White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(82)

“She’s starving,” Ian said.

“For ice cream,” Shelby added.

“Your mommy and I made lunch while you were gone. You wanna come eat with Aunt Kristin and Cousin Molly?” Chad and Kristin had a three-year-old daughter and a son on the way.

Shelby took her hand. “Okay, Grandma.”

“You can have ice cream for dessert. Maybe we’ll eat that first.”



He walked down the hallway to the master bedroom. Shelby was right. Kate was attempting to nurse their son, which she’d said was like trying to hit a bull’s-eye on a constantly moving target, especially since he’d started walking a month ago. He watched them for a moment, thinking he must have done something awfully right to end up here.

When Spyder spotted him in the doorway, he lurched off Kate’s lap and ran toward Ian. Kate laughed. “I give up.”

Ian crouched down. “How’s my birthday boy? You ready to party?” Dressed in nothing but a diaper, his spiky bedhead stuck up in all directions as he grinned and drooled.

When Chad and Kristin had come to visit Kate in the hospital, her brother said, “Hey, Spyder,” when Ian placed their son in his arms.

“Chad!” Kate admonished from her hospital bed.

“What? Isn’t that what you guys do? Name your kids after your cars?”

“His name is William, after Ian’s dad. We’re going to call him Will.”

But at his three-month checkup, he was seventy-five percent for weight but completely off the chart for height.

“He’s all limbs,” the nurse said. She smiled at Ian. “Probably going to be tall like his father.”

Ian scrutinized his son. “You know his body does have a certain—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Spiderlike quality.”

Kate laughed. “And you said it. I was actually thinking the exact same thing a few weeks ago when I was changing his diaper.”

Maybe Kate wouldn’t want to be reminded of the Spyder. When Ian asked her if the nickname would bother her, she assured him it didn’t. “I will always remember how excited you were when you gave me that car. That’s what I think of when I hear the word Spyder. I’ll be sure to let Chad know it was our son’s arms and legs that inspired the nickname and not my car. I don’t want him to think he was right.”

There had been no more cars, and a golf cart was the fastest vehicle either of them drove these days.



“What time does the plane land?” Kate asked.

“Rob’s picking everyone up at five. You excited?”

“I can’t wait,” she said as she kissed Ian and scooped up twenty pounds of squirming, laughing towheaded baby and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back. I promised Susan she could give Spyder his bath.”

She was dressed for the tropical weather in a thin-strapped tank top and knee-length skirt, and her long legs looked tan and strong. Because she’d opted to delay surgery, her ankle had not healed well, and when Shelby arrived six days after her due date—healthy and perfect—Kate had been terrified that her leg would give out and she would drop her. Diane had stayed with them for the first month, and either she or Ian would bring Shelby to Kate when it was time to feed her. At night, when Shelby would stir, Ian would carefully lift his daughter from her bassinet in their bedroom and would whisper to her in the darkness as he placed her in Kate’s arms. Afterward, he would change her diaper and put her back in the bassinet. When Shelby was three months old, the doctor rebroke Kate’s ankle so he could set it properly. It had taken almost a year for the limp to disappear completely, and sometimes when she was really tired, he could still see an almost imperceptible difference in her gait.

And it would always be a painful reminder of how close he’d come to losing her.

He’d brought Kate and Shelby to Costa Rica when Shelby was six months old and it had become apparent to everyone that something was wrong with Kate. She’d lost weight, and she was having trouble sleeping. Though she tried her best to hide it, she seemed listless and sad, as if the light had gone out of her. Whether it was a lingering postpartum effect, too many traumatic memories, or the problems she’d had with her leg, he wasn’t sure. But he needed to find a way to help her, and Costa Rica had been a shot in the dark when nothing else seemed to be working. They’d flown down for a week’s visit, and the change in Kate had been almost instantaneous as the weight of what she’d been carrying lifted and she came alive again before his eyes.

“Can we stay?” she’d asked him one morning after sleeping through the night for the first time in a long while.

He was spooning her the way he always had and the way he always would. “Would you like that?”

“Yes,” she’d whispered.

And so they’d stayed, because he would have given her anything she asked for. Kate never set foot in the Middleburg house again, and Ian sent the movers to box up the contents and send everything to them.

Costa Rica had been good for him too, and he’d done his own share of healing here.

He imagined they would stay forever.

They bought property in Malpais, a remote cattle-farming and fishing village with white-sand beaches, lush jungles teeming with wildlife and birds, and breathtaking views that had become one of Costa Rica’s hidden jewels and drew adventure travelers from around the world.