by Jamie Pope
“What are your plans now, sweetheart?” her mother asked her.
Cricket wasn’t sure why the question took her off guard, but it did. “Um... I—I guess I’ll go back to writing my book. I shouldn’t keep my publisher waiting.”
“Maybe you should go back to teaching. There are quite a few excellent universities in Miami, and you’ll have to settle there anyway, once Elias goes back to surgery in two weeks.”
“In two weeks?” She looked over to him.
He nodded. “I was going to wait until we were alone to talk about it.” He gave her mother a pointed look. “I’ve been cleared. The result of my latest scan came back this morning.”
“When did you go to the doctor?”
“The day Ava and Derek came to be with you. I told you I was going,” he said gently.
She had heard him tell her that, but she hadn’t been listening. “That’s right. You did. I’m happy for you,” she said, but her voice didn’t really convey it. She didn’t want to go back to Miami. She didn’t want him working sixteen-hour days. She didn’t want him to be so driven, like her mother was, but she had no right to feel that way. She was being selfish, wanting to keep him all to herself when she knew that all he wanted to do was reach the top.
“We can talk about this more later,” he said to her.
“Why wait?” Dr. Lundy said. “We’re here. We can help you two figure things out.”
“I think we can figure our lives out for ourselves, Doctor. But thank you.” Elias’s voice was tight. Her mother had been offering what she thought was helpful advice the entire time she had been there. It was starting to become grating.
“You are married to my daughter, and you do work for me. I think I have a large role in your lives. Maybe you should look at this loss as a blessing in disguise. Now everything won’t happen so quickly. You can take time to evaluate what you both really want out of life and your marriage, and you won’t have to rush into anything.”
“I used to think your ability to separate your feelings from your thoughts made you an excellent surgeon,” Elias said, his voice deadly low. “But now I just think you are the most insensitive person on the planet.”
Her mother’s eyes widened with surprise. She clearly had no idea what he was talking about, how her words sliced through them.
“How can I be insensitive? You now have one less thing to worry about.”
“One less thing!” he roared. “That one less thing was the thing we wanted above all else, and if you can’t pull your head out of your behind long enough to see that, then we don’t need you here. Our loss is not a blessing! Our lives are not lived to please your stupid, impossibly high standards.”
“Excuse me?”
“Get out. You can’t even see that you are upsetting your daughter. Just go.”
“Surely you aren’t kicking me out of the house my husband and I purchased for our daughter. As far as I’m concerned, you are the guest here.”
“You’re right. This isn’t my home, and it never will be.”
He walked out of the room.
“Frances!” Jerome looked furious. “Sometimes you go too far. This isn’t your hospital. Elias is no longer just your employee. He’s our son-in-law, and if you can’t see that he’s clearly in love with our daughter, maybe you should get your vision checked.”
Cricket sat there reeling. She didn’t know whether to go after her husband or yell at her mother. “You wished this on me, didn’t you?”
Dr. Lundy looked stricken. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Why can’t you be happy for me when I’m happy and grieve with me when I’m sad? I wanted that baby more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, and you’re acting relieved that it’s not happening.”
“It’s not that I—”
Elias came back from the bedroom with a large suitcase in his hand. Cricket’s eyes filled with tears. He was walking out.
How could she blame him?
This wasn’t his house, or his dream or his idea of a good life. And her mother had forced his hand. She would walk out, too, just to make the same point.
“Come on, Cricket.” He extended his hand to her, uncertainty in his eyes. Without thinking, she stood and took it.
“Cricket...” Her father stood up. “Don’t go. This is your home. Both your home. Please, stay.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy, but I have to go.”
“Cricket,” her mother said as she stood. “You can’t really be serious about leaving.”
“I am. I’m choosing my husband. You can keep the house.”
* * *
Elias looked over to his wife, who was dozing beside him on Carlos’s private plane. It was one of the perks of having a brother who was one of the wealthiest athletes in the world.
Cricket had never asked where they were going. There was no uncertainty in her eyes when he’d extended his hand to her and asked her to come. She trusted him, and it made him love her even more. She could have been upset with him—maybe she should have been upset with him for yelling at her mother and ordering the woman out. But Cricket was with him all the way, and that made him feel better than he had in a very long time.
He kissed the side of her face, unable to help himself. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“I’m an heiress, but not one person in my family owns a private plane.”
“My brother isn’t into cars or shoes or bling. Before he bought his house on the island, he was living in the same one-bedroom condo he had since he was a rookie. The other players started to tease him for being cheap, so he bought a plane to show them. I think he wasn’t allowed into the special superrich athlete club until he bought one.”
“I knew baseball players made a lot of money, but I didn’t know that they made that much.”
“My brother invests in things right before they explode into huge businesses. He’s gotten me into some of them.”
“Things like what?”
“Dating apps. Car services. Health food stores. Even if I never worked as a surgeon, I can take care of you. You can have whatever you want.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“I know, but I have so much I want to give to you.”
“You’ve given me so much already. I feel selfish. Sometimes I wish you weren’t so sweet to me.”
I love you. He didn’t say the words. He couldn’t bring himself to in that moment. “You haven’t asked me where we were going.”
“It doesn’t matter. I think I needed to get away.”
“We’re going to Costa Rica.”
“To meet your mother?”
“And my grandmother and aunts.” They had video chatted a dozen times or so since they had been married, but his mother couldn’t leave Costa Rica because of her mother’s poor health. His grandmother was going to be ninety-seven this year. He understood why she couldn’t leave her.
“Are we staying with them?”
“No. I never got to take you on a honeymoon. I figured we could take care of that while we’re there.”
* * *
“Elias.” Cricket surveyed the scene from their house, and it took her breath away. She had been breathless a lot today. She had spent so much of her time in poor, underdeveloped countries the past ten years that she had forgotten how truly gorgeous the world could be. Hideaway Island was beautiful and tropical, but there was a small-town, homey feeling whenever she stepped foot on it, but here in Costa Rica... She couldn’t even describe what she was seeing. She knew they were at a resort. There’d been a lobby with a check-in desk. They had passed a spa, some pools and a few restaurants, but they kept traveling through all of that until they got to a three-story house that seemed to stand alone on a beach. The entire spacious top floor was theirs. Their bedro
om led out to a deck that wrapped around the entire unit. There was a gorgeous tiled half-moon-shaped hot tub there overlooking the ocean. But it wasn’t just ocean in their view. There was thick lush forest surrounding them and sounds of wildlife that were soothing and exciting at the same time.
“You like it here?” He came up behind her and kissed her shoulder.
“No, I don’t like it here.” She turned to face him with a slight smile. “I could die here. Right here on this balcony. In fact, bury me in the hot tub. It’s incredible.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment. “I missed your smile.”
“I’m sorry.” She looped her arms around him and leaned against him.
“Why are you apologizing to me?”
“I’m not sure. I just feel the need to.”
“I think you should rest. We are going to have the biggest dinner that two people have ever had, and tomorrow you’re going to meet the rest of my family. You’re going to need your energy for that.”
She nodded. “Do you mind if we get in the hot tub first?”
He grinned at her. “I was hoping you’d ask me that.”
Chapter 12
“Your home is beautiful, Mrs. Bradley,” Cricket said in a quiet voice.
“Don’t call me Mrs. Bradley! You are family now!” Elias’s mother, Nilda, wrapped her into a big warm hug. “And thank you. It’s very hard to please five women, but Carlos seemed to know that this was the right amount of space for us. I could go two days without seeing any of my sisters if I wanted to—and I often do.”
“Ha!” Elias’s aunt Arsenia laughed. “You talk more than any of us. We hide downstairs just to get away from your mouth.”
A bunch of good-natured bickering followed that, which was typical of any get-together with his mother and her sisters. Elias often wished his mother lived closer to him and his siblings, but he could tell she was happier here. After his father died, she’d been lost without her husband. Being on Hideaway Island, where they had spent family vacations, made her feel empty, but her sisters made her full. There was no space for sadness here. And that’s why Elias had thought it would be a good thing for him and Cricket to visit.
They’d had a nice day, a ridiculously huge lunch and a trip to the beach, and now his aunts had whisked Cricket away to go shopping in the nearest village. Elias chose to stay at the house with his mother, who had stayed behind to be with his resting grandmother.
“Abuela looks good,” he said to her.
“Yes.” She smiled. “She has been so excited to have you here. She wishes you would come around more.”
“I know. My work kept me away.”
“Your work.” She rolled her eyes. “I know most mothers would be thrilled with a doctor and a hugely famous professional athlete for sons, but I would much rather you lived with me for the rest of your lives so I can take care of you.”
“Pop taught us to be men, to work hard, to take care of our families.”
“He taught you well.” She nodded. “You really do take good care of your wife.”
“What do you think about me being married? You didn’t react the way I thought you would when I told you.”
“You thought I would scream and fuss and carry on?” She shrugged. “I wanted to. If your brother or sisters had gotten married like that, I would have. But I knew for you, my workaholic son, to do something so completely nuts must have meant that the girl was special. You love her very much.”
“I do.”
“You’re both very sad.”
“No one wanted to be a mother more than Cricket.”
“What about you? Did you want to be a father?”
“Of course I did. I still do. But I didn’t think about the baby once the accident happened. For weeks I kept seeing the horse slam into her, her body flying as if she weighed nothing. And then she was so still on the ground. I thought she was gone. She didn’t respond to her name. She wouldn’t move. But then she did. She opened her eyes and said my name, and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to take it if I never heard her say my name again. There isn’t one big thing that makes me love her. But there are a thousand little indescribable things.”
“And you hate that she is so sad.”
He nodded. “It’s been five weeks. I can’t expect her to snap out of it. It’s too soon to tell her that I want to try again.”
“You want to try again?” She looked surprised. “I had the feeling that this pregnancy was unplanned.”
“It was, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy about it. I’ve been making a crib. Ava’s husband has been helping me. I was so excited to meet my son, but I still want that chance. I want to see Cricket be a mother. She has so much love to give.”
“Have you spoken to her about this?”
“No. We haven’t spoken about anything. There were a few weeks when I couldn’t reach her at all. Now I’m starting to get little pieces of her back, and I don’t want them to vanish again.”
“But you can’t go around with things unsaid just because you’re afraid of what might happen. You are both going through this. You need to go through it together. It’s the only way you’ll have a strong marriage.”
Elias agreed. He just didn’t know how to bring it up to Cricket.
* * *
Cricket didn’t know when they had gotten to the point in their relationship where they could just be quiet and content in each other’s company, but they were there. She felt completely comfortable with him. She felt safe. She had been a living, breathing zombie the past five weeks, but Elias had been her constant. He was the first person she saw when she woke up in the hospital. He had raised hell a few times when he thought she wasn’t getting treated fast enough. He was her protector, even going to battle with her mother. She wondered why he was so good. So motivated to be that way.
She could attribute it to his mother. To their strong family bond. He’d been raised to think that men just acted that way. But she wondered if he was tired of it, if sometimes he just wanted to be catered to.
She wanted to take care of his needs, but it was hard to do when he was so self-sufficient.
She picked up his no-longer-injured hand and kissed his palm a few times. He put down his e-reader and gave her a soft smile. “Have I ever told you that I like it when you do that?”
“Kiss your hand?”
“Kiss me in general. You kiss me a lot. When you wake up. When you leave a room. When I hand you something.”
“Does it bother you?”
“No! I just told you that I like it.”
“You are the most beautiful man that I have ever seen. You give me butterflies, sir. And I can’t believe that you are married to me.”
“You’re a nerd.” He pulled her closer, lifting her with his strong arms until she was half on top of him. He ran his hand up the back of her thigh, his fingers toying with the hem of her dress. She felt a powerful surge of lust strike her. She remembered the day of the accident. They’d been rushing back to the barn so they could go home and get in bed. But they never made it there.
They hadn’t been together in over a month. They had been in Costa Rica for three days. They had been naked in the hot tub together. They had slept close together in bed, but he never attempted a thing. She had never felt that kind of hurt before. Recovering physically and mentally from her accident. But her body felt all better now, and she knew he had needs, that he was a man who enjoyed sex and it was her duty as a wife to provide him with it. It was also her joy to give her body to him. She never felt better than when she was in his arms.
“You are also the sexiest woman that I have ever met, and I get great satisfaction just being in your presence.”
“Stop being so damn sweet to me.” She pulled his lower lip between her teeth and gave it a soft b
ite before she swept her tongue across it.
“Don’t start with me,” he growled, lust heavy in his voice. “I want to talk to you.”
“You want to talk? Now?”
“Yes. I’ve been meaning to. I don’t think we can go on unless we have this conversation.”
She sat up and looked into his eyes, which had gone completely serious. “What do you want to talk about?”
“The baby.”
“No.” She shut her eyes, feeling the tears so close to the edge. “I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“We have to talk about it. I need to talk about it.”
“But why? It’s over. I was pregnant, and now I’m not.”
“It’s not over. He was my son, and I wanted to meet him. And I think about him sometimes and what it would be like to see him born and who he would have looked like and what he might have become. And sometimes I think I’m crazy, because how could I love someone so much that I’ve never even laid eyes on? That I never will lay eyes on? But it was the possibility of what he could have become. It’s the thought of seeing you loving him. I feel robbed of the greatest opportunity, and if I feel that way, I know you must feel that way, too. To an even greater extent.”
“Of course I do! I was just starting to feel him move. Did I tell you that?” She swiped at the tears on her face. They were coming out so quickly that she was blinded. “I was growing this gift inside me. This gift for you. This gift for the world, and in two seconds it was gone and I blame myself for losing it. For screwing up the most amazing thing I have ever done.”
“What!” He shook his head. “You blame yourself? What did you do wrong? It was a freak accident that could have killed you.”
“Maybe I could have prevented it. What if I didn’t take you to the barn that night? What if I jumped out of the way? What if I fought a little harder to keep the baby?”
“Stop it, damn it! There are no what-ifs. You could not have changed what happened. There is nothing that either of us could have done to change the outcome.”
“But I want to change what happened. I wanted to give you a baby. Do you know my favorite part of being pregnant was having you touch my belly? I loved it when you pressed your lips to it and talked to him. That was the one thing I could give you, and now it’s gone.”
