Текст книги "Eighth Grave After Dark"

Автор книги: Darynda Jones

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

She heard him groaning at first; then he came to and started yelling for her to get help. Instead, she crawled to the well, her hands and stomach covered in blood, and pushed the wooden cover with all her might until it canopied the entrance. His screams faded as the barrier slid into place, but they were still audible. So she worked for an hour, dragging dirt and grass and tree branches to cover the wood. To insulate the sound.

Finally, his screams were barely a whisper on the wind. With grief consuming her, she walked farther into the woods until the sun came up and drenched her in its light. Dreaming that it was God. Dreaming that he would forgive her, that he would touch her face as gently as the sun and welcome her home. She took her last breath thinking only of one person. Her twin sister. The girl lying at the bottom of a well with a murderer.

Her heart contracted for the last time, and then she was no longer cold.

I jerked away from her, fought to catch my breath, struggled to keep at bay the wetness threatening to spill over my lashes. I lost. Fat, hot tears streaked down my face as I looked at her.

“Beatrice, I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. Pointed to herself, and finger-spelled, “Mo.”

“Mo? That’s Beatrice in the well?”

She nodded.

“Are you Deaf?”

She shook her head, curled one small hand into a fist and held it over her mouth.

“You’re mute. And your sister?”

Her signing was archaic and not really American Sign Language. It was a jumble of signs she’d probably done at home with her family, gestures, and ASL. I did understand that her sister could talk, but that night, she didn’t want the priest to know which girl he’d raped. So she’d refused to talk, refused to give away which sister was the threat. She’d given up her life for her twin, who had been mute most of her life. The priest knew that, and had believed that disability would keep her from speaking up for herself. He’d been wrong.

“Mo, I’m so sorry.”

She was crying, too. All the emotions I felt came straight from her. Her heart had been ripped out that night. Her life and her happiness stolen. But the worst part was the loss of her beloved sister.

She signed to me again, and it took three times for me to figure out what she was asking. I felt stupid and inept for making her repeat herself so much. But I finally figured out she was asking me if God hated her because she let a man lie with her. Because she got her sister killed and then killed herself. Because she took away the life he’d given her.

“Can he forgive me?” she asked. “If I do something good?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” I said, standing up, after some effort, and hugging her. “He doesn’t hate you. I promise with all my heart. You did do something good. You tried to save your sister.” I set her at arm’s length. “You can cross through me if—”

I heard something before I could finish. A crack. A sharp crack. Like wood. And I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be crazy if—?

Yep. The cover broke beneath my weight. My eyes wide, I gazed at Mo. She gazed back. Then I dropped.

11

GOD GIVES US ONLY WHAT WE CAN HANDLE.

APPARENTLY, GOD THINKS I’M A BADASS.

–BUMPER STICKER

The wood didn’t exactly break cleanly. It scraped across my back and arms as I fell, but I managed to grab hold of a slat on the way down. I hung there, my legs dangling. A jagged point had torn into my face by my ear and up across my forehead. I didn’t realize it until my vision blurred due to the blood gushing from my head.

Mo tried to pull me up, but there was simply no way. I weighed too much. It was Beep’s fault. Apparently, she weighed around eighty-seven pounds. My ribs burned and I had a difficult time breathing, but I took in a lungful of air and was just about to scream for my husband when the plank I held on to for dear life broke.

I dropped longer than I thought I would have, falling into a deep pit of darkness. In that instant, I prayed there would be water at the bottom. My prayers were not answered. I hit hard. My legs crumpled beneath me. My hips exploded with pain as my femurs drove into the sockets by the force of the sudden stop. The drop knocked the air from my lungs, and I raised my arms over my head, trying to catch my breath. Both those tasks caused jolts of excruciating pain in my side. I’d cracked a rib. Possibly more.

The ground was uneven beneath me, and in the back of my mind I knew I was sitting atop the bones of at least two people. I fell back against the side of the well. Most wells in the area weren’t dug so wide. They were just wide enough for small children or animals to fall in. This was a bona fide well with lots of elbow room. I was lucky. I could have been stuck in a pipeline. Beep could have died.

Mo appeared beside me. My question was, why didn’t Reyes? He loved to pop in when I was in mortal peril. What the heck?

There was just enough space for Mo to stand beside me. Had she been alive, it would have been terribly cramped. As it was, she could stand half inside the wall of the well.

I glanced around and could see two things. The round top of the well, which reminded me of a horror movie I’d seen, and Mo. I could’ve seen Mo no matter how much light I had. Or didn’t have. But the light seemed to stop about halfway down the well.

Tree roots zigzagged across the opening above me. That would explain some of the burning I felt on my back and arms. And I honestly didn’t know if I was sitting on more roots or bones. Either way, this was not a place I wanted to stay long.

“Reyes,” I said weakly. Screaming for help was no longer an option.

“I’ll go get help,” Mo signed, but before she could go, Reyes appeared at last, his incorporeal form shrouded in a massive undulating robe. It filled any leftover space.

Mo fell back against the side of the well, her eyes wide.

“It’s okay, hon,” I said through gritted teeth. “He’s with me.”

His incorporeal form disappeared, and I heard someone running and then sliding to a halt above us. Dirt trickled down from overhead.

“What the hell, Dutch?” Reyes asked.

I was in too much pain to offer a smart-assed comeback. And though there was no water in the well, I was wet. Very wet. I closed my eyes, mortified. My water had broken. This could not be good.

I heard Reyes whisper above me, the sound echoing around me, the walls like an amphitheater. “Osh’ekiel,” he said.

Osh would be there soon. He’d probably bring Garrett as well if he was still at the house.

I was safe. I knew I was safe. With that thought, I decided to drift off for a while. Regain my strength. Gather my thoughts.

Reyes yelled at me, but I couldn’t stop my fall into oblivion. It certainly felt better there.

*   *   *

I heard arguing overhead. Every once in a while, a voice would drift down to me. Osh. Garrett. Uncle Bob. Poor Ubie. Reyes and Cookie argued with him. He wanted to risk it and have me medevaced to Albuquerque. He didn’t understand the consequences of such an action. It might take the hellhounds a while to find me, but find me they would.

I didn’t care at that moment, though. If it would save Beep, then we needed to risk it. I tried to tell Reyes that, but no one was listening to me.

“Charley!” Cookie called out to me. She was hysterical, racked with sobs. I felt bad that I was causing such uproar.

“I’m okay,” I said, and looked over at Mo.

“What can I do?” she asked. Either that or she said I needed to dye my hair. Maybe it was time. I was getting older now. Had a family and a kid. Almost. I needed to be more adultlike. Dye my hair. Get my nails done. Go to water aerobics.

“What the fuck?” Osh asked me.

He grinned down at me from up high. It actually wasn’t so deep as the fall that lasted forever would have me believe, but it was deep enough to make getting me out of there a problem.

There it was again. A pain across my stomach and abdomen that crept around to my back. Crap on a cracker. I was in labor.

“So, guys,” I said, looking up at heads in a circle. It would have been comical if– Who was I kidding? It was comical. “My water broke. I’m in labor, so if we could just hurry this along. Also, I think I broke a rib. Or two. And possibly my hips. And my ankle hurts.”

“The way I see it,” Osh said, “you got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out of it.”

Cookie whacked the back of his head.

“Just kidding.”

“Who’s the girl?” Quentin asked, his signs difficult to read from my vantage.

I tried to sign back, to no avail. “Amber, can you tell Quentin this is Mo? She’s mute but uses mostly home signs. I need a Deaf interpreter.”

She relayed my message and I could hear Artemis whimpering in the background. I was surprised she wasn’t down here with me. After a moment, Quentin nodded.

“Okay,” I said, looking at Mo, “are there any neighbors close by with a rope of some kind?”

“Yes,” she said, pointing repeatedly. I’d been at the convent all this time but had no way of visiting our neighbors. Even if I could have ventured out, we were trying to keep to ourselves, to allay any questions our new neighbors might have about why we were living there, so I had no idea what lay beyond our holy border. “Quentin, can you let her lead you to them? We need rope and boiling water.”

“Why boiling water?” he asked.

“I don’t know. They just always boil water when someone’s having a baby.”

“Not the boiling water,” Reyes said to Quentin. “But we do need rope or ties or, better yet, mountain climbing gear, but that’s aiming high.”

He nodded and Mo disappeared to lead them to the closest neighbors. Hopefully they’d have at least one item on our list.

“Can you lift me out of here?” I asked Reyes, only half teasing.

He didn’t smile. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. I need some ibuprofen. Or some morphine.”

He nodded. “I’ve called Katherine.”

“Katherine the Midwife. You have to say her full name.”

“She’s on the way,” he continued without even cracking a smile. I was losing my touch. “But it’ll take her almost an hour to get here.”

“Okay. I’ll wait,” I said, just as another spasm ripped through me. It made breathing impossible with the rib situation. I grabbed hold of a tree root—hopefully—nearby and squeezed.

“Lower me down,” I heard someone say. “I was a pediatrics nurse, and I even helped deliver a few babies in my day. I need to check her.”

No way. They were going to put me in an enclosed area with Denise?

“This won’t hold,” Reyes said.

“It won’t hold you, but it’ll hold me. We’re risking the baby’s life.”

“If it doesn’t and you fall onto her—”

“I won’t. I’m the smallest one here besides Amber, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t know what to look for.”

I drifted away again, wondering how far under the dirt the bones were. Someone needed to know that they were here.

I looked up to tell them, but found myself staring at a butt. A butt I’d recognize anywhere. It was Denise’s, and she was being lowered with sheets that had been tied together. She was so going to fall on me. I closed my eyes as dirt tumbled down on me, and it felt good and I fell into oblivion again until an excruciating pain jerked me out of it.

“I hate labor!” I yelled, but it came out as a whisper.

“Here,” I heard Denise say before feeling the rim of a water bottle at my mouth. She’d brought Katherine the Midwife’s case with her. “I called Gemma. She’s on the way, sweetheart. You just hang in there.”

I pushed it away. “Were you possessed? Is that why you’re being nice to me?”

She laughed softly. Like laughed. At something I said. Oh yeah. She was possessed. Bedeviled. Entangled in Satan’s snare.

She lifted a bottle to my mouth again. “Just a tiny sip,” she said. “Once you go into hard labor, you can’t eat or drink anything. I need to see how far along you are, but it’s too cramped.”

“I was fine until you showed up.”

“Can you get onto your knees?”

Now she was just expecting miracles. “My femurs have been shoved into my hip sockets.”

“If that were true, you would be screaming in agony. You may have pulled some tendons, though, so be very, very careful.”

She was standing over me and slowly slid to her knees. Moving one of my legs, she parted it at the knee, and while it hurt, it wasn’t excruciating. She tried the other one, with the same results. “If I pull your arms, can you grab hold of my shoulders and get into a crouching position? It’ll help with delivery if it comes to that.”

“Delivery?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than normal. “No way.”

“Hon, we may not have a choice. We need to be prepared.”

“Like the Boy Scouts.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I can try.”

“First we’re going to have to get your pants off.”

“Oh, hell no,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. “We have an audience.”

“And we,” she said, smiling at me, “have a sheet. Several, in fact.”

With Denise’s help, I got onto my knees and we managed to get my pants off me.

“Can’t the guys just lift me out of here with the sheets?”

“No, it’s too big of a risk. If you fall again—”

“You could have fallen on me. Why was that not a risk?”

“Charley, every risk has to be weighed. It was riskier for you and for the baby for me not to come down here and check you. But it’s riskier for you both if the sheets don’t hold and you fall again. What is that?”

She pointed to my left. I’d been sitting on a skull. “So that’s what that was. Killed my tailbone.”

“Is that—?”

“A skull. Yes, we have to tell people. There are two bodies down here.”

Even in the low light, Denise’s face paled visibly. It was awesome.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes, We need to get a sheet under you, then I’m going to check you.”

It took some creative thinking, but we managed to get the sheet mostly underneath me.

She’d brought gloves from Katherine the Midwife’s stash and put them on. “Can you straighten up just a bit?”

I grabbed a protruding root and straightened as much as I could. A blistering hot pain shot through me. Every part of my body hurt, but she was able to get a hand between my parted legs. “Okay, you are at about a seven with ninety percent effacement.”

“Should I push? I don’t want to push too early. I’ve heard stories.”

Reyes’s heat felt good. I could feel it from where I sat.

“How long was she out?” she asked Cookie.

“About an hour.”

“An hour?” I asked, surprised. “It felt like minutes.” I fell onto my palms again, my head resting in her lap as a spasm of pain clawed at me and squeezed my midsection like I was a bottle of ketchup. I gritted my teeth and sucked air in and out through them. My hands curled around handfuls of the sheet until the pain began to subside.

“Charley,” Cookie said from overhead. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Me neither.”

“Do you remember that time we went to the movie and that woman went into labor but she wouldn’t leave because she didn’t want to miss the ending and then, bam, it was too late?”

“Oh yeah. That was crazy. That ending sucked.”

“Right?”

“Do you want to tell me what you were doing out here?” Reyes asked.

“I was following you.”

“Why?”

“You snuck out of the house and—” Anther spasm ripped through me and all I could wonder was why in the world had women been doing this for thousands of years? This was barbaric. This was torture. Never again. Never again as long as I lived would I have another baby, so Beep had better be pretty awesome.

“And what?” he asked me. I realized, of course, they were trying to take my mind off the pain. Off the situation.

“And you met with Angel again.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Angel said.

“Angel!” I said, happy to see him. Or hear him, since my face was planted in Denise’s crotch. “Why were you meeting with Reyes?”

“I can’t tell you. He’s meaner than you are.”

I lifted just to glare up at him. “Clearly you don’t know me very well.”

“I would go down there to be with you, but I draw the line at childbirth.”

“Chickenshit.”

“And proud of it.”

“I would have told you,” Reyes said. “You’re holding my underwear hostage. I would’ve had no choice.”

“Does that mean you aren’t wearing any?”

“Your blood pressure is too high,” Denise said. She’d checked me with one of those wrist models that fascinated me. She looked up. “We need that rope.”

“Got it!” Amber called out. “He didn’t want to lend it to us. He didn’t believe we had a pregnant woman stuck in a hole. So he came to help.”

“Hey, there,” a man called down to me. A Native American, judging by his accent. “I’m thinking we might need to get some professionals out here.”

“So, yeah, I’m not wearing pants,” I said to him. “Sorry.”

“I’m okay with it if your husband is.”

Another spasm, this one harder than any of its predecessors, tried to tear me in half. I cried out between locked teeth and tried to breathe in a pattern. It didn’t work.

“We need the rope,” Denise called.

“I’m getting it ready,” Reyes said.

“Got the board,” Osh said as he ran up.

He put a wide board across the opening. “What’s that for?” I asked. “It will just break like the ones before.”

“Not this one,” he said. “It’s from your kitchen table.”

“Oh, okay, that might work.” I doubled over and clenched my fists so hard, my fingernails pierced the flesh on my palms. “There’s so much pressure,” I told Denise. “I feel like I have to push.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” She eased me back and reached between my legs to check again. “You’re ready. If you have to push, push.”

“But they can pull us out now.”

She shook her head. “It’s too late. We are going to have to do this here.”

I glared at her. “I don’t want my baby born in a well,” I gritted out.

“I know,” she said as I pushed with all my might. I couldn’t not.

She instructed me on how to do it. Push to the count of ten, then rest. Push to the count of ten, then rest. It occurred to me that she hadn’t done this in a very long time. They might have changed things since her day. Maybe babies were born differently now. Maybe ten was no longer the magic number. But I couldn’t argue with her. I could barely speak through the labor.

She rubbed my back until it was over and I could take a breath; then she listened for Beep’s heartbeat again.

“I need the rope!” she screamed; then she shoved me back against the wall, wedged her palms against my lower abdomen, and pushed up.

I cried out in pain and tried to get her off me.

She said something I didn’t comprehend; then she did it. Again. For the third time in my life, she slapped me.

My temper flared and the ground shook beneath us, causing dirt to fall on our heads. It didn’t faze her.

“Look at me,” she said, her face inches from mine. “Beep is in trouble. If you push, she could suffocate.”

Alarm sobered me instantly.

“I lost her heartbeat for a few seconds. The cord could be wrapped around her throat. You may have to have a C-section.”

“We can’t leave the grounds,” I said, my agony ripping a sob from the deepest core of my being. “She’ll be in danger.”

“Charley, she already is. I don’t understand.”

“There are—” I stopped as another sob shook through me, my horror was so great. “There are beings who want her dead. Huge supernatural beings with large razor-sharp teeth and claws the size of Pittsburgh. They’ll kill her the minute we step off this ground.”

She gaped at me as though I were a child telling a tall tale. In her eyes, I could see the instinctive desire to chastise me for being ridiculous—then understanding dawned. “Charley, are you serious?”

“Trust me, I wish I weren’t.”

For a long while, she sat stunned, at an utter loss for what to do. My muscles seized again. She coached me through it again, pushed my abdomen to keep the umbilical cord from strangling my daughter. As painful as that felt, I could only be grateful. Then it hit her as I tried to catch my breath and get comfortable, both of which were impossible.

She nodded and straightened. “Lean back,” she said, all business.

I sat on my heels, my knees spread as far as they could be in the cramped quarters.

She squatted down and perched elbows between my knees. “I’m going to reach in and loop the cord over her head. I’ll have to push her back a little to do it. This is going to hurt, Charley.”

“I’ve been hurt before,” I said, determined to do anything it took.

Then Reyes was there, his incorporeal form scalding, the sensation welcome until he reached around me from behind and held me to the prickly wall of the well, forcing me back so Denise could do what was needed. She reached inside me and ripped me in two from the inside out.

I screamed, long and loud and guttural, as Reyes pinned my shoulders against the well wall. I clawed at his arms, but he was the only thing keeping me from doubling over as my stepmother pushed Beep back up and then searched for the cord. The sheet beneath us was covered in blood, as were my legs. And my shirt. And pretty much everything around me.

Another spasm hit just as she said, “I think I got it. I think she’s in the clear.” She listened for the heartbeat again with the stethoscope as Reyes kept his hold tight, this time monitoring the entire time I pushed. I grabbed a handful of his hair and gave it my all.

She sighed in relief. “I think she’s okay. We can do this, Charley.”

I heard the Native American man argue with Osh and Garrett. He was going to call an ambulance, but they insisted one was already on the way. They’d lied, but they had to hold him off.

“You’re tearing, but I can’t do anything about it down here.”

“It’s okay,” I said, my entire body slick with sweat. “It’s coming again.”

“You can do this, sweetheart,” she said.

I nodded and pushed when the spasm hit. I felt myself splitting as Beep’s head passed through.

“Okay, stop pushing!” she said, taking one of the sheets and working on Beep. Then she took a sucky thing out of the bag. Though I couldn’t see what she was doing, I heard a soft wail of annoyance waft up to me, and I let my head loll back against Reyes’s shoulder. But Beep was still halfway in me, though, and I really needed to push. I fought the urge with all my strength.

“Okay, I’m going to pull her out one shoulder at a time. Don’t push.”

“What?” But with one final jolt of pain, Beep was out. And pissed as hell.

I covered my mouth with my hands. “Reyes,” I said, unable to take my eyes off her.

“She’s perfect,” he said into my ear. Thank God he continued to hold me. I doubted I had the strength to hold myself upright anymore.

Denise worked to get our daughter cleaned up. I could relax and focus on the broken rib and the nigh-fractured hips and the blood still running out of my head.

I smiled at Reyes. “What a day, huh?”

He shook his head.

“So, do you still need the rope?” Osh asked.

“Yes, but not for a few minutes,” Denise said. She cut the cord, clipped it with a clothespin from the looks of it, and wrapped our bundle in a clean-ish sheet. Then she handed her to me.

All I could see was a little round face still covered in spots of muck, but she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. Dark lashes. Full mouth. Stubborn chin. She was Reyes incarnate, and my heart swelled with pride. “She’s so perfect,” I said.

“Yes, she is, but we need to get you both out of here as soon as possible.”

“Katherine the Midwife is here,” Amber said. “Can I hold her?” she asked me.

“You’ll have to ask Katherine, hon.”

She laughed. “I meant Beep.”

“You absolutely can, just as soon as we get out of here.”

“One more thing,” Denise said.

“What?”

“We have to get the rest out of you.”

“What rest?”

I shouldn’t have asked.

*   *   *

They lifted Denise out first while she carried Beep. Then the guys lowered Reyes to get me. He lifted me into his arms and they hoisted us both up at the same time using some kind of pulley system Garrett had jerry-rigged. I lost consciousness about halfway up, exhausted and broken, but as long as Beep was okay, I was okay. I knew she’d be well taken care of. She had a large family.

I awoke hours later in bed beside Reyes with a tiny bundle between us. One lamp fended off the darkness in the small room, and I could see Katherine the Midwife snoring in a chair close by. Though I didn’t much care what time it was, I did wonder how long I’d been out. How many hours of Beep’s existence I’d missed.

They’d dressed her in the first outfit Cookie had bought her. When I first saw it, I’d remarked that it looked too small. Babies couldn’t possibly be that tiny. Now that she was wearing it, however, it looked too big. Beep didn’t seem real. She was like a doll with thick lashes, a perfect nose, and a widow’s peak. She was surreal and angelic and mesmerizing.

I rolled onto my side and loosened the blanket. Her tiny fingers splayed in reaction to my touch, and I marveled at her fingernails—exact replicas of Reyes’s—as I counted them. An even ten. Just what the doctor ordered. I felt as though my eyes were glued to her. I couldn’t stop gazing at this little person we’d been waiting so long to see. I fought back tears as I looked at her, ignoring the fact that I felt like I’d been run over by a train. I’d been run over by trains before. The tenderness between my legs, however, was novel. And nature wasn’t calling. She was screaming, ranting and raving like a lunatic.

Unable to ignore my bladder any longer, I kissed Beep’s head, then her cheek, then her hand, before rolling out of bed. I glanced at my husband, wondering if he was really asleep at last. He lay on his side with his head propped on one arm, the dips between his biceps forming deep, alluring shadows. His long lashes fanned across his cheeks, just like Beep’s, and I stilled to watch them just a few seconds more, until I heard Denise.

“She’s perfect,” she said softly.

I turned to see her sitting in another chair they’d brought in. “She is, isn’t she? She’s so tiny. It’s like she’s not real. She’s like a pink flower floating on a big blue sea.”

“They’re always smaller than you think they will be.”

She and my dad had never had more children, and I always wondered why. Not enough to ask, but … “How long have I been out?”

“Since yesterday morning. About eighteen hours.”

“Eighteen hours?” I asked, scanning the room for the clock. “She had to face the world without me for eighteen whole hours?”

“They said you were in stasis or something. That you had to rest to heal.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think it worked this time.” I tried to stretch. It was just too painful.

“Do you want to hold her?” she asked, stepping forward. “We finally wrangled her away from your husband long enough to let Katherine check her out. A pediatrician is coming tomorrow, though, just to make sure.”

“Oh, good. Let me go pee, then she’s all mine.”

I grabbed my phone, then walked to the bathroom, my pace that of a snail in its late nineties. The soreness I felt was beyond anything I’d experienced before. My hips hurt the worst, then Virginia. Poor Virginia. She’d never be the same again. Then my ribs, et cetera. It hurt to brush my teeth and wash my face, too. I had a nasty bruise on the side of my head with a lovely gash in the middle and a black eye.

I checked messages while sitting on the toilet. Multitasking had always been a specialty of mine. And I peed forever, so I had a lot of time. I had a text from Mr. Alaniz, my PI, asking me if there was any progress on the home front. Meaning, had I told Reyes yet? I was going to have to tell him. The Loehrs had given me until tomorrow. Maybe now that we had Beep, he would understand what I did. Either way, I dreaded that conversation.

By the time I got back, Reyes was up with Beep. Shirtless, he held her in his arms as he turned to me, and my breath caught in my chest. Here was a man so powerful, he could make the earth quake beneath us, holding something as fragile as fine china. It was charming and endearing and sexy and exquisite.

I walked to stand beside him. He grinned down at me, pride evident in his every move.

“Did you get some sleep?” I asked, placing a hand on his arm.

“Sure,” he said, lying through his teeth. His sleepy eyes and unshaven face awed me for a moment.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Denise said, barely audible above Katherine the Midwife’s snoring. Then she turned back to me. “You have some pretty great friends.”

Reyes had just set Beep in my arms when I walked over to Denise. “You saved her life,” I said, my gratitude limitless. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there today.”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday,” I corrected.

She bowed her head. “I’m just glad I could help.” She turned and left.

“And you,” I said to the ball of perfection in my arms, “I have to show you something. Coming?” I asked Reyes as Beep and I left the room.

He followed us downstairs and outside, where we sat on two lawn chairs to gaze at the stars. I told her all about the constellations, pointing out each one and reciting its name, at which point, Reyes corrected me.

Naturally, I ignored him. “And see that star?” I asked her even though she had yet to wake up. “I’m claiming that one for you. It’s all yours. Its name henceforth shall be known to all the lands as Beep.”

“I’m pretty sure that one’s already named.”

I turned to Reyes as he lay beside us. Still shirtless despite the crisp night that didn’t seem to faze him.

“And I’m pretty sure it’s a planet, not a star,” he continued, a playful grin lifting one corner of his mouth.

“Really?” I looked at Beep. “Did you hear that? Daddy is dissing your star. And he’s wearing duct tape. Duct tape is so last June.”

“Venus,” he said.

“Beep,” I volleyed with a stern brow.

He laughed softly. “Beep it is. I found something about her very interesting.”

“Just one thing?”

His grin widened. “This is interesting in a different way.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued.

“Seven pounds, thirteen ounces.”

I gasped and gazed at her wide-eyed, making everything I said and did into a Broadway production. Not sure why. “Did you weigh seven whole pounds and thirteen ounces? No wonder Virginia is under the weather.” Then realization dawned, his point sinking in at last. I glanced at Reyes. “Seven original gods, thirteen altogether.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Just found that interesting.”

“I do too. Like, bizarrely interesting.”

“You seriously need to hydrate and eat something. What do you want?”

“Dude, you can make eggs into a gourmet three-course dinner. Surprise me.”

“Oh, I didn’t say I was going to cook. I was just offering to hold our daughter while you cooked. I’m kind of hungry, too.”