Page 101 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“Looks like they’re almost done.” I frowned, hating the idea of him moving back here. I’d gotten used to him in my house. “Not long now and I guess . . . you’ll be home.”

“Yeah.” Kaine scowled.

His angry look gave me butterflies. Did he not want to come home? Because that would be awesome.

“I’m going to be sad when you move back here.” I was fishing now. I might not beg for him to share information from his past, but I wasn’t above begging to keep his incredible woodsy scent in my home.

“Me too.” He stepped closer and cupped my jaw in his hands. “I like being at your place.”

“What are we doing?” I whispered.

“Going backward.”

My eyebrows came together, but before I could ask what he meant, Kaine leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Let’s get you out of here. It smells. Got something to show you in the shop.”

I savored the smell of fresh paint, taking every breath a bit deeper, but he’d deemed it unhealthy. He’d kicked me out of the house the day he’d painted the nursery, delivering me to Logan and Thea’s house for the day.

Kaine took my arm and led me outside, then down the slope to the shop, letting us in through the side door. “I’ve been working on these for a couple of weeks.”

I reveled in the smell of sawdust as he flipped on the lights. “Working on what?”

“You’ll see. I still need to sand them and get them stained, so use your imagination for what they’ll look like when they’re done.”

“I can do that.” I walked behind him to a canvas tarp at the back of the shop.

He gripped the cloth and paused with a long breath. Then he met my eyes before whipping the tarp clear.

My hands flew to my mouth, my eyes instantly filling with tears.

He’d made bassinets for our babies.

Each cradle was rounded, like an oval nest. They reminded me of nutshells, but with slots. They sat on pedestal bases that allowed the top to rock and sway.

“Kaine,” I whispered, trying to blink the tears away, but they were too overwhelming.

His face softened as he came over and pulled me into his arms.

“Damn hormones.” I sniffled into his sweater. I’d cried more in the last few months than I had in the last few years, including all the nights I’d cried during my divorce.

Kaine rubbed my spine gently until I got the tears under control. Then I stepped out of his arms and gingerly touched each of the bassinets.

“They’re perfect.”

“I was going to do a darker wood to match the changing tables you ordered online.”

“That sounds great.” I nodded. “Now I know why you told me to wait on ordering the cribs.”

He chuckled. “I wanted to have them completely finished before I showed you, but I could tell you were getting antsy. I didn’t want you ordering cribs tomorrow when I wasn’t looking.”

I smiled. “You know me too well. How did you come up with this design?”

I’d looked at probably a hundred different crib and bassinet designs over the last couple of months, and nothing had this much character.

“I made one of these when Shannon was pregnant.”

My god, this man was strong. How hard had it been for him to make these for our babies? How many painful memories had he relived just to give our boys something special?

My love for him doubled in that moment. Maybe even tripled. And I realized that I had to cut Kaine some slack.