Page 14 of Accidentally Perfect

This can't be happening. I cannot believe my girls have been hurt and most of all; I’m not there. Since the day they were born they've been my priority. It's always been about them. I've made it my mission to let them know that they matter, that they're important, and that I love them more than anything else in this world. It's been my mission to be the exact opposite of my mother.

I shouldn't have left the city. I should've told Stella to just check us into a spa in Manhattan somewhere, it's not like the city is lacking in the spa area. But no, I had to think of only me and fly across the country. I've let my girls down. I can't get the pictures out of my head, the girls screaming for me, calling for their mother while they lie there in hospital beds. The pain they must be in, and I'm not there to hold them, to rock them and assure them they'll be okay. The one time in their life when they really need me and I'm not there. Why do I feel like I'm more like my mother than I care to admit?

Hell, how am I going to explain all this to my mother? Wait, maybe I don’t have to. We can always get it taken care of without her ever knowing. I mean Vegas was fun and everything, but staying married? We can’t, can we? Is it really any of her business? I’m not a child; I'm a grown ass woman who just happened to get overly drunk my first time in Vegas and got married. I know that I’m not the first, and I know that I won’t be the last. Hell, didn’t Britney get married and then like two hours later get it annulled? Do I want to get it annulled? Do I want to make it as though it never happened? My mind circles around the same questions over and over, trying to process the events of the last forty-eight hours.

I need to get it annulled. I need to think of my girls and what's best for them. Me married to a man they've never met is not what's best for them. Them seeing me interact romantically with a man who is not their father is not what's best for them. I wouldn't even let Michael hold my hand in the presence of the girls. He was a friend, nothing more. It's important as a mother not to introduce a string of men to the girls. It's not a stable life for them and that's what they deserve. To have a stable, loving childhood. Introducing them to a man whom I barely know is the not the picture of stability. It's proof of the stupid, selfish person I can be.

“Hey, sweet girl, what are you thinking about? You look deep in thought over there.”

“What am I thinking?” I look from the window to Nathan, who's sitting on the opposite side of the plane's cabin. His arms are spread out on the headrest. His leg is bouncing, and I know he's agitated, that he wants to help me, to do something to help ease this guilt I have building inside me.

“Laney, you need to talk to me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me. Is it your mother? You seem so worried about what she's going to think of you, of us. Why do you put so much stock in her opinion of you?”

“You don’t understand. It’s not just her. It’s my girls as well. What kind of example am I showing them? My whole life, I've done everything to be different than my mother. Now I'm showing up after they get into an accident and introducing them to a man who isn't their father. A man who isn't Michael. Oh, my God, what are they going to think? Jesus, Nathan, I can't do this." I feel my nose burning; my eyes start to well with tears. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't be the person who shows them what not to do with their life. I can't be how my mother was to me. I don’t want to let my girls down like my mother has let me down.”

“Don't do that." He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. I know he wants to come to me, hold me, but I can't. I can’t do that right now. "Please don’t assume I don’t understand how difficult parents can be or the guilt you're going through. I know you're the type of person who always puts those you love first, and those girls, they're your top priority. I know that, but you have to remember something, Laney, you deserve to have stability and a good life too. To take just as much as you give. You deserve just as much happiness as your girls do. You work hard, you raise those girls with love and you didn't do anything wrong by going to Vegas. Doing something for you isn't something to feel guilty about.”

"I need to put my girls first. I need to think of them above anyone else, even me. That's what makes a good parent. Their needs before my own."

"Putting their needs before yours doesn't mean that you don't have needs of your own."

"I can't do this, Nathan. I can't introduce you to them." I wipe the tears from eyes, turning my head to look back out the window.

“I've prided myself on many things in my life, Laney." His voice is strong, but I can hear the pain. “I've believed in the feeling that I get deep in my gut. During times of war, my intuition has saved my life and the men of my squadron, more times than I can count. Here in the civilian world, by instincts have kept government officials, and Hollywood elite safe. People trust me and now you need to trust me. Trust in the bond we have. You need to believe in the fact that it will grow stronger and you need to believe in me. There isn't anything I won't do for you, but I'll tell you this. Don't ask me to turn my back on you, because that's something I won't do. I cannot do that. You've already showed me more in the last two days than I've seen in my entire thirty some odd years on this planet. I like what I see and there's no way I'm ever letting it go. We'll figure everything out together. The girls will be fine, we will be fine; your mother will be fine. I have faith in us, even if you don't. I have enough for the both of us."

I look over him. There's fear etched into his beautiful features. He’s such a good-looking man, even with pain evident, he's the most gorgeous man I've ever seen. His honey eyes search my face, and I know what he’s thinking. Two days is all I've known him for. Two days of some not so meaningful conversations, but enough to know that what he says is his word. He has faith in us. He has strength when I have none. He has enough for the both of us. Those were his words.

"I have faith." I whisper. Without any regret, I walk over to my husband, lean down to him and brush my lips against his. He swipes my lips with his tongue, and I don’t even hesitate to allow him entrance. He pulls me into his lap; his kisses warm my entire body.

"Everything is going to be alright." he says against my lips. "You're a good mother, protective, fierce, loving. Those girls know that and as they grow, they'll realize it even more." I close my eyes to soak in his words, removing myself from his lap. I can't concentrate when he's touching me. My mind clouds when I feel his hands on my body and I need to keep the girls my main priority. I can't put them in front of my own needs. Not now.

"Sorry." I tell him as I scoot down the couch. He doesn't let me go far. He takes my feet into his lap, slowing rubbing the arches.

"You don't need to fear what you're feeling, Laney. You don't need to fear me."

"I don't fear you. It's the opposite, actually, and it scares me. The safety I feel with you is the same as I felt with my father. Unconditional. With my father, I understood because he was my dad and I was his little girl, that's just want good fathers do." His hand squeezes at the mention of a good father. I try to pull my foot away, but Nathan doesn’t allow it. "But with you, it's intense, especially for someone who barely knows me and who I barely know myself."

"You never felt that safety with your mother, did you?"

"No. It's sad, but that's the truth. I've never felt safe with my mother. My dad was everything; so much changed when he passed away."

"I've feel the same way about my parents. My mother was everything, but my father, he wasn't anything to me. He still isn't. The hardest day of my life was the day I had to say goodbye to my mother."

"Yeah, me too." I try not to think about watching my father waste away from the cancer that was eating him from the inside out.

"Tell me about him." I hear Nathan say.

"What? No, you don't want to hear that story."

"I do. this is us talking, Laney; getting to know each other. We need this. We need to know what makes us who we are. I can't rely on looking at your mother because I can already tell that you're nothing like her. Just as I'm nothing like my father. As much as it hurts or as hard as it may be, I want to hear about him. "

“Okay.” I sit back, and I begin to tell him my story. “My father came from a long line of cattlemen down in Oklahoma. His name was Lane Jacobs. I’m named after him.”

“I’ve heard the name before. Jacobs is big in the cattle industry, is it not?”

“Yes, my father worked hard to keep our name as one of the leaders in cattle. Oklahoma was his life, but my mother had other plans. She wanted a bigger life. She wanted something fast-paced, and Oklahoma just wasn’t it for her. Anyways, he was in love with her. She was full of life; a life that was meant to be lived elsewhere. She talked him into leaving Oklahoma and moving to New York. He agreed, leaving the cattle business and his entire family to move to the Big Apple.”

He used to tell me stories of him growing up on the cattle ranch. How he and his cousins would help my grandfather and great uncles move the steer from the hills to the flat land of the ranch. How he loved the feel of the saddle between his legs and the feel of the wind on his face. Cattle running was his first love, but when he saw my mother all the things he wanted fell to the waste side because he found a new dream, and it was the one and only Vivian Steed. I'm sure he told me these stories because in his eyes, they made him who he was, but to me, they were rose colored stories of a man too blinded by love to see the real picture. I had the pleasure of seeing it, of seeing my mother unhappy and taking it out on me by being cold and callous.