Page 53 of Hex Appeal

“Well, I don't think anyone can be completely sure about something that big.”

He watches me quietly.

“I know it might not happen right away,” I continue. “Or at all. I'm not pretending we get to decide exactly what happens just because we want it.”

His hand finds mine beneath the blanket. “But I want to try.”

His fingers tighten around mine. “So do I.”

My chest aches. In the best possible way.

“I always thought I'd probably have kids,” I admit. “Then the years kept going by, and eventually I stopped imagining it.”

Welles doesn't interrupt.

“But then you happened.”

His thumb brushes over my wedding ring. “And now when I imagine our life five years from now…” I smile. “There's sometimes a little person in it.”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes two.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Two?”

“Don't panic, Chief.”

“I'm not panicking.”

“You look a little panicked.”

“I'm calculating bedroom space. Val is kind of a hog.”

I laugh.

Of course he is.

“We don't have to figure any of that out tonight.”

“Okay.”

“We just have to decide we're open to whatever happens.”

His expression softens. Whatever happens.

For Welles, those words once meant disaster. Another fire. Another person he couldn't reach in time.

Another thing he couldn't control. Now he brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles.

“Whatever happens,” he agrees.

Clove chooses that moment to stand, turn in a circle, and settle back down directly between us.

I stare at him.

Welles stares at him.

“This could be a problem,” I say.