Duke glowered. I tried to hide my smile but it didn’t work very well. “Come on, babe,” I said. “I know it’s hard, but shrug off the macho-man protective bullshit. Even someone like you can’t change the past. How about you just enjoy the fact that you’re going to be an uncle, that your brother is finally going to be a father, and worry about the rest later?”
Duke regarded me. He was doing it intently, like always. But now, after that day in the rain, that horrible, beautiful and life-changing day, he looked at me differently. He looked at me like he was committing me to memory every time our eyes locked, like I was...precious. And despite how many women thought they wanted to be looked at like that, you don’t. The reality of it was too heavy, too blinding.
“Later,” he said, but he didn’t say it in agreement. It was a promise.
One I felt in every nerve ending in my body.
“To our grandchild,” Andrew said, and lifted his glass.
“To your great grandchild,” Anna added, smirking at Harriet.
“Honey, I’m comfortable enough with my age,” she retorted. “I just went from a plain old GILF to a GGILF.” She lifted her own glass with a smirk.
We all clinked our glasses, they echoed through the room, the happiness underpinning it all was silent but palpable.
Despite the drama of the birth, Maggie had given birth to a very healthy baby girl.
Obviously, they were still at the hospital and Tanner had refused to leave their side.
“That boy has got a lot of making up to do,” Harriet said once we’d all toasted.
Anna smiled. “I think he’s up for the challenge, don’t you?”
It became clear then, at that instant, with those smiles, with the smells, the clang of dishes, glasses, forks against plates, the food in my stomach and the warmth in my heart.
It became clear how special all of this was. How rare.
Duke’s hand moved from the beer he was holding to gently, but not too gently, squeeze my thigh under the table.
I glanced at him. His brows narrowed. “You good, babe?” he asked, on a low murmur so no one else at the table heard.
I wanted to cry then, scream, get down on one knee and ask him to marry me. I wanted to reach out, grab hold of this moment, and greedily stuff it somewhere inside me so I could have it forever.
So I could have Duke forever.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t have Duke forever. Nor could I have this family, this life. I was a visitor, an unwelcome one. My life, my past, my present and future would mesh together to create an atomic bomb and blow this all to pieces.
I’d have to leave, quietly and masterfully, like someone disarming a bomb. Quietly and masterfully was not right now, obviously.
I smiled at Duke, real and true and full of the love I felt for him. “Of course, I’m great,” I said.
His brow remained furrowed for a second before he squeezed harder, smiled, and kissed my neck.
I should’ve gotten an Oscar for that one too.
I waited until Duke was asleep. Then I waited an hour more. I had to make sure he was deep in his dreams to not notice that I was extricating myself from his arms. It only worked because he was dead tired. It had been a long day, and not only that, he’d more than exhausted himself fucking me earlier.
But it hadn’t been that, had it?
It hadn’t been fucking.
As much as I wanted to throat-punch myself for even thinking it, he had made love to me tonight. Twice.
He’d fucked me earlier, after we’d got back from the hospital. Hard, desperate, violent against the front door of the cabin.
But later, after the family dinner, after all the celebrations, the love and happiness so dense it sank into our very pores, he’d done it first outside on the daybed under the stars.
Then he’d carried me inside the cabin and done it on the bed.
We hadn’t spoken a word, because what he was doing said it all. The stars said it all.
Which, of course, was why I was leaving.
Not just because there was a chance I’d put Duke’s entire family in danger by going to that hospital. That was a part of it. But it was mostly because he had made love to me under the stars.
I dressed quietly, watched him for longer than I should’ve. It was taking too much of a risk. He could wake up and this wouldn’t work. He’d chain me to the bed before he let me pull this shit.
But still, I stayed a beat longer, wished for a different life, a different name.
Then, I grabbed his phone off the nightstand and walked out the door.
The night was quiet.
Which was all too fucking loud for my liking. The crunch of my boots against the gravel taunted me, because it was the sound of me walking away from the only good thing I’d ever have in my life. At the same time, walking away was probably the only truly good and selfless thing I’d done in my life.
I was on the crest of the hill, could see the faint outline of the main house as they always left their porch light on. If I looked back, I’d see the cabin. But I didn’t look back.
I looked down and tapped at the phone.
I didn’t know the members of Greenstone Security well. That night that had begun all of this was the first and only time I’d seen the entire team in one room, and I’d been understandably distracted. This decision was an important one, one I’d thought on for hours while I’d been smiling, talking, laughing with Duke’s family—while I’d been silently saying goodbye.
I needed someone with loose morals, someone deadly. The latter was the entirety of the team. And the former was another large chunk. So, even with my limited knowledge, I had a good chance of finding someone with the skills I needed for what I was planning. But there was a small chance I’d choose wrong, that this person would have ethics or whatever to do anything but contact Duke, who would likely yell at me a lot and then lock me in a room or chain me to a bed.
So yeah, my future was in the balance of the person I had decided to call.
“Duke, dude. I swear the only acceptable reason you have for waking me up is to tell me you’ve got some action for me—non-sex related, of course. I’m married now, remember?”
“Rosie?” I asked.
“Who is this?”
“This is Anastasia Edwards, and I need your help.”
13
I had no idea how she got to me so quickly, considering I called her late last night and it was the early morning. The sun had only been up for an hour and I was prepared to wait a lot longer. As much as I thought I was a strong woman, with the resolve I had last night, the utter aloneness of these past hours had been terrifying. Duke’s absence was a physical thing. But I couldn’t let that show, especially not to a badass like Rosie who pulled up to the shitty motel an hour away from the ranch I’d been hiding in these past hours.
She’d given me detailed instructions the moment what I was doing became apparent. There were no warnings, no hesitation, no straight-up refusal—which I’d been expecting. This woman didn’t like me. She had no reason to like me, and definitely had no reason to drop everything in her life and travel across the country because I was having a crisis.
The one and only person who would’ve done that for me was dead, buried, maybe, or cremated. Who knew? I didn’t get to go to his funeral.