Return To You - Leia Stone Page 0,105

step from the room she stalls. Her mouth widens in shock and my first thought is that it's the baby.

"What's wrong?" I ask, my hand going to her flat stomach.

She shakes her head, smiling. "Everything is fine. It’s just … I've been waiting to feel my mom again. Her spirit, you know? I felt her when you proposed, but then not again. But I think…" She glances back into the room. "I think I just felt her." Tears line her eyes and goosebumps run the length of my arms.

"She's telling you she's happy for you. For us." Most people think that doctors don’t believe in God, that we are strictly scientific beings who can’t conceive of a higher power.

Not me.

I’ve been in operating rooms, losing a patient on the table, only to have them miraculously come back after all medical options failed. I’ve even had a few patients who were riddled with cancer go into spontaneous remission without any chemo at all. I have no doubt Faith is looking over us with happiness right now.

Autumn nods happily, and seeing her so well adjusted, and content—and pregnant—makes my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

That night, when dinner is finished and the sun has dipped below the horizon, we sit outside and stare up at the sky. I've pulled the outdoor couch to the middle of the yard and adjusted it so we can both lie down. I've got one arm wrapped around Autumn, and her head rests on my chest.

"Sometimes I think about what I'd be doing now if my mom had never called and asked me to come back here." She laughs dryly. "Probably the same exact thing I'd been doing for the past few years."

"Then I thank God your mom called you." I give her a small squeeze.

Autumn shifts, propping herself on an elbow and looking at me. "Do you think she knew?"

I'm confused. "Knew what?"

"Knew she was going to die? That this time would be the last time?"

"There's no way she could've known it for certain, but each repeated fight with cancer gets a little harder. She knew that, because I told her."

"I was so shocked the day she called me and asked me to come out here. I said yes immediately, without any hesitation. I knew it was going to require me to leave my job, my apartment, my life. And I knew it was going to land me squarely in your path."

I push a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't run screaming in the opposite direction."

She chuckles. "I think I always knew you were my eventuality. I just had to figure out how to move past everything that happened when we were young and find my way back to you."

"I know what you mean. I never could let you go either. I held on to it all, including the anger, until even that disappeared and all I had was an Autumn-sized hole in my heart. The moment I saw you in the kitchen at your mom's house, I wanted to grab you and kiss you until all your breath was mine."

"You can do that now." She lowers her face until the tips of our noses brush. "You can do that all you want."

"I can't take all your breath. The baby needs it," I remind her, lightly dragging my lips across hers.

Autumn laughs and it’s the best damn sound in the world. "She doesn't need all of it."

"She?"

Autumn grins. "Just a hunch."

I kiss her then, but I hold back a little. Autumn knows I'm holding back, so she takes over. She takes off her clothes, lies beneath me, and asks me to make love to her in the dark, with only the stars as witnesses.

Loving Autumn is something I've been doing since I was fifteen. It's engrained into my thoughts, burned into my soul. It's what I'll be doing every day for the rest of my life.

Chapter 30

Autumn

Nine months later

Oh, the pain. The pain, the pain, the pain.

Waves of pain, starting at the top of my stomach and rolling down—like the worst period cramp, multiplied by seven thousand.

"Drugs," I demand, slamming a fist on the bed. The soft blanket absorbs the force. Definitely not the effect I intended to have.

Owen gives me a look I think is meant to be soothing, but it just angers me. "The anesthesiologist is with another patient right now. She'll be here as soon as possible."

I look around wildly for something to throw at him. There