I figured Chelle would do just about anything for Creed and her kids but I kept my mouth shut.

He kept musing over my head. “And I’d get to see my kids more.”

“And they’ll get to see you. An all-‘round winner.”

He looked back at me and said softly, “You’re gonna be a good Mom.”

Jesus, I hoped so.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll find out that’s true sooner rather than later.”

His arm snaked out and wrapped around me, pulling me toward him, off my elbow and tucking me under him as he rolled into me. “Doesn’t have to do with luck. We gotta put the effort in,” he told me.

We certainly were doing that.

“As you know, I’m all in on that plan,” I shared.

He smiled down at me.

I lifted a hand and ran a finger down his jaw as I said quietly, “Don’t know where you’re at with it. I told you Chelle told me all about it. I’m just going to say for the record, she’s right. She deliberately trapped you into marriage and knew through your time together she didn’t have your love.”

“Can’t trap a man who agrees.”

I shook my head. “Oh yeah, you can.”

“Sylvie –”

I cut him off to ask, “Did you tell her you love her?”

I watched his jaw get hard before he forced out his, “No.”

“Not ever?”

He drew in breath then admitted, “Found other words that implied it but didn’t say it.”

“Then you didn’t lie.”

“She didn’t hold me at gunpoint at the altar,” Creed pointed out.

“Babe,” my hand slid down to the side of his neck and curled around, “you’re Creed. You’ve always been Creed. She fell in love with you and did it hard, so even drifting after losing me, my guess is, you were Creed with her too. And the Tucker Creed I know would never knock up a woman and not do right by her. My guess again, she knew that and played on it. People do shit when they love someone. It wasn’t cool but it was understandable. That said, you gotta let that go. You both played your part in that doomed marriage. If you let it go, maybe she can let it go too. You’d be doing her a favor and I think if you two worked that shit out, your kids would feel that ease between you and it would work out for them too.”

Creed stared down at me and asked, “Jesus, baby, when’d you get so f**kin’ smart?”

I grinned up at him. “See, when I was six, I met this worldly eleven year old who was wise and took care of me and taught me everything he knew.”

As I spoke, I watched Creed’s eyes flash, his face harden with intensity and I felt his body tense against mine.

When I was done talking, he said softly, “Fuckin’ love you, Sylvie.”

I kept grinning. “Fuckin’ love you too, Tucker Creed.”

Then I lifted my head, touched my mouth to his and only moved back an inch before I said quietly, “Thank you for giving me a great birthday.”

I watched his face get soft and I fell back to the pillows just in time for his hand to come up, his finger touched my new (totally beautiful) pendant then it slid under it and twisted the chain gently before he replied, “You’re welcome, beautiful.”

My grin got bigger but it didn’t last long.

This was because Creed dropped his head and kissed me.

Therefore, my birthday started great (notwithstanding the shitty dream) because of Creed.

And it ended great too.

Because of Creed.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Come Back to Me

A hot summer night in Kentucky, sixteen years earlier, Sylvie is eighteen…

I sat on the pier in the moonlight, staring at the water.

I couldn’t find Creed.

I’d spent hours at the pier the day before, waiting, waiting forever. The Snickers were ruined. My skin was burned.

Creed didn’t show.

I went to his house. He wasn’t there. His truck wasn’t there.

I went back to the lake, waited and waited and nothing.

I was worried.

Creed would never leave me.

Never, never, ever.

Something was wrong.

I called him but he didn’t answer. I called him again and he didn’t answer. And again. And again.

When it got late and he didn’t show, I went back to his house. I broke in the window and lay in his bed, waiting. I hoped he’d come home but I also couldn’t go to my house.

I told Daddy I was leaving. I told him I wasn’t coming back. He was really angry then he got all calm and tried to talk to me. I told him I wasn’t going to change my mind and he let me go. He even said I could keep my car.

It was kind of strange how easily he let me go. I mean, it wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be.

So when he let me go, I went but I told him I wasn’t coming back and I couldn’t. I couldn’t go back. I had a life to begin with Creed and I had a life I hated that had to end.

But Creed didn’t show.

The next day I went back to the pier and waited again.

I didn’t know what to do.

No one knew about us and Creed wanted to keep it that way just in case Daddy sent someone out looking for us, so I couldn’t ask his friends. I told Daddy I was leaving but, as Creed told me to do, I didn’t tell him I was leaving with Creed.

Creed had worked out his notice the week before to get ready to leave but he would also be angry if I went by to the factory, so I couldn’t go there either.

So I got in my car and drove around, drove everywhere, went into the stores and diners and swung by gas stations to check and see if he was around, even if his truck wasn’t outside.

He wasn’t in the stores or diners.

He wasn’t anywhere.

Worried, scared, feeling truly alone for the first time since I was six, I did the only thing I could do.

When it got late, I went to the bar. I stood outside until someone showed and asked if they’d go in, find Winona Creed and send her out to talk to me. I found someone, they went in and she teetered out and proved what I knew. She paid absolutely no attention at all to her son and she cared about him even less.

When I asked her if she knew where he was, she threw out an unsteady hand which made her list to the side before she righted herself and she stated, “He lef’. Goin’ somewheres. Doan know wheres. Just know he sold the house an’ he gone.” Then she squinted her eyes to focus on me and she asked, “Whas’ a Bissenette doin’ askin’ after a Creed?”