Road to Absolution (20 page)

O
NE WEEK LATER, I arrived home to find my
apartment spotless, organized, and filled with flowers. There were enough meals
to feed the three of us for over a month, and my parents were staying in town
for another two weeks to help.

I would have
limited mobility for several more weeks, but it didn’t worry me because, not
only did I never have to go back to work again, the company was covering all of
my medical bills and Mack was working on a settlement which would set us all up
for life. Admittedly, it was a really shitty way to get set up for life, but I
was alive and I was grateful.

We’d managed to
fill Maverick in on as much as we could without completely freaking him out,
but he was a smart kid and he didn’t like to see me in pain, so he hovered a
lot. I was glad it was summer so that he could just hang out with me and watch
me heal. He wouldn’t have done well if he’d had to go to school every day and
function.

Something I
hadn’t been prepared for were the nightmares. I would relive the incident over
and over again, several times a night, and I hadn’t slept well in quite a
while.

A few days after
I arrived home, I was planted in the recliner my dad had bought since it was
too painful to stretch out flat, and Carter walked in from walking the dog.
Maverick was on the sofa and we were watching a movie. “Hi, honey,” I said.

“Hey.” Carter
leaned over to kiss me. “Do you need anything?”

I shook my head
with a smile. “Mav’s got it covered.”

The pain was
beginning to get worse, but I wanted to try to wean myself off the narcotics,
so I tried to wait longer each time.

Carter sat next
to him. “Thanks, buddy.”

“No problem.”

“You okay?” I
asked.

Carter nodded.
“Yeah. Just got a weird phone call.”

“Weird good or
weird bad?”

“Good,” he said.

“Club business?”

Carter shook his
head. “The house next door to Hawk’s is for sale.”

I widened my
eyes. “The cute little blue one with the basement?”

“That’s the
one.”

“And?”

“Wondered if you
wanted to buy it,” Carter said.

I gasped.
“Seriously?”

“Yeah, babe.”

“But what about
your house?”

“Aidan can rent
it from me. Or buy it if he wants it. He’s open.”

I blinked back
tears. “You’d do that for us?”

“Babe,” he said
with a sigh. “I’m not sacrificin’ anything. I like it up here and Mav’s already
in school right down the street. We’d be close to a brother, and you’d be close
to Payton. It’s an ideal situation.”

I grinned. “Hunt
and gather, man of mine. I want that house.”

He laughed and
nodded. “I’m lookin’ at it tomorrow. If I like what I see, then you can check
it out and we’ll make it happen.”

“Can I come with
you, Dad?” Maverick asked.

I laid my hand
over my chest. It was the first time Maverick had called Carter ‘dad,’ and it
was precious.

“If your grandma
can come hang out with Mom, then yeah, of course you can. Maybe Grandpa can
come too,” Carter said.

“Awesome!”
Maverick sat up on his knees. “Does that mean I get to live next to Lily?”

“If we buy the
house, yep, that’s what it means.”

“Cool,” he said.
“Now that Dad’s home, can I please play on my DS?”

“Yeah, honey.
Thirty minutes,” I said.

“Okay.” Maverick
scrambled from the sofa and headed to his room.

Carter checked
his watch and rose to his feet. “You’re due for meds, babe.”

“Oh, good,” I
said, the pain getting stronger with each minute. “I hope this doesn’t go on
forever. I feel really great for a while and then it just hits.”

“I know, baby,”
Carter said, and grabbed my pills.

I took them and
smiled up at him. “I’m okay, honey.”

“I know that
here—” he tapped his temple, “but here—” he laid his hand over his heart, “I
don’t like it.”

“I get it.”

He leaned over
me, bracing his hands on each arm of my chair. “If you really got it, Cassidy,
you’d quit waiting longer for relief.”

I sighed. “I was
hoping you hadn’t noticed that.”

“I notice
everything when it comes to you.”

“I’m picking up
on that,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to get addicted.”

“Cassidy, you
were
shot
less than ten days ago. You got a whole lotta time before you
run the risk of getting addicted. Take the damn pills.”

I reached up and
stroked his cheek. “Okay, honey. I’ll take the pills.”

“Thank you.” He
leaned in and kissed me quickly, then rose to his full height. “Can you eat
somethin’?”

“I could try.
Something small, though.”

He smiled.
“Okay, babe. I’ll find you something.”

Carter fixed
dinner and the three of us ate together in front of a movie.

* * *

Six weeks later, despite the fact I
wasn’t allowed to lift a finger, the three of us moved into our new house next
to Hawk and Payton. It was perfect. The top floor was a ranch style with three
bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, an office, huge kitchen and great room, and
a basement with another two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchenette and a bonus
room that Carter wanted to convert into a media room.

I could never
have imagined living somewhere so nice, not on my salary and living as a single
mother, but as I watched (from my place on the recliner in the great room) the
club and my family carrying in boxes and furniture while I sipped water and
directed the flow, I realized the dreams I had so long ago were happening right
in front of me. They might have taken a little longer than I expected, but they
were no less sweet.

We’d been
married now for two weeks. Our ceremony took place at the courthouse as Carter
had suggested at the beginning (with Torbig in attendance, but not presiding
over the event). However, Carter made up for the low-key event by making the
club organize a major party. We’d have to postpone our honeymoon due to my
health issues, but I was happy to bask in the glow of him for the moment, the
honeymoon could wait a few months. Within all of the drama, Maverick turned
six, and he was happy that we’d rented out Chuck-E-Cheese for the day and
filled it with club kids and friends from school. He
loved
being the
center of attention.

Carter had made
the difficult decision to cut ties once and for all with his mother. He left
the door open, but there were specific stipulations to her being let “back in.”
And the biggest one was that she had to accept me completely, which right now,
she wasn’t ready to do. I would have tried, but Carter said that I shouldn’t
have to. She was the one with the problem, so she had to be the one to fix it.
Again, he was protecting me, and again, I let him, because the alternative
wasn’t particularly pleasant. I didn’t want to be at family gatherings and feel
as though I wasn’t welcome.

A surprising
friendship with Josh’s wife, Melanie, had come out of Carter’s ultimatum to his
mother, and I found Mel to be warm and giving, and extremely funny. But she’d
been the first to deal with Sheila’s passive aggressive nastiness, and had
borne the brunt of all of it. Melanie had confided in me that she hoped Josh
would stand up to Sheila one day, but until then, she would live vicariously
through me.

As I sat in my
recliner and guided traffic, I decided supervising was fun, especially while
relaxing and being fussed over by my man in between him utilizing his gorgeous
muscles to move heavy stuff. Yum.

I knew that it
would take some time to come to terms with not having Carter’s children, but he
was right, life apart was torture, but together we could face anything. So, I
settled in and took my man’s advice, to not worry so much. I had been blessed
beyond measure and it was more than enough.

Two years later…

“
I
don’t understand,” I said as I stood on
the phone with the doctor. I’d been dealing with the stomach flu for weeks now,
and Carter had forced me to go in and find out what the hell was going on.

“Well, Mrs.
Quinn, you don’t have the stomach flu. You’re pregnant.”

“But that’s
impossible.”

“Well, if this
isn’t good news, I can refer you to someone you can talk to.”

“No,” I rushed
to say. “It’s not that. It’s just I was shot two years ago and the doctor said
I wouldn’t be able to have children. Are you sure you’re right? Maybe I should
come in and take another test.”

The truth was,
it hadn’t been definite, but considering we hadn’t used any kind of birth
control since I’d been released from the hospital, my OB/GYN hadn’t been
particularly positive that a pregnancy would happen. We’d resigned ourselves to
not having a baby the natural way...well, until now apparently.

“We ran both
blood and urine tests, so there’s no mistake. I think we should schedule you
for an ultrasound so we can check things out at this early stage, but you’re
definitely pregnant.”

I shook my head
in disbelief.

“Mrs. Quinn?”

“Sorry, I’m
here,” I said. “Um, yes, let’s schedule the ultrasound.”

The nurse
transferred me to the scheduling desk and I took the earliest appointment
available before hanging up the phone and promptly rushing to the bathroom to
throw up again.

As I sat on the
floor of our powder room, I couldn’t stop myself from giggling uncontrollably.
Of course I was pregnant. Being married to Carter Quinn ensured it, despite the
odds. Especially, considering he probably had bionic sperm and made every
problem his bitch. A little thing like my uterus being shot to hell was nothing
he couldn’t “fix.”

Because we
tended to go at it like rabbits, I couldn’t really estimate when it had
happened, but I didn’t care. If I could carry this baby to term, it meant we
could have more and I wanted more. Maverick was going to be eight and it was
time he had a sibling.

“Babe!” Carter
called, and I heard the garage door close.

“In here.”

He pushed open
the door and frowned, hunkering down beside him. “You sick again?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Has that fuckin’
doctor called you back yet?” He stood and rinsed a washcloth with cold water,
laying it gently on my forehead. “I’m gonna call them and find out why the fuck
they haven’t figured out what’s wrong.”

“They have,
honey. I just got off the phone with them.”

He knelt beside
me again, his face pale and his expression grave. “Tell me.”

“I’m pregnant.”
Yep, I just spit it out. No easing into the information, just dropped the bomb.

“Come again.”

I giggled, but
stopped myself from giggling like a loon… sort of. “I’m pregnant. I’m going in
the day after tomorrow for an ultrasound.”

“Pregnant.”

“Yep.”

“You’re gonna
have my baby?” he whispered.

“Well, no, it’s
the gardener’s baby, but I’d hoped to wait to tell you that information for a
while.”

He rolled his
eyes and cupped my face. “Holy fuck, a baby.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

He rose to his
feet. “What do you need? I’ll run to the store and get saltines and lemon-lime
soda. What about juice? Can you handle juice?”

“We have all the
stuff now. I think I’m set for while.” I stood as well and brushed my teeth
quickly.

“You should go
to bed.”

“Honey, I’m
fine. If this pregnancy is anything like what I had with Maverick, I’ll be
feeling totally great in a few weeks. My pregnancy with him was a breeze.”

Carter laid his
hand gently on my stomach. “Will you at least sit in the recliner and relax for
now? We’ll go to the ultrasound and decide what to do from there.”

I looped my arms
around his neck. “If you want me to sit in the recliner and let you serve me
for the next two days, I won’t argue, but I really need you not to worry.”

“Look who’s
changed positions.”

I grinned.
“We’re gonna have a hundred kids, Carter. I have to learn not to stress out
every second.”

He leaned down
and kissed me. “I love you, Cassidy Eleanor Quinn.”

“I love you too,
honey.”

“In the chair.”

I laughed and
let him lead me to the recliner where he fussed over me until Maverick got home
from school. Then they both did. Saying that Maverick was excited about a
sibling was an understatement, although, he’d just gone through a very minor
‘where do babies come from’ discussion with Carter and me, so he was both
excited and grossed out. After all, Payton was close to having her new little
boy, so it was incredible to me that we’d be raising our kids together.

Later that
night, Carter took me to bed and made love to me gentler than he ever had,
which at one time, I thought would bore me, but I decided this was definitely
going on the approved list of sexual standard procedures.

Seven months
later, Liam Patrick Quinn arrived. The boy we affectionately called “Moose,”
weighed in at nine pounds, eight ounces and was twenty-two inches long. It was
no wonder I’d looked like a Volkswagon Beetle while carrying him.

As I held our
second son in my arms, I kissed Carter and smiled. “Thank you for forgiving
me.”

“Aw, baby, I was
just going to say the same thing.” He kissed Liam, pulled Maverick onto the bed
with us and hugged him. “I love you guys.”

“Love you too,
Dad,” Maverick said.

“Love you,
honey.”

He kissed me
again and I snuggled up against my family, basking in the joy of the miracle
and healing of absolution.

Life was
perfect.