Page 139 of Against The Tide

“What about your happiness?” she counters, picking the test up off the counter and staring at it as though it holds all the answers.

Maybe it does.

“You are my happiness, Avery. I don’t want anything to get in the way of that. Of you and me. You understand?”

“I want to give you everything,” she murmurs, glancing up at me and clutching the test in her hand. “All those things you promised me and have given me. I want to do all of that for you and more. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted and dreamed of.”

“You are all those things. You’ve been more than all of it put together from the very beginning.”

The light in her eyes is impossible to miss when I take the test from her and look at it properly for the first time. My heart stutters at the one word “pregnant.” It’s not just my gut telling me this is different. It’s every part of me screaming it. Screaming it with a joy I’ve never felt before. My entire being, starting with my soul, yearns for this one thing, and it’s right here in front of me.

Sure, the past is daunting, and there is that one nagging thought that reminds me of how bad things got last time babies were brought into the equation. But the prospect of that little bit of me and her entwined and growing inside her is so much greater than any nagging thought.

“Do you want to have a baby with me, Doc?” Avery runs her fingertips over the test in my hand.

“Yes.”

“Oh good,” she sighs with a broad smile—the broadest I’ve ever seen on her, and it is so damn beautiful. She is beyond spectacular. A fucking dream, actually. “Good, because I’m pretty certain I’m pregnant.”

“How many tests did you do?”

“Enough that when I went into the pharmacy this morning, Marie refused to let me buy another.” Her cringe makes me laugh, and while she’s staring up at me with mock horror pinching her face, I kiss her.

Putting the test down on the counter, I back her up against the edge until she perches herself on it, and I nudge her legs open to stand between her thighs. With her hands twisting in my shirt, I cup her face as I lick into her mouth, drinking in her drawn-out moan and savoring the trembling breaths that vibrate into my lungs.

There’s never been anything so perfect in my life, nothing I’ve craved so deep, and no matter how much of it I have, I want more. That’s Avery through and through. The more I have of her, the more I want.

Tracing my hands down the column of her throat, I slip them all the way down to her hips. When I round her ass and pull her groin flush to mine, she whimpers, and I know she wants me inside her as much as I am dying to be.

“Don’t pregnant women want sex all the time? That’s a thing, right?” I ask, grinding into her.

Avery clasps her hands around my forearms, dragging down until she’s holding on to my wrists. “Nice try, honey. Ask me again in two weeks and I’ll let you know,” she breathes over my lips before licking over the tip of my tongue.

“Two weeks?”

“Six weeks, Rhett—that’s what your doctor said, and that’s what you’re going to do. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before⁠—”

“There will be no next time.” I bite down on her lip as she slips off the counter. There’s a teasing sway to her hips as she saunters out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom where she throws herself on the bed. “You know, you can’t hold it against me anymore. I protected you and our baby.”

“Our baby,” she marvels with an audible and unmistakable swoon.

I feel it too, that breathtaking wonder that makes my entire universe align. Every stumble. Every fall. They were all worth it for this life, and I can’t wait to live it with her.

Forever, always, everything in between, and so much more.

EPILOGUE I

RHETT

Three years later…almost…

The house is the quietest it’s been in years as I wake up and press a kiss to Avery’s head. She’s dead to the world after last night. I tried to help, but turns out the kids only have one person they go to when they’re feeling sick. Mommy.

“Tell me it’s not morning yet,” she mock sobs into my chest, her fingertips instantly finding the scar at my side, an action that has become instinctual to her.

“It’s not morning.” I give her what she asked for.

Looking up at me with a sulk, she groans, “You’re a terrible liar.”