After bringing the kids back to Arizona, I lingered a few days at home. Just like Sydney, there were memories I hoped to recall and a person I needed to forgive. The woman who killed Darcy and Miles was barely a woman at all. Eighteen years old at the time of the accident, she’d also lost her life. Her family, in the throes of their own grief, had reached out to us at the time of the accident. They’d wanted to apologize, but at the time, none of us were ready to hear what they had to say. Now we were.

So I made the difficult call and arranged to meet with the woman’s family at a local park. Mom and Sydney had chosen to accompany me, and as we crossed the grass, the three of us locked arms in solidarity. We were in this together. Always. And what we found at the end of the path was not the family of a monster but grieving parents of a young woman who was missed just as fiercely by her family as Miles and Darcy were by ours.

Her name was Beth, and she’d only recently graduated high school. She’d been a student at the local community college at the time she’d made the decision to send the fateful text that killed not only my brother and his wife but herself as well. She was human and she was loved… far from the hideous beast I’d pictured in my mind. As they spoke lovingly of their daughter, I could feel the weight lifting from me as the anger began to fade.

Sydney had remained stoic throughout the short meeting. Even when Beth’s parents specifically apologized to her, she hadn’t uttered a word. It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that she finally spoke.

“I forgive her.”

* * *

I returned to Jake with only two weeks left before the end of the tour. He would have already been done by now had he not been forced to reschedule dates that had been canceled due to our family tragedy. I was ready to go home. It had been a year of such ups and downs that we both needed a chance to just chill.

After the emotional meeting in the park where I followed Sydney’s example and forgave Beth, I felt stronger and more determined than ever to reclaim the Casey I’d once been. Yes, I had bad days, but they were fewer and farther between. I poured myself back into work and spent more time around Jake’s crew, joking and hanging out. Even Lassen and I had mended our rift and were on good terms once more, even though I still took the opportunity to mess with him when the opportunity arose.

Most importantly, Jake and I had found our rhythm again. We were back to being a team. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the playful banter and sexy innuendos until they returned to our marriage in full force. In a year of extremes, it was only natural to keep the trend going.

“You got a minute?” I asked, sliding onto the couch next to Jake and grabbing the pillow to cradle in my arms.

He muted the TV and turned his body toward me. “What’s up?”

“So, you know how since Miles’s death I’ve been pretty erratic with my period, and charting my ovulation was all over the place?”

“Yeah.”

That one word of his was loaded. I could see by the look of concern on his face that he was guessing where this was going… and he’d be right.

“Well, I haven’t had my period for a while, and I thought it was just normal variation but, the thing is, I wasn’t really paying much attention to my cycle because all my focus was on the kids.”

“Just tell me, Casey. Are you pregnant?”

Jake didn’t seem thrilled, but he wasn’t upset either. If I had to describe his mood at the moment, it was decidedly neutral.

“I don’t know, but I thought all week I’d be starting and I didn’t. When I actually counted back, I realized it’s been eight weeks since my last period. I don’t know if I’ve ever gone more than six or seven weeks without one.”

“Do you feel different?”

“No, not at all. I don’t think I’m pregnant, but I also don’t know why I haven’t started. Anyway, I was going to ask Dom if he’d drive me to the store so I can pick up a pregnancy test.”

Jake pulled out his phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Sean. We’ve got all day. I’m going to see if he can get you a doctor’s appointment.”

“I don’t need to see a doctor, Jake. Women have been peeing on sticks for a long time.”

“Right, but none of those women are my wife. We’re getting you an appointment.”

I relented to Jake’s request, and later that afternoon, we were brought in through the back door of the doctor’s office and escorted into an exam room. The first thing they had me do was pee in a cup. I eyed Jake. All this pomp and circumstance could easily have been avoided.

“I hate to say I told you so,” I said, exiting the bathroom with my brimming cup of urine. “But I told you so. Going on a stick would have been so much easier, by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pee within the parameters of the cup? I thought I knew where my urine stream was coming from but I was totally off. Peed all over my hand.”

Although not known for biting his nails, Jake was nervously chowing down. Upon hearing of my toilet trials, the stress lines in his forehead softened, the finger was removed from his mouth, and my hubby broke out into a grin. “Maybe keep that fascinating story between the two of us, huh?”

The nurse stopped in briefly to take my blood pressure before exiting with my pee cup. While waiting for the doctor to arrive, I examined the stirrups on the side of the table.

“How much would you pay me to put my feet in the stirrups and greet the doctor like that when he arrives?” I teased.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. “I would pay you nothing.”

“Yeah, he probably wouldn’t blink an eye anyway. Do you think he gets bored looking at vaginas all day?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, wrapping his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. “I wouldn’t.”

“All day, Jake. He looks at them all day. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t get old after a while.”

“Sure, Casey, whatever you say. It would be such a bore.”

I extended my leg out to playfully kick him with my bare foot, but his reactions were spot on and he managed to scoot his chair back in the nick of time.

“Why’d you have to get me a male gynecologist anyway?” I complained.

“He was the only one I could get on such short notice.”

“Oh, wonderful. Male and the last gyno left on the shelf. Goody.”

Jake grinned, shrugging his shoulders at my remark. “I honestly didn’t think it mattered.”

“Of course it matters. Would you want a female doctor sticking her fingers up your dick?”

“Nooo…” He laughed. “I wouldn’t want anyone doing that, male or female. Would you please just sit quietly until he gets here?”

“Fine, but he’d better not be hot.”

Jake’s eyes widened in surprise, but before he could respond to my off-color statement, the doctor walked through the door… and thankfully he was aging and rather unattractive.

He also cut right to the chase. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”