Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Maven gasped, and the baby in my arms started to squirm.
Her eyes opened, and her baby blues blinked at me blearily.
“What?” Maven asked, voice deadly calm.
Before I could say a word, Garnett relayed everything again for the five women in the room.
Maven turned toward the door, marching with a purpose.
“Get her, tiger,” Shayne called.
I winced.
“Let me see the baby,” Gable urged.
And though I knew it to be a distraction tactic, I turned so he could see the baby.
“Cute,” he said. “Bet Auden loves that bow.”
“He hates it,” Shayne giggled. “They get more and more ridiculously big each day that Auden refuses to leave it on her.”
Voices.
Yelling.
Then Maven stormed into the room. “She’s lucky I have a kid in here, or I’d claw her eyes out.”
“What happened?” Gable asked excitedly.
I flicked his ear just as the nurse came in with a wide-eyed look. “Um, I’m here to pass out the good stuff.”
“That’s for me.” Gable raised his hand.
She smiled and said, “I guessed.”
Gable got his medication, and we waited for the nurse to leave again before Maven said, “She’s here because she’s dying and needs a kidney. She’s hoping that Athena will use her heart and give one to her.”
“Absolutely not, she won’t,” Gable snapped, eyes spitting fire.
He tried to sit up, and his face went shock white.
“Don’t,” I said as I moved, placing the baby on the bed between his legs before I helped Gable get resituated. “No sudden movements. Everything you do needs to be slow.”
The kids all took that as their cue to pile onto the bed with their newest cousin.
“What’s that?” Tex asked as he pointed at the tube coming out of Gable’s chest. “Can I touch it?”
“No, buddy,” Ande said. “That’s helping Uncle Gable breathe.”
“Or making it impossible to,” Gable grumbled.
“What’s that?” Tex continued, pointing at the white dressing on Gable’s chest.
“That’s a boo-boo,” I said as I carefully peeled the dressing away.
I knew it would be time for a dressing change soon, so I went ahead and took it off.
Possibly, I should have left it, but the way Gable was staring at it so curiously, I knew he wanted to see, too.
“Nasty.” Tex wrinkled his nose. “It makes me want to touch it.”
“Please, don’t.” Gable laughed. “You’re such a weirdo like your mother.”
“Hey!” Ande cried.
Then Gable’s eyes went altogether serious. “Ande.”
Her eyes went to him. “Yeah?”
“I saw her.”
This was another thing I’d wanted to hear about.
“You did?” she asked, sounding desperate.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I think she was real, too. That all…” He whipped his head toward me. “I saw your brother.”
My heart melted. “You did?”
“I did,” he nodded.
Then he told us about what had happened in that in between place.
He told us about Gavrel and him staying where he was to make sure I was okay before he moved on. He told us about Addison and how happy she was in the white peace, as he called it. He also told us about how it felt to be there.
“It was weird,” he admitted. “I had no pain there. Things didn’t ache. My eyes were wide open, and I could see everything. I had this inner peace, like it just felt right to be where I was. Like I could be perfectly content there.”
“I’m glad you didn’t stay,” I mused.
His eyes were sparkling when he said, “You weren’t there, Athena. Why would I stay anywhere where you weren’t?”
A small sniffle had me glancing over to the side to see Garnett smiling despite the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
“I’m glad she’s happy and at peace.” She breathed. “That’s all I could hope for all of my children.” Her eyes went fierce. “And did I mention how tired I am of nearly losing all of y’all? I raised y’all for thirty some odd years with no issues, got you through puberty, your sixteenth year, and out of the military. Then all of you meet your significant others and I feel like yeah, this is it. I can finally stop worrying. Then bam. One by one all of you have broken my heart. If not you, then the women you decided to bring into your lives. And I’m downright sick of it.”
“You know what I’m not sick of?” Tex asked. “Watermelon.”
That had me giggling. “Oh, yeah?”
Tex nodded decisively.
“On that note,” Ande snorted. “I gotta go. The other kids are probably going wild. I just wanted to stop in to see if this bonehead woke up today. Now that I’ve confirmed proof of life, I better go help my husband or he’ll close down his circus.”
They all filed out one by one, leaving Maven, Lola, Gable, and me.
Maven gathered Lola up into her arms and tucked her back into the front carrier at her chest.
When she was done, she walked up to Gable’s free side and looked down at him.