by Lainey Reese
“It’s just….” Sniff. “I just….” Sniff, sniff. “I’m just really happy.” Sob.
His warm chuckle was like audio chocolate in her ears, and he laid another gentle kiss on her forehead. “I’m glad you’re happy. We’re off to a good start then.”
Andie gave a watery chuckle. “We sure are. If you don’t count the last seven or eight months.” He bit her. “Ouch, animal.” She slapped at the rock-hard wall of muscle he had for a chest. “Sheesh, I was kidding.” Then she looked into his melted chocolate eyes and let him see all she was feeling in that moment. “You’re right though; this does feel like a very good start.”
“Marry me,” he told her, and her entire being filled with sparkling light. “I love you, Andrea. I think I started loving you the minute you walked into that hotel lounge, and I know my track record sucks here, but I was trying too hard. I always screw up when something really matters. Marry me, and I promise I won’t try so hard.”
He looked so earnest. So compelling and serious. Andie couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. The joy was contagious though, and after a second of shock, Luke’s expression softened, and then he was laughing with her. She adored him.
A sudden burst of renewed energy flooded her limbs, and Andie rolled them until she was straddling Luke. She sat back and lifted her arms skyward, arching her back in the golden afternoon light streaming through the windows. Laughter faded from Luke’s face, and his eyes coursed over her naked form in frank appreciation. His expression was almost worshipful. Andie smiled down at him and drifted her fingers over his torso, fully aware she was looking at him with the same absorbed fascination he was showing her.
“Yes,” she said with a conviction she felt right down to the tips of her toes. “Yes, Luke. If you promise not to try too hard, I too will promise to be only marginally committed as well.” She squealed when he shot up and grappled with her, tackling and tickling and kissing her as they rolled across the bed like a couple of puppies in a basket.
It wasn’t until the ambulance screamed up the drive with its siren blaring that they realized something was wrong.
Chapter 23
“I still can’t believe you didn’t hear us,” Sharon said a little drunkenly from her sprawl across Christy’s lap. “We were screaming so loud we coulda been heard up in space.”
It had taken hours for everything to get sorted out. Abram had been taken away. He was still alive at last check, which Christy was glad for, Sharon knew. But she hoped the sick little bastard dropped dead in the middle of the night. He killed five people. Four girls, because he’d been attracted to them and considered his temptation a test from God and, in his twisted and demented mind, had been driven to kill the ones he’d not been strong enough to resist.
And he killed Wally, Andie’s uncle, because he found Abe’s hidden stash of mementos he kept from each of his victims. The fresh wave of grief that news brought to everyone here had been just another painful layer in this awful day.
“Well,” Jax cut in. “We were making a pretty big racket too.” His handsome face was covered in bruises, but Sharon had never seen him happier. There was a gleam in his blackened eyes and a smile on his swollen lips. It probably had a lot to do with the pixie-sized artist he had in his lap, and maybe a little with the FBI agent sitting across from him, who looked every bit as beat up as Jax.
“Yeah, I do seem to recall hearing you scream like a frightened little girl more than once.” Max’s good-natured taunt earned him a pillow tossed in his face, but he deflected it with a laugh.
“Keep it up, asshole,” Jax warned. “I can still press charges.” But they all knew he wouldn’t. The atmosphere was too charged, too positive to harbor anything as negative as resentment or retribution. The relief too great.
“I still can’t believe you thought Jax was capable of murder,” Kiki said as she shook her head sadly at Max. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
The statement was a bit ridiculous, since she said it to the man Jax had almost beaten to a pulp.
“Hey.” Under the bruises, Sharon could see a flush creep over the agent’s skin. “Speaking as the man he just tried to rip limb from limb this afternoon, I call bullshit on that.”
“That was different.” She waved away his brush with death like it was nothing. “He was defending me.” And she snuggled into the smug attorney, who looked happy as a fucking clam.
“It was your own fault for attacking without waiting for explanations,” Jax told him flatly.
“Yeah, well, I had good intel that led me to you. Then, when I got here, I found you grappling with what looked like a small, defenseless woman. I didn’t think there was time for a chat. I just wanted to get you secured and her safe. After you were secure, we would’ve had our heart-to-heart.” They all laughed.
“That little spitfire is about as defenseless as a badger. Even I know that.” The Sheriff had come back to the farm with the FBI agent after they finished with all that whatever it is law enforcement had to do when they caught the bad guy. They had both wanted to check on everyone, and Max wanted again to apologize for attacking the wrong suspect.
There was a sharp edge to their joy. Death had come too close to all of them this day, and they were reluctant to leave the warm circle of life affirmation that joined them together.
“I’m telling you I was in quite a fix when I pulled up. That’s the plain truth.” The Sheriff chuckled and shook his head. “When I got here, I heard all of y’all shouting and hollering from all three buildings. I stood right there—” He paused and pointed dramatically at a spot in front of the porch where they sat. “—and my head was whippin’ from one place to the next as I tried to figure on which would be the most likely place. Then I heard Andrea scream.” They all looked to where Andie sat on her porch swing with her legs in Luke’s lap. She turned red as a fire engine, covered her face in her hands, and they all burst out laughing. “Now, maybe it has been a while for me, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t a scream of pain or fear. So, I pelted for the barn.”
“Hey! What about me in the shop? All defenseless and helpless, remember?” Kiki asked and got more laughter going.
“I’ve seen you in action with that blow torch, little lady, and if Abe had come your way, I would’ve been more worried for him than you.”
“Damn straight,” Jax chimed in and earned him a kiss from his pixie.
“Abe wouldn’t have come for you, Kiki,” Logan said solemnly. “He respected you. Your art and stuff. He saw your art as kinda your religion, so he woulda left you alone. At least, I think so anyway.”
Luke reached a hand out and gave a squeeze to the back of his son’s neck. This had all hit him pretty hard, but the stoic kid was keeping a tight lid on things as far as she could see.
“That left only one unknown. I didn’t know who it was causing all that ruckus in the barn, but apparently I wasn’t needed there either.” His kind face turned toward where Sharon and Christy sat wrapped around each other.
“Oh, you were needed, Sheriff,” Christy told him with a shudder. “In fact, I wish you had gotten here a lot sooner than you did.”
His smile drifted away, and there was such compassion in his eyes that Sharon felt a lump in her throat.
“I do too, Christy,” he said softly. “I really do too.”
“Is he going to make it?” Christy asked, and her fingers clutched in Sharon’s as she waited for the answer.
“The doctors won’t say for sure. But he made it through the surgery, so he has a fighting chance.”
“You did what you had to do in order to survive,” Max said, and his voice had lost all the teasing from his banter with Kiki and Jax. “Abram was going to kill you both then try to burn down the barn to hide it. If he had succeeded, he could have gone on his killing spree for who knows how long. We will never know how many lives you saved by stabbing him.”
“It was such a horrible feeling.” Christy shuddered. “I never want to feel that again. Like ever
.” She gave Sharon a pleading look. “How do you feel about going vegetarian? At least for a little while. I don’t think I’ll even be able to cut into meat again. Like ever.”
“Okay.” Sharon chuckled and kissed Christy’s temple. “You’re the only one of us who can cook anyway, so it’s not like I can take over there. Whatever you want, sweetie. If you cook it, I’ll eat it.”
“Wait,” Logan piped in from his seat on the porch rail. “Really, Mom? No more meat? Like ever? But, but, I…. No more fried chicken? Or corned beef? What about the BLTs? You wouldn’t stop making your BLTs, would you?” More laughter.
Logan and Luke had taken off for a talk after Abe had been hauled away, and when they’d come back after more than an hour, both of them were tear-stained and a little worse for wear. Seeing them choose joy now, laugh, it gave her a warm sense of hope. They would heal. They all would.
For now, for tonight at least, they were alive, and that was reason enough to be grateful.
Epilogue
Two years later
Andie held her breath as she slipped her hands from under the impossibly tiny body of her newborn daughter. It wasn’t yet dawn, and she was praying this last diaper change and feeding would score her at least one more hour of sleep. Just one. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Penelope Ann Baxter let loose with her siren wail the minute Andie’s hands slipped free, and she was so exhausted Andie felt like crying with her.
“Come on, Penny,” Andie pleaded. “You’ve been on this planet for over three weeks, and you’ve been awake for all of it.” She scooped the small, squirming, and angry bundle back into her arms and headed for the rocker to try again.
“Here, sweetheart.” Luke’s sleep-darkened voice entered the room before he did and soothed them both. “Let me take her. You go back to bed.”
“But… no,” Andie protested even as he expertly transferred the baby from her shoulder to his. “It’s not fair. You get up all the time with her. You need sleep too.”
“I’m fine, honey.” The little traitor in his arms wasn’t making a peep. No, she looked as angelic and tranquil as a summer breeze now that she’d gotten her way and Daddy was here. “Don’t you worry about me. You’re still healing. Go back to bed. I’ll be there in a bit.” But she didn’t want to leave them, so he compromised, and within a few moments the three of them were snuggled into bed with the baby cooing like a dove while they played with her tiny toes.
“I love this.” His whisper was revertant.
“Right?” she whispered back. “She’s got the cutest piggies on the planet.” Andie’s silver-and-gold bracelet glinted in the pale light and caught their attention. Kiki had made it for her—a delicate weaving of precious metals—to replace the hospital band she had been unable to remove. Luke briefly traced his thumb over their first daughter’s name. It was beautifully entwined within the design, and her heart melted all over again. He did that often. Watching a movie on the couch, or when refilling her coffee, he would trace the letters, and it connected their child to the moment, made her a part of it. Remembered.
“All this,” he said, and his face was beautiful in the predawn light, all strong bones and stubble. “You, and lil Penny-pants here. This right here, under the blankets and warm with my son down the hall and our daughter tucked in between us. This is my idea of paradise.”
“It is pretty perfect, huh?” Andie sighed. Penny was a warm ball of love nestled between their hearts, and she realized Luke was right. The sun was just breaking the grip of night and streaked rosy warmth across where they lay, and Andie basked in it like a contented cat.
She agreed with Luke. This was paradise.
Afterword
I have tried to write a romantic, mistaken pregnancy story ever since my first book. I actually started Edge of Paradise in 2010 right after A Table for Three was released with the intention of making it just that. I was unsuccessful. I had no happy pregnancy memories of my own. Years of infertility and one epically tragic premature birth were all I had to draw from.
So after trying to write a happy pregnancy into every book I have ever written and failing, I went back to EOP and wrote what I knew. The story that evolved is what you have here. Not happy, but real.
About the Author
I was first published with Samhain in 2010. My debut novel A Table for Three went on to sell over a hundred and fifty thousand copies and my mind is still blown. The New York gang is all waiting patiently for their next turn to bat and I hope it comes along soon.
Edge of Paradise is a real ground breaker for me. I know there is a lot of risk writing in a different genre, but I’m committed to writing the stories that are in my soul. All aspects of it. I’ve already led you on a tour of the kinky side, follow me as we now take a stroll down the darker side.
MORE BOOKS BY LAINEY REESE
New York Series
A Table for Three
Damaged Goods
Innocence Defied
Embracing the Fall
Protecting New York
Standalones
Guarding Nadia
Mistaken iDOMnity
Edge of Paradise