She opens her mouth in a perfect little ‘O’ and her eyes widen through their exhaustion and I see the inner struggle she’s battling. She thinks I’m crazy, knows I am but, there’s a piece of her that wants to believe what I’m saying isn’t the crazy talking. She wants to believe this beaten down man’s heart is the one asking her to marry her.
Believe, Sunshine.
Keep believing in me.
Squeezing her hand tight, I turn to Blackie and Lacey.
“Where’s the priest?”
I feel Reina squeeze my hand to bring my attention back to her.
“Jack,” she says slowly.
Blackie rips the curtain next to us down off the clips and the priest Reina hired is in the bed next to her.
“You believe in signs, Sunshine?”
Nodding, she smiles at me and mouths the words that completely undo me and put me back together all the same.
“I believe in you.”
Words to heal the soul.
Blackie lays a hand on my shoulder and looks between me and Reina then settles his gaze on me and points to his lips.
“He’ll marry you.”
More healing words.
I glance over at the priest and watch as he lowers the oxygen mask from his mouth and speaks. I don’t know what he’s saying, he’s too far away for me to read his lips but I know the words he’s saying are more for Reina than they are for me. There are only two words that need to be said to make this union official.
I stare at Reina, remembering how stunning she looked walking toward me before the mayhem exploded and I can’t spot the difference, even in a hospital gown she’s the most beautiful bride.
Lacey moves across from us and stands at Reina’s bedside, next to the baby monitor where our baby’s heartbeat is singing strong. I don’t need to hear it to know that kid’s a fighter, just look who his parents are.
The priest continues to talk, taking a break for oxygen here and there while Reina hangs on his every word. The doctors I ditched stand close by, once this marriage is official I’ll make them play with my back and these burns some more, but for now they can stand there and wait for me to collapse in pain. Blackie pats my shoulder and I turn to him to see him holding Reina’s ring.
Talk about signs.
That yellow diamond weathered a bomb.
It almost makes me want to be a believer.
I take the ring from his hand and look back at Reina. This isn’t my first rodeo and I vaguely remember the words I’m supposed to say when I slide the ring on her finger. The priest is instructing me on what to say but I don’t even try to read his lips.
Instead, I go with what’s inside. I speak from the heart and give her my solemn vow.
“You.”
I say as I slide the ring onto her finger and stare into the eyes of the woman that saved my soul and my mind. The woman who holds my future. The woman this heart beats for.
“Me,” she replies.
Nothing else matters.
It’s that moment when we become Mr. and Mrs. Jack Parrish and I become property of Sunshine. Deciding I don’t need a priest to give me permission to kiss my wife, I fight through the pain in my back and lean over the rail of the bed to press my lips to hers.
It’s not perfect, nowhere close, but in a Jack and Reina way it is.
Chapter Forty-Four
On the ride back to his parents’ house in Martha’s Vineyard, I lay my head on Riggs’ shoulder and he threads his fingers through my long hair. The last twenty-four hours have been a nightmare, making us relive a memory we are so desperate to forget. I watched as Riggs he stood by helplessly waiting for someone, anyone, to tell him what was going on with the men he called his brothers. It was a glimpse of the Riggs that suffered when I was in a coma and our son was fighting for his life. For me it was a little different, I don’t remember much after I was shot but I learned how much I don’t like being on the sidelines, how much I don’t like sitting in a hospital waiting to find out if the people in our lives survived. All I kept thinking was how lucky we were to have escaped that bomb. I don’t know who decided we would be hiding out in Martha’s Vineyard with Riggs’ parents but whoever was responsible would always hold my gratitude.
I spent a good part of my life worrying about my brother’s well-being, wondering when the day would come that he’d be a victim and not a survivor. It sucked, and I never understood why Adrianna stuck with him. How could she live life worrying if the man she loved would live or die the moment he stepped out the door? Then I met Riggs, and I understood. As crazy as it sounds, loving Riggs is worth living in fear. I can’t imagine my life without him and as much as it kills me to know that as long as he has the reaper on his back he’ll always have a price tag on his head, I wouldn’t trade him for all the straight and narrow guys in the world.
“Kitten, you’re thinking too loud,” he murmurs.
I lift my head from his shoulder and stare at his face, watching as he looks at me with one eye.
“We’re almost there,” he says, folding his hands behind his head as he tips his chin toward the driver his parents sent for us. “You’ll get a dose of Eric and everything will be right with the world.”
“What happens now?”