Page 11 of One Last Time

Catherine wasn’t so bad.

“Is it weird,” Haven started, “that even though I know being done after this round is the right thing to do for us, I’m still sad about it?”

“Well …”

“Give it to me straight. You always do.”

Catherine laughed, and bumped her shoulder with Haven’s. The two women let one another go and resumed their previous sitting position on the bench overlooking the park. “I mean, honestly, after Nazio … we were done, too, but I was still sad about it. And then everything that he did for the first time, I knew it was the last first time a baby of mine would ever do that. Not to mention, when he stopped doing something, you know?”

“Except …”

“Hmm?”

Haven looked over at Catherine. “That would mean Emily was my last baby—she wasn’t supposed to be the last one. I didn’t take the time to notice all those last first things, or even when—”

“Haven.”

She stopped her rambling instantly, and dragged in a burning lungful of air. She knew it was partly the stress of the whole situation, meds that she had to take for this process to have its best chance at succeeding, and just … hormones in general. That was all making her more emotional than she would normally be and willing to share.

Not that it mattered.

She couldn’t control it.

“You’re a great mom,” Catherine said, “and you know it.”

“But—”

“No buts. Not about this.”

Haven found her three girls near the swings. Lynn, their oldest, was currently helping Emily climb up to a large slide while Rose stood at the rear in her cute yellow dress. All of her daughters were kind, oh, so sweet, and perfect. They were everything she wanted and more. Somehow, and though they were still young, she had managed to raise some pretty decent humans so far.

“If it doesn’t work,” Haven said, settling herself on the chance that it might not, “then I’ll be okay. We’ll be just fine.”

Catherine nodded with a smile. “Yeah, I think so, too.”

“But it’s still okay to be sad, right?”

“Absolutely. Nobody gets to tell you how to feel, Haven.”

She would remember that.

Definitely.

Haven had just finished buckling in the last of her children and closed the door of the SUV when a man rounded the front of the Mercedes. She might not have noticed him on another day—there were often many people at the park on any given day, and they usually were a good mix of different kinds of people, too.

Some had kids.

Some jogged.

There was even a dog park.

Andino used to like that for Snaps, but the rescued pit bull had fallen ill the year before due to age-related complications that he hadn’t been able to pull out of at the end of it. He hadn’t suffered, which was one of the only things they were grateful for about the pup’s passing, because everything else about it had been fucking heartbreaking.

Still was, really.

It wasn’t unusual to see a man wearing all black—from his tie to the shined shoes on his feet—in the park. Hell, Haven had met her husband in a park just like this where he walked his mean-looking dog while wearing a suit.

But this strange man?