“Then sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up,” I promised.

But she didn’t. She had more to say.

“You should probably get used to it, husband to be,” she said, putting emphasis on the last part.

I laughed against her mouth.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“I could hear everything everyone was saying. Even that stupid shit you spouted about being thoughtless and ruining your life for a second time,” she informed me.

I swallowed hard. “I was thoughtless. If you weren’t awake right now…if you would’ve died…I’d have ruined my life for a second time. And this time so irreparably that I wouldn’t be able to dig myself out of the hole I prepared.”

She lifted her arm, and the IV tubes got tangled around my arm as she did, tying us together unintentionally.

“I would’ve been disappointed in you had you not taken the time you needed for yourself and your daughter. She’s a baby in this big, harsh world. You have to take care of her first, and me last,” she said softly.

My heart felt so full I could barely stand it.

“You’re not ever last, Nox. You’ll never be my last. You’ll always come first, right along with Reagan. And any other children we have,” I informed her. “I’ll always come last.”

She grabbed hold of my beard with her tiny fingers, and held me still as she said, “You’ll always be my first, too.”

“Good,” I said, starting to stand. “I need to call your parents and tell them that you’re awake.”

However, she kept a hold of my beard, holding me still.

“What?” I asked her.

“Don’t you have something to ask me?” She asked.

I blinked. “Ask you?”

“Yes, ask me. You know, it has something to do with us being together for the rest of our lives. And it rhymes with carriage?” She teased.

I feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She pulled my beard.

I’m sure it was hard for her, but it only felt like a small tug.

Still, I laughed.

“I’m not asking you anything. I’m telling you,” I informed her.

“You’re telling me…what?” She whined.

“That you’re mine and I’m yours. And that’s the way of it,” I said sternly.

She snorted. “Typical you.”

“That’s right, typical me,” I agreed.

She sighed and finally loosed my beard. “I fucking love you, Bennett.”

Those words, coming from her mouth right then, only minutes after she woke up from a three day coma, were the best words in the world. Words I thought I’d never hear again.

“I love you, too,” I told her. “Now let me call your parents before they try to take back their approval of our impending marriage.”

Epilogue

Wooden spoon survivor.

-T-shirt

Lennox

Three years later

“Are you ready, baby girl?” I asked my daughter, Way.

Her full name was Calloway Rhea Alvarez, but we’d shortened it to Way about two days after having her.

She was a full of life two year old with so much energy that it was hard to keep up with her at times.

“Yes,” Way agreed, running down the hallway to the garage before I’d even told her where we were going.

Shaking my head, I walked in the opposite direction, knowing the door was locked up high so she couldn’t get out.

“Reagan,” I called as I headed to her room. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, mom. I can’t get my dress all the way zipped, though,” Reagan called from behind her closed bedroom door.

“May I come in?” I asked, hand on the knob.

“Yeah,” she called.

Opening the door, I tried to ignore the absolute pig sty that she had going on, and stepped over the mess to walk up behind Reagan.

She’d really grown into her body in the last three years, and was already just as tall as I was.

Reagan had the majority of the zipper up, so all I had to do was do up the last three inches, and she was ready.

“You look great,” I said truthfully.

She turned to me, and smiled.

Her big brown eyes, so much like her father’s, shined with annoyance, however.

“I hate wearing dresses,” she muttered.

I snorted.

That was an understatement.

She hated them so much that I’d had to go buy the one for tonight.

“Let’s go. We’re already late,” I said hurriedly.

She sighed and slipped her feet into her Chucks.

I didn’t say a word, knowing there were some battles that just weren’t worth fighting, this being one of them.

“Mom, I think we should stop for ice cream after the banquet,” Reagan said behind me.

“Ice cream, ice cream!” Way shrieked from in front of us.

I snorted.

The kid was a fatty.

Literally, if anything sweet came in her general direction, and she was going to eat it, whether you wanted her to or not.

Me, I had to sit there and watch them do it.

Diabetes sucked.

“We’ll see what your daddy wants to do,” I offered.

I didn’t want to say yes and Bennett be too tired.

Last night had been a long one for him, and then he’d had to go to work this morning, followed by the banquet directly after work.

So I was fairly sure ice cream would be off the table.

Then again, Bennett was a sucker for his two girls.

I was tired, too.

But not for the same reason that Bennett was tired.

I hadn’t worked in a little over two weeks because I’d been on maternity leave.

Tomorrow night would be the big day for me and our newest addition.

“I’ll get her strapped in,” Reagan told me as we got to the garage where my SUV was parked.

An SUV that Bennett had bought when we’d found out I was pregnant with Way.

“Thanks, baby,” I told her, walking to the driver’s side and hefting myself in.

After getting Way strapped in, Reagan got in the front seat and buckled herself in, signaling her readiness to go.

As we drove, I realized just how lucky I was to be where I was today.

Three years ago almost to the date, I’d woken from a coma that resulted from Corrinne shooting me in the belly.

I’d been informed by the doctor, upon waking, that I would likely never carry a child to full term due to the fact that the bullet hole had torn my uterus upon entry into my belly.

We’d proved them wrong, though, much to Bennett’s absolute terror.

I’d gone full term with Way, and then had done it once again with this baby that we’d yet to name.

Mostly because the baby never cooperated with the ultrasound tech each time we’d tried to determine the sex.

“Mom, you just passed a cop going sixty,” Reagan said worriedly.

I looked down at my speed and winced.

“Oops,” I muttered, wincing once again when we I saw him flip his lights on and turn around. “Dammit to hell.”

Fifteen minutes late, and a three hundred dollar speeding ticket later, the three of us were hurrying inside.

Bennett, who was dressed to perfection in his dress blues, stood at the entrance with his arms crossed, and a stern look on his face.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to speed right there?” He asked grouchily.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Apparently, you didn’t do it enough, because I got a speeding ticket by that rookie, Maus.”

He snorted. “That’s his job.”

“Fuck his job,” I snapped, handing his child to him and wrapping my hand around the railing, and painfully climbed the steps.

“It was stupid. She was only going five over,” Reagan said to her father, trying to defend me.

“Yeah, but she’s gotten a ticket there before,” Bennett shot back.

I rolled my eyes.

What would possess a cop to sit there, behind the trees, at the bottom of a hill?

It was inevitable that I was going to speed!

Wasn’t that entrapment or something?

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” I asked crossly. “This whole event is about you and the rest of the SWAT team. You should be inside.”