Dawn's Innocence

Fallon was smart as a whip and inquisitive beyond her years. When she asked questions about her father, Erica had always given the same vague, cookie cutter answer. So far, it had worked. One day, it wouldn't and she'd have to tell her daughter the truth. How was she going to answer that question when it came? That she didn't have a dad because her mom hadn't ever told him about her. That her father never came around because he didn't know she existed.

The pat answer that came so automatically was so much easier. The lie just rolled off Erica's tongue she'd told it so many times. Fallon was getting too old and far too wise to be fopped off with vague reassurances that her father loved her. Someday, she'd want to know who the man was. Where he was. And why he'd never come around. Erica had no excuse for what she'd done other than it just kind of happened and that one night she'd spent with Fallon's father had resulted in a child. She worried the answer would be required of her sooner than later and how did you explain that to an intelligent, impressionable young girl who thought her mother could never do any wrong?

It wasn't Torr's fault. He hadn't known. Erica had told him virtually nothing about herself. At the time, she'd wanted a quick escape from who she was. The last thing she'd wanted to do was spend what little time she had with the man and his god like body talking about the life that had bored her to tears at the tender age of twenty-two. She'd wanted to be a woman of mystery, not an accounting major in her last year of college. And Torr, the way he'd looked at her...the mere memory of it still curled her toes in her battered Converse ten years later.

She'd left early the morning after without a word of explanation and hopped the first plane back to the life she'd so desperately sought a temporary escape from. When she found out she was pregnant, she hadn't so much as tried to find Torr. The fault was hers. One hundred percent. She'd been so tempted to blurt out the truth when she heard his voice cutting across the miles and years that separated them. She hadn't chickened out. Wouldn't chicken out. She rationalized and compartmentalized. What they shared was a one night stand. Nothing more. The only thing that bound them in any kind of way was the little girl sleeping fitfully on an air mattress in the next room.

What would he think of her if he knew the truth? Would he hate her for keeping him away from his daughter and robbing him of the years he could have had as a father? Why after all this time had he contacted her now? What did he want? Did he already know about Fallon? Did he want to be a part of her life, of their lives? Would he welcome his daughter with open arms or push her away and deny that she was his?

What would he see when he looked at her now? She was hardly the twenty-two year old coed from parts unknown. Her curves had softened over the years and time had carved a line or two into the corners of her mouth, eyes, and into her brow. What would he look like now? Did he still have the body of a god or had time given him a paunch and a receding hairline? Did he have a family? Children?

There were simply too many unanswered questions hanging over her head to consider the only thing he'd asked of her. Erica didn't know what part of the country Torr considered home. Considering they'd met in Texas and he had a Texan drawl to his accent, she had to assume that was home for him. He was willing to fly out, for nothing more promising than a ten-minute meeting to see her again. Maybe she should have taken him up on his offer. Coffee was harmless enough. She pounded the back of her head against the wall out of sheer frustration. Why had he popped back into her life now? When it was such a wreck?

She'd had it all planned out. But, sometimes even the best plans turn to shit. Thinking back, she realized how naïve the idea had been. She should have stayed at her job as an accountant instead of burning through the money she'd inherited from her mother's passing. Maybe, it was shock that made her do it. One morning her mom was here and the next, she was gone. The two of them had been so close. Thick of thieves or like, two peas in a pod, as her mom used to say. They'd walk the crowded sidewalks of DC and talk about big dreams of running a little coffee shop in the trendy, touristy section of town.

Erica still cursed herself for not using her head instead of her heart to make the biggest decision...the biggest fuck up of her entire life. Like DC needed another coffee shop. The first year, she'd done okay. At least she'd managed to keep the shop in the black. Then the recession hit downtown Washington with the speed of a wrecking ball. The shop was gone. The money, both her savings and her inheritance depleted to a few hundred bucks. The rent on the cozy two bedroom plus bonus loft apartment Fallon and she shared with her mother was two months behind. Tomorrow morning the utilities were getting turned off. The fridge was empty and so were the cabinets. And by the time she arrived back in her home state, she literally wouldn't have two nickels to rub together.

Right after she realized the shop was going to fail. She hit the streets in search of a job. It seemed, DC had as much need for accountants as they did for coffee shops. Absolutely none. Other than a couple of casual friends, Erica had no real reason to stay in DC, not now, not without her mom. Without a source of income, she certainly couldn't afford the lofty rents or unreasonable cost of living in the capitol of the United States.

As a kid, she'd been packed up and shipped to her Aunt Leigh and Uncle Alexander's farm every summer. Her mother believed too much time spent inhaling the smog and living surrounded by concrete, traffic, and the endless press of humanity that was Washington DC was unhealthy for a growing little girl.

And as much as her mother religiously sent her packing summer after summer, she never made the trip back home herself. Erica had been flying on airplanes alone since she was six or seven years old. Why her mother never went back, she had never said. The only thing Erica had managed to piece together was that it had something to do with the father she'd never known. Her dad died in some kind of an accident when she was just a baby and other than a few pictures hanging on Aunt Leigh's living room wall, she had no memory of him at all. Her mom had never spoken and would never speak of him. It was evident though that the loss of him had broken her mom's heart and maybe going back would have been too painful for her.

Summers with her aunt, uncle, and Alex were the best. The ranch was nothing but an open expanse of sky, woods, clear streams, and flat rolling pastureland surrounded by cornfields. Alex and she would daydream beneath that wide-open sky for hours. Idly letting the hot summer sun bake them tan and watching the white fluffy clouds drift by. Then they grew up and apart as childhood playmates often do.

Uncle Alexander and Aunt Leigh lived a humble uncomplicated life. They barely had money enough for themselves. She couldn't have asked them for a loan she had no way to pay back. Her aunt and uncle had welcomed her back to the ranch with open arms. Graciously offering her Alex's old room and the guest room for as long as she needed it. She'd been so embarrassed and ashamed to ask, but she truly didn't have any other options.

The wait for public housing was long and without a job, she couldn't have paid the minimum rent anyway. Food stamps would have covered the basics, barely, but without a roof over her head, what good would they do? Since she'd owned her own business, she didn't qualify for unemployment. Nobody was hiring accountants these days and the firm she'd worked for, like so many others, had downsized. Working one or two, maybe even three of the part time minimum wage jobs so plentiful in the city wouldn't begin to pay the rent and Fallon as capable as she was, was too young to leave at home alone at night and sitters worth trusting were damn hard to come by. The homeless shelters were overrun and crowded and that was no place to raise a little girl, even temporarily.

She'd considered every possible option and had come up with a big zilch. Try as she may, Erica considered herself a failure and she was running home with her tail tucked between her legs. Nothing more to do than to make the best of it, she supposed. That and hide even more half-truths and concocted fictions from her little girl about her mother.

Erica hadn't been back to the ranch in years. A flood of fond memories made her smile despite the fact she ought to be crying over her defeat. She wondered if the tire swing was still there, hanging from that old oak tree at the end of the pasture. If the water in the rocky creek was as cold on a hot summer day as she remembered. If the pine trees and the leaves in the branches over her head still whispered stories capable of fueling a little girl's active imagination. If Jack, old Jack now, the gentle bay gelding, was up to the task of being ridden and becoming little girl's best friend, once again.

Maybe, a new start was exactly what Fallon and she needed. The Midwestern summers had been a haven to her growing up. Running barefoot in the fields, chasing fireflies on hot, balmy summer nights, ice cream scoops with fat, sweet cherries on the top, honey bees and green leaves on the trees, thunderstorms that rattled the windows in their sashes and ended with the brilliant displays of rainbows stretched across the sky, and then there was the corn, acres and acres of corn. Mosquito bites, sunburns that left her nose peeling and red, and the sense of home, family, and community that came with small town life. And that was something the city would never offer.

Erica would miss the pace of the city. The museums, the libraries, the monuments to the great men who founded this country, the blending of cultures that came with the ceaseless flow of people of every shape and color from all the parts of the globe, and the urban beat of life, so much of it pulsing in an endless rhythm all around her.

The country would be good for Fallon. She'd have plenty of room to stretch those long legs of hers. And being around Aunt Leigh, Uncle Alexander, and Alex, of course, the extended family would help to fill the empty space left behind by her grandma's death. Fallon missed her grandma. Her smile. Her cooking. Just the everything that she was and in her absence, she'd left a huge gulf Erica had no idea how to fill. Especially, since she felt the same hole in her heart herself. The both of them were like two orphans wandering aimlessly though life, even after a year had come and gone. She hoped Fallon would love that old tire swing and Jack as much as she had. And that maybe, this move to the country would help in some way to heal them both.

She hit save and stored Torr's number in her cell phone's memory. Maybe, some other time she'd call him. Jobless and living with her aunt and uncle was not exactly the image of the capable single mother she hoped to portray. She had to have her shit together before she could think about what she was going to say to him. How she was going to explain. For now, the immediate...taking care of Fallon had to come first. She'd deal with Torr later. How much later, she could only guess. She only knew that eventually, she'd take a chance and dial his number.

They were leaving first thing in the morning. Probably before dawn and the city streets became clogged with traffic. Fallon was excited about the move. Erica hadn't told her daughter anymore than she'd had to as to why they were moving halfway across the country. She'd tried to play up the good things. Jack. The tire swing. The ice cream scoops with the cherries on top. Things a little girl would look forward to. She'd omitted the bad. That there'd be a chance they'd be shacked up in her aunt and uncle's spare bedrooms for a very long time. That they were out of money, out of luck, and there was damn little to show for all their hard work. Actually nothing but the clothes on their backs, a few treasured knickknacks, and a phone number she'd get around to calling someday.

Chapter 35

Nash stretched his long legs across the bed and watched as Eloise emerged from a steamy shower with her shapely curves unfortunately hidden beneath a thick, soft towel. He watched her as she sat at the dressing table and began unwinding the bun at the nape of her neck. She looked absolutely regal sitting on that velvet stool with the ornately carved legs and staring into the mirror past her reflection and at him. He was glad the vanity had come with her. It was one of the few possessions he'd managed to salvage from her home in Texas.

She took her time, methodically combing out the mass of damp, black waves, luxuriating in a one of the few rare moments of utter femininity she allowed herself. Once she was satisfied with her hair, she stood dropping the towel to her feet. Slowly sliding into a silk nightgown that hit her mid thigh. There was one thing he liked more than watching her undress for him and that was the pleasure she took watching him watch her as she dressed for bed. He grew hard, eying the erect peaks of her nipples, turning pert from the brush of the silky, sheer fabric with each step she took closer to him.

Eloise wasn't the person she'd once been. But, she wasn't completely a changed woman either. She enjoyed the power she held over Nash. Reveled in the feeling of his eyes as they traveled over her curves. She smiled at the hard length protruding beneath the cotton lounge pants he wore. His eyes blazed with passion as she climbed onto the bed and settled into his lap. "You like what you see?"

"Very much," Nash rasped. Gripping the hem of the fragile nightgown in his hand, he snaked the silk up over her nude behind. His cock was straining to enter her. His erection bucked in eager enthusiasm with his thoughts as she ground against him and created the most wonderful agony he'd ever endured.

"Practice for the honeymoon." Eloise's body turned to liquid as the cotton of his pajama pants rubbed against her sex.

"Practice is good." Nash lifted her with his hips and pushed the thin layer of cotton down over his thighs.

"Practice makes perfect." Eloise moaned as she maneuvered her body over his and slid him into her sheath. Her nightgown sailed through the air and landed somewhere. Thoughts of the expensive fabric on the floor were forgotten as his thumbs massaged her erect throbbing nipples. Her hips rocked in a rhythmic dance, speeding them both along to a magical place of passion and fulfillment.

"If this were any more perfect, I don't know if I'd survive it." Nash's hands slid down her slender waist and gripped her hips. Guiding her deeper onto his shaft and rocking her body faster as the orgasm built within his groin. She was beautiful. She was perfect. And she was his. He wrapped his hands behind her knees and sat, keeping her planted onto his length as he lifted her and eased her onto her back. Positioned above her he pushed as deeply as he could into the soft, warm, pleasure her body provided. He suckled the tip of a nipple with his lips, pushing and pumping with increasing desperation. Filling her with every inch of him and possessing her with their bodies tangled as one. The male in him grunted with satisfaction when she shuddered and came for him. Her walls gripped him tightly with the spasms from her climax. Heading him on a collision course with his own.

Eloise opened up for Nash. Taking all of him into her depths as a second orgasm was built within her. Wildly she bucked, gripped, and thrashed her hips in time with the pulsing rhythm of each thrust he delivered. Her hands traveled down his sweat slicked back and wrapped around his muscular shoulders tightening with the strain of his release. He filled her. Completed her. And there was no other way for him to be with a woman. She belonged to him. Heat from his orgasm shot into her, slicking her sex and rolling down her thighs. Relaxing, she joined him and gave herself over, writhing from the jolts of pleasure rolling through her body.

She snuggled against his rugged frame and sighed contentedly. Tonight, they hadn't sought out a long, drawn out affair between the sheets. They'd been in search of pleasure and they'd found it quickly. "If that was just a practice round. I can't wait for the real thing." She giggled, kicking her feet in anticipation and post coital bliss "Wow."

"Wow? Let's see if I can do better than just a wow," Nash chuckled. Rolling her onto her back for an encore, he plunged inside her depths for another round. Eloise wore his ring on her finger. Her skin was covered with his scent, his sweat, and her sex with his come. He was pushy and demanding, sometimes unwilling to bend and how he'd managed to earn her love, he'd never know. He was grateful for it. Strove to be worthy of it. With her, he gave rather than took. He'd changed so much throughout the decades. With his wife, he'd been a different man, and then a different man after her death. He'd existed for longer than he cared to admit, just a half without the sum of its parts.

Eloise was the piece he'd been missing for so very long. He was scarred and battle weary. She didn't seem to mind. Although technically still in his prime, he was so much older than the total of his years. She loved him despite his flaws or maybe, because of them. He didn't need a ceremony to make her his wife. In every way that counted, she already was.

Pleasure surged through him as his body ramped up to take him to the place beyond body and soul where only the two of them existed. He whispered words, coaxing her there with him. Filling her, pumping into her, and gritting his teeth to hold back his release, he got her there and then he let himself go.

Jan paced the floor. The baby was kicking wildly inside of her, demanding her attention and ensuring that she didn't get a second's worth of sleep. Oblivious to the nocturnal activities of his daughter, Thomas slept like the dead. She was the one awake, pacing and wearing a hole in the carpet. Her belly strained beneath the weight of its growing burden, her back aching and feet swollen to twice their size. Even if she had managed to fall asleep, she wouldn't stay that way for very long. Every twenty seconds or so, she had to pee.

Thomas said they had weeks, perhaps another month to go. Maybe. She had her doubts. A mother knew her body better than her husband and certainly better than any piece of equipment. The baby was going to be here sooner than the month he had predicted. He thought or worked under the assumption that his human side of the equation would slow down the pregnancy and they had time. They didn't. And the baby inside of her was definitely taking after her side of the family.

She propped her swollen feet up on the coffee table and let out an exhausted sigh. The baby was active, twenty-four/ seven. The time of day or what she ate didn't matter in the least. Giving in to her craving and ignoring the sage advice of many mothers warning that spicy food would make the baby kick and thrash, she dug into the jar of spicy, hot, salsa and the bag of salty tortilla chips. The baby couldn't be any more active than it already was. Maybe her kid was going to be the opposite and a spicy snack would settle things down so she could get some sleep.

The baby stilled in her womb, obviously as satisfied by her culinary choice as she was. Her mother and Nash had plans to get married before the baby came. If that were going to be the case, Jan suspected that the date had better be moved up a few weeks. This baby was going to make its debut into the world, soon. She had no idea why she suspected she was going to deliver earlier than planned. The ultrasound and her hot shot doctor husband said differently. Grinning in anticipation to have the pregnancy over and done and the bundle of joy in her arms, she massaged the lump resting in what was once her lap.