by Amy Olle
“It’s not the same thing.”
She bolted upright. “It is—”
He took her hands between his and tugged so that she met his gaze. “No. Watching a baby grow bigger, stronger, brighter every day is not the same thing as watching someone you love die. It just isn’t.”
Tears welled. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Her panic didn’t bother him. Indeed, he was happy to see it. It meant she’d be a good mom.
“You can,” he said. “You will. It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know that?” Her voice broke over the words.
“It’s a baby, and a baby is never a bad thing.”
That pierced the fog of her panic. “Wh-what’s the hard part?”
He wrestled with her question a moment.
“You said the b-baby’s the easy part. Wh-what’s the hard part?”
A shiver of unease rippled through him. He shrugged. “Us.”
She blinked at him and he could see the gears of her mind working. “Omigod, we’re stuck with each other. For the rest of our lives. We’ll never be rid of one another.”
“That’s not exactly what I—”
“We’ll always have to know each other. We’ll have to see each other, like, every day.”
A satisfied calm spread through him. “Yes, we will.”
“We’ll have to watch each other date other people. M-marry other people. Have b-babies with other people.”
His good mood vanished.
“Why aren’t you freaking out about this?” Her shrill voice echoed around the small space.
He gripped her hand again. “Because we got this. Trust me.”
“I broke the egg.” She bit her lip on the outburst.
“You what?”
“The egg. In high school. You know, the class where they make you carry it around for a week? I broke it.”
He gaped at her a moment. “That’s… I mean, it’s an egg—”
“Omigod, I’m going to kill our baby.” She bent over, tucking her head between her own legs.
He smoothed a hand over her back. “You’re not going to kill our baby.”
She jerked upright. “How do you know that?” Her voice reached shrill heights.
“Because I won’t let you. We’ll do it together.”
Her eyes gripped his, as if he were her only life raft in a raging sea.
She swallowed with difficulty. “Luke?”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Sleep eluded him. Tucked into his side, Emily slept, her soft snores tickling over the bare skin under his arm.
Restless, he left her bed and padded into the dark kitchen. At the off chance she’d stashed a bottle of whiskey somewhere, he searched her cupboards. He let a cupboard door fall shut and turned.
And startled.
Noah and Mina sat at the kitchen island, twin bowls on the counter before them.
Noah finished chewing and swallowed. “Lose something?”
Luke’s gaze slipped to the box of cereal between them on the counter. “My Cocoa Puffs.” He filched a bowl and a spoon from the cupboard and plopped onto a stool. He snatched the box away and filled his bowl.
Mina slid the milk jug across to him. “Is Emily, um, sleeping?”
“Yep.” He crunched on a spoonful of chocolate balls.
He could practically feel her mind gnawing on a thought thread. The cousins had much in common. Loud minds and faces that gave away their every thought and emotion.
She tried to catch Noah’s eye.
Noah ignored her.
She set down her spoon and clasped her hands together. “So, Luke, you and Emily—”
“Are getting married.” The words slipped from him like smooth whiskey.
“What?” Dual expressions of incredulity gaped at him.
Luke didn’t bother to take offense.
“She didn’t say anything to me,” Mina said, her mouth screwing into a frown.
Noah was less tactful. “Did she actually agree to marry you?”
Luke sniffed. “I haven’t told her yet.” She needed a little time to adjust before he moved forward with his plan.
“Told her?” Mina’s jaw hung open. “What if she says no?”
His heart hammered against his breastbone. “She won’t.”
Luke’s gaze slid to Noah. Explanations floated through his mind, but nothing emerged that didn’t sound barbaric. The brothers stared.
The fact was, Luke wouldn’t leave Emily on her own to raise their child. Nor would he leave the parenting of his child up to whatever man she decided to marry one day in the future. Statistics had a lot to say about stepdads and their stepchildren. He wouldn’t risk her moving out of town, out of state, out of the fucking country, and taking his kid with her.
And he sure as shit wouldn’t leave his child to face the cruelties of this godforsaken world alone, without their dad around to defend them.
Not. Fucking. Happening.
“You’re sure about this?” Noah asked quietly.
Mina gasped. “Noah, I don’t think—”
“I’m sure,” Luke said, and he was. It was the perfect arrangement for all involved.
For once, doing the right thing was also the easy thing.
Noah leaned back and a broad smile split his face. “All right then. When’s the party?”
“Noah!”
“Who am I to interfere with true love?”
“I’m not saying we should interfere, but marriage? Marriage is so…” Mina’s hand moved in front of her face, as if she might pluck the word out of the air. “Permanent.”
Noah’s mouth twisted with a wry smile. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Stammering, Mina blushed an attractive shade of pink. “Of course not, it’s just…”
Noah planted a kiss on her mouth. “We can’t do a thing about it, baby. He’s determined.”
A broad grin split Luke’s face. “Thank you, brother.”
Mina scowled. “I’m not done arguing about this.”
Noah lifted his shoulders. “How can I deny him wedded bliss? It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She visibly melted. “That’s not fair.”
Noah grinned and shot Luke a glittering glance. “Are you taking notes?”
“I taught you everything you know,” Luke said around a mouthful of cereal.
Mina’s serious round eyes swung to Luke. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think we ought to wait until Emily is, uh, informed of her impending engagement before we book the church. If she doesn’t agree—”
A cold dread started in Luke’s chest and snaked through his veins like a dark taint. “She will.”
“You may be right,” she said. “But if she says no—”
His heart banged around in his chest and he stood abruptly. At the sink, he rinsed his bowl. “She won’t say no.”
He planned to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Emily’s chest ached from the battering of her heart against her breastbone. While Luke slept, she lay wide awake in the darkened room as the 3:00 a.m. hour ticked away.
A baby.
A week since she’d taken that pregnancy test, she still couldn’t wrap her brain around this new reality.
She’d never done anything so big, so critically important, as bear full responsibility for a tiny, helpless person. With certainty, she knew she would mess it up, as she knew absolutely nothing about how to be a mom.
She reached for her phone to call her mom, only to remember her mom was dead.
She had to do this by herself. A bead of sweat broke out on her brow and her hand trembled when she returned her phone to the bedside table.
Panic choked the breath from her lungs and the peace from her heart, as if she were trapped on a roller coaster and could do nothing to change her fate except hold on and pray for the ride to end.
Lig
ht from the stained-glass lamp by the front door threw a soft glow into the room and allowed her to make out Luke’s features. His mouth was slack and his hair rumpled, his bare chest rising and falling with his deep, even breaths. She couldn’t recall ever before seeing him sleep. The notch on her heart ached.
Luke’s baby.
Would they have a boy or a girl? Would he or she be awkward like her mother, or charming and generous like her dad? Would she stutter?
Beneath the bruise on her heart, a tiny seed of wonder sprouted.
A baby. Someone she’d love forever and always, with the whole of her heart. A family.
She’d never been one of those girls to pine for a baby. The mere thought struck terror in her. But after living so long with impending death, the hope of new life was irresistible.
Luke stirred and his hand smoothed over her stomach. “What’s wrong? You all right?”
She squeezed his forearm. “I’m all right. Just restless.”
“Want me to distract you?” His voice was groggy with sleep and suggestiveness.
“Your distractions get us into trouble.”
“Can’t really get into any more trouble than we already are, now can we?”
The laughter that came so easily around him trickled from her.
They let the quiet fall between them.
Until he pressed two fingers to the spot between her eyebrows. “What’s this?”
She wanted to fall into his arms and let his warmth melt away all her worries. It was a ludicrous thought, so she rubbed her forehead, as though to erase the lines of worry there.
“How did y-you know?”
Green eyes landed on her face, searching out the meaning of her question.
He lifted one shoulder. “You’d been sick for a while, and I remember when Isobel was pregnant, she had strange aversions. Strong smells would set her off, and there was this one song that made her ill every time she heard it.”
Biting her lip, she ducked her chin. “I made a doctors’ appointment.”
He propped up on his elbow and peered down at her. “That’s good.”
She folded and unfolded one corner of the sheet. “It’s not until next month, if you want to come… But y-you don’t have to come if you don’t w-want to,” she rushed to add. “I don’t think anything too exciting will be happening. Yet.”
“I’ll be there,” he said softly.
In the troubled silence, he reached out to toy with a strand of hair at her temple. “I think we should get married.”
She sucked in a sharp hiss of air and whipped her head around. The soft light threw shadows across his face, obstructing her study of his features.
“W-would y-y-you be serious? I’m trying to talk to you.”
“I am serious.” He rolled away, yanked open the top drawer of the nightstand, and twisting back around, he set a small black box on her stomach.
Over the thundering of her heart, she heard herself ask, “Wh-what is that?”
“It’s a ring.”
She sprang from the bed, sending the little box tumbling through the sheets. “B-b-but w-why?”
He pushed himself upright, flipped on the bedside lamp, and reclined against the headboard. “Because I just asked you to marry me and it’s customary to offer a ring as a testament of my devotion.”
Her heart, lacking logic as it did, started to soar. She ruthlessly squashed it back down. “Okay, you got me. That was a good one.”
“Emily, I’m not joking.”
She gaped at him. “You want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
“No.” His denial came quick and he pushed up off the bed. “That’s part of it, of course, but not all of it. I like you. I like us. I want to marry you, Emily.”
She liked them, too, but— Wait, he liked her?
The painful slash at her heart sparked an ember of anger. “You know what? Let’s do it. Let’s get married.”
He eyed her skeptically.
“What do you say to St. Patty’s Day? It’s a little sudden, I know, but just think about it—I’ll wear a gold dress and you can wear a green tuxedo, but instead of walking down the aisle on a red carpet, I’ll slide down a rainbow-colored one.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Are you finished?”
“You don’t like that idea, I can tell. How about Valentine’s Day? It’s a little predictable, sure, and I should warn you, I do not look good in red. It totally clashes with my hair.”
He settled on the arm of a club chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Valentine’s Day is a little over two months away.”
Only her misery curtailed her smug satisfaction.
Startling green eyes captured hers. “I don’t see any reason to wait that long, do you?”
“You don’t see any reason…?” She trailed off as her racing thoughts slowed and thickened to tree sap.
“We could get married next weekend.”
“This weekend?”
“But if you’re willing to hold off, we could do it the week before Christmas. Jack will be home, and Leo’s supposed to make an appearance. I’d like it if they could be there.”
The breath she’d been holding erupted from her like the air from a burst balloon. “We’re talking about getting married. Not taking a weekend road trip or trying a new hairstyle. We barely know each other.”
“I know enough.”
She stumbled back. “We can’t. It would never work. We’re too different.”
“We’re not that different.”
Somehow, he managed to say that with a straight face.
“You’re gorgeous and charming and-and-and everyone likes you and I’m…”
His features darkened. “You’re what?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I’m not any of those things. I’m the opposite of those things.”
“You know what they say, opposites attract, and all that.”
“Or someone ends up murdered in their sleep,” she muttered.
“I promise not to murder you.” He crossed to her and slipped his hand beneath the curtain of her hair. “Marry me.”
“People will think—”
Storm clouds gathered on his face. “Do you honestly believe I give a fuck what anyone thinks?” Just as quickly as the clouds had gathered, they scattered like mist at dawn. “You’re smart and sweet, and I can’t wait to watch you become a mom.” He scraped the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “And I’m more than convinced you and this mouth will keep me quite contented until the end of my days.”
The lure of him was so incredibly seductive. She couldn’t stop her heart from imagining what it’d be like to marry him. If she’d allowed herself, she’d have dreamed this dream a thousand times already. Instead, she experienced the thrill of all her secret longings at once.
She swayed slightly.
She wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. No more fear. No more soul-crushing loneliness.
He doesn’t love you.
He dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose. “Marry me.”
In all her life, she’d never wanted to say yes to anyone for anything more than she did in that moment. Maybe one day, he’d grow to love her.
Except, other than her mom, no one who knew her had ever grown to love her. Not even her own father.
She opened her mouth to deny him, but he spoke first.
“I can make you happy, Em, I know I can. Give me a chance.”
Tears tightened her throat. He cradled her head in both his hands.
“Say it,” he whispered.
The hole near her heart filled to overflowing. She made the mistake of looking into his eyes, which glittered with some unnamable emotion.
“Marry me, Emily, and let me give you a last name you can be proud of. One that nobody can deny you.”
Chapter Twenty
She said yes.
It’d taken his full power of persuasion, and a touch of manipulat
ion, but he’d won.
The smug smile still lingered on his lips when he entered the station the next morning.
He made her say it again, and again, and spent several long, languid moments tasting the flavor of the yeses on her tongue. Then he’d gone to the bed for the little black box and tossed it to her.
Caught by surprise, she batted the box around a few times before reeling it in. She cracked it open.
Her head bent, he couldn’t read her reaction. She didn’t speak, or smile, or sigh dreamily, or even reach out to finger the delicate ring.
He’d grown self-conscious. Maybe he should’ve spent more than ten minutes picking out the round-cut solitaire with white-gold banding, but as soon as he saw it, he knew it was her ring. Flawless and unpretentious. Simply beautiful, like her.
He’d scratched a phantom itch on his shoulder. “In a couple of years, I’ll be able to upgrade to something a little bigger.”
She’d pressed the box to the center of her chest, over her heart, and her eyes shone when she looked up at him. “I love it. I’ll never wear another.”
The gut punch knocked the breath from his body.
He reached for her, and soon lost himself in her soft, warm body. His release building, emotions he couldn’t name rioted though him. He wouldn’t regret his decision to marry her. She made him happy.
Now all he had to do was settle in for a life of easy, wedded bliss. No drama. No disasters. No despair. Oh, and make sure he didn’t fall in love with her.
No love. Just happiness.
At his desk, he pulled up the day’s log, already counting the minutes before he could get his soon-to-be wife naked again, touching and teasing her until they both collapsed in contented exhaustion.
The figure of a man appeared before him and Luke looked up into Captain Davison’s grizzled face. Behind him, Chief Brown came into view.
“Good morning, Detective,” she said. “We’re ready for you.”
Shit.
In the chaos of the last few days, he’d forgotten about the interview. Dread crystallized into a heavy ball in the pit of his stomach as he followed his bosses into the conference room.
The interview started well, with Captain Davison posing a couple of questions about Luke’s educational background and experience, which he answered with ease.
