Bled Dry (35 page)

“I don’t think so!”

“Why not? She could use a boyfriend.”

“No.”

“Yes, I think it’s a great idea.”

Corbin interrupted their good-natured bickering to say, “I am grateful to Gwenna for befriending Brittany and reassuring her about Ava’s future. They’ve become good friends.”

“It’s good for Gwenna, too. I think it’s helped her pain heal,” Ethan said. “And she needs friends like Brittany more than she needs a bloody boyfriend.”

Alexis snorted. “Stop being such a big brother.”

Corbin let them resume their circular argument as he watched Ava stretch her plump arms out to the side. Eight pounds six ounces at birth. A ten on the Apgar score. Latched on first try. Yes, she was definitely perfect.

And this was happiness, past and present and future, fleeting yet permanent, a drop in the bucket of time, yet eternal. Immortal.

The bedroom door opened and Brittany came back out.

“What es ze matter?” he asked. She looked sleepy, her eyes squinting against the lamplight.

With a shrug, she just gave a smile. “I just forgot to do this.” Bending over, she kissed him on the lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Aren’t they cute?” Alexis asked Ethan.

“We’re cuter, babe,” he told her, and dipped her back to a rousing kiss.

“I’m covering your eyes, Ava,” Corbin told his daughter, even as Brittany draped herself across his back. “Your aunt and uncle are being inappropriate.”

“Hey,” Alexis protested, pulling her mouth from Ethan’s. “If it wasn’t for our lust, she wouldn’t even exist. You would have never met Brittany if I hadn’t been living in the Ava.”

“Wrong. I met Brittany first, so Corbin met her because of me, not you or your lust for me,” Ethan told her. He frowned at Corbin and Brittany as Alexis whacked him on the arm. “And I still can’t believe you named our niece after a casino.”

“It’s your casino,” Brittany said. “Doesn’t that make it better?”

Corbin smiled back at her. “Should we tell them why we named her Ava?”

“If you’re going to tell me she was conceived in my casino, I could do without that information.”

“It’s not that scandalous. We named her Ava because we couldn’t agree on anything else, because it’s pretty, and because we did
meet
at the Ava. And actually, just as an FYI, she was conceived in that chair you’re sitting in,” Brittany told him.

“Christ!” Ethan leaped out of the chair.

Corbin laughed. “She is joking, Carrick.”

Though we have done creative things on that chair
, Brittany said.

“Not that we need to share that,
ma chérie
,” Corbin said, a little surprised.

“Share what?” she asked him.

“What you just said,” he replied.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Did not.”
Give it a rest.

“Pardon? Give it a rest? That’s a bit harsh.”

Brittany sat up straight. “I didn’t say that out loud.”

Are you sure?

Positive.

Corbin looked at her in astonishment. “I can read your thoughts again.”

“I can hear yours, too.”

Brittany had tears in her eyes and she sniffled. “Everything is right, isn’t it?”

Corbin held his daughter, kissed his wife. “Yes, it es. Everything es just right.”