Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I lean in and kiss her. “We’ll name her Ashley, after your mother.”
Her eyes go wide and she twists around to face me, holding onto her blanket for dear life it seems. “I’m not pregnant and we don’t want kids.”
“Life and death have a way of changing minds, baby. If you’re pregnant, we’ll embrace it.”
“I don’t know, Luke. A lot has changed. Everyone keeps dying. We live dangerous lives. How would we even keep a child safe?”
“Oh, we’d keep our kid safe, baby. You can count on it.”
“You really want a baby?”
“Do I contemplate life and children? Not since we fell apart. Would I love the hell out of our child? Yes. Don’t think that if you end up pregnant, I’m going to do anything but celebrate with you. I hope you will, too. This is not a bad thing to me. But if you’re not pregnant, then we’ll get birth control and revisit the idea at the right time.”
“I—well—yeah,” she says. “Okay. I mean the things happening right now, make me want to make a change in my life anyway.”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t know yet. I guess you can help me figure that out. Tell me about your life,” she says. “Where do you live?”
“Wherever you live.”
“I’m serious. You have a life and a job.”
“I live in New York City, but I can work and live wherever I want to. And I don’t even have to do this kind of work, Ana. If we want to start a family, I’ve made a lot of money. More with Walker than I ever made on my own. We can get that ranch and your horses, find a place away from here and safe.”
“Jake tried that. It didn’t work.”
“Jake made the mistake of running instead of tying up loose ends. We aren’t going to do that. Speaking of,” I add, and in what feels so damn surreal of a moment, I slide closer to her, cup her face and tilt her gaze to mine. I want to look into her eyes when I say this. “I don’t have a new ring to give you, but I’ll get one hell of a new one, Ana. Marry me. This time, let’s really make it happen.”
Emotions roll over her face. “God. Is this really happening? Just days ago I thought I’d never see you again. And I like the ring you gave me and I still have it.”
I arch a brow. “Is that a yes?”
“Do you really even have to ask? Of course, it’s a yes.” Her hands press to my face. “And somewhere else, like New York even, or Montana, or Germany or wherever sounds pretty good. I think I want to sell the ranch.”
I brush her hair behind her ear. “Give that some time, baby. You’re reacting to what Darius told you and he really told you nothing about Kurt. Let’s just see where all of this takes us.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be a good place, Luke.”
“Good, bad, or ugly, baby, we’ll figure it out. Okay?”
“I think we might have to shoot some people to figure it out.”
“Hey, I’m up for it. You?”
“Oh yes, I am.”
“Well then, let’s eat our gourmet dinner of protein bars. We’re going to need our strength.”
She laughs and we end up on the floor, lost in conversation, just remembering us but I realize at one point in the conversation why a baby is so damn appealing. Ana has experienced so much death and so have I, for that matter. For once, she needs to experience life. We both do.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ana
It’s early afternoon when the sun turns the snow into mush and water drips from the cabin roof and rolls down a hill in a slop of mud. When we finally pack up and load up in the SUV, with Luke behind the wheel, and me riding shotgun, it’s actually with a bit of regret on my part. Once I just let go of what was happening in the rest of the world, I finally understood this little escape with Luke was necessary.
Of course, we’ve gone through all the evidence Darius left behind, but much of it won’t mean anything until we have data access we don’t have with no internet or phone. But I’m ready with pictures of everything to transmit to Blake, as soon as it’s possible. “You know what we never talked about,” Luke says, when we’re about halfway back to civilization.
“What?”
“The money Darius left you.”
“Oh. That. Kind of weird that my dirty partner left me ten million dollars and my stepfather seems to have left me nothing.”
“You inherit in a couple of years.”
“I don’t think there’s any money. I think Kasey got it all, didn’t tell me, and lost it all somehow. Probably gambling.”
“Or it’s more complicated than that,” he says. “We both know there were things going on we don’t understand. The money may have been stolen.”