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It felt like an explosion happened in her chest. The joy that she hadn’t been able to feel for the past few hours suddenly burst there like a firework.
Theirbaby. They were having a baby. A baby that was hers and his, and she thought of those lonely children they had been when they’d met each other, and wished that those kids could’ve known. What they would make together. Because it was a deep, extravagant joy that she had never once truly thought would be for her. Yes, she had planned on getting married. Yes, she had planned on having children, but she hadn’t imagined anything half as wonderful as this.
“I love you,” she said.
He leaned in and he kissed her, and the only thing that she noticed, the only thing that made her joy feel a little bit more tentative, was the fact that he didn’t say it back. He had said it less and less. She noticed that.
But he had said it. So it must still be true. The way that he kissed her seemed to suggest that it was, and she was just going to go ahead and take that as her evidence. It was the only real evidence she needed.
They were going to have a baby. And it was going to be wonderful. Because he had been the most wonderful thing in her life for all these years, and it wasn’t going to change now. Now that he was everything. It would only get better. It had to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THEYWEREHAVINGa baby. A baby. He’d wanted that. He wanted that all this time. He was thrilled. He really was.
And he’d invited his brothers out to tell them the news.
Because he was determined to tell them all the way they’d told each other. To react the way they all had.
So maybe he was supposed to be reformed. Maybe he was going to be a dad, but he felt like he was allowed to go out and have a drink in celebration. Anyway, Charity had cleared him to do so. He had left her with a bowl of soup and a packet of saltines, and she had seemed sleepy and happy when he’d left. His heart felt raw. A bit bruised.
But it was okay.
He shoved aside his reservations.
He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him anyway. There wasn’t really anything.
Nothing he could put a finger on. Nothing he had words for. Just the general kind of issues that he always had.
He tried to imagine holding a tiny baby. He held his nephew, of course, but that was different. It wasn’t his. This one... It was going to be his responsibility. This one washis.
When he thought of the wordfather, he saw a madman in his mind, and what the hell was he supposed to do with that?
Just think of Albert. Albert was a good dad. And you saw him. You saw him be a good dad to Charity. You can figure it out.
Except when he thought of it like that he couldn’t help but think that what she really needed was to be with a guy like Byron, because Byron had basically been Albert but younger. And maybe that was the thing that he really should have been. The thing that her partner really should’ve been.
But he had been too selfish, too possessive of her to let her be with anyone else.
Well, now she’s having your baby. So buck up.
“I’m buying a round,” he said, when they were all seated at the table.
“Great. Why?” Brody asked.
“Wait till you have the beer.”
The bartender passed the beers around the table, and Lachlan raised his. “I’m having a baby.”
The table erupted with no small amount of whooping and hollering.
“So toast to me, stepping into adult life.”
“Congrats,” Gus said, clanking the beer bottle against his.
“It’s a good life,” Brody said. “It’s a good life.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Brody,” Gus said. “But you only have the kid half the time.”
