Rush (Roam Series, Book Four) Page 20

  “You are half-mortal, Mrs. Rush. I should have realized this was a possibility.”

  At my appointment last week, the ultrasound had confirmed what I already knew; I was carrying a girl.

  I stopped at a baby boutique on my way home, pouring over ruffled pink dresses and adorable, flowered sleepers before finally rushing out of the store, near tears.

  “White Christmas” began on the satellite radio in the flower shop, and I sighed deeply. Mrs. Ambly wrapped one arm around me. “I know you came all the way here, but I really don’t think I’ll need the extra help today. Why don’t you go home and get some rest,” she suggested.

  “No, I’d rather not be alone,” I answered softly. “You don’t have to pay me.”

  “Of course I’ll pay you. Just want you to be healthy, Violet Rose.”

  “Healthy as a horse,” I joked with one of her favorite sayings, forcing a smile.

  She nodded, unconvinced.

  The store grew busy after all, and it wasn’t until four-thirty that I pulled into the cottage driveway. Sunset had begun, my favorite time of the day, so I’d have to hurry to catch it from my place on the back porch. The main house remained empty, and the cottage served as the perfect, peaceful atmosphere.

  I tossed the keys to the kitchen countertop, dropping my phone into the speaker dock after choosing my playlist called ‘Everything Sucks.’ Logan would have laughed at the title.

  Logan isn’t here.

  Natalie Imbrugila’s “Torn” began as I pulled off my coat. That’s me. Torn. All cried out. Blah blah blah. Next was Patsy Cline- “Crazy.”

  Why, yes, I am. Thanks Patsy.

  I skipped forward and turned up the volume, stopping on Lifehouse’s “Broken” as movement caught my eye on the back patio.

  He sat, facing the ocean.

  My breath caught in my chest, and I froze.

  He must have heard the music; he turned to the sliding glass door, rising to his feet.

  His eyes met mine… and then drifted over my stomach. I turned and reached for my keys, hurrying for the front door. I almost made it to the handle before he came through the back door of the cottage. “Just go away-”

  “Vi?” He reached for me, and I tried to resist folding into his arms.

  “Just go back to where you were, Logan… just go.”

  “I can’t go,” he said, his voice cracking in a way that reminded me of the teenage boy I’d fallen in love with.

  I desperately wanted to show him that he couldn’t just walk back into my life after hurting me the way that he did, just expecting me to run right back to him.

  But… I didn’t.

  I didn’t because I loved him more than my pride, and I just wanted him to hold me more than anything else in the world.

  Leaning into him, so weak, I pressed my forehead into his shoulder as he caught me in his arms. His hair was so much longer, curling at his forehead, but his face was freshly shaven. Those bottomless brown eyes found mine.

  “I didn’t know… how long?” he begged, running his hands over my sides, resting at my rounded middle.

  “How could you have known? You left. You left me. I don’t need you, Logan,” I managed, catching his hands in mine and pushing them away.

  “I need you, Violet.”

  I stopped from reaching to turn off the music, lifting my eyes to his.

  “What did you say?”

  He took a step toward me in the kitchen, the same cottage kitchen that was a modern-day replica of the place I first fell in love with him.

  “I need you.” He held his hand out, and I focused on his wedding band, my heart clamoring. “I need you now, and I need you for the rest of my life. Help me make sense out of this world. Please.”

  His defenseless words, so vulnerable and so unlike him, broke my heart into pieces.

  “I am so sorry,” he pleaded, his fingers sliding over my neck, thumbs caressing my jaw. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I left them unattended as our child pressed against his stomach. “Please forgive me. Again. Please.”

  Time, both our ally and our enemy, passed in long seconds.

  Finally, I chose my words carefully. “I don’t want you to think… that I want you for her.” I covered his hand with mine and pressed it to my stomach, feeling the baby shift beneath the warmth of our combined touch.

  He felt it too, wonder stealing his breath.

  “Her?”

  “I could take care of her on my own, you know.” I sniffed, cursing my pathetic tears. “I just… want you for… you. Make me laugh again, Logan.”

  He broke, lowering his lips to mine. I gripped his neck, crying into his tender kiss, letting him sweep me into his arms.

  As he lowered me to our bed, my body came alive, remembering the way his touch could make me feel everything and think nothing. So gentle, he began at my wrist, moving his lips over my fingers before reveling in my rounded belly.

  “My daughter is in here?” he murmured, awed, mouth against skin as he exhaled slowly. “You’ve given me everything, Violet, I’ll never deserve you,” he hushed, his lips moving back to mine.

  I drowned in his adoring kiss, thrown by my quickening heart. “Did you ever think that, maybe, this isn’t about you?”

  He stopped, pulling away to search my eyes.

  “This is about us, now, Rush. Forever.”

  Nodding, his kiss fluttered over my forehead.

  “You’re right… you’re always right,” he added, tracing the lines of my face with his fingers.

  “Now, you’re just kissing my ass.”

  He stilled before breaking into relieved laughter, and I smiled as he buried his face into my neck.

  “Oh, I’m not done.”

  “No, you’re not. I have a lot more ass to kiss now. It just keeps getting bigger.”

  “Feels perfect to me.”

  “Just fucking kiss me, Shaggy,” I ordered, tightening my grip on his hair with a smirk.

  “I know. I need a haircut.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve got that Gerard Butler thing going for you.”

  “300 or Phantom? You never answered me.”

  “I don’t know. All this sorry begging isn’t winning you any Spartan points.”

  He grinned, his mouth returning to my belly. “The doctor was wrong. I’m so happy she was wrong.”

  I sighed, smiling as his kiss trailed over our kicking daughter. “Yeah, well… what do mortals know, anyway?”

  Logan sighed, his lips claiming mine for good.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  April 2016

  Logan

  The patter of the rain against the roof, combined with the night-light projector shooting shadowy stars in winding circles above our heads, created a perfect spell as I gazed down at the baby in my arms.

  My daughter, only four weeks old, gave a quick double-sigh, her blue eyes making a brief appearance as her eyelids fluttered. A small tuft of dark hair covered her tiny head, and her snowy skin contrasted beautifully with her rosy cheeks.

  “Logan, is she sleeping?” Violet appeared in the doorway, carrying neatly folded pile of baby blankets.

  I smiled down at her, tracing my finger over her face. “Are you sleeping, Wynn?”

  She responded with another sigh, and Violet smiled.

  I remembered her look when I suggested naming our daughter after my all-time favorite Cleveland Indian, Early Wynn. “You want to name our daughter after a baseball player. Seriously.”

  “He wasn’t just a baseball player. He was a hell of a pitcher, and he protected his teammates. He didn’t take any shit.”

  “This is our daughter we’re talking about. I’m pretty sure she’ll be born not taking any shit.”

  In the four weeks that I’d known her, Wynn had completely stolen every bit of my heart. Violet healed within hours after her cesarean, her unchanging body immediately resuming its pre-baby shape. Roam held Wynn with an envious smile. “Do you know how many crunches I had to do to
fit back into my jeans after Christopher?”

  Violet only smiled down at the baby in her arms.

  All alone in the house on Lake Erie that we’d purchased in January, she confessed that she wished her body had taken time to heal. With no evidence of having Wynn inside of her, there was no time to mentally adjust to having her daughter in her arms.

  I spent weeks just cuddling with my wife and daughter, talking about anything and everything, changing diapers and warming bottles. Slowly, Violet began to adapt, her comfort level increasing with every passing day.

  Eva peered into the bassinette, gazing at her niece. “Can I give her a present?” she asked. I nodded, raising her eyes.

  “Of course you can, Red.”

  Violet widened her eyes, starting to rise from the couch. “Wait-”

  Before she could move, a hint of a frequency sounded throughout house before the “Baby Love” by the Supremes began playing, so very softly. She grinned at me. “I learned how to make it quieter.”

  “I hear that.” I exchanged glances with Violet, and she gave a relieved smile. “I think Grandpa West wants to hold her again.”

  West laughed, and Roam gave me a threatening smirk. “Mother-in-law was bad enough. Don’t you dare, Rush.”

  “You can call me Grandpa, Wynn.” West reached for her, smiling down at his granddaughter. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”

  Violet and I chose to live in Ohio permanently, and Roam and West had decided to move to North Carolina at the end of the school year. Roam was offered a job at an elementary school near their beach mansion, and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to teach where Eva- and eventually Christopher- would be going.

  At Violet’s urging, I started playing baseball again. Somehow (West- of course) a scout had given me a call, asking to see me. I began working at my dad’s insurance company, but quickly got the call I was waiting for. The farm team was a beginning, but I planned to make it to the majors. With Violet at my side, I felt like I could make it anywhere.

  When I thanked West, he just shook his head. “I didn’t do this, Logan. You had talent before I met you. I just made sure someone relevant saw what you had.”

  My parents adored Wynn, fawning over her and even hiring a decorator to turn my old bedroom into a nursery for her. Laurel threw the most lavish baby shower in the history of all baby showers, and Wynn had more clothes than could fit in her closet and drawers.

  “Mom, she’s going to grow out of these faster than I can put her in them,” Violet protested, laughing with her mother.

  “I just want her to have… everything. Everything you never had,” Laurel confessed, her guilt-ridden words striking a chord with Violet.

  My wife turned her beautiful blue eyes to me before reaching for my arms. “She already does, Mom.”

  Wynn’s tiny fist touched her pursed lips, and her thumb fit into her mouth. She suckled, and I smiled, pressing a soft kiss to her head.

  Violet gathered her into her arms, tucking her gently into the crib and swaddling her. I turned the baby monitor up, leaving the door cracked as Violet eased into the hallway beside me. We barely made it to the living room when my cell phone buzzed on the countertop.

  I smiled as Eva’s face appeared on the screen, answering. “Hey, sis.”

  “I still can’t believe they gave a kindergartener an phone.” Violet moved to the sink to begin washing bottles. “He’s spoiling the shit out of her.”

  “Hi Logan,” she responded, giggling about something. I heard Christopher’s voice in the background as he babbled adorably. “I have something for Vi. Can I talk to Vi?”

  “Sure.” I handed the phone over to Violet, and she dried her hands before accepting it.

  “Hey, Eva, what’s up.” She listened for a moment before sighing. “Okay, hold on.” She walked to the baby monitor. “Okay, I’m holding it. What do you want to show me?”

  After a moment, the static on the monitor intertwined with Eva’s signature frequency. Finally, through the speakers of the monitors, the Crystal’s “Then He Kissed Me” began playing with perfect clarity.

  Violet smiled into the phone. “Yes, I hear it. That’s the one from my movie. Thank you, Eva. I love you, too.”

  She hung up, and I grinned, walking up to my wife as she stood at the counter. “Would you like to dance?”

  She wrapped her arms over my shoulders, linking her fingers together at the back of my neck. “Eva said you should kiss me. Like at the end of my movie.”

  I chuckled, raising my eyebrows as I gazed down at her. “You know, Violet, your kiss… changed everything.”

  On her tip-toes, her breath swept over my ear, and I tightened my hold on her.

  “I like change,” she whispered, pressing her lips to mine.

  KIMBERLY ADAMS

  www.ADAMSROMANCE.com