chapter NINE
AN HOUR LATER, after Evie had expressed for the first time and they’d watch one mil of milk disappear down the gastric tube Finn had insisted that Evie go back to bed. She looked exhausted, the black rings around her eyes had increased, her shoulders had drooped and she was sleep staring at everything with long slow sleepy blinks.
He made a mental note to check her haemoglobin with Marco when he saw him later.
‘What about you?’ she protested. ‘You’ve been up since two with no sleep.’
‘Yes, but I haven’t given birth or had an emergency operation. I’ll catch some sleep tonight in my office if everything stays stable.’ He’d spent many a night on the surprisingly comfortable couch.
It felt wrong to leave Isaac but Bella and Lexi had eagerly volunteered to keep vigil while he pushed Evie back to her room and he had to admit it felt good to be out, stretching his legs.
She was quiet on the trip and his concern for her condition ramped up to another level. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he pulled the wheelchair up beside her bed, crouching down in front of her. ‘Have you got pain? Do you feel unwell?’ He placed his palm on her forehead, checking for a temperature.
Evie shut her eyes, allowing herself to lean into his hand for a few seconds. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, avoiding his gaze as she opened her eyes again. ‘Just tired.’
He frowned as she seemed to evade eye contact. It seemed more than that. ‘You need to be rested and well for your milk production.’
Evie blinked. As a doctor, she understood what he was saying was correct. She’d told many a patient exactly that and she had the pamphlet in her hand to back it up. But it wasn’t what she wanted to hear him say. She wanted him to hug her, rub her back and tell her she was beautiful.
Which, of course, he wouldn’t, first because he was Finn and, second, she really wasn’t beautiful, more classically interesting, and last she doubted she’d ever looked worse. Although she guessed it didn’t really matter what you looked like when you’d stopped being a woman and become the milk supply line for a premmie baby.
‘I see you’re going to be the milk police,’ she said, her voice brittle.
Finn chose his words carefully to her irritable response. There was something bugging her. ‘Colostrum is vital for Isaac’s immune system.’
Evie took a steadying breath as despair and animosity battled it out inside her. This was typical Finn in tunnel-vision medical mode. All about the facts.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said, scooting him aside so she could crawl onto her freshly made bed. She almost groaned out loud as the crisp white sheets melted against her skin like snowflakes and all her cells sighed in unison.
Finn stood up and watched as Evie’s eyes fluttered shut. He had the distinct feeling she was trying to block him out. ‘Evie …?’
He hesitated, not really knowing how to voice his concerns to a woman who was probably experiencing a hormone surge not unlike Chernobyl’s meltdown. Even if he did love her.
‘You seem … down … and you know PND can start very early post-partum and it’s particularly high in mothers with premmies.’
Evie sighed. There he went with the facts again. ‘Finn,’ she said sharply, opening her eyes and piercing him with her cranky hazel gaze. ‘I’ve just given birth to a twenty-eight-weeker who’s in the NICU and I’m two floors away. I feel like an utter failure and my arms literally ache to hold him. Yes, I’m down. No, I do not have postnatal depression.’
Finn sat on the side of the bed. ‘Oh, Evie …’ He reached for her hand.
Evie really did not want to be pitied so she evaded his reach. ‘Look, just go, will you, Finn? Go back to Isaac. I’m tired and not thinking straight. I’m sure I’ll feel a lot better after a sleep.’
Finn opened his mouth to say something but Marco entered the room, greeting them in his usual jovial way. ‘How are you feeling, Evie?’
‘Tired,’ Finn murmured.
Evie glared at him. ‘A little tired, otherwise fine.’
‘What’s her haemoglobin, Marco?’ Finn asked.
‘Ten point nine,’ Marco said, not having to consult the chart in his hands. ‘She lost very little blood,’ he assured Finn, before turning to Evie and asking a couple more questions. ‘I think we take down that drip now and discharge you tomorrow morning if everything goes well overnight.’
Evie nodded, feeling ridiculously teary again at the thought of going home without Isaac. ‘I won’t be going far,’ she said.
‘Which makes me even more comfortable with discharging you.’ Marco smiled.
They chatted for a while longer, talking about Isaac, and Marco smiling over his own little one’s antics before he noticed Evie yawn. ‘I better get on,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Finn stood and shook his hand. ‘Thanks, Marco. You were brilliant last night.’
‘Yes,’ Evie agreed. ‘You were fabulous. I’ll never forget how you came in when you weren’t on call.’
Marco winked at her. ‘Anything for Evie Lockheart.’
Finn rolled his eyes. ‘I bet you say that to all your mothers.’
Evie shut her eyes as Marco chuckled and Finn once again relegated her to a role instead of a person. Would he ever see her as a woman again? Love her as a woman? Or would he always just love her because she was the mother of his child?
‘But thanks,’ Finn continued. ‘Evie’s right. I owe you.’
Marco chuckled. ‘I hope that is something I never have to collect on. My cholesterol is good and there is no cardiac history in my family.’
‘Well, how about I buy you a beer at Pete’s as soon as Isaac is home instead?’
Marco nodded. ‘It’s a deal. Although let’s make it a red wine instead—just to be sure.’
Marco left and Evie faked a yawn. She had the sudden urge to bury her head under the covers and not come out. Maybe Finn was right. Maybe she was going through those baby blues a little early.
‘I’ll go too,’ he said, satisfied to see her already look a little less exhausted around her eyes, even if she did seem to still be avoiding eye contact. He sat on the side of the bed again. ‘Ring me after you’ve had a sleep and I can come back and get you.’
Evie nodded, a lump in her throat at the tenderness in his voice. Then he leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead. He stood and said, ‘I love you, Evie,’ before walking out the door.
Evie let the tears come then. She wasn’t sure what had been more heartbreaking, his throwaway line about loving her or the kiss currently air-drying on her forehead. His declaration of love—his second—was about as heartfelt as that kiss. Something he might bestow on an aged great-aunt with whiskers growing out of her chin.
Asexual. Perfunctionary. Expected.
Was that what she had to look forward to now she was a mother? Some idealised figure who was a nurturer. And nothing else?
Finn was going to put her on some bloody pedestal and turn her into something holy and untouchable.
After a full night’s sleep Evie was almost feeling human again at barely five a.m. as she crept down to the NICU by herself to visit with her little man and do some more expressing. Finn was there, still maintaining his vigil beside Isaac’s incubator, and for a moment she just stood in the doorway, watching him watch their son.
Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest at the sight. She could feel Finn’s love for Isaac rolling off him in waves, encompassing the cot and the tiny little scrap of humanity inside it as if he was the most precious child that had ever lived. The area around the cot practically glowed with the force field of Finn’s love.
It was exactly what she’d wanted. And yet she was suddenly incredibly jealous.
Which was selfish, hateful and greedy.
And she had to let it go because their son needed her to concentrate on him and his needs and the long haul ahead. Not on any insecurities over Finn. And this morning at least she was feeling more in charge of herself to do just that.
She shuffled forward in her slippers and slid her hand onto Finn’s shoulder. He turned and looked up at her and he looked so weary and sexy she plastered a smile on her face.
‘Morning,’ she murmured. ‘How’s our little warrior?’
Finn smiled back, hopping out of his chair for her to sit in. ‘He’s doing well. They’ve reduced his oxygen. He’s coping.’
‘Did you sleep?’ she asked.
‘No,’ the nurse piped up.
‘I dozed on and off,’ Finn corrected her.
Evie looked up at him standing beside her. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a hundred years—his lines had lines. ‘You look exhausted,’ she said.
‘I’m fine.’ Finn brushed his tiredness aside. ‘You, on the other hand, look much, much better.’
‘I feel a hundred per cent better,’ she admitted.
Finn squeezed her shoulder. He’d been worried about her yesterday but she looked like the old Evie and he felt one of his worries lift. ‘Good.’
‘In fact …’ Evie stood, gently reaching out and stroking Isaac’s closest arm, the warm fuzz covering it tickling her finger ‘… I’m going to go and express then I’m going to come back here and stay until Marco’s round at eleven for my discharge and then I’m coming straight back. So I want you to go and catch up on some sleep.’
Finn looked at the determined set to Evie’s chin and felt that protective part of him that had refused to let him leave Isaac’s side relax as it recognised the strength of Evie’s protective instinct. ‘Okay. I’ll go to my office and have a couple of hours.’
Evie shook her head. ‘Finn, you need a shower, a decent meal and a proper bed. Go home. Rest properly.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t leave you sitting here all day. Not so soon after your discharge. You need the rest more than I do.’
Yeah, yeah. The milk. But she let it go, refusing to dwell on something that was fact anyway.
‘It’s okay. Bella and Lexi will be in and out fussing around all day, making me go for walks and feeding me well. And seeing as your theatre cases have been reassigned this week, I’ll let you take the night shift again.’
Finn laughed. ‘Why, thank you.’
He hesitated. The offer was tempting. He’d been in the same clothes for almost thirty-six hours. And they hadn’t been clean to begin with. If it hadn’t been for Ava persuading Gladys to let her into his apartment, he probably still wouldn’t have shoes. He’d used the toothpaste and toothbrush from the care pack he’d been given by one of the NICU nurses.
A shower and his own bed did sound mighty tempting.
He looked down at Isaac and felt torn. What if something went wrong while he was away? He’d been rock-steady stable but Isaac was in NICU for a reason.
‘I promise I’ll call immediately if anything happens,’ Evie murmured, sensing his conflict and knowing it intimately. How much had she fretted during the hours she’d spent away from him?
‘Okay,’ he said, giving in to the dictates of his utterly drained body. ‘Thanks.’
Finn was back at three o’clock. He’d eaten, showered, slept like a log for two hours longer than he’d planned and zipped quickly into town to do something he should have done weeks ago. Then he’d left his car back at Kirribilli Views and walked to the hospital. It was a nice day and it gave him a chance to think things through, to plan. He stopped in at the canteen on his way to the unit and bought two coffees and some snack supplies for later tonight.
‘Hi, there,’ he said, striding into Evie’s room.
She looked up from changing Isaac’s nappy. It was the first time she’d touched him properly and even though it was a thick, black, meconium bowel motion, she was vibrating with excitement. Perfectly functioning bowels were another cause for celebration.
‘Poo!’ she announced to Finn. ‘Who’d have ever thought you could be so happy about a dirty nappy!’
Finn caught his breath. Her eyes were sparkling and she looked deliriously happy. He didn’t understand why it had taken him so long to figure out he loved her when just thinking about her now made his heart grow bigger in his chest.
He laughed, understanding an excitement that might seem bizarre to others. ‘That’s our boy,’ he said.
Lexi, who was also in the room, shook her head and pronounced them nuts.
Evie finished up and Finn hovered nearby, talking to his son, whose eyes fluttered open from time to time indignantly as his sleep was disturbed. When she was done he passed her the coffee, gave his to Lexi and they filled him in on the day, including the news that the oxygen had been reduced even further.
‘He’s a little marvel!’ Lexi exclaimed.
Finn couldn’t have agreed more and to see Evie with her eyes glittering and her skin glowing was a sight for sore eyes.
‘You’re just in time,’ Evie said. ‘I was about to go and express. You can entertain Lexi.’
Finn glanced up. ‘Actually, would you mind going solo for a bit, Lex? I wouldn’t mind having a chat with your sister.’ He looked at Evie. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
Evie felt her breath catch a little at the intensity in his blue, blue gaze. She’d forgotten with all the madness of the last couple of days and a side whammy of maternal hormones how it could reach right inside her and stroke her.
Was she okay with him watching her express? It should have been an easy answer—it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her naked before. They’d made Isaac together, for crying out loud. But she hesitated anyway. It was pretty damn obvious he’d already relegated her to mother status—surely that would only enhance his opinion more?
Lexi noticed her hesitation. ‘Why don’t you let the poor woman and her leaking breasts be, Finn Kennedy? I won’t bite and after she’s done I’ll stick around so you can take Evie outside and talk without the slurp and suck of a breast pump serenading you.’
Finn looked at Evie. He could tell she was relived at her sister’s intervention and he didn’t know what that meant exactly. He’d felt on the same page with her during their getting to know each other weeks but due to the rather dramatic interruption of Isaac’s early arrival he wasn’t sure about anything any more.
He was, however, grateful for a little bit of sanity from Lexi. What had he been thinking? Breast-pump music was not the ambience he was after.
‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘Good plan.’
Forty-five minutes later Finn and Evie were ensconced in a booth at Pete’s. He’d chosen it over the canteen for its relative quietness at this time of the day. Weekday hospital staff didn’t tend to arrive until after six o’clock so they had plenty of time to be uninterrupted. Unlike the canteen, where they’d have been swamped with well-wishers, their conversation stifled.
And he could do without their private life being aired on the grapevine—for once.
‘So I was thinking,’ Finn said as he placed a sparkling water in a wine glass in front of her and a Coke in front of him, ‘that you should move into the penthouse with me while we’re getting the Lavender Bay house set up.’
Evie, who had chosen that moment to take a sip of her drink, almost choked as she half-inhaled it in shock. She coughed and spluttered for a while, trying to rid the irritation of sparkling water from her trachea.
‘Is it that shocking?’ Finn joked as he waited for her to settle.
‘Yes,’ she rasped, clearing her throat and taking another sip of water.
Finn reached across the table and covered Evie’s hands with his. ‘It makes sense to me. We’ll be getting married as soon as Isaac is home and as we both live in the same building anyway, it seems silly to keep two places going.’
Evie looked down at their joined hands as the very practical reasons for her moving in with him sank in. ‘Right,’ she murmured. She had to admit he made good sense even if it had been thought about in that logical way of Finn’s.
But … where was the emotion?
The I can’t live without you one more day. The I love you, never leave my side.
She drew her hands out from under his. ‘Finn … I don’t think this is something we should be worrying about at the moment. I just want to focus on Isaac. On what he needs.’
Finn felt her withdrawal reach deep inside him. He knew she was right, that Isaac had to come first, but they also had to look after themselves. There was no point being run down from stress and lack of sleep when Isaac finally came home.
Home.
The word resonated inside him and settled easily, warming him from the inside out instead of echoing around all the lonely places as it always had.
He had a home. And a family to share it with.
‘You still need a base, Evie. A place to have a quick shower and change your clothes, lay your head for a few hours maybe, collect your mail … that kind of thing.’
She nodded. ‘Fleeting visits, yes. But I plan to spend as much time on the unit with Isaac as I can without totally exhausting myself. I can’t bear to think of him there all by himself, Finn.’ She took a sip of water as she felt a thickening in her throat. ‘There certainly won’t be any time to be shifting apartments.’
Finn nodded. There was no point reminding her that Isaac wasn’t alone because he knew exactly how she felt. It felt wrong being away from him, leaving him in the care of strangers—no matter how excellent or vital it was.
He nodded. ‘Okay, fine, but …’ He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a burgundy velvet box. ‘I want you to have this.’
He opened it to reveal the one-carat princess-cut diamond—a princess for a princess. It sparkled in Pete’s downlights as he pushed it across the table to her. ‘I realised that I hadn’t given you one yet and that was remiss of me. I want you to have it, to wear, so everyone knows we’re going to be a family.’
Evie was rather pleased she wasn’t drinking anything when he put the box on the table or she might well have choked to death this time. Her pulse thundered through her ears as she picked it up. The ring was exquisite in a platinum antique setting.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered. It was the kind of ring she would have picked out herself and just for a moment she wanted to hold it and look at it and marvel. ‘It must have cost you a fortune.’
Finn shook his head. ‘No price is too high for the mother of my child.’
Evie felt a hysterical sob rising in her throat and swallowed it down hard. Everything she had inside her wanted to take the exquisite piece of jewellery and put it on her finger and never take it off.
To be Finn’s wife.
But she knew if she did, if she compromised what she needed from him, she’d lose herself for ever. With more self-control than she’d known she possessed, she snapped the lid shut and passed it back to him, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the bead of moisture running down her glass. ‘I’m not going to marry you, Finn.’
Finn frowned as a prickle of unease scratched at his hopes and dreams and he was reminded of how she hadn’t been able to look at him yesterday. ‘What?’
Evie fiddled with the straw in her glass. ‘I know I told you I would but … that was before all of this.’
Finn put his hand over top of hers, stilling its swishing of the straw. ‘Look at me, Evie,’ he said.
Evie fleetingly thought of telling him to go to hell but this was a conversation that they might be better having now so Finn knew she couldn’t be waited out, persuaded or bullied. So she looked at him and tried to keep the hurt from her gaze.
‘What’s really going on here?’ he asked.
Evie sighed at the brilliant, clueless man in front of her. What would Lexi or Bella say to him? ‘You suck at proposing, Finn.’
Finn snorted. She was having some kind of female hissy fit because he hadn’t gone down on bended knee? ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a little busy to organise a flash mob and a blimp.’
Evie felt tears well in her eyes and for an awful second she thought she was going to cry. Right here in the middle of Pete’s. Wouldn’t that be great for the gossips? ‘I don’t need grand gestures, Finn,’ she said quietly. ‘Not a flash mob or a blimp or even a bloody house. But I do need to hear three little words.’ She paused and cleared her throat of its wobble. ‘I’m not marrying you because you don’t love me.’
Finn frowned. That was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard. ‘Yes, I do. Of course I do. I’ve told you that.’ He had, hadn’t he? More than once.
‘Sure,’ Evie said bitterly. ‘Suddenly the love is flooding in for Isaac so much it radiates out of you and you’re dragging everything nearby with you like some bloody comet, and I’ve been swept up in it too.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Evie, that’s not right.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she demanded in a loud, angry whisper, sitting forward in her chair. ‘I’m the mother of your child—of course you love me, you have to. You’ve got me all set me up as this esteemed mother figure. As this revered nurturer. The provider of milk and changer of nappies.’
If Finn could have kicked his own butt he would have. ‘Of course you mean more to me than that. I love you, Evie.’
Evie felt as if he’d struck her with the words, so obviously an afterthought. ‘Then why in hell do I get a ring pushed across the table accompanied by a This was remiss of me. If you loved me, really loved me, as a woman, not just as the mother of your child, then you would have told me that. That’s what men who love the women they propose to do. But you didn’t. And do you know why?’ she snarled, uncaring who might be overhearing their conversation, ‘Because it never occurred to you. Because it’s not the way you feel. Well, I’m sorry, Finn,’ she said, standing up, not able to bear the look of total bewilderment on his face. ‘I need more than that. I know that you had a terrible upbringing and you need a home and a family and you’ve got this whole fantasy going on around that, and I thought I could live with just that. But I can’t. I won’t.’
She sidestepped until she was out of the booth. ‘Do me a favour, give me an hour with Isaac before you come back.’
And she whirled out of the pub before the first tear fell.
Lexi was alarmed when Evie arrived back with puffy eyes and insisted she’d ring her babysitter to stay longer, but Evie sent her on her way, assuring her she was fine, just Finn being Finn on top of the worry and stress over Isaac.
By the time Finn arrived back she had herself under control and was determined to stay that way. He looked at her tentatively and despite how he kept breaking her heart, she felt sorry for him. Finn was a man who’d shut himself down emotionally to deal with a crappy life. Opening up like this couldn’t be easy for him.
‘Evie, can we please talk—?’
Her quick, sharp headshake cut him off. ‘Listen to me,’ she said, her voice low so the nurse wasn’t privy to their conversation. ‘I do not want to talk about what happened today until after Isaac is home and we know he’s safe and well. For the moment, for the foreseeable future, he is the only thing that’s important. The only thing that we talk about. The only thing we concentrate on. Just Isaac.’
In the time she’d had to herself, looking down at the precious little bundle that connected her to Finn, Evie had decided she wasn’t going to snivel about what had just happened. She’d drawn a line in the sand and that was her decision, and until Isaac was well enough to come home she wasn’t going to think, cry or argue about it again.
‘Can I have a commitment from you that you’ll do the same?’
Finn opened his mouth to protest but Evie was looking so fierce and sure, and after the bungled way he’d managed the whole ring thing he wasn’t keen to alienate her further. By his calculations, if everything went well Isaac would probably be discharged in a month or so once he hit a gestational age of around thirty-two weeks or a certain weight.
He could wait a month.
Live by her edict for another four weeks.
But after that she’d better prepare herself. Because he intended to propose properly and leave her in absolutely no doubt of how much he loved her.
He nodded. ‘Fine. But once Isaac is home, we will be revisiting this, Evie.’
Evie shivered at the steel in his tone and the flicker of blue flame in his eyes. ‘Fine.’
Four days passed. Four days of tag-teaming, polite condition updates and stilted conversation. Evie taking the days, Finn the nights. Four days where Isaac continued to grow stronger and put on weight and have most of his lines removed and Evie was finally allowed to have her first kangaroo cuddle with him.
As she sat in the low comfy chair beside the cot, a squirmy, squeaky Isaac held upright against her naked chest, both of them wrapped up tight in a warm blanket, Evie wished Finn was there. The nurse took a picture but it wasn’t quite the same thing. This was the kind of moment that parents should share, watching their tiny premmie baby snuffling and miraculously rooting around for a nipple, even finding it and trying to suckle, no matter how weakly.
She felt teary but determinedly pushed them away. She’d been strong and true to her promise not to dwell on it—stress and exhaustion helping—and she wouldn’t do it now, not during this simply amazing moment when she and her baby bonded, skin on skin.
On the fifth morning Evie woke early and couldn’t go back to sleep, trying to decide if Finn would mind having his time cut short. Or at least sharing a bit of it with her. It made sense to go in—all she was doing was lying there thinking about Isaac anyway and she could feel her breasts were full.
May as well head to the hospital and pump.
Evie was being buzzed in through the main entry doors half an hour later. She noticed a group of nurses standing off to one side of the station and frowned. She smiled at them as she went past and they smiled back, indicating for her to hush and stay with them for a moment. Bemused, Evie turned to see what had them so agog. Her smile slipped as she realised they were watching Finn kangaroo-cuddling with Isaac through the isolation room’s windows.
It was a touching, tender moment, stealing her breath and rendering her temporarily paralysed.
Her two darling boys.
‘The great Finn Kennedy,’ one nurse whispered.
‘Who’d have thunk?’ said another.
Evie left them to their amazement. Not that she could blame them. She doubted anyone, Finn included, would have ever thought he could be brought to his knees by a tiny baby.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, just admiring them from the back. Finn sitting in the low chair next to the cot, obviously shirtless if the bare shoulder blade just visible through the folds of the blanket was any indication, skin on skin with his son.
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, preparing to enter. But then she realised that Finn was talking quietly to Isaac and she hung back, not wanting to intrude on a father-son moment.
‘There we are,’ Finn said, ‘I think we’ve got you comfortable now you’ve realised no matter how much you look for it, I’m just not your mummy. She’ll be along later. She won’t really talk to me because she’s mad at me and she’ll only have eyes for you anyway.’
Evie’s ears pricked up at the conversation and she leaned in a little.
‘My fault, I’m afraid, little mate. Totally stuffed everything up there. Take it from me, women may be complicated but in the end all they really want is for you to love them. I’ve never been good at that stuff, couldn’t even tell your uncle Isaac I loved him until he was dying in my arms. You’re a lot like him and I promise I’m going to tell you every day. And hopefully I’ll get a chance to tell your mum as well. Trust me on this, matey, never make I love you sound like an afterthought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.’
Evie held her breath.
‘And now she thinks I only love her because she’s part of some package deal with you. That I only see her as your mother. And I can’t tell her she’s wrong, that’s she’s the sexiest, smartest woman I’ve ever met and I’m crazy about her because I promised her I wouldn’t talk about it until you were home. So you need to hurry up and get home, you hear?’
Evie blinked back a threatening tear as she listened unashamedly now.
‘Because the truth is I don’t want to live a day of my life without her in it. I love you, little guy, and the same applies to you, but it’s different with your mother. I want to hold her and touch her and kiss her and make love with her and do all those things that people in love do. You probably won’t ever realise this because she’s your mum, but she’s one sexy lady.’
Evie blushed at the rumble in Finn’s voice.
‘And of course I love her because she’s your mother and there are things she can give you that I can’t, but I love her also because she can give me things that you can’t—a different kind of love. And I never thought I’d hear myself say this but I need that. And I want to give her the love that you can’t. I want to love her like a woman deserves to be loved. And I never want to stop.’
Evie let the tears come this time. She didn’t try to stop them. She pushed off the doorframe and was at his side in five seconds. Bending her head and kissing him two seconds after that.
‘Why,’ she demanded face wet, eyes glistening, ‘didn’t you say those things in Pete’s?’
Finn looked into her beautiful, interesting face made even more so by two wet tear tracks, his heart thudding in his chest. ‘Because I’m emotionally stunted and incredibly stupid.’
She laughed and kissed him again. ‘Do you really mean all those things? About loving me as a woman, not just as Isaac’s mother?’
Finn smiled. ‘Of course. You wouldn’t let me tell you so I figured I’d tell him.’
Evie crouched beside him, peeking inside the blanket at Isaac snuggled up in a little ball against Finn’s chest. ‘I’m glad you did.’
‘So am I,’ Finn murmured, looking down into her face. ‘I’m just sorry I got it so wrong for so long, Evie. I do love you. Just as you are. Evie Lockheart. No one’s mother or sister or doctor. Just you. You helped me love again, feel again, and I need you in my life. All of you.’
Evie nodded, two more tears joining the others. ‘And I love you.’
Finn dropped a kiss on her mouth and it was the sweetest thing Evie had ever known.
‘Don’t think you’re off the hook for the flash mob and the blimp, though,’ she warned as they broke apart.
Finn grinned. ‘I’ll consider myself on notice.’
And then a tiny little snuffly sneeze came from under the covers and they smiled at each other, brimming with love.