Poor Spot didn’t understand why my emotions leapt from one extreme to the other. Only Elder knew because he felt the same way. We’d spent many a night talking in the dark, wondering if we were doing the right thing, discussing every outcome, testing every scenario.
But all it came down to was the love we had for each other. The blessed situation we were in and the family we were desperate to create.
Elder gathered me close, wrapping his arm around me. His gold wedding band winked in the bright sunshine, binding him to me for eternity just like the flawless diamond on my finger bound me to him.
We can do this.
We are doing this.
“I can always keep the engine running if the brat’s ugly and you change your mind.” Selix nudged Elder with his shoulder, taking an extremely heavy situation and turning it light.
“Ha ha,” Elder said dryly.
All of us still wore our wedding clothes—more dressed than we’d been in months while living in Fiji and other Pacific islands.
I’d watched Selix whenever we’d discuss the soon-to-arrive stowaway. His face had shut down at any mention of children, hinting that the pain he carried was in some way related.
I hadn’t enough courage yet or enough nosiness to ask him outright what’d happened but I hoped by saving one child’s life, it would somehow save him in return.
This adoption might have my and Elder’s name’s on the document, but the child would earn so much more than just us. They’d step into an already tight-knit, wonderful family with captains for uncles and skippers for playmates.
Entering the hotel lobby, we followed the directions Tess had sent in her email and took the elevator to the thirty-sixth floor.
Selix stayed behind us, giving us silent support but letting us bear the brunt of this life-changing decision.
Finding the right room number, Elder took a deep breath, gathered me close, then knocked.
Footsteps sounded inside before the handle unlocked and the door swung open.
“Pim. Elder. How wonderful to see you again.” Tess smiled, opening her arms for me to step into her embrace.
I hadn’t seen her since walking away after the bloodbath with the Chinmoku, but it felt as if it was only yesterday.
Giving Elder a quick glance, I traded his arms for hers, still shaken and amazed, unable to believe I’d become a wife and soon-to-be a mother all in one day. “Hello, Tess.”
“I’m so glad you made it.” She kissed me on both cheeks before stepping aside. “Please, come in.”
Elder accepted her welcome, looking past her into the room where Q appeared with his hands in his pockets. “Bonjour.”
“Hello.” Elder nodded in return.
We hadn’t told them we’d got married today. Not because we didn’t want them at our wedding, but because we’d wanted one last thing just for the two of us.
We were parents now. But our marriage was ours.
“Come,” Tess said, moving toward Q and holding out her hand for a tiny silhouette hiding behind him. “Let me introduce you to Aria.”
My heart wrapped itself in wire, bleeding with a mixture of fear and elation as a little girl stepped out from Q’s legs and watched us warily. She didn’t speak, but Tess had warned us of that.
This little girl had been saved from a trafficking house that held auctions for pregnant women to sadistic creeps. The women not sold in time had their babies in overcrowded bedrooms with other pregnant women, doing their best to shelter and keep their infant’s minds from twisting with evil from their environment.
Q had dismantled the organisation and managed to rehome most of the children and their mother’s—either together or separate, depending on the mother’s wish. Aria was the hardest one because she had yet to talk. Her mother had been killed in front of her, and families wanted a bubbly happy child and couldn’t understand the psychological depth of what muteness could offer as protection.
But I did.
Elder did.
We were prepared to either live with a silent child or nurture her until one day, just like me, she trusted her voice, herself, her surroundings, to give up that safety net and live.
“Hello, Aria.” I ducked to her level, studying her white blond hair and pink cheeks. Her ice blue eyes seemed eerily so much older than her four-year-old body. Too skinny for her age and preferring oversize boy clothes to nice fitting dresses, she was an enigma I couldn’t wait to get to know.
Elder came to join me, balancing on his haunches with his fingertips digging into the carpet for balance. “Hello, little one.”
Aria shied backward, eyeing us with suspicion.
We didn’t take it personally.
Tess had done a good job preparing us for the initial period, and we’d checked into the same hotel for the next few days to get to know Aria slowly, so she didn’t feel like yet another world had been snatched from her.