Her pout was pink as a plum blossom.
She squirmed fitfully in my arms, shoving a tiny fist out of her blanket to grip my finger like a heavyweight boxer, and I fell in love.
“She’s beautiful, Ari,” I whispered. “Let’s hope she has your looks and Tag’s disposition.”
“You came all this way to curse my child?” Ariel glared down at me. “I happen to think your brother is an extremely handsome man.”
They talked for a while. Ariel asked Sebastian and Molly mild questions about his job and how long he thought he’d be staying. If I hadn’t been so content sitting with Artemis in my lap, I’d have probably noticed more of what was being said and that Sebastian was fading fast.
Molly touched my shoulder. “We should probably head out. Sebastian looks tired.”
“What?” I glanced up to find every eye on me, even Tag's. When had he returned?
“You were in your own little world,” said Ariel.
“I must be tired too.” Ariel came to take Artemis from me.
Sebastian let Molly help him to his feet.
“The last few days really took their toll,” he said quietly. “You guys spent so much time with me in the hospital. We all need to sleep for a week.”
“I hope you will,” said Ariel as she walked us outside. Tag led us to his SUV. “I left a U-shaped body pillow in Stone’s cabin for you. It was really useful for me when I was pregnant. I washed the cover, of course, but also the pillow, and I beat the heck out of it until the feathers were fluffy again. I thought it might help you find a comfortable position to sleep in.”
Sebastian looked like he might cry. “Thank you very much. I’m sorry if I’m going to be a big drip for a while.”
Ariel put her arm around him. “You’re fine. Drip away.”
Molly and Sebastian followed Tag, but Ariel stopped me on the porch.
She took my hand. “You should probably know that Serena called yesterday. She sent Artemis a lovely gift and a box of Sadie’s baby things.”
“I see.”
“There will never, ever be a better time for you to reconnect with your family.”
“One crisis at a time, Ari.” I tried to pull away, but even holding a baby, Ari wasn’t that easy to get around.
“Is Serena a crisis to you? Are your children a crisis?”
“Ari—” I couldn’t look at her. “Can’t we just talk about this later?”
“No, baby. Not this time. You know what I see on your face when you look at Sebastian? I see spring. I see hope. I see a man coming back to life. Caring about someone else, even a stranger, can do that for you.”
“I’m not—” I stammered. “We’re not—”
“Caring about Sebastian, putting his wellbeing before your comfort, has pulled you from all the old fears and resentments of the past and forced you to live in the present moment for the first time since I've known you.”
“So what?” I asked tersely. “Will Serena resent me any less for the pain I caused her? Will I seem like less of a monster to the kids just because I’m trying to help a sick friend?”
Ariel gave me a wounded look. “One thing for certain is you won’t know for sure until you reach out and ask.”
“It’s too late.”
She gripped me tighter. “But what if it isn’t?”
“Ari. I couldn’t handle it if they rejected me. Not again.”
“But what if they don’t?”
She cupped the side of my face and brushed her thumb over the ripples of scars there. She even—God help me—pushed my eye patch out of the way and laid bare the whole gory reality that was my face and smiled warmly at me.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away.
Tears spilled from my good eye, but I didn’t push her away as I once would have.
Tag honked. “Let him go, Ariel. You can interrogate him later.”
I thought I’d lost everything, but it turned out that this—the idea, the possibility that someday my children and I could come together as an extended family—was the chip I’d kept hidden in my pocket.
As long as I held on to that, I still had something.
If I gambled now, if I played my last chip and lost, there really would be nothing holding me in place anymore. Not a single thing would remain of the life I’d had for thirty years.
No. Wait. There was still my first family—Mom, Dad, Taggart, and now Ariel. There was Artemis. I had a job that I loved there at the sanctuary, and I’d proved I could make new friends.
I was still Stone Wilder.
I would always be Stone Wilder, no matter what happened to my face. If I could prove I still had Stone Wilder inside me, then maybe Serena and the kids could see me again. Maybe they could forgive me for losing myself for so long.
All I had to give Ariel was a nod.
She put my eye patch back in place. “The eye patch just makes you mysterious, you know. It’s jaunty.”
I said, “Hush, you.”
“If you need anything…” She left it open ended.
“I’ll let you know.”
I slid into Tag’s SUV and he took off for my cabin which was a short distance—but felt like an entire world—away. How was I to begin building a bridge between me and the family I’d walked away from. Could I even do it?
Four years was a long time to go without seeing someone.
At the kids’ ages, four years was a lifetime.
They didn’t know me. They couldn’t possibly trust me.
What did I have to show for the time we’d been apart? A cabin in the woods? A few friends? From the cargo area, where Tag had put Morrigan, a long snout nudged me behind my ear.
“Yeah, I know.” She leaned her head against the back of my neck. “I get it, Morrigan.”
On my other side, Sebastian pressed against me. I glanced down to find him sleeping, arms carefully placed on a pillow in his lap. He’d turned just enough so he could rest his head against my shoulder. I brushed his fine hair off his face and tucked what I could behind his ear.
When I lifted my gaze, I saw my brother watching me in the rearview mirror.
“Glad to be home, brother?” he asked.
Yes, I was glad to be home.
Chapter Sixteen
Bast
Stone’s cabin really was a “cabin” made of actual logs with some fieldstone accents in a grove of aspen trees.
“I think we died,” Molly whispered, “and heaven is a Hallmark movie soundstage.”
“There aren’t any stairs after these,” Stone said as we walked up to the wide porch. He unlocked the door and held it open for Molly and me. “This is the living room. That way is the kitchen. Bedrooms are down this hall to the right.”
I’d barely gotten a glimpse of leather furniture and a Franklin stove before he moved us along.
“This is my office.” He tapped on the first door. “I’ll be sleeping in there. Bathroom. Guest room.”
He opened the door for Molly, whose things had already been placed on the bed. Her room was cozy with simple country quilts decorating the bed. There was a dresser and a nightstand with a lamp.