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She blushed and the sight of it went straight to my dick. “Only when she’s trying to kill me.”
“I did make kidnapping plans for today if you weren’t willing to listen to us grovel but the plans ended at kidnapping. No murder for me.” I held her gaze and felt more of those butterflies. “If you want to yell some first, I’ll wait, though.”
“I’ll be honest. I don’t have it in me to yell. I used my energy to get over here and now I think I’ll have to ask Pete to get the wheelbarrow to get me back home. I’ve got heartburn, my hips hurt, and if I even look at dairy, I’ll be able to set up a supply of natural gas on the back acre. I feel gross, I sound gross, and I look gross. And my feet are swelling. This pregnancy is not aging well and it’s almost time for my nap, so I’ll just say this. If that baby furniture is for anything other than what I think it is, I have a whole lifetime of crazy saved up and I’ll spend it all on the three of you.”
Boone put his elbows on the table as he leaned closer to her. “I love you.”
He was off track but I knew he was just going with his heart. Judging by the dopey grin on his face, I wasn’t sure he even knew he’d said it out loud.
“Are you kidding me, Boone Hawke? I just told you I have gas and you tell me you love me?” Memphis threw her hands up. “I don’t know what is wrong with y’all. You love me? Boone, I have gas and fat feet and sometimes you can see the baby moving and it’s like I’m a science experiment. You can’t love me.”
He smiled wider. “I can and I do. You can’t stop me.”
“Give me a reason why I should forgive y’all for how you treated me.”
“Is my love not enough?” Boone’s leg bounced under the table. “You should forgive us because we know that we fucked up. Listen to this. I’m not just going to say I’m sorry. That’s cheap. I’m sorry for holding you to a higher standard than we held ourselves and for expecting you to be perfect when we are so far from it. I’m sorry for treating you with a sickening level of disrespect when you came to us trying your hardest to make things right. I’m sorry that I pushed you away and let you feel lonely for a single moment.”
She looked down as her eyes grew red. “Okay, that’s a pretty good apology.”
“Instead of running with our tails between our legs when you kicked us out, I should’ve made it very clear that we didn’t have a single clue what women you were talking about. Everything else was fair. I can’t stand the thought of you believing the night you told you that you loved us, we called three women over to party.” I shook my head. “I saw the video. I don’t know any of them. None of us do. We were an emotional mess and drank to black out that night pretty much. Two more things. My dick doesn’t work unless it’s for you. And those women did not have great tits. You’re a liar.”
Memphis looked so fucking hopeful that it nearly killed me. “Why were they here?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I can promise you that it wasn’t for us. Not by our doing, anyway. I don’t want anyone else. I just want you.” I gripped my chair hard, doing my best not to rush her.
“That night we got so drunk because I found our mom’s old diary. We kind of have your brother to thank for it. What was in it proved that the narrative we’d been told since she died was wrong.” Wells sat forward and took her hand. “We thought she didn’t want us and was fleeing to be with her lover when she died. That wasn’t true. She was going to have her partner, a woman named Bridgette, move into the guest house with her. She was trying to figure out how to add space so she could move us in with them without us being cramped.”
“Whoa.” Memphis blinked and giant tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s so sweet. She wanted y’all even closer, in a space she made her own. Was your dad not going to notice or…?”
“He knew about it and had his own things going on, I guess. That’s a story for another day.” Looking at me and Boone, Wells took a deep breath. “The thing is, Memphis, we want to live in the guest house.”
She shook her head automatically. “I’m not moving into the dark house with shadow people. No way.”
“We were kind of hoping you’d stay, too.” He laughed a little. “You’re there, the baby furniture is there. It just makes sense for us to be there, too.”
I held my breath and tried to be patient. I was nervous, though. Too nervous. “This is where the kidnapping comes in, depending on your answer.”
She laughed and the sound did so much to soothe my fears. “Let’s take a break from that conversation really quickly, so I can point something out. You three are toddlers. You were happy to have me wait as long as you wanted to forgive me, but now that you’re ready to be forgiven, you’re going to resort to kidnapping after three days? What are you going to do to ensure that we don’t repeat a pattern of raising spoiled brats who think they get whatever they want when they want it?”
My mouth fell open and I stuttered as all of my planned thoughts vanished. Looking at Boone and Wells, they looked just as surprised. I snapped my mouth shut and cleared my throat. “Ouch.”
Wells grimaced. “Yeah, I think crawling into a hole might be fun right about now.”
Boone shrugged. “I already knew I could be a spoiled brat. I’m a surgeon. What do you expect?”
“It’s something for y’all to work on. Maybe especially you, Boone.” Memphis smiled sweetly and my chest ached at the sight of that smile. “I want it to be fair between us. There’s three of you and just one of me. If you get mad and shut me out, there’s no one but me. If I get mad, the three of you are all together. I don’t want to be the odd man out. I may not have gone to Yale or even graduated high school, but I’m an equal or I’m nothing.”
Boone nodded with a little less patience. “We don’t think less of you, Memphis.”
“And we’ll be sure that we’re not teaming up on you.” I saw her eyebrow lift at the innuendo and groaned. “Don’t do that, sweetheart. It’s been a long time without you and I’ve missed you more than I want to admit.”
“Are we agreeing to this?” Wells was just as on edge as I was.
“I don’t think there was ever a question posed.” Memphis leaned forward and the way her breasts nearly spilled out of her dress just about killed me.
Wells groaned. “I love you, Memphis, but maybe today isn’t the day we work on our patience.”
“I still don’t hear a question.”
