Lucy

Avital’s in town doing her doctor day, and Baby Nando is sleeping in his rocker in the kitchen while his brother Joseph screams with unknown distress. Dolf turns to me, offering the little red-faced bundle. “Help me, please.”

I’d laugh, except that the tears on Joseph’s face make it too sad—whatever’s upsetting the baby is very real to him. But seeing my stern, powerful billionaire older brother Dolf undone by a baby so like himself is just too good.

I take Joseph and put him against my shoulder, patting his back until he lets out a whopper of a burp. It immediately settles him and his soft cheek comes to rest on me as he falls asleep.

Dolf sighs with relief. “He’s so fussy. If he’d just relax, those burps wouldn’t be so painful! You’re so good with him, Lucy Loo.”

“Thanks.” The compliment warms me.

Heavy footfalls in the hall precede JT entering the kitchen, the sheriff on his heels.

“Hey, Lucy.” JT leans over and presses a kiss to my cheek, then another one onto Joseph’s head, bending last to leave a peck on Nando’s brow. The sheriff smiles at me and tips his head in greeting. He’s ruggedly good-looking in a Tommy Lee Jones kind of way, with salt-and-pepper hair and a wiry build. The little paunch resting on his belt, laden with a gun and the other tools of his trade, gives away Hal Osgood’s love of good food.

It’s nice for JT to have Sheriff Hal in his life. I never got a chance to miss our father since I was only four months old when he died, but I know the boys think of him often.

Especially with these little ones around.

I sense that Dolf and Luca worry about dying and leaving their children behind, abandoning their wives to struggle to raise a family alone like our mother did.

“Sheriff’s gonna stay for dinner tonight. Think there’s enough?” JT asks with a grin. Every night we prepare a feast, enough food for a whole village… JT takes a lot of it into town for those who are not doing as well as we are.

I settle Joseph back into his bassinet. “Yeah, I think Mama’s got it covered.”

She walks in the door as I speak, her apron filled with zucchinis. When she spots the Sheriff, her cheeks go pink.

He hikes up his belt and tips his head to her. “Ma’am. Hope you don’t mind that JT brought me home again.”

Ana Luciano, the most nimble woman on the planet, trips as she heads to the sink to wash the zucchinis. The sheriff reaches out and steadies her with a hand. “You’re always welcome, you know that.” She moves away from him quickly, smiling.

They like each other. Mama’s not even admitting it to herself yet, but I can tell.

Over the last two months I’ve managed to get my version of the Sight a little more under control. The emotions of others don’t batter me the same way they did in Kane’s stronghold; it is more of a gentle knowing rather than an invasive sensation.

I’m chopping onions at my cutting board, the happy sounds of my family around me, when a wave of nausea overtakes me. I run to the bathroom and hug the bowl, retching up my lunch, mortified.

Roan’s absence, no matter how much I try to ignore it, no matter how much I try to be free of him, still hurts. It’s even making me sick. Sick at heart, sick to my stomach, listless and ridiculously weepy—I cried over a glass of spilled milk yesterday. Spilled milk! Could I be more cliché? It’s so annoying! Why can’t I just move on?

Because he has my heart.

The nausea passes and I splash water on my face, brush my teeth, and then sit on the closed lid of the toilet, holding my head in my hands.

Will I ever be free of him? Of this trauma?

A knock at the door. “Lucy, it’s Avital. We need to talk.” I’ve noticed my former ER doctor sister-in-law watching me with concern.

“Come in.” The door creaks open and she enters, closing it behind her. A small woman with a big presence, Avital reminds me of my mother in that way. Her green eyes examine me like I’m a problem to be solved, a clock that won’t tick, a wound that won’t heal.

“When was your last period?”

“What?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Your period?”

I swallow, my throat burning as nausea tickles my jaw again. Fear and confusion war inside of me.

“Either you’ve got some sort of persistent parasite, or a baby inside you.”

“But…” Oh my God. She’s right. “No way. We only did it one time!” I touch my hands to my waist, shocked but also relieved in a weird way. My symptoms suddenly make sense: wine disgusts me, I can’t sleep but am so damn tired, and I puke every day. I wrote my illness off as trauma, but I was wrong: these aren’t symptoms of deep pain, but of new life.

Tears spill from my eyes, streaking down my cheeks. Avital embraces me, patting my back. She’s thicker than she used to be: rounded, softer yet stronger—a mother. And I will be too. I don’t need a pregnancy test to find out—I know the truth of it.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

I suck in a breath and let it out on a sob. “It’s…it’s wonderful.” I dreamed of having babies with Roan—but not by myself!

Still…it is kind of wonderful. Another sob wrenches free.

“Roan’s the father?”

I nod against her shoulder, incapable of speech.

“And you’ve no idea where he is?”

I sit back, looking into Avi’s green eyes. Her gaze is sure and strong. “No. He just…left. I think he thought he was doing the right thing. He’s got some messed-up idea that he’s not good enough for me.”

Oh, my God. I’m a single mother! Mama’s going to be so pissed.

Going to Catholic school, I certainly knew my fair share of teenage moms. I always swore that would never happen to me. I’d never have sex for some guy, let him use me for his own pleasure and end up with the baby, or the hard decision not to have it.

“Don’t worry, we are all here for you.”

“Thank you. I need you all.” Gratitude for my family, my nieces and nephews, for the life growing inside of me wells up as powerful as a sob—but this is just wrong.

Roan should be here. Maybe, if he knew I was pregnant, he’d come back to me.

Unless he really is broken. Then there’s nothing that can bring him home, not even the proof of our love growing inside of me.