Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(85)

“Dad, want to come here and cut the cord?”

Dad. They’d called him dad. He was a father.

I was a mother.

I opened my eyes, and there she was.

She was both ashen and purple, her face smushed and eyes pinched shut. Her little mouth was red, opened wide with a wail that stopped my heart. Though I knew right then that organ wasn’t mine anymore. It was hers.

Theo cut the cord with wonder in his eyes, and the nurses wiped her up, wrapped her in a blanket, and carried her over to me.

I reached for her, feeling the weight of her, the shape of her in my arms after carrying her in my body all this time. I cradled my baby to my chest, peering into her face.

And Theo leaned in, resting his hand on mine, cupped under her head.

“You did it,” he breathed. “You did it, Kate.”

“Hello, baby,” I said to the tiny thing in my arms.

When I looked up at Theo, it was through a sheet of tears.

He smiled and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

And just like that, we were a family.



?





The hospital room was quiet and still—as silent as hospitals could get at least. Nurses came in every couple of hours to check on Hope or me or the wind direction for all I knew or cared.

I was blissed out and exhausted and fascinated by the baby in my arms.

She slept soundly, swaddled in a scratchy blanket that didn’t seem to bother her but smelled to me like bleach and nightmares. I untucked the corner of the swaddle, lifting it so I could see her tiny little hand again. I slipped my finger into her fist, and she squeezed it with strength that surprised and awed me.

She was smaller than average—surprising, given Theo’s genetics—five pounds, twelve ounces, the result of being three weeks early, Dr. Stout had assured me. She was perfectly healthy, late enough that her lungs had fully developed, which had been the real concern.

But she’d scored perfectly on her APGAR test, which Theo stayed next to her for.

Didn’t at all surprise me she’d already gotten her first A-plus.

I smiled over at Theo. He was all arms and legs, barely contained by the chair that was supposed to convert to a bed but really looked less useful than an old camping cot would have been. His face was slack with sleep, but he didn’t look boyish or soft. His features were too strong, his jaw too square, his nose too Roman, his lips too luscious to be anything but a man. A man who was mine just as much as I was his.

The door opened, and my mother popped her head in, smiling. I waved her in.

She made her way over, sitting on the edge of the bed to peer into the bundle. “Katie, she’s just so pretty,” she whispered. “All that hair! I ordered her some bows. I hope you don’t mind.”

I chuckled. “I don’t mind,” I whispered back.

Mom glanced at Theo. “That looks comfortable.”

A snicker. “That chair makes him look like a giant.”

“Well, he kinda is.”

“Yes, he kinda is,” I echoed with a smile. “How’s Sarah?”

“Still sleeping. I’m glad her surgery went well and that she’s gonna be all right. Tommy and Amelia are in her room, the two of them somehow piled on one of those tiny chairs like Theo, sound asleep.”

I laughed at the thought. “I’m sorry I kicked you out of the delivery room, Mom.”

But she waved her hand, beaming down at the baby. “Oh, I don’t care, honey. I just want you to be safe and happy. I know I don’t go about it like you need, and I’m sorry. I feel like I always do the wrong thing.” She met my eyes, hers sad. “I want to understand you, but I’ve never known how.”

“To be fair, I’ve never given you much to go on but flak.”

“Well, I can be a real wrecking ball. I don’t blame you for getting upset. I just wish I knew what to do.”

“If I start telling you, will you listen?”

“I can promise to try,” she said.

“Then I will, too,” I promised in return.

“I’m sorry for pushing you about Theo today, too. I just…I hate to see you sad, Katie. And he made you so happy. I want you to have that again.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

She blinked her confusion. “Did you just say I was right?”

“No, I said you weren’t wrong.”

She laughed. “I’ll take what I can get.” She cast another look in Theo’s direction when he shifted in sleep, unable to get comfortable in that godforsaken chair.

“So, are you and Dad getting back together?”

Her face was lined with exhaustion and bright with relief. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but yes. Sometimes, all you need is for the person you love to say the words you need to hear. I needed him to come here. I needed him to fight for me, for us. And he did. I know we’re crazy.” She shook her head, looking down at the baby to avoid my eyes. “This is just how it works for us. Our rules…well, they’re not everyone else’s rules. But that’s the beauty of love. It can be whatever you need it to be. You can make your own rules.”

A shock of understanding flashed through me. “We can make our own rules,” I whispered. “It doesn’t have to be defined by anyone but me. But us.”