Page 83 of An Endless Memory

Cali snuggled into Lily. The sight always melted my damn heart.

I followed Wilder upstairs to the nursery.

“How’s Sutton doing?” I asked.

“She’s still sore, and she can’t wait to sleep on her side. One of her stitches popped open the first week, but it’s been a smooth recovery from surgery since.” He lifted a shoulder. “As much as you can recover with two newborns anyway. We’re tired but content. Glad I could be around for it all.”

I was glad he’d finally chosen Sutton over his deputy position too. “No clock to punch.”

“No kidding.” He set Drew in the middle of the crib and gazed at him with pure adoration. When I settled Alex, he did the same. “It’s just so unreal. Neither of us thought we’d ever reach this point, and now we’re here. Some days, I’m scared I’m dreaming. Until I change the diaper bin. Then it’s real enough.”

A weird spike of envy speared right into my chest cavity. I tried to brush it off. “I’m happy for you.” I was. The idea that he could be miserable and alone in Buffalo Gully gave me an ulcer.

His attention was on me. “How about you?”

“What about me?” I was being obtuse, but nothing had changed in my life.

“You’re different with her.”

Not him too. Everyone I encountered had to tell me their thoughts on me and Lily, and it was the ones who knew there could be no me and Lily. “Well, I’ve never been married.”

He gave me his cop look, the one I was sure he’d used on drunk drivers who told him they’d only had a couple of drinks. “Why aren’t you figuring out how to lock this down?”

“Did you forget?—”

“No, Eliot. I remember every damn thing, including how bullshit obligations can steal everything I have.”

Didn’t he realize how well I knew all that? My irritation crept up my neck. “My ‘bullshit obligations’ are helping you keep all this.”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to wake your boys.”

He didn’t move. “They’re used to us talking when they’re sleeping. It’s getting them to stay asleep when it’s quiet that’s hard.” He folded his arms. “I don’t need the inheritance.”

He’d gone from a family of two to four in the last month. Of course he needed the money. “We all know the business has to stay afloat.”

“We all know you hide behind that ranch.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” When one of the babies made a grunting noise, I clenched my teeth. Wilder was a new dad, elated and exhausted, and I didn’t want to crap all over his day with this argument.

“It’s been nothing but a convenient excuse to justify why you haven’t done a damn thing you’ve wanted.” He faced me like he’d bicker over this topic all day.

The heat winding around my throat turned into anger. “And why would I do that? You’re talking out of your ass.”

“One, I’m going to teach my boys to swear, not their uncles, so watch your mouth.”

“I’ll teach them to swear better.”

“Two, I can’t answer that for you. Only you can. We all had baggage we had to get over or that we still carry with us. Ask Cody. Or Austen. Aggie.”

No the fuck I wouldn’t. “What was yours?” I shot back.

“I wanted to please a father figure who I wished was my father so bad that I didn’t realize he just wanted me to live out his lonely fucking dreams.”

I snapped my mouth shut. He actually answered. A response that made all the sense in the world. I’d even told him once he’d picked his old boss over his wife. Yes, we all had baggage, but mine wasn’t history. I was living and working it every day.

Wilder’s expression grew more determined. “Austen almost moved to California because he wasn’t going to fight for Vienne and be like Barns.”

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