by Lexi Ryan
“And I didn’t want you to take it,” I say softly.
“I don’t even know how it happened. I had your hand and you were yanking away from me, and you told me to let go, said I was hurting you, and I did. But your back was to the stairs and somehow you lost your balance and fell.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “I called 911 and got you to the hospital, and it was so much more terrible than I ever would have imagined a fall like that could be. I was terrified I was going to lose you. And then, when I didn’t, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth because I finally had my sister back. I am so sorry.”
“It was an accident, Liz.”
“It was my fault.”
“It was an accident,” I repeat. But my mind is spinning and I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t taken that fall. Was I planning on telling Max about Nate? And when would I have learned about the pregnancy?
“Can I get you anything?” she asks. “Anything at all? Should I call him?”
“Don’t call Nate.”
“He’ll come,” she says. “He loves you.”
I nod, and a salty tear runs into my mouth. “He does.”
What was it he said to me the day we made love? “I love you, and I’m afraid you’re going to ruin your life because of it.” Turns out, it wasn’t my life he needed to worry about.
SHE LOOKS terrified and she’s staring at the babies’ heart-rate monitors like their hearts might stop beating if she turns away.
“She’s doing great,” Liz says, patting Hanna’s arm. “No more contractions since they started her on the meds. Babies are healthy and strong. Now we just have to keep them cooking for a while longer.”
“Have you called Nate?” I ask Hanna.
Liz speaks before Hanna can reply—or maybe she just knows she won’t. “He’s spending Christmas with his son.”
“He can’t be in both places at once,” Hanna murmurs, almost to herself.
Liz frowns, exhaustion marking her features, but she pats Hanna’s arm again. “He’d be here if he knew. Someone’s being stubborn.”
“Have you been here all day?” I ask Liz.
She nods. “It’s no big deal. She’s my sister.”
“Take a break. I’ll stay with her for a while. She won’t be alone.”
Relief lightens her smile. “Thanks.”
“I’m so scared,” Hanna whispers when Liz is gone. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
I sink into the chair between her bed and the monitors so she’ll see me while we talk without having to take her attention completely off the graphs of the babies’ heartbeats. “Everything looks good. They can do amazing things to stop preterm labor.”
“It’s not that. It’s that I don’t know the first thing about being a mom.”
Taking her hand, I squeeze her fingers. “You’re going to be amazing.”
“I’m scared to do this alone.”
“You won’t be alone. We’re all here for you. You know that.”
A tear escapes her eye and rolls onto the pillow. “I’m so sorry for what I put you through.”
My heart squeezes so hard and tight and painful that I can hardly breathe. “Hanna…”
“I am. You sacrificed everything for me, and how did I repay you? By doubting you? By stringing you along? By falling in love with another man? Will you ever be able to forgive me?”
“I will.” I sigh and shake my head. “I already have.”
“You, Maximilian Hallowell, are an amazing man, and someday, you’re going to make some lucky woman very happy.”
“You just say the word and it can be you.” I don’t even care that I sound desperate. It’s the truth, and I need to know she understands.
“I’m in love with Nate,” she says simply.
“Are you going to be with him? You deserve commitment, marriage, happily ever after.”
“I don’t know.” She lifts her eyes to meet mine, and there’s more determination there than I’ve ever seen. “But what will or won’t happen doesn’t change that my heart is his, and I never should have asked you to settle for me when I knew that was true.”
“For me, it wouldn’t have been settling.”
“WOWEE!” GRANNY says, cocking her head at Liz. “You are so conflicted. If you could see your aura now.”
Liz rolls her eyes. “I’m going to go clean up dinner.”
“I’ll help,” Maggie says.
Mom looks at me. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
They let me out of the hospital this morning, and Mom insisted we hold Christmas Eve dinner at my house. I didn’t even object. The idea of spending Christmas alone and stuck in bed is miserable. If I can’t have Nate, all I want is to be by my family.
Liz and Maggie take stacks of dishes into the kitchen and quietly begin cleaning up, and Mom helps me out of the recliner they dragged into the dining room for me.
“I want to go to the living room,” I tell her.
She props me up on the couch, positioning pillows to make it more comfortable. Then she sits in the chair across from me.
“Mom, I need to confess something,” I say after a long silence.
“The only one you need to confess to is Jesus, Hanna, but you go down and talk to Father Douglas, and I have no doubt you’ll find the forgiveness you seek.”
I stifle an eye roll and take a deep breath. “I never wanted to marry Max for the right reasons. A girl should put on a man’s ring when she knows he’s the one she wants to be with. But I wasn’t thinking about who I wanted. I was just trying to find a way that everyone could be happy.”
“That sounds like you,” she says with a sigh. She picks up her bag from beside the chair and pulls her latest knitting project from it. “I just hate to see you alone.”
I want to tell her that I’m not alone. That I have Nate. But I’m not sure I’m okay with sacrificing his happiness for my own.
“Did you sleep with Meredith’s dad?”
Mom’s hands freeze in the middle of a stitch, and I have to remind myself to breathe while I wait for her answer. She starts working again without looking at me. “I never cheated on your father. Malcolm and I were friends.” She sighs and finally lifts her head to meet my eyes. “You girls think I’m crazy for wanting you to get married, but you don’t know how difficult it is to live in this world without a man.”
I cross my arms and wait for her to finish, but my stomach hurts.
“I miss your father so much,” she whispers, and her eyes fill with tears. “Not only because he was my husband and the father to my children. He took care of things. Life was so much easier when he was around, and when he left, I didn’t know how to do anything. I’d never paid the bills or balanced the checkbook. I’d never changed my own wiper blades. I never realized just how much your father took care of me until he was gone, and Malcolm was a friend, and he helped me with those little things. I had no idea he thought our relationship was more than friendship until he left his wife. And we tried for a while, but then I saw his true colors and…” She sighs. “Good men aren’t so easy to find, you know.”
“Mom, if you didn’t know how to do any of those things, wouldn’t you want your daughters to wait on marriage? To be single and independent for a while first?”
She gives me a hard look then stands to take my hand in hers. “Single and independent are words women use to make themselves feel better about being lonely and overwhelmed. I want all of my girls to marry a good man and have a good life. I don’t think that makes me a bad person.”
“We can’t just marry anyone and have what you had with Dad,” I say softly.
Her smile is sad, a little hopeful. “But Max would give you that. You’d never be alone and you’d always have someone at your side to help you through the tough days.”
“I already have lots of people to help me through the tough days.” I shift our hands so mine is squeezing hers, and her shoulders rise on her inhale. “And I count you among them.”
She
drops her gaze to our joined hands. “I know I’m far from perfect. Some days, I feel like I’ve failed each of you girls in a different way.”
“You didn’t fail me, Mom. I just…”
“You just felt like I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t thin. That sounds like a failure to me.”
“No,” I say firmly. “I knew you’d always love me. You pressured me to lose weight, to be thin, that’s true. But I knew you wanted the best for me, and I never doubted that you loved me.”
She sniffs and forces a smile. “If you want to raise these babies on your own, I will support you. Whatever you need, whatever my grandchildren need. You just say the word.”
I don’t reply because my eyes are glued to my open front door, and the tall, dark-haired man with a little boy in his arms.
“HANNA!” COLLIN calls when he spots her. I put him down, and he scurries across the foyer and into the living room. “How are my sibwings?”
“Siblings,” I correct, but then I close my mouth because Collin’s gently cupping his hands over Hanna’s rounded belly, and the vision brings me more joy than I can fit in my heart. She’s lying on the couch, propped up with pillows behind her head and under her hips, and I want to scoop her into my arms and hold her close.
“They’re good, Collin,” Hanna answers, her eyes on me. “Did Liz call you?”
“No.” I shed my coat and walk into the living room to crouch down beside my son.
“Max?” she asks.
“No.”
Her breath catches as I place my hands next to Collin’s. As if in greeting, a baby kicks, then the other.
“I feel them!” Collin says with wide eyes.
I lift my eyes to Hanna’s and a smile stretches across my face. “Me too.”
“Who told you, then?” she asks. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because I want to spend Christmas with the woman I love.”
At the sound of a sharp inhale, I tear my eyes away from Hanna’s face and look up at her mother.
“You two need a minute,” she says. She offers her hand to my son. “Collin, is it? You want to see if we can find any Christmas cookies in Hanna’s kitchen?”
“Yeah!” He takes her hand, and Hanna’s mom winks at me as they leave the room.
“I started having contractions the night you left. But I went to the hospital, and they put me on medicine to make them stop.”
Her admission robs me of my breath, and I rest my cheek on her stomach. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I should have. I’m trying to figure out how to ask for what I need.” She shakes her head. “I’m not very good at it. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make everyone else happy, and I’m starting to think that’s not healthy.”
I raise a brow. “Ya think?”
She shrugs. “The only reason I was in St. Louis the night we met was because I knew Maggie wanted me there. So it’s not a terrible trait.”
I brush her hair behind her ear. I want to kiss her, to hold her until the racing in my chest subsides and I know she’s okay. “Not terrible,” I agree. “But you aren’t always so good at knowing what makes people happy.”
“What do you mean by that?”
I draw a finger down her jaw, count the freckles across the bridge of her nose, memorize the exact shade of the pink of her lips. “You asked me if I would be with Vivian if I’d never met you. And the answer is yes. I’m sure I would be.”
“Oh,” she whispers. “I guess I knew that already.”
“But, you see, you didn’t ask the right question. Ask me if I would be happier if I’d never met you, Hanna. Ask me if a life with Collin’s mother would have made me feel alive the way loving you makes me feel. Ask me if I’d take back our time together, even if you’d chosen Max.”
I lean my head against hers, and she swallows so hard I can hear it. “I only thought everyone would be happier if I married him.”
“Would you have been happier?”
She shakes her head. “No. Anyone paying attention would know you’re the one for me. I gave you what I would never give Max—and not just my body. I trusted you like I never trusted him, needed you like I never needed him. I chose him for everyone but myself, but I wanted you.”
She doesn’t say any more because I’m kissing her—my mouth open over hers, my hands in her hair, my heart hers to keep.
I want to hold her until there’s nothing in the world but us. I want to chase away the ugliness and protect her from any more hurt. But I know I can’t, so I pour all of my love and hope into this one kiss.
She lifts slightly off the couch, her hand grazing my chest. “I feel empty when you’re gone.”
I cup her face in my hand and kiss her again. She’s so damn sweet and perfect, and I love the feel of her tongue against mine, the way she moans into my mouth when I deepen the kiss.
“Hey now!”
Liz’s voice pulls me from the kiss, and I lift my head to glare at her.
“The doctor very clearly said no shopping, no sports, no sex. Orgasms are an even bigger no-no, so stop while you’re ahead.”
I look to Hanna, who nods. “It’s true. No sex until it’s safe for the babies to be born.”
I cock a brow and say, “Looks like Aunt Liz is going to need to do a lot of babysitting so we can make up for lost time after they’re born.”
Hanna smacks me in the chest, but she’s grinning.
“I’d be happy to,” Liz says.
“Me too,” another woman calls. The petite brunette steps into the room and offers me her hand. “I’m Hanna’s oldest sister, Krystal. Nice to meet you.”
I shake her hand and nod. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Krystal lived in Florida for a while,” Hanna explains, “but she just moved back home, and she’s going to run the bakery for me while I’m on bed rest. Then, when the babies are old enough for me to go back, she’s going to run the front for me.”
“I’m tough to replace,” Liz says, “but seeing as how Krystal doesn’t loathe mornings like I do, she might be a better fit.”
One by one, everyone joins us in the living room, talking and laughing around the Christmas tree. After putting Collin to bed upstairs and promising him that Santa will know where to find him, I sit on the couch with Hanna’s head in my lap and her family gathered around us. No wonder she didn’t want to leave this place. It’s warm and loving and comfortable. It’s home.
I HEAR the television click off, and when I open my eyes, my head is in Nate’s lap. “Did everyone leave?”
“A couple of hours ago.” He’s watching me, tenderness in his eyes. He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and strokes my cheek.
“What are you looking at?” I ask quietly.
“My angel. My heart.”
My throat grows thick. “I love you.” Tears spill onto my cheeks as his hand settles on my belly. “I love you so much.”
“Let me live here with you.”
“You don’t have to do that. We’ll make it work. Somehow.” I swallow. “Like you said, we’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah, but I’m a selfish bastard who gets what he wants. I want to live here with you. I want to marry you and raise these babies by your side.” He traces my lips with his thumb. “I want to make love to you every night and cook for you. Say yes,” he says softly, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Say you’ll marry me and be my family.”
My chest aches with hope and happiness and…guilt. “What about Collin?”
He looks to the stairs then back at me. “He likes the room he’s sleeping in tonight, though, to be fair, it won’t look nearly so tidy when we move his toys in.” He smiles. “Vivian doesn’t want to raise him in LA, so I’ve asked her to raise him here.”
“And she agreed?”
He shrugs. “Not at first—she really is very jealous of you—but Drake talked her into it. Collin loves it here. He loves seeing Asher and playing by the river. She knows it would be good for
him. She’s going to start looking to relocate to Indiana after the holidays.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
“You still haven’t answered me, woman.”
I grin. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t rush into any engagements until after the babies are born. But you have my permission to ask again then.”
“That’s fine,” he says. He presses a kiss to my ear then whispers, “As long as you’re planning on saying yes.”
MEREDITH CLOSES Claire’s bedroom door softly behind her as she joins me in the living room. She’s dressed for work in a tight black skirt and bright-colored, cleavage-showing sweater. Her hair is styled sleek and smooth, and her makeup is applied with its usual attention. But she looks tired. Drained.
The emotional exhaustion I see in her eyes slingshots me back to our teenage years, when she hid her hurt from the world and I thought I could save her.
“Come here,” I whisper, opening my arms.
Her face crumples and she runs into my arms and buries her face in my chest. She wraps her arms tightly around my back, and I can’t tell if she’s crying or just breathing me in.
I run my hand over her hair and sigh. “I’m sorry I accused you of pushing Hanna. When I think of someone trying to hurt her, I lose my mind a little.”
She pulls out of my arms and looks at the floor. Her tears left smudges of eye makeup under her eyes. “I kind of earned it by being such a bitch. I just couldn’t accept that you’d rather be with her than me.”
I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “And you’d rather be with William Bailey than with me.” When she flinches, I add, “What if I told you we could be together and the next day Will said he wanted to be with you. Be honest here, Mer. You’d drop me in a second.” She doesn’t deny it, and I sigh and pull her against my chest again. “You deserve to be head over heels for the guy you end up with. And he should be head over heels for you. Don’t settle for someone because you don’t want to be alone.”
