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Laney shook her head. “It was a long journey, and I haven’t been able to keep much food in, but Wes was an admirable nurse to me.”
The wrinkles across his grandmother’s forehead deepened. “The babe is still fine in your belly?”
Laney’s hand went down to her belly, rubbing it as she smiled. “Kicking more than ever today. Probably because I am upright for a change. Land is already doing me well.”
“Good. Then you won’t be getting ideas of getting back on a ship and going anywhere until my newest great-grandchild is born. Henrietta was my youngest and I missed her so after she married her baron. Missed her mightily. So I would very much like to meet this babe.” She nodded to herself, her hand settling in her lap. “Very much indeed.”
~~~
Laney closed the wide white double doors to their chamber and collapsed back against it. “You didn’t tell me.”
Wes dropped the latest pile of knitted blankets and toys and clothes that he had balanced in his arms onto the settee that sat next to the fireplace in their sitting room, then turned back to his wife.
She was stuck against the door in a pale violet dress, her head tilted back, her eyes closed, her hands wrapped just under her protruding belly.
She’d never been more beautiful.
He stalked over to her and set his palms on the door on either side of her head, capturing her for the first time today. He’d barely had time to say ten words to her in the last nine hours, so quickly had they been swept up in the tidal wave of his mother’s family.
His lips went onto her forehead. Two full days on land and the color was back in her cheeks, plus she’d eaten today. Real food, real bites that didn’t decide to reappear. For how far away from him she’d been set the whole day, he’d kept careful watch for panic in her eyes just in case he needed to swoop her away before her stomach decided it was back on the ship.
His lips trailed down to the tip of her nose. “I didn’t know either. I had only met Lance, Rebecca and grandmother the one time I visited the city. It was a short visit and it was at her city residence. I was in port and wanted to meet her for my mother’s sake, but I had cut the visit short, even though she insisted I stay longer.”
She opened her eyes to him. “Why did you leave?”
He shrugged. “I was angry, as always. Didn’t want her or Lance or Rebecca to mistake the visit—to think I was there to ask anything of them. I wasn’t and I thought they looked at me with suspicion, so pride made me leave.”
“So you never got around to discussing this place?” Laney’s hand motioned in a circle at her side.
Wes chuckled. “No, I had no idea she owned this place outside the city and on the bay. And I certainly had no idea I had twenty-three cousins, each with families of their own.”
Laney laughed, her head shaking. “Twenty-three.”
“I know. It was too much, I know. They also didn’t mention years ago a thing about how large the family was.” His hand went to her belly. “I’m sorry you were bombarded with it—hell, I’m sorry I was bombarded with it.”
Her hand went to his chest, splaying wide, and the smile didn’t leave her face. “No, I loved it. Quite truly. They are delightful and funny and warm and so very the opposite of all those that had turned their noses up at us in London.” Her look went to the sitting room. “And how many piles of blankets and gowns and toys did you bring up here today? One would think I was giving birth to royalty.”
Wes nodded. “These people do like to celebrate.” His hand on her belly rubbed the hard mound. “But still, you need rest, and then there was this—this explosion of people. Grandmother could have warned us. Or Lance. He knew full well what we were walking into here.”
“They probably thought we would have politely excused ourselves and run.”
“We should have.”
She laughed. “No, actually, the last thing I need is more lying on my back. I had enough of that on the ship to last me a good twenty years.” She went to her toes, kissing him. “This—this was glorious. Rebecca is so kind and such a wit, and I talked for an hour with Margaret, and when there were races Judith and I had so much fun betting on not who would be first but who would be third. And Edel—I feel like I’ve known her forever. And that your grandmother owns a home large enough to fit all twenty-three of them and their families for events like this—that is beyond impressive. How did you not realize this existed?”
A frown set on his face. “I had no inkling my mother came from all of this. My father never talked of my mother’s family—never spoke of my mother at all. Every time I asked, I could see the pain in his eyes and I would change the subject. Eventually I stopped asking. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Well, it may have taken years, but they have you now and you have them.”
He smiled. “And you have all of us.”
Two days they’d been surrounded by family and he still couldn’t quite believe that his bloodline held all of this and he never knew. People with such generosity and kindness that had taken to not only him—but even more importantly, to Laney. They’d genuinely embraced her so fully, so warmly, that he was dumbfounded.
He looked down into her amber eyes, the green flecks sparkling, mesmerizing him.
She was happy.
His wife was happy to her core and his heart expanded hard in his chest. He’d worried for months that this was the wrong decision—coming to America—but he could already see on her face how very right this was.
What she’d always wanted. Him. Family. To exist beyond herself with others. For that was when her heart was the fullest. What he’d always wanted to give her, and here it was. Here it had been all along.
And it was only the beginning. The beginning of their forever.
Finally.
Two broken halves forged into one indestructiblewhole.
