The Trouble with Tomboys (Tommy Creek #1)(76)

gratefully. She’d somehow taken the pain away and filled him with life.

“Now, about this issue you’re making with

Amy,” he said. “Just...don’t. Okay? We both cared for 232



The Trouble with Tomboys



her. Hell, I always will. She taught me how to love a woman. But she’s my past, B.J. You’re the rest of my life, and I love you with everything I have. Baby or no baby, deed to your plane or no deed, I love you.

Now, I just want to be with you.”

“But…” She pulled back just enough to see his face. Placing both of his hands on either side of her head, he cupped her cheeks and gave her a long, closed-mouth kiss. When he finally pulled back, his blue eyes were rimmed with tears.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll never think of her again.

Because I will, especially when I’m with you. It doesn’t hurt so much to remember her when I’m with you. That’s a gift you’ve given me, and I’m grateful for it. But I can guarantee you I won’t automatically see her every time I look at you.”

Grinning, he touched B.J.’s face, tracing her hairline with the very tips of his fingers. “God, I can’t believe anyone would be able to see anyone else when you’re around. You’re so...alive. So wonderfully alive. Everything you do...it’s all just...full of vitality.

You’re a survivor. You have a stronger spirit than Amy ever did. You fight! You’re...you’re B.J. And I adore everything about you.”

He cleared his throat. “The day she died, in the hospital...she took one look at the dead baby and gave up. She didn’t glance my way, didn’t say anything to me. She just stopped living because she knew she’d never be a mother.”

Closing his eyes, he nuzzled his face in B.J.’s hair, and she wrapped her arms around him,

supporting him. “She could’ve fought to stay with me. I know she could’ve. She was alive and talking, right up until the moment she saw Bennett. But she didn’t want to live. She didn’t want to be childless.

So, she chose death over me.”

Blowing out a long, relieved breath as if

233



Linda Kage



cleansed by the truth, he lifted his face and gave B.J.

a trembling smile. “You wouldn’t have done that to me,” he said with dead certainty.

“No,” she agreed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have ever done that to you.” As tears flooded her face, she grinned through the downpour. “Damn it, Grady,”

she said and then caught him off guard by launching herself tighter against him and hugging him hard. “I love you so much.”

He pulled her close and kissed her hair. “Yeah,”

he murmured. “It’s nice to finally be on the same page with you.”

She snorted. “You’re telling me. I thought I was going to blow a gasket with all this angst and frustration. I kept worrying it’d screw with the baby, and he’d come out with three toes hanging from his chin or something.”

Grady laughed. Feeling free, as if he’d just been released from nearly three years of hell, he kissed her again. He knew the rest of his life would never be dull with B.J. at his side.

And he looked forward to it.

234



The Trouble with Tomboys





Epilogue


“I never want to go through that again,” Grady said, mopping his damp brow with the back of his palm as he plopped into a chair next to the hospital bed. When he noticed his hand was shaking, he dropped his fingers, trying to forget how utterly petrified he’d been less than an hour ago.

A pale-faced B.J. paused from tucking a

starched sheet around her and snorted as she looked up at him, her brown eyes underlined with deep purple grooves of exhaustion. “What did you go through? As I recall, I’m the one who did all the pushing.”

“I had to watch,” he argued.

Jesus, he’d had to watch her grit her teeth and cry out as the pain had split her apart. And, yes, his hands were at it again, shaking like they might rattle off his wrists. He glared down at them, wondering why they wouldn’t settle down. The worry was over. Everything was going to be fine. B.J. had made it through.

“Okay then, Slim,” she said on a yawn. “Next time I swear we can switch places. You give birth, I’ll stand there and watch. How ’bout that?”

When he lifted his face to scowl at her, his expression froze at the sight of her tired eyes twinkling with love as she beamed at him. She reached out her hand, and he took her fingers immediately, though he had to grind his teeth when he saw the IV and hospital band.

Rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, he said,

“No next time. This is it. I mean it, B.J.”

235



Linda Kage



Her grin turned ornery. “Yeah, yeah. You said that last time.”

“Well, two’s enough,” he stated adamantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Having the second was

your idea, if I remember correctly.”

“Don’t remind me,” he muttered, paling to

almost as white as she was. “If you’d had this hard a labor on the first, there’s no way I would’ve suggested a second.”