by Katee Robert
I find Malone sitting at the kitchen counter, a glass of red wine cradled in her hands, an apple pie on the stove, and stop short. “Hey. What are you doing up so late?” She’s a bit of a night owl, too, but with most of her working hours in the morning, Malone is usually asleep when I get home.
She looks up, and that’s when I get really worried. Her green eyes shine in the low light, and there are clear tear tracks on her face. I drop my purse and rush to her. “What’s wrong? What happened? Were you stress baking?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She gives a strange little laugh. “I’m just more affected than I thought I would be.”
“You’re still not making sense.” I carefully extract the wine glass from her hands and set it on the counter. “What’s going on?”
“The paperwork came through.”
It takes my tired mind several long moments to understand what she’s talking about. And when I do, my throat starts burning. “Already? They said it would be weeks, at least, before we heard anything.”
Malone turns to me, clutching my hands. “Apparently they were wrong.” Her face is too pale. I can’t remember the last time she looked so freaked out, even if it’s a subtle thing on Malone. “It’s happening so fast. I’m not prepared.”
Something in my chest pangs, but I shove it down. We’ve spent the last six months talking about adopting a child, had started the process and made our peace with the fact that we’re in for a long wait. Even with Malone’s connections and our combined wealth, these things take time.
Or at least I thought they did.
That’s when I notice the file sitting at her elbow. I release one of her hands long enough to flip it open and scan the information. I frown and reread. “This says that there’s two.”
“An infant and a toddler. They came in together, and the agency would like to keep them together.” With each word, she seems to gain more control over herself, or maybe she’s just responding to my growing shock. She pulls me closer and wraps her arms around my waist. With her sitting and me standing, we’re almost the same height. “We have to decide by morning.”
I glance at the clock. It’s five a.m. Morning is here. “You should have called the club.”
“I know, but when we decided to do this, keeping your work and personal separate is one of the things we agreed on.”
I know that. I’m happy with the arrangement, but this feels like a special circumstance. I let Malone hold me and stare at the pictures of the two kids. The infant is so young, still wrinkled and red. A girl. The toddler is two, a boy. He looks at the camera with large brown eyes, his hair a shock of black curls. “Two kids is a big jump. We were already talking about it eventually, but going from zero to two is huge.”
“I know.” She says it so carefully, as if not wanting to push me one way or another.
That tells me more than anything what she wants the answer to be. Malone is more than capable of steamrolling me when she feels like it, but she never tries it with shit like this. Important things. Life-changing things. I swallow hard. “You want them.”
Her arm tightens around my waist and she exhales slowly. “Yes. But like with the initial adoption conversation, this isn’t something where there’s a compromise available. We either say yes or we say no. We cannot have one without the other.”
“I would never ask that.” My gaze drifts back to the pictures. How many times did I wish for a sibling when I was growing up? Someone who got it in a way the adults around me never did. Someone who would have my back and I’d have theirs. It was a childish fantasy at the time—I know better than to think sibling relationships are without complications—but apparently the remnants haven’t quite left me. “They shouldn’t be separated.”
I relax against her and close my eyes. This is a big decision, but is it really? We knew from the start that we wanted kids—as in multiple—and maybe this isn’t quite the route we’d decided on, but the end result is still the same. I wrap my arms around Malone and slide my fingers through her short hair. “Hey.”
She pulls me a little closer and her lips curve. “Hi.”
“I love you. You know that, right?”
Malone dips her hands beneath my tank top and lightly grips my hips. “I love you, too.”
That’s what it comes down to. We love each other. The last year hasn’t been without its hiccups, but our feelings have never changed and, if anything, they’ve only gotten stronger. We’ve found compromise after compromise that works for both of us, and we’ve created a life that works. One where we’re happy. Really fucking happy. I smile. “Let’s do it. If you’re onboard, then I’m onboard.”
She goes so still, I’m not sure she’s breathing. “Are you sure?”
I answer as honestly as I can. “I’m a little freaked out, but I think it’s just nerves. I’d be freaked out no matter when this happened because it’s such a big step. No matter how sure I am, of course I’m going to be nervous about a big life change like adopting a kid. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it. I do.” I give a shaky laugh. “What first-time parent isn’t nervous, even if they did the whole pregnancy thing? Tink and Hook are a fucking mess, and they are going to be amazing parents.”
“I’m nervous, too.” She says it so softly, it’s barely above a whisper. “My mother was a good mother, but she wasn’t exactly warm. What if I damage them?”
Strangely enough, her nerves calm mine. I cup her face with my hands. She might not be warm, but that’s not all there is to life. “Malone, you are one of the most caring people I know. You’re going to be a great mother.”
“Are you sure?”
We’ve had this conversation before. Multiple times. We both have plenty of baggage to bring to the table, though Malone’s upbringing wasn’t exactly deprived of love. But Sabine Valley is a different breed, and she’s achingly aware of that since we started talking about kids. I press a light kiss to her lips. “If you aren’t sure, we can wait.”
Her grip tightens on me. “I don’t want to wait.” Already, there’s a possessive thread in her tone, and it makes me smile as she says, “I’m sure.”
I let loose a light laugh. “Then let’s do this.” It’s not as simple as that, but even before we put in the paperwork to prepare for the adoption process, we had a plan for what parenthood would look like with the two of us. I’ll cut back my hours in the Underworld and Malone will delegate a little more aggressively to create time on her end as well. We haven’t outfitted the spare bedroom into a child’s bedroom, but we have a full list of all the things we’ll need, as well as decorating choices because… of course we do.
Malone kisses me, and I can feel her confidence settling through her again, piece by piece. It might be strange that her doubt makes me love her more, but I’m so glad we talked through this. I feel fucking good about this. I lift my head enough to say, “When do we let them know?”
“In about an hour.” She presses one last kiss to my lips and guides me back a step. “Have you eaten anything since I saw you last?”
My skin heats and I can’t quite hold her gaze. “It was a busy night.” And I don’t normally like to eat meals while I’m on shift. It’s easier to inhale a power bar or something like that.
“Thought so.” She gives my ass a squeeze and releases me. “Go take a shower and I’ll heat up some egg drop soup for you.”
My stomach chooses that moment to growl and I laugh a little. “Sounds good.” I take one step away and hesitate. “Malone?”
“Yes?”
“I’m really, really happy.” Happier than I ever could have dreamed. It still blows my mind a little bit that I’ve found this with Malone, but I wouldn’t change a thing for the world.
Her smile is warm and wide. “I’m happy, too. Now, go take that shower.” She lets out a surprisingly light laugh. “We’re about to be parents.”
About the Author
Katee Robert is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary roma
nce and romantic suspense. Entertainment Weekly calls her writing “unspeakably hot.” Her books have sold over a million copies. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, children, a cat who thinks he’s a dog, and two Great Danes who think they’re lap dogs.
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www.kateerobert.com