Untamed (Hearts 3)

“Leo sent a box of my mother’s things.”

She sat down next to me on the couch, her bare legs practically in my lap. As if it was her own, she leaned over and picked up my coffee cup for a sip. “Is this her art?” she asked, picking up a drawing of a cat sleeping on a windowsill. “Oh, Ronan, it’s so sweet.”

I pointed at the pictures I’d framed, the dog on the beach. And her own pictures of her and her sister and mom hanging beside them. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“I found this, too.” I held out the ring, which caught the sunlight and threw rainbows around the room. It was as if Poppy had been created in ring form. I told her the story of poor Danny.

“And it’s been in a box all this time?” she asked.

I unwrapped her fingers from my coffee mug and slipped the ugly piece of Morelli history off her body. “I’ll get you something else later,” I told her. “Something you pick out or whatever. But for now it would mean a lot to me if you wore this ring.” I slipped the diamond on her finger like it had been made for her.

“It’s perfect,” she whispered, and kissed me before resting her head on my shoulder. She held it out on her hand, admiring the way it sparkled in sunlight. “I guess it’s real, then,” she said.

“Us?”

She nodded.

“We’re already married.”

“You know what I mean.” I pulled her up into my lap, sliding my hand over her stomach where there might or might not be a baby we’d made. If wanting her to be pregnant made it so, then she was surely pregnant. If not now, then soon.

“I love you.”

“How do you know?” she asked me, stroking my face. Smiling at me because she knew the answer.

Trust. Faith. Surrender. This glowing fucking hope in my chest.

“Because I know.”

EPILOGUE

Poppy

The blue of the sky was the same blue as the sea. It was endless. And you’d think it would get boring, nothing but sea and sky and sun.

But it had been a month, and so far…not boring.

Not boring at all.

Of course, I was very busy.

“Ronan?” I yelled from my spot on the deck. I had cushions and towels and an array of drinks and all the watermelon I could keep down.

“Yeah?”

I turned to find him on the upper deck, the open-air captain’s chair. He had his leg propped up on the railing, the damn sketchbook open on his lap.

“Honestly,” I said, crossing my arms over my breasts. “It’s getting a little pervy, Ronan.”

“You’re gorgeous,” he said. He set down the sketchbook and took the ladder down to the deck where I was lying. He was all sleek tanned muscles in a black swimsuit. His hair was long. He’d lost some of that edge. The lethal grace. He slept through the night, and when the nightmares came for him, I was there to push them away.

To remind him that he was a different man. “And you love it.”

He sprawled against my cushions with me. His hands stroking my breasts. The mound of my stomach.

“Lass,” he breathed. “You’re more beautiful every day.”

I stretched my arms over my head. I was tanned from all the sun. Brown all over from sunbathing topless. I was embarrassed at first. Pale and timid.

Feeling like a whale.

But now I am four months pregnant and loving it.

He stroked my hair back from my face.

It was red again. Pulled back in a ponytail. Stiff and curly from the sea air.

“How’s the schoolwork?”

“Good,” I said. I was taking social work courses online from NYU. I hoped between the courses and all this money we had, Ronan and I might be able to do some real good for kids. Kids like Ronan.

He kissed me. Kissed me again. And I was drunk on sunshine and peace and love but there were realities we needed to deal with.

“We need to get back to harbor soon,” I said.

“You feel all right?” he asked, stroking my stomach. He held his hand just above my hip bone, tapping the taut skin until the baby inside of me kicked.

Hi there, son.

Hi there, Dad.

They did this a million times a day, Ronan and his child.

“I’m good, but we’re running out of watermelon.”

“Then we’d better get back quickly.”

I had terrible morning sickness the first three months and I didn’t know if it was being on the water that made it better, or if it faded on its own. It was very different from the first time.

Being pregnant was endlessly fascinating.

The monitor at my hip buzzed as Gwen woke up from her nap. She really was the sweetest child. She woke up singing, babbling to herself.

“Grand. I thought she’d never wake up,” Ronan said and swung away from me to go get our two-year-old.

Our boat was palatial, larger than the apartment in Brooklyn. And we’d spent a fortune making it as safe as possible. But there were still problems and risks with a two-year-old on a boat, and as he came to the doorway of the cockpit with Gwen in his arms, her red hair in a wild rooster tail on top of her hair, my heart caught in my throat.