Page 130 of Speechless
Zeke’s hand crashed down on his shoulder like a thunderclap, sound included. “Yes, everything is just as you asked. Sarah’s on scheduling, so the timetable will run smoothly if she has to spank it into submission.”
“Okay. Okay, it just needs to be perfect. I want everything to be perfect for her.” It was his life’s mission to make hers a shining beacon of perfection in a world where darkness and despair had prevailed for so long. “She’s worked so hard to come back from her injuries, Zeke. Itneedsto be—”
“Perfect,” Zeke finished gently. “Relax, Connor. We’ve got this.”
Connor clasped his hands together, barely stopping himself from wringing them nervously. His gaze darted around the most amazing group of people he’d ever met—Zeke and Sarah were present, of course, although Sarah had flitted off with Cain an hour earlier, and Maryanne had brought her husband, Axel.
Caleb had returned from his enforcedvacationjust before Christmas but had steadfastly avoided any communication from either of his brothers. He’d lost his job as sheriff of Howler Creek, and according to Connor’s sources, spent his days isolated away from human company at a ramshackle old farm he’d bought and was renovating by himself.
Connor hadn’t sent him an invitation to the party.
Hadley, however, had been sent one. The special agent had been discharged from hospital in early February after complications from his gunshot wound caused a hemopneumothorax. Several surgeries later, almost as many as Jenna, Hadley was finally recuperating in a swanky hotel room in Helena, with his little Delilah by his side.
The sliding door into the house opened and Sarah hurried out, wiping her eyes cautiously with a finger. She paused, puffed out a breath and fluffed her dark hair carefully before plastering a casual, albeit smug, smile on her face as she walked across to her husband.
She wore a sheath dress that fell demurely to just above her knees, in a shade of blue so dark it would’ve been black if the sunlight didn’t catch it just right and set the silver threads woven through the fabric to shining brighter than the stars in a night sky.
Zeke’s arm curled around her shoulders protectively. “Warm enough?”
The smile blossomed into a grin. “Oh yes.”
Connor’s guts twisted as Cain stepped from the house, pausing to hold his hand out for the slim young woman moving slowly, carefully, into the light.
God, was there anything more beautiful than his dream in sunlight?
Dressed in cream pants and a pale pink cardigan buttoned up to her chin, Jenna wobbled as she made the step into the yard. Connor moved forward, was stopped by Zeke’s hand, and he let his brother steady his woman.
Her hair wasn’t yet level with her chin, but it was clean and straight, glossy with vitality and strength. Her eyes searched the yard, a smile curving her lips shyly when she saw Maryanne and Axel. But her entire face changed when she set that happy gaze on him—she came alive.
“Are you ready?” Zeke murmured.
“God yes.” He could hardly breathe for the wonder of her.
His friends moved away, and a few moments later, LP’sMuddy Watersbegan to play. He waited and caught the instant Jenna recognized the initial bars of music. His nerves evaporated as she smiled so brightly, she put the sun to shame.
Cain remained by her side as she tried to walk faster, one hand on her elbow, the other on the small of her back. His brother’s wicked eyebrow wiggle made Connor chuckle.
Two months of planning had come down to this.
“Daddy,” Jenna murmured, reaching for him with unsteady hands.
He grasped them, running his thumbs over the damaged skin before lifting them to his lips and kissing each one. They would never be the same, those delicate appendages. Between Sire’s torture and the cold, Jenna lost almost forty percent of function despite the surgeon’s best efforts. She’d been lucky to keep her fingers. “Baby, you look…stunning.”
She blushed, biting her lip coyly. “No, I don’t. I’m just me.”
Just me. After everything, she still didn’t realize she was his entire universe wrapped in an amazing woman. The one person he couldn’t survive without, the only woman he ever wanted to spend his life with. Well, maybe he could open her eyes.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Maryanne and Axel come closer, join the circle of family around Jenna’s back. These people had defended her, loved her, cared for her when the shit hit the fan and chaos erupted. They’d held her while she cried in a hospital bed after her surgeries, fed her by hand when she refused to eat. Sat with her when he was dealing with his own health, made her laugh, talked with her for hours until the black dog stalking her heels skulked away with its tail between its legs.
The important people were here, all aside from Hadley.
Connor dropped to his knees in front of Jenna, her hands still in his, and repeated the words he’d said to her all those weeks ago in the hospital. With a little addition, here and there. There was always room for improvement, after all.
“Jenna, I did this once when there was only you and me in a hospital room, numb from pain and stressed from everything we had thrown at us. I want to do it again. I want to do it right.” He looked up at her, alarmed at the tears rolling down her face—she hadn’t cried the first time. “You don’t belong in the dark, baby. You deserve the light, and you were kept from it for too long.”
Jenna’s knees buckled as she tried to join him on the ground, but Connor switched his grip from her hands to her waist and held her firm. “My dream is us. You and me, for however long we have on this earth. I can’t stop loving you anymore than I could have stopped myself fallinginlove with you. This is it for me—you’reit for me. I know what you’ve lost, what you’ve given up to be with me. Family, friends, the life you had before your world went to hell.
“I want to give it all back to you. Family who loves you no matter what. Friends who’ll stand at your back and protect you if I can’t. A life full of love and strength and devotion. Children with your hair and your eyes and the laugh that lifts my soul up on the gloomiest days,” he said quietly, resting his forehead against her belly. “I want it all with you, right down to the goddamn dog that keeps attacking the toilet rolls.”