Unfinished Ex (Calloway Brothers, #2)(99)

We’re both completely still. Waiting. Hoping. My heart leaps when under my hand are faint movements I would never feel if I weren’t concentrating intently. They come and go as softly as a feather blowing in the breeze, but they’re there. I’m afraid to move, not wanting to break the spell. I want to stay rooted in this moment until the end of my days.

Now she’s wiping my tears as we become bonded on a level we never have before.

The engine starts, ending our moment but not our night.

“Where do you want to go?” she asks. “We have the limo all night. And Xuan Le gave me the day off tomorrow.”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I slept in my dressing room all afternoon. I’m fine. And I’m yours for the night.”

“Good. Because I want to make love to you all night and then go to Battery Park and watch the sun come up with you.”

She pushes a chunk of hair out of my eyes. “Because last time we got engaged, we watched the sunset. This time, you want to watch it rise. Because this is the start of something new, something great, something different. Like an aurora. A dawn. A new beginning.”

Now we’re both crying. “See?” I say. “Soul mate.”

I find the button for the driver. “We’re ready to go. Drive anywhere. And leave the partition up.”

“Yes, sir.”

I push it again. “Wait one second.” I go to the window and roll it down. There’s still a small crowd: my family, Nicky’s, and a few random friends. I stick my head out the window. “She said yes!”

Cheers erupt.

“Now go home. My fiancée and I are out of here.”

Her arms come around me from behind. “Fiancée. I like the sound of that.”

“Don’t get too used to it. You won’t be one for long. February eighth is right around the corner.”

She smiles at the idea of getting remarried on our original wedding date. “And I’ll be your wife for the rest of my life.”

“You bet your hot weather anchor ass you will be.”





Chapter Forty-two



Nicky



Four months later…




“Nicky, you okay?” Marty asks through my earpiece.

I look to the booth and give him a thumbs-up.

“If you need anything…”

Annoyed, I offer the OK sign.

I lean against a wall and stretch my aching back. I know people are only looking out for me, but I’m growing tired of giving constant reassurances that, at just over thirty-six weeks along, I’m not going to squat and drop the baby here on the studio floor.

The Braxton-Hicks contractions have been getting stronger over the past few weeks. Jaxon even drove me to the hospital twice, sure I was in labor. It’s hard not to smile when I think of him. The poor man is in a constant state of worry and excitement having two babies due in the next three and a half weeks. He really should be more concerned with Calista, though. She has eleven days left, and it was obvious to me last week that her belly had dropped—a sure sign labor will come sooner rather than later.

We’ve had nothing but encouraging news from our many ultrasounds. There’s been no indication of my scarring interfering with the placenta, and I couldn’t have asked for an easier pregnancy.

Physically, anyway.

Sitting in a chair they brought for me right next to the set, I rub my belly, hoping to calm it down.

Like me, the baby seems on edge. All day, I’ve been reporting on the outbreak of tornadoes across the Midwest. If I weren’t feeling a hundred weeks pregnant, I’d actually be sad that I wasn’t out in the field.

One of the assistant producers hands me a fact sheet with new stats about the destruction in a small Kansas town. “Back in twenty,” Marty informs me as I memorize the numbers on the piece of paper. “We’ve got art to go with those stats.”

I nod and try not to grunt as another Braxton-Hicks temporarily consumes me. I breathe through it and go over to my mark.

“Three, two, one…” Marty counts in my ear.

“Coffeyville is a small town in southeastern Kansas, about two and a half hours from Wichita and eighty miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its population is just under 9,000.” I point to the screen behind me. “And I can only hope those 9,000 residents were all in a safe place when this F3 tornado with wind speeds estimated at 180 miles per hour blew through moments ago. XTN has been able to acquire drone footage thanks to—”

I feel a pop. I stop talking and inspect the floor beneath me.

“Nicky?” Marty asks through my earpiece.

I look at the booth, then back at the camera. “I’m sorry, folks, it seems my water has broken.” I glance at the graphic, seeing the horrific damage caused by the tornado, and go into autopilot. “Thanks to, uh, Judd Neilson of nearby Independence, we have rare footage of the immediate aftermath—”

Marty does something a producer has never done. He walks out onto the set and interrupts my broadcast.

“I’m almost finished,” I tell him (and three-quarters of a million viewers).

He laughs. “Sweetheart, you’re done.”

“Are we still rolling?”