The Truth About Us (The Truth Duet Book 2) Read online

Nic Guerrero had given Cora shit, but I wasn’t about to tell his daughter that.

  Instead, I shrugged, “I guess that means all there is left is the moon.”

  She’d smiled and then stared out the window for the next fifty miles. I knew because I’d smiled and stared in the rearview mirror at her.

  Silently, I watched as all the girls got out of my truck and clambered up the driveway to the house, Drew and Catalina leading the mission.

  Cora was fast to get back into the truck, and her hand came right back to mine, intertwining our fingers like she’d never left.

  “You want to talk about it or just sit here for a while?” she asked.

  I did not—in any way, shape, or form—deserve that woman.

  But I was going to keep her for as long as she would have me.

  With a sigh, I dropped my head back against the headrest and turned to face her. “This has to be weird for you. Being here. Her stuff is still in the closet, ya know? I’ve never done anything with this place since she died. I don’t know why I brought you here. We should rent a condo or something.”

  She grinned. “You want me to say I’m uncomfortable so you don’t have to go in there?”

  She knew me too well.

  Chuckling, I lifted my finger in the air and pinched them together. “A little.”

  “Okay. But, Penn, you slept under Nic’s stars for months. You made love to me while I was wearing his necklace. And you’ve taken care of his daughter without a second of hesitation. You think women’s clothing in a closet is going to bother me?”

  I smirked. “There’s pictures too. Like one from our wedding on the mantel.”

  “You told me on our first date that you’d been married before. I promise I won’t be shocked to see that a photographer captured still images of that momentous occasion. However, like I said, if you want me to say I’m uncomfortable to make you feel comfortable, I’m on it. But I have spent twenty hours in this truck, so I’m going to need the next place to be close by.”

  Laughing, I turned my gaze back onto the house. It was a nice house. A really nice house, right on the beach. But it hadn’t been my home in years. If I was being honest, the only place I’d felt anything even remotely resembling a home was Cora’s old apartment. But that had less to do with the structure and more to do with the woman and kids inside of it.

  I’d grieved.

  I’d moved on.

  I’d met the only woman who could have ever saved me.

  But pain was funny like that. It stained your soul long after you had healed.

  And, being there, a part of me was waiting for that pain to reappear and consume me all over again.

  But then I looked at Cora.

  Her face was soft as she stared back at me.

  Her lips were tipped up, gentle but teasing.

  Her hair was in a messy ponytail that she’d probably yell at me for not telling her just how messy it truly was.

  How had I found something so good in the middle of something so, so bad?

  Giving her hand a tug, I pulled her across the center console. I caught the back of her neck, meeting her halfway for an all-too-brief kiss, before mumbling against her lips, “I love you. And if you’re comfortable being here, I’m comfortable being wherever you are.”

  She hummed, “Oh, my sweet Penn. Your cheesy lines are getting better. I’m impressed.”

  I nipped at her bottom lip. “Your jokes are not.”

  “So, what do you want to do? I’m really fine if you can’t stay here. The girls will be crushed, Drew will bitch, and Catalina will pout.” She put her hand to her chest. “But I, Penn Pennington, will be fine.”

  That was enough for me.

  I laughed, putting the truck into drive.

  I could do this.

  I could make new memories.

  Of Cora.

  Of River.

  Of Savannah.

  Maybe even a few of Penn.

  “My name is not Penn Pennington.” I eased on the accelerator until we rolled through the gate.

  She laughed, loud and carefree.

  And after we’d parked, climbed the back steps, and then walked through the door together, those twenty-nine minutes of memories didn’t assault me.

  Not with her smiling up at me.

  “Oh my God! Did you feel that?” she cried, wiggling in my arms when another wave crashed into us. Her legs were wrapped around my hips, two scraps of fabric dividing us, my cock painfully hard. But as River and Isabel chased Savannah across the beach with a piece of wet sea grass, there was not the first damn thing I could do about it.

  “You had to buy a fucking bikini, didn’t you?” I grumbled for no less than the twentieth time since we’d gotten back from the beach shop.

  “Could you stop worrying about what I’m wearing and more about the shark who is about to tear my legs off?”

  “What shark?” I reached behind me and tickled the bottom of her foot.

  She screamed at the top of her lungs, fighting to get away, but I refused to let her go.

  Turns out, Cora couldn’t swim.

  Neither could River.

  Or Savannah.

  Having grown up on the water, where people taught their babies to swim before they could talk, I’d never considered they wouldn’t know how.

  But I’d guessed, in Chicago, it wasn’t as imperative.

  “That was not funny,” she scolded.

  “Oh, come on. It was a little funny.”

  She swung her head from one side to the other. “Why can’t I see the bottom? Aren’t you supposed to see the bottom?”

  I barked a laugh, sliding my hands down to cup her ass. “Maybe if we were in the Keys.”

  “Okay, so let’s go there. This place is scary.”

  I spun in a fast circle, the sand tunneling beneath my feet, Cora clinging to my neck. “It’s a two-hour drive, baby.”

  “Penn, stop!”

  She had hated every minute of it since I’d dragged her into the water.

  Every shell she stepped on was a crab and every swish of the water was a jellyfish.

  I’d held her captive out there for a full thirty minutes, laughing the whole time.

  It never got old. However, it was becoming blatantly clear that a life on the beach was not in our future. Maybe a winter home where we could escape the cold and she could sit on the deck, sipping a cup of coffee, and watching the waves roll in.

  But if not Chicago.

  And not Florida.

  Where?

  “Where do you want to live?” I asked, heading back to the shallow waters.

  She continued searching the murky water for the invisible shark. “What do you mean?”

  “When this is all over, Thomas and Manuel are either sharing a cell or a grave, and we finally get to start a life together, where do you want to live?”

  Her eyebrows drew together as her gaze bounced to mine. “What are my choices?”

  “Ummm…planet Earth. I’ve got money, but not Mars money. And at the rate I’ve been going, I won’t even have Earth money in a few years, so I’ll probably need to find a job at some point, so let’s attempt to keep it somewhere with English as the first language.”

  When we reached waist-level—for her—I set her on her feet.

  She cringed when her toes hit the sand, but if I had any hope of deflating my hard-on in the next, oh, million years, I needed to stop her from rubbing against it with every step. I dropped to my knees so as not to scandalize the public beach.

  “You good?” I asked.

  She straightened her back. “Yeah. I could probably run from a shark if he got any ideas. This feels more solid than liquid here.”

  Underwater, I clamped my hand down on her calf and she jumped straight in the air, letting out an ear-piercing shriek.

  I roared with laughter and she splashed water in my face.

  “Dammit, Penn.”

  “Okay. Okay. Okay.” I lifted my hands in surrender. “I pro
mise: no more fucking with you.” I rose to my feet when the stretch of my swim trunks told me it was safe and tossed my arm around her shoulders. “So, seriously, where do you want to live?”

  She reached up, caught my hand dangling over her shoulder, and laced our fingers. Together, we started toward the shore. Catalina and Drew were chilling with beers under an umbrella. Oh, so casual for a man on a suicide mission and a shattered woman with a taste for psychological warfare.

  “I don’t know,” Cora said. “Cat and I had talked about Seattle when I finished my degree.”

  My eyebrows popped up. Seattle was amazing, but it didn’t strike me as Cora’s scene. Then again, I wasn’t sure what her scene was. She’d always been such a homebody by necessity.

  I abruptly stopped walking, pulling her up short with me. “Seattle?”

  She shrugged. “There’s a lot of coffee there. It’s like my personal Bat-Signal.”

  “There’s coffee everywhere, babe. Not sure that should be your only prerequisite for where you settle. But if Seattle is what you want, I’m down.” I slanted my head when a thought donned on me. “Wait… Do you want to get married?”

  Her whole body jolted, including her eyes, which flashed comically wide.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait. That wasn’t a proposal,” I clarified. “I’m not asking if you want to marry me.”

  The only thing more humorous than her wide eyes was her palpable disappointment.

  My chest didn’t just warm. It ignited in an all-out wildfire. And not like the one that had been roaring inside me for the last four years. This one was a controlled burn, destroying all the debris, creating room for new growth.

  She wanted to be with me.

  And fuck me, but I wanted to be with her more than I’d wanted anything in my entire life: Cora, food, water, shelter. In that order.

  But I didn’t need a marriage certificate or a ring on her finger to make that come to fruition.

  I just needed her.

  Curling her into my side, I kissed the top of her head. “Relax. I’m not asking yet, okay? It occurred to me that we’ve spent so much time discussing the past that I never found out what you want out of life. We’ve talked about you finishing college and getting your degree, but what next? Would you want to get married in general? Not just to me.”

  She gave me the side-eye. “I’m not down with polygamy, Penn Pennington.”

  I laughed.

  Craning her head back, she peered up into my eyes. “Yeah. I’d get married again.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Assuming the right guy asked.”

  I grinned down at her and started walking again. “You want kids?”

  She buzzed her lips. “Wow. I honestly don’t know. I never thought I’d have the option again.” Her nose crinkled and she swayed her head from side to side in consideration. “I love kids, but with the way things went the first time, I’d have to feel…safe before taking that leap again.”

  Safe. Kids or not. I could give that to her.

  I would give that to her. I could give her the most boring, uneventful, simple life in the world. Not usually a selling point for a marriage, but for us, the slow life was exactly what we finally needed.

  “You?” she asked, her voice squeaking at the end like she was preparing for the answer.

  “I’d love to start a family. Lisa was never interested. It didn’t fit into her lifestyle. I accepted that. But if it were up to me, I’d want a couple.”

  “Really?” she whispered.

  I nudged her the way she’d done me. “Assuming the right woman said yes.”

  Her feet kept moving, but she melted into my side, making me think maybe she’d made her decision on kids too.

  “Boys or girls?” she asked.

  “Boys. I think getting Savannah and River to adulthood is going to be enough to do my head in.”

  “Aww.” She flashed me a smile. “Thank you for always including them. From day one. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

  “You don’t need to thank me for that, Cora. Spending time with them has not been a hardship.”

  “For other men, it would be.”

  I shot her a wink. “Then let’s hope none of those other men propose before I do.”

  Her cheeks pinked and she turned her attention down to her sandy feet, muttering, “Fingers crossed.”

  As we got closer to Drew and Catalina, I squinted, trying to force my brain to make sense of what I was seeing. He was lying on his side, facing her, sporting a huge grin while drizzling wet sand into the palm of her hand. She was laughing, her dark hair blowing in the wind as she sat with her legs stretched out beside him, in a bikini much like Cora’s.

  And though they were both wearing shades, it was beyond obvious that there was some serious eye-fucking being exchanged, at least on Drew’s side.

  I had no idea what had happened in my Audi on that twenty-hour car ride from Chicago. But if the nightmare in front of me was any indication, the engine exhaust had to have been rerouted into the car and affected both of their brains.

  “Hey,” Catalina chirped, jerking her hand away when she tore her eyes off Drew long enough to realize that other people existed.

  Fuck. I didn’t want to imagine the epic clusterfuck that would ensue if those two started something.

  Drew was a good guy, and while wooing women was definitely his thing, staying with them was not.

  “Hey,” I replied gruffly, shooting him a silent what-the-fuck-are-you-doing glare.

  It sailed right over his head. “Hey, so, how do you feel about me and Cat taking the girls out to a movie tonight?”

  “I don’t. And it’s not happening,” I muttered, releasing Cora to grab two beers from the cooler. I twisted the top off one, passed it her way, and then did the same on mine.

  “And why not?” he asked defensively.

  I sat on the top of the cooler, patting my thigh in an invitation Cora quickly accepted. As she settled on my lap, I replied, “Because this isn’t a vacation. I have no idea what Thomas and Manuel are up to right now, but it’s better for all of us if we stay tight, keep our heads up, and try to figure out what’s next.”

  “Right,” he mumbled in a way that sounded more like fuck you than it did an agreement.

  “Oh, I know!” Catalina exclaimed. “What if we rent a movie and watch it in that theater room over the garage?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe give you two some time alone in the house.”

  Now, that I could get on board with. If it bought me some much-needed alone time with Cora, Drew and Catalina could eye-fuck all damn night.

  “What movie?” Cora asked.

  I grazed my teeth over her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not watching it.”

  Drew grinned and then pushed his sunglasses down his nose, narrowing his gaze on Cora’s feet. “Holy shit, is that a sand shark?”

  And that was how I became deaf.

  She flew straight up into the air, but not before screaming in my ear. I nearly dropped my beer, and hers spilled all over us both. But Drew and Catalina laughed so hard that it almost made it worth it.

  “Baby, chill.” I chuckled, dragging her back down onto my lap. “Sand sharks still live in the ocean.”

  “Oh my God! I hate you people—all of you.”

  “Hey, what did I do?” Catalina whined.

  “You’re laughing,” she spat.

  And she was.

  And so was Drew.

  And then I joined the group.

  And it wasn’t but a few seconds later that Cora joined us too.

  As it would seem we were one big, happy family.

  It wasn’t until a few hours later, as a river of blood forged a path across my living room floor, that I realized it had all been one big fucking lie.

  Cora

  I’d lied. Staying at Lisa’s house was a little weird.

  After we got back from the beach, everyone scattered to the various bathrooms across the house—all five of them.
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  My hair was still wet as I padded through the maze of wood floors in search of my man. “Penn?” I called.

  “Right here, baby.”

  I followed his voice to the end of a different hallway and found him staring at a closed door to what had to have been the master bedroom. He’d avoided it like the plague on the grand tour earlier. And while the bedroom Penn had dropped our bags in was large with a private bath, there was no way that it was the master in a place that luxurious.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I wasn’t too proud to admit that a pang of jealousy hit me when I imagined what he was thinking about.

  All the nights he’d made love to her in that room.

  All the nights she’d fallen asleep at his side.

  All the mornings he’d kissed her goodbye before going out for his run.

  He’d loved her. And that was okay. But that didn’t mean I enjoyed thinking about them together, which was proving to be a teensy bit difficult because there was way more than just a wedding picture on the mantel. Before we’d gone down to the beach, Penn had removed the majority of them. And he’d done it smiling and not in agonizing pain, the way I’d expected after his mini panic attack in the truck.

  But she was still there in that house with us.

  And I hated the idea that maybe he was lost in his memories with her.

  His blue eyes came to mine, the weight of his gaze stealing my breath. “Debating if I can ever go in there again.”

  I swallowed hard. “It’s just walls and memories. She’s not behind that door.”

  “No. But I am. That night, when I watched her die, I was in that room. And for twenty-nine minutes, Thomas Lyons and those men killed me too. In some ways, it feels like a blurry, distant memory. In others, it’s so sharp and fresh I can see it on the back of my lids.”

  God, I was an ass. While I was busy getting jealous of a woman who was no longer alive, Penn was lost in the bad times, not the good.

  “Oh, Penn,” I breathed, hurrying over to wrap him in a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  He put his lips to the top of my head and inhaled deeply. “I think she would have liked this.”

  I put my chin to his chest and looked up at him. “Liked what?”

  “Me and you.”