by Laurel Greer
“’Fraid that’s a joint effort. But I’m here to help.”
She growled. “I feel worn-out and I haven’t even started.”
“Let’s be efficient, then. Lachlan’s going to help Fiona support your legs, and you’re going to push using your pelvic floor, okay? Remember talking about that?”
“Yep.”
She lost herself in Caleb’s instructions, in focusing on muscle groups, on trying to get above the magnitude of each contraction.
“Hold there, Marisol,” he said. “Baby’s crowning. Almost done.”
“Oh my God! Hold? How?” She swore. “This is the worst!”
“Do you want to try visualization again?” Lachlan asked quietly.
The entire lower half of her body was on fire and he wanted to talk psychology? What the hell? “How about visualizing my fist in your face?”
She’d have to complete her PhD without using any psychological terminology, because labor had ruined the words for her.
“Do you want to touch the baby’s head?” Caleb asked. “Help guide her out? Lachlan, you watching?”
“Hard not to,” Lachlan said in a strangled voice.
“One more push, maybe two.”
Mary, mother of God, this was happening too fast. Her eyes stung as she fought the hot pain. But her baby’s head? Yeah, she wanted to feel that. Proof this would be over and with one more push—
She reached down, and Caleb guided her hand to the little patch of scalp, like a peach, almost, a peach that felt way damned bigger than a peach as another contraction hit and she pushed and there was a head, and a blur, and she was lying skin-to-skin with a wrinkly pink human on her chest.
“Ohhhhh, hello,” she cooed. The baby squinted and squawked, and Marisol instinctively shushed her. Her breath caught, a rush of indescribable connection consuming her soul. The intensity of labor had nothing on the immediate, vehement attachment to the tiny being with the little rosebud mouth and a heck of a mop of dark hair. Oh, wow. Wow. Textbooks did not lie about the hormone surge, the bond that followed childbirth.
Lachlan slid an arm behind her and settled his free hand on the baby’s back. Fiona slid a warmed flannel blanket between his palm and the baby, and a flash of disappointment crossed his face.
“Once I’ve tried feeding her and they’ve cleaned me up, you can try skin-to-skin, too,” Marisol whispered.
“Whatever works for you.”
She cupped his cheek. “This works for me, Lachlan.”
“Let’s talk when you’re not swimming in oxytocin, okay?”
Too much self-doubt swam in his eyes for her to be mad at his assumptions that she was making decisions because of hormones.
The next hour melted into two as she dealt with the third stage of labor and tried nursing for the first time under Fiona’s watchful eye. After, she put on some comfy jammies and called her parents to tell them that no, she hadn’t completed her presentation, but yes, they had a healthy six-pound-ten-ounce granddaughter. Lachlan sent a group text with a picture to his sisters, and then forwarded it on to Zach with the instructions to pass it on to the rest of the Cardenas clan.
“Your turn, I think,” she said, once they were finally alone in the room.
He pulled the rocking chair over and stripped out of his shirt, then gingerly lifted the baby off Marisol’s chest and sat, settling the infant against his skin.
Ohhhh. Yep. Strong man, teeny baby. The “mommy porn” hashtag made so much more sense now. She rolled onto her side, hissing as her abused body adjusted to the new position.
“Once they release us, I don’t want to go back to my place by myself,” she said quietly. “I’m too sore.” Tears pricked her eyes. “Emotional, too. I don’t want it just to be me and the baby.”
“I can sleep on the couch for however long you need. And she needs us to pick a name. Feels wrong calling her ‘the baby.’” Amazement crossed his face as he touched a fingertip to their daughter’s nose.
“We will. But it feels even more wrong that we’re not together in this, Lachlan.” The need to convince him clogged in her throat. “I don’t want you to sleep on the couch. Now that she’s here—I know I can do this. All of this. My program isn’t going anywhere. They’re being flexible for me. And if I don’t climb the ranks of academia as fast as I’d anticipated, well, so be it.”
“It’s too soon to make decisions, Marisol.” Frowning, he shook his head. “I messed up. I—I hate what I did. Even though I thought I was doing the right thing... I’ve been treated like that before.”
“I know you have. That’s why you feel bad about it.” She inched closer to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch his shoulder. Warm skin flinched under her palm. “We can make this work, Lachlan. I need you to trust me.”
* * *
Trust me.
He’d been preaching that to her for months. Objectively knew he could. So what was with the wariness running through him? When all he should have been feeling was the all-encompassing love that filled his throat every time he looked down at his sleeping daughter?
Oh, right. Because he hadn’t practiced what he preached and then ended up failing her. And if loving someone meant not honoring their limits and being dishonest, then it wasn’t something he deserved.
He inhaled, struggling to form the words. “I pushed too hard. To the point you were committing before you were ready. That’s not love, Marisol.”
She stroked his cheek. “You’re not pushing me now.”
“Well, no. I’m not going to do that anymore—”
“And I’m still here. Still wanting this.”
Hope blossomed and he shoved it down, studying her. She blinked long, betraying her exhaustion. She’d essentially just run a couple of marathons back-to-back. But serenity marked her weary smile. Spoke to a truth, as if she’d discovered another layer to reality.
The baby snuffled on his chest. How was it possible to feel like he’d known her for his whole life after knowing her for a couple of hours? Warmth spread through him, real and pulsing. Love, for the baby. For Marisol.
But if he screwed up again... Hurt her again...
A series of alarms sounded from the nurse’s station down the hall, echoing the warning in his head. He wanted to hope, but it wasn’t about trusting Marisol. He had to trust himself that he wasn’t going to screw up again, and that she wasn’t feeling obligated because of the baby...
“I still want you, Lach,” she continued with emphasis. She reached over and stroked the baby’s back. “Us.”
“I want to love you more than anything.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “But I can’t handle taking the chance that I’d walk over what you need.”
She scoffed. “Am I a pushover, Lachlan?”
“No, but—”
“I know what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t have any regard for me and my needs. And this is not it. Also, if you overstepped in the future, you can trust that I’d call you on it if you did. Yeah, I don’t like that you didn’t tell me about the money. But I believe you’ll be honest in the future. I don’t mind that you pushed for us to be together. You forced me out of my comfort zone. That was healthy. And I need to remember you’re not...him. My ex. It was unfair of me to put his history on you.”
“Was it? I lied to get what I wanted.”
“And I’ve forgiven you for that. You found a different solution for your finances, and you’re here. Look at what we just did—”
He shook his head. “What you just did.”
“No, what we did. We were a team. You were right about that—we can do whatever we put our mind to as long as we stick together. I just pushed a human out of my body without drugs, for heaven’s sake. Figuring out work and parenting this amazing human and loving you? I can do that, too.”
She eased hers
elf backward on the bed, the evidence of her superhero status written in every tug and pull of her mouth.
Concern panged through him. “We should get you more painkillers.”
She patted the space she’d cleared on the bed. “In a minute. Come here. Family snuggle.”
“Family.” He rolled the word around on his tongue and settled in next to Marisol. With one hand holding the baby to his chest, and one around the woman who’d brought her into the world, could life get any fuller? He sure as hell couldn’t love them any more than he already did—
So reach for it. She was telling him she wanted this. He’d been intent on believing her when she hadn’t truly wanted it—why couldn’t he believe her when she did?
“I’m not sure I deserve the two of you,” he mumbled.
Soft lips pressed against his bare shoulder. “You so do, my love.”
“And you’re not afraid anymore? Your ex screwed you over but good, and then I piled onto it—I get why you were wary.”
She smiled softly and laid her head in the crook of his neck. “We’re both going to make mistakes, Lachlan. But we’ll fix them, too. And no, I’m not afraid anymore. Would a fearful woman ask you to marry her?”
“Well, no, but you haven’t asked me, so that’s moot.”
“I just did.”
His pulse seized. “Pretty sure it was a rhetorical question.”
She poked him between the ribs. “Do you want it to be rhetorical? Because if you do, tell me so I can pretend that’s what I meant.”
“I don’t want that at all. I want to be a family. Want to marry you.”
Her mouth quirked, wobbly smile solidifying with joy. Tired joy, but joy for sure. “I proposed without a ring. Badly done of me.”
“You gave me a baby. That’ll do.”
“She will.”
But it wouldn’t be enough for Marisol. She’d need an engagement ring. And he knew the exact right one. “Given we’re full up for novelty today, I’m not feeling the need to be secretive—I’ll call my grandfather, ask him where Grams’s engagement ring ended up. He probably has it tucked away somewhere.”
“That’d be lovely.” Her face was tucked against his chest, but her soft tone made her happiness clear. “What about her name?”
“Grams’s name? Laura? What about it?”
She chortled, then groaned. “Laughing...oh, it’s no good.”
“I bet. But what’s so funny?”
“I was suggesting we use your grandmother’s name for the baby. It’s pretty. Laura Reid Cardenas, if that works for you. Maybe with Marisol as a middle name. My parents didn’t stick with the paternal and maternal naming custom, but I think I’d like to.”
“Sunshine, given what I just watched you do, I’ll bow to whatever choice you make. But using my grandmother’s name...” His voice cracked, and he gave her a sheepish smile.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she murmured.
He coughed to clear the swell of emotion. “To Laura. And to being a family, and to a lifetime of loving each other—it’s all a yes.”
Epilogue
Marisol moved the cursor, ready to press Send on her last round of revisions. Could four years of work—thirteen, really, if she included her bachelor’s and master’s degrees—be distilled down to one tap on a touch pad? Her hand hovered over her laptop, and her heart thudded in her chest.
Footsteps sounded from down the hall. She’d been revising and editing at the training facility lately, a desperate attempt to see her husband and daughter for more than an hour a day. Laura’s preschool was only a block away, so Lachlan usually picked her up after her session and brought her back to play with the dogs. And family time aside, she got more done in Lachlan’s office than she did at the house, which they’d recently purchased from Gertie Rafferty. No end to the make-work projects there. She’d be juggling teaching and renos and family this summer.
A smile spread on her face at the prospect.
“Mari?” Lachlan’s voice floated from the direction of the footsteps, and he appeared in the doorway. Too handsome for his own good, this man. And he was all hers, from his six-ways-to-Sunday hair to the polo shirt that stretched oh-so-fine across his pecs to the puppy prints marking up his shorts.
Heat settled in her belly. They’d have to celebrate tonight...
Her gaze fell to his hands. Seemed like he was on the same page—a bottle of sparkling wine dangled from one hand and two glasses threaded between the knuckles of the other.
Not the kind of celebration she was up for. Nerves jumped in her stomach, and she put a hand to it.
Crap, she’d have to make excuses somehow.
Or fess up about my suspicions...
“All done?” he asked.
“Almost. Just need to submit it via the portal.”
He grinned and walked around the desk. Perching on the edge with his legs stretched out, he put the bottle and glasses down. “Submission anxiety?”
“Little bit.”
“Need a kiss first?”
She tapped the send button. “No, I need a kiss now that I’ve done it.”
“You did do it, sunshine.” His smile spread even wider, and he caught her fingers and tugged her up. “Dr. Sunshine, I should say.”
“You should. I busted my ass for that title.” She settled in the V of his legs and brushed her lips along the tickly soft hair on his jaw. He’d grown a short beard the winter after Laura was born, and she refused to let him shave it.
“I will. Often as you like. I’m so proud of you.” His lips sealed over hers, a vow of a kiss. “And maybe life’ll settle down a bit now. We’ll take a bit of time to enjoy what we’ve worked for.”
Yeah, about that “time.” Her mouth went dry, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from widening.
He cocked his head. “What?”
“As if Laura will let us settle down.” Not to mention...
His brow furrowed. “Where is Laura?”
“You didn’t leave her with Maggie?”
“No, I thought she was—” His head swiveled toward the little activity table set up in the corner across from his desk, next to Fudge’s dog bed. The dog, gray around the muzzle now, was snoring away, unaware that the small human who lovingly tormented her had gone missing. “Damn, should have realized it was too quiet.”
They rushed out of the office and down the hall, through the indoor ring where Lachlan led obedience and indoor training classes.
“Laura?”
“Lolo?”
As long as she was inside, there wasn’t much she could get into, but she was starting to figure out doorknobs. Normal safety concerns aside, there was a heck of a junk pile out back that Lachlan used for search training.
Opening and closing doors to the bathroom and the sole classroom, they quickly discerned their four-year-old wasn’t in the building.
Lachlan swore.
“Maybe she is with Maggie,” Marisol suggested, heart rate picking up.
They tore from the building and along the walkway that connected the vet clinic to the training facility. She scanned the cement-and-grass area between the two buildings. Empty. Silent, too. Maggie only had a senior spaniel in her care at the moment, as well as a Labrador puppy that a family had decided they couldn’t handle. The normally noisy kennel—
“The kennel,” she said, slowing. “She’s your kid. We should have looked there first.”
He shot her a wry smile. “Just my kid?”
Tipping her head in a guilty-as-charged admission, she pushed open the door that led to the dogs.
Between the two rows of small pens and kennels, a metal-fenced play area was set up. If Laura was anywhere, she’d be—Yup.
A tiny human body was curled up with a tiny canine body on the thin foam dog bed. Relief poured through Marisol, and s
he grabbed Lachlan’s hand.
He squeezed. “Sound asleep. Guess she hasn’t totally grown out of naps.”
Brown curls askew much like her daddy’s sandy blond ones, Laura clutched the twelve-week-old lab to her chest. Marisol’s throat ached at the cuteness.
“Wake up, baby bear,” she murmured, opening the enclosure.
Laura’s eyes fluttered open, arms tightening around the black-furred puppy. “I closed the gate, Mama.”
“I know. But Mommy and Daddy didn’t know where you were. We were scared.”
“Vader is scawed, too, Mama. He’s awone.” Her little lip wobbled.
Oh, God. Laura had skills. And Marisol had at least fourteen more years of being equal parts charmed and suckered in by that epic pout.
Lachlan entered the enclosure and knelt, stroking a hand on Laura’s head and then the puppy’s back. “Vader, huh?”
Laura nodded solemnly.
“We can’t name him, Lolo. He’s not ours,” Lachlan picked her up and stood. “And he won’t be alone. Auntie Maggie is taking him home tonight.”
“He could come to our house.” She nuzzled into his neck and sniffled. “Peez, Daddy?”
Lachlan’s gaze locked on Marisol’s. A “helpless to withstand the tears of his daughter” kind of look.
“Oh, no,” Marisol said. “We can’t.”
“Fudge is nearing retirement, Mari.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “I’ve spent some time with this guy this week. He has potential.”
Her heart panged. Lach wasn’t the only person in the family who couldn’t resist the sadness of a loved one. “But I just finished...”
And I think we’re going to be mighty busy with someone else.
It seemed their somewhat lackadaisical attention to birth control over the past couple of months had had its effect far sooner than they’d expected it would. She couldn’t drop that on him here, though, not with little ears on the alert. They’d need to decide when and how to tell Laura.