Page 105 of Devilish Ink

Ryleigh was my world. And she was going to have our child.

We were a family.

I drew Ryleigh into my arms and with her forearms on my shoulders and her hands cupping my uplifted face, spun her round and round and round that tiny bathroom. The fluorescent lights blurred like a halo around her dark curtaining hair and the glare of the streetlamp streaked into a shooting star as I twirled us till I was dizzy.

The icy floors bit at my bare feet, but I did not feel the cold.

I was going to be a father.

Ry watched me even as I set her down, her lip in her teeth.

“Are you happy?” she asked softly.

I drew my fingers shakily through my hair. My chest heaved as I sucked in a stuttering breath.

“Happy?” I repeated. “Ry, I’m so beyond happy. I’m… I’m…”

Ry shut me up with a kiss.

“I am, too,” she admitted with a giggle against my mouth.

“This is a new start,” I told her. “A fresh start. This is… it’s…”

Again Ry, so calmly, so assuredly, completed my exact thought, “It’s exactly what we need.”

I clasped her to my chest. Held her so tight I thought surely she’d wince in pain; she did not.

“I’m going to do things right,” I vowed to her. “This baby,ourbaby… I’m going to teach it love and kindness and…and everything that I failed to do for Ri—” I cut off, unable to say his name out loud.

The urge to move, to do something, to start on making a crib or ordering diapers or reading ungodly amounts of baby books almost seemed to overwhelm me.

But the serenity on Ry’s face soothed me like a warm fire. She was half my size but she kept me steady.

“Our baby won’t even know my da’s wretched name,” I told her. “She’ll never go to that godforsaken plot of land. She’ll—”

“She?” Ry asked, a smile at her lips.

I ran my hand over her stomach.

“Of course I don’t know,” I said in a quiet whisper. “I’ll lovehimjust as much.”

“We don’t know anything.”

In her voice I heard a soft warning: don’t go giving your heart away yet. Don’t set yourself up to be hurt. Don’t make the mistake I’ve already made.

“We know everything, Ry,” I said confidently. “We know that this is a cruel, dangerous world. We know that we’ve hurt and been hurt and we know that’s not the last time either. We know that there are people out there who want to harm us, take everything from us…”

Rage nearly sent me fleeing again from the heat of Ry’s body. The idea that some man was out there, seeing my woman every time he closed his eyes…

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead against hers, continuing in a whisper, “We know that we’ve had to survive and we know that we’ve learned the wrong things—to run. To stay silent. To suffer alone.”

Breathing in deeply to steady myself, I pulled just far away from Ry so that she could see me and I could see her.

“And we know that our baby will never have to learn those things. We know we’ll do anything and everything to keep ourbaby safe. We know that it will be loved and protected and allowed to grow up with kindness and warmth in its little heart.”

Ry teared up as she stared at me. The trust she showed me with her unwavering gaze made my chest tight.

“We knowthat,” I said, and Ry nodded vigorously as she fought back tears. “So we know everything.”

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