Page 20 of Plain Sight

Lily blinks, new tears shining in her eyes.

“I should have said it before. I thought I might not get to say it.”

She clears her throat. “I love you, too. I—I hope you know that. I hope you didn’t think I’d gone because I didn’t love you.”

“I can’t believe he made you write a note.”

“That guy was highly unintelligent,” Lily whispers. “He had to have known I’d use a code.”

“Maybe it was a trap.”

“Maybe.”

The priest is still talking.

“Jameson,” Lily says.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something else. Something I have to tell you. I think you have the right to know before you marry me.”

I squeeze her hand.

“I’m pregnant,” she says.

I knew it was true before. That test couldn’t have belonged to anybody else. But hearing Lily say it is like walking out of a loud bar onto a silent street. My ears ring with it. My heart tumbles around in my chest like a deflating ball.

“I know,” I manage.

Her eyes get wider. “You do?”

“Yeah.” I squeeze her hand again. “Let’s get married. We can talk about it after.”

6

LILY

I’m sure the unspoken guidelines for telling a man that you’re pregnant with his baby include not doing it literally at the altar as the priest is giving a welcome speech, but the rules—spoken and unspoken—have never really applied to me and Jameson.

He does focus pretty hard on the ceremony, though. I can’t tell if that’s because he’s extremely upset or because he’s decided not to be upset. The kidnapping was upsetting, but…

What about the pregnancy? Is he holding back because of that?

Probably not, right? Because he came to get me and he already knew. Nobody else could’ve told him. He must’ve found the test.

So that’s out in the open.

We get married.

I put all the conviction I can muster behind my vows. It’s the same conviction that made me demand to come back to the cathedral instead of going to the hospital. I feel just the same way about loving Jameson. Nobody’s going to stop me. Nobody’s going to change me. This is just the truth of me, and I’m going to show the world.

Most importantly, I’m going to show Jameson. I want every word I say to mean I love you. There’s something in his eyes that makes me think he’s having trouble believing it.

A warning? Like the Vesuvius thing?

It’s not a warning that he’d leave me, because he makes his vows with just as much conviction. I can hear how terrified he was in every phrase he repeats after the priest. After the last line, when he’s slipped my wedding band onto my finger and settled it against my engagement ring, Jameson raises my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles like an old-timey gentleman. It’s the kind of thing that could come off like a joke from a person like Jameson, but it seems deadly serious.

And then we’re married and being announced as Mr. and Mrs. Hill, and whoops—between getting Jameson out of jail a second time and nursing him back to health and planning the wedding, we never discussed whether I planned to take his name. I always assumed I’d keep my maiden name forever, since a wedding wasn’t in the cards, but in light of how awful a person my grandfather has turned out to be, I don’t mind the idea of taking Jameson’s name.