Montana Love: Multicultural Romance Page 7

  “And,” he said. “What are going to do?”

  “I have to go back, Dexter.”

  Dexter tried to process what she’d just said. “What do you mean, go back?”

  “I mean, I have to get back to San Francisco.”

  “You mean make a trip back to check on things, bring more work home, check on your place?” he searched her eyes for an answer.

  “No,” Cynthia stood up. “I mean I have to go back -- to my life.”

  Dexter looked up at her. There was a long pause.

  “But you are the boy’s Godmother,” he finally said.

  “God mother, not mother!” she heard herself say too loudly.

  “That’s what it is Cynthia. Thelma and Martin are missing and they appointed you to take their place long ago if something were ever to happen to them,” he said in a forceful, hushed tone.”

  Cynthia didn’t say a word.

  “For God’s sake, they may be dead. We are all Carson has.”

  “Ooooo no,” Cynthia said, reality finally setting in. “It’ been fun ‘playing house,’” she curled her fingers in quotes. “But my life is in San Francisco, not in Cattlewood, Montana,” she sang.

  She looked at Dex with outstretched palms, as if explaining it out loud would help the situation right itself.

  Dexter didn’t respond.

  She sighed, exasperated. “Dex, I didn’t sign up for this.” She lifted her chin, determined to make him understand. “I have a job, a career.”

  “How can you be so selfish?” he spat, still stuck on her ‘playing house’ comment, which had cut him to the bone. It was clear he had judged Ms. Alexander all wrong.

  "I'm not selfish!” Cynthia shot as she bolted up from the kitchen table. “Stop calling me that!”

  “Calm down before you wake Carson” Dex said, coming toward her.

  “Don’t touch me!” she whispered through clenched teeth as he reached gingerly for her arm. The stress of everything was finally coming to a head. She was stuck in Sheppard County with a four year old while some snot-nosed kid had been given everything she’d worked for. Hearing him use selfish to describe her lit a match to all of the fear that had been festering deep inside of her for years.

  “People have called me that all of my life, mostly people who aren’t doing anything with their lives. But nobody has experienced my toil along the way to get me where I am now.”

  “And where is that Cynthia? To a place where you’re so afraid to extend yourself to anyone beyond surface offerings?”

  “This no surface offering,” she said. “I gave up my vacation to help a friend!”

  “Because that’s what you were expected to do, not because you wanted to help. You’re proving that by your actions now. And in the big old scheme of things, how inconvenient was it really? You think about that.”

  Cynthia looked at him incredulously.

  “You probably needed a vacation. Being unselfish is when you’re there, front and center, when it may very well tear your guts out to help another, and when it’s nowhere near convenient. Being unselfish is where there is no audience, and when there is not one iota of anything to gain.”

  Cynthia was fuming. Who did this man think he was? He didn’t know her!

  “Am I selfish because I chose to make something out of my life instead of getting bogged down with babies and a no-good man? Was your own mother, whoever she is, selfish when she chose to give you up to do God knows what instead of raising you herself?” Cynthia said with venom. She regretted it the minute she’d said it.

  “Oh Dex,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry.”

  Dexter looked at her with eyes full of hurt. But the hurt lacing his darkening marbles quickly morphed into anger.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” she said reaching out for him.

  Dexter glared at her with an intensity that made her feel like she was nothing.

  Carson’s small frame filled the doorway. He was dragging his favorite brown teddy bear. Tears spilled from his eyes as he looked back and forth between them.

  Dexter grabbed the little boy in his arms and left the house without saying a word.

  Cynthia started after them, but his powerful, agile frame had scaled the steps and hopped into the pickup truck too fast. Before she could reach the bottom landing he had clasped Carson in his seatbelt and popped a wheelie out of the driveway.

  Cynthia sank down at the top stair and put her head in her hands.

  “Dear God, what have I done?” she muttered, tears filling her eyes. “What have I done?”

  Chapter 20

  Cynthia knew it was best to let things calm down a bit. She’d hurt two people she’d grown to love dearly in the past several weeks. She didn’t want to risk doing anymore damage.

  After sitting on the steps for a long time, she dialed Dexter’s number, surprised when he picked up.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean those things. I just … I’m scared,” she said.

  She waited on him to say something, anything, but he didn’t.

  “I’m in love with you Dexter Callahan. And that scares me more than anything in the world, and that’s the truth. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you …” She thought about the child crying, holding his teddy bear. “… And Carson.” Cynthia wiped hard with the back of her hand at the tears streaming down her face. “Say something. Please.”

  “I love you, too,” Dexter breathed heavily into the phone.

  She exhaled.

  “Will you all come back home?” she asked, knowing she was committing to being there for her godson. “We have a child to give some news to, and we should be next to each other when that happens.”

  “Of course,” Dexter said. “He’s asleep now, but we’ll be back first thing in the morning, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She hung up the phone and looked up in the sky at the bright, flickering stars.

  “God, I need you now,” she cried. “Help me … please.”

  Cynthia said a silent prayer and went back into the house. Sleep did not come easy that night as she worried over what they would tell Carson. It had already been one month and two days, and she believed from the description of his dreams that he might already know more than they ever would.

  She cradled the little black leather bible on the nightstand next to her bed as she prepared mentally to take on the role of mother for a child she’d grown to love.

  Chapter 21

  The next day …

  “Do I have go?” Carson complained, fidgeting with the bowtie of his suit as he looked up at Cynthia.

  “Yes, you have to go,” Miss Emma said through the screen door. “You’ve already missed more than enough lessons. Time to get back to it.”

  She had come to pick him up for Wednesday evening bible study, their routine ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper. After church some Wednesdays, he would have a sleepover at her place, which was right down the road and around the bend. Miss Emma saw no reason to breakup their pattern, especially now. He needed ‘routine’ now more than anything.

  The elderly lady couldn’t help but notice how well Cynthia and Dex had been getting along looking after the child, until just recently.

  When she stopped by to give Cynthia the recipe cards she’d asked for, she could tell something was not right between them. Although she did not believe in fornicating outside of wedlock, but she saw nothing wrong with two grown people who had suddenly been thrust into co-parenting roles spending a little alone time together.

  “But God knows where I am,” Carson said, trying anything to get out of going to church.

  “He knows where my switch is, too,” Miss Emma said, never having used it. But the threat of it always jerked him into behaving.

  Carson gulped.

  “You make this fuss every week, all because you don’t want to sit still during the lessons. But you always have a good time playing in the church yard after with all
your friends. And they’ll all be there.”

  Carson lit up. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said, walking to the front porch to take Miss Emma’s hand and help her up like he had seen Dex do countless times.

  “Hold on, let your Uncle Dex help me,” she said smiling. “You’ll be big enough, soon enough. But not yet.”

  Dex came from the yard to help Miss Emma down the steps.

  Carson ran back and kissed Cynthia on the cheek.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  She kissed him back. “Be good. See you tomorrow,” she said, squeezing his little neck.

  After a few minutes, Miss Emma and Carson were driving off towards the tiny church in town.

  ***

  Dexter had come back over after their big fight before, but there was still a noticeable little rift between them. But since then, the had put their differences aside and finally talked to Carson, together, before he overhead the news about his parents from anyone else.

  They told him that his mother and father would be gone longer than they expected to be.

  “I know,” the child had said.

  “How do you know?” Cynthia had asked.

  “God already told me,” he’d said. “After my dreams about the big water, God told me not to be sad.”

  Cynthia pulled him to her bosom. She just wanted to protect him.

  “Don’t worry,” Carson said, as if they could have been talking about anything in the world but his parents being gone.

  ***

  They were both relieved after talking to the child, but there was still unfinished business between them.

  “Do you want to come in?” Cynthia asked, beckoning Dexter up the stairs after the old lady and Carson had left for bible study. “Miss Emma brought over one of her pecan pies,” Cynthia continued.

  “No,” Dexter said.

  Cynthia stared at him, confused.

  “I didn’t come for pecan pie,” he said. “I came for you.”

  Dexter stepped inside the front door. He stared down at Cynthia, then kissed her hard as if he were letting out all of the pent up emotion and frustration inside of him, too. He loved her, and he was afraid of losing her.

  “Get dressed,” he stated more than asked.” I’m taking you home with me tonight.”

  Cynthia would have normally had a flirty comeback, but she didn’t, because she could hardly wait to be alone with him in his home.

  As they drove down the long, winding driveway that led up to his ranch, she took in all the acreage, horses and livestock. “Is this all yours?” she asked surveying fenced pasture as far as the eye could see.

  “Mine and Apples.”

  “This is a lot of land,” she said in awe.

  “I know,” he responded. “Because I’ve worked every inch of it.”

  “Why haven’t you come out before?” he asked, reaching over to grab her hand as he drove. “I know I’ve asked you at least a dozen times.”

  “Scared,” she said. “Just afraid of getting any closer than we’d already become.”

  “And now?” he glanced over at her.

  “I’m not afraid anymore.”

  After climbing the steep set of stairs leading up to the handsome, pillared home, Dexter picked Cynthia up and carried her across the threshold as if she were his bride.

  Guiding her into his master bedroom, he took her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth as if it were the first time their lips had touched.

  She parted her lips and let him in, fully.

  Through hungry kisses, he slid his hands to her hips and around to the small of her back. Remembering the feel of his loin pressed against her center when they were watching the sun drop on their first outing, he smiled. There was nothing preventing him from having her now.

  Dexter kneaded her buttocks, pulling her body into his as Cynthia ripped his t-shirt over his head.

  The warmth of their skin against each other made her swoon.

  Dexter skillfully unclasped her well-filled bra to free her buoyant cleavage, enjoying the sensation of her naked nipples as they pushed and strained against his skin.

  As their clothes disappeared, he guided her to his bed, planting hungry kisses along the way.

  Laying back on the bed, Cynthia let out a cry when his mouth devoured her breasts. She slid her fingers through his dark mane, needing something to cling to. He lapped, massaged and suckled until her hardened buds were sensitive to the slightest touch.

  Easing her back on the plush pillows, he stared, studying every inch of her body, first with his eyes, then with his hands and mouth.

  Dexter explored her delicate, moist folds with his tongue. The slick thrusting of his warmth inside of her cavern rendered her breathless. Blinding tremors shook her as he lingered between her legs, easing them back open when she tried to resist.

  “Come here,” he muttered, gently tormenting her writhing flesh.

  Cynthia’s head rocked from side to side as he lapped and swirled at her sensitive spot, before easing his thick tongue in and out of her wet, swollen passion. Her body was on fire as Dexter took her to a level of ecstasy she’d never experienced.

  Chest hairs grazed her sensitive mound as he inched his body up hers. Lingering at her breasts, he cupped and suckled again until her peaks were plumb with wanton.

  “I need you,” she said, gazing down at him through intoxicated eyes.

  Dexter took her mouth with exhilarating hungriness as Cynthia parted her thighs to let him in. The anticipation of his body inside of hers was almost too much.

  With one fluid motion, he slid his fullness inside of her.

  Cynthia sucked her breath at the size of his long, thick loin filling her slick tightness.

  “God woman,” he mooned as he eased his steel deeper.

  Cynthia let out a delicious whimper and Dexter groaned loudly as he gyrated his heavily veined rod further into her snug, suctioning center. Devouring her opened mouth with eager kisses, he cupped her round buttocks and rocked, pulling her closer to him.

  Their glistening bodies clung to each other like magnets as they danced and danced before spiraling into climatic bliss.

  Laying naked and breathless between Cynthia’s legs, Dexter lifted his head from her swollen bosom and stared deeply into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked in a thick voice.

  “Yes,” she purred. “Oh yes. And you?” She ran her fingers through his wet mane.

  “No,” he groaned, pulling her naked body on top of his again.

  Cynthia smiled slyly as she straddled his full girth. Sinking her body down on him, she threw her head back and rocked to his rhythm. The feel of his strong, warm hands cupping and gently molding her breasts released another river of passion from her down around him.

  Dexter leaned up and held fast to her buttocks as his lips tugged at her hardened nipples. Cynthia wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and moved with him as he thrust his body into hers. Within moments, she felt him swell and seize, before showering her with all of his love again.

  Ragged breathing escaped him as he planted kisses on her shoulders and down the dripping hollow of her neck.

  “Are you okay, now?” she teased.

  “Yes, baby,” he said. “Come here. Dexter folded her into his arms and guided her down under the covers. “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too.” Cynthia smiled, content, no longer afraid of giving, receiving … loving.

  They drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 22

  Cynthia hung up the phone. It was just a couple of weeks after she’d had her secretary submit her Family Leave paperwork. She sat in the library of Thelma and Martin’s home for a long time, thinking.

  She knew she should have expected it, but she was stunned just the same because she thought she had a reprieve until at least her Family Leave time had expired. Bernard had even said they would re-evaluate things after that time period. But her Family Leave had barely begun, ye
t she’d just learned they had made Eric Jackson a formal offer of partnership.

  Cynthia went into the living room. Dexter and Carson were watching cartoons on the couch. “I can’t believe what I just heard.”