“I just don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Jace said softly. “I think I’ll need a passport to get Willa out of the country, but I don’t have any contacts here.”
I sighed and looked up at him. “Can I have your phone?” I asked.
He handed it to me.
“Do you trust me, Jace?” I asked.
“Always,” he responded without hesitation.
I smiled, then turned my attention to the phone. Once I dialed the number I wanted, I leaned into Jace’s side as he put his arm around me. When the voice on the other end picked up, I said, “Mav, it’s Caleb. Jace and I are okay, but we need some help—”
That was all I got out before Mav interrupted me to ask where we were and that he was coming to get us.
I closed my eyes and smiled.
Thank God for family.
Chapter 19
Jace
We’d been here before.
Driving in Ronan’s SUV from the private airport where we’d landed mere minutes earlier in his personal jet.
A few things were different, though.
Mav and Eli weren’t with us.
But we were plus one infant.
And the Caleb who was pressed against my side was no longer the vulnerable teenager I’d saved two years earlier.
Sure, he was technically still a teen, but he’d acted with more maturity and responsibility than many adults I’d met.
Myself included.
While I’d been practically paralyzed with grief, Caleb had taken on the task of caring for a newborn with next to no experience. As if he hadn’t already had enough on his plate, he’d somehow still managed to be there for me, too.
I’d been drowning.
Pure and simple.
The second we’d gotten to the hotel room and we’d been safe from the reach of the man who’d murdered my sister, I’d given in to the numbness my body had been craving. I’d spent hours in a placein my mind where my sister was still alive and I was back on that boat with Caleb, contemplating what our future would look like.
Now I had to contemplate a different future.
One in which I was now a father.
I didn’t even know what to do with that.
But I’d known that was what I was as soon as I’d picked Willa up this morning. She’d been crying pretty loudly when I’d woken up. The fact that Caleb had slept through it had been proof of how exhausted he must have been. Strangely enough, having Willa wake me up kept me from having to go through the stages of grief all over again. Acknowledging that my sister really was gone had taken a back seat to trying to figure out what Willa needed from me at that moment.
Silver had been right.
The second I’d picked her up and she’d looked at me with her big, watery eyes, I’d felt it. And the resentment I’d felt had slipped away as if it’d never been. There’d been no question that Willa was my future.
It was what Maggie had wanted.
