by Lori Avocado
“This is perfect.” He brushed the pile of snow off the seat and motioned for her to sit.
She should be furious with him for leaving her without a word, but she couldn’t summon any anger. Only the love that had grown inside her heart, from the moment she had laid eyes on his sprawled-out form on the cabin floor, overpowered every other feeling inside. She didn’t even feel the cold of the wood beneath her bottom. Nick’s past had given him too much painful baggage to carry around. She couldn’t be angry with him—he’d been hurt, and it wasn’t his fault.
“First of all, Cabot, I’m sorry I left like that—”
She touched her snow-tipped glove to his lips. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
He shut his eyes as if filtering through his thoughts. “I couldn’t go back…after you’d said you loved me…” He leaned over and kissed her cheeks.
A stab of embarrassment grabbed her throughout. It hadn’t been easy sharing the intimate words, and she’d hurt like crazy not hearing them repeated back.
His shoulders squared. “Anyway, I made sure the State Cops could get you, and I was relieved to know you had gotten here safely.”
Lani raised an eyebrow. Interesting. He’d kept up with her whereabouts.
“I’d asked your mother to call me when you got here—”
“My mother knew where you were?”
He nodded. “Don’t blame her, Cabot. I asked her not to say anything. I needed to know you and the girls were safe, and a few times I called…to…well, I couldn’t help but call. I thought I’d just go back to my miserable life, knowing you and the girls were okay.” He leaned back on the picnic table bench, his shoulders scrunching into the hardened layer of snow on the tabletop behind him.
“But my miserable life was not the same. After the…fire, I managed to build a wall around my heart and made it through each day like some kind of recluse. I’d quit my airline job so I didn’t have to see anyone, especially women.” He shook his head. “I’d sworn that I’d never get involved with anyone.”
Lani touched the arm of his jacket and knew he could feel her through the leather.
“This past week, I couldn’t get back into any routine. I floundered around in my empty apartment, thinking about you and the girls. When I’d go to the store…every baby reminded me of one of them, every beautiful mother, you. Every picture of a brunette in a magazine, the smell of my own shampoo…everything reminded me of what I was giving up.”
Tears burned Lani’s eyes, but she held them inside. Nick needed to finish without any interruptions.
“The night you said you loved me, I got scared. Scared that the past would repeat itself again. Scared that fate would yank you away.” Nick eased loose and stood. He pulled Lani to stand and held her tightly.
“I wasn’t able to tell you before, but…I lost…my children—”
“I know,” she whispered, trying desperately to ease Nick’s pain and not have him relive the hurt.
He gave her a confused look. “Huh?”
“The day after you left, I went looking in the library for a book to read the girls and…and I found The Cat in the Hat—”
“The kid’s books. That’s where Donna left them.” He pulled her closer. “I thought the books were lost in the fire. Nicky was two and Emma…Em was only six months.”
Nick’s words couldn’t have caused more pain in Lani’s heart if he had shot her. Listening to him, and not being able to stop his hurt, was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take away all your—”
“I know…I know.”
His smile surprised her.
“I knew you’d say that, and my pigheaded, macho-self didn’t want your sorrow or your pity—” He kissed her lips. “Only your love.”
“You have that. I love you, Nick. I loved you from the day I knocked you out.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly a storybook meeting.”
They shared a laugh, then Lani continued, “I loved the way you took care of me and the girls when that was the last thing on earth that you wanted to do. I loved your not drinking milk in your coffee, not smoking inside—”
“Haven’t had a cigarette in weeks.”
“I’m glad.” She tightened her hold. “I loved the way you made the vaporizer for Ana and taught Alexa to play hide-the-ball, and the…I know you don’t want me to mention this…but the diapers you invented!”
He squeezed her. “It shocked the hell…heck out of me, but taking care of the girls made me feel needed and eased missing my kids. Not that I’ll ever forget them, but seems my bristly old heart has enough love for all of them.”
Barely able to get it out, she said, “I love your bristly old heart!”
He nuzzled the skin behind her ear. “And I love you, Cabot.”
“When I decided to let fate have its way and left the cabin, I realized that having you and the girls as my family—a real family, not temporary—is a million times worth the risk of losing you.”
“I thought you left because I couldn’t…I’d told you about my surgery.”
“Having babies is only a minor part of a woman, Cabot. I never gave the fact that the girls were adopted a second thought. Actually—” He laughed. “I’d forgotten it until now. Shoot, I could see that Alexa took after her mother! Who the heck cares where kids come from, as long as you love them?”
She thought she’d never hear those words. The pain caused by her ex-husband’s hurtful words dissolved. Nick had found her here because he loved her, he’d accepted her for the person she was and always would be.
Lani pulled back and looked into Nick’s eyes. In the depths of the sparkling mahogany, she saw the pain had been replaced by love.
Love for her, Anastasia, and Alexandra.
Epilogue
Marjorie Cabot fastened the last button on Lani’s wedding dress.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to breathe in this, Mother.” Lani walked to the full-length mirror and paused.
The ivory gown fit snugly around her waist, beads dotted down the bodice, fanning out along the front and sides. The padded shoulders gave her the air of being taller. Her mother insisted she left her hair loose for the special day, although Lani couldn’t stand it tickling her cheeks. She knew she’d spend most of the ceremony tucking it behind her ears.
“You look beautiful, dear,” her mother said.
Lani could hear her mother’s voice crack, but she knew it came from joy. Mother was thrilled that she was getting married and Marjorie’s granddaughters would have a father. Lord knows she’d mentioned it several hundred times. Lani knew how difficult it was for her mother raising her after her father had died, and Mother’d always wanted things to be easier for her daughter. Lani sighed, fighting the nervous tickling in her stomach. “I’m ready, Mom.”
Her mother opened the door.
Nick’s nephew stood outside. Stuffed in a black tuxedo, the teenager looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else in the world except here. “My uncle said to give this to Lani.” He handed her mother a box and left.
“This is from—”
“I heard, Mom.” With a shaky hand, Lani took the box.
“Do you want me to leave, dear?”
“No.” She opened the top. On a cushion of silk sat a ribbon—a white ribbon, dotted with beads and a thread of blue running through it. Lani bit her lip, not caring if she smudged her lipstick. If she didn’t, her tears would ruin her eye makeup, and that would be much harder to fix.
“What is it?” Her mother leaned forward.
Lani took out the ribbon and held it to her cheek. She tucked back her hair as tears burned her eyes.
Her mother smiled. “Looks as if he’s gotten you down pat.” She gave her daughter a hug and walked out into the hallway.
Lani clutched the banister as she made her way down the stairs in her mother’s house. Pink roses and babies’ breath wound around the spokes of the railing. She’d had wonderful mem
ories in this house growing up. Now her girls would have family traditions to share since Nick had taken a job as a flying instructor, and they’d be living only an hour away. Lani urged him to go back to the airline, but he refused, not wanting to be away from his girls he’d said—or the boys they planned to adopt. Her heart fluttered as she took the last step and thought of the wonderful vacations their children would remember spending at Nick’s…at their cabin in the mountains. She smiled to herself. Someday, she might even tell them how she had met their father.
Soft violin music filled the living room. At the doorway, she paused. The room full of guests blurred. Her gaze focused on the man she was to marry standing in the bay window. His black tuxedo hugged his shoulders, and although he insisted he needed a haircut, Lani could see she’d gotten her wish. His hair remained touching his collar, shaggy, but not unkempt.
Characteristically Nick Hunter.
Taking her mother’s arm, she walked down the aisle to start a new life. The priest’s voice floated along as if in a dream.
Nick took her hand.
She looked down. Their hands looked right together. Perfect, in fact.
As he spoke his “I do,” he placed a beautiful emerald ring on her finger. He held up his hand signaling to stop, despite the surprised look of the priest. He leaned forward and whispered, “Belonged to my grandmother, please don’t ever take it off.”
“But it’s so—”
He kissed away her protest.
The priest cleared his throat.
Nick leaned back and nodded toward the priest, who was wiping his brow. “Sorry, Father, go on.”
Lani felt the heat rise up her cheeks, but she shared a smile with her husband. The ceremony continued, and all she could do was stare at Nick. Tall and handsome on the outside, and loving and warm on the inside—Nick. Maybe you could judge a book by its cover.
“Now you may kiss the bride,” the priest said.
Nick leaned forward, his lips warming hers, and she knew he lingered way too long for a wedding ceremony, but she would have stayed there all day if the priest hadn’t cleared his throat again.
The priest finished, “I now pronounce you man and wife. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter.”
Nick pulled Lani close and whispered, “I love you, Hunter.”
She stifled her giggle.
The poor priest fumbled with his prayer book and stepped back.
“Where are our girls?” Nick asked.
Our girls. Lani nodded toward her mother who walked Ana and Alexa, in the matching pink frilly dresses they’d worn for Christmas, forward.
Nick managed to scoop both girls into one arm and place the other around Lani.
Alexa blew a bubble. “Ni Ni!” she screamed.
Lani and Nick burst out into laughter. She leaned toward the baby and said, “That’s Da Da to you, young lady.”
Her makeshift family was now permanent.
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