Evie's Bombshell - By Amy Andrews Page 0,54

not being able to keep him inside where he’d desperately needed to stay for a good while longer and now not having a name to give to him.

‘Well, there’s no rush,’ she murmured. ‘But a wee little guy like this needs a warrior’s name, I reckon.’

Evie couldn’t agree more and as the nurse fussed over the lines in the cot she knew with sudden clarity what to call him. ‘Isaac,’ she said to the nurse. ‘His name’s Isaac.’

The nurse smiled. ‘Isaac,’ she repeated. ‘Ooh, that’s good. Strong. Noble.’ She looked down at the tiny baby in her care and said, ‘Welcome to the world, Isaac.’

Evie smiled through another spurt of tears as the nurse bustled away. She turned to face Finn. ‘Is that okay with you?’

Finn’s chest was so tight he thought it might just implode from the pressure. He was shocked to feel moisture stinging his eyes and a lump in his throat that barely allowed for the passage of air. He forced himself to look at her instead of turning away or blinking the tears back, like he’d done for so many years. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d allowed himself to cry. Not even as the life had ebbed from his brother’s eyes had he broken down.

He’d just shut down. Gone numb.

And it had taken this woman and this tiny scrap of humanity to bring him back.

‘I think that would be quite wonderful,’ he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

‘But could you hear it every day, Finn?’ she probed, her voice gentle. ‘Would it make you sad every day?’

Finn shook his head. ‘No. I’ve spent a decade of my life trying to forget what happened and all I’ve managed to do is erase all the good things as well. I think it’s time I remembered them also.’

Evie nodded, squeezing her hand. It sounded like a damn fine plan to her. ‘Do you think Lydia will mind?’

Finn smiled. ‘I think she’d be delighted.’

‘Good,’ Evie murmured. ‘Good. Isaac it is.’

They smiled at each other for a long moment then turned to gaze lovingly at their son. Finn slid a hand onto Evie’s shoulder. ‘I’ve been such an idiot,’ he said as he watched Isaac’s little puffy breaths kick his rib cage up and down.

‘You were grieving,’ Evie dismissed, also watching her son, trying to absorb every tiny detail about him.

‘I don’t mean that. I mean about what I said the other night. After we’d …’

‘Oh,’ Evie said, glancing at his profile. ‘That.’

‘All I have to do is look at him and I feel this incredible surge of love rise in me.’ Finn didn’t take his eyes off Isaac’s face. ‘And I don’t even know where it comes from or that I even had it in me but I do know that it’s deep and wide and unfathomable and if I live to be a hundred I’d never get to the bottom of it.’

He looked at Evie then and she was watching him so intently, and he needed her to know, to understand so she could never, ever doubt that he loved Isaac. ‘I was so, so worried that I wouldn’t, Evie. I was terrified. But it’s like … it’s just there. It’s suddenly just there.’

Evie felt his relief and wonder and even though she’d never really doubted that he would feel this way about his own flesh in blood he’d been so bleak, so convinced the other night when he’d left that she’d felt her first prickle of unease.

She smiled at him. ‘I know.’

‘It’s like a … miracle.’ He laughed. ‘This love is like a bloody miracle. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever felt before.’

Evie smiled but it felt forced in comparison to his obvious high. She was ecstatic that he knew what she’d always known—that he’d take to fatherhood, revel in it even. But part of her wished a little of that miracle was coming her way.

That he’d look at her and talk about the miracle of the love he felt for her. A very different love from what he was talking about now.

Because while Isaac needed Finn’s love, so did she. The kind of love that would fill her soul and warm her days.

A man’s love for a woman.

‘And you,’ Finn said, shaking his head, in awe of what she’d been through. ‘You are amazing. Incredible. What your body has done is truly awesome.’ He looked at his son, so small but so perfect. ‘Isaac and I are so lucky to have you and