Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12 (23 page)

 
The silence of his home welcomed him with a
coldness he felt he deserved.
 
And he
thought about Jimmy as he walked in.
 
He
had spoken to Jimmy a few times during his time away, and Jimmy was unforgiving
too.
 
He was upset.
 
He wanted to know why his siblings and
stepmother were in Seattle.
 
“What did
you do, Pop?” was how Jimmy put it.
 
“Why
did Mom leave?”
 
Reno didn’t have a good
answer.
 
He wasn’t getting into it with
Jimmy.
 
He, instead, asked about
Val.
 
She was fine, Jimmy said, and then
he made him smile as he always could.
 
“Whatever you did,” Jimmy said, “I love you, though.”

Reno still
smiled about that.
 
Jimmy was going to
stay in his corner.
 
He didn’t know about
the others, but Jimmy would.

But when
Reno walked around the foyer, and into the living room area, he stopped where
he stood.
 
Because Trina was home,
sitting in that chair she always sat in, her legs over the arm of the chair,
her iPad on her lap, her eyeglasses on her face.
 
Reno didn’t know what to think.

“Hey,” she
said when she saw him, and removed her glasses.

But Reno was
still floored.
 
“What are you . . . I
mean, you’re home?”

Trina
nodded.
 
“Yes,” she said.

He wanted to
ask if she was home for good, but he was too afraid.
 
He would take whatever he could get.
 
“The children,” he said.
 
“Where are they?”

“Upstairs,”
Trina said.
 
“Sleep.”

Reno’s heart
wanted to soar.
 
“Are you, are they, I
mean . . .” He looked at her.

She sat down
her iPad, and her eyeglasses, and got up.
 
She walked over to him.
 
“It’s permanent,
Reno,” she said.
 
They were now
toe-to-toe.
 
Reno was staring at
her.
 
“Thanks for giving me space,” she
said, “but don’t worry.
 
I’m back.
 
And I’ll never leave again.”

Reno’s heart
soared.

“I’m so
sorry, Tree.
 
I lied to protect you, but
that didn’t make it right.
  
You don’t
need that kind of protection.
 
I know it
now.”

Trina placed
her hand on the side of his unshaven face.
 
“The reason I’ll never leave you again is because I can’t.
 
I know it now.
 
Even if every lie Amy told on you was true,
every single lie, I would not have been able to leave you.”

Reno placed
both his hands on her beautiful face.

“I know that
makes me a chump,” she said, and Reno was shaking his head. “I know I lose all
power by telling my man something like that.
 
But it’s the truth.”
 
Tears were
in her eyes.
 
“I can’t leave you,
Reno.
 
You’re going to have to do me
right.”

Reno’s heart
dropped.
 
“Oh, Tree,” he said, wrapping
her in his arms, his hard eyes watery too.
 
“I’ll do right by you every day of my life.
 
You and our children.”

“Even
Dommi?” she asked.

Reno
laughed.
 
“Even Dommi,” he said.
 
And Trina smiled too.
 

They raced
to the hospital so fast that Trina was certain one of the many cops they passed
would pull them over.
 
But nobody
did.
 
Trina was grateful, she didn’t
think they could take much more drama, as Reno raced through the streets of
Vegas with that controlled out-of-control way he was known for.
 
By the time they arrived at the hospital, and
hurried through the automatic doors holding hands, their hearts were hammering.

“Which way?”
Reno asked.

“This way,”
Trina said, and they ran down corridor after corridor and took the elevator
upstairs.
 
It was Val.
 
Jimmy had phoned not thirty minutes ago.
 
And they were both praying.

Trina was
praying out loud. “Let her be alright,” she kept saying. “Please let her be
alright!”

She was
alright.
 
She was better than
alright.
 
When Reno and Trina walked into
her hospital room, she was still holding her brand new, bouncing baby
girl.
 
It was a high risk pregnancy.
 
Val had been bed-ridden through most of
it.
 
The doctors weren’t even certain if
the shooting she endured before her pregnancy could have an affect too.
 
But she was fine.
 
Trina and Reno praised God.

Jimmy and
Buddy Wellstone were in the room with her.
 
Jimmy took the baby from Val, and handed her to Reno first.

“Here,
Daddy,” Jimmy said, handing the child over.
 
“You hold her.”

Trina
smiled.
 
Reno did too.
 
He knew all about babies.
 
He’d had enough of his own.
 
And he picked this one up with a lot of care
too. Because she was special.
 
She was
his first grandchild.
 
He was blown away.

“Hey, little
one,” he said as he held and bounced her.
 
“You know who I am?
 
You know who
I am?
 
I’m your grandmother,” Reno said,
and everybody looked at him.
 
“That’s
right.
 
That’s who I am.”
 

But when he
realized they were looking at him, he wondered why.
 
“What?” he asked them.

“You’re that
child’s grandmother, Reno,” Trina asked.
 
“Really?”

Jimmy was
stifling a laugh. “Something you aren’t telling us, Pop?” he asked his father.

“I didn’t
say grandmother, what are you talking?
 
I
didn’t say that.
 
Did I?”

“You did,”
Trina said, nodding her head.

Reno shook
his head and smiled.
 
“Help me, Lord,” he
said.
 
“I think I’m crazy in love.”

And Trina,
Jimmy, and Val couldn’t agree more.

Visit
www.mallorymonroebooks.com

for
more information on all of her
titles.

www.austinbrookpublishing.com