I slowly shake my head back and forth.
Nick climbs to his feet. He holds out a hand, his face pale and stoic. “At least let me drive you to the hospital. Then…”
“Then you’ll come inside and celebrate with our family while I’m with Kara bringing a new miracle into it,” I inform him calmly.
“Wait. What?” Nick’s fingers jerk beneath mine. His mask drops and I see the misery and pain reflected in my own heart. I also recognize something else that’s branded all over me.
Love.
And it reminds me of something Jed said. I step close and I touch his face. “Jed once said family never has to ask for forgiveness because over the course of a lifetime we’re both right and wrong so many times if we kept count we’d do nothing else. I think he was trying to get out of the fact he chopped off my Barbie doll’s hair at the time.”
“Maris, this is a hell of a lot more than…” Nick begins, but I lay my fingers across his lips. I smile when he brushes his lips against them.
“Do you love me?” I hold my breath as I wait for his answer.
Nick moves my fingers aside to answer. “I’ve loved you since you were eighteen and you wore a polka-dot bikini with cutoff shorts in your backyard. If what you’re asking me is if I’m always going to be in love with you, the forever-after kind, the answer to that is yes.”
“Then don’t you think it’s time we figured out how to love each other without hurting…” I don’t get a chance to finish because Nick’s lifting me in his powerful arms, not to kiss me but to bury his face in the side of my neck.
“When will you stop paying the price for me? You’ve lost your family and your faith because of me.” He manages to get those words out before I feel the wetness of his tears against my skin. His shoulders shake under my arms. Each drop knits together a wound. A strong man’s outpouring of love sending the lingering hurt away. Slowly, combined with my own, we send the pain floating away, leaving us refreshed and renewed.
When he lifts his head, he looks much like I imagine I did when I first arrived, a shipwreck drifting aimlessly. I thread my fingers into his hair before I reach up and kiss his lips gently. “I love you, Nick. I told you that wouldn’t change.”
His eyes fire. His arms tighten around me. Before he can swoop in and kiss me senseless, I pull away. “But we have to go. Jennings is going to be a mess in that delivery room. Someone has to go in and help Kara deliver her baby.”
He yanks me back into his arms before pressing his lips against mine quickly and setting me back. After weeks of being denied the taste of him, I rock into him. “Then let’s go. Now. Otherwise you’ll meet the baby sometime next week.”
“Baby?” I murmur, dazed.
He just lets loose the private smile that won me over decades ago when he told me my brother should never, as in ever, wear flamingos, causing me to laugh. “Baby. Kara. Jennings.”
I snap out of my stupor and race around him to snatch up my purse and room key. “Come on, Nick! Let’s go!”
He laughs freely. And in that moment, it’s the best sound of the night.
Until Kara’s daughter is born a few hours later, that is.
Nicholas
“What are you doing here?” Rainey’s brows lower suspiciously.
Brad slips an arm around her, whether just to touch her or to hold her back from taking a similar shot to the one Jennings did before he left to be with Kara. His words ring more in my head than the clip I took to the jaw. “Make this right with her, Nick. She may never give you another chance. And then where will you be?” And even though by some miracle, the forgiveness I begged for from the woman I love was granted, it’s not just her whom I need to seek amends.
I’ve wounded people all along my journey by being afraid to let them in. That stops now.
“I flew here to tell Maris I’m late in pulling my head out of my ass because I’ve been making plans to move to Juneau.”
“Perfect. I know where to hide the dead bodies there,” Rainey snaps before her body locks in Brad’s arms. “Wait? What did you say?” I can barely hear her voice over the cacophony of sound in the hospital waiting room—phones ringing and bodies moving all around us while we’re in our own bubble.
My eyes dart over her shoulder to Brad. His serious mien relaxes into a broad smile. “Well, this makes up for you missing our wedding, you douche.”
A laugh escapes my lips just as Rainey whirls and slaps her husband in the chest. “This isn’t about me and you, Brad! Do you remember the state Maris was in when Nick left?”
“And did you see her face when she walked through the door a few moments ago? When was the last time you saw Maris Ione Smith glowing like that? Maybe we were in our twenties,” he challenges his wife.
Rainey scrunches her nose while she thinks, but I keep my mouth shut because I know differently. The last time I remember that glow, it was beaming at me along with the Alaskan sun. We were lying in bed before she got ready to go to work the night that fuckwad Carter showed up. We’d spent the morning loving, then simply lying in each other’s arms. Making plans for a house of cards that was about to be blown over with nothing more than my disrupting a single card.
Since the women took to calling us “the Jacks,” I researched the meaning behind each of the cards in the deck. The Jack of Diamonds wears a crown of good values. That’s our Brad. Rock solid, trying to do what’s best for everyone—even now as his wife faces off against me to protect the woman I love. Then there’s the Jack of Spades, who devotes his life to works for the love of their job. If that doesn’t describe the man Kody became, I don’t know which one of us it is. The Jack of Clubs is supposedly a young visionary, symbolizing the future. Here we are—waiting for the future of all of us to continue with Jennings. That leaves me. The last Jack in the deck. The Jack of Hearts. Climbing to immeasurable greatness and an emotional tyrant.
Sounds about right. But somehow, some way, Maris still loves me. For the rest of my life, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect that and her.
I clear my throat. “I know it’s going to take time to repair my relationship with Maris, with all of you. But for her sake, for the years we have between us, I’m asking for a chance to show you I’ve changed.”
“No, you haven’t,” Rainey declares abruptly.
There’s a part of me that begins to pull back, automatically recoiling from any disappointment—much like I did for years. “I’m sorry if you feel that way. Perhaps over time…”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Nick.” I’m taken aback by Rainey’s declaration until she breaks away from Brad. Wrapping an arm around my waist, she leans up, presses a kiss on my cheek, and whispers, “We’ve loved you all these years just as you are. Why do we want you to change from being an egotistical—”
“Closed off,” Brad contributes. I shoot him a fulminating glare. He shrugs. “Sorry, buddy. It’s the truth.”
“Any other names you want to add to the list?”
It’s the voice that comes from behind shocks us all.
“Uncle.” We all whirl around as a beaming Maris makes her way toward us. Rainey steps back, and Maris slides up against me to rest for just a moment before asking, “Where’s Kevin?”