I’m smiling then.
“What did you say?” I asked, feeling raw.
“I said, ‘Are you freakin’ nuts?’” She giggled. “Oh gosh. I thought you were joking or something. I mean, I felt it. I knew I loved you. It was fast, and raw, and emotional and way too early. But whew did I feel it.” She shook her head, then smoothed her hand down my belly, almost absently. And when her hand slipped up underneath my t-shirt to bare skin, she didn’t once flinch at the scars. It moved right up until it was resting at my heart—that was pounding a mile a minute. “When you offered me up another four bites, I decided that you actually meant it. You weren’t demanding. You didn’t expect me to say it back or anything. You just gave me bites of your ice cream. And… I knew that there was no reason for playing coy or denying it. I just said it. Right then and there. You smiled, gave me the rest of your ice cream spoonful by spoonful, and that was it. You and I were a thing from that point forward.”
I loved that.
A lot.
The nights following, she told me everything that she could remember.
I read my letters to her.
I knew everything I could know.
And I knew, without a doubt, then and now, that she was always meant to be mine.
Chapter 22
Eff.
You.
See.
Kay.
-T-shirt
Luca
Three months later
“So, this is what I want you to do,” I said to my best friend.
***
Two hours later
I passed the cop and knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was getting pulled over.
“Shit,” I said, looking in my rearview mirror.
Frankie, who’d been telling me how awkward it was at work again today, looked over her shoulder and cursed. “You’re getting pulled over.”
“I know,” I said as I pulled my motorcycle over to the side of the road and waited, heart in my throat.
Malachi and Redmond, Malachi’s tag-along until he was cleared for active duty on the police department, stepped out of the cruiser and made their way toward us.
Redmond stopped at the front bumper of the cruiser, watching.
Malachi’s face was apologetic as he said, “License and registration.”
Frankie ripped off her helmet.
“You’re not seriously going to give him a ticket, are you?” Frankie gasped.
Malachi winced. “Listen, Franks,” he began. “I don’t have a choice here. Ol’ Redmond is with me. If I don’t, I could get into seriously big trouble. And I happen to like my job.”
I looked at Redmond who was playing the part perfectly, then over to Frankie who was staring in horror at Malachi.
“But if he gets a ticket, he’s going to get into trouble at work!” she cried.
Technically, she would’ve been correct.
I had to, per company policy, report tickets almost the second that they happened, or I would get my ass in a sling at work.
Tickets weren’t necessarily a bad thing until you go too many. Or you failed to report them.
Then they became a bad thing.
“Both of you step off the bike and come back here,” Redmond suddenly ordered, voice tight and urgent. “Whose bike is this?”
Frankie looked worriedly at the bike.
“It’s one that we’re test driving,” Frankie gasped. “Is there something wrong?”
Redmond continued playing the part perfectly. “The bike is registered to a known drug dealer in the area. And it was stolen.”
Frankie’s mouth dropped open.
“What?” she gasped. “No!”
“Step back here please,” Redmond ordered.
Frankie followed, reluctantly, body tight with anger.
Frankie stared at Redmond, a seasoned police officer who used to be the highest ticket writer in the department before the traffic division—also known as Motorcycle Patrol—began.
“I need you to…” Redmond began, talking as if he suspected Frankie of nefarious activities.
While she was distracted, Malachi quickly handed me the ring that he’d so graciously held onto for me.
I caught it in my hand, slipped it out of the box, then got down on one knee.
Frankie growled at something Redmond said and turned in a flurry.
Her dress twirled out in a rush.
Her eyes suddenly lit on me, the ring in my hand, and then her empty hand where her ring usually resided.
I’d had to steal it off of her finger while she slept a few days ago and she’d been devastated.
Seeing her so down and glum had torn me apart, but in the end, I had decided to continue with my tactic, knowing she’d love the outcome.
“You dirty little cheat!” she cried out.
I grinned.
“Francesca Solomon, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She studied the ring, my face, and then the two officers that were now smiling wide.
“I hate you all,” she cried. Then threw herself into my arms.
I caught her with a grunt, nearly fell straight on my ass, and started to laugh.
“I can’t believe you stole my ring.” She pulled back and practically yanked it free of my hold.
That was when she started to cry.
Frankie’s dad, Cora, my parents, and almost all of our motorcycle division came out of the trees.
Cora had a phone aimed right at Frankie who was crying her eyes out and not answering my question.
“Answer him already, kid!” Coke bellowed.
Frankie turned, saw all the people there, and then started crying harder.
“I thought about straight-up asking you when you wanted to get married,” I said to her silence. “I thought… maybe we can just leave where we left off.” I swallowed hard, staring into her tear-filled eyes. “But I didn’t think that was right. How could I leave where we left off when I couldn’t remember where we started?”
Frankie sniffled hard.
“I can’t remember our very first kiss. I can’t remember our first time to touch….” I stopped mid-sentence and looked over Frankie’s shoulder to see Coke glaring at me. I grinned. “I won’t finish that sentence because your dad’s giving me the evil eye.” I winked at her. “I can’t remember our first anniversary. Or when we first said ‘I love you.’” I reached for her hand and pulled her closer to me. “But I can remember the first time the new me remembers. You were so patient with me. Allowing me to bumble around in this new and uncertain world. And, when I got lost, you didn’t try to lead me down the correct path. Only leaped off the edge with me, hoping that it would lead somewhere we wanted it to go.”
Frankie swallowed hard.
“You’ve been with me through thick and thin. You’ve watched over me. Taken care of me. Loved the old me. The new me. You’ve loved me even when I didn’t deserve to be loved,” I said. “And now I know that you’re there, for better or for worse. For the old me and the new me.”
She sniffed.
“Frankie, will you please marry me?” I whispered.
She nodded her head without saying a word.
“I thought about getting you a new diamond ring,” I said softly, finally showing her the top side of the ring. “But I didn’t think that was good enough.” I slipped the ring on her finger, my eyes on how well it fit there. How great it made me feel. “So, I stole the one that I gave you before. Had the jeweler do some creative designing with it.”
She smacked me on the arm, causing me to laugh.
“No, you didn’t lose it, baby,” I apologized. “I’m sorry about lying to you.”
She stared down at the ring now, her tears no longer unshed.
They were trailing down her face at a rapid pace.
I watched her study the ring, and her breath hitched.
“How…” She licked her lips. “Baby
, it’s beautiful. But why the black diamond?”
I touched the ring with my thumb.
On one side of the ring, there were her old diamonds. It had a princess cut half-carat diamond with three smaller diamonds on the band. Which was how her old ring looked. On the new part of the ring was a black diamond sitting next to the old princess cut. Same cut. Same shape. Same everything. Only black instead. On the other side were three smaller black diamonds embedded in the band.
The new me, and the old me.
That night, as she lay in my arms, I knew that my life from this point forward would only get better and better.
Epilogue
Some days just aren’t worth a bra.
-Frankie’s secret thoughts
Frankie
One year later
“So, Dr. Francesca Solomon…” I held up my hand to stop the woman interviewing me.
“It’s Maldonado now.” I grinned. “We were married last weekend.”
The woman interviewing me, who just so happened to be the mother of Piper, as well as my new mother-in-law’s best friend, grinned at me.
“I actually knew that.” She shook her head. “I forgot, though.”
I smiled. “It’s still so weird signing my name. I hate to tell you, after all these years signing Solomon, it’s going to take some getting used to.”
Cheyenne Mackenzie smiled.
“Okay, Dr. Maldonado. Tell me a little about yourself,” she said.
We both burst out laughing.
We weren’t close-close, but we were close enough that she knew pretty much everything there was to know about me seeing as Ember and she were great friends.
She knew mine and Luca’s entire story.
She knew that Luca and I had been seeing a fertility doctor to try to get pregnant.
She knew that I couldn’t work at my old hospital where I’d previously been working because of how uncomfortable I now was with Dr. Cromwell who was treated like royalty. Dr. Cromwell who still made me feel bad for his child’s infatuation with me. His child’s infatuation that was so bad, it was found out, that he tried to murder his friend based solely on the fact that he saw me in a sports bra, kind of infatuation.
She also knew that I had a plan to go get a pregnancy test after I left this appointment.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” Cheyenne said. “How about we go take your pregnancy test and discuss specifics.”
I liked the idea of that.
“I don’t…” She waved away my words.
“We have tests here, honey. We’re an emergency room,” she teased.
I felt my face flush. “Well, I know that.”
It was as I was coming out of the bathroom in the employee’s lounge that I saw two of my favorite people in the world.
One that held my heart, and the other that had helped protect my heart while he was away.
I stopped just outside of the door, my pregnancy test with my pee still on it in my hand, and stared.
“They’re a sight, aren’t they?”
I looked over at a young woman who was standing outside of her exam room.
She had a laceration on her face, and she was pressing gauze to her forehead while she stared at the two men.
“You can have the one on the left,” I teased. “The one on the right is my husband.”
The woman smiled. “Deal.”
She looked down at the white test in my hand.
“Is that pee on your…” She gestured to it. “It’s positive, you know.”
I looked down at the indeed positive pregnancy test and smiled wide.
“Umm, yes, it is. That’s why I’m holding it on the paper towel.”
She pointed to a biohazard bag that had some half-melted ice in it.
“You should get one of those.”
I did as she suggested, dropping the plastic pregnancy test in the bag before looking at it one more time.
I wondered idly if I should tell Luca here or not.
“What are you waiting for?” my new friend asked. “You should go tell him.”
I licked my lips.
“I’m nervous,” I said. “I’ll give you a dollar if you go give it to him.”
She held out her hand and I placed a crumpled up one-dollar bill in her hand.
She took it, pocketed it, then took my plastic baggie by two fingers.
“I’m doing this because it’ll get me closer to that black-haired hottie,” she informed me. “Because holy shit, is he hot.”
I snorted and watched her walk away.
I leaned against the doorway and watched as she walked straight up to Luca, held out the bag to him, and started talking.
Malachi looked down at the woman with bemusement on his face.
His brows rose, and I watched Luca’s face as he stared at the test in his hand.
I could see his brows furrow and the confusion on his face.
“What is this?” I heard him ask.
I didn’t hear the girl’s reply, but whatever it was made him take a step back and nearly toss the bag that was holding the test.
Malachi started to chuckle, and the girl gestured my way.
Luca’s eyes jerked up and locked on me, and his face went utterly slack.
I raised my brows at him, gave him a thumb up, then a thumb down.
He understood immediately what I was asking and gave me a shaky thumb up.
My smile went wide just as Cheyenne came up to my side and said, “So let’s go fill out our paperwork.”
I grinned and waved at Luca who still looked stunned.
He watched me go as Malachi slapped him on the back before giving him a manly hug.
Still, Luca’s eyes never left mine.
I felt the heat of his stare as I turned my back on him and followed Cheyenne to fill out my paperwork.
Tears burned in the back of my eyes, though.
After four months of trying, and two failed IVF treatments, I was finally pregnant with his baby.
I couldn’t freakin’ wait to see whose eyes the baby had.
I hoped they were Luca’s with everything I had.
***
Five months later
I opened the curtain to the exam room, my eyes on the chart in front of me, and studied it.
“You’ve had a laceration to your forearm, Mr. Maldonado?” I asked.
There was an amused snort from my husband before I looked up and found him staring at me with his heart in his eyes.
He had a bandage on his forearm, and he had blood on his tight as hell pants.
My libido—which was always raring and ready to go—went on high alert.
Jesus, his smile was devastating.
“What happened?” I asked. “And why didn’t you call me?”
He gestured to the cut on his arm.
“I would have, but I was trying to keep pressure on my arm while also riding a motorcycle. Calling you would’ve been kind of hard,” he admitted.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to his side, gently peeling the bandage back.
I eyed the cut.
It was shallow.
“How did you do this?” I wondered.
He grunted out a reply of, “Caught it on a piece of metal when I hopped over a guardrail to help an old woman out of a wrecked car.”
I remembered the old woman coming in about twenty minutes ago, but I hadn’t been one of the ones to work on her.
“Bummer,” I said. “That’s going to need stitches. At least eight.”
Instead of getting the nurse to help with the cut, I did it all myself.
All the while my husband never took his free hand off my belly.
It was growing day by day, and he never missed a chance to feel me up.
“She’s on the move today,” I told him when he grinned at one particularly lively kick.
“I feel that,” he said. “She’s moving aro
und like crazy.”
“I feel that, too,” he said, pressing in to try and determine what body part was where.
We never knew seeing as she was still kind of small, but it was fun to guess.
I finished with his total of nine stitches and cleaned him back up, giving him the go-ahead to return back to work.
“I have a break in fifteen minutes,” I said softly, pressing my body deliciously against his. “Wait in the break room for me?”
He understood without being told exactly what I was hoping to get.
He looked at his watch. “I have exactly twenty minutes before I need to be back.”
I grinned. “That’s plenty of time for you to get me off.”
With that, I left.
And he didn’t disappoint.
He got me off.
It only took him three of the five minutes.
Best. Day. Ever.
***
Luca
Three months later
“Today is the day!”
I glared at Malachi, my cheerful pain in the ass friend.
“I realize that,” I grumbled.
Malachi chuckled.
“You’re just mad that I was there when her water broke and you weren’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, okay?”
I walked toward the bed where Frankie was lying hooked up to all kinds of monitors and doo-dads and leaned over her before offering her a kiss.
She took the kiss, then pressed her forehead against mine.
“I’m okay,” she promised.
I knew that.
When Malachi had called after I’d asked him to stop by and check on my wife who I hadn’t heard from in a couple of hours, it was to get a call back an hour later saying that he’d taken her to the hospital.
“You thought you would labor at home all day without me?” I asked, voice tight.
She sighed.
“Baby, this is our first,” she told me. “First babies take forever to come.”
I honestly didn’t care.
I didn’t want her to spend a single second without me if she needed me.
The thought of her spending hours at home today without me while she went through labor made my jaw tense.
She pinched me and then pointed to some clothes.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 20
