Sonata (North Security 3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Samantha

How many afternoons have we worked this way?

I sit on a plain chair in the middle of an overlarge music room, playing until my fingers turn red and bruised. Liam works quietly a few yards away, his office door open, the extensive grounds of North Security’s training field through the window beyond him.

It’s a peaceful existence, one that’s about to become a lot more chaotic.

Time to let Liam in on that secret.

I set the bow to the strings and play a song I’ve never played before. It takes Liam a three-count before his head rises. A whole

refrain before he gets up and crosses the room. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, a slight frown. “What’s that?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Don’t you recognize it? You need to get online more.”

The bow runs through the refrain again. It’s a simple song, after all. Made for children to enjoy. Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo. He has no idea. It’s adorable. There’s going to be a lot for him to learn, though ironically, he has more experience being a parent than me. We’ll learn the rest of it together. “Baby makes three,” I say softly.

He stares at me, dumbfounded. “No.”

“I should have explained,” I say, teasing. “About the birds and bees.”

“Not this bird.” He kneels in front of me, placing a hand on my still-flat stomach. There isn’t fear in his eyes now. Only love. “Not this bee. Samantha, is it true?”

“It’s true.” My eyes fill with tears. They’re ones of joy. Not pain.

He’s made of muscle and scar tissue. A fortress of a human being, but he renders himself vulnerable for me. He rests his head in my lap, exposing his nape. I ruffle my fingers through his pale brown hair. This is how we make a family. Not with haunting memories but with music.

This is how we compose our future—one note at a time.

EPILOGUE

Samantha

Water laps at my ankles, surprisingly cold on a warm day. A breeze whispers against wet skin. I compose a letter in my mind. Dear mama. No. Dear mother. Also no. To whom it may concern, I’m getting married today. I’ve lived long enough without actual relatives. I don’t think about it all the time, but right now, there’s a family-shaped hollow in my heart. Isn’t this when they come together? A mother to help me dress. A father to walk me down the aisle. A church full of people to throw rice. There’s no church. No aisle. There is a dress, although it doesn’t have a train or a veil. White silk flutters in the wind, threatening at any moment to break from my grasp and get entirely wet.

I glance back. Liam stands at the edge of the water. A white dress shirt molds to his muscular frame, pushed by the wind into the dips between muscle. Black dress pants. Dress shoes, incongruous on a beach. There’s no impatience in his frame. No movement. He might as well be made of stone, waiting for years for me to come back from sea, the personification of Penelope. Which would make me Odysseus, traveling for ages before I could finally come home.

You are my mother. I need you.

No.

I’m getting married today to a man I love. He’s my anchor in the world. It’s not right that I didn’t have you as my anchor. It’s not right that you left. I spent so many years looking for you, not in real places, in emotional places, in tender, heart-dark places. Liam has been waiting for me.

Yes. Finally, yes.

He waited for me to grow up. He waited for me to need him—not as a child but as a woman.

He’s waiting for me now.

A wave crashes against my shins. I walk back toward the shore. Undercurrent wraps around my toes, urging me back into the water, but I don’t want to go that way. Choices, choices. Green eyes glint in the bright sun. This is the home I choose. The family I found. This man.

He holds out his hand. “Ready?”

Emotion tightens my throat. It pricks my eyes. I take his hand without a word. He seems to know the feelings running through me. Shadows and light. Dark striations in a malachite gaze. I reach to cup his jaw. It’s only six o’clock, but he already has a light scratch of hair. I stroke it, gently, against the grain, reveling in its sandpaper texture. “I’m ready.”

His nostrils flare. There are more than words passing between us. There are animal instincts. Are you my mate? Yes, yes, yes. The low gravel of his voice rolls over my skin. “If you keep looking at me like that, there isn’t going to be a ceremony.”