He turns me, presses me against the outside of the building, his tall, hard body fitting mine like it was always meant to be.
He uses the wall for balance—uses me, too. We hold each other up while he kisses me senseless and seals our future at the same time.
"And I do like to win, sweetheart."
I smile against his lips. "Bring it, big guy."
Nothing about the road to this moment has been easy. But I didn't come to Carolina Cove to be saved. I came because I'm done begging to belong.
But here, in Kace's arms, I don't have to beg.
And I know it's where I belong.
Chapter 42
Sully
The guys and I are in the kitchen at the firehouse when the call comes in, followed by a flurry of pings hitting Gabe's and Kace's cell phones.
"Looks like this could be it," Gabe says, grinning at Kace. "You ready, Daddy?"
"Don't call me Daddy. It weirds me out," Kace counters, drawing chuckles from all of them and grinning from ear to ear as they rush toward the vehicles.
In minutes, we're inside Salt Air Media, and Sully grins at the sound of Lindsey firing off a list of protests and things that need to be done to some poor woman writing them down as fast as she can. Lindsey is a woman driven in all the right ways, and she's the perfect match for my friend.
"Thank goodness. Will you please get her out of here," Quinley, Lindsey's boss, says when she sees them. "I've been trying to send her home all morning."
I catch Kace's frown.
"Were you having contractions this morning when you left for work?" Kace asks Lindsey, giving her an incredulous stare.
"Maybe? But just teeny-tiny ones. I'm fine. These are Braxton-Hicks again. The hospital will laugh at me if I go again and it's a false alarm. It's no big deee—ahhhh." She breaks off, gasping.
I exchange a look with Gabe, who's just shaking his head. This isn't our first baby run, and there's a look women get when the contractions are the delivery-level kind.
Lindsey's got the look.
"You want me to do the honors?" I ask Kace, just to rile him because he saw the same expression as we did, and he's a little pale and shook. It's my way of getting his head back in the game.
"Touch her and die," he growls, moving toward her. He drops a kiss to Lindsey's lips before squatting down in front of the chair where she's sitting. "Okay, sweetheart, I need to see what we've got going on."
"Wait, what? What are you doing? There are people in here," she hisses at him. "You can't just— You can't mean to just— No! Kace," she says, batting at his hands when he touches the hem of her dress.
"Clear the room!" Gabe says. "Everybody out who isn't a first responder."
Lindsey's sitting in an office chair, and Kace turns it around so that her back is to us. "Sweetheart, I love you, and I've told you this over and over. I've delivered babies before."
"But it'll be weird. We'll be weird."
Gabe and I exchange a look, barely managing to hold our humor in check.
"How far apart are the contractions? Anyone been timing them?" Kace asks.
"They've been getting closer for the last hour, but she refused to let me call you until I put my foot down and did it anyway," Quinley says, standing one foot in and one out of the doorway.
"Because they're fake. They're not real. I'm perfectly fi— Oh. Oh, oooh, boy."
I can't stop my chuckle. "Kace's gonna delivery his own baby."
