Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
“He’ll have to accept it.” Her hands move from Christian to Mace, to me, to Hutch, joining us all together. “You’re my priority and my future, and I think he’ll come around once he realizes that.”
“Maybe we can all have dinner together and he can get to know us better,” Hutch suggests.
Gently, I squeeze her hand in mine. “We plan to prove ourselves to you, Rose. We understand your brother’s concerns, and we’ll prove ourselves to him, too.”
She stands between the four of us, beaming, and the warmth in my chest glows brighter.
“Now that this is all settled, you have a choice,” Hutch tells her.
“What’s that?”
“You can either let us buy furniture for this place tomorrow, or you can move in with us.”
“You want me to move in with you?”
“Of course we do,” I say, sliding my arm around her waist. “But if you want to keep this apartment until we’ve proven ourselves, or until you’re sure, or even just to have a place to spend time away from us, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“I trust you,” she says, her eyes clear now, “and I want to be with you as much as I can.”
With a hand lightly resting on her belly, I bend to kiss the side of her neck. “Then pack up a bag. You’re ours now, and you and the baby are coming home with us.”
EPILOGUE
49
ROSE - THREE WEEKS LATER
“Are you nervous, Rose?” Mace’s hand, which has been resting on my knee, gives my leg a squeeze as we pull into the driveway of the house where I grew up.
“A little bit. Yeah.”
“Don’t be. We’re here for you. We have your back.”
I give him a smile. “I know.” They show me that every day, in every way. “I wish we could have invited them to your house, though.”
“You mean our house,” Hutch says as he turns off the engine. “It’s yours as well as ours.”
I’m still working on that mindset. The men have invited me to make their home my own, even encouraging me to redecorate when I’m feeling up to it. My fatigue has persisted, despite what good care the men take of me, though I am starting to have a bit more energy.
“It’s better that we talk to Patrick on his home turf,” Zipper says. “If we’d invited him over to our place, it might have seemed like an ambush.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Good point.” My brother knows that I’ve moved in with the men, but he hasn’t wanted to talk about it. He has no idea about the baby, however, and that’s why we’re here. Pretty soon, I won’t be able to hide the fact that I’m pregnant, so the time has come to tell him.
Mace helps me down from the truck, and the men surround me as we walk up to the door, two of them on each side of me.
Nancy opens the door moments after I ring the bell. “Rose, hello, come on in.” She nods at the men, and greets them as a group. The four of them have all been into the coffee shop a few times recently, and I introduced her to them, but maybe she’s like me when I first met them, not yet sure of their names.
“Would you like something to drink?” Nancy offers. I ask for water, but the men decline. It’s strange to be served by someone in what used to be my house, but it’s Nancy and Patrick’s home now.
Patrick appears and leads us into the living room, where I settle in the center of the couch, and Hutch and Christian sit on either side of me. Mace takes a chair, and when Zipper hovers nearby, not wanting to occupy one of the two remaining seats, Patrick pulls in a chair from the dining room for himself, insisting that Zipper take the recliner. The gesture is a promising sign.
A bit of small talk follows after Nancy comes in with glasses of water for me and herself.
Patrick knows the men’s names and uses them as he asks general questions about their business and their life on the island. The men ask questions in return, business owner to business owner, and I’m pleased to see that things are cordial, though there’s definitely a stiffness to Patrick’s words and body language.
When there’s a break in the conversation, I find my opening. “Patrick, I know you weren’t happy about me seeing Hutch, Mace, Zipper, and Christian. I assume that was out of concern and fear that they weren’t right for me or that they wouldn’t treat me right.”
When Patrick nods once, Hutch says, “I can assure you that we’ll treat her right. Always.”
My brother’s expression remains neutral.
“Maybe you’d like to share your concerns, and we can talk about them,” I say to Patrick.
He looks uncomfortable for the first time since we arrived, and briefly glances at Nancy, who seems to give him an encouraging look. “Well, I suppose my biggest issue is that there are four of you,” he says, directing this at Hutch, who’s been the one doing most of the talking.