State of Grace (25 page)

But his father, that old bastard, couldn’t help twisting the knife just a little.  “Better luck next time, sport,” he chuckled. 

Irritation rose within him, but he choked it back. Fuck. “Come on,” he said, defeated. “Let’s share a cab to the hospital.” 

Now, he sat in the waiting room looking just as sorry a bastard as his best friend. Lucas had been kicked out of his wife’s hospital room by his sister. Grace had stormed into the waiting room, dragging her pale brother behind her before pushing him into a seat next to Sean. 

“Can you please keep an eye on him? He’s driving everyone nuts. He keeps yelling at the nurses and doctor to make her labor go faster. Poor Sophie was trying to keep
him
calm,” she hissed. 

Sean couldn’t blame him. He couldn’t even think about what he’d be like in Lucas’s shoes, and the very thought made palms sweat. He made a strangled sound in his throat, and she gave him a hard stare before rolling her eyes. 

“Useless,” she muttered under breath. “Utterly useless.”

“I’m not useless,” her brother mumbled next to him. 

She turned her laser gaze to Lucas. “I’ll come get you when she’s closer to delivery. For now, you stay put.” She shared a look with her mother, who was trying hard not to laugh, and shook her head. 

Then she turned on her heel and stalked out of the waiting room.

One hour turned into two. 

Lucas had dissolved into a wreck of nerves. “What’s taking so long? I can’t take this torture. What are you two playing cards for?” he shouted at his father, who was in the middle of a game of rummy with Sean’s father. “How can you play cards right now?” 

Sean clenched his fist and contemplated knocking out his best friend to put him out of his misery. Before he could act on his thoughts, Grace swept back in the room.  Her cheeks were flushed and tendrils escaped from haphazard ponytail she’d thrown her hair into, curling around her face. 

Everything faded into the background as he studied his woman.

She was stunning.

His fingers itched to grab the small jewelry box in his pocket, but he knew it wasn’t the time. 

“She’s ready,” she said breathlessly. “Lucas, come on, you’re going to be a daddy soon.” 

Lucas bolted up, a wild look in his eyes. “Behave,” she warned him, before she bent down to press a quick kiss on Sean’s lips. She grabbed her brother and hauled him with her. 

Sean watched as they went through the double doors. He was still staring at the doors when someone settled into the chair next to him. 

“Are you nervous?” his mother asked.

“No,” he croaked.

“Saved by the breaking water,” his mother joked. 

He groaned. “I just want to get this over with. Now, I’m gonna have to wait. I don’t know if I can take it much longer.”

His mother laughed. “You and Lucas are no different from each other. This isn’t about you, honey. That sweet girl has been living in sin with you for over a year. Before that, she had to watch you parade girl after girl in front of her while she’s been in love with you for more than half of her life.”

His mouth screwed up in a scowl. “I had to deal with the same thing, too,” he muttered.

She gave him a knowing look. “But you knew they didn’t matter. You knew she wasn’t going to end up with them. Every time she brought someone around, you managed to make her realize he wasn’t good enough for her.”

He shifted uncomfortably at the reminder of his antics with Grace’s former boyfriends. 

“I just want her to be mine,” he mumbled. 

Her mouth lifted in a smile. “She’s already yours. Has been from a long time.  Lord, what did I do to get a son so thick in the head?” she mused. “Oh wait, I forgot—you got it from your father’s side.”

“I heard that!” his father shouted, his eyes still on his card game.

“If we don’t get married soon, her father’s going to kill me. After he dismembers me piece by piece.” He winced and apologized to his member, which shriveled up at the phantom pain. Time to change the topic. “Wow, that baby’s taking a while to get here.”

His mother laughed. “No, he won’t.”

“Hell yes, I will Stella!” Max Sinclair boomed from a few feet away. “Told the boy myself. He’d better not knock her up until after the wedding either. Got a nice exotic knife collection started up a few years back.”

A dull flush crept up his neck, and both of his parents chuckled.

Traitors.

He would forever be thankful to his best friend for bursting into the room right that second. He was exhilarated, eyes bright as he took in the room of anxious onlookers.  “She’s here,” he said exultantly. “Mommy and our little girl are doing fine. They’re doing amazing, actually,” he said, emotion choking his voice. 

Something warm expanded in Sean’s chest at the words. Lucas’s parents embraced him, and his own mother squeezed his hand tightly. He felt a drop of moisture hit the skin on his wrist, and he swallowed hard. He clasped his hands in hers and went to congratulate the man who wasn’t his brother by blood, but in every other sense of the word. 

Lucas’s parents had already moved past the double doors and into the maternity ward. He still stood there, looking a little stunned before he thought of something. “Sorry we kinda ruined your plans man,” he apologized. 

Sean waited a second before enveloping his friend in a tight hug. A manly hug, he assured himself. He broke away and grinned at his friend.

“No you’re not. You wouldn’t give this moment up for the world.”

A content smile stretched across Lucas’s face. Up until this point, Sean had never seen his best friend as happy as he’d been on his wedding day, watching his bride float down the aisle. 

Now, he was on a completely different fucking planet.

“Come and meet your niece.”

He followed him through the mysterious double doors and down the hall into the private room on which Lucas had insisted. 

His mouth opened to congratulate Sophie and the rest of the Sinclairs, but he froze at the scene that greeted his eyes.

 Grace stood beside the bed, gently smiling down at a bundle wrapped in pink with a shock of dark hair crowning the top. Her mouth moved in soft whispers, and he could see the streaks her tears had left in their wake. She looked up right then, and when he met her eyes, they exchanged volumes without ever uttering a word.

And in that moment, he thrilled that the girl who’d been his past and the woman who was his present would be his eternity. 

Their life together flashed before him. He saw her cradle their baby, whispering soft promises and pressing gentle kisses. Breastfeeding a tiny newborn in a rocking chair.  Bandaging hurt, grubby little knees and kissing boo-boos. 

Oh God. Breastfeeding. Holy hot fuck.

Completely unaware of the indecent train his thoughts were on, she motioned him near her. “You going to stand there all day?”

Her sweet, sexy, amused voice jolted him straight out of his daydream. Everyone in the room, except for the baby of course, looked at him strangely. His feet carried him over to the hospital bed, but he was still having an out of body experience.

Sophie lay back, clearly exhausted yet glowing at the same time. He wrapped her in a gentle hug and dropped a kiss on her forehead. She beamed at him. 

“How do you feel?” he whispered.

“Like I just pushed a watermelon out. But otherwise, great,” she said wryly, laughing when the men in the room flinched. “Go meet her,” she urged.

Something thick and heavy rose in his throat as he turned around and met Grace’s eyes once more. He looked down at the miniature sleeping being she held in her arms.  She was pink all over and a little wrinkly, with a pink rosebud mouth that looked just like her mother’s. Shallow, rapid little breaths made her body pulse like a live wire. She still looked a little strange, but he knew from several explicit, unsolicited conversations with Leah about childbirth and infants that a newborn’s appearance would change rapidly in the days following birth. 

His lips tugged upwards in a smile. If she grew up to look anything like her mother or aunt, Lucas was in for a trip to hell in about sixteen years. “She’s so tiny,” he murmured, unable to tear his eyes away. “What’re we naming her?”

“We?” Lucas laughed. “Sorry buddy, but ‘we’ don’t have a say. Sophie and I decided on Isabelle Grace.”

“That’s a good name,” he said thickly. “I approve.” 

Grace giggled and just then, little Isabelle opened her eyes and stared at him. He stared back in rapt fascination. Gray and clear as day. Her tiny, perfect mouth opened, too, and he was charmed even further when she yawned in a world-weary way. A soft pop sounded and the corner of her little mouth turned up right before her eyes drifted shut, and she fell promptly asleep. 

“She smiled at me!”

“Fuck no,” Lucas protested. He scooped up his offspring from his sister. “She did not. That was gas.”

“Language!” several female voices reprimanded.

Lucas flushed guiltily. “Sorry,” he mumbled down at the tiny infant. “But you’re not giving your first smile to your bastard uncle, do you hear me, Izzy? You gotta save that one for Daddy, but it’s okay if you give it to Mommy, too.”

“She smiled at me,” Sean insisted. “She did it right when she heard my voice.  She likes me better than you. See? You bore her. She’s still sleeping.”

Suddenly, Lucas smiled wolfishly. It was an evil grin that he used rarely – so rarely, that when he did use it, Sean knew he wasn’t going to like what followed.

“Just wait your turn, buddy.”

Panic flared within him, and he turned to look at Grace’s father. Luckily, all of the grandparents and honorary grandparents were busy examining the newest addition to the family. Only Sophie and Grace had heard Lucas’s comment.

Sophie was trying to hold in her laughter, while Grace was … staring at her feet?

“You’re lucky you’re holding my niece, right now,” Sean threatened.

“Or what?” Lucas egged. 

Sophie pinged her gaze from her husband to his best friend, before she decided to put a stop to their nonsense. Telling them to stop would be ineffective, so she pulled out the big guns.

“Sean?” she said loudly.

He stopped giving death glares to her husband and turned to her. “Yeah, mama bear?”

She grinned back at him. “Before my water so rudely broke at the restaurant, you were trying to say something. What was it?”

A deafening silence fell across the room. The only sounds were beeping from the heart monitor and the occasional grunt from the baby. 

He was going to go into cardiac arrest this time, for sure. 

Or apoplectic shock at the very least.   

Lucky for him, Grace had busied herself with examining Sophie’s charts. 

He inched closer to the patient. “What are you trying to do?” he hissed quietly.

Sophie apparently didn’t see the same need to use library voices. “You were going to say something at the restaurant, weren’t you?”

He shook his head at her and tried to communicate ‘shut up’ with his eyes. 

She quickly shook her head back.

“I don’t want to steal your moment,” he said so quietly, that even Lucas, who was standing close by with the baby and looking on eagerly, strained to hear him.

She smiled at him tenderly. And finally, thank fuck, she spoke in a quiet tone.  “You’re not stealing the spotlight. You had planned this. We hadn’t,” she whispered as she smiled wryly. “And honestly, nothing could make this day more special than adding something else to celebrate.”

His best friend was a lucky bastard.  So was he, for that matter. 

“That’s even if she says yes,” Lucas snorted. 

His wife shot him
the
look, but as he mumbled an apology, Grace had joined their small cluster. 

“If who says yes to what?” she asked brightly, wrapping her arms around Sean’s waist from behind. She peered at everyone else from behind his shoulder and grew confused by the shifty expressions on their faces. 

Anxiety gripped his gut, and his heart pounded so loudly, she had to hear it. He turned her around slowly, so that she was now in front of him and facing him.

“You,” he croaked. Her brow wrinkled adorably. 

He looked deeply into her eyes before he sank to his right knee. He wrapped one hand around both of her clasped ones and fumbled in his pocket for the box, cursing when he nearly dropped it. 

She just stared at him with those wide eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was happy or horrified. She had to know what he was about to do. His thumb rubbed lightly across a soft patch of skin, and he gazed deeply in her eyes. Her mouth dropped open a little, and the deafening roar of silence was only punctuated by his father.

“Man up,” he stage-whispered. Lucas snickered softly.

Bastards.

He rallied on. “Grace Maxine Sinclair, you entered my life as a blight on my existence when you were five-years-old.” She blinked at him. He thought he heard someone in the room choke a laugh into a cough, words just tumbled out of his mouth. “But even then, I was fascinated with you. I would make you cry because when your eyes got all wet, they looked like big pools of silver. I loved watching you get frustrated and stamp your feet and then try to get me back. We have so much history, baby. I was drawn to you when you were a cute little girl, and then you drove me nuts when you turned into hot jail-bait, now you’re this stunning, amazing woman who I can’t believe is mine.”