Page 107 of Last Man Standing

“You want a reason to hate her.” I step forward and capture my wife’s wrists in my hands. If I don’t, she might hit me. “Believe it or not, but I’m pretty sure most good moms go through these emotions when her first-born son brings a woman home. It’s your right to be pissy about it. To want to know for certain that she’s good enough for him. But in the end, it was our job to raise him right, so when the time came, he would choose well. You don’t get to decide for him, baby.” I tug her closer and pin her against my chest. “You don’t get to torment that poor woman and expect him to still think you hung the moon and the stars.” I tilt her head back and search her eyes. “As your husband, it’s my job to warn you off this path you’re heading down. If you keep coming at her the way you have been, you’ll ruin the relationship you’ve spent thirty years building with him.”

“Which is surely more proof she’s wrong for him.” She wriggles and attempts to break free of my grip. “The right woman wouldn’t cause this trouble between mother and son.”

“You mean like how my mother told me to walk away from you?”

Her cheeks turn impossibly pale.

“Like how she knew I was working, but not where, and not for who. She knew I’d fallen in love, and that the situation was tense, so she told me to bail out. You weren’t worth the drama.”

Her lower lip trembles and shakes. “She said that?”

“Mmhm.” And other, worse stuff. “She demanded I come home, Arabella. Called me stupid for leading with my dick, because she was certain you were nothing more than a harlot shaking her ass for soldiers.”

She gulps.

“My mother pushed and pushed and pushed, baby. She refused to hear me when I said I would see the situation through, and later, when I told her I’d fallen in love, she laughed and called it hormones. Dumb boy hormones. Kinda like how my dad went to war a loving, devoted father, but he came home with a whole other family. Those wartime sluts,” I lower my voice, mocking the woman who gave me life. “She wouldn’t let up, and she was sure she knew better.”

Instead of pulling away, Arabella inches closer and strokes my jaw with the pads of her fingers. “All this time, and you never told me?”

“Tell you what?” I force a chuckle along my throat. “A bitter woman decided she didn’t like you, which was pretty foolish, since she didn’t even know you. She made me choose, baby. She told me what was at stake and warned me there would be no going back.”

Soft, traitorous tears fill her eyes. “Paul…”

“I chose you. A week after she and I had that conversation, you and I died and walked our happy asses off Richard’s property. We came here and made a family, and I never spoke to her again. I chose you, and I would do it again and again and again. But him?” I point toward my son while he shows that sweet girl a good time and pretends he’s not already so far sunk, he’s never coming up for air again. “He won’t choose you. Not the way you wish he would. Even if they broke up, even if his loyalty to the mission kept him here and it pissed her off enough that she walked away, he’ll never forget the time his mother chose her heart over his.” Lowering my hand, I bring it across and cup her cheek. “He won’t recover from that. So you have some thinking to do, baby. You have some hard words to speak. And after that…” I shrug. “You have to live with the outcome. But you’ve trusted me this far, right?

Curious, her brows wrinkle and pinch. “Always. Forever.”

“So trust me on this.” I lean in and press a kiss to her plump lips. “If he loves her, then you don’t get to step between them. If, when this is all over and her only impression of you is that of a tyrannical fuckin’ psycho, she’ll never be comfortable around you. And if he’s really serious about her, which might eventually lead to marriage and kids, then you’ll be the one left out in the cold. Not me,” I smirk playfully, tugging her bottom lip from between her teeth. “Because I’m smart enough to know we catch more flies with honey than we do with vinegar. I’ve had coffee with that woman almost every single morning since she arrived. Have you?”

“Oh, shut up.” She smacks my chest and drops forward, pressing her cheek exactly where she hit me. “You’re charming. I’m the mom. You already had a head start on me.”

I chuckle. “You’re a woman, and chicks flock together, don’t they?” I bury my lips in her hair. “Let’s not forget I’m the reason we fell in love, too. You were prickly and mean and not all that interested in my attentions. Told me to fuck off thirty-seven times in the first month.” I wrap her up close and exhale a happy sigh. “I counted every single time you said those words to me and vowed to make you swallow them someday. That, or swallow my dick. Dealer’s choice.”

She snorts. “You’re not charming, Mr. Jameson. You’re just a big fat faker.” Pulling back, she looks up into my eyes and blinks-blinks-blinks the moisture from hers. “I wanted your attention, just so you know. From the very first day we met.”

“Yeah?” After more than thirty years together, I never thought I could hold her in my arms and feel twenty-something again. But I can. I do. And just like I did back then, I feel the swell and thump of my heart jumping in my chest. “From the very first day? I seem to recall you telling me to dig my own grave and lie down in it.”

She chokes out a bouncing laugh. “Which is so weird, because I remember thinking ‘I’ll go wherever you want me to go. I’ll be whoever you want me to be. Just keep looking at me the way you do’.”

“You mean, like how our son looks at Scarlett Castro?”

Just like that, her smile turns to a glower, and her eyes shoot across to the pair while Scarlett lies over Jasper’s back and wraps her arms and legs around his broad frame.

“I don’t mean to be a tyrannical psycho bitch.” She nibbles on her bottom lip without really even thinking about it. “I can’t stop thinking about the Roy Daniels stuff and wonder… Worry… What if my baby is next?”

“Impossible.” I pull her close and kiss her temple. “Because Sebastion’s a damn good man and he would never hurt her the way Roy did. He might earn her ire the way I earn yours. She might spit mean words in his face,” the way you spit them in mine, “and he might even cop a smack or two on the arm, because he talks without thinking sometimes.” Like I do. “But if they’re meant to be, I believe with my whole heart it’ll work out for them. And if not, I’m confident he’ll walk away with his life and liberties intact. But…” I inch back and search her eyes. “If that’s the case, his heart will hurt, baby, and he’ll need his mom to make the pain a little more bearable. Be the safe space he can return to. Be the arms he can crawl into. Don’t be a sacrifice he had to make, all because you’re too stubborn to share him with another woman.”

Exhaling a deep sigh, she looks out at the couple as laughter floats on the breeze and, on her feet now, Scarlett attempts to tug Jasper’s rein and make him walk. And he… doesn’t.

My son watches her slip in the snow and squeal out in fright and delight. He shakes his head and says something we don’t hear.

Though I bet it sounds like ‘you gotta show him who’s boss, baby.’

Or maybe I’m projecting.

“Was it worth it?”

Curious, I peek down at my wife and feel her heart break. Because he’s not hers anymore. “Was what worth it?”