Wrong Question, Right Answer (The Bourbon Street Boys #3) - Elle Casey Page 0,126

laugh and cry, too. Our life is so crazy right now.

She’s lifted over the curtain so I can take a look at her before she’s handed off to another nurse. She looks like a tiny prizefighter, her hands in miniature fists, bloody goo on her body, and her eyes swollen shut. I’ve never been prouder. My little fighter!

Lucky sits down and strokes my cheek with his gloved hand. “You are so beautiful, babe. You did such a good job baking those peas.”

“You can butter me up all you want, but you’re not naming our daughter Vanilli.”

He laughs and leans down to kiss me. Everything falls away in that moment but him, his lips on mine, his tongue, the smell of his soap. I love every bit of it.

“Love you,” he says when he pulls away.

“Love you, too.” I’m crying again. It’s starting to wipe me out, being this emotional.

He looks over the drape and cringes. “They’re putting you back together. Mind if I go take a closer look at the peas?”

I nod, wanting a moment to get my head straight before I see them myself. When Lucky’s hanging over me, it’s hard to concentrate, I love him so fiercely. “Sure. Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”

He kisses me quickly on the forehead and stands, joining the nurses, who’ve put the two bassinets together. Everyone is oohing and aahing over the babies, exclaiming over their weights. Both of them are over seven pounds, which is something special with twins, or so I read in one of my books.

My body jiggles a little as the doctors work to sew me up. My mind drifts into a haze and I find myself thinking about Charlie. For the first time I can imagine him not looking angry. The face I see in my mind now is the one I always liked. Charlie wasn’t always a mean drunk; sometimes he was happy and generous and full of love for life.

I’m so sorry I took this from you, Charlie. So sorry. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get my life straight ever since that night I shot you. I’ve had a really hard time with everything, and now I know why. All this time, I’ve been asking the wrong question. I shouldn’t be asking why I did what I did or who’s to blame for it or why I can’t go back and change things. Why does anything happen the way it does? A thousand actions and decisions of a thousand people come together in a single moment and there’s an outcome. Change any one of those variables and the outcome changes, too. Control is merely an illusion. I really don’t know that there is a right question anymore, but I know what the right answer is. Love is the answer. Love is why I’m here, it’s why I keep struggling, it’s why I need to move on from the mistakes I’ve made and look forward to an imperfect but fulfilling future. If I’d truly loved you or loved myself, things would have gone differently, I’m convinced of that. It was a lack of love that made everything so dark and wrong and destructive between us. Charlie, I forgive you for what you did to me and to us, and I forgive myself, too, for what I did to you and to me. Wherever you are, you’re good now, I know that. You’re no longer weighed down by the imperfections of our human perceptions and egos and all that garbage. You’re surrounded by God’s love now, and it gives me great joy to know that you’ve found that peace.

A light fills me from the inside out, making me feel like I must be glowing. I look around me, but everyone is acting normal, like they don’t see it. But both of my babies immediately stop crying. They sense it. Just like me, they feel the perfect love that fills this room.

Lucky turns around with an astonished expression on his face. “What just happened?” he asks, laughing.

I mouth the words to him from across the room. I love you.

His whole face trembles as he realizes what I’ve said. Tears slip past his defenses and he nods. Love you too, he mouths at me.

“Bring me those babies,” I say, trying to sound demanding.

Everyone laughs, and ten seconds later, I have two tiny babies, one who resembles a pink burrito and one who resembles a blue burrito, looking down at me from the arms of my husband-to-be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elle Casey, a former attorney and teacher, is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling American author who lives in France with her husband, three kids, and a number of furry friends. She has written books in several genres and publishes an average of one full-length novel per month.