“Do you mind me asking about her?” she whispered. “I can stop if it’s weird.”
He licked his lips, his brow furrowing in thought. “No, I don’t mind. I kind of like it. It’s strange, trying to fit everything together in my thoughts. Being able to talk about them makes it easier somehow. Like I don’t have to hide anything from you.”
“I don’t want you to hide anything,” she said softly. “They were your life. They still are.”
He traced his finger down her spine. “For the longest time I didn’t think I’d want to be with anybody else ever again. After Sara and Jacob died I assumed that was it for me. My chance at happiness was gone. I threw myself into work and spent time with my friends and my family, but I protected the space they’d once filled inside me. I didn’t want to allow anyone in or forget about them, because that would mean I’d lost them forever.” He swallowed hard. “And I couldn’t do that.”
“They’re not gone,” she whispered, splaying her hand out on his chest. “They’re in here.” She took his hand, and pressed it to her abdomen. “And here, too, because this little baby is Jacob’s sister. And that connects us all.”
“I went to the cemetery,” he told her, his palm caressing her stomach.
“To visit their graves?”
“Yeah. I needed to think about things. Clear my head.”
“Did it work?” she asked him.
He turned onto his side, placing his other palm on her stomach, too. She looked down, watching as he slowly cupped the swell of her bump. The gesture made her breath catch in her throat. When she looked at him, he was staring down at her, his brows knitted together, his lips parted.
He made her heart ache in the most delicious of ways. She wanted to lay here forever, the three of them, protected from all the pain the world could cause.
“Yeah,” he finally said, his voice soft. “It worked.” He was still gazing intently at her stomach. “I realized how much I want this. Us. This baby. And how fucking scared I am to lose it all again.” He leaned down to press his lips tenderly against her stomach. She cupped his cheeks with her palms, feeling the roughness of his skin against her. It was hard to breathe, to think, to do anything except watch the rawness of his emotions.
“I was sitting by Sara’s side in the hospital when they told me Jacob had died during surgery,” he said, lips still pressed against her skin. “I’ve never felt a pain like it. I wanted to curl up and scream until I couldn’t hear anything else. To block everything out until the world went dark.” He let out a mouthful of air. “But instead I prayed. I prayed Sara would die, too; I never wanted her to know how bad it felt to lose our son. And I wanted her to be with him, wherever he was, because I couldn’t cope with the thought of him being alone.”
Harper’s eyes filled with tears. When he looked up at her, his lids heavy, she could see the glisten of water in his, too. She pressed her lips together to stifle a sob, because this was his pain, not hers.
“Can you imagine wanting your spouse to die?” he whispered. “What kind of man does that make me?”
“A selfless one,” she said, her voice cracking. “A man who’d do anything for the people he loves.”
With her hands still cupping his cheeks, she dropped her head to press her lips against his. She could taste the salt of his tears mingling with her own. “I can?
??t imagine what it was like to lose the two people you loved the most,” she whispered. “To be the one left to carry all the pain and grief. The strength you showed… the strength you still show…it’s almost incomprehensible.”
Her body was filled with emotion for him. This strong, damaged man staring into her eyes. She wanted to take away his pain, to make everything better, and she ached knowing she couldn’t.
And yet there was another thought, one that saddened her. The knowledge that if Sara and Jacob hadn’t died this baby wouldn’t be growing inside her. She wouldn’t be here in his bed, laying in his arms, whispering to him that he was going to be all right.
She took a deep breath and kissed him again, feeling his lips move against hers as his arms slid around her waist. Life was complicated, sometimes confusing as hell, but the way she felt when he touched her was so simple it cut through everything else.
The past was gone, and though they could mourn it, they couldn’t change a thing. The future was knocking on the door and they couldn’t ignore it either.
And as they kissed, Harper was certain she wanted to fling it wide open and let the light of the new day flood the darkness away.
18
“It’s official. I’m carrying around a week old baby in my stomach and I don’t like it one bit.” Ember sighed and looked down at her swollen stomach. “I’ve tried everything. Exercise, scary movies, spicy food.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table, her stomach pressing against the edge. “And sex. Lots of sex. Every position I can get myself into, and even that hasn’t worked.”
She and Harper were sitting at a window table inside Déjà Brew, overlooking the golden sand as it sprawled out to the ocean. The sky above them was full of wispy candy cotton clouds, the sun hazy as it tried to fight its way through them. The breeze lifting from the ocean was enough to cool Harper’s skin, so they’d opted to stay inside instead of at their go-to table on the deck.
“Have you had any contractions at all?” she asked, looking down at her own stomach. At almost twenty-three weeks she felt huge, but compared to Ember’s stomach her bump was tiny and compact. It was strange to think in a few months’ time she would be that big. How would it even be possible to walk or keep her balance? Or more importantly, fit in any of her clothes?
“I don’t know,” Ember admitted. “Everything aches constantly. I can’t sleep, I need to pee all the time, my pelvis feels like somebody is pulling it apart with the jaws of life.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. It really isn’t that bad.”
“Have you had any contractions while I’ve been making these?” Ally asked as she brought over their coffees, giving Harper a wink. “Should I go boil some water and fluff some towels?”
“Nothing. Nada. I’m never going to have this baby,” Ember told her, gritting her teeth. “I’ll be the only pregnant woman carrying around a teenager in her stomach. They’ll put me on TV shows as a medical miracle.”