“For what?” He runs his finger over the outline of her perfect features. “You’ve just made me the happiest man on the planet. This is the best day of my newlife.”
“Great.” I whimper once again. “I’ve got a car seat you can borrow back at the house, and Emma is all set up to take on a baby or two. I’m sure you’ll dofine.”
“Skyla”—he ticks his head back a notch, inspecting me—“you wouldn’t leaveher.”
Just like that, all of the anxiety, the nervous energy that’s been storming inside me up and disappears. “No. I’m afraid Ican’t.”
His eyes meet with mine, and he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Emma just invited me to dinner. She says the boys are there, and Gage is already on his way. We’ll tell them together.” He pulls me in, and the baby squirms with delight, cooing and laughing, shouting Ma Ma, Da Da over and over again as if it were her favorite song. Here we are a family. We’ve always been one. “Are we really going to call herAngel?”
“I think we should for now.” I bounce my finger over her tiny perfect nose, and she takes it by force into her mouth and begins to suckle off it. She’s hungry, and I can feel my breasts swelling to have her. Tears come as I try to contain my emotions. She’s so perfect, so beautiful, so in the wrong frame of time it makes both my head and my heart want to explode. “Maybe one day”—my voice breaks—“if…” But I can’t finish the sentence. For me to have a baby with Logan would be treason to my marriage with Gage, and I’m fighting tooth and nail to keep him. I know my mother. She’s fighting tooth and nail for me to lose him. As much as I want to call what she’s done a despicable act, I can’t find it in me to do so. This is one of her greatest gifts to me. “Maybe we can bypass all of those laws of biology and just keep her?” My hearts soars at theprospect.
A crackle of lightning goes off outside, and the lights dim enough for the patrons to let out an unsettledoohbefore life resumes as normal. Only for Logan and me—Gage, too—normal is something we will most likely neverexperience.
Emma answersthe door winded as if she were the one with earth-shattering news, and I can’t help but scowl at her a little. She is trouble. Kate said so herself—although, Kate seems hesitant to extrapolate on the idea. She did mention something about holding off until it was her time to go and then she would spill the troublesome beans. Just what kind of a witch is Emma that she should sponsor so much fear inKate?
Her eyes grow wild as she examines Logan and me, baby Angel tucked in my arms and happily drooling over my shoulder. Logan and I drove to Devil’s Peak. He happened to have two sets of car seats strapped into the back of the Mustang in the event he needed to pick up the twins. Demetri gifted us so many sets of those luxury baby confinement units I peppered everyone’s car with the devices that I could. And, of course, Angel snuggled up in one like an old pro. We watched the waves breaking out in the distance, gray and lonely, as if they were hungry for the shoreline they could only dream of reaching. It was that way for Logan and me right up until this afternoon when my mother brought the cutest little shoreline to us instead. We didn’t say anything at Devil’s Peak. Logan and I just stared out into the world as if we were aliens thrust on a foreign planet. There’s just too much to wade through at the moment. I don’t think if a thousand years went by that we could process itall.
“It looks as if you’ve brought a guest.” Emma bounces on her heels, her eyes slit with suspicion. “I’d set another plate at the table, but she looks a bit young to nosh on prime rib. Come in. She’ll catch her death out there. My God, she’s not even wearing a sweater. Her bare arms must be freezing!” And just like that, I feel like the world’s worstmother.
I glance to Logan as we make our way inside. Technically, to catch your death you’d have to beborn.
“Ellis and Giselle just got here themselves. They’re in the living room with the boys. I’d better get back to the kitchen to help Barron slice the roast. Who does this little one belong to, anyway?” She picks up the baby’s hand and gives her a gentle shake. Angel opens a lazy eye and shuts it once she sees it’s justEmma.
“She’s mine,” I say it candid yet cheesy, and Emma laughs in my face before taking off. I look to Logan and smile. “Who knew the truth could be sofreeing?”
We head into the living room to find Ellis and Giselle lost in a Disney animated feature, each with a sleeping boy in their arms, and both my heart and boobs ache at the sight of them. Ellis and Giselle hardly notice at all when Logan and I sit on the oppositesofa.
The baby squirms to life and nuzzles her head in mychest.
“Do you think she’s hungry?” Logan penetrates me with those citrine-colored eyes, and we share an intimate moment that borders on sexual. Logan Oliver has never looked so handsome as he does when inquiring on the nutritional needs of his sweet babygirl.
Just as I’m about to process the thought of what and how to feed her, Angel lifts my shirt and ducks underneath, yanks down my bra, and gets to work like a nipple-seasonedpro.
“I guess that answers thequestion.”
Logan leans in, his eyes contently set to mine. “I love you, Skyla. I know this isn’t the way things were supposed to be. I know that this beautiful child should probably never exist because I love you and Gage together.” His lips depress into a hard frown as he struggles to hold it together. “But I love her. I would die for her, just like I would you and the boys. And now we have a very certain problem on ourhands.”
My lips part as words struggle to come out, but that warm sensation of the baby, this baby, Logan’s baby, suckling off my body is intense in nature—commanding as her tiny teeth bite into me. And just like that, I feel the same way he does. This baby is ours. Shemustexist. She does. My mother sure knows how to throw a perfect wrench into my life and into my marriage. But once again, she’s underestimated the love I have for my husband. She’s underestimated meentirely.
I lean in, determined he hears me as I ready to pour out my heart. “This child isn’t going anywhere. I’m not giving herback.”
Logan’s eyes sparkle with tears as he gives a single sober nod. “Then we will fight to keepher.”
I reach over and take up his hand. “She’s home. Our little girl is here tostay.”
A shadow darkens the doorway, and we look up to find a strapping Gage Oliver with an ear-to-ear grin. “All my favorite people under one roof.” He swoops in and lands a tender kiss to my lips before kneeling in front of me, his cologne warming me with his love. He lifts my shirt, and his eyes grow wide a moment before he glancesup.
“Who is this?” All of the joy drains from his face as a morbid curiosity takesover.
He looks from Logan to me, and neither of us volunteers a singleword.
It’s not who she is that I’m afraid todivulge.
It’s what she has the power to do—orundo.
Gage
There aremoments trapped in silence such as this one when you blatantly realize that your life is about to change. Skyla and Logan open and close their mouths like dysfunctional marionettes, and neither seems to have an answer to the very simple question at hand. Who is this little girl feasting off my wife’s tit? It seems black and white, nothing too abstract. But I have the feeling life is about to get about as abstract as the laws of the universe willallow.
