His eyes fell on the sweet, sleeping baby in the crook of her arm. She could see his throat working as he swallowed.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, “but I love her, too. I barely know her, but I love her. Both of you. It’s… it’s… I don’t know how to explain it.”
She kissed the top of her baby’s head. Her heart was so full it was going to burst.
“It’s fierce. That’s what it is.” He reached for her hand. “I love you, fiercely. Like if anyone tried to hurt you, I’d defend you with my life.”
“Let’s hope it never comes to that.” She squeezed his fingers. “I’d hate to see what you did to the other guy.”
He grinned as he bent to place the tenderest of kisses on her lips, so soft and tempting she tried to cling to him, wanting more.
“Ow!” The incision in her abdomen protested her efforts.
His mouth dropped open. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, as her forgotten pains worked their way back into the foreground. “I might need some pain medication.”
A tentative knock sounded on the door, and a woman walked in, fidgeting with the booklets in her hand.
“Hi, I’m Jennifer, your lactation specialist. I can come back later if now’s not a good time.”
“I need you now,” Brooke hurried to say, relieved she was going to have help. Cole, on the other hand, was as red as a cherry tomato. “But if you don’t mind waiting outside for just a second, I need to talk to my husband.”
Though they’d been married for over five months, it was the first time she’d really thought of him as her husband.
“I can leave,” he offered, when they were alone. “I know this is totally awkward. I mean, she has no idea we’ve never… uhm… Although, I guess we will be now. Right? We didn’t talk about it, but I was assuming we would. Not right away, of course. But I guess I can stay and learn about this stuff, in case husbands help with this sort of—”
“Cole,” she interrupted. “I won’t make you stay and watch right now.”
Air blew between his loose lips. “Thank you.”
“But the answer to your question is yes.” She waited until her message sank in and a slow smile smoldered on his face. “Although I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you. Every part of my body hurts right now. It may be months before I’m healed.”
With his hands on her pillow on either side of her head, he lowered his mouth toward hers with excruciating deliberateness. Her pulse quickened. She hoped the various wires on her body weren’t keeping a record of her temperature, which must’ve spiked by two or three degrees. By the time his lips pressed against hers, the opiate-effect of his kiss had drugged every nerve ending, eclipsing her pain. Dizzy with bliss, she blinked her eyes into focus.
“I can wait as long as we need to.” His half-lidded eyes regarded her from inches away, with a sizzling combination of tenderness and hunger. “After all, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”
EPILOGUE
(Two months later)
“HEEL GUS!” Cole tugged on the dog’s collar, but he was intent on sniffing Garner’s shoes, which, unfortunately, left a trail of slobber on the silk suit pants. “Sorry about that. He’s not usually like that with strangers. Please add the dry cleaning to my bill.”
“Perhaps he was drawn to the houndstooth,” Garner said, sarcastically, as he backed behind the safety of his desk. He swept his hand toward the leather, client chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thanks for seeing us on such short notice,” Cole said.
“When you said you were stopping by, I thought you were coming alone.” Garner looked pointedly at Brooke, who was carrying the baby against her in a mile-long wrap that had taken twenty minutes and two You-Tube videos to decipher.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve introduced you. This is Nicole Harper Miller, and she’s two months old, today.” Cole beamed, as he always did when he talked about his daughter. Her cheeks, rosy from the cold air, matched her perfect lips. The pink sweater cap she wore covered the short, dark hair on her head. She already looked like a miniature version of her mother, so much so that he worried how he would keep the boys away from her when she grew up.
“Congratulations. You have a lovely baby,” he said wearing a smile that seemed to cause a great deal of pain. “I suppose you’re here to ask about the divorce. If you’ll both sign the agreed divorce decree, we can expedite this thing. Now that a child’s involved, Brooke will need to appear before the judge for the final hearing, but that’ll just be a formality.”
Cole exchanged a glance with Brooke, whose hand was covering her mouth. From the crinkle of her eyes, he suspected she was stifling a laugh.
Cole cleared his throat. “I thought I called to cancel that.”
Garner sat deathly still in the silence that followed. Not even a blink to indicate he was still alive. When he spoke at last, Cole had to strain to hear him.
“Cancel?” Garner’s left eye twitched.
“It must’ve slipped my mind.” Cole rubbed the back of his head. “We’ve been so busy, with the car wreck and near-death and the baby and the hospital. Then there’s all the company. We’ve had one set of in-laws or the other, almost non-stop. Not to mention both our sisters, plus the Phantom guys. We’ve just been swamped. And we’ve been staying out at the ranch, trying to fly under the radar, so to speak.”
“Slipped your mind?” Both eyes were twitching now.
“Uh, yes. But did you hear all that other stuff I said after that? Brooke almost—”
“Are you telling me the two of you decided you no longer intend to go through with the divorce?” With his eyes bulging and the veins standing out on his neck, Garner looked like he might explode. “The divorce that you planned before the marriage? The one that started out as agreed? The one I thought I was simply delaying when I filed an answer with the court and then filed interrogatories? Is that the divorce you’re talking about? Is that the divorce that slipped your mind?”
“Nah! I’m talking about the other divorce.”
Cole chuckled, but Garner didn’t seem amused. He reached in his desk drawer and pulled out a prescription bottle, popping a pill in his mouth and downing it with a drink from a thermal tumbler.
“Using prescription antacids now? Tums aren’t cutting it anymore?”
“These aren’t antacids.” Garner shook the pill bottle as he spoke between gritted teeth. “This is Xanax. But I only take them when I’m extremely agitated.”
“No need to be upset,” Cole said. “I’ll still pay your hourly rate.”
