This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2)(59)

Once I’m settled in the wheelchair and Baylee stands to follow, she reaches a hand out to me. The movement is subtle, her hand barely coming forward. But it’s something. It’s everything. A spark.

Without hesitation, I snatch her hand and bring it to my lips. Hope twinkles briefly in her eyes before she breaks our gaze.

One tiny spark at a time is all I’m asking for. Soon, our love will be back to blazing and consuming everything in our path. I’ll feed the flames. I will torch the past. All for her.

Hang in there, Bay.

I’m going to make you all better.





IT’S BEEN OVER a month since we’ve been home.

At night, after War’s breaths even out, I cry myself to sleep.

Even with Land and War around me all the time, I’m alone.

Even with our love child growing inside of me, I’m drifting.

Dad’s gone.

Mom’s gone.

Brandon’s gone.

And Gabe is somewhere.

It’s not that I’m really even afraid of him. If he were alive, he’d have come back for me already. Stark promises they’ve cased every hospital in the state and not a word on his arrival or anyone matching the description of his injures. He’s dead, she swears.

I want to believe her.

Maybe rationally I do.

But sometimes, late at night as I cry in bed, I can almost feel his presence. The devil warms me and I drift off to sleep, weak and exhausted.

I hate the things he did to me.

Yet, my heart aches from missing him in the same way I miss Brandon, Mom, and Dad.

It’s stupid and bordering on crazy, but it’s the way I feel. How I could miss both a monster and a dragon? How I could miss a father who would sell his daughter to save his wife?

Since we’ve been home, War spends an ungodly amount of time holed away in his office. He’s obsessing. He’s scouring the Internet for clues and leads. Anything to point them in the direction of the WCT and people who were involved. Stark had gotten a judge to approve a warrant for Forrester Whitehead’s office and home. They turned both places upside down looking for evidence but he was good. ‘Ol Buck and his wife knew how to leave absolutely no trails back to their affluent clientele. And as for Edgar Finn, turns out it isn’t so easy to get into the finance mogul’s home without reasonable cause. Apparently my testimony isn’t enough, without some sort of substantial evidence.

So for a month now, War has done what Stark has asked him to. He’s been trying to hack into both Mrs. Whitehead’s and Edgar Finn’s financial information. War is good at what he does but they’re just better at hiding their trails.

“How’s my grandbaby?”

Land’s voice sends a jolt of warmth through my heart, thawing out the frozen, black parts of it. I roll over in bed and see him smiling in the doorway of War’s room. He, like me though, wears a false smile. And me, like him, pretends as well. I plaster on a fake grin. “Your grandbaby makes me sleepy.”

It’s the truth. Sort of.

I’m pretty sure losing all of your loved ones will make you depressed and that will make you sleepy, but I let him think happier thoughts.

Unborn babies make their pregnant mothers tired.

Of course.

“You’ve been in bed all day,” he says softly, his smile falling. “Maybe we should take you in to the doctor. See about switching out your prenatal vitamins or something. Have you made an appointment with the therapist Dr. Daniels suggested?”

The concern written all over his face reminds me of when I’d be sick and my dad would take care of me. Mom was great about making me homemade chicken noodle soup or buying me new books to read to keep my mind off being ill. Always trying to find a way to make me better. But Dad? Dad would hold me and just let me be his baby for however long it took to get well.

Tears streak down the side of my face and soak the pillow I’m laying on. The ache in my chest hurts more than normal and I try to swallow down the emotion that seems to have seized my throat.

“I miss my mom and dad,” I choke out with a sob. I’m embarrassed that I sound like I’m twelve years old again, needing my daddy to make it all better. But that’s exactly how I feel. Young. Alone. And scared of the outside world.

Wordlessly, Land rounds the bed and climbs in next to me. He wraps a warm arm around my middle and hugs me to him.

“I’m so sorry, Baylee,” he says, his own voice thick with emotion. “I wish I could take it all away.”

When I start to cry, he follows in behind me, his deep sobs in melody with my higher pitched ones. Together we cry for those life took from us. I know he hurts for his wife and daughter. I’m bleeding over my parents. And together our hearts sometimes ache over War. The sweet, broken man whose afflictions occasionally steal him away from us.

In our own way, we lean on each other.

We lie like that for some time. Land’s fatherly presence reminds me of my own and it comforts me.

“I’ll never replace your dad,” he says softly, “but I’ll protect and love you like you are my daughter. When that boy gets stuck inside his head from time to time, I’ll be there for you.”

I swallow down the tears. War has been great. Determined to bring down the WCT during the day but still attentive to my emotional needs at night. He makes sure I eat, hovers when I’m not wearing my fake smile, and crushes me with his warm embraces. We’ve yet to make love again and I have my reasons. War wants in desperately. But it’s me who’s stuck inside her head. It’s me who can’t let go of the past several months. It’s me who pushes him out when I crave him more than anything.