Marked

by Drew Elyse

  When it left me, I was unable to move, to do anything. I just laid there beneath him, feeling the aftershocks run through me as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Fuck, I love you.” His voice was hoarse, from the emotion or the exertion I couldn’t say, but it sounded damn good.

  “I love you, too,” I sighed.

  I woke early, the mom in me knowing I needed to before Owen came charging in. I left Liam in bed—dressed, just as we’d both been since we could move again the night before, to be safe—and went to check on my boy. Peeking into his room, I found him already stirring.

  “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Morning, baby.”

  He made the disgruntled face he’d started taking to when I called him that. My little man didn’t think he was a baby anymore. With first grade lingering right on the horizon like a threat, he might be right. He’d always be my baby, though.

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Why not?” His absolute confusion was cute. To his mind, Mom knew everything.

  “Liam’s here, I thought we should wait to let him help decide.”

  Owen’s eyes went huge on his little face. The next second, he was scrambling out of his mess of covers to get to his feet.

  “Liam’s here?!” he shouted.

  “Right here, bud.”

  I turned to see Liam, his long hair sleep-mussed and so sexy it made me want to lock us back in the bedroom for breakfast. I hadn’t expected him to be up for a while, and he must have read that on my face.

  “Felt you gone,” he said low.

  That was all the time he had for me before he was being barreled into by an excited Owen.

  “Liam!”

  Lee crouched, making Owen release the hold on his legs, and picked my glad-to-go son up in his arms.

  “Hey, buddy. I missed you.”

  Lee missed him. My heart was melting and breaking all at once. Owen threw his arms around Lee’s neck, and I knew firsthand how much he had missed Lee, too. He’d told me often enough. The last few weeks he’d been a nightmare of bad moods and tantrums, which was so unlike him.

  This was why.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d handed over my heart.

  “You’re back,” Owen said, but it rang of accusation.

  “I’m back,” Lee agreed. “And I’m not going anywhere again.”

  “Good.”

  Yeah, it was good. Lee’s smile said it all about feeling the same way.

  Good.

  I closed my eyes for a second, letting myself feel it all. Lee and Owen’s happiness, my own, and that voice telling me this was right.

  I love you, Joel, I thought. But that love didn’t feel burdened with pain as heavily as it used to. I would always love my husband, but there was room for more in my heart.

  There was room for Lee.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” Liam asked, getting us back on track.

  “Pancakes!” Owen answered.

  “You’ll turn into a pancake,” I sassed. The kid would have pancakes every day if he could.

  Liam ignored me. “Pancakes it is.”

  He turned to head out of the room, Owen—who usually hated being held this long—sticking right where he was as they left.

  “Kiss ass,” I muttered to Lee as he left.

  Behind his back, keeping it out of Owen’s sight, he gave me the finger.

  Laughing, I stepped into Owen’s room to sort out clothes for him. On his dresser was a picture of him, me, and Joel. I kept it there so he’d never forget his daddy.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to it.

  For everything.

  For loving me.

  For giving me Owen.

  For the knowledge I had deep inside, even if it had taken me a long time to find it, that he’d be happy for me now.

  Then, without letting myself sink into the grief that still stirred in me at seeing that photo, I followed my guys to the kitchen for pancakes.

  Epilogue

  Liam

  One Year Later

  Kate wasn’t herself.

  At first, it was normal. The fourth anniversary of losing Joel had been approaching. This time, I’d gone with her and Daz, as had Owen, Avery, and Avery and Daz’s infant son—Joel.

  In the year since the last anniversary, we’d had many setbacks. Baby Joel’s name had been one. As much as Kate knew that it was a beautiful tribute and that Joel would have loved it, knowing she’d soon have another person with that name to love had been tough on her.

  There were times like that that triggered her, made her go distant on me for a bit. Still, she always pulled herself out of it quickly enough.

  I knew the anniversary would be different.

  For a couple weeks before, she’d had a darkness around her that killed me. It was good to see her not retreat into herself the way she had been when I’d first met her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t struggling. She spent a lot of time with Mom then. I think Mom and Derek’s newlywed bliss put her at ease.

  I’d let her have what space she needed, especially once we got to Colorado. That was okay. I’d give her anything she needed to deal with that.

  I’d needed a bit of space myself there, which was why I’d gone for a drive late one night.

  I walked through the lots one by one, wondering if it always felt like this. The crushing weight of the place was the same as where Dad was buried. Was that because of the connection to each? Or were cemeteries just like that?

  I’d been with them all this morning, so I knew where I was headed. Kate had asked me to come with them so I could take Owen away once he’d had enough so that she would be able to stay longer. I retraced those steps, hoping no one else had left the hotel after I had and come back here.

  When I reached the spot, I found I was thankfully alone.

  I stared at the stone for a long time.

  Joel Benjamin Larson

  Brother. Husband. Father.

  The best of them all.

  “Hi,” I started, not knowing what the hell I was going to say, just that I needed to. “This is probably ridiculous and weird, but I had to come here and say it. I know you loved her. It’d be impossible not to, but I know it because of how fiercely she still loves you. I know what you gave up for them both. I just want you to know that I know exactly how much they’re both worth. I’d make the same decision in a heartbeat for them. I want you to know that they have that from me, and they will until my last breath. I’ll take care of them the way I know you’d want them to be. I promise that.”

  That was all I had. Just a vow I’d wanted to make for a long time to a man that loved his family. A family that I loved now with my whole heart.

  What I’d had to share with Joel didn’t compare to the emotional toll what she had to that day, and it’d still worn on me for days. So, for a long while now, I’ve been patient.

  Now, over a month later, I find myself back in the position of wondering when to push.

  I got home from work late. Sketch let us largely set our own hours at Sailor’s Grave as long as we were taking on enough clients to make it worth keeping us on. The shop had long since stopped being the type of place that was open all that late. We didn’t cater to folks coming off a night of partying looking to do something stupid.

  Fuck, we didn’t even cater to walk-ins for the most part.

  This meant those of us with families of whatever shape and size to get home to had the luxury of doing just that.

  Tonight, however, I’d made an exception for a long-standing client. He was in town only for a short while, and my schedule for those days had already been full when he called. When he’d told me the tatt he wanted was a tribute to the baby he and his wife had lost a couple months ago, there was no way in hell I was turning him away. I kept myself there later to ink the little pair of wings on his chest, and I did it gladly.

  The whole drive home, though, my mind had been on Kate. My Kate who m
ight have lost a baby of her own, though she’d never know for sure. My gypsy girl whose spirit wasn’t right behind her eyes like it had been for so often since she’d come back to me. I couldn’t take the distance anymore.

  The farmhouse was quiet. We’d been talking about moving out for a while, but couldn’t commit to it. Having the others in the house didn’t bother me the way I thought it might. They were her family, even if she hadn’t always seen it. In no time at all, they’d become mine as well.

  We always kept the option on the table, but I was happy just sharing a bed with my woman every night, no matter where that was.

  I didn’t waste time looking around to see who might be home and still awake. Owen was long since in bed by now, and that usually meant Kate was in our room. I went straight there.

  When I entered, I found her sitting up on my side of the bed—the one closer to the door. She was staring down at her lap, still in a way that stopped me in my tracks.

  “Gypsy?” I called.

  Her head came up, and there were tears in her eyes.

  Fuck.

  I rushed over. “What’s wrong?”

  “I thought for a bit that it might be true, but I wasn’t ready. Not with the anniversary of losing him. I couldn’t do it.”

  She was scaring the hell out of me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just kept putting it off, but I knew I couldn’t. So I asked your mom and Avery to be here tonight so I could. They sat with me while I waited.”

  When she didn’t go on from there, I pressed, “You have to explain what you’re saying here, baby. I’m lost.”

  She sniffled, and then a smile spread across her lips. It was so pure, so achingly beautiful that I was stunned.

  Her hands moved, and she brought up the item I hadn’t noticed was in her lap. A white stick.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Everything stopped. There was nothing in my world except her brilliant smile and that stick. That little piece of plastic that gave me the best news in the entire world.

  “I’m going to be a dad?”

  She nodded, tears still rolling down her cheeks. For once, I didn’t hate them.

  For once, I felt a few of my own match them.

  I dropped my head into her lap, wrapping my arms around her hips to pull her close to me. Right there. My baby was growing right there inside the woman I loved.

  Knowing there was no better time to do what I’d been thinking of for months, what I’d hesitated over again, and again, I lifted my head to look at my Kate.

  “Marry me.”

  She shocked the hell out of me yet again when she didn’t hesitate for a minute.

  “Yes.”

  Collapsing on my ass on the floor, I pulled her down onto me, kissing every inch of her face before I took her sweet lips.

  Everything. I had absolutely everything right there in that house.

  Kate. Owen. Our baby on the way.

  There was nothing in the world I could want more.

  “I love you.”

  She kissed me.

  When she pulled away, the thought occurred to me.

  “My mom already knows?”

  She laughed. “She’d been dying wanting to react since I took the test this afternoon. I’m surprised I got her to leave.”

  “Well, she’s going to have to wait a little longer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because first, you and I need to celebrate.”

  My gypsy smiled as I lifted her onto the bed and let me reveal the tattoo I’d given her over a year ago. I’d wanted to leave my mark then, but I knew better now. It hadn’t mattered what I’d done to her because I’d been the one that was marked by her since the beginning.

  And I couldn’t have been fucking happier.

  Coming Soon

  The Sailor’s Grave Series continues…

  Jess’s Story

  Coming Fall 2018

  About the Author

  Drew Elyse spends her days trying to convince the world that she is, in fact, a Disney Princess, and her nights writing tear-jerking and sexy romance novels.

  When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found over-analyzing every line of a book, binge watching a series on Netflix, doing strange vocal warm ups before singing a variety of music styles, or screaming at the TV during a Chicago Blackhawks game.

  A graduate of Loyola University Chicago with a BA in English, she still lives in Chicago, IL where she was born and raised with her boyfriend and her fur babies Lola and Duncan.

  Website: DrewElyse.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/DrewElyseAuthor

  Facebook Group: bit.ly/DisciplesClubhouse

  Twitter: twitter.com/DrewElyseAuthor

  Mailing List: bit.ly/DrewElyseNews

  Books by Drew Elyse

  The Disciples’ Daughters Series

  Clutch

  Shift

  Engage

  Ignite

  Combust

  Cruise

  The Sailor’s Grave Series

  Marked

  The Dissonance Series

  Dissonance

  Harmony