“Yes,” I assured her.
She sat there thinking about it a moment more. I let her slowly take everything in.
“Jasper told you?” she said the words as if they were a question more than a statement.
“He did.”
She frowned. “What did he tell you?”
“That I was a bastard that needed to think before I spoke.” She didn’t stop frowning. She was being careful. I realized she was protecting our baby. Although I deserved it her distrust of me was like a punch in the gut. “He also told me that my future, my happiness, and the woman I loved were in Beaufort, South Carolina and she was carrying my child.” I reached out and cupped her face with my hand. “I’m sorry, Beulah. For saying what I did. I was upset about Wills. I was saying shit without thinking. Things I didn’t mean.”
She looked at me nervously. “I can’t . . . I can’t let my baby ever feel as if it wasn’t wanted. I, I love you. I will always love you. But if you can’t be a father. If this is too much, please leave. Don’t force something you don’t want. It will cause harm I can never fix.”
Leaning down so that our faces were only inches apart I made sure she could see my eyes clearly. I never wanted her to doubt what I was saying. My soul was bared. “I want you and our baby more than I want my next breath. I was scared I couldn’t be a father. But someone smarter than I gave him credit for pointed out that I knew exactly what not to do. That I knew what a kid needed because I never had it. I also know that a child created from the love I have for you will be impossible not to love. I want you, I want our child, and I want you. Forever. I have since the beginning and that will never change.”
Tears filled her eyes and she reached up to cover my hand with hers. “Let’s go home.”
The word home meant so many things to me over my life. But never had they meant happiness. With Beulah I realized that although we would face hard times and our lives wouldn’t always be perfect, we had each other. She would be my home. And so would our children. The child she was carrying and the one I would fight for until he was with us.
DARK BROWN CURLS DANCED IN the wind as laughter carried across the field. I smiled as I drank my tea on the back porch of our home. I loved hearing their laughter. It never failed to bring a smile to my face. Prim tilted her head back to look up at her big brother as he pushed her on the swing set she’d gotten for her third birthday last week.
Wills was her hero. From the moment she could toddle around on two feet, she’d been following Wills around the house. When he left for school she would stand at the door with big crocodile tears in her eyes watching him go. The moment he walked in the door in the afternoon, she would run to him with her arms wide open.
There was a time I feared she may not get to know her brother. That he’d forever be kept from her. Stone had gone after his father with everything he had. Child abuse had been his first accusation. Not just for Wills but the abuse he had suffered. Then he’d submitted the proof of Wills’ DNA.
The trial never came and the fight ended quickly. Not because his father backed down but because he suffered a stroke that put him in a coma for six months. During that time Stone was able to get temporary custody of Wills. Having him with us had been wonderful but we still were haunted that it might prove temporary. Now that we had Wills, losing him wasn’t something neither of us could face. Stone worked hard to continue to build a case against his father. Hilda was unresponsive to any contact we attempted with her. She didn’t want to lose the life she now had in Malibu.
When his father didn’t wake from the coma but his body started slipping away, Stone was called in because his current stepmother wasn’t on his living will as the person to make the decision to pull him off life support. Stone was. He couldn’t make the call that day. It was something he had to be sure was the right thing to do. He spoke with several doctors. Each one said his father was slowly passing and there was less and less brain activity. To the point if he ever woke up he’d be in a vegetative state at best.
Stone didn’t sleep that night. He’d sat outside on the porch.
He made the final decision, and one week before I gave birth to our daughter, Stone’s father was buried. His stepmother didn’t contest the will seeing as she received the home in Manhattan and twenty-million dollars. Much more than she would have gotten in a divorce. The prenup made that very clear.
Hilda once again signed over custody of her child. This time to Stone when the courts tried to say that Wills legally went to his mother. Wills didn’t even ask to see his mother. He began to accept that he was safe with us. That we loved him and he had a home here. Soon he began to act more like the child he was than the child too old for his years.
Heidi loved coming to stay with us over the weekends and spending holidays together. She adored her niece and nephew, and they loved her. She had a room in our home if she ever wanted to live with us, but she was happy with her life at Among the Spanish Moss.
The door behind me opened and I turned to see my handsome husband walk outside. He was watching the kids play with a pleased smile. His eyes shifted to me. “How you feeling?” he asked.
I held up my cup. “The ginger tea Geraldine suggested works well. Wish I’d known when I was sick with Prim.”
Stone walked over and pressed a kiss to my head. “You decided when we’re gonna tell them yet?” he asked referring to the kids.
I hadn’t yet so I shook my head.
He shrugged. “Whenever you’re ready. No hurry. We can let them think you’re getting fat.”
I shoved him and laughed. “Not funny,” I said not amused even a little.
“I like it when you’re big and round. It’s the only time I know Jasper isn’t looking at my wife and imagining her naked.”
“He doesn’t do that,” I replied then rolled my eyes.
“Hell yeah, he does.”
The kids loved their Uncle Jasper and I was thankful the relationship between Stone and Jasper had been restored. They needed each other. They weren’t brothers by blood, but they were brothers in every way that mattered.
Stone sat on the couch beside me and pulled me into his lap. “Come here. I need to hold you before you get too heavy.”
“If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you,” I told him.
“You couldn’t hate me. I’m too damn lovable.”
He was right, he was. At one time, he didn’t believe that. At one time, I didn’t believe it either. But life has a funny way of playing out in ways you never imagined.
A boy walked into my world one day and I thought he was the most rude, beautiful, unlikable person I’d ever met. And now I couldn’t imagine a day without him by my side.