AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They’re Ian’s. I couldn’t find any of mine, so it was either these or run out here after you barefoot.”
Rising to his feet, he reached through the snow to cup her cheek, pained lines etched between his brows, around his mouth. “Damn, Mira. I wish…”
“I wish too,” she said, bringing her fingertips to her lips, trying to hold the feel of his kiss there, to keep it from fading away.
Running a hand through his hair, flinging wet snow off his fingers, he said, “Go get warm. If you get a cold because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.”
He was wrong about the cold, because her skin was still so hot she was surprised steam wasn’t rising from her arms. But he was right that she needed to go. She didn’t want to, but anything was better than watching him drive away.
“You were the best wedding date I’ve ever had,” she told him as snowflakes melted on her exposed shoulder, trickling down her back, making her shiver.
“I tried to tell you.” He smirked, stepping back to reveal a black footprint on the street. Fresh flakes fell quickly, eager to fill it up, erase it like he’d never been there at all. “I am a blast at weddings.”
He turned away, and when he reached his car, she forced her feet to carry her back to her door, to her bakery, to her mom, her son, her life. A very good life, but one without him in it.
As soon as she’d stepped up onto the curb, he called out, “Mira! Wait!” Spinning around, wet hair clinging to her cheeks, she found him standing beside his open car door, his phone in his hands, his camera aimed at her.
When he lowered his phone, revealing a smile brighter than the rays of sunlight already breaking through the clouds, he said, “I’m getting that one blown up. Life-sized.”
Tucking her hair behind her ear, she decided to stay right where she was, watching him get into his car, close his door, and drive away from her while the snow stopped falling and the sun started shining.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
COLE
ONE WEEK LATER
Her eyes finally closed, her tiny fingers loosening their grip on his shirt while he bounced her in his arms and the white noise machine whirred softly in the corner. He was about to lay Ruby down in her crib when the nursery door swung open and Becks strolled in, oblivious, talking loudly on her phone.
“Shh,” Cole hissed, bouncing Ruby a few more times when she stirred at her mom’s voice.
Ending her call, Becks whispered, “Sorry. It’s not her usual naptime, so I thought maybe you two were just hanging out.”
“She’s been fighting it all morning.” Placing Ruby in her crib the way a person would place a uranium core into a nuclear bomb, Cole watched her chubby arms flop down at her sides, her tiny chest rising and falling, slow and steady. “This is what they mean by sleeping like a baby. Look at her, on her back, no pillow, no blanket, out like a light. I’d need mountains of memory foam and at least two Ambien to sleep like that.”
“I’m not sure I’ve slept since she was born.” Becks reached into the crib, running her fingers lightly over Ruby’s soft hair. “Not really.” She turned to face him. “I did fall asleep at a red light the other day. It was nice, until a horn honked and some guy shouted, ‘Move it, dumbass!’”
Leading his daughter out of the nursery, Cole said, “I was going to head into the studio, but I can wait a while if you want to take a nap.”
“Can’t,” she said through a jaw-cracking yawn. “Have to work.”
Cole frowned at the shadows under her eyes, dark circles that reminded him of the way Davis looked the day he’d left Red Falls, which reminded him of Mira. Not a stretch, since pretty much everything he’d done, seen, read, heard, or eaten in the last week reminded him of Mira.
“Dad?” Becks narrowed her brown eyes, the only part of his genetics Nancy’s didn’t edge out. The rest, her cropped auburn hair, defiant chin, five-foot-two height, those were all her mother. “You there?”
Brushing past her into the kitchen to turn on the baby monitor, he said. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
He opened the fridge and took out the box of last night’s pizza, because, along with exhausted, he thought Becks might be hungry. “Want some?”
“God, yes. But don’t change the subject. Ever since you got back from the wedding, you’ve been getting this weird, dare I saydreamy—”
“Dreamy?”
“—look in your eyes. What happened to you over there? Did you meet someone? Was it that woman you were dancing with?”
Cole nearly dropped the plate he’d just pulled out of the cupboard. “What?” How did she know about that?
