Page 109 of Heart Breaker

“I want my dad,” she cried into my chest, the words breaking something open inside me as I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the top of her head.

“I know, Peach.”

Another sob escaped her. “He was supposed to be here longer. He was supposed to meet our babies.”

My throat closed. “He was.”

She cried harder after that, the kind of crying that comes from somewhere so deep there’s no stopping it once it starts. I didn’t stop her, and I didn’t tell her everything would be okay, because it won’t be. Not for a long time.

Instead, I held her, rubbing slow circles across her back while I kissed her hair. And I stayed.

And every night since then, she’s clung to me. Sometimes she’ll curl up against my side, her head resting against my heart as though the beat of it reminds her that life, somehow, keeps moving forward. Somehow grief and joy can exist in the very same moment. We grieved, but here and there we still found reasons to smile.

We’d steal a few lingering kisses before falling asleep. On some nights we’d undress each other slowly, and I’d slip deep inside her as she shuddered and cried out my name.

Slowly over the last few months, life has found a new rhythm. I’ve spent more days at Cove than I have in months, and I’ve begun to fly again, but never for more than a few days at a time. Lottie has thrown herself back into planning weddings with Harper, determined to help other couples celebrate the happiest day of their lives.

Tonight, I’m back home earlier than usual. Scout barely lifts his head from in front of the living room fire as I walk through the front door.

“Some watchdog you are,” I tease, scratching behind his ears as I pass. “You’d probably let a burglar make himself a sandwich.”

His tail thumps once against the hardwood before he goes right back to sleep. I find my wife upstairs in our bedroom, so focused she doesn’t hear me come in. I step behind her and press a kiss to the back of her head. A soft sigh escapes her as she tips her head back and looks at me. I seal my mouth to hers in a slow, toe-curling kiss.

The moment she turns in my arms and her eyes find mine, I cup her face between my hands and claim her mouth again. When I pull back, she’s smiling. She looks almost awestruck.

I brush my thumb across her cheek. “What’s on that beautiful mind of yours, baby?”

She shakes her head, a watery laugh escaping her. “I’m thinking about how much I love you.”

My heart stumbles. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

She reaches for my hands, lacing our fingers together before pressing them between us. “Wes…” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I have something I need to tell you.”

A tear slips down her cheek, and she doesn’t wipe it away. Instead, she smiles even wider. “We’re going to have a baby, Wes. I’m pregnant.”

For a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe. The world narrows until there’s nothing left in it except the woman standing in front of me.

“We’re having a baby?”

She nods, tears shining in her eyes. “We are. You’re going to be a dad.”

Emotion crashes through me so fast that my knees nearly give out. Before I know it, I’m laughing as I gather her against me, my forehead falling to hers.

“Peach,” I say, my voice cracking. “You’ve made me the luckiest man alive.”

Lottie smiles through her tears, and I kiss her again, slowly and reverently like I’m trying to memorize the exact way this moment feels. When I finally pull back, I rest my hand over hers against her stomach. “I’m already in love with him or her.”

Her breath catches. “So am I.”

I smile, my thumb brushing gently over the back of her hand. Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that James is smiling right now. In some quiet way, I think he knew we’d be okay and that Lottie and I would keep building the life we had only just begun.

My gaze drifts back to my wife and to the tiny life growing beneath our joined hands. My family. Everything I ever thought I wanted pales in comparison to what I have now.

Home was never a place.

It was always her.

EPILOGUE