His warm smile, his even temperament—I was always meant to be his, and now I’m free to be just that forever. The shadow of danger has taken flight, and all that lies before me is Carter and his ocean blue eyes.
Kinsley pops up behind Stevie, and gives a perky wave. Carter’s three brothers walk in quietly and linger toward the back. My mother comes in with my stepfather. And, shockingly, my own father walks in with Terri.
It feels like a deathbed vigil.
It feels like the greatest expression of love.
Carter clasps his hand over mine, and I drift back to sleep just like that.
* * *
Four days I spend at Cedars-Sinai. My mother informs me it is unheard of to spend that much time in a hospital these days.
“They send people home in less than half this time after having their heart ripped out and installing a new one.” Terri muses as they gather the last of my things. Who knew that Terri and my mother would bond over my nearly fatal visit with my ex? In hindsight, that visit wasn’t the brightest move on my part. But, anyway, I think we all know it’s Carter who lobbied for the extended stay at the hospital, who most likely paid for it out of pocket.
“My face looks like shit,” I bemoan as I pass the mirror. My bruises have gone from purple to a runny yellow. The entire left side of my face was bashed and thrashed, not including the cut that created a new fissure in my flesh—the jagged fishhook that I’ll wear forever as a testament of Henry’s fatalistic attraction. He and “Nikki” were preparing to take me somewhere. Who knows what would have become of me if Carter hadn’t showed up.
I lean into the mirror inspecting the stitches with their Frankenstein vibe as a series of tiny black X’s form a misshapen crescent. The swelling is all but gone, no thanks to the ice bath I’ve suffered through.
My mother comes up on one side, Terri on the other.
Mom pulls me close. “In my eyes, you’re more beautiful than ever, simply because you’re here.” Tears come to her, and she lets them fall like rain. I know she’s hurting for me. I’m her baby girl, and someone tried to turn my skull into a hood ornament. If anyone ever did that to Abby, I’d slice off their balls, or, much like my brother, put a bullet through their head. Lincoln wasn’t charged. Thank God for small mercies. He’s licensed to carry a concealed weapon and managed to convince authorities that he was under attack.
Henry’s secret skank is in the holding tank while the legal eagles try to figure out what to do with her. She’s the one that nearly decapitated the man I love, Carter.
Terri jumps back, staring at her phone as if it were toxic. “It’s Stevie. She’s having the baby.”
We scramble to the third floor and head straight for the maternity ward. Terri screams her head off demanding to know where they’re keeping her daughter until Ford pops his head out the door to the room down the hall. We speed over and find Stevie panting, cursing under her breath as a nurse hooks her up to a thousand little machines.
“Everything’s fine,” Ford assures. “She’s been in labor since last night. She didn’t want to worry anyone. She’s handling this like a champ.”
The nurse pulls Stevie’s gown over her knees before reaching up it with her hand. “Ninety percent effaced, eight and a half centimeters.”
Mom touches her chest. “She’s going to have it soon.”
The next hour is a blur with Stevie lost in a delirium. Her moans, her violent panting is dizzying to witness. I hold her hand, as does Ford, but Stevie is completely focused on her breathing, tuning everything and everybody out as she zeros in on controlling the pain. The doctor steps in and announces it’s show time. Before we know it, the cozy space around us transforms into something just this side of an operating room whereas moments before it could have doubled as Stevie’s bedroom.
“Aspen,” she butts her head into my arm. “Help me.”
“Oh, honey.” I grip my hand over hers. “I’m right here. You got this.”
“I don’t have this.” She bends her head back and groans.
Terri steps up. “You are a woman, Stevie. There isn’t anything fiercer—anything more daring or beautiful. You are bringing forth life into this world.” Her eyes widen with a fire blazing in each one. This spell she’s casting on Stevie seems to be working. “You and your sister are my miracles. Pick yourself up!” she barks, and the nurses exchange nervous glances. I want to assure them she’s harmless, but I’m not sure that’s entirely the truth. “Do this for you. You’ve done so many selfless things for the people you love.” She offers her daughter a knowing nod. “Do this for you. You know who you are.”
The doctor shouts for Stevie to push, and Stevie wrenches out the roar of a lioness.
“One more time!” The doctor instructs, and Stevie bears down hard. “There we go.”
The baby! Its beautiful pink head protrudes—so raw and glossy with its shoulders wriggling free.
The doctor quickly suctions out its nose and mouth. “You want to do the honors?”
Stevie reaches down and pulls the baby out from under its arms, landing it safe on her stomach.
“It’s a girl!” Ford announces through tears. He bends over and kisses my beautiful sister then his perfect baby princess.
It’s all so perfect and beautiful. I can’t speak past the lump in my throat. I can’t see past the tears in my eyes. This is what it’s all about. Stevie and Ford really do have it all.
Late in the evening, while my mother and Terri run to the cafeteria for a bite and Ford takes a shower, I sit next to Stevie holding my angel of a niece.
Carter is on his way. And both Carson and Cash have already gushed over the new addition to the family and have since gone home. Lincoln and Kinsley went to dinner, but they promised they’d be back. Until the cafeteria comes equipped with a five-star sushi chef, they won’t be sharing a dining experience here.
“You’re going to have to name her eventually.” I blow softly over the baby’s dark hair. She has Stevie’s nose, Ford’s almond-shaped eyes, and I’m almost positive she has my ears. I touch my nose to the top of her head. She smells clean and fresh like soap.
“I don’t know. All the trendy names I was thinking of seem silly now that I see her. She’s so much more than that. She’s far more special than any of those two dimensional names.”
I hook my gaze to my sister’s and nod. “How about Claire?” I say it measured, careful. When it comes to her twin, Stevie can be like an animal in the wild, ready and willing to bolt at first mention. “I know it still brings you pain. It does me.”
“It’s not that.” She sniffs, pulling up her crisp, white sheet to dab away the tears. “It would feel strange.”
“Would it be strange to call her by your own name?” There, I’ve done it. I’ve long since suspected it, but, after listening to Terri’s rambling speech, it only confirmed what I knew. “Is that right, Claire?”
Her eyes widen before she slinks down into the bed just a bit. She gives a single nod, the shy quiver of a smile playing on her lip. “I’m Stevie now—and I always will be.” Her eyes bear into mine with a patina of relief. “She would make a beautiful Claire, but I’m afraid that would be a lie to tell her she was named after my sister. That’s no way to begin this beautiful relationship.” She motions for the baby, and I gently lay the little princess in her arms. “Ford and I talked about it.” She outlines the baby’s pouty lips with her finger. “We’re going to take our time. For now, we’ll just call her Angel.”
“I love that. She is an angel, and for what you did for our sister—so are you.”
Lincoln and Kinsley show up, quiet as a whisper. We three gather around the bed and marvel at the miracle that made her way into our lives today.
“She’s fucking beautiful.” Lincoln sniffs back tears.
“Hey, you can’t talk that way around our niece,” I gently scold. Lincoln is a true Lionheart. I’m not sure he could ever be tamed.
“You’re right.” He touches her tiny h
and, and she curls her fingers around him. “I’ll always be there to protect you,” he whispers to the baby. I know he means it.
Kinsley bounces on her toes. “And I’ll always be here to guide you in all your high fashion needs. Oh, I know! We’ll get her into baby modeling and acting! I can be her manager!”
“Relax.” Stevie touches her finger to the baby’s plump cheek. “There’s time for everything. This is simply day one. Welcome to the family, baby girl. This is going to be one wild ride.”
Carter finally shows just as Ford steps in refreshed.
We coo over the baby until Stevie needs to nurse her.
We say an extended goodbye to my siblings, my mother, and Terri.
“You take good care of my baby.” Mom doesn’t mind scolding him.
“He will.” Terri lifts her chin in defiance. “I know where to find him if he doesn’t.”
Carter holds me on the way to the elevator.
“Let’s go home,” he whispers.
“Let’s.”
* * *
The house is quiet save for Harley’s panting. Abby is asleep down the hall. Carter had her with a sitter while he picked me up from the hospital.
The custody situation is up in the air. The judge is weighing her ruling. We’ll know more tomorrow afternoon what the outcome is of all this madness.
It feels like a million years ago I was last in this house. And now I’m back, and everything has changed—Stevie is a mother, Carter and I are standing on solid ground, and Henry is in a drawer with a toe tag. I hate to admit it, but a part of me is grieved over this. Had he only been sensible, an adult, had he not wanted me dead in order to outfit his bank account, he, himself, wouldn’t be in the morgue. He could have been with his plain-as-toast girlfriend whose mouth doubles as a defunct engine.
I bat them both out of my thoughts like flies.
Carter gently scoops me into his arms. “Let me take care of you. Are you hungry? Do you want some tea?”
I shake my head. “I had a nice long shower this afternoon, and I feel like myself again. My head doesn’t feel like there’s a pickaxe planted in it, so I think I’m over the hump.” I run my fingers through his hair and give a gentle tug. “Speaking of hump.” I bite down over my lip, and my stitches stretch taut.
“Aspen.” Carter ticks his head back a notch, a devilish grin comes and goes. “There’s something I think we need to talk about. Some things that I didn’t want to bring up in the hospital.”
“Oh?” I scoot up on the bed, and Carter takes my hand.
“There’s one more thing that happened that night”—he swallows hard—“before Henry passed, he said something.”
An involuntary groan escapes me. “You do realize that he was prone to bullshit spewing from his lips. Whatever it is, it’s probably not true. Don’t let him get to you.”
“Actually, it is getting to me. And I did some fact checking. What he said was true.” He nods as if that was all he could muster for now. “Abby isn’t my biological daughter.”
“What?” I scoot back so fast, I tap the back of my head against the wall. The room trembles like the clash of a cymbal.
“Whoa. You okay? Come here.” He scoops me into his lap and kisses my new injury. “A few weeks ago, Abby and I ran into him at Starbucks. He said something I thought was strange at the time, he said Abby had some secret. Fast forward to the other night, I was kneeing him in the balls, telling him how I would make sure he never had kids, and he laughed in my face—said he already did, Abby.”
“Oh, my God.” I drop my head in my hands a moment. “Cher was sleeping with him.”
“Because I wouldn’t sleep with her. That night she claims it happened I was so wasted I didn’t know what to think in the morning. I was sure we didn’t. I would have bet my life on it. But you and I were arguing, and we were at a party getting loaded. I thought maybe it had happened. A month later when she said she was pregnant, I thought, for sure, it was mine.”
“She made you believe it.”
“I didn’t have a reason not to.” He gives a solemn nod. “While you were in the hospital, I had them run a paternity test. I threw as much money as I could to make it happen, and, when I got the results, I went down to the cove and cried like a baby.”
“I’m so sorry. She’ll always be yours, Carter. No one ever has to know.”
“Cher knows.” His eyes close as he lets out a breath for miles. Here she is, rearing all her ugliness in our bed. Cher always did know how to throw the sharpest dagger at just the right time. “I’ve already talked to her about it.”
“What?” I give a violent twist into him. “Carter! Please, tell me she’s not stupid enough to take that baby from us.”
He bears the hint of a grin when I say us. “She’s not. I’m already Abby’s legal father, and Cher likes my money too much to ever let it slip away. Plus, I think she likes the connection to me.”
“That’s what she was after to begin with. I’m sure she’s relishing this.” Typical Cher, sucking on evil like it’s her favorite candy.
“My legal team is working out all the loose ends, but it’s still the same outcome. We get full custody for now. Cher wants more money, so I’m having her sign her life away disabling her from fleecing us blind. The last thing I need is for her to use our daughter as blackmail.” He hugs me tight as he says our daughter. “Abby is ours. Nobody, not Cher, or anyone else on the planet, is taking our baby away. That’s all I know for now.”
“Wow.” I push out a slow breath. “She is our daughter.” And Abby is Henry’s daughter, too—biologically speaking. It’s so strange, so twisted. And, in some morbid way, Abby feels that much more like a part of me. My need to protect her from this cruel world—her cruel mother—magnifies.
Carter lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s one more thing I really need to get off my chest.”
My heart rattles at the thought of what he might say next. It’s as if someone took the lid off Pandora’s box, and the wicked possibilities are endless.
“Abby’s name.” Carter pulls me in with a remorseful smile riding on his lips. “I didn’t realize she was named after your mother until, yet again, Henry brought it up that day I ran into him.”
“That was a productive meeting.” I grimace at the thought. “So you never realized that?”
“I would never have put it together. I’m so sorry. I see now that every move Cher made was to hurt you—to get closer to me. She’s sick, Aspen. She’s completely out of her mind to do something so cruel.”
Tears roll down my cheeks. So much has changed, so much of our world has shifted like sand beneath our feet.
“How about we switch gears for a minute.” I lift my shoulders to my ears. “My body is craving some serious one on one time with yours.”
“I’m not arguing with that.” Carter lays me on my back as if he were handling an exotic glass rose. He straddles me with his knees and starts in on an incredibly slow striptease. Everything comes off with the exception of that thick strip of gauze taped to the left side of his neck. She tried to sever his head. Henry was dead, so Jennifer—tricky Nikki—wanted the rest of us dead, as well.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if we’ll have to worry about her. If she’ll pose a risk to our safety, and then I remember that with Lincoln and Carter around, they’ll make sure she never sees our faces again.
Carter carefully pulls off the glitzy tracksuit that Kinsley brought me to wear home from the hospital. It has the words DELISH fanned out in crystal lettering over my bottom. Traditionally, bubble gum pink is not a color I magnetize to, but knowing that Kinsley bought it for me with love makes me want to hold onto this hideous thing forever, and I will.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Carter carefully lands a kiss to my lips. His tongue slips in my mouth, slow and careful, and it feels like the most magnificent tease.
“I’m all yours, Romeo.”
Carter pulls back and squints out a smile. “Juliet.” He br
ushes his fingers over my hair. “I think it’s time we rewrite that tragic play, rewrite history while we’re at it.”
“I agree.” We lace our fingers together. “Did you know that after Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife, was widowed, she swiftly moved on and married the man she had secretly been in love with?”
A low rumble comes from him. “In his death, she escaped his tyranny and was able to marry the one her heart truly desired.” Carter kisses each of my knuckles in turn.
“It’s true.”
“Let’s get married here on the beach—Lover’s Cove—as soon as you’re up for it.”
“I couldn’t think of a better place.”
Carter dusts my body with kisses, so soft and tender my insides scream for more. Carter makes love to me with an intensity I’ve never experienced—as if it were the first time, and, in a lot of ways, it is. We write a poem over one another, slow and delicious, inspiring and satisfying beyond measure. Carter buries himself deep inside my body, our desire picking up like a cresting wave.
I think back to the very first time I saw his beautiful face. He was so sure of himself, so cocky and self-aware of his command in this world.
I was sure of something myself that day. I was sure Carter Cannon would one day be mine.
Carter is blue like the ocean, like the heavy June air, like the adventure you find while staring up at a sky full of stars on a cool summer night.
I knew this man would one day be mine—and he is.
Carter and I revised history. We walked away with our heads intact, our lives spared from a disease that we helped propagate so very long ago.
We were unbreakable—and, even still, God is on our side.
Carter
Two months later…
Aspen and I shared our first kiss at the beach. It’s fitting we get married here.
Aspen walks down the makeshift aisle with her father on one arm, her mother on the other. They stand on either side of her like stoic bookends, but it’s Aspen who outshines the sun today. Aspen is all I see.