The boss had their backs. Nestor and Victor sent baby furniture.
Little Alejandro had a lot of powerful people in his corner.
Lucky hoped he’d never need them.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Are you ready?” Bo had taken extra care this morning, in khaki slacks with a pale blue button-down shirt. He’d left off cologne, but he’d shaved and brushed his hair back into waves.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Lucky wore jeans and a Bob Seger T-shirt. Might as well let the little guy know up front who Lucky was.
“We’ll be waiting,” Charlotte said, arm wrapped around her tall son. More than likely she’d pack the house slam full of people while they were gone.
Bo drove the Bronco, not saying much on the way to their destination, but he held Lucky’s hand the whole time. “I’m nervous,” he finally said.
“You’d be crazy if you weren’t.”
Bo pulled into a parking space at the hospital. “What if I screw this up?”
Wasn’t that Lucky’s line? “You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s not who you are. Now, c’mon. Someone’s waiting for you.” Lucky leaned over the console and brushed his lips across Bo’s.
In less than a year they’d be making this trip again. If Lucky’s heart swelled any bigger it might explode into a million pieces.
The held Bo’s hand up the walkway. Who the fuck cared if someone they didn’t even know didn’t approve of their PDA? No one said anything, and if someone glared their way, well, Lucky showed them the finer points of public displays of affection by raising Bo’s hand and kissing the knuckles.
At last they entered the hospital, breezed right on by the reception desk and to a waiting elevator. On the way up, Lucky gave Bo’s hand another squeeze. “Let’s not keep the boss waiting.”
He ambled down the hall. How many times had Lucky been to this hospital, to talk to witnesses, to get patched up, to see Walter? To watch his son through panes of glass.
This was the first time he’d come here happy as all fuck, though his heart still might explode. He stopped in a waiting room. “I’ll wait right here.”
Bo hesitated a minute, then conceded. “I’ll be right back.”
Lucky waited, checking the time on his cell phone every few minutes. What was taking so long? Was there a problem? Should he go see? Call in the cavalry?
After the longest hour in history Bo returned, The Dimple joined by the smaller indention on the other side of Bo’s mouth.
In his arms he held a bundle of blue blankets. An orderly came up behind him with a cart laden with basins, bags and equipment they’d need at home.
Bo blinked back glittering tears and lowered the blankets to give Lucky a look at the contents.
Black hair, black lashes over closed eyelids. Adorable snubbed nose.
This kid was going to wrap Lucky around his little finger.
Lucky bent and kissed his son’s dark head. “C’mon, Alejandro, let’s get you home.”
***
Lucky sat in the back of Bo’s truck with the car seat and portable heart monitor, watching Alejandro sleep. Every now and then the baby sucked his bottom lip. Dark eyelashes swept his dusky cheeks.
Cars. Trucks. Motorcycles. The front yard resembled a used car lot.
The Schollenberger-Lucklighter-Harrison house no longer stood out as a poor relation next to better-dressed cousins, though if one looked closely they’d notice the cracks in the driveway, the mismatched boards in the privacy fence where Lucky finally got around to a patch job during his enforced leave of absence, and the garage door they finally coerced to open and close, only to fix it in a permanently down position.
