She lifted her head and returned the kiss on the tip of my nose. “You’re going to be a great dad, Wheeler.”

“Honey.” She locked her eyes on mine and I told her quietly, “You’re going to be a great mom, too. That was not your only shot at having a baby.”

She blinked long and slow, her breath escaping on a harsh breath. “Yeah?” She didn’t sound like she fully believed me.

I chuckled a little and touched my lips to hers. “Yeah.”

She climbed off my lap and scooted to the other side of the car. Her hand was on the door handle as she asked like she hadn’t just ripped my heart out and handed it back to me torn to shreds, “I have to go back to work, but I’ll see you later tonight, right?”

Like anything could keep me away from her after she trusted me with some of the monsters that chased her in her sleep. “Absolutely.”

She smiled at me and rubbed her cheeks to clear away the evidence of her tears and I couldn’t help but imagine pretty little girls with gold eyes and honey-colored hair standing right next to a little boy that looked just like me.

Poppy

My sister was beautiful, inside and out, but right now her perfectly painted ruby-red lips were pulled into a scowl so fierce she looked a little bit scary. The winged edges of her meticulously drawn-on eyeliner gave her glare extra sharpness and the bright pink on her high cheekbones had nothing to do with the subtle blush that was swirled there and everything to do with the anger that was evident in every line of her curvy body. The manicured hand that was on the table in front of mine curled into a fist while her other one protectively covered the gentle swell that was visible behind her flowy off-the-shoulder top and high-waisted skirt. She still had a ways to go in her pregnancy and it was obvious she wasn’t going to sacrifice style for comfort yet. She even had a pair of ridiculously high heels on her feet, the toe of one tapping in aggravation as she stared at me from across the table where our lunch was left forgotten after I told her that our mother had called me out of the blue.

“She’ll get near this baby over my dead body.” The words were fierce and final. “If she calls again, hang up. Do not let her get inside your head. She picked him over us our entire lives; now that she had to live with that choice without a buffer, it’s her cross to bear.”

Her midnight gaze was intense and hard for me to meet, but I didn’t look away when I told her, “I know that, but I also know what it’s like to end up in a situation that you want out of but can’t find the door. No one was there to show me the way away from Oliver and I don’t know that I can live with myself if I let someone else stay stuck in that kind of environment.”

Salem snorted and reached for her glass of water. “She should have helped you get away from Oliver. She should have warned you that you were marrying a man just like Dad. She should have said something when he told his entire congregation that what happened was a tragedy, then had them pray for the man that abused you for years and not for you.” She was unbending, but then again, she was the one that had been strong enough to walk away from all the wrongness that was our family without a backward glance. She saw the black and white of it all, but I’d lived in the gray of wanting out but staying out of fear, so I understood it.

“I don’t know that she understood what marrying a man just like Dad really meant, Salem.” I stuck a cold french fry in my mouth and cocked my head to the side as she narrowed her eyes even more at me. “Her parents were hardly any different. Grandpa married Grandma so he could stay in the country just like Dad married mom so he would look respectable and upstanding. Grandpa was never faithful, never kind, and his expectations of Grandma were outrageous and impossible. He ruled with an iron fist just like our dad did and there was no love lost in that home. She found a man exactly like her father, so maybe she expected her daughter to do the same thing. It’s a vicious cycle, one that I’ve learned isn’t all that uncommon.” That was something that was a recurring theme in my group sessions: abuse was a vicious cycle, one that was hard to break even when you recognized the fact you were repeating dangerous patterns. “She’s as much of a victim as I am.”

“Survivor, Poppy. You are a survivor, not a victim.” She was so adamant that I had to smile at her. She was always there to remind me to keep going, refusing to let me give up.

I chomped on another fry and lifted an eyebrow at her. “Mom could be a survivor too, if someone helped show her that there was a better way to live. I refuse to believe that anyone is beyond saving. You wouldn’t let me waste away in a bad place and I’m not sure I’m the type of person that can let Mom.”

She sighed and tapped her long nails on the side of her glass. “Fine, you do what you think you have to, but you promise me right now that if she doesn’t want your help, if she digs her heels in and unwaveringly stands by Dad, you back off. I won’t let them drag you back into their house of misery and there is no way in hell Rowdy will let either of them mess up the lives we’ve built here in Denver. He’s protective of the present and resents the hell out of the past. I can’t say I blame him.”

I nodded at the waitress who stopped by and asked to take my plate, ansd then I chuckled when Salem ordered two different desserts. She rolled her eyes at me and told me she expected me to share both. She’d always had a sweet tooth; I wasn’t surprised pregnancy had made her insatiable.

I wasn’t fond of the past either but it held painful lessons that I had to learn in order to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. The past brought me to my present, which was actually the reason I’d eagerly agreed to lunch with Salem when she called and told me she had a doctor’s appointment, so she was only working half a day at the tattoo shop and wanted to get together. It was easier to be around her now that, sitting on Wheeler’s lap, I’d unburdened myself and all my guilty envy about others that I loved being pregnant. It was so freeing to share, like a giant weight had been lifted off me. Explaining the confusing mix of joyous and envious feelings to someone that was expecting a baby had helped more than months of therapy. He wasn’t mad that I both resented and reveled in his good fortune. He was heartbreakingly understanding and unendingly considerate … like he always was.

That understanding, and his words after I told him everything, were the reason I was beyond ready to take our relationship to the next level. I’d lost count of the number of thought-stealing, body-racking orgasms he’d given me, and while I cherished every single one, I wanted more. I wanted every line of that long, lean body on top of mine. I wanted to rub myself all across that tattooed skin. I wanted that bulge that filled out the front of his underwear and pressed insistently against me inside of my body. I wanted to ride him and feel him until I couldn’t see straight. But more than any of that, I wanted to give him back a fraction of all the things he’d given me. I was ready to be an active participant. I just couldn’t figure out the right way to communicate to him that I was ready for the next step. He was careful with me, so mindful, and while I appreciated it, I was ready for him to throw caution to the wind and treat me like he would any other woman that was spending a significant amount of time in his bed. I wanted this relationship to be real in all ways.