“Oh my goodness. That’s awful.”
“She and Luke have a baby daughter named Lily. Maybe she’s someone you could talk to about this.”
“I can’t just ask some woman I’ve never met to tell me about her deepest grief.”
“I’ve gotten to know Luke fairly well. Would you mind if I asked him how she might feel about it?”
“You’re sure it wouldn’t be weird to ask about something like that?”
“Everyone here is so nice. Luke is such a good guy. I can’t imagine him being offended in any way by me asking the question. I mean, he was speaking rather freely about her losses in front of me the other day.”
“True.” Dara thought about it for a minute before she shifted her gaze to meet his. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask him. But please tell him to tell her there’s no pressure.”
“I will.” He continued to caress her as they talked. “Does that mean we’re on hold until we can address the birth control issue?”
“How would you feel about condoms? You know, just until we decide we really want to try.”
He wrinkled his nose to tell her his true feelings on the topic. “I’ll get some.”
“My hero.”
“Haha. Hardly.”
“No, Olly, you are. I wouldn’t still be here without you. Even when it seemed I was pushing you away, knowing you were still there made all the difference.”
“Same here. I kept telling myself we’d survive it as long as we stuck together.”
“Have we survived it?” she asked.
“We’re in the process of surviving it, and we probably will be for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes, I guess that’s true. I just want you to know I’m thankful to be surviving it with you, even if it seemed at times that wasn’t the case.”
He gazed into her eyes. “I’m glad to be surviving it with you, too. After all, there’s no one else in this world who loved him like we did.”
“Except the grandparents.”
“Yeah, they loved him, too.”
“I feel like I let them down.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “A terrible thing happened, but it was no one’s fault. We did everything we could to keep him safe. I had the right to take a nap when I thought my son was safe in his room. You had the right to work. We were both in the house, and this still happened.”
“That’s what terrifies me about having another one. We did everything we could, and the worst still happened.”
“You know what they always tell us in church. God has a plan, and we’re just along for the ride?”
“Yeah.”
“If we believe that, then we must also believe that nothing we did or didn’t do would’ve changed the fact that Lewis was only supposed to be here for a short time.”
Dara took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I hate that, but I suppose we have no choice but to accept it.”
“And to accept that it’s all out of our hands. Every damned bit of it. We’re just along for the ride.”
“That makes it a little easier to accept that there was nothing I could’ve done to change what happened.”
“There wasn’t. If you’d known he was in danger, you would’ve knocked walls down to get to him if that’s what it took. You would’ve killed for him, Dar. And I would’ve, too. What more can anyone do than everything they can, even if it’s not enough?”
“Nothing, I suppose.” She looked at him the way she used to, with her heart in her eyes. “Do you want to have another baby?”
They’d been trying for a second child when Lewis died. “I’d love to be a dad again. It was my favorite thing, other than being your husband. But I only want that if you feel strong enough to handle the risk we’d be taking with two badly broken hearts.”
“I feel stronger than I did, but I don’t know if I’m there yet.”
“Then we’ll take it a step at a time until we’re both ready,” he said.
“And if we never get there?”
“Then we never get there.”
“And you’d be okay with that?” she asked.
“I’d be okay with whatever you want. We were a good team for a lot of years before Lewis joined us.”
“But we were better with him.”
“He was pretty great.”
After a long silence, Dara said, “Ask your friend Luke if his wife would be willing to talk.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow.”
* * *
Cooper felt like a lovesick fool because he couldn’t wait to see Gigi after just a few hours away from her. As a professional player, it wasn’t like him to count the hours until he could see someone. But she was different in every possible way. There was just something about her that did it for him, big-time.
Not that he was letting himself get carried away or anything. Whatever this was, it would be only a summer fling, if it even went that far. If he hadn’t gotten injured, maybe they’d be hooking up by now. Or maybe that first date would’ve been the only one they had. Who knew? But counting the hours until he could see someone was certainly unprecedented for him.
“So yer Jared’s baby brother, huh?” the cab driver asked.
“That’s right.”
“He’s a real fine fellow, yer brother.”
“Thank you. I like him.”
“Doesn’t let the success git to his head.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“How they making out with that baby girl?”
“Okay, but hoping to hear something from her mother.”
“Tough spot the mother put ’em in.”
“For sure. What did you say your name was?”
“Ned Saunders, at yer service.”
“Nice to meet you, Ned. You seem to have the inside scoop on what goes on around here.”
“I keep my eyes ’n ears open.” He met Cooper’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Heard ya had some trouble out at the bluffs the other night.”
Cooper winced. “Yeah.”
Ned cackled with laughter. “Does yer brother know?”
“I don’t think he knows the whole story, and I’d love to keep it that way.”
“Won’t hear it from me. How long you planning to stay?”
“Not sure yet. I’m working on a business idea that’d be situated here.”
“What idea is that?”
“You promise you won’t steal it?”
Ned snickered. “Shit, boy, I’m too old ta be startin’ anythin’ new. Got my hands full with what I already got, not ta mention a whole buncha grandkids underfoot these days.”
“Driving the cab keeps you pretty busy, huh?”
“That and real estate. I buy ’em cheap, fix ’em up and sell ’em for a profit. Been doing it forty years or so now.”
“Wow. That’s amazing. Why do you still drive the cab?”
“I do that fer fun. I like ta meet new people. Tell me about yer idea.”
Cooper gave him the lowdown on his plan to support the wedding industry on the island with party boats for bachelorette and bachelor parties.