My uncle Michael.
My grandparents.
Nathan’s parents.
Our brothers and sisters.
The SWAT team and their wives.
“Oh, God,” I breathed. “Nathan…”
Then the priest started walking toward the front of the room.
Tears were now streaming down my face as I stared at the man that I loved.
“I love you, Reggie. I want you to marry me. Again.” Nathan sounded so fucking self-assured. So solid. So… mine.
“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll do it.”
He grinned and swept me up into his arms, walking me toward the priest in the next second.
When he dropped me to my feet in front of the priest, I couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped me.
We were getting married in front of the NICU. So his son could be a part of it.
I was dressed in hospital scrubs.
He was in his SWAT gear.
But it was the most romantic thing that we’d ever done.
I didn’t think anything could make the day better.
Then, the sweetest words I’d ever heard sounded from the front of the room.
“They found him!”
I’d been living in fear for weeks now.
Fear that Darius would find Nathan again. Would find me or even Dare.
I covered my mouth with my hands and burst into tears.
Chapter 28
I do what I want.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Nathan
“Are you sure about this?”
Dr. D looked at me like I was a bug.
“You made the child.” He paused, waving his hand in the air. “I mean, the child is… shit. This isn’t where I was going with this. Yes, I’m sure. Dare is doing great. He’s five pounds even, passed the car seat test. He’s yours. Take him home. Enjoy him. Try not to fuck him up.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that burst free of my lips. “Try not to fuck him up? That’s all you got for me?”
Dr. D shrugged. “You’re gonna fuck him up. Everybody does. Just try not to fuck him up too bad that he can’t function without you when he’s eighteen.”
Reggie snorted from her position beside me.
She leaned into my side and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.
I swallowed hard as Dare was handed to her without any wires or tubes hooked up to him.
Jesus, I was scared as hell.
“It’ll be okay,” I heard.
I looked up at my dad who was standing a few short feet away from me, then my mom.
“You survived being shot in the head twice,” he said. “I think you can handle a little tiny baby.”
I flipped him off, causing him to laugh.
He was right, though.
If I could survive being shot in the head twice, I could survive Dare.
Right?
***
Reggie
The nurse that’d been shot coming out of the hospital had been none other than Eerie.
Eerie who, might I add, hadn’t had the best of luck lately.
Her appeal to get another DNA test was denied.
Her appeal to have visitation was denied.
Her appeal to appeal was denied.
She no longer had a legal leg to stand on, and even worse, she got shot coming out of the hospital by the same man that was out to get Nathan.
Her luck was bad, and I almost—almost—felt bad for her.
Until she glared at me where I was holding Dare.
“I hope you die,” she snarled.
Okay, so that feeling bad for her thing was a thing of the past.
“I hope you don’t,” I countered. “I hope you live your life immersed in the knowledge that you lost. That you didn’t win in making Nathan’s life hell. That you realize that Nathan won and he’s not suffering all the while you question your decisions.”
Eerie flipped me off just as Nathan pulled up in his truck.
He got out and didn’t spare Eerie one single glance.
Instead, his eyes were all for me and his baby.
“Ready to go home, Reg?” he asked as he took the baby and placed him into the car seat.
I grinned. “Ready and waiting.”
We drove away all under the watchful eyes of Eerie, who never lost her scowl.
“Let me get my family home.”
Chapter 29
I have mad hustle and a dope soul.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Nathan
Three weeks later
“I want to know everything,” I said to the man that was sitting in front of me looking nonplussed.
The man shifted in his seat.
Yet, despite knowing that it might wind him up in trouble, he didn’t once hesitate to tell me the truth.
Honestly, he hadn’t even looked surprised when I walked into his office.
Apparently, he’d never been hiding from us. He’d only left his house so that we wouldn’t go there. He’d been staying at his office. Living out of it, actually.
“It was found when Eerie’s eggs were harvested that she wasn’t fertile. None of them were viable,” Dr. Mick Messings said. “I… with all the pressure from her father, I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her that I couldn’t do it. Well, I did tell them. They told me to do it anyway. To fix the impossible, I guess. And since he was saying that he could take away my license and threatening my practice… I have a sick child, Nathan. She’s been fighting cancer on and off for years. My practice being open was the only thing that was making it possible for me to pay her medical bills. Him threatening me was like a suicide of sorts. In the end, I harvested some eggs from a donor that had perished in an automobile accident. One that closely resembled Eerie Foster.”
His words made my eyes open wide.
“You just… used someone else’s?” I asked in surprise.
He shrugged. “The Fosters gave consent. As did the egg donor. If she was to perish, her harvested eggs would be donated.”
I had a feeling that the Fosters had no clue that they’d agreed to ‘donation’ but it worked for me now.
“I’m not sure they understood what Eerie and her family knew they were consenting to,” I admitted.
He shrugged and narrowed his eyes. “I sure the hell didn’t consent to her and her father making my life a living hell, either. But I did what I thought was best at the time.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“I’m not sure if you
