Page 39 of Room 1003

He stroked the tip of his finger over her little fist, and she opened her hand and grabbed at him in reflex. Kit giggled in surprise, his face filled with joy. “I love her so much,” he told me, not taking his eyes off her. Then, he leaned in and placed the softest of kisses on her fingers and whispered, “I love you, Evelyn.”

My eyebrows jumped, and I glanced up at Ben who was wearing a similar look of surprise. “Evelyn?” I asked. “Where did that come from?” It was not just anormalname, but also kind of lovely.

Kit shrugged. “I had a dream last night about Daddy, and he said it was his mom’s name, and I thought it was pretty.”

I felt a chill skitter down my spine. “I—you’re right,” I said breathlessly. Embry’s mother had died when he was a child, and I hadn’t had the chance to meet her. Kit must’ve heard the name before and remembered it… right? Because a dream message from Embry, that was impossible…

“It’s perfect,” Ben said, placing a kiss on the top of Kit’s head. “Just like you.” He said it to Kit, but he squeezed my hand to let me know that he meant it for me too. For all of us. Our perfect little family. And in some way, I knew that included Embry too, wherever he was.

24

Ben

Home.ThiswaswhatI’d been waiting for ever since Shane told me he was pregnant. All of us under one roof, the house I felt like we had built together. A family.

As I took the last turn, heading down our street, I looked in the rear-view mirror at Shane. He had wanted to sit in the back seat next to Evelyn for her first car ride, so I was playing chauffeur. “Everything okay back there?”

“Perfect,” he said, gazing back at me with love in his amber eyes. I knew he was in pain, but he was hiding it well. He was stronger than he would ever admit. The doctor had offered us another night in the hospital, but Shane had been eager to get home, and I wasn’t about to argue with him.

I pulled into the driveway and came to a stop. “Stay there. I’ll come help you,” I told him over my shoulder before hopping out and coming around to the back. I offered Shane my hand and helped him ease out of the car.

“Thanks, hun,” he grunted, wincing.

He went to pick up the diaper bag, but I beat him to it. “No, I’ve got it. You don’t lift a finger around here this week. Just relax and heal.” He did all the hard work, but this was something I could do to make it easier for him. Once I was sure he was stable on his feet, I propped one knee on the seat and crammed myself through the door to unlatch the car seat from the base. Evelyn was crashed right out, much as she’d been since the minute she was born. It was hard work doing all that growing, and I knew these first weeks would be filled with a lot of eating and sleeping. For now, she was such a tiny thing, so fragile. I could easily cradle her in the crook of one arm. Heck, Dmitri was three times her size at this point. Too soon, though, she would be running all over the house, chasing after her older brother, no doubt.

It was with that thought that I began planning all the babyproofing I needed to do before she started crawling. We would need baby gates for the stairs and plug covers, locks on the cupboard doors, rubber protectors on the corner of every table. And of course, a baby swing added to the playset I put up in the backyard, and maybe a sandbox…

With the car seat in one hand and my other arm tucked around Shane’s waist, we made our way up the porch steps. The front door swung inward, revealing Zack. He’d probably been watching for us from the bay window since we texted him that we were leaving the hospital. “There you guys are. Here, let me take my grandbaby.” He made grabby hands at the car seat.

I passed her over, and he immediately started cooing at her. Oh boy, she was going to be one spoiled princess, I could already tell.

Zack set the car seat down in the entryway so he could undo the buckles, and Dmitri snuck in behind him, sniffing at Evelyn’s head. We all watched to see how it went. Zack had brought home a baby blanket from the hospital after their visit yesterday, to help Dmitri get used to the smell, and I’d been told he cuddled up in the blanket and started purring straight away. Yeah, I wasn’t worried about the cat accepting the baby at all.

Sure enough, he touched his cold nose to her forehead and gave a little nudge in greeting, before sitting down beside her, content not to leave her side. His size in comparison made her seem even smaller.

“Where’s Kit?” Shane asked his dad, holding onto my shoulder as I knelt at his feet to help him remove his shoes.

“Kit’s upstairs waiting for you.” Zack gave me a knowing glance.

I knew exactly what Kit was waiting for, and it was killing me having to go slow. I was so excited to show Shane what Kit and I had been working on, but it was just as much Kit’s surprise as it was mine, and I knew he wanted to be the one to handle the big reveal.

While Zack took baby Evelyn out of the car seat, I helped Shane as he walked tenderly up the stairs. He had the railing clenched in one hand, and I was glad I had replaced the loose balusters so that it was steady under his grip. I held his other hand, bracing my palm on his lower back, ready to catch him in case he slipped. I’d offered to carry him everywhere, but he insisted that moving around would be good for his healing.

We came around the corner and saw Kit standing guard in front of the super-secret closed door. Shane was electric with anticipation. He’d been dying to see inside the room for weeks. “What are you up to?” he asked Kit suspiciously. “Are you finally done teasing me?”

“Yep! It was so hard to keep the secret, but I was so sneaky. And now it’s finally time!” With a jerky flourish, Kit turned the knob and threw open the door at long last, revealing the baby’s nursery.

The walls were painted a soft sage green with white trim. One wall had built-in bookshelves we’d constructed ourselves, and there was a crib and a rocking chair that I let Kit pick out at a local furniture shop. Apparently, they were made by a man in town, and the work was exquisite. I certainly couldn’t have made anything like it myself. And, of course, the nursery wouldn’t have been complete without one of Shane’s paintings hanging over the crib.

Shane stepped through the door, his breath catching in his throat as he took it all in with wide eyes. “Oh wow! You guys did all this yourselves?”

Kit was standing in the middle of the room, beaming with pride. “Ben told me I’m his pro—proto—“

“Protégé,” I reminded him.

“Yeah! I’m his protégé! It means I’m his helper. He let me paint and use a screwdriver and a hammer and even a drill! I’m gonna be a ‘lectrician like him.”

When Shane turned around, his eyes were overflowing with happy tears. “I can’t believe you did all this. This is so amazing, thank you.”

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