love Fern.” Mark turned to look back at me. “I love that little girl more than anything, and she deserves a father. She deserves a family that puts her first.”

  “If I’d known about her, Mark, I swear I would’ve been there from the first.”