Always and Forever

by Linda Poitevin

  For a moment, there was no response, then Josh gave a tiny nod against his pillow.

  Sean swallowed against tightening in his throat. “I’m not like your dad, Josh. Just like Aunt Grace isn’t like my mom.” He allowed his words to settle between them, giving the boy time to absorb them.

  Josh sniffled. “What does Aunt Grace have to do with your mom?” he asked finally.

  “I never wanted to get married or have kids of my own because of how I grew up,” Sean said. He chose his words with care, but he didn’t hold back on his story. Josh was still young, yes, but he’d seen enough—lived enough—that he hadn’t just earned the right not to be coddled, he needed not to be. “My parents divorced when I was three, and my mom wasn’t good at being alone. She had boyfriends—a lot of boyfriends—and most of them lived with us at one time or another. Like you, I heard and saw things no child should ever have to hear or see. And for a long time—most of my life, to be honest—I thought all mothers were like her, and I swore I’d never have kids because I couldn’t put them through what I had to deal with. Then I met your Aunt Grace.”

  “And she was different?”

  “Very.”

  “So was my mom.”

  “I know.”

  “And so are you?”

  “So am I.”

  Josh uncurled enough to look at him over his shoulder, his face streaked with tears behind the wire-framed glasses. “How do you know that?” he asked. “If you’ve never had kids and you never even wanted them, how can you be sure you won’t be like...like him?”

  “How can I be sure you won’t be like him?” The real question hung unvoiced in the air, louder than the spoken one.

  “I’ve been a police officer for eleven years, Josh, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve hit someone. And every single one of those times, the other person hit first—or tried to. I don’t believe in violence as anything but a last resort.” Although he’d certainly make an exception if he found himself alone with the man who’d put that look into a child’s eyes. Sean pushed away the thought and worked to keep his voice even as he continued, “And I never believe in it where a child is concerned. Not ever, understand?”

  “Not even if the baby cries and makes you angry? Or one of us does something to make you mad?”

  “Not then, not ever.” Sean regarded the boy steadily. “I’m not going to lie, Josh. There will be times when I’m angry with you, or when you’re angry with me, or when Aunt Grace is mad at all of us. Families are messy that way. But we’ll figure it out. We’ll go for a walk to calm down, we’ll talk, we’ll listen, and we’ll figure it out. And we will never, ever raise a hand to one another. You have my word on that.”

  For a long time, Josh lay without speaking, staring at him. Sean eased his leg into a more comfortable position, wincing at the dull ache that persisted more than nine months after the injury.

  “Does it hurt?” Josh asked.

  “The leg?” Sean shrugged. “Some days yes, others not so much. It’s getting better. Slower than I’d like, but I guess some things can’t be rushed.” Such as gaining an abused child’s trust, for instance. And rebuilding that child’s confidence.

  Josh nodded. “Sean?”

  “Yes, kiddo?”

  “Do you want the baby?”

  “Very much,” Sean replied. “As much as I want you and Lilliane and Sage and Annabelle. You’re all my family now.”

  “Even if you didn’t used to want a family?”

  “Especially because of that, I think. Because sometimes, when we’ve never had something in our lives, we don’t know how much we’re missing it. You guys were what was missing from my life.”

  “Sean?”

  “Still here.”

  “Are you sure my dad can’t get out of prison?”

  Sean took a second to remove the invisible knife from his gut. His voice was rough when he answered. “I’m sure,” he said. “And even if he did, you have me and Aunt Grace to look after you, remember? And in case you haven’t noticed, your Aunt Grace kicks butt.”

  Pride glinted in the eyes behind the wire framed glasses. “She does, doesn’t she?” At long last, the boy rolled out of his curled-up-and-away position and onto his back. He tucked his hands beneath his head. “I can help out more, you know. So your leg doesn’t hurt as much.”

  Given that Josh already did approximately ten times more than any eleven-year-old he had ever encountered, Sean had to catch back an automatic refusal. Getting Josh to be more of a kid would also take time.

  “How would you like to start by helping me stand?” he asked. “I left my cane in the front hall, and I think I’m stuck.”

  Josh rolled off the bed and held out a hand, pulling him to his feet. Then he nearly knocked him back down again as he threw his arms around Sean’s waist and buried his face against him. “I’m glad we’re a family,” he whispered.

  Recovering his balance, Sean returned the hug and dropped a kiss on the boy’s tousled hair. “Me too, kiddo,” he said. He cleared the huskiness from his voice. “Me too.” He put a finger under Josh’s chin and tipped his head up. “Want to camp out in our room tonight?”

  “Would that be okay?”

  “Grab your pillow. I’ll race you.” Sean headed for the door and, smiling at the giggle that followed him, limped from the room.

  Chapter 10

  “Here.” Gwyn set something on the counter and slid it toward Grace the next afternoon when she and Gareth brought the kids over for lunch and a wading pool party. “You weren’t in the picture yet when Gareth and I got married, but our wedding planner” —she nodded at the business card between them— “was utterly amazing.”

  Laughing, Grace took a bottle of grape juice from the fridge. “Don’t I get at least a couple of days to enjoy being engaged before I plunge into wedding plans?”

  “You don’t have a couple of days if you don’t want to be waddling down the aisle.” Gwyn sent a pointed look at Grace’s waistline and the outline of the undone button beneath the t-shirt that fit a bit more snugly than it had only a week before. “Are you sure you have your dates right? You don’t have twins running in your family, do you?”

  Grace broke into a cold sweat at the very idea. “I’m sure I have the dates right, and bite your tongue, woman. Don’t you dare jinx me with two!”

  “Fine. But you’re still showing fast and early, so you don’t have time to waste.” Gwyn nudged the card closer.

  Grace nudged it back. “Thanks, but we’ll probably just do something small. A justice of the peace kind of thing, with dinner afterward.”

  Gwyn stared at her, one eyebrow raised, and Grace had to resist an urge to step back. While she’d seen Gwyn’s “look” in action before, it was the first time she’d been on the receiving end it. No wonder it struck such instant cooperation into the hearts of Gwyn’s children. Grace reached across the island for the tray of glasses she’d set out for the kids.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Gwyn asked. The question didn’t invite an answer. Nor did she wait for one. “No. You don’t just deserve a proper wedding, Grace, you need one. You all do.” She jutted her chin toward the sliding glass doors that opened onto Grace and Sean’s minuscule back yard, where Gareth, Sean, and the kids—all seven of them, not including the ones yet to be born—had gathered around to watch the water fill a newly installed inflatable kiddie pool.

  “But a big wedding would be just more upheaval,” Grace objected. “After all they’ve been through, the kids need stability. Calm. Heck, I need stability and calm. And believe me, I’ve seen enough weddings to know that they’re the exact opposite of both those things.”

  “The kids” —Gwyn plunked herself onto a stool— “are kids. They need stability, yes, and you and Sean are already providing plenty of that. But they also need a distraction. Some excitement. Something positive.”

  “You’re sure it’s the kids who need a distraction?” Grace asked dryly. “It’s not just you t
rying to take your mind off how overdue Junior is?”

  Gwyn grimaced. “Maybe in part. I dreamed last night that I just kept getting bigger and bigger until my belly popped like a balloon and a whole herd of babies emerged.” She shuddered. “It was not a pretty sight.”

  “I can imagine.” Grace studied her cousin-in-law to be, noting the fine lines of fatigue around Gwyn’s eyes and the faint tightening of her mouth. “But that’s not everything, is it?”

  Gwyn traced an invisible line with one fingernail on the countertop. For a long few seconds, she didn’t speak, and then she said, “I had a letter from my sister yesterday.”

  Grace blinked. “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  “And a brother. We’re not close.”

  Grace bit back the obvious questions about where Gwyn’s siblings were, and how old, and what they did, choosing instead to wait for Gwyn to continue.

  Gwyn sighed, looking up to meet Grace’s gaze. “She wants to come for a visit,” she said. “I haven’t heard from her since—well, in years—and now, out of the blue, she expects me to just forget what she—oh, hell.” The words ended in a mutter, and she scowled.

  Grace moved around the island and pulled up another stool beside her friend. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  “Trying to avoid wedding plans?”

  “Trying to avoid talking?”

  “Maybe.” Gwyn bit her lip. “Yes. It’s not easy to admit that your sister is a self-centered—” She broke off, making a visible effort to gather herself. When she spoke again, her voice was firm. Detached. “Abigail is five years younger than me. She was always a bit of a wild child—I think my parents were worn out by the time she came along because my brother had been...a handful. They overlooked a lot of things with her that Grant and I could never have gotten away with. Too many things. What Abby wanted to do, Abby did, including marrying a man twenty years her senior when she was nineteen and moving to California.” Gwyn’s hand became a fist on the counter.

  “I tried my best to stay in touch with her, and I thought we were doing okay. Even though we had nothing in common beyond our parentage, we called each other every few months, we wrote letters, we kept up to date on major events. She had a daughter a couple of years after marrying Dominic, and when I had Katie, I thought we finally shared something in common. A real bond. Because what’s more bonding than motherhood, right?” She snorted. “Then Jack—my ex—up and left me alone with a three-year-old and newborn twins, and I asked her to come and help out for a few weeks. She refused.”

  “Oh, Gwyn...I’m so sorry.” Grace put her hand over her friend’s. “Did she say why?”

  “No explanation. Just that it wasn’t ‘convenient’.” Gwyn’s blue eyes flashed with remembered betrayal. “We haven’t spoken since. And then yesterday, the letter.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Hell if I know.” Gwyn scowled, then straightened on her stool and patted Grace’s hand. “But enough about me. Back to the wedding idea, because yes, I need a distraction.”

  Grace looked over her shoulder at the backyard party going on outside. Josh dipped a hand into the pool and flicked water at Nicholas, who retaliated without hesitation. Her lips tugged upward as a full-blown water fight broke out, with everyone—including Gareth and Sean—scooping up handfuls of water and flinging them at random victims. Beside her, Gwyn cleared her throat.

  “A wedding is a new beginning for them,” she said gently. “For all of you. Think of it as a ceremony that marks the formal start of your family.”

  Grace watched the water fight morph into kids vs. dads. Shrieks and squeals filtered through the double-paned glass doors.

  Dads.

  Her heart smiled a little at the thought of Sean as a dad, and how naturally it had come. Then Gwyn’s fingers closed over hers, and she looked again at the woman who was rapidly becoming like another sister to her. Julianne would have liked her. A lot. And she would have sided with her on the whole wedding idea, too. Grace tried one last time to duck the topic.

  “It’s just so much work,” she said. “On top of four kids, summer vacation starting, finding a new house, this...” She pointed at her own belly. “How the heck do I find time to plan a wedding in all of that?”

  Gwyn nudged the business card on the counter closer. “That’s what Carol is for. And believe me, the woman is a whiz at it. And what new house? You’re moving?”

  Grace nodded. She picked up the business card and studied the simple elegance of gold print on a plain white background. Carol Pal, Wedding Planner. No fancy design or swirling, curlicue fonts. It was a good sign, but...she put the card down again. But.

  “That’s another reason we can’t do a fancy wedding,” she told Gwyn. “We talked about it this morning, and I’ve decided Sean is right. We’re busting out at the seams in this place already, and once the baby comes...” She shrugged. “Weddings and houses are expensive. We can’t do both.”

  “Actually...” Gwyn shifted her weight on the stool, looking both smug and excited at the same time. “You can absolutely do both—if we pay for the wedding.”

  Grace gaped at her. “What? But—no. No way, Gwyn. That’s too much. We can’t accept—”

  “It’s our wedding gift to you,” Gwyn interrupted. “We talked it over last night, and we really want to do this for you. For you all.”

  Grace blinked back tears at the overwhelming generosity. To think that such good could follow on the heels of the horrors she and the kids had been through...but still. She shook her head. “It’s incredibly generous of you both, but we really can’t—”

  “It’s a wedding gift. You’re not allowed to refuse. There are rules, you know.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, you should never argue with a pregnant woman.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “The refusal part? Absolutely. The arguing with a pregnant woman part? Absolutely true. Just wait. You’ll see.” Gwyn slid off the stool and wrapped her arms around Grace. “You have been to hell and back in the last year, my friend, and you have lived up to your name at every turn. It’s time to give yourself a break now. Time to let go of what you lost and celebrate what you still have. What you’ve gained. You and Sean and the kids—you’re a family. You’re getting married. You’re having a baby. Those are all so worth celebrating, Grace. And we would love nothing more than to help. So please let us...”

  Gwyn’s voice trailed off, and she pulled back. An expression of bemusement settled over her features. Grace frowned.

  “Gwyn? What is it?”

  “Um...speaking of having a baby, my water just broke.”

  It took a second for the words to register, and then Grace yelped, “Now? You’re having it now?”

  “Soon, I think.” Gwyn hissed out a breath, clinging with one hand to the countertop and pressing the other hand to the side of her belly. One instant, her face contorted with pain; the next, it eased into lines of utter calm. She grinned at Grace. “Very soon, if my history is anything to go by. And about damned time, too.”

  Sheer shock held Grace immobile. Then another spasm of pain pulled at Gwyn’s face, and she leapt into action. “Gareth,” she said. “I’ll get Gareth. And Sean.”

  Leaving Gwyn holding onto the island and panting, she bolted for the sliding door and wrenched it open. At the last second, realizing her own panic would set off the same in the kids, she clenched her teeth in a semblance of a smile and forced a steadiness into her voice that most certainly did not exist in her body.

  “Um...guys?” she called over the happy chaos. “Do you have a minute?”

  Chapter 11

  “Well. That didn’t exactly go according to plan,” Sean observed dryly, wiping his hands on the towel Grace had handed him.

  Gareth, hovering over the paramedics and midwife checking Gwyn and their newborn daughter, who rested in the nest of blankets Grace had made for them on the living room floor, looked up a
t Sean’s words.

  “You think?” he muttered, appearing equal parts bemused and shell-shocked.

  Gwyn reached out with her free hand to pat his ankle. “I did try to tell you I was quick about this.”

  Grace held back a snort. Quick didn’t begin to describe the speed with which that baby had arrived. Forty-five minutes from start to finish, beating the midwife by ten minutes and the paramedics by fifteen. She could only hope her own delivery would be half so easy, rather than like her sister’s thirty-plus hours of labor. She shuddered at the thought, then glanced up to meet the warmth of Sean’s gaze as his arm slid around her waist. He ducked his head close to her ear.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That I’d kill for a delivery that fast?”

  He grinned. “Well, about our own baby, anyway.”

  Gentle warmth suffused Grace, and she nodded. “Then yes. I’m thinking what you’re thinking. I’m also thinking that you were absolutely amazing. How in the world did you stay so calm?”

  The grin turned to a chuckle. “Remind me to tell you sometime about the twins I delivered in the back seat of an SUV in the middle of a snowstorm. For a woman who didn’t speak English. Trust me, this was a walk in the park in comparison.”

  There was that word again. Twins. Grace’s hand crept unbidden to the slight swell of her belly. She remembered Gwyn’s observation about how early she was showing. Could she—she broke off the thought and made her hand return to her side. Of course she couldn’t. She was just being paranoid. No, she and Sean would get married, move into a bigger house, and have a single, perfectly healthy addition to their already large enough family, and then raise that family together, doing their best not to wreak irreparable harm to anyone in the process.