“Excuse me?” I couldn’t help but grin, watching her gear up to lecture mode.
“Bullshit!” she repeated while undoing the side zipper of her pencil skirt. “If Darcy wanted something, he should have spoken up! Since the day he came into this world, you, his father, has moved heaven and earth for him, more than he will ever know. Cheated him? Ha! It’s easy for him to say that when he doesn’t know what the world really would have looked like had you taken over the family. I can tell you for damn sure, I wouldn’t have been your wife, and he wouldn’t be himself. And on top of that, whatever son you did have would have been forced to live under the constant threat of being murdered… well, more than they already are. Ethan’s wife just took a bullet to the head! Is anyone shooting at Darcy? No. Why? Because he’s not the boss. And because he’s not the boss, but still a Callahan, he’s free to do anything he damn well pleases, and I mean anything. The fact that it even took him this long to get to the point where he could speak his mind means he wouldn’t have been able to stand on his own when he was eighteen...the same year Ethan had to. And another thing, we are alive! His parents, both of us, are alive. Can Ethan say that? No. Why? Because his father and mother made the choice to stand in front. He is the man he is today because you have stood beside him—”
“Bravo!” I laughed, applauding her. “You tell him, baby.”
“I’m being serious.” She laughed back, taking off her shirt and throwing it at me.
It was as if she’d taken the weight off of my shoulders. Rising from the bench and walking over to her, I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tightly. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I feel better.”
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel better. I was just telling you the truth,” she muttered while trying to wiggle out of my arms. “He should never complain about having a father like you, cause even with how much we’ve ruined them, there still isn’t a father better than you.”
“I’m sure Helen, when she calms down, will think the same of you,” I told her softly, and she paused.
“What if she never forgives us?”
It hurt to think that. The thought was so painful; I didn’t want to even entertain it. “No matter what, we’ll love her, and hopefully that will be enough.”
“I want her home,” she said, hugging me tighter. “I feel so damn old, Declan. Look at me, whining about our kids. I feel like those old ladies who still treat their children like infants.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but now that you mention it—ahh. Kidding, I’m kidding,” I said when she elbowed me and bowed out of my grasp.
Glaring, she walked toward our bathroom. “Well, don’t mind me. I’m going to take my old self to bathroom and soak these old bones in the bath by myself.”
“Baby,” I tried to follow, but she closed the door right in my face. “I love you!” I shouted through the door.
I waited. Then just like always, she opened it a crack, still glaring at me, but I could see the amusement in her eyes.
“You think the bath could hold two sets of old bones?” I questioned, leaning on the frame, unable to stop myself from smiling as I looked to her.
She didn’t open the door wider. Instead, she leaned on the frame with me. “You are infuriating, you know that?”
“What did I do now?”
“You make me feel like everything is alright, that everything will always be alright, when I want to be panicking about our children. We should be looking for Helen—”
I took my phone out and let her look at the map. “She took a drive to Rock State Park and then a walk before getting groceries and then headed back to her penthouse.”
“You don’t think you should have told me this when you first got in?” she asked, trying to take the phone from me, but I pulled it back, standing up straighter.
“Deny you the chance to vent? Never.” I grinned.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do I feel like you’re calling me predictable?”
/> “That’s a very negative way to see it,” I stated as I slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“And how do you see it?” she asked, stepping back slightly, but never looking away from me.
“I see it as the product of thirty years of studying,” I replied, grabbing on to her hips before lifting her up. Her arms instantly wrapped around my neck. “I have a PhD in Coraline.”
“Oh, in that case, Doctor, please—”
My lips were on hers before she could even ask. She found me infuriating? The feeling was mutual. How was it that everywhere she wasn’t, was chaos…I felt as bad as she did when I came in, and yet the moment she began to speak, everything else melted away. How could I not feel like everything is alright, that everything will always be alright…I had her.
And that was all I needed. What I gave up, what I could I have been, what I could have had…none of it held a light to what I had with her.
Peace.
It wasn’t the measure of power that made a man, it was the measure to which he felt loved.