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Clara said nothing, but she didn’t need to. Kristen smiled at everyone and said, “I love you, all my girls.”
“Mom,” Mandie said, breaking the moment. Robin turned toward her. “Jamie and Damien just left.”
“What?” Robin charged out of the circle like a rhinoceros on a rampage, and Alice rolled her eyes.
“Here we go,” she said dryly. “Now that the Tell-All is over, can we break out the mocktails? I was promised mocktails.”
“As was I,” Laurel said.
“Comin’ up,” Arthur announced, and Eloise returned to her husband. Instead of sitting in her own chair, she sat in his lap.
“Are you going to die without Laurel?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “She’s a good cop. She can’t be replaced.”
Eloise watched as everyone livened up. Snacks and drinks and food got taken out and passed around. She loved beach day so very much.
“Do you want a baby, El?” Aaron asked, his mouth very close to her ear. “If you want a baby, I’ll do what I can to help you get one.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, which was the truth.
“We can work on it tonight if you want.”
She smiled and turned to face him. “I think that’s whatyouwant.”
“I can’t help it if my wife is the sexiest woman alive,” he murmured just before kissing her. Eloise loved how he treasured her, and she kissed him back briefly. No need for a show on the beach. She sighed as she settled her head against his shoulder and thought about what a baby with half of her genes and half of his would look like.
Not like Billie and Grace, she knew that. She also didn’t want those girls to think they weren’t enough for her. But a baby of her own… Eloise would definitely have to think about it.
ChapterTwenty-One
Jean pushed through the door at the top of the lighthouse, where Reuben worked. She hadn’t even tried to understand the monitors, screens, and controls he operated, but she smiled at him as he twisted in his chair to see who’d come to join him.
Spoiler alert—it was always her. He locked the door to the top of the lighthouse at the base of the stairs right past the entrance to their living quarters, and only Jean had the key.
“Hey.” He got to his feet and came toward her. In three steps, he arrived and kissed her quickly. “What are you doing up here?”
“I just checked in for our flight,” she said. “And we need to send our top choice name to Becky.”
His eyebrows went up, and nerves raced through Jean. “I just got an email from her,” she explained. The young woman was nineteen years old, pregnant for the first time, and currently lived in Boston. She’d just finished her first year of college, and she had big plans and dreams for her future. She didn’t want a baby right now, and when her boyfriend had bailed, Becky had started looking at adoption options.
She’d tried to get Reuben and Jean to text with her off the Chosen Family website, which she wasn’t supposed to do. Jean hadn’t been comfortable with it, and Miranda had told her not to participate until the adoption was all the way complete. Finalized, and there was no way Becky could somehow take them to court and remove the placement.
She simply messaged through the agency, and Jean checked several times each day, as Becky seemed to have a lot of questions. “What if we tell her a name she hates?”
Reuben didn’t laugh, because he’d known Jean long enough to know he shouldn’t. “Honey, she’s not going to choose someone else because she doesn’t like our top name. It’s our baby.”
“But it’s not really,” Jean fretted. “What should I tell her?”
“I thought we’d decided on Heidi,” Reuben said. He twisted and picked up his can of soda pop. “Right?”
“I do love Heidi,” she murmured. But would Becky? She had the email open—she’d come up specifically to talk to Reuben about this—and she quickly tapped in the letters of Heidi’s name and sent the message.
Her anxiety didn’t lessen with the task done. “I’m going to go finish up that jumpsuit for her. Then, I’ll get everything packed.” They were leaving in the morning, and Jean didn’t think she’d be able to sleep tonight at all.
“Leave me something to do, sweetheart,” he said. “Okay? You don’t have to do everything.”
Jean nodded and said, “Okay,” and left him in the uppermost part of the lighthouse, windows for three-hundred and sixty degrees. As such, the room could get unbearably hot if they lost power for any amount of time at all.
