want to know mine?"
"I'm riveted."
His lips quirked. If words were fists, he'd be flat on his ass. "I'd like to send you away, tonight. This minute. Get you and what we've started in you as far away from here as possible. I've never given much thought to having kids. A lot of good reasons for that. Add on that I'm not quite finished being annoyed to find myself in love with you, and handing out hypothetical marriage proposals, and it's a jam."
"Tant pis." She shrugged at his blank stare. "Too bad."
"Okay. But I can do a lot of thinking in short amounts of time, too. It's one of my skills. Right now? Right at this moment? I don't give a flying fuck about global thinking, greater good, destiny. None of it. This is you and me, Cybil, so listen up."
"It was easier to do that when you didn't talk so damn much."
"Apparently I've got more to say to you than I used to. That kid-or whatever they call it at this stage-is as much mine as it is yours. If I happen to live past midnight on July seventh, you're both going to have to deal with that. It's not going to be you, it's going to be we. As in, we show him the world, we bring him back here. We give him the best life we can. We make a family. That's how it's going to work."
"Is that so?" Her voice trembled a little, but her eyes stayed level on his. "That being the case, you're going to have to do better than a hypothetical marriage proposal."
"We'll get to that after midnight, July seventh." He walked to her, touched her cheek, then cautiously laid his hand on her belly. "I guess we didn't see this one coming."
"Apparently we didn't look in the right place."
He pressed his hand a bit firmer against her. "I'm in love with you."
Understanding he meant both her and what they'd begun, she laid her hand over his. "I'm in love with you."
When he lifted her up, she released a watery laugh. And when he sat on the side of the bed, cradling her, she curled in, held on. They both held on.
IN THE MORNING, HE STOOD BY HIS FATHER'S grave. It surprised him how many people had come. Not just his own circle, but people from town-those he knew by name or face, others he couldn't place. Many came up to speak to him, so he went through the motions, got through it on autopilot.
Then Cy Hudson reached for his hand, shook it hard while giving him a shoulder pat that was a male version of an embrace. "Don't know what to say to you." Cy stared at Gage out of his battered face. "I talked to Bill just a couple days before... I don't know what happened. I can't remember exactly."
"It doesn't matter, Cy."
"The doctor says it's probably getting hit in the head, and the shock and all scrambled it up in my brain or something. Maybe Bill, maybe he had a brain tumor or something like that, you know? You know how sometimes people do things they wouldn't, or-"
"I know."
"Anyway, Jim said how I should take the family on out to the O'Dell place. Seemed like a screwy thing to do, but things are screwy. I guess I will then. If you, well, you know, need anything..."
"Appreciate it." Standing by the grave, Gage watched his father's killer walk away.
Jim Hawkins stepped up, slid an arm around Gage's shoulders. "I know you had it rough, for a long time. Rougher and longer than you should've. All I'm going to say is you've done the right thing here. You've done right for everybody."
"You were more father to me than he was."
"Bill knew that."
They drifted away, the people from town, the ones he knew by name or face, or couldn't quite place. There were businesses to run, lives to get back to, appointments to keep. Brian and Joanne stood by him a moment longer.
"Bill was helping out at the farm the last week or two," Brian said. "I've got some of his tools, some of his things out there, if you want them."
"No. You should keep them."
"He did a lot to help us with what we're doing," Joanne told Gage. "With what you're doing. In the end, he did what he could. That counts." She kissed Gage. "You take care."
Then it was only the six of them, and the dog who sat patiently at Cal