I can’t argue with that because if it ever came to it, I would do the same. I would risk my very last heartbeat. Part with my only breath for him.
Not because of all he’s given me or all he risked for me, but because without him there is no me. All the hollow life I’ve lived is overflowing because of him. Maybe it was fate. Maybe we were always meant to find each other when there was nothing but darkness. Or perhaps Garrett Dixon was always meant to be the buoy that led me to a shore I never knew existed. Whatever it is or was or will be, there’s one thing that will never change.
He’s mine.
Always.
Forever.
My everything.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
GARRETT
Avery looks up at me with a soft smile as Iris sits beside me on the bed telling me about her play rehearsal today. It’s good to see her happy again. The first time Avery brought her to the hospital a few weeks ago, she was so quiet that it was like meeting a new child.
“If you can’t come to watch me, Uncle Mark said he would FaceTime you so you can watch it from your pansy bed.”
“My what now?” My hoarse laugh becomes a cough as my ragged breaths burn through my lungs as she repeats, “Your pansy bed.”
Once I’ve gotten my laughter and the burn under control, I ask her, “Uncle Mark, huh?”
“He said that if I wanted to live in his house with you, that I should call him Uncle Mark.”
My gaze flits to Avery’s at the surprise. We haven’t spoken about it since the fundraiser. With the shooting, Jo insisted I stay at the ranch so that we could keep things as normal as possible to avoid the girls being overwhelmed. Avery might say she’s doing all right, but she’s still barely eating, and there are times where she lies awake in the dark. And I think she’s scared. Waiting for the next gray cloud to pour on her.
It won’t. There isn’t a day I won’t be there to shelter her from anything that comes our way.
“Okay?” I mouth, and she smiles again in response, but I notice that she’s got that deer in the headlights look in her eyes that she had when she and Mark told me about what happened with Mike. I knew he wasn’t all that he pretended to be. I felt it in my gut that first time I met him in person. He had something dark in his eyes when he looked at her. Something that made me wary of him.
A soft sigh pushes from her lips, and it makes my chest constrict. I hate that she had to go through all of that. More than that, I hate that I wasn’t there to protect her from that too. There’s no evil I won’t ever do my damned best to protect her from. No pain I won’t do all I can to spare her.
“It’s my house, so you don’t have to call him anything you don’t want to.” I pat the bed, and she comes to lie next to me as I take tonight’s Dr. Seuss read from her.
“Oh the Places You’ll Go.” I put on my best Seuss voice, as Iris likes to call it, and pull her into my good side. “I’m definitely going to be in the front row to watch your performance. I wouldn’t miss it ever.”
“Promise?” Holding out her little finger in front of us, she levels me with her unwavering stare.
“Always,” I tell her as Avery disappears into the bathroom.
It’s Sunday evening, and I’ve found the worst, most boring film I could so that we can talk through it instead. I can sense she’s holding something back, and while I’ve let her take her time in opening up about it, I can’t bear to see her so preoccupied. No, it’s time we talked.
I’ve barely finished reading the first half of the book when Iris starts to fall asleep. “Hey, champ, time for bed. Okay?”
With a nod, she takes the book from me and dog-ears the page we’re on before hugging me tighter than ever. “Love you, Doc.”
“More than my last crumb of pie.”
“And my bite of cake,” she yawns before climbing off the bed and knocking on the bathroom door to wish Avery good night.
I follow her to her room and tuck her in along with Breeze, who’s already half-asleep, waiting on her. The Care Bear I got Avery on our first date is clutched to her chest along with her rag doll and the old Care Bear that even in the dark looks almost threadbare.
“Na-night, champ.” I flip on the nightlight by the open doorway before closing the door a fraction to stop the light from the hallway lamp we keep on in case she gets out of bed from keeping her awake.
When I make it back to the bedroom, Avery’s sitting on the bed. Her lip is sucked into her mouth as she worries it with her teeth. If I didn’t know her, I’d be jumping her bones with the way her wet hair has left one side of the T-shirt she’s wearing almost translucent, leaving her nipple pretty much in plain sight. My heart picks up its pace at the sight, and my sharp inhale almost knocks me on my ass with the rush of air.
“Hi, Miss Summers,” I tease with a quirk of my brow, and her giggle is the best sound I’ve heard in weeks.
“Hi, Dr. Dixon.” She blows out a shaky breath as I sit back on the bed and tug her arm so she straddles my hips. When I flex up into her, she shakes her head. “No strenuous activity for six weeks,” she repeats what my surgeon said when he discharged me a couple of weeks ago.
“This isn’t hard work,” I rasp as I grasp her thighs and run my thumbs up to her groin. “Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Oh my God, you’re such a dork,” Avery giggles, bracing herself over me with her hands on either side of my head.
“You love it.”
I try to bring her flush to me, but she won’t let me. Although I know she’s looking out for me, it’s frustrating as all hell. I miss holding her and feeling her weight over me, the warmth of her flesh as it molds to mine and the softness of her skin.
As if she can read my thoughts, her hands slip beneath my top and meander up my torso as she sits back onto my thighs. Tracing over the healing scar at my side, she asks, “Do you remember the conversation we had about your divorce?”
My blood chills in my veins at the way she’s holding her breath. I’m not sure where this is going, but the fact Avery’s brought up the divorce doesn’t sit right.
“I remember all the conversations we’ve had.”
Nodding, she takes a moment, as though she’s thinking about what to say or how to say it.
“Talk, Avery. Don’t leave me hanging.”
“I had this whole thing planned, but I can’t remember any of the words, and I know it’s the worst time…too soon even.”
The anticipation widening her features along with the way she’s practically hyperventilating are making me think the worst. “Spit it out already.”
“You said you tried to have babies, but…”
“It didn’t work out,” I finish for her, barely able to keep my voice level because a part of me always knew this conversation would happen one day. I guess I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
“But—” She swallows audibly. “Umm…Michelle had a baby, right?”
“Yes, she did.”
She nods. “And you’ve always been…ahhh…”
This conversation is getting unbearable by the second. The longer she drags this out, the more awkward it’s going to be. Besides, we had the kids conversation already.
“I can give you everything, sweetheart, just not—”
“You’re wrong,” she blurts, wide-eyed and out of breath from all the buildup.
“She had a kid with another guy. I think it makes it pretty obvious the problem was me.”
Standing, she starts for the bathroom, stopping in the doorjamb to look at me as I get up to follow her. We can’t have this conversation if she walks away, and it needs to be had before things get any more…I don’t even know because it doesn’t get more serious than me asking her to move in with me and her talking to Iris about it.
“The fact that Carl couldn’t love me doesn’t make me unlovable. Does it?” Avery smiles with an expectant shrug. “Does it, Doc?”
“No.”
“No…” She ta
kes a deep breath and flips the bathroom light on behind her. “And you and Michelle got pregnant, it just didn’t…”
“It didn’t stick.”
With a nod, she takes my hand and leads us into the bathroom. “This isn’t how I planned it. Like I said, life isn’t exactly the easiest right now and—”
“What’s that?” My sight pauses on the pregnancy test on the counter. My already racing heart decides now is the time to run away with itself while my lungs freeze. All the while Avery’s looking at me with that part-startled and part-scared-to-shit expression that makes me tug her into me.
“It’s not the first test.” Her arms wrap around my waist, and it’s the first time since I woke up from my surgery that she’s actually held me tight enough that it smarts. “I’ve done so many that I’m pretty certain the woman at the pharmacy thinks I’m insane. I’ve been there so many times that we’re on a first-name basis.”
There’s no clarity in any of my feelings. I want to be happy, but I know better than that. I’ve done this before, and it never ended well. The way it should have. However, the longer I hold on to Avery, the brighter the hope shines. It gets brighter and brighter as she holds on tighter.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I wanted to be certain, and then when I was…I was scared. I was scared that it would end up hurting you, and then I was scared that you don’t want this.” Looking up at me, Avery blows out a long breath before she says, “I know it’s unexpected and so soon. I only signed the contract with the aquarium a couple days ago. Iris will need to get settled when we move, and you’re still recovering. Not to mention all that’s happened and—”
“Forget all of that,” I tell her so she stops focusing on everything other than herself. “What do you want, sweetheart?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Except it is. All I want is for you to be happy. That means that the only thing that matters to me is what you want. What will make you happy?”
“What about your happiness?” she counters, picking the test up off the counter and staring at it as though it holds all the answers.
Maybe it does.
“You are my happiness, Avery. I don’t want anything to get in the way of that. Of you and me. You understand?”
“I want to give you everything,” she murmurs, glancing up at me and clutching the test in her hand. “All those things you promised me and have given me. I want to do all of that for you and more. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted and dreamed of.”
“You are all those things. You’ve been more than all of it put together from the very beginning.”
The light in her eyes is impossible to miss when I take the test from her and look at it properly for the first time. My heart stutters at the one word “pregnant.” It’s not just my gut telling me this is different. It’s every part of me screaming it. Screaming it with a joy I’ve never felt before. My entire being, starting with my soul, yearns for this one thing, and it’s right here in front of me.
Sure, the past is daunting, and there is that one nagging thought that reminds me of how bad things got last time babies were brought into the equation. But the prospect of that little bit of me and her entwined and growing inside her is so much greater than any nagging thought.
“Do you want to have a baby with me, Doc?” Avery runs her fingertips over the test in my hand.
“Yes.”
“Oh good,” she sighs with a broad smile—the broadest I’ve ever seen on her, and it is so damn beautiful. She is beyond spectacular. A fucking dream, actually. “Good, because I’m pretty certain I’m pregnant.”
“How many tests did you do?”
“Enough that when I went into the pharmacy this morning, Marie refused to let me buy another.” Her cringe makes me laugh, and while she’s staring up at me with mock horror pinching her face, I kiss her.
Putting the test down on the counter, I back her up against the edge until she perches herself on it, and I nudge her legs open to stand between her thighs. With her hands twisting in my shirt, I cup her face as I lick into her mouth, drinking in her drawn-out moan and savoring the trembling breaths that vibrate into my lungs.
There’s never been anything so perfect in my life, nothing I’ve craved so deep, and no matter how much of it I have, I want more. That’s Avery through and through. The more I have of her, the more I want.
Tracing my hands down the column of her throat, I slip them all the way down to her hips. When I round her ass and pull her groin flush to mine, she whimpers, and I know she wants me inside her as much as I am dying to be.
“Don’t pregnant women want sex all the time? That’s a thing, right?” I ask, grinding into her.
Avery clasps her hands around my forearms, dragging down until she’s holding on to my wrists. “Nice try, honey. Ask me again in two weeks and I’ll let you know,” she breathes over my lips before licking over the tip of my tongue.
“Two weeks?”
“Six weeks, Garrett—that’s what your doctor said, and that’s what you’re going to do. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before—”
“There will be no next time.” I bite down on her lip as she slips off the counter. There’s a teasing sway to her hips as she saunters out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom where she throws herself on the bed. “You know, you can’t hold it against me anymore. I protected you and our baby.”
“Our baby,” she marvels with an audible and unmistakable swoon.
I feel it too, that breathtaking wonder that makes my entire universe align. Every stumble. Every fall. They were all worth it for this life, and I can’t wait to live it with her.
Forever, always, everything in between, and so much more.
Epilogue
GARRETT
Three years later…almost…
The house is the quietest it’s been in years as I wake up and press a kiss to Avery’s head. She’s dead to the world after last night. I tried to help, but turns out the kids only have one person they go to when they’re feeling sick. Mommy.
“Tell me it’s not morning yet,” she mock sobs into my chest, her fingertips instantly finding the scar at my side, an action that has become instinctual to her.
“It’s not morning.” I give her what she asked for.
Looking up at me with a sulk, she groans, “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Sleep a little longer. I’ll take care of breakfast for the girls before I leave.” I manage to untangle her body from mine even though all I want is to take advantage of my fiancée one last time before she becomes my wife.
“Don’t leave me, Doc. Come back to bed.”
“If I don’t go, Mark will fuck shit up and then…then, Priscilla will want my head on a platter. Or worse, Charlie will follow through on the promise of torturing me if it’s not perfect.”
“The only thing that will make today perfect is you being there when I walk down the aisle. I don’t care about the rest.”
“That’s a lie. You care about the night off from parenting.”
“After last night? I need at least a week,” she laughs, hugging my pillow to her and burying her face in it.
By the time I’ve showered and dressed, she’s asleep again, deep enough that she doesn’t stir when I search through my sock drawer to find the present I got her for today.
Something new and something blue. I slip the box into my pocket as I head downstairs, looking into the nursery to find it empty already, and when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I have to take a moment.
I do it every morning because it’s the best sight I’ve ever seen to this very day.
As per usual, Iris is sitting on the couch with her bowl of cereal, Poppy and Rose on either side of her, stealing a Cheerio every now and then.
I’ve almost made it to the kitchen when Iris calls, “Morning, Father!”
It’s been her recurring joke since Avery and I got engaged seven months ago. It’s be
en the longest seven months of my life, with the exception of the ones Avery was pregnant with the twins. The pregnancy was easy on her once she got past the nausea, but it was hell for me. Especially the first six and a half months. I’m grateful she didn’t run away with how much I fussed over her. I think she understood my apprehension and fears.
Poppy meanders over to me with her pink Cheer Bear plush hugged to her chest. Rose isn’t far behind her with Funshine even though she’s more of a grumpy bear in our family—a trait Mark likes to point out as mine. I call bullshit, though.
“What are we having for breakfast?”
“Dodo.” Poppy points up to the counter where Jo’s granola bars are sitting, and Rose proceeds to tell me, “No. No…” on repeat even when I’ve got her in her chair and she’s eating her second bar.
“Uncle Mark called to say that he would meet you at the cove. Charlie’s tired because she was on the phone till late with Mom. and now he has to pick up the flowers.” Iris sits at the table beside me, breaking off half of one of my bars. “Are you excited to marry my mom?”
“I can’t wait,” I reply, and she smiles up at me before resting her head on my shoulder. “Are you excited?”
“I’m happy for you.”
“That’s not a happy face, champ.” The look on her face has me sitting back in my chair and pulling her to sit on my thigh. “What’s happening? You and Makenna have a fight? Cullen teasing you again?”
“No.”
“So, what is it? Who’s giving you trouble?”
“Dodo,” Poppy calls again, only silenced when I break up some more granola bar onto her tray.
“Come on, you can tell me anything.”
“It’s nothing,” she tells me, but from the wet sound of her voice and the tears swimming in her eyes, it’s clearly something. And I don’t like that she’s being coy about it.
Iris has never been shy with me, and it’s not starting now because if something is bothering my girls, I’m going to fix it.
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