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“Sit with it,” he said, his eyes opening wider. “Sit with it. That’s right. Sometimes, loving someone means being able to sit in depths of despair with them.”
She coughed, trying to hold back a sob, and failed.
“That finally makes sense to me,” Braden said.
She didn’t get the significance of the statement, but clearly it meant something to him.
“I’m so sorry, Mal.” He pet the dog, but his gaze was on hers. “I let you down at the most devastating time in our lives.”
“Shh.” She put a finger to his lips. “I let you down, too,” she said. “Even before that. If I hadn’t, maybe you wouldn’t have. Maybe you would’ve. But what matters is that for the four years since, we’ve been hanging on to each other. We’ve been trying. Together.”
Even after they’d said they wouldn’t be friends she hadn’t been able to let go. Not with The Bouncing Ball. Not with his name on his daughters’ birth certificates.
“It was your key on the counter that did it,” he said. “You rescued me, Mal.”
“It sounds like I deserted you alone on a night of sheer hell.”
“Nothing that could even come close to comparing to my emotional absence after our son died. I can’t promise that I won’t check out again at some point, for a time, but I can promise that I will always come back to you, Mal. That I will sit with you, and our daughters, no matter what you’re feeling. Please, Mal, say you’ll marry me. Please.” His eyes got moist and as uncomfortable as that might have made him, he didn’t seem to fight it.
“Oh, God, Bray, I...” she started to cry, but was smiling, too. “You feel like a trip to Vegas this weekend? I thought... Anyway,” she threw her arms around his neck, careful of her belly and the dog. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you,” she said, kissing him with all of the need inside her.
It was a few minutes before either of them could speak. Braden kissed her so hard they fell back against the couch. When she’d been ready to take things to the bedroom, he pulled back.
“And Lucky? You’re okay with keeping him?” She couldn’t believe it, but for a second there she’d actually forgotten about the dog.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said, petting the animal who was sitting there like he belonged to them. Looking at them like they belonged to him.
“I was thinking maybe I’d have William run the office in L.A. instead of San Diego.”
She grinned through her tears. Leave it to Braden to have the logistics all worked out. God, how she loved the man.
“And that I’d like to take you up on your offer and drive over to Nevada today and get married. I’d say fly, but we’ve got Lucky.”
“Driving is good,” she said. He hadn’t mentioned any appointments he might have that day, but as for herself, she’d call Julia and let her know she wouldn’t be in.
Braden continued to sit there, petting the dog.
“Bray?”
“Hmm?”
“You can put the dog down and make love to me now.”
He froze, then stared at her.
“It’s just dawning on me how much it’s going to kill me if I ever lose you again.”
“It’s not going to happen if I can help it, but even if it did someday, you’ll survive, Bray. Because that’s what love does. It gives you the strength to survive. No matter what.”
She had to hand it to him. He had the wherewithal to set the dog gently on a blanket on the floor before he grabbed Mallory up, laid her down on the couch and proceeded to get emotional all over her.
And in her.
Because just like she’d told her daughters, as long as they existed, they were candidates to be recipients of a miracle.
They just had to be patient until it arrived.
* * *
