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Emma paused. “Then we’ll deal with it. Or better yet, we’ll teach her how to deal with it.”
She looked up at him, wrapping her arm around his waist and squeezing. “Don’t worry. It will get easier once the next one comes along.”
Garrett nearly tripped, his heart hammering. “Don’t joke about that. My heart can barely take being in two places at once—half with you and half with Stella. But that’s it. No more.”
She smiled, a glint in her eye.
His shoulders straightened. “You are joking, right?”
With a sphinxlike smile firmly in place, Emma climbed into the Range Rover. She beckoned him to join her with one perfectly manicured finger.
As if he would ever do anything else. “Baby, tell meyou’re joking…”
Emma set her purse inside the console divider, closing it before reaching for her seat belt. “What should we name our next child? I like Serena for a girl, but what do you think about Gabriel for a boy?”
Garrett stalked to the passenger side door, throwing it wide. “Woman, are you pregnant or not?”
Still no answer. Just that little smile.
She blew out a breath, the air displacing her thick bangs. “Fine. I’m not… yet. But someday soon I will be. And your heart will get used to being in three places at once. That’s the great thing about them—their infinite capacity to grow.”
His shoulders dropped. “You’re killing me,” he sputtered. “You know that, right?”
Emma fluttered her lashes, that familiar twinkle in her eye. “You love it.”
“God help me.” He sighed, his muscles relaxing as he reached around to fasten her seat belt. “I do. I really do.”
And it was true. Emma drove him crazy in all the best ways.
It no longer mattered that she didn’t remember their beginning. Garrett was going to fill the rest of her days with fantastic new memories. Her and Stella both.
His girls.
EPILOGUE
Elias
Elias pored over the stills he’d printed out from the surveillance footage taken from the lobby of Garrett’s building.
He hadn’t told his cousin or his friends he was still pursuing this, but after seeing the man who called himself Richard Folsom, he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
Elias was like a dog with a bone. When he sank his teeth in something, he couldn’t let it go. Not until the matter was resolved… or completely crushed if necessary.
When it came to Auric, he was the one who decided if it was necessary. That was part of his job. He had a feeling this was going to be one of those times.
I know I’ve seen this fucker somewhere, he thought, examining the picture for the thousandth time. He just couldn’t remember where.
He was still staring at the photograph when the call from Albuquerque PD came in.
Elias couldn’t believe what he was hearing at first, so he made the detective repeat himself a few times.
“My DNA has come up in connection towhat?”
“A murder,” Detective Garcia repeated. “Your DNA has come up in connection with a homicide.”
The End