29. Lincoln
Lincoln
Mac ran into the room yelling, “She’s coming.”
Mary came down the stairs with paint on her clothes and Mila on one hip.
I stood when I saw her, and so did Hudson.
We had been waiting in Maeve’s front sitting room for twenty-three minutes, which felt longer than the days before it because this time she was in the same house.
She was close enough that I could smell her, close enough that every instinct I had wanted to go to her and every decent part of me knew better.
Maeve sat near the fire with one leg crossed over the other, watching us as if she would personally remove our tongues if we used them badly.
Artem had shown us in, given us tea neither of us touched, and then disappeared with the ominous politeness of a man who trusted his wife more than mercy.
Gregor had carried wood in from somewhere, though the fire was already full. Which made me think it was to check on Maeve as she was in a room with alphas.
Ivan had leaned in once, looked at us, and said, “Nobody has died. Good start.”
I was sure the only two people in the house who could die were Hudson and me.
Mac came in after that. He interrogated us with enough strange questions I felt I’d been waterboarded. Then he left and we waited.
Now Mary stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders.
Her face was pale. Her eyes looked too large, too blue, and too tired.
Mila rested against her side with one small hand tangled in the front of Mary’s sweater, perfectly content to be carried by a woman who had cried over paint and still come downstairs.
Mary looked first at Hudson, then at me, and my chest hurt. “Hello,” she said.
Hudson’s voice came rough. “Hello.”
I didn’t trust mine yet.
Mila looked between us and patted Mary’s chest. “Ba.”
Mary glanced down at her. “Yes, well argued.”
Maeve fought a smile, but she didn’t rescue us.
“Mac said you were sad.” Mary came into the room, not far, only to the edge of the rug, as if distance could be measured in wool and courage.
“Mac was accurate,” I said.
Her eyes flicked to mine, and a tiny thread caught between us.
Hudson stepped forward, then stopped before the movement could become pressure. “Thank you for letting us in.”
“I said the gates could open.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t say I was ready.”
“No,” Hudson said. “You didn’t.”
Mila wriggled. Mary set her down, and the child immediately waddled to Maeve, who lifted her without looking away from us.
“Damien,” Mary said.
A muscle moved in Hudson’s jaw. “He’s still in London.”
“He admitted he was jealous,” I said.
Mary blinked. “Of me?”
“Of you. Of the babies. Of us having something new when he already felt left behind.”
Her face twisted. “I don’t want him to hate you.” The words came out small. Too small for a woman who had stood up to Callum McCarthy through an armored car’s loudspeaker.
I took one step and stopped. “Love.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t. I know he was awful. I know he hurt me. And I know he said things he shouldn’t have said, but I don’t want him to lose you because of me.”
“He won’t lose us because of you,” Hudson said.
“But if he makes you choose?”
“We already answered him,” I said.
Mary stopped breathing.
Hudson looked at me, then back at her. “We told him we refuse the terms.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means nobody is ever coming between us,” I said.
Her scent trembled and I forced my hands to stay at my sides.
“Not Damien, Callum, fear, or even that half second of silence where we failed you. If you’ll let us spend the rest of our lives proving it false, then we will forever.”
“You hesitated.” Her eyes filled.
“Yes.” The word cost me.
“We did,” Hudson said.
Mary looked at him.
He didn’t hide from it. “Not because we believed him.”
“Then why?”
Hudson drew in a slow breath. “Because he’s a young man we helped raise, and he was standing in front of us bleeding from every old wound he had. For half a second, I saw his pain before I answered his accusation. That half second hurt you. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” I said.
Mary wiped her cheek quickly, irritated by the tear. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
“Meaning isn’t the only thing that matters,” Hudson said. “Impact matters.”
Her mouth trembled.
Maeve looked into the fire, suspiciously quiet.
I crossed the remaining distance slowly. Mary didn’t step back. That felt like permission and I stopped close enough to feel her warmth. “Nobody will ever come between us,” I said again. “But we need you to hear this too. You can’t protect us by leaving.”
Her face crumpled for one second before she caught it. “I wasn’t leaving forever. I just couldn’t stay and listen to him make you choose.”
“Then next time,” Hudson said, coming to her other side, “tell us. Shout at us. You throw something. You tell us where the fear is before it drives.”
Mary gave a wet laugh. “Throw something?”
“Preferably soft.”
“I’ve got excellent aim.”
“I know,” Hudson said. “I’m factoring that in. Cushions are good projectiles in those moments.”
The laugh broke again, and this time it became a sob.
Hudson and I moved at the same time, and Mary came into our arms as if her body had been waiting for permission longer than her pride had.
I wrapped one arm around her back and one carefully around her waist. Hudson cupped the back of her head, his face pressed into her hair.
Her scent opened, violet and blackberry under tears, and it smelled like home.
“We love you,” Hudson said.
Mary shook against us.
“No,” I said, because she needed more than one voice. “Listen. We love you. I love you.”
Her hand gripped my shirt.
Hudson’s mouth brushed her temple. “I love you.”
Mary pulled back enough to look at both of us. Her eyes were wet, her cheeks flushed, her mouth unsteady. “You really love me.”
“We really do,” Hudson said.
I touched her face. “More than I know what to do with.”
Her laugh came out broken. “I really love you too.”
The room shifted, and I felt it everywhere. It wasn’t a bond snapping into place. We hadn’t claimed her but something settled.
Hudson closed his eyes as I kissed her, and Mila chose that moment to toddle back across the rug. She wrapped both arms around Mary’s thigh and said, “Ahh.”
Mary looked down and burst into tears properly. “Oh, no. Don’t be nice. That’s unfair.”
Mila squeezed harder.
Maeve’s eyes shone.
Mary rested one hand gently over Mila’s head and the other over her own stomach. “I’m so looking forward to having these babies,” she whispered.
Hudson made a sound under his breath.
I put my hand over hers on her belly.
Maeve smiled, soft and fierce at once. “You’re going to be the best mama.”
Mary looked at her sister. “Don’t say things like that when I’m already leaking.”
“I will say what I like in my own sitting room.”
“Tyrant.”
“Accepted.”
Mac appeared in the doorway, looking suddenly very grown up for a boy with biscuit crumbs on his sleeve.
He assessed the hugging, the crying, and the general emotional situation. “Mila,” he said, “let’s find Fergus, because he sneaked away with Mama’s new Dior slipper and he’s been too quiet.”
Maeve turned her head slowly. “He did what?”
Mac took Mila’s hand.
Mila said, “Dior… Dior,” with the confidence of an accomplice.
At that exact moment, Fergus walked into the room. He didn’t trot. He walked slowly, with the dignity of a small dog who had recently made several ambitious romantic choices.
Behind him came Duchess, the largest Doberman on the estate, black, gleaming, and tall enough that Fergus could have walked beneath her without ducking.
She followed him with deep interest, her elegant head lowered, her cropped ears alert, her whole body moving with the lethal grace of a creature trained to stop intruders and yet apparently fascinated by a dog the size of a shoe.
Fergus had no slipper, which made it worse.
Maeve stood. “Fergus.”
Fergus looked at her, then deliberately sat beside Duchess’s front paws.
Mac brightened. “Duchess likes Fergus.”
“Duke,” Ivan said from the doorway, appearing as if summoned by scandal. “Her name is Duke.”
Mac frowned. “But she’s a girl.”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s Duchess.”
“She likes being called Duke.”
“Duchess,” Mac said. The Doberman’s ears pricked.
Ivan considered this with the seriousness it deserved before he ran a palm over his hair and sighed. “I will inform security of her new name.”
Mary wiped her face, staring at the enormous Doberman and the tiny dog below her.
“Is Fergus still playing hard to get?” Ivan asked.
Gregor appeared behind him and chuckled. “He’s hardly going to be able to do anything else.”
Maeve pointed at the dog. “Where’s my slipper?”
Fergus yawned. Duchess lowered her head and sniffed him. Fergus leaned away, offended but not enough to move.
Mary shook her head slowly. “I thought my life was weird.”
I laughed.
For the first time in days, the sound didn’t hurt.
Hudson still had one arm around Mary. I still had my hand over hers on the babies.
Mila was patting Mary’s thigh. Mac was explaining to Ivan that girl dogs needed girl titles otherwise Fergus would be confused.
Maeve was threatening a criminal terrier with consequences nobody believed she would enforce.
Then Mary started laughing, tears lined down her paint-streaked face. Then she looked at me and then Hudson and whispered, “Take me home.”