Page 86 of No Kind of Hero
He handed them over, and Beth said, “But . . .”
“You’ll want to get Gracie checked again, of course,” her mother said. “And then Blake and Dakota are coming for you. In the helicopter, since it can land here. It’s all arranged. Call when you’re ready for them.”
She left, and Evan said, “Back to ER, then. And I’m not leaving until we’re sure.”
“Of course you aren’t.” Beth watched as Evan picked Gracie up so carefully. She may have gotten a little teary herself at the way he gathered his baby girl into his arms.
“And your mom,” Evan said, “is kinda wasted on Wild Horse. I’m just saying.”
“I know,” Beth said, picking up the diaper bag and heading out with him. “But maybe not. I’ve been thinking about all that volunteering she does. She runs half of that town, when you add it up. There’s more than one way to be a powerful woman.”
Evan didn’t draw an easy breath until the results of the CT scan came back.
“It’s fortunate,” the doctor said, his face grave, “that the mother didn’t have her longer. That she went for help when she did. ”
“Yes,” Evan said. “I realize that.” And if he saw April, he vowed, he’d tell her so. He’d thank her for getting Gracie out. There was what Beth had said the other day—wait, had that just been yesterday? Whenever. It applied here, he was pretty sure.
When they were in the cafeteria again waiting for Dakota and Blake, with Gracie in his arms this time drinking a bottle of diluted juice, rubbing her head like usual and looking so much less wrecked than he felt, he mentioned it to Beth.
“What you said before,” he said. “About how people justify what they do.”
“Yes?” She was exhausted, too. It showed in the shadows under her eyes, the strain around her mouth. But she’d been with him the whole way. How had he ever thought she was anything like April? Beth had stuck. And when he’d needed her strength, she’d had it to give.
“I think it’s better,” he said, forcing his tired brain to focus on this, “if April thinks she did right. If I tell her so. If your mom does. If she feels like she was a good mother, a protective mother. Even though we know she wasn’t, not really.”
“Except at the end there,” Beth said. “That was real.”
“It was, and I’m trying to remember it. But anyway. That idea might make it easier for her to not hang on so hard to Gracie, I’m thinking. Maybe. To not go for . . . custody, or whatever.”Custody.April was the mother. But after this—surely that wouldn’t count for nearly as much. Surely.
“You’re right,” Beth said. She was drinking a chocolate milkshake, exactly like that first day in Robinson’s. And this time, she was drinking it all. “The less judged she feels, the more she might be able to let go. I think you’re right, and I think you’re smart. And I’d say it would take strength to say that to her. But then, you have strength.”
“Not so sure right now,” he confessed.
“Oh, Evan.” She laughed, although it was pretty shaky. “Of course you do. And I need to say this. This one thing.”
“Yeah?” He wouldn’t have said he could feel anything else today. He’d have said he was all worn out on feelings. But something was happening in his chest all the same.
“I think you’re the best man I’ve ever known,” she said. “And I love you.”
Now, he knew he was feeling something. Because it ached. “Me too, baby,” he said. “Me too.”
Beth went home with Evan and Gracie that night. He didn’t ask, and neither did she.
There was no choice, though. She held him that night, and he held her, and she didn’t know who felt more comforted. The next day, she went and collected Henry again, and they took the baby for a long walk by the lake, cooked dinner together, and checked on Gracie in her crib before they went to bed. And talked almost not at all.
When he reached for her, she came to him. He kissed her, long and slow and sweet, and she held his head and kissed him back, and then she rolled on top of him and kissed him some more.
When her lips left his and traveled to his neck, when her hands were stroking over his shoulders and the biceps she loved to touch, he sighed and said, “Have I mentioned that I love that you come to bed naked? Because, baby—you feel so good over me like that.”
She smiled against his skin and kissed him a little better. There at the side of his neck, where he was sensitive and she was too. “I’m glad,” she murmured in his ear, then kissed him there and moved on down. Her hands on his chest, exactly the way he liked. Pleasing him. Memorizing him.
For once, he didn’t roll her over. She felt his chest move as he sighed, and she took that for what it was. Pleasure, and relief. So she gave him more of both. She loved him with everything she had. With her mouth and her hands and every bit of her willing body. He held her, touched her, pleased her, and neither of them talked any more.
Slow and hot and sweet, and when she was on top of him, rocking him the same way he’d rocked her, like his body was hers, like every bit of his pleasure belonged to both of them? When he closed his eyes and then opened them again, she knew it was because he wanted to watch her. He wanted to see this.
She gave him all her love, and he gave it back to her. Slowly, and then not so slowly. And at the end, when she was gasping, when he had hold of her hips, was driving into her, setting the pace at last, and the contractions took her? She felt him shudder, felt the strength of his hands on her, his urgency. She read the intensity in his ice-blue eyes, and she saw her name on his lips. She loved him.
And later, when they were lying together in the dark, wrapped around each other like one person still, he said, “It’s Tuesday.”
