Passion, Vows & Babies_Raising Veeta Read online

  I don’t know why she captured my attention so much. It was quite possible that she was the enemy too. She was capturing my heart just watching her and the way Celeste leaned in to cuddle her. It was sickeningly sweet to see them both get so excited when a cotton candy guy came around. And I was really happy to see Celeste wave Dale off like she was going against him to give the little girl her own big pink floss on a stick. It looked like two against one and I loved it.

  I was having the best time I had ever had at a ballpark. That was until I got busted. Not that I couldn’t be there in the stands, but Celeste knew I hated sports and the stadium would be the last place I would want to go, willingly.

  A beach ball came my way and I let it fall to the ground. Not picking it up and tossing it back into the air appeared to be a crime and I was being booed. Figuring I better make them stop, I went to get the ball about the same time that the little girl with a long dark braid, adorable freckles and bright blue eyes went for the same ball.

  All at once, I was shocked by Celeste looking at me inches away from the little girl as I handed her the beach ball. “Veeta! Come back!”

  “I’m okay. Not talking to the stranger. Just getting my ball.” Her voice was so cute. It added to her character. “Thanks, Mister.” She made me want to scoop her up into my arms. She couldn’t be Dale’s daughter. I wouldn’t feel that strongly about his child and she looked nothing like him with his blond hair and dark eyes.

  Was it possible that she was Celeste’s daughter? How old was the little girl? She was pretty small. If I had to guess, I’d say she was about four years old. The thought turned my stomach. There was nothing wrong with Celeste having a baby but only if it was mine.

  What had I missed out on when I was gone?

  I didn’t want to miss out on anymore. I needed to tell Celeste how I felt about her and that I was fine with raising someone else’s child. Dale wasn’t right to be that little girl’s father. I realized that. He wasn’t interested in her tugging on his arm. He seemed to ignore her too. Celeste was so attentive to her needs, wiping her face and cleaning off her hands which had to be totally sticky.

  I wanted to be in Dale’s seat and I needed Celeste to know it right away.

  Those thoughts led to me following them out of the stadium and to the Corday Peach Farm. It looked like Celeste was still living at home...or... Maybe the little girl belonged to Clancy or Conrad?

  Nope. I was right the first time. Dale dropped them off and drove away alone.

  Thank God he didn’t kiss Celeste goodbye.

  With him out of the picture, I pulled my car up close and got out to approach Celeste who had shooed the little girl into the house. I could hear her yelling, “Coco” and “Grandpa.” She had to belong to someone in the family.

  “I love you, Celeste. I’ve always loved you.” There was nothing subtle about my moves. I was putting it all out on the line. “I made mistakes. But no one will ever feel about you like I do. Dale’s not right for you.” She just looked at me.

  I couldn’t handle the space between us any longer. I took her into my arms and kissed her with everything I had in me and then I released her and stood back.

  “Friday night. Do you work?” She shook her head. “Good. I’ll be here at eight o’clock to pick you up. Wear jeans, a t-shirt and your old leather jacket if you have it.”

  Then I turned around and headed quickly for my car.

  I needed to find a vintage bike in my pop’s garage.

  Chapter Seven

  Celeste

  “What’s wrong with you these days, Celeste?” I don’t know why my mother thought anything was wrong with me. I was feeling happier than I had in years.

  “I know what’s wrong with her.” Of course my sister had to walk in.

  “Shut it, Clancy.” I gave her the evil eye while I walked around my mother and poured a cup of coffee. I had just dropped Veeta at pre-school and was needing coffee. If anything was wrong with me, it was that I wasn’t sleeping well.

  Thoughts of Skeet were keeping me awake.

  I kept picturing him pulling up in front of my house on his old vintage motorcycle wearing his usual outfit; a pair of faded denims and a white shirt. He looked so sexy with windblown his hair and dark sunglasses. In my vision he didn’t have a helmet on but in reality he never rode without one and made sure he had one for me.

  The first time he came to pick me up at the house Conrad made him ride me up and down the driveway so he could see if he could handle me on the back of it. Little did my brother know, I had already been on the bike and Skeet had taught me how to hold onto him and lean with him into turns. I loved being up against him. To feel the rumble between my thighs. He and his leather jacket smelled so good.

  Over the years when I thought of him, he was always on his motorcycle. Maybe that was because the last time I had seen him was when he was riding out of town.

  “It’s because he’s back in town.” Clancy couldn’t shut her trap.

  “Who’s back in town?” One thing my mother was not—a gossip. Maybe because she rarely left the farm and when she did it was with my father. They liked to go away to resorts to unwind with couples’ massages and good food. They were a cute couple.

  “Skeet Remington. And he’s taking her out on a date this Friday night.”

  How the hell did my sister know that? I wondered if she had been spying on us.

  “Are you going to tell him about Veeta?” I couldn’t believe my mother would ask me that so casually like it was even possible.

  “God, no!”

  “He has a right to know at some point. She’s getting older. Someday she’ll want to know who her daddy is...she’s smart and inquisitive.” We all knew that.

  I wanted to avoid the subject of Veeta.

  “He followed us home from the ballpark with Dale. I think he followed us to the park. He would never be at the park and he was only a few rows behind us.”

  “Are you going to let him think that Veeta is Dale’s? That’s so wrong.”

  “Really, Clancy?! Do you think I would do that? Besides she looks nothing like him.” I had no problem with avoiding the truth and telling a few little white lies but I would never use Dale. Besides, the thought of having sex with Dale was so gross—I could never imagine doing that with him in all of my wildest dreams.

  “He would never let you go if you told him the truth.” My mother was shocking me with her comments.

  I clearly remembered when Conrad got his girlfriend pregnant that my mother called her a million names behind her back. Included in her rants were words about trapping a man being so wrong. She told us that we’d better never do that. How could her tune have changed so drastically years later when it involved me and Skeet?

  “Good thing Veeta doesn’t look like him or he would’ve asked you right away.”

  “She looks exactly like her mother,” I said sadly under my breath.

  I was never sure about the stories I had heard over the years because they sounded like something out of a movie. But there were always whispered rumors about Martina’s family being distantly connected to a well-known crime family. Martina said she knew they were bootleggers. I told her about my family making the peach liqueur before it was legal and brushed off the stories like they were no big deal.

  Apparently there was more to her family. They had moved on to running drugs and guns and the competition between families was fierce. They tried to push each other out of the business—even turning each other into the Feds. Things got nasty and family members went missing.

  I was never allowed anywhere near Martina’s house once her parents were killed in a suspicious auto accident and her grandfather Vito came to live in her house. She said her grandfather was one of the few that never got involved in the so-called family business. When he had a stroke and went to live in a home, Martina pretty much lived at our house.

  Then one day Martina asked me to keep Veeta and that she was taking her grandfather to some fam
ily reunion. A day later, I found a note addressed to me written in Martina’s handwriting in the diaper bag and I didn’t understand it:

  Keep Veeta safe. If a locket appears, the coast is clear.

  Then we learned that Martina and her grandfather had been killed in a bizarre explosion that took out an entire city block.

  Veeta was only three months old and alone in the world. Five years later, the locket had yet to appear. I had to keep her safe. I couldn’t lose her.

  “He needs to know at some point.” My mother was adamant.

  “He could take her away from me.” My greatest fear.

  “He would never do that. And you, certainly, wouldn’t let him without a fight.”

  I had nothing legal that allowed me to keep her. I had to just hope that he truly loved me enough to let me still be Veeta’s mommy. But I had no intention of telling him the truth about her any time soon. I needed to make sure he would be sticking around because he truly wanted to...and wanted me. He left once, he could do it again.

  It could be his turn to be hurt and find me not trustworthy.

  Chapter Eight

  Skeet

  Friday morning, I was up early and heading across town from the furnished executive apartment I was renting to my pop’s garage. I needed to get things set up for my date with Celeste. I wanted to rekindle an old memory... I wanted to enhance an old memory.

  “Hey, Pop. What do you have around here in riding condition?” I asked strolling into an open bay where he was tinkering with some old Mustang...probably a nineteen sixty-six.

  “What do you have in mind?” He was grinning.

  He had been the happiest I’d ever seen him. “Do you have something you want to share with me?”

  “Nope.” He was tight lipped. “Tell me what you have planned?”

  I, definitely, wasn’t telling him what I had planned, but I was willing to tell him with whom. “I’m taking Celeste Archer out.” I don’t know why I thought I needed to use her last name. It sounded like a formal announcement.

  “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into, starting up with her again?”

  He had me wondering what he knew about her and what had happened in her life since I left. I knew he had always serviced the Archer’s cars and tractors, but I was never sure what my pop paid attention to. What did he know about the little girl? I wanted to ask but for some reason I felt like Celeste needed to tell me things.

  We had so much to talk about but all I really wanted to do was hold her in my arms, kiss her and remind her how good everything used to be between us and how we could get it all back and more.

  “I never stopped loving her, Pop. I needed to go away and become a man. A man she could be proud of...and you too.” I was feeling a little choked up.

  “I’ve always been proud of you, Skeet. You were always a good kid. You never gave me trouble.” He stopped what he was doing and rubbed a clean rag along the back of his neck. “I don’t know what you did to upset her back then, but if there’s a chance history could repeat itself... Be smart. Do the right thing.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by his words, but I had no intention of hurting or leaving Celeste again. “Do you have a bike I could use for tonight?”

  There was that grin again on my pop’s face. “I don’t know why you want a bike... If memory serves me right, you took her out there in an old pickup truck.”

  Holy mother of God! He did know what I had in mind and where and he was right I had driven an old wood-bed Ford.

  “Do you—”

  “Yep.” He answered without letting me finish, tossing me a set of keys. “Around back in a storage container. Take her out and wash her up before you take her out for a spin tonight.”

  Doing as my pop told me, I unlocked the bay and found a dusty black truck with wood features—she was a real beauty. A beauty for a beauty. I hurried up and got her in running order to drive out to the farm.

  “Well, that’s a blast from the past...” Celeste stepped right off the front porch steps and approached the truck, running her hand along the metal side of the bed. “I expected a motorcycle.”

  “Next date,” I assured her with a smile. “A day ride. I promise.”

  “I remember that truck and if memory serves me right, it broke down and you didn’t get Celeste home on time.” I swear my face heated hearing her father’s words and remembering the true story where the truck didn’t really have any problems.

  “On time?! Try like the next morning—” Clancy, of course, had to get involved.

  Conrad came out of nowhere with his own input. “Late morning.” He then turned to his father, Henry, and spoke, “You should’ve grounded her for that.”

  Only Cordelia was missing to give her point of view.

  “I’m a grown woman now. None of you need to worry about me.” Celeste opened the passenger door of the truck and climbed in.

  They never had to worry about Celeste when she was with me. I’d never let anything hurt her... I may have hurt her in the past but that would never happen again. I’d say that I regretted my decision to leave, only I didn’t. I could’ve stayed and fought for her but the timing was all wrong for us.

  “Time to get going.” I waved to the small crowd, otherwise known as her family, and climbed into the cabin of the truck and brought the engine to life. “I know this certain spot...” Celeste smiled at me knowing exactly where I was taking her. “...best place to watch the sunset and stargaze.” I could hear her words from years ago telling me how romantic it was as we sat in the back of the truck on blankets and had a picnic.

  It was just as good...better recreating the first time I claimed her as mine; body, mind and soul. Celeste seemed be on the same page with me as we sat and opened everything for our new beginning. There was something sexy about the way she grabbed the wine bottle, carefully cut the foil and then expertly removed the cork, sniffing it once it was pulled free.

  Pouring wine into both of our glasses and handing me one, she clinked her glass to mine. “Here’s to better food and drink than last time.”

  I grinned. “There was nothing wrong with hard lemonade and sub sandwiches.” I had to talk my pop into buying the alcohol for us and he made me promise not to drink and drive. I could blame him for the reason why I didn’t bring Celeste home by her curfew.

  “No, but they can’t compete with Sangiovese, lamb lollipops with mint chutney and crusty baguette.” She tore a piece of bread from the loaf and held it out to me. I leaned forward and took it out of her hand with my mouth, gently tasting her fingertips with my tongue. She smiled and touched her fingers to her lips. “Did they give you my favorite dessert?”

  “Grilled peach and cheesecake brûlée.” Her eyes twinkled with happiness.

  “You know...” She bit her lip. “I am going to be interrogated by the restaurant staff.”

  “I was trying to make points.” I reached up and moved a strand of her dark hair that had blown in front of her beautiful face. “How am I doing so far?”

  “Well...” She tilted her head to the side and licked her lips again. “You haven’t kissed me yet...”

  I had no problem rectifying that oversight. With both of my hands reaching forward, I captured her face in between my hands, worked my fingers into her hair and pulled her close. Taking things slow, my lips lightly brushed over hers before tasting the culinary delights on her tongue. She made the dessert even more delectable.

  I loved how she moved closer to me as I held her captive with my mouth.

  Chapter Nine

  Celeste

  Once Skeet started kissing me, I didn’t want him to ever stop. I wanted to climb right into his lap and stay there forever. It was as if time had stood still being in the same spot where I gave myself to him when we were both sixteen.

  “Celeste, I get my license in a few days... Are you going to be ready to take a drive with me?” I grinned knowing we had been talking about going up to a hilly area of another peach farm not
far from ours that was known as a make-out spot.

  The owners of the property didn’t seem to mind that remote areas were invaded by teenagers. Even my parents knew about it when they were teens. I didn’t want to hear their stories. It was bad enough that they teased each other about how my father took advantage of the farmer’s daughter. Every time I heard a joke or song about farmers’ daughters I had flashes of yuck!

  It was a bit strange being there as an adult but still as exciting as it had been years ago. Second time around, I had an idea of how things worked and there was no mystery or fear... Maybe a little fear still lurked in the back of my mind, but for a different reason. I was no longer anticipating physical pain associated with the first time. It was the emotional pain that stuck in my mind.

  “Let it go, Celeste.” He seemed to be reading my mind or maybe it was the way my body tensed. “We have tonight. We have days after... no reason to make decisions or plans... or even think.” He caressed me as if to calm my thoughts away.

  “I’ve missed us.” I had to be honest. Years without him, even if I had other dates and men in my life—after I realized he wasn’t coming back—there was always something missing. We had such a connection. A connection that didn’t require work. Everything was always easy and natural between us.

  “You have me.” His breath was warm against my neck. He smelled clean and manly like leather mixed with something citrusy.

  How long would I have him if he knew the truth? The Skeet I knew so well didn’t like secrets and was always open. Even the reason why I no longer trusted him years ago had nothing to do with him hiding things from me.

  Other people told me that Skeet had cheated on me. He told me he didn’t to his knowledge. That he would never knowingly do anything to harm me and being with anyone other than me was not even something he would ever desire. He did say that he woke up without clothes on in a room with several other naked people.