Page 70 of Oliver

God, I didn’t even know. I’m scared.

I braced my hands on the sink, knuckles white. Somewhere behind me, the door creaked open.

“Jude?” Cyclone’s voice, quiet thunder. I could hear the frown in it. “You been in here half an hour. You sick?”

I shut my eyes.Tell him,my gut screamed.Don’t you dare lie to him.

When I turned, he filled the doorway — six and a half feet of dangerous, loyal, aggravating man. He took one look at my face and crossed the tile in two strides, hands on my shoulders.

“What’s wrong?”

My throat locked. My eyes burned. I hated how fragile my voice came out:

“I’m pregnant.”

For half a heartbeat, the earth forgot how to spin.

His eyes flinched wide, then narrowed with a soft force that made my knees weak. His palm found my jaw. “Say it again.”

I choked on a laugh, half a sob. “I’m pregnant, Cyclone. We’re… we’re having a baby.”

His forehead dropped to mine. He was shaking —Cyclone,unbreakable storm of a man, trembling like a rookie in his first firefight.

“I love you,” he rasped. “God, I love you so much. Marry me. Right now. No more waiting.”

I flinched. “What if—” The word caught behind the ghost of a headstone. My little girl’s name I still whisper in my dreams. “What if I can’t protect this one? Why do I feel so guilty? I already love this baby. But that damn guilt is sneaking back inside me.”

His hands framed my face, holding me steady. “Then we will protect them together. You and me. Always.”

I believed him. I truly did. I wiped my eyes and nodded. This baby will be protected and loved so much by Cyclone and me.

Two Weeks Later

We didn’t need a church.

We didn’t need flowers or a dress that cost more than my truck.

We just needed each other — and the family we’d bled beside and for.

The backyard smelled like fresh grass and Raven’s new cologne. Gage played an off-key tune on a borrowed guitar while Oliver stood behind Cyclone’s shoulder, smirking like he’d seen it all coming.

I wore white — a sundress Emery dug out of a thrift shop at dawn and hemmed herself because she insisted I wouldn’t marry her friend looking like an assassin. My hands shook when Cyclone slid the ring onto my finger, but he steadied them.

His vows were four words, spoken rough and sure: “I’m always your storm.”

Mine were simple too: “I’ll always keep you safe,” I said before he grinned.

When they cheered, Cyclone bent me backward and kissed me so deeply I forgot there’d ever been a time before him.

Afterward, I leaned against him, one hand pressed to the quiet promise growing beneath my ribs.

Some scars never fade. Some ghosts never leave.

But this — this family, this man, this life blooming inside me — it was proof I could choose tomorrow.

And tomorrow, for once, didn’t scare me at all.

Epilogue

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