Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KASEY
The scent of lavender is so strong in this lobby that I have to fight the urge to cough.
Tendrils of cool steam plume from a diffuser in the corner, tucked beneath a bushy houseplant with small string lights woven throughout.
The soft sounds of crashing waves permeate the dimly lit room, and I wonder if it’s all intended to evoke a sense of calm and tranquility.
If so, it’s not working for Ava. She sits next to me, leg bouncing, fingers thrumming incessantly against the muscle of her thigh.
I can feel the anxiety radiating off her.
She’s been wound up all morning, from the second she opened her eyes.
“What if she has a goose head?” she’d asked, staring up at me from her pillow, hair fanned out around her.
I ran my fingers up and down her arm in soothing rotations. “You’re going to love that little goose head with all of your might,” I told her.
“What if she has claws for hands? Not like werewolf-shifter claws, but like . . . like talons. What if she has the feet of an eagle—”
“Then you’ll love her little eagle feet, and we’ll make sure to keep her off the furniture.”
She frowned. “I haven’t felt her move yet. What if something’s wrong?”
“Ava,” I said gently, reaching for her face. “She’s going to be perfect. No matter what kind of head she comes out with.”
When we first walked into the office, we were greeted by a hand-painted wooden sign that read At Your Cervix in bold red letters, and Ava seemed to relax a touch.
The stout woman behind the large front desk smiled softly, asking for Ava to fill out a few intake forms, and now that she’s done with them I can see her mind at work.
The longer we sit here, the more she’s spiraling all over again.
“Distract me,” she whines, slumping in her seat. “I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.” Her words catch the attention of another woman who also must be waiting for an appointment, but she quickly looks away.
I tug her into my side. Press a kiss to the top of her head. And whisper, “Please don’t ovary act.”
She swats at me. “Kasey!”
“Shhh.” I laugh. And then she does too.
“How long have you been sitting on that?” she asks.
“About five minutes,” I say smugly.
“Ava Jones?” a petite nurse calls from an open door, clipboard in hand. She’s wearing a dark green set of scrubs with—
Fuck.
Ava deflates beside me. “It’s a sign,” she mutters, eyes glued to the pattern of geese covering the woman from shoulders to ankles. She stands, looking down at me, a little unsure.
I stand too and give her a hard kiss. “I’ll be right here if you need me, okay?”
“Okay,” she mumbles, a little dazed. “But if I come back with a sonogram picture of an ancient sea creature please don’t laugh.”
“I would never,” I promise.
I watch her disappear into the fluorescent-bright hallway with the nurse. And then the door shuts.
And I wait.
The truth is, I’m just as fucking scared as Ava is.
Fifteen minutes later, the same nurse reappears. Her eyes find mine immediately. “Kasey Bennett?” she asks.
I rise to my feet. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you mind coming back with me?”
Nerves shoot through my limbs. “Everything okay?”
“Ava is asking for you.” Her face is stoic and gives me nothing to work with.
I nod, following her back to an exam room with a closed door, emotion fisting my throat the entire way. The nurse knocks twice before pushing the door open a few inches and peeking her head in. “Ava? I have Kasey here with me.”
“Thank you,” I hear her say. Her voice is small. Watery. I can’t see her yet, but I can tell she’s crying, and my fear ratchets up another ten levels.
The door opens wider and . . . there she is, lying on the exam table.
The Bennett Rescue Ranch shirt she grabbed out of my drawer is pulled up and tucked into her bra, exposing the soft skin of her torso, her small bump on full display.
A blanket made of what looks like paper is draped over her lap, and her feet are cradled by a set of stirrups that are braced from beneath the table.
Her legs are closed, though, and a woman with a blonde ponytail moves some sort of wand over Ava’s stomach.
There’s no doubt Ava’s been crying, but her smile is so wide it immediately balms over every ounce of worry. She’s . . . happy. Beaming. “Talon feet?” I ask. Breathless. Unmoored.
She shakes her head. “Even better. Look.” It’s only now I notice a small screen attached to the big machine that Ponytail’s wand is plugged into. The black-and-white image is grainy, but there’s an unmistakable flutter. Butterfly wings, soaring into the sky.
And then the image goes dark as Ponytail shifts the wand, pressing up from the bottom of Ava’s stomach now. I keep my focus trained on the screen, waiting, until some sort of bean-shaped white blob appears, five small circles cresting over it.
A foot, I realize. An indescribably small foot.
The wind knocks clean out of me as I look at Ava. Tears are streaming down her face, eyes glued to the monitor.
“You can get closer,” Nurse Geese says, pressing a gentle hand between my shoulder blades. Encouraging me forward.
My gaze slips back to Ava. She’s studying the monitor as Ponytail moves to another new angle, soaking in everything she sees on that screen like her life depends on it. But her arm is extended out, hand reaching for me. In a blink, I hold it in mine.
“Do you see how pretty she is?” Ava whispers, salty tears coating her rosy lips.
“Of course she is,” I murmur back.
“She?” Ponytail says with a small smile.
Ava looks at her, abruptly pulled from what’s happening on the monitor. “Can you tell yet?”
The woman nods. “But it seems you already know. It’s a girl, honey.”
Ava’s eyes squeeze tight as a joyful sob rattles through her.
I move closer, hunching over her, pressing hard kisses all over her face. “So damn incredible,” I mouth into her cheek. “So fucking perfect, Ava. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’re capable of.”
She clutches me tighter. Holds on to me with so much weight it forces me down to a knee. And even though I know she doesn’t need to hold on to me, because she’s got this on her own, I hope she never ever fucking stops.
“It really is cute.” Ava swirls the last piece of warm bread into the even warmer dip between us. She pops it into her mouth and assesses me with a playful smirk.
“What’s cute?” I say, even though I already know what’s coming.
“You are such a gentle crier,” she says. “Quiet but weepy, you know?”
“You were sobbing before I even got into the room,” I point out.
She arches a finger toward herself. “I am a sausage-casing stuffed too full of raging hormones. You are—”
“How are you kids doing over here?” June asks, coming over from another table, eyeing the already nearly polished-off spinach and artichoke dip that she dropped off less than five minutes ago.
She frowns. “I’ll go grab you some more of this,” she says a little quieter, as though not to embarrass Ava in front of the other patrons.
Ava simply shrugs, totally unbothered, and peers at the wedge of lemon on the brim of my water glass like it’s a butter-seared steak as June walks away.
“Easy tiger.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, ravenous. “What?”
“Food’s coming. Just give the kitchen a few more minutes to make sure your hamburger isn’t still bleeding.”
“I know the food’s coming, Kasey, I was here when we ordered it.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. But they land back on my lemon wedge.
I laugh. “Besides your insatiable appetite, how are you feeling?”
Her eyes soften. “Really, really happy.”
The door to the café jangles open behind me, courtesy of the bell hanging from the top of the door, and Ava’s gaze moves over my shoulder.
And then her face hardens. Before I know it, she’s rising out of her seat.
“Ava?” I ask, frowning. I twist in my seat and watch her march toward the man who just walked in—it’s the owner of the local hardware store.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Silas, right? Silas Greene?”
The man tilts his head, bushy brows pulled down. “Yeah?” he grunts beneath an ungroomed beard.
“You have a kid named Max, right?”
And then I remember—Liam’s fight. Shit.
“Yeah,” Silas grunts again. “So?”
“Thought it might be important for you to know your kid is a menace.”
Silas frowns. “Who the hell are you, lady?”
“I’m a good friend of Liam Bennett, and I’m really disappointed to hear some of the shit Max is telling him at school about the recent death of his mother.”
Silas’s face goes ruddy. “That kid nearly broke my kid’s nose,” he barks. “He had no right—”
“Do you recognize me, Silas?” Ava interrupts.
His mouth tightens before letting out a firm “No.”
“Well, you probably should. I saw you at enough parties growing up. You were the too-old creep who always found a way to hang around a bunch of underage girls. You know my friend Molly pretty well, if memory serves. From back when we were sixteen.”
This has Silas blanching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ava nods and gives a dry laugh. “I imagine it’s all a little hazy, but trust me when I say I have the means to make you remember. I’m a lawyer now. And my father is the sheriff. You know Sheriff Joe, don’t you?”
Silas looks uncomfortable. “What do you want from me?”
Ava grins. “Listen. Liam’s a good kid. He’s been through a lot, but he’s still just a kid. He doesn’t deserve to have to go to school and be bullied about things in life he can’t control. Making fun of his grief is below the belt, Silas, and you need to teach your son some fucking manners.”
She takes another step forward, and the instinct to rush over and pull her away becomes almost intolerable, knowing the risk she’s taking by standing up to this brute of a man.
Nearly the entire café is watching their heated discussion unfold, and I’m worried Silas might lash out.
But I force myself to stay seated, to let her lead, because this is also one of the things I love about her: her fierce determination to stand up for what’s right. Her total lack of fear.
“Your son had that punch coming, Silas,” Ava continues, “and you and I both know it. This is your chance to raise a young man who treats the people around him better than you did. If I hear that Liam has any further issues with Max, you’ll pay for the things you’ve done and I’ll make sure he learns the lesson anyway. Got it?”
Silas takes a step back, nodding.
“Good.” Ava sighs. And then smiles politely like nothing happened. “Hope you enjoy your lunch!”
Silas, it turns out, doesn’t enjoy anything, because he leaves as soon as Ava turns to stride back to the table. She sinks down into her seat looking quite pleased with herself. I can’t help but grin. “You good?”
She nods. “Always love getting to knock something off the to-do list.”
June comes back around with a tray of plates, looking at Ava with obvious amusement. “I’ve got more dip,” she says, setting the dish in the middle of the table with a fresh basket of warm bread. “And two burgers. Anything else you two need?”
Ava’s already staring down her burger, licking her lips.
I chuckle. “No thank you, June. This looks amazing.”
She smiles, and then saunters off again.
Ava doesn’t hesitate to pick up her hamburger, taking a giant bite. Her eyes roll back in her head as she chews and . . . dammit. She’s going to make me hard in the middle of this fucking café. “Good?” I husk out, mouth dry as my eyes trace the line of her lips.
“So good,” she moans, and . . . fuck.
I try to discreetly adjust myself under the table.
Ava’s been sleeping in my bed since that first night she came in—but it’s been just that: sleeping.
My want for her is a constant, physical ache, but I’m trying so hard to navigate this new chance with her in a way that doesn’t spook her.
So I let myself drink her in and hang on to every burst of emotion her face conveys with each bite of her food.
“Quit leering, Bennett,” she gripes, eyes squeezed closed with pleasure.
I laugh, picking up my own burger. “I’m honestly a little jealous.”
“Of my burger?” she asks around the large bite she just took.
“Yeah. The things I would do to be that bur—”
A chair scrapes loudly against the linoleum floor from a table next to us. We both look over to find Nosey Maeve collecting her things as she glares at us. It’s clear she was eavesdropping, but we hardly said anything sinister.
“Hi, Maeve,” Ava says lightly with a small wave. “So nice to see you.”
But the old crone wants no part of Ava’s pleasantries. “That was quite the show you put on for everyone, Ava,” Maeve says, looking utterly unimpressed. “You ran Silas clean out of the building.”
Ava gives her a thousand-watt smile. “So happy to hear you enjoyed it.”
“You’re a married woman now. I’d have thought some of these childish antics would calm down. And you,” she says, pointing her hard stare my way. “You would let your wife fight your battles for you?”
She looks downright scandalized. It takes effort not to laugh in her face. “I mean no disrespect in saying this, ma’am, but my wife likes to fight. It actually turns her on. Who am I to deny her such opportunities?”
Maeve scoffs, and Ava laughs.
“You two might be married, but there’s no hiding your sins under the eyes of God.”
“Jeez, Maeve,” Ava grumbles. “A little dark, even for you.”
Maeve gives Ava a long-suffering look. And then she says, “You really shouldn’t eat red meat that’s not cooked all the way through while you’re pregnant, Ava. Lord help that poor baby of yours.”