Page 61 of Lips of an Angel

I was never leaving him again.

“Not happening,” I signed. “I want to help with canceling everything.” I looked away. “Seems only right.”

Raleigh fell quiet, a suspicious kind of quiet that had my Spidey sense tingling. I looked up to see him toying with his tongue ring, the metal bar clinking against his teeth as he mulled something over. I squeezed his hand to get his attention, and his mouth curled into that classic Raleigh grin.

“What if you didn’t?” he asked.

My brow furrowed. “What?” My heart raced, though, and my mouth went dry. He couldn’t possibly mean…

“I’m saying,” he took my hand and brought it to his mouth, brushing light kisses over my fingertips, “that everything’s already in place. Your parents are flying out, we’re already closing the bar down for the day. You’re in love.”

“I am.”

“And I love you. It already took me nearly twenty years to get my head out of my ass. I don’t want to waste another minute.”

My eyes welled up again, and I swallowed down the lump in my throat, banishing the pain because damn it, I needed to say this out loud. “Raleigh Jenkins, are you asking me to marry you?”

“In…” He paused and glanced at his phone, “… less than seventy-two hours. If you’ll have me.”

I pretended to mull it over, tugging my hand out of his grip to outline his tattoo again. My heart swelled, so quickly that I felt my chest would burst. My fingers tickled over the letters until Raleigh squirmed, pinning my hand in place.

“Come on, darling. Put me out of my misery.”

Resting my chin on his sternum, I peered up at him through my lashes. “Looks like you’ll have to add a ‘J’ to that tattoo.”

Epilogue

ANGEL

One Year Later

“Darling, will you sit down?” Raleigh pleaded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so anxious.”

“I’m not anxious!” I argued, but I took the seat anyway. Raleigh was hardly the one who should talk about nerves; his long leg had been bouncing a mile a minute since we sat down in the waiting room.

I wrung my hands in my lap, my diamond wedding band catching the fluorescent light and distracting me with its sparkle.

We were finally ready to take the next step in our relationship. The next-next step, now that we’d been married for some time. I’d been going to therapy, and so had Raleigh. We were finally working through all of our feelings surrounding the accident—feelings thatweren’tof the paranormal variety.

I was talking more. There were still situations where I couldn’t bring myself to speak and I defaulted to sign, especially when I was tired. My therapist was helping me to see it as bilingual rather than an impediment, and the sentiment helped, but the truth was that I’d been relying on ASL for so long that the act of moving my mouth was simply too much at times. Not to mention the whole attention thing—why did you have to speak so loudly to be heard?—but I was improving.

What was the next-next step? Kids. We chose adoption. It was a strenuous process, but after months of waiting we’d finally been approved. To our surprise, we got a call not long after: A baby was available. Knowing there were plenty of older kids who needed loving homes, we hadn’t decided on getting ababy, much less a newborn, but when we got the call, we ran to the hospital to meet the social worker. The baby had been taken in for tests, so they had us in the nursery waiting room while they finished.

They’d been calling her Sunny, since she’d been abandoned at a fire station on Sundial Drive. Raleigh and I had another name picked out, because everyone deserved their own personality, but we wanted to lay eyes on her first—to truly know she was ours.

Sitting there in that waiting room, it was easy for my mind to drift to memories of Eli and what it was like strolling these hallways while I waited for him to finish his shift. Last I’d heard, he’d completed his fellowship in Seattle and was swiftly offered an attending position at the same hospital.

As if he could read my thoughts, Raleigh placed a large hand on my leg in comfort. And just like that, every ounce of nerves left my body.

The door opened, and Raleigh and I both fought the urge to leap to our feet. Caroline, our social worker, poked her head through the door with an excited smile on her face. “Are you two ready to meet your daughter?”

Ourdaughter. It was almost too difficult to think the words. Not until we had her in our arms, not until we knew for sure. I heard too many horror stories of birth parents changing their minds at the last moment.

Raleigh stood first, extending his hand. I slid mine into his palm, and our fingers twisted together. I still wasn’t used to the fact thathewas mine. I smiled to myself, thumbing over the rings on his fingers. We’d had one hell of a journey to get here, but I’d go through it all again if it meant I came out on the other side with him. Raleigh tossed a knowing grin over my shoulder and gave my hand a squeeze.

We followed Caroline to the nursery, where a man scanned his staff pass to let us into the room. We walked through the cots to a private room in the back, where a single bed sat in the middle of the space.

A tiny, pink-swaddled bundle wiggled, and I made a beeline for her. Right away, I knew. Raleigh and I shared a glance, and the love in his eyes made my heart swell.

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