She was building a life here.
With me.
I turned back to the cradle, running my hand along the smooth rails. Every joint was tight, every surface baby safe. No sharp edges, no toxic finishes. I'd researched everything obsessively, same way I did everything when it came to Lena.
When it came to protecting what was mine.
The door to the workshop creaked open and I looked up to find Lena standing there, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other supporting her lower back.
"You've been out here for hours," she said, but there was no accusation in her tone. Just observation.
"Lost track of time." I set down the sandpaper I'd picked up. "You should be resting."
"I've been resting. I got bored." She waddled over, that particular pregnant woman walk that made my chest tight with something I couldn't quite name. "Is that it?"
"Yeah." I stepped aside so she could see the cradle fully.
Her breath caught. "Killian."
"You like it?"
"Like it?" She reached out, fingers tracing the carved antlered woman. "It's perfect. It's... is this my drawing?"
"The one from your sketchbook. The page I took." I wasn't ashamed of it anymore. We'd moved past shame months ago.
Tears filled her eyes. Pregnancy hormones made her cry at everything these days, but I still hated seeing it.
"Hey." I pulled her against me, or as against me as her belly would allow. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." She laughed wetly. "I just... I can't believe you remembered. That you'd put it on our daughter's cradle."
"I remember everything about you, Lena. You know that."
She did. She knew exactly how deep my obsession went, how I'd catalogued every detail of her life before we even spoke. And she'd married me anyway.
"I love you," she said, looking up at me with those dark eyes that had haunted me from the first moment I saw her on that trail cam.
"I love you too." I kissed her forehead, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with paint and sunshine. "Both of you."
My hand found her belly, and right on cue, the baby kicked against my palm. Strong, insistent. Just like her mother.
"She's going to be stubborn," Lena said.
"Good. She'll need to be, growing up with us."
Lena laughed, the sound filling my chest with warmth. "We're really doing this, aren't we? Bringing a baby into our... situation."
"Our situation is called a marriage, baby. A perfectly normal marriage."
"There's nothing normal about us."
"No." I pulled her closer, one hand still on her belly, feeling our daughter move beneath my palm. "But it's ours. And it's real. And it's forever."
She tilted her head back to look at me. "Promise?"
"I've never let you go yet, have I?"
"No." A smile tugged at her lips. "You really haven't."
