My chest pressed full, and I thought to deny it, to act as if this little family across the street hadn’t already marked themselves on my heart, but the confession bled out. “And you have no idea what that means to me.”
“I think I might.”
Tears burned in my eyes, and I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. “I realize I don’t know you that well, but I do know you and Trent belong together, and I’m so grateful to get to witness it.”
“I still can’t believe it. I feel like I’m floating. I feel like the luckiest woman alive,” she admitted when I stepped back.
“I think you might be.”
She gazed at me with the gentle smile she always wore, though her attention kept peeking over my shoulder to the force I suddenly felt pressing in from behind.
Commanding and potent.
She squeezed my hand again, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think sometimes we stumble upon it when we least expect it.”
She angled her head toward Jud and moved his way, and I swiveled just in time to see the emotion crest on Jud’s face. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he curled his arms around her shoulders, holding her head against his chest.
I was sure it was meant only for her, but I could hear him mumble the words, “Thank you for seeing him for who he is and not what he’s done.”
She mumbled into his chest, “I couldn’t have seen anything else.”
Energy pulsed through the air. I tried to look away, tried to remind myself it was none of my business, that Jud and Eden were sharing a private moment, but I felt like I was snared.
Held as he looked at me in remorse from over her shoulder. I fumbled back, only I bumped into another body. I whirled around and another set of big hands shot out to catch me.
“Logan. Hi.”
I’d quickly been introduced by Tessa to the third Lawson brother before the party had started. He was as handsome as his two brothers, but different, as if he held all his intimidation in the lines of his arrogance.
He smiled down at me with these sparking emerald eyes, a tease and something wicked in their depths. “We didn’t get a chance to talk, so I thought I’d come over here and remedy that.”
Jud suddenly was at his side, smacking Logan on the back of the head.
Logan rubbed at the spot, laughing and glaring at Jud. “What the hell, man? Why always so violent?”
Jud grunted, staring his brother down while somehow glancing at me. “Don’t.”
Logan’s brow lifted, and there was a grin playing around his mouth as he looked between Jud and me.
“Don’t…what?” A tease was woven into the words, a ribbing that made the muscles in Jud’s arm bulge.
“Just…don’t.” Jud’s words were hard, and that lump in my throat grew tighter.
Because Jud kept looking at me in a way he shouldn’t.
Possessively.
Indulgently.
Intensity lapped.
Lifting and burning and wrapping me into this confusion that I couldn’t afford to feel.
“Ahh.” Logan smirked. “I see how it is.”
“Not in the mood, Logan.” The rough warning scraped from Jud’s mouth.
“Well then,” Logan said.
Jud grunted again, though he tipped his chin at Logan.
The two of them shared a silent conversation.
I shifted on my feet when they both looked at me.
“It was nice to meet you, Salem,” Logan said as he backed away, amusement playing across his features as he did.
“You, too.” I forced the strangled words from my throat, then I turned and darted for the hall so I could escape.
I needed a breath. To clear my head. To rid myself of the mayhem the man incited.
Only it grew as his heavy footfalls echoed behind me.
Out in the desolate hall, I whipped around and lifted my chin. “I don’t know what it is you want from me.”
Jud stepped forward and backed me against the wall. My heart ravaged in my chest. I should be afraid, and I knew I had a problem when it had the opposite effect. When I wanted to sink forward and press my nose to his shirt.
“I’m sorry.” His words were sharp.
I forced myself to remember his reaction from Wednesday night. “It doesn’t matter, Jud. Just forget it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to forget it.”
“Why?” I challenged.
Those eyes glinted beneath the hazy lights that hung from above. “Because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me.” The defense was out before I could stop it, even though it was a lie.
From the banquet room, I could hear the clinking of a wine glass before Eden’s voice echoed down the hall.
“I want to thank you all so much for being here to share in one of the most important days of my life. I can’t express what it means to see you here. I love you all. Every single one of you.”
A round of cheers went up before the clattering stopped again.
“Since everyone we love is here, we have something else we’d like to share with you,” I heard her say.
“Jud, you should be in there. With your family.” I needed him to walk away. To leave me there like he had Wednesday night.
Only he inclined closer instead, his breath caressing my face, his hand coming up to touch my jaw in that way that slipped like comfort through my veins. Fire streaked through the connection. “Yet, here I am, with you.”
“We’re having a baby.” Emotion wobbled through Eden’s distant voice.
Surprise and excitement banged through the space.
Jud’s eyes went wide, and I was taking his moment of stupor to duck out from around him because all of this was too much. “We should go back in.”
I rushed for the doors like the man wasn’t single-handedly wrecking every boundary.
I felt him behind me, meeting me step for step.
Longing slipped from his fingers as he brushed the small of my back as he passed by and edged around the table.
Shivers raced.
What did he want with me? He’d already shown he didn’t want anything to do with Juni. My one purpose, and that was never going to change.
Gage jumped to his feet on his chair, shouting around the cupcake he had shoved in his mouth. “I get a new baby and a new mommy?”
“You do,” Eden whispered. Adoration poured from her being. Wave upon wave.
I stumbled back to my chair and dropped to the seat. Juni was on her knees. She jerked at my shirt. “Mommy! Gage gets a news baby!”
I chose to focus on the devotion that poured through the room and not the man who was stealing the air from it. “That’s wonderful.”
Trent scooped up Gage when he scrambled off his chair and went running to them. “It’s the best day of my whole life.”
“Mine, too, Gage, mine, too, and every single day that I get to spend with you.” Eden choked over the words.
A band of devotion wrapped the three of them tight.
Oohs and awws filled the room.
It was beautiful.
Real.
I touched Juni’s cheek, and she smiled over at me. “I likes it here, Mommy.”
“I know, Juni Bee. I know. I like it here, too.” Probably too much.
Gage clamored down and went racing for his uncle Jud who had stood and hugged Trent tight, clapped him on his back and uttered something low.