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The Greenstone Security gang and their wives had begun to trickle in with the most perfect of timing, interrupting me having to tell Eliza what exactly was going on with Lance. Which was nothing, obviously.
Rosie, Lucy, and Polly brightened up the night, their energies warm and comforting. I felt as if I’d known them for years, and that I’d met them under different, happier circumstances. I had been so certain that everything attached to those twenty-four hours without Nathan would carry a horrifying reminder of what happened, even people. Especially people, because I would never have come into contact with these beautiful, glossy, foul-mouthed and kick-ass women in my regular life.
I’d braced when they’d arrived, not in the way Luke had suggested. More emotionally. Readied myself for flashbacks, something I was used to and still got when I smelled something, saw something or felt something that reminded me of my marriage.
PTSD was most likely what it was. I didn’t have the money for a therapist to tell me that, but I didn’t really need an overpaid professional to tell me my husband’s continual and brutal abuse left emotional wounds.
I did not get a single flashback when Rosie bowled through the door without knocking, grinning and a bottle of tequila in each hand. Her eyes went around my living room, with none of the distaste or judgment I might expect a woman with a three-thousand-dollar purse hanging from the crook of her arm to have at my shabby chic—and that was being generous—living room.
“Oh, you are a spiritual queen,” she deduced, without saying hello. She dumped the alcohol and the crazy expensive, beautiful purse on the coffee table and her eyes zeroed in on my Tarot cards. “You are so doing me later,” she decided.
Luke emerged from the hall where he’d been wiring up something, grinning at his wife. “Who is doing you later?” he asked, voice warm and teasing and sexy enough to make my knees weak.
Rosie’s eyes turned mischievous. “Well you, much, much later.” She winked before she moved her eyes around the room. “Is my child around here somewhere?”
I gestured to the back yard. “Playing with my neighbors and my kid.”
To say Nathan had taken to Rogue was an understatement. He was in love with a beautiful little boy to entertain and teach all sorts of things.
Her eyes lit up. “Great, I’ll leave them to it.” She picked up the tequila. “Where’s your blender?”
And that was Rosie’s entrance.
Polly’s was a little more subdued and she did greet me. She also presented me with a small wrapped box. I took it, surprised. A lump formed in my throat when I opened it.
“Agate—grounding and strengthening,” she whispered. “I was worried it was a risky thing to give someone, considering that people have some strong opinions about crystals.” She looked around the room. “Now I see it was the right choice.”
I nodded, unable to say anything more.
She smiled warmly, obviously understanding that I couldn’t speak.
I didn’t have to, because of Heath emerging from behind her, a beautiful little girl in his arms and an equally beautiful little boy at his side.
He was older. Had to be about eleven. Tall, gangly, but in a way you’d know he’d grow into it. He had deep caramel skin and piercing blue eyes that radiated with a deepness no child could have. Because a deepness like that was carved out from pain. Suffering. None of which lay behind those eyes right at that moment, but it had been there.
“This is Ziggy,” Heath said, ruffling the boy’s already messy hair. “He’s our son.”
Ziggy had a reaction to this. A palpable glow went over him, his aura. A happiness that could only come from people who had experienced true suffering.
He was theirs. Completely. But not by blood. Birth. By heart. Soul. It was something anyone could see, feel. It was beautiful.
“Hey Ziggy,” I said, smiling. “I’ve got a little boy named Nathan who is quite a bit younger than you but is sufficiently mischievous to provide you with entertainment. He’s out back.”
Ziggy’s eyes lit up even more and he tipped his head upward to Heath in a silent question. Heath smiled down at him in a way that hit my heart. Pure adoration. Dedication. The exact way a father should look at a son. Robert had never looked at Nathan that way.
“Of course. Go and raise hell, Zig,” Heath said.
The quiet boy rewarded his father, and everyone around him with the widest and most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.
He held out his arms. “I’ll take my buddy,” he said, voice quiet but clear and strong.
Heath smiled even wider and handed the little girl to his skinny awaiting arms. She immediately made a little sound of happiness and curled into Ziggy’s chest.
I bit my lip to stop from crying at this as Ziggy moved through the living room, slowly, carefully, purposefully.
