Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15) (23 page)

“You’re too mean to die,” Marta says.

“Damn straight.” Emilio sits down beside Wren, because he knows Wren is the one who needs him right now, and he takes her hand. He doesn’t say anything else to her. He just
holds her hand. She lays her head on his shoulder and we all wait.

Every few minute I hear Emilio mutter something about
too many fucking babies at once. And this is what you get when you have five girls. You have to worry about all the penises
. And then he goes silent again. “Eight little hands and eight little feet,” he whispers. He looks at Wren, squeezes her hand, and she tears up a little
and nods. “We got this,” I hear him whisper.

“I know we do,” she whispers back. But the tears continue to fall.

Ryan

Relief is a palpable, living, breathing thing when the doctor comes out to tell us that Mom will be all right. I get choked up and Mick does too. The doctor tells Dad that one person can go see her at a time, so he goes first.

I pull Lark into my arms and hold her tight.
“I’m so sorry,”
she says, when I finally let her go.

“It’s not your fault,”
I tell her. And it’s not. It’s Samantha’s.
I can’t believe I stayed with that bitch as long as I did. When she cheated on me, that was the best day of my life. I just didn’t realize it then. Then I met Lark and my whole world changed.

“We need to go and feed the four mamas-to-be,” Emilio says.
“Cafeteria?”
Mick and I shrug, and we follow them to the small café that’s next to the gift shop.

“So Wren is the pregnant one,”
Mick asks me
when no one is looking.

“Apparently she’s one of the pregnant ones.”
I still can’t figure all that out.

“What’s her story?”

“I have no idea.”
I look over at Wren, who is looking at my brother with curiosity.
“You should go and talk to her.”

“Okay,”
he says. And he goes to stand beside her at the soup counter. She laughs at something he says and I can’t help but think that something is going
to happen there.

Emilio comes to stand beside me and says,
“I guess I don’t have to worry about Mick’s penis, either, since she’s already pregnant, right?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”
I grin at him.

“You’re not going to get Lark pregnant, are you?”
he asks. He stares hard at me.

“No, I probably will,”
I admit.
“Not tomorrow. And probably not the next day. I’d like to ask her to marry me first.”

“Are you asking for permission?”

I shrug my shoulders.
“I will one day.”

“Come and see me when you’re ready,”
he says.
“And bring cigars. I like cigars.”

“Yes, sir.”

I reach for my phone so I can get his number, but my phone is missing.

“Something wrong?”
Lark asks as she comes my way.

“I can’t find my phone.”

“Did you leave it at your mom’s house?”

“I don’t think so. It was in my pocket.”

“Maybe you lost it in the car.”

We take the food back up to the waiting room, and settle down to wait. A few minutes later, Dad comes out and I give him the plate of food I made for him. He says,
“She wants to see Lark.”

Lark chokes on the food that’s in her mouth. One of her sisters—I still can’t tell which one is which—pats her on the back until it passes.

Dad jerks his thumb toward the hallway.
“
If you don’t go, she’ll come out here and get you
.”

“
I’ll go with you
,” Marta says as she gets to her feet.

Lark holds up a hand. “
It’s all right. I can do it myself
.” She adjusts her shirt and tries to tidy her hair.

“
You look fine
,” Marta says to her.

She takes a deep breath. “
I got this
,” she says.

Emilio tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “
Yeah, you do
.”

Lark

I step into the room and am actually comforted by the chirps and beeps that mean Mrs. Shepherd is alive. She’s tired and weak and her color hasn’t returned yet, but the doctor says she’s going to be all right.

“I never did like that bitch,”
she signs as I get closer to the bed.

Relief washes over me.
“I didn’t know you were allergic. I’m so sorry. I ruined your birthday. I almost killed
you.”

“You didn’t ruin it. Samantha did. Never did like that girl, not since she was little and she used to throw rocks at Mick because he could hear.”

“She didn’t!”

“She did. So I went to her mother and threatened to dispose of her body in a pretty vile way. The mother, not the kid, because the mother was in charge at that age—and we never had another problem out of her.”

I laugh. I like
Mrs. Shepherd, and I can see where Ryan gets his sense of humor.
“I did hope he’d marry a deaf woman, though, I have to admit.”

“He still might.”
I wince.

She laughs.
“No, he won’t. He has that look in his eye. I knew he would meet someone and fall in love one day, and I knew it wouldn’t be with Samantha, but I never thought it would be with someone like you.”

“I know I’m not what you wanted
for him, but—”

She waves her hands in the air to stop me from talking.
“He’s a grown man. He’s a talented artist. He has a good job and a home of his own. He will always be my little boy, but he will one day be someone’s husband…”
She stops to wipe away tears that have formed in her eyes.
“And that’s a decision he has to make all on his own. If he picks you, I’ll support both of you one hundred
percent.”

“Even though I can hear?”

“Oh, you’ll have your own special challenges. You will always be the one who has to answer the phone when there are voice calls. You will end up translating for him more than you think you will. And you will avoid situations where you think he won’t fit in. And he’ll avoid similar situations for you. You’ll change your life for him, and he’ll change his for
you. For him, he’ll hate that he has to rely on you for some things, and it’ll cause a rift between you at times. But when you love someone, there are always things that get in the way of it, and hearing is only a small percentage of them.”

I sit down in the chair next to her and settle in.
“I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him.”

“I know. I can tell.”
She smiles softly at me.
“You have my blessing.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, go get my boys in here so I can make them feel bad.”

“Beg your pardon…?”

“Didn’t you see the two of them at the party? Always messing around. When you go out there, tell them I look terrible, like I’m not going to make it. Tell them they should be really nice to me. Tell them that I deserve to be spoiled.”
Her eyes twinkle at me.

So I do just what she told me. They go back
to see her together, and they come out twenty minutes later, both of them looking like kicked puppies.
“She looks so bad,”
Mick says.

“She looked fine when I saw her,”
Mr. Shepherd starts to say, but I press my finger to my lips and he begins to grin.
“She’s probably really tired. You all should go home. I’m going to spend the night.”

“You ready to go?”
Ryan asks me.

I nod.
“Ready when you
are.”

Out of the blue, Mick asks Wren if she would like a ride home, and she very shyly accepts. Marta and Emilio take Peck and Star home, while Ryan and I take my car and driver.

“What’s up with that?”
Ryan asks.

“What’s up with what?”

“My brother and your sister.”

“I have no idea.”
I look up at Ryan.
“He’ll be nice to her, right?”

“Of course.”

We get in the car and go to his house.
“I’m
too tired to build a blanket fort,”
he says, scratching his belly as he pulls his shirt over his head.

I pick up pillows from the couch and throw them on the floor.
“What happens if I fall in the lava?”
I ask as I teeter on one foot.

He narrows his eyes at me.
“Then I get to have my way with you.”

I pretend to fall into the imaginary lava. “Oops.”

He stalks toward me and tosses me over his
shoulder. When we get to his room, he sets me down, pulls my shirt off quickly, and then he removes my pants and panties. He turns me around to unhook my bra in the back. Without stopping, he bends me over his bed. I hear the jingle of his belt coming undone, and then his pants fall to his ankles. He probes at my entrance with his cock.

“
Do we need a condom?
”
he asks.

“Um, yeah,”
I tell him.
I’m not on birth control.

He pulls back, goes to the bedside table, and puts on a condom. Then he takes the same spot behind my rear, his dick teasing me.

I press back against him in invitation. He slides in slowly, filling me up, and he presses my shoulders toward the mattress. I lift my bottom so he can go deeper. “God, I love fucking you,” he says close to my ear.

I’m facing away from him
so we can’t talk much. I couldn’t talk if I wanted to after a declaration like that.

He slides his hand between me and the mattress and finds my clit, and within a few lunges, he has me clutching at the sheets, with his greedy cock taking every inch of me with short, shallow thrusts, then long, slow pushes.

I turn my head so I can kiss him, and when I come apart, he grunts against my lips and
comes with me, pushing me into the mattress with a hand at the small of my back.

I climb naked up the bed and slide under his covers, and he comes with me. I face him so we can talk, even though I want nothing more than to curl into him.

“Did you mean that thing you said earlier today?”
I ask.

“What thing?”
He grins at me, so I know he remembers.

“The thing about loving me.”

He runs his
soft fingertips against my inner thigh.
“Yes, I meant it.”

“How do you know?”
I wring my hands together.

“Because I think about you all the time. I want to be with you all the time. I can’t breathe when I think about you sometimes, and I don’t know how to tell you how I feel.”

“That’s pretty good.”
I sniff back a tear.

“I know you don’t love me back,”
he says.
“Not yet, anyway. But I can wait
for you.”

I stop his hands from moving.
“I do love you. Why do you think I kept your baseball cap? I was intrigued. Then I was enthralled. Then I was beholden when you learned about my scars and you didn’t care. Then I was in love with you.”

“When did you know?”

“When you kissed all the scars on my stomach, when we were on my couch. I knew then that you were special. And then when you put the
kite tattoo on me, I knew that you knew me. And I knew I wanted to know you. I want to know everything.”

“I asked your dad if I could marry you one day.”

I jerk to attention.
“What did he say?”

“He said when I’m ready to formally ask, to bring him cigars.”

I laugh.
“That’s Emilio.”

“Your family is pretty awesome.”

“So is yours.”
He pulls me forward to lie on his chest, and he turns the lights
down low. I burrow into him, knowing that this is where I’m supposed to be.

***

The next morning, I wake up to someone shaking my shoulder. I look up and find Ryan. “Wake up,” he says.

“
What’s wrong
?”

“
Your parents are here
.”

“
They are? Why
?” I brush my hair out of my eyes.

“
Something happened. I’m so sorry
.”

My heart thudding, I jump out of bed and get dressed.

I step into the living
room and Marta and Emilio get to their feet. “Lark,” Emilio says. “Stay calm.”

“
Someone should probably tell me what’s happened
,” I suggest.

“You remember when I lost my phone yesterday?” Ryan says, wincing.

“Yes. Why?”

“Apparently I didn’t lose it. Samantha stole it.”