Paper Rose (28 page)

“We can have coffee every morning and discuss new campaigns for sovereignty,” Cecily agreed with a grin. “Because now I really am family.”

Leta sighed. “Really family,” she agreed with love beaming from her face.

She went back to Matt and Brianne glanced up at Cecily. “I hope you're going to forgive Pierce for what he did to you,” she said dryly. “He and Colby Lane should be shot. They had no business shocking you like that, especially since you're pregnant.”

“I wasn't shocked. I was outraged. Parceled back to D.C. with my suitcase and delivered to the father of my child.” She sighed as she stared at her husband across the room. “But what a reunion it turned out to be. Your husband has my vote for matchmaker of the year.”

“I like him myself,” Brianne chuckled and exchanged a long, sweet look with her own husband. Pierce Hutton had dark eyes like Tate's, and his love for his young wife was very evident, even at a distance.

“Tate's very excited about the baby, isn't he?” Brianne added. “I heard him telling Pierce that he was already looking at potential colleges.”

“He'll make a good father,” Cecily mused, smiling across the room at him. “And a very good husband.”

“Who'd have thought it?” Brianne asked softly. “He always seemed so self-contained. I guess you never really know people, do you?”

Cecily shook her head. “That's part of the fun, finding out the little quirks and surprises that make up complex people. The more I get to know him, the more I realize how little I actually knew about him. He's a very private person.”

“So is Pierce. But, you know,” Brianne said with mock solemnity, “men may actually be worth all the trouble they cause, in the end.”

Cecily laughed, delighted to find such a kindred spirit. “They might be at that!”

 

The baby was born in the summer, on the hottest recorded day of the year. Tate barely got Cecily to the hospital in time. Little Joseph Matthew Winthrop was born the minute his mother was taken into the delivery room, with a waiting room bursting at the seams with family and some very wary-looking acquaintances.

Pierce Hutton murmured to his wife that every government office in Washington must be represented in there. Leta and Matt were sharing a bench with Colby Lane, who was sharing some news about Cecily's stalker, Gabrini, who'd just been convicted and sentenced to life on racketeering charges after making an unexpected confession of his part in the Wapiti reservation scandal. A nurse interrupted the conversation by appearing in the doorway to tell a beaming Matt Holden and Leta that they'd just become grandparents. It was a fine, healthy boy, and as soon as they had Mrs. Winthrop in a room, everyone could come and see him in the nursery. She darted a worried glance toward a group of taciturn men in sunglasses and dark suits, facing another group in casual dress but looking at windows as if they might be contemplating a break-out. And one of those men bore a striking resemblance to a mobster…

She beat a hasty retreat back into the safety of the surgical ward. That baby was going to have some
very
odd visitors.

In a private room down the hall, a tired but delighted Cecily was watching her husband with his brand-new son. Cecily had thought that the expression on Tate's face at their wedding would never be duplicated. But when they placed the tiny little boy in his father's gowned arms in the delivery room, and he saw his child for the first time, the look on his face was indescribable. Tears welled in his eyes. He'd taken the tiny little fist in his big, dark hand and smoothed over the perfect little fingers and then the tiny little face, seeking resemblances.

“Generations of our families,” he said softly, “all there, in that face.” He'd looked down at his wife with unashamedly wet eyes. “In our son's face.”

She wiped her own tears away with a corner of the sheet and coaxed Tate's head down so that she could do the same for him where they were, temporarily, by themselves.

Now she was cleaned up, like their baby, and drowsy as she lay on clean white sheets and watched her husband get acquainted with his firstborn. “Isn't he beautiful?” he murmured, still awed by the child. “Next time, we have to have a little girl,” he said with a tender smile, “so that she can look like you.”

Her heart felt near to bursting as she stared up at that beloved face, above the equally beloved face of their firstborn.

“My heart is happy when I see you,” she whispered in Lakota.

He chuckled, having momentarily forgotten that he'd taught her how to say it. “Mine is equally happy when I see you,” he replied in English.

She reached out and clasped his big hand with her small one. On the table beside her was a bouquet of roses, red and crisp with a delightful soft perfume. Her eyes traced them, and she remembered the first rose he'd ever given her, when she was seventeen: a beautiful red paper rose that he'd brought her from Japan. Now the roses were real, not imitation. Just as her love for him, and his for her, had become real enough to touch.

He frowned slightly at her expression. “What is it?” he asked softly.

“I was remembering the paper rose you brought me from Japan, just after I went to live with Leta.” She shrugged and smiled self-consciously.

He smiled back. “And now you're covered in real ones,” he discerned.

She nodded, delighted to see that he understood exactly what she was talking about. But, then, they always had seemed to read each other's thoughts–ever more than now, with the baby who was a living, breathing manifestation of their love. “Yes,” she said contentedly. “The roses are real, now.”

Outside the window, rain was coming down in torrents, silver droplets shattering on the bright green leaves of the bushes. In the room, no one noticed. The baby was sleeping and his parents were watching him, their eyes full of warm, soft dreams.