“And Daddy to you.”
Livy closes her eyes, exhausted and hurting, but there’s a tiny bit of peace in her face now.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Maverick presses another kiss to her hair.
Then he lowers his mouth to my forehead.
I don’t think he means for anyone to hear what he says next.
But I do.
“Thank you for giving me back a name I thought I’d never answer to again.”
I don’t think she’ll ever realize it, but my daughter just healed this man.
Not all the way.
Maybe never all the way.
But enough for him to breathe around the grief instead of beneath it.
“You have to marry Mama,” she says, half asleep.
Maverick’s chest stills beneath my cheek.
“Is that so?” he asks.
“Yep.” Her eyes stay closed, her voice soft and slurred from exhaustion. “If Elena would love me as a sister, then I think her mama would love my mama as a wife.”
Despite everything we’ve just gone through, despite the cold still biting at my fingers and the pain pulsing through my body, despite the fear and the blood and Rory, I laugh.
Maverick looks down at me, and something warm moves through his eyes.
“You think that’s funny,bella?”
“I think our daughter is bossy.”
Livy’s eyes barely open. “I’m not bossy. I’m helpful.”
Maverick’s arm tightens around her.
“Very helpful,piccola.”
“And right,” she mumbles.
A broken smile pulls at his mouth.
“And right.”
I look up at him, my throat suddenly tight all over again.
He doesn’t ask me.
Not here.
Not in the back of a car while Livy is hurt and I’m half frozen in his lap.
