“Done,” Addie agreed, giving him a big grin.
“Are you all right?” Izzy asked Addie.
Addie’s grin faded and she looked to her sister. “Yeah. Why?”
“You don’t have a fever?” Izzy inquired.
Johnny chuckled.
“Put a sock in it,” Addie ordered.
“No, really,” Izzy said. “Are you sure you wanna do this?”
Addie looked to him. “You gonna screw over my sister?”
“Nope,” Johnny answered.
Her gaze returned to Iz. “Then sure, I’m sure.” She got up from her place in Iz’s slouchy white loveseat, moved to Johnny, dropped Brooks in his lap, Brooks ignored the beard and yanked on his ear and Addie strolled toward the kitchen, asking, “Anyone want leftover cake?”
“Yeah,” Johnny called after her.
“Iz?” she prompted.
“Okay,” Izzy said.
Brooks grunted as he pulled himself up to Johnny’s shoulder.
Johnny spotted him with his hands as he crawled behind Johnny’s neck.
The kid hit his other shoulder, threw himself over and slid down Johnny’s chest into his lap and giggled.
Johnny then lifted him up, swung him around and planted him on his shoulders, his pudgy legs dangling on either side of Johnny’s neck.
He held on to his upper arms.
Brooks tugged his hair.
“If we’d have stayed with him, I wouldn’t have met you.”
Johnny’s attention cut to Izzy to see her face soft, her eyes on her nephew, but he had a feeling that softness wasn’t just for Brooks.
“What, baby?”
She dropped her gaze to his. “If he’d gotten it together. If he’d fought for us. If he’d made us stay close, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“That’s sweet, Iz,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t erase—”
While he spoke, her eyes darted up and then back down before she cut him off.
“Go through it all again if it led me to you.”
He felt his chest start to burn.
Brooks tried to hurl himself over Johnny’s head.
So he flipped Brooks over and planted his behind in Johnny’s lap.
Brooks squealed.
Izzy smiled and whispered, “You can attack me when we get back to the mill.”
“Obliged for the permission,” he grunted instead of sharing he didn’t need it.
Her smile got bigger.
She knew he didn’t need it.
“Ice cream, everyone?” Addie shouted from the kitchen.
“Yeah!” Johnny shouted back.
“Yes!” Izzy yelled.
Brooks let out a shriek and then collapsed into his own lap, giggling.
“The secret room revealed,” Izzy murmured in awe.
Johnny had just guided her into the walk-in closet that led off the door at the back of the bathroom.
He’d switched on the lights, which were mostly recessed spots that shone on the railings and shelves as well as on the island in the middle. He’d then walked in and dumped her bag (which was much heavier than yesterday) unceremoniously on top of the island that was covered in sliding glass panels that protected velvet-lined jewelry trays.
All of them empty.
“The secret what?” he asked.
She was wandering around the opposite side of the closet from him like he would suspect she’d wander around a castle. She lifted a hand and ran the tip of her forefinger along an empty slanted shelf, which had a lip that was supposed to display shoes but now was bare.
“Izzy,” he called when she said nothing.
She stopped and turned to him. “I always wondered what was in here. I almost looked in that first morning. But I didn’t want to snoop.”
“It’s just a closet,” he said.
“It’s the biggest, most gorgeous closet in the history of man,” she replied, glanced beyond him to the half a rail up top and half a rail under it that were the only rails in the huge place that held clothes. “Though you need more jeans.”
His mouth hitched. “I don’t need more jeans.”
She looked him right in the eye. “You built this for Shandra, didn’t you?”
His mouth stopped hitching. “Iz—”
Her head tipped to the side and she interrupted him. “You don’t like talking about her.”
“I don’t like her being any part of us,” he corrected.
She gave him a small smile and started walking toward him.
When she reached him, she put a hand on his chest and tilted her head back to look up at him.
“She was a part of your life,” she noted quietly.
“I know that,” he replied.
“And in your life when you fixed up this place,” she guessed.
He put his hands on her hips. “We were gonna move in together. But we didn’t do that, Izzy.”
“You built this for her. You built the bathroom for her.”
“I did but she never used either of them, Iz.”
She swayed toward him and asked, “Is that for me?”
He was confused. “Is what for you?”
“All that reassurance, is it for me?”
He gave her the obvious answer. “Well . . . yeah.”
“Okay,” she started. “Then let me make it clear that you’re not giving me any indication you’re still hung up on her. I don’t ever even think about it, until you take pains to reassure me you’re not hung up on her. Our start was rocky, honey. Then it smoothed out. Notwithstanding, of course, Perry spraying gravel with his angry exit. But that wasn’t about us. That was just something we had to deal with.” She pressed her hand in his chest. “You can talk about her. You can talk about that time in your life. You can stop trying so hard to protect me from something that happened when I didn’t even live in this town.”
She swayed even closer so her breasts were brushing his chest.
“I was there last night when you were inside me,” she told him. “And I did get what was communicated, Johnny. You keep trying to educate me but I knew exactly what kind of guy you were from the first moment I met you. So I know you aren’t the guy who would lead me on, start something this intense if your heart and mind are with someone else. Shandra is history but that history is your history, and I want to know everything about you.”
“I love that, baby,” he said softly. “And it’s me trying to reassure you about that but it’s also the fact I know everybody in town is taking sides like there’s a chance for Shandra when there isn’t, and I know that, I wanna make sure you know that, but they don’t know that. And I don’t want you to hit town and hear shit that makes you doubt where we are. I want you to know where we are and if you hear shit, you can stand strong and know it’s just that. Shit.”
“I don’t care what they think,” she returned. “They aren’t here. They don’t know. This closet isn’t hers. It’s yours. The bathroom isn’t hers. It’s yours. And she’s not yours. I am.”
He felt those words everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
But with her that close, her tits brushing his chest, he felt them mostly in his balls and dick.
This meant his, “Eliza,” was a growl.
She ignored his tone and ordered, “So stop worrying about it.” She then pulled out of his hold, took a step away, but turned her back to him and went on to say matter-of-factly, “Now I nearly dislocated a shoulder trying to get this dress zipped this morning. Can you do me a favor and unzip it?”