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“You’re alone,” I prompt her.
She nods slowly. “Yeah. Reina is with her father.”
“Okay…”
Then she turns to look at me. “He and I are done, but I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Fair enough, I won’t ask, but come on in. It’s cold out here.”
She adjusts the rearview mirror so she can check her makeup, wiping a few smudges from under her eyes, before grabbing her purse and exiting the car.
She walks ahead of me up the porch steps when the door opens and Rick walks out.
“Jules? What are you doing here?”
“She’s joining us for dinner,” I announce firmly, slipping my arm through his as his sister brushes past us into the house.
“What the hell is going on?”
I turn to him and place a hand against his cheek.
“Sounds like her marriage may be on the rocks, but she’ll share when she’s ready, so please don’t push. All she needs right now is some love and family.”
He pulls me in and I’m amazed how easy I now find it to read the love in his eyes, as he bends down to press a kiss on my mouth.
“Then she’s come to the right place.”
Epilogue
Dana
* * *
“Why don’t you leave that for another day?”
Rick watches from the kitchen doorway as I finish installing the brand-new faucet for my beautiful farm sink.
It’s taken us a year and a bit to finish the house, and I’d left the kitchen for last. Mainly because I wanted to use it in its original layout for a while to figure out what worked for me and what didn’t. In the end, the work we did was mostly cosmetic, not changing the actual footprint by much at all. We did add an island, which provided some more storage and counter space, and served as a divider between the kitchen and dining room.
It looks amazing; we replaced the two cabinets on either side of the window above the sink with natural edge floating shelves, and painted the rest of the upper cabinets bone white. Most of the bottom cabinets were replaced with drawers, which I absolutely love but were a bitch to install, and we painted all of them as well as the island a darker sage green. The hardware is all new, and so are the lighting and the counters, and we added a simple tile backsplash and my pretty new farm sink.
The last detail is this fabulous, tall faucet I ordered online and just picked up at the post office this morning. So, of course, I’m going to install it right away, even if it kills me.
I straighten up and put my hands at my waist, arching back to relieve the pain in my lower back which has been bugging me on and off since this morning.
“What are you doing home this early?” I ask him, as he wraps his arms around me from behind.
I groan with relief when he slides his big hands around my belly, taking on some of the weight. Two more weeks to go, and I can hardly wait. It’s been a long, challenging journey; unplanned, with a surprise start barely four months into our relationship, and then half the pregnancy puking my guts out. But these past two months have been smooth sailing while we rushed to finish the kitchen and the new nursery in the spare room upstairs.
“Closed out two cases today, that hit-and-run case from last Friday, and the shooting at the Christmas fair in Lutton last month,” Rick explains. “We made that arrest this morning. Savvy sent me home, said we should enjoy the silence while we can before this little one gets here.”
He gently jiggles my stomach and, all of a sudden, I feel a gush of water rushing down my legs.
I startle and look down. “Oh shit.”
Rick abruptly lets go of my belly.
“Jesus, did I do that?”
