Perfect Embrace by Kaylee Ryan

Chapter 18

Grayson

When we made it back to my place, Laken and I both carried one of the girls inside. She helped me get them in their pajamas and coerce them to use the potty before tucking them in. It’s been a long damn time since I’ve had help with the twins’ nightly routine. If tonight has shown me anything, it’s that I didn’t realize how lonely I was. I’ve been missing the companionship that comes with a relationship.

Laken fits so well with us. She jumps right in and helps with the girls. She listens to their silly stories, and she shows them love and compassion. I never imagined sharing my life with anyone but Holly. Life had other plans, and here I am. A single father, twin girls, and the boyfriend of a woman who blows my mind.

She’s everything I want. She’s everything I need. I already know I never want to let her go.

I’m not going to tell her that. She’d think I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have. All I know is that she appeared in my life for a reason I can’t explain, not when technically she’s been there all along. Now, what I want to do is keep her close. I want to submerge her in my life and my daughters’. I want to see where this goes.

Some may say it’s too soon to bring a woman into my daughters’ life. We’ve only been dating a handful of weeks, but I’m confident this is the right thing for us.

I had the same feeling when Holly and I started dating all the way back in high school. I knew she was going to change my life. At the time, I didn’t know it would be to show me love and give me a part of both of us. I didn’t know when the twins were born they would be forever a piece of the two of us or that we would lose their mother when we did, when they were so young. Holly is gone, her time here on earth ended far too soon, but there is still a piece of her here. Two four-year-old pieces who are the best parts of both of us. I owe it to them to show them what it looks like for a man to love a woman.

“You ready for bed?” I ask Laken, leading her by the hand to my bedroom down the hall.

“I need to go grab my bag out of the truck.”

“I’ll get it. Be right back.” I kiss her quickly before going to grab her bag out of my truck. She wanted to just follow me over, but it’s late, and I insisted on driving. Sure, my house is a few miles at best outside of town, but that doesn’t matter. I wanted her with me.

Rushing back to my room, I peek in on the girls, who are sound asleep, and then disappear behind my bedroom door. I place her bag on the floor and allow my feet to carry me to where she’s sitting on the bed. Her eyes are trained on a picture of Holly and the girls sitting on the nightstand.

“She was beautiful,” she whispers.

Shit. I don’t know how to handle this. Do I apologize? I mean, she’s my kids’ mother. She left this world tragically, and I want them to know she’s still a big part of our lives. “She was.”

I reach for the picture and start to place it facedown, but Laken’s hand on mine stops me. “Please don’t.” I stop my movements, my eyes finding hers. “She’s their mother.”

“I can move it to the living room or add it to the ones that the girls have in their room.”

“Don’t do that for me. We’re in a different situation than most.” She removes her hand from my arm and pats the bed next to me. “Grayson, I don’t want you to forget her in order to be with me. I never want the girls to forget or feel as though they can’t talk about her. I know that this is hard for you.” She reaches over and takes my hand in hers. “I know Holly was the love of your life. I know this isn’t how you had planned for your life to go. I understand that, and I don’t expect you to alter your life for me. I just want a chance to be a part of it. If you think you have room for both of us?” she asks softly.

I swallow hard, trying to rid myself of the golf-ball-sized pack of emotions clogging my throat. “I miss her. Every fucking day, I miss her.” I turn to face her, and she does the same. “I miss her, but I miss you too… when you’re not here. I think about her less and about you more, and I hate that. I feel like I’m forgetting her and replacing her in our lives, but she’s not here, Laken. She’s not here, and she’s not coming back. It’s been three years, and I still have a pain in my chest when I think about losing her—more for my girls than for me. I have you.” I smile softly. “I don’t want you to replace her, but I do have room for you in here.” I place my hand over my heart. “I feel so much for you. It scares me, Laken. Holly is the only woman I’ve ever slept with. She’s the only woman other than my mom and grandma that I’ve ever said I love you to.” I pause, taking a deep breath, preparing myself for the words that I’m about to say. “She’s not my last for those things, Laken. That might have been the plan, but such is life.”

“You’re always going to love her, Grayson. It’s a lot for me to live up to. I know that Holly was it for you. I just hope I can bring you half of the love and joy that she did.”

“That’s just it. You do. My daughters, they smile brighter when you’re around, and me, well, the guys have been giving me shit for weeks about the smile I can’t seem to wipe off my face. It wasn’t until I started spending more time with you that I realized that I could love deeply again. I realized I could feel it in the depths of my soul for more than one person.”

“What are you saying?”

Placing my hands on her cheeks, I smile softly. “I’m saying that I’m falling hard and fast, Laken. I fell in love with Holly when I was a kid. We weren’t perfect, but we loved each other, and we worked hard every day to nurture that love. Then I lost her. I lost myself… until you. We’re not perfect, and my deceased wife will always own a part of me, but you, Laken, you own just as much of me as she did. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s my tragedy and my truth.”

There are tears swimming in her eyes, but she’s smiling, so my guess is that they are happy tears. “I never want them to feel as though they can’t talk about her when I’m around. I want them to know how amazing she was and how much she loved them. I want them to know how much you loved her.”

“Can I say something else? Something that’s going to make me sound like I need to be committed, but I believe it all the same?”

“You can tell me anything.” Her voice is soft, and her eyes, they’re looking at me with so much understanding and, dare I hope, love?

“I think she’s behind this. Behind us. I don’t know how else to explain the fact that we’ve lived in the same small town all our lives, and I’m just now noticing how amazing you are.” I run my fingers through the silky strands of her hair.

“That doesn’t sound crazy. Not at all. Holly was… so nice.” She chuckles. “I don’t know how else to explain it. If I would pass her in the grocery store or on the street, even when she came into my store, she was always so sweet. Hell, even in high school, when she caught me telling Justine how hot I thought you were, she was cool about it. Not rude or snide or bitchy.”

“Wait, I think I need to hear this story.”

She goes on to tell me all about that day in the bathroom sophomore year. “It was easy to see why you loved her the way that you do.”

“Did.”

“What?”

“You said ‘do.’”

She shrugs. “You love her, Grayson. She was taken from you. You didn’t stop loving her. She didn’t stop loving you. What happened to Holly and her sister was tragic. I don’t know all the details, but I know they are both gone way too soon.”

I don’t have words. Not that I could get my mouth to work to speak them if I did with the emotions rolling through my veins and wrapping themselves around my heart. Instead, I pull Laken into my lap and hold her. I sit here with my arms wrapped around this woman who is more understanding and patient than I deserve, and I know it’s coming from a place of love.

“We should get ready for bed,” she murmurs.

“Yes. You have to work tomorrow. What time do you need to get up, and I’ll set my alarm?”

“We open at eight, so as long as I’m up around seven, I should be fine.”

I release my hold on her, and she stands. “I’ll be right back.”

She takes her bag into my bathroom and closes the door behind her. My eyes land on the picture frame of Holly and the girls on their first birthday. She was gone a week later. “She’s amazing, Holls. Thank you for sending her to me,” I whisper. I know it’s a crazy thing to believe, but I feel it in my soul.

A few minutes later, Laken appears, wearing a tank top and a short pair of shorts. Her hair is pulled up in a messy knot on the top of her head. She takes my breath away. I want her with an intensity I’ve never felt before. Not even with Holly. That tells me all I need to know.

We’re on the right track.

It’s scary, and there are a lot of feelings and pain, but I want to move forward. With Laken. I want a future with her and my girls.

“I’ll be quick,” I say, standing from the bed. I kiss her quickly before grabbing a pair of gym shorts out of my dresser and slipping into the bathroom.

* * *

We’re in bed, her back to my chest, and my arms are locked around her. It feels right to have her here in my arms. Tonight has been an emotional roller coaster, but there is still something we haven’t talked about—how I lost Holly. I know she knows. No one could live in this small town and not know. But I feel like she needs to hear it from me.

“Laken,” I whisper.

“Yeah?”

I pull her closer, place a kiss on her shoulder, and begin to talk. “It was the week after the girls’ first birthday. Holly and her sister, Heidi, drove to Bighorn Canyon. They both loved to hike, and Holly hadn’t had much time to go with the girls being babies and being a stay-at-home mom.” I pause, collecting my thoughts. “They decided to hike another day and drive home later that evening. It’s about an hour and a half from here, an hour from Billings, not a huge drive. Heidi was driving, and I was on the phone with Holly. That’s something that the masses don’t know. They don’t know that I was talking to my wife the night that the accident happened. They don’t know that I heard her screams. That I heard the screams of my sister-in-law as metal scraped against metal.”

“Oh, Grayson,” Laken says as she turns in my arms. Her hand rests on my cheek, and I can tell from her tone of voice, she’s upset.

“I’d just put the girls to bed and started to scream for her. She wouldn’t answer me, Laken. I tried so hard to get her to talk to me, but she wouldn’t. I could hear screams, and eventually, sirens. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hang up. Luckily we had a landline, and I called my parents and then Ryder. I told Mom to call Christine and Marty. At least that’s what they tell me. I don’t remember much other than pressing the phone to my ear so hard I’m surprised the phone didn’t crack. I couldn’t leave our babies, but she needed me. She needed me, and she was over an hour away, and I couldn’t go to her.” I’m fighting back the tears that threaten to fall. My throat burns with the need to let them, but I need to get through this.

I don’t know why but I want her to know. I know I can trust Laken, and I feel like she needs to know this to have all of me. I need to give her this part of my life in order to give her my heart.

“I can’t imagine how incredibly difficult that was for you.”

“She died. That’s why she wouldn’t talk to me. She and Heidi both died on that stretch of highway. She was clutching her phone when they finally got to her.” I lose my battle with control as my tears fall. It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself go to that night. I’ve been surviving, just pushing one day at a time to raise my girls.

“I’m so sorry.” She repeats the words over and over as she clings to me. Then again, I think it’s me who’s clinging to her. I cry for my late wife and all that she’s missing with our daughters. I cry for my daughters, who will never know the incredible woman who gave them life. I cry for me and the loss of that love. It’s cathartic because for all the times I’ve broken down, this time is different. This time I have Laken here with her arms around me. It’s her perfect embrace that brings me back to now.

Back to her.

“Laken.”

“I’m here.”

She’s comforting me for the loss of my wife, and all I want to do is tell her how much her being here means to me. I want to tell her how much she means to me, and suddenly, time means nothing. If I’ve learned anything by losing Holly, it’s that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for any of us. I refuse to go another day with her, not knowing what she means to me.

“I love you.” She sucks in a sharp breath but doesn’t say anything. “I love you for the kind, loving woman that you are. I love you for understanding my life situation. I love you for the way you treat my daughters. I love you for your heart, and I hope like hell you’ll let me love you forever.”

She’s quiet for far too long, and I’m ready to tell her that it’s okay if she’s not there yet, but I need her to know, but then she kisses me. It’s just a quick peck, followed by “I love you too, Grayson.” Her voice is husky from what I expect are her own tears. “I love you too,” she says again.

I pull her into my embrace, as close as I can get her. My heart is full.

I will miss Holly every day of forever and will always love her, but it’s Laken who I’ll be growing old with.

I send up a silent prayer that that wish comes true.