Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(81)

“Auras aren’t real.”

“Okay, fine. Then tell me this. Tell me you don’t feel the bond with your baby.”

“That’s different,” I huffed. “That’s chemical. That’s familiarity. I’m carrying her around all day, every day, anticipating the day she’s born. That bond is instinctive.”

“That bond is love. You’re about to meet that baby, and your whole world will revolve around her. Survival of the species has little to do with it.”

“Couldn’t it be both?” Sarah asked.

We turned our faces to her.

“Why does it have to be one or the other? And the better question is, why does it matter? Katherine, you’re going to love that baby in ways you can’t even comprehend. You’ve already got an inkling…I can see it on your face even now. That love you have for your child is transcendent. The moment she’s born is the moment your life stops being yours. It’ll be hers, and you won’t think twice about the sacrifice. You won’t even notice the shift. That, honey, is love. It’s automatic. You won’t know you’re in it until you’re too deep to get out.”

Tears, burning and hot, stinging my nose and the back of my throat. My vision tunneled.

The moment she’d said it, I knew it was true, against logic, against all I’d thought I knew.

This was love. Love for my child, uncultivated, unlearned. I hadn’t even seen her, and I loved her. I loved every little finger and every little toe, counted every minute until she arrived so I could kiss every one. She hadn’t done a single thing to earn that love but exist.

Love was automatic.

And if my love for my child was automatic and true, then there was another truth. A truth that had been right there, right in front of me all along.

His name was on my lips, written on my heart, etched on my soul. I’d never believed in fate, never subscribed to soul mates. But if ever there was a man who was my exact match, my most perfect equal, it was Theo.

And if that wasn’t love, I didn’t know what it was.

That word was defined by his existence.

I had fallen without knowing what was happening, without understanding the shift between us, in me. There was nothing I had to do, nothing for him to explain. There was no course to take, no box to check.

My love for him was a fact. It existed whether I believed in it or not.

“Katie, honey, are you okay?” Mom said, moving to my side, taking my free hand.

The other was pressed to my belly. Hope shifted against my palm.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Love is a gift,” she said, her eyes shining with tears of her own. “And you are so loved. There has to be a way for you and Theo. Because that boy loves you.”

“He does,” Sarah added. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the day he met his match, but Katherine, you are it.”

“He…he asked me to love him, and I told him I couldn’t. I didn’t realize I already did.” The words were thick in my throat, broken.

“Then it’s easy, Katie,” Mom said, smiling. “All you have to do is tell him.”

And that was all I wanted to do. I wanted to run out of the house and through the streets of New York, calling his name. I wanted to find him and tell him I loved him.

Sarah shifted to pick herself up with shaky hands, smiling and crying and hauling herself to her feet before I could help. She stepped toward us around the coffee table, shuffling her feet, her mobility limited. My eyes widened—I moved to stand, to meet her halfway. But before I could reach her, she took a step, her foot hooking in the coffee table’s leg.

She went down with a thud and a crack, her hands too slow to catch her, her foot still hung in the table. Her leg twisted at an unnatural angle, the cry from her lips raising every hair on my body, setting every nerve on end.

I rushed to her, pushing the coffee table out of the way around her leg. She groaned as I knelt beside her, turning her onto her back with gentle care and alarm screaming in my ears.

“Mom, call 911,” I commanded, my voice calm and my hands brushing Sarah’s hair from her wrenched face. “Then get my phone and call Theo. Tommy and Amelia are with him. Hurry!” I snapped when she didn’t move, jolting her into action.

“Sarah,” I said with an eerie calm I didn’t feel, “you’re okay. I think you might have broken your leg.”

“Hip,” she gritted through her teeth, her eyes pinched shut. Cool sweat bloomed on her cheeks, which had paled to an alarming shade of gray.

I glanced down her body as my mind whirred through emergency procedures I’d learned in Girl Scouts. “Mom, come sit with Sarah,” I said, trading places with her, placing her free hand on Sarah’s.

Her eyes were wild, her voice trembling as she gave details to the dispatcher.

I shot to my feet, running for the linen closet. With my arms full of sheets and towels, I ran back into the living room, snagging a pair of scissors from the kitchen on my way. The sheet I cut into strips in record time, fueled by the sounds of Sarah’s pain. One strip was for her ankles, which I tied together. I passed a hand towel to my mom.

“Go wet this with cold water, please.”

She nodded, her face pale as she took it and hurried to the kitchen.

“The ambulance is on its way, Sarah,” I said, hoping to distract her. “I’m going to make a brace out of towels and tie them to you. The more stable it is, the better it will feel.”