Was close to outweighing the amount of the love that pressed through me.
Filling me full.
He studied the readout on one of the monitors. “Has she opened her eyes yet?”
“No . . . but . . . I can feel it. She’s gonna be okay. I think she’s just sleeping off the trauma.”
It wasn’t like I was some kind of medical guru.
It was just like I’d said.
I could feel it.
He came to stand beside me, looking at Nikki.
“That’s what she needs the most. Rest.” He angled his attention to me. “And support. Someone to be there for her when she wakes up so she knows she isn’t alone.”
I shifted in the seat, tightening my hold on her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you finished running, Ollie?” he asked, staring at me like he was searching for the truth of my answer. Something hard in his expression.
My gaze traveled back to Nikki.
Nikki. Fucking. Walters.
The girl I’d thought the bane of my existence.
The girl nothing but a tease and a taunt of what I couldn’t have.
I’d just been too blind to recognize that she was my very existence.
“Yeah, I’m done running,” I murmured, more to her than to him.
He cracked a smile. “Good.” He gave a pat to my shoulder before he moved for the door. “Oh, and she won’t be getting those x-rays.”
I shifted in the chair so I could see him. “Why’s that?”
He paused to look back at me. “Because she’s pregnant.”
39
Nikki
My eyes fluttered open, the sound of a constant, low beep, beep, beep filling my ears. But my sight, it was filled with Ollie.
Beautiful Ollie who was staring over at me.
The man who had wrecked me.
The one who had saved me.
He’d always been an enigma.
The hardest jaw and the quickest smile.
“Nikki,” he murmured as he watched me studying him, and he reached out and set a big hand on the side of my head.
Energy flashed.
The connection so intense that I felt my insides clutch.
“Ollie.”
“You’re okay. You’re okay.”
I flinched as all the memories came flooding back.
My sister.
Sydney.
The cliffs.
“What happened?” I rasped, my throat achy and raw and my lungs too tight, but there was no stopping the panic that seized my heart. “What happened to Todd?”
So many things moved through his expression.
Hate.
Worry.
Regret.
Relief.
“He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Oh.” It was a breath. A strike of realization. The sound of a gunshot ricocheting in my mind.
Ollie brushed his thumb over my cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
My lips pursed, and I fought the tears that worked in my eyes. “You saved me.”
“I told you I would never let anyone hurt you again. Protecting you is my duty.”
I could feel the twist of my brow. The sorrow on my heart, and it hurt so much to say the words.
But it was time.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
Not after everything.
“I don’t want to be your duty, Ollie. I can’t be a sin you’re trying to make amends for.”
Regret streaked across Ollie’s handsome face.
Sapphire eyes flashed with intensity as he sat forward, his hold on the side of my head tightening.
Hand spread out as if he wanted to touch me everywhere.
“I’ve spent my life living in the past, Nikki.”
His voice was gruff. Strained as he seemed to struggle with the words. “I spent years searching for something that wasn’t there. It’d felt like hope. But I know now I was trying to pay a debt. That I thought I didn’t deserve to live because Sydney hadn’t.”
Grief billowed from him.
“My mom . . .” His voice broke, and my heart fisted because never in all these years had he mentioned her.
Their relationship severed.
I’d never been privy to the details.
“She blamed me,” he whispered as if it hurt too much to say it aloud. He gave a harsh shake of his head. “I’ll never forget when the police left after taking my statement, she . . . lost it.”
He gulped. “She just . . . started hammering on my chest. I’d barely been able to hear what she was saying, she was crying so hard. But I did, Nikki. She was saying that she’d trusted me . . . that it was my fault . . . that I’d promised I would take care of her. She said I failed her. Failed Sydney.”
Sympathy stretched so tight I couldn’t breathe.
“Oh, God. Ollie. I didn’t know.”
He looked at me. Laid bare. “In some way, I did fail, Nikki. We all did. We made mistakes, but none of us meant to hurt her.”
He blinked through the dim lights of the room. “I thought . . . I thought for all these years that I couldn’t be trusted. That I didn’t deserve to be.”
He gathered up my arm and pressed the underside of my wrist to his lips.
A sound hitched in his throat. A guttural cry that I felt move all the way through the center of me.
“I’m always gonna miss her, Nikki. I will miss her every day of my life. I thought that made me a lost soul. That I had no home. But you . . .”
He eased off the chair and moved so he was completely hovering over me, taking both sides of my face in his hands.
He squeezed me tightly. As if he were begging me to hear.
“You, Nikki . . . you are my home. You’ve been leading me there all along, calling me there, and I was too blind to see that was where I belonged. Too afraid to accept it. Too afraid to believe in it. Too afraid to trust in myself.”
His throat bobbed when he swallowed, and he edged back to standing. He set one of those tattooed hands over his heart.
“I’m a simple, man, Nikki. If I were Kale, I’d have planned some big thing. Wooed you. Impressed the hell out of you,” he said, mouth tweaking into something that resembled a grin before it fell flat again.
“But I’m not . . . I’m just here . . . this lost soul who finally found his home, begging her to open the door and let him in.”
Tears rushed to my eyes, and a ball of emotion rolled through my chest.
Pressing and pulling and pleading.
“The door has always been open, Ollie. Always. You just had to make the choice to walk in.”
“Only if you let me stay forever.”
I hated the reservations that scrambled to be heard. That wall that wanted to rise up and protect my heart that he’d broken again and again. But they shouted at me not to be a fool.
“What about Sydney, Ollie? The fact that you can’t look at me without seeing her? Without thinking of her? I don’t want to be the girl standing in her shadow.”
He was back to hovering over my hospital bed, this time his nose so close to brushing mine. “How could you stand in the shadows when you are the brightest thing in the room?”
His lips brushed against mine in the softest kiss.
“Sunshine,” he murmured like praise. “You are light and life. My life. My everything. Let me be yours.”
Tears streaked free, and I lifted my chin, our mouths meeting as I whispered, “I’ve always been yours.”
Our foreheads met, and we shared our breaths.
That energy rippled and danced.
Climbing into the atmosphere.
Colors and light.
Chemistry.
He kissed me again as one of his hands slid down my face, cupping my jaw, my chin, gliding to my heart. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
Nerves tumbled. “What’s that?”
His hand kept moving, slipping over my hip until he moved it over my
stomach. His hand resting between us. “We’re gonna have a baby.”
40
Ollie
“Ollie, I’m not crippled.” She swatted at my shoulder.
Playfully.
I had her swept up in my arms, holding her as the elevator clanged for the third floor of my building.
I nuzzled my nose along her jaw, inhaling deep, my lips a soft brush against her cheek. “How about you just let me hold you for a while, yeah?”
Her arms were looped around my neck, and she buried her face in my beard. “If you insist, big boy.”
I squeezed her as the elevator jostled to a stop at the top floor, cages sliding open to the hall. “Plan on holding you forever, sweet girl.”
She giggled.
God.
Was it possible I got this? Her giggles and her smiles and all her days?
I wanted them. Fuck, I wanted them so bad that I held her a little tighter against me as I carried her down the hall.
“That might get awkward, you know?”
“What, you don’t think people would approve of me carrying you to work?”
She was chewing on her bottom lip as she looked up at me, a flush on her cheeks that screamed of so much life. “People might get weird ideas about us.”
Us.
I grinned. “Let them get all the ideas they want.”
I angled to the side so I could fumble with the lock on the front door. I was still carrying her when we got inside.
It was late when she’d been discharged from the hospital this evening.
Her attending doctor had told her the exact thing Kale had told me.
The most important thing she needed was rest. To give her body time to recuperate from the trauma. I took her straight to my bedroom.
Strike that.
Our room.
I laid her on the bed, and she giggled again, just as I was crawling right up with her, unable to leave any distance between us.
Needing her near.
I propped myself on my elbow, making sure to keep my weight off her, and ran my fingers through her hair. “How are you able to keep smiling after everything you just went through?”
It wasn’t an accusation.
It was awe.
Pure. Fucking. Awe.
This girl.
Goodness and light.
With a shaky hand, she reached out and ran her fingers through my beard before she let them drift up, moving across my cheeks, my eyebrows, my nose.
Closing my eyes, I sighed and relished the sensation.
Her touching me.
So freely.
“How could I not be?” she whispered.
That aura she wore rolled through the room.
Thunder.
Colors and strobes.
I eased back so I could look at her.
She caressed along the line of my hair, head tilting as she spoke softly. “My sister is home. Safe with Penelope and her husband.”
She stroked across the shell of my ear.
So tender.
So sweet.
It sent a chill trembling through the middle of me. “My mama is safe. My grandma is safe.”
Her brow pinched as she moved to trace down my jaw. “I’m here, with you.”
Her fingertips plucked at my bottom lip, her words turning to wonder. “And we’re gonna have a baby.”
One side of my mouth pulled up, twisting into a smile. “I can’t believe it.”
She searched my face. “I know you question it, Ollie. But I want you to know I trust that you are going to be the best daddy this baby could have.”
Overcome, I kissed her, long and deep.
Who could blame me?
I was just a man loving on his girl.
I threaded my fingers through her hair, our gazes locked.
I was entranced by that energy.
The girl a spell.
The best kind of magic.
Caging her in, I pushed onto my hands and knees. I dove in to kiss across her bright, bright heart, and then I worked all the way down until I made it to her stomach.
“Thank you, Nikki, for trusting in me,” I mumbled at her flat belly.
I sucked in a deep breath and made a promise that I would never, ever break. “This baby will always know that her daddy will be there for her. No matter what. No matter what mistakes she might make. No matter what life throws our way. For all my days.”
Nikki’s fingers were in my hair, and she was nudging me up. Eyes glistening with adoration in the muted, dancing light. “You want this? With me?”
I finally settled my weight between her thighs.
Carefully.
I wrapped her up.
Held her close.
Because I was never going to let her go.
“There’s nothing more I want than to get to have a family with you, Nikki Walters. Nothing I want more than to spend all my days loving you. Nothing that makes me happier than you loving me back. You are my home.”
Because I finally got that life was worth living.
It was worth cherishing.
And I had everything to live for.
Nikki stared up at me, her words so soft. “You have it all wrong, Ollie. I always trusted you. You just had to figure out how to trust yourself.”
I pulled back and gazed down at her, running my thumb across her temple. “Forever and ever, you and me.”
I felt it.
The spirit that fluttered through the air.
And I knew that Sydney would always be there, too.
Free.
Watching over us.
A smile forever on her face.
Epilogue
I peeked out into the hall, frantically waving Hope and Jenna in where they had parked in the back lot. “Do you have it?”
Giggling, they both bustled inside, slinking through the big metal door.
“No, Nikki, we totally don’t have it,” Jenna said with all kinds of sarcasm dripping from her smart mouth as she lifted the huge pink cake box a few inches higher, waving it in my face.
“Stop that,” I swatted at her. “I just want this to be perfect. Goodness, I’m nervous.”
“You’re bein’ ridiculous, Nikki. Ollie is gonna love it,” Hope told me in her sweet way. She was two months further along than I was.
Excitement blistered through my veins, and my hand was caressing over the tiny mound growing in my stomach, my skinny jeans still fitting but just barely.
Goodness, I couldn’t wait to be a mommy. The proof that the world really could be a better place. That good things were still granted.
Blessings and joy.
Jenna let go of a loud laugh. “That, or he’s going to go all savage ogre on our asses and kick us to the curb for throwing him a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure which one to put my money on.”
“I’m putting all my money on my man,” I told her, lifting my brow as they passed by.
“Oh, someone has it bad,” Jenna sang as she started down the hall toward the main area of the bar.
“Well, if thinking about someone twenty-four seven and missing him like crazy all day while he’s gone is having it bad, then so be it.”
I might have it bad.
A damned fever when it came to Oliver Preston.
Rex and Kale were supposed to be keeping him busy today. A guy’s fishing trip for his birthday.
It really was just to give me the time to set up.
Streamers and balloons and twinkle lights had been strewn across the entire space, and one big area had been sectioned off just for our friends and family.
The Italian caterer was already setting up at the back of the roped off area.
We rounded the corner, and Cece was setting up the private bar next to the caterer. “Made sure to stock you two some ginger ale,” she said with a wink as she tossed a few bottles of it into the big ice bucket.
Turned out, she wasn’t so bad after all.
I laughed. “Oh man, I do miss my
wine.” Tenderly, I ran my hand over my belly. “But she is definitely worth it.”
Yep.
She.
Just like Ollie had insisted since the day we found out.
He may have been a bear before, brash and protective and nothing but a brute, but he’d taken it to all kinds of new levels. Watching over us so carefully, love shining so bright in his blue eyes.
Sometimes I still woke wrapped in his arms and thought I was dreaming, having wanted this for so long, tied to a man in such an intrinsic way, that it didn’t seem real.
Then he’d tuck me close, and it’d all come rushing back.
He was mine, and I was his.
“Is there a cool place we can put the cake?” Hope asked Cece.
Cece grinned. “Tell me that cake is complements of A Drop of Hope.”
Hope laughed a light sound. “Well, of course it is. As if I’d trust anyone else to make the cake for Ollie’s big day. I mean, unless he wanted a pie,” she teased.
Sometimes I wondered how there wasn’t a baking war going on between Rynna and Hope.
“And it doesn’t even have sticks with pictures of Ollie on it.” Sadly, Jenna shook her head. “What a shame.”
“Don’t even remind me of you going and pulling that with Kale. Putting pictures of my man on cupcakes for all the girls to devour. That’s sacrilege.”
“Um, those cupcakes were delicious,” I told her. “Everyone needs a little sex on a stick.”
She shooed me. “You’ve got your own man, Nikki. Don’t be licking on mine.”
“But I don’t have one,” Jenna whined.
“Me, neither,” Cece called.
“Y’all are ridiculous.” Hope was laughing when she took the cake from Jenna as if she no longer trusted her with it. “Where to?”
Cece lifted her chin. “Go through the swinging door there. Cleared a spot in the refrigerator.”
“Thank you.”
Hope waddled her way back there just as the band was striking up.
Ollie’s favorite.
Carolina George.
One of his oldest friends was the guitarist, and it only made sense for me to invite them.
I rubbed my palms together. “Am I missing anything?”
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