This smile would not be aimed at me.

It would be aimed at Deke, who I was curled into on our own couch.

It would be a smile of male camaraderie. A smile of happiness. The smile a dad would have that I’d never see. A smile he’d have safe in the knowledge his only daughter had found the man who’d make her happy until she was no longer breathing.

A hand touched my waist lightly and, caught up in these images, I gave a slight twitch in surprise at the touch when Deke called softly, “Baby?”

I stared into the dark, into trees my father would never wander through, not able to see through the dark to the river that he would have sat on the deck, listened to and known peace.

“That night, back when, when we were in Wyoming,” I spoke to the window, “before I saw you at that fence, I was moving out of the bar to get some air. To take a breather. Get away from my thoughts or maybe give into them because my head was fucked up and I needed to clear it. Or at least sort it out.”

I felt Deke get close to my back, felt his words stir the top of my hair, heard in his tone that he felt my vibe and was falling into it, so I knew he’d bent to me there when he asked, “How was your head fucked up?”

It would be hard to share this, especially with Deke, all I’d had, all he didn’t.

But even knowing it would be hard, deep inside I knew he’d get it.

“It sounds bad,” I told him. “I know it does. But that doesn’t make it any less true that at that bar, I’d begun to realize that in all I had, I didn’t have what I wanted.”

I shook my head, still staring at the night, Deke’s hand moving from my waist to my belly, his other arm wrapping around my ribs below my breasts.

I felt his chin hit my shoulder and I kept talking.

“The thing is, it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what I needed.”

“Yeah?” he asked when I didn’t go on.

“Yeah,” I said. “I had it all. I was uneasy because I had it all in a way I had it but I wanted something else. Something more. And I was uneasy because it felt like I was being ungrateful. All I had, all I could get, and I wanted more.”

Deke’s hold on me tightened. “Did you know what you wanted?”

I nodded to the night and answered, “Less.”

His deep voice had been restful, quiet.

He sounded puzzled when he asked, “Say again?”

I curled my fingers tight on the phone I was still holding, lifting my free hand to trail Deke’s forearm, over his wrist, until I could lace my fingers with his.

Then I repeated, “I wanted less.”

“You wanted less,” Deke murmured, and I knew he still didn’t understand.

“Less is more,” I told him. “You can have it all, but if you don’t have the things that are important, you don’t really have anything.”

I felt his fingers tighten in mine but he didn’t say anything.

“I had good friends. A good family. But I didn’t have…”

You.

I left the word unsaid.

Deke kept tight hold on my hand.

“I have it all now,” I whispered, the words thick. “I have it all and he’ll never know. He’ll never see. He’ll never get that peace knowing his girl has everything.”

There was a beat of silence, it was heavy, weighing further down on me before Deke asked gently, “You talkin’ about your dad, baby?”

I nodded, my throat sounding clogged when I said, “And the fuck of it is, I found it because I lost him. I found it because losing him meant I needed to find my peace in a world without him in it. But I got more than that. I got my less that’s more. I found my place. I found my oasis. I found home. I found where I’d be safe and looked after. I found peace. And he’ll never know.”

Deke made no reply.

But he didn’t let me go.

He held me to him, my fingers laced with his as I stared into the night, and he did this for a long time.

Then he lifted his chin from my shoulder and put his lips to my ear.

“Come to bed, Jussy.”

I nodded again and Deke let me go.

He moved. I moved.

I had shit on my mind, and as I put on my pajamas, more shit crowded in.

Like he said we would, and I knew we would (which was why I had a doctor’s appointment the next week), Deke and I had sex regularly. Always before we went to sleep. Most of those times we did it then we cuddled and chatted and did it again. There were times, rare and only happening when we spent the night at my place where I could go back to sleep when we were done and not have to get up and get in Deke’s truck to come to my place, he woke me early in the morning and took us there.

But right then, I was not in the mood.

Right then, I was coping with a clash of emotions I was having difficulty processing.

Loss and gain.

Profound joy and acute sorrow.

Feeling this, all I wanted to do was climb in a warm bed, try and hold on to the remnants of that mellow buzz I was quickly losing and go to sleep, wake up with that all gone and face a new day when I had the energy to bury the bad again and focus on the good.

What I didn’t want to do was have sex with Deke.

I wanted to hold tight to my big, warm teddy bear that came in the form of a mountain man and use his strength to take me where I needed to be.

But Deke might have other ideas. He always had other ideas. Ideas I’d always had too. And I didn’t know what I’d do if he acted on those ideas or how I’d feel if he tried.