Alpha.
“Not my circle chair!” Laura groaned as Mike pointed his phone at it. Black. “That used to be a really nice mauve.”
“It’s toast now,” Mike muttered.
“Laura, a restoration and cleaning company should really get in here before you take anything home,” Dylan interjected, arms crossed, brow furrowed, voice uncharacteristically stern and bureaucratic. “You shouldn’t inhale any of the soot from the fire.”
“Mike said he’d wash everything three times before I wear it,” she answered, voice echoing from the tinny speaker. Dylan shot him a look of pure evil. Mike’s saucy grin was his only answer.
“Suck up,” Dylan hissed.
Mike thought that over for a second. “I’ll own that.” Deeper grin. Dylan’s eyeroll felt like a victory.
Two hours later he and Dylan were straining to carry out a slew of choices Laura had made, from clothing to heirlooms to the cat beds, although he had repeatedly offered to buy her whatever she needed.
“Why does she want all this?” he asked Dylan as they crammed it into the back of the jeep. “Her coconut shampoo? Seriously?”
“It’s comfort. Control. Fire victims need it, so it’s good to do this for her. I’ve seen people cry over a dirty seventy-nine cent can opener. When your house catches fire and you survive, things take on more meaning.” Mike eyed a hand-knitted lap throw Laura had screamed about when found intact. Her grandma had made it. She wanted it for the baby’s crib.
“Her things, you mean.”
“Right. It’s not the same if you swoop in and just replace it all with a four-figure trip to Target.” Surveying the load, Mike started to understand. Laura hadn’t asked for appliances or expensive electronics. She wanted photo albums and video cartridges and clothing. Personal stuff you couldn’t really replace easily.
And the damn gallon jug of coconut shampoo.
“Gotcha.” Mike relished the drive back to the cabin, knowing she was there. Dylan had put dinner in the oven before they left, a slow-cooking roast, and tonight would be the first night they would all spend together.
As a family? The thought went through his mind so fast, like a blink, that he didn’t dare dwell on it. If he did, it might not happen.
Please let it happen. For the first time in months, the drive up the mountain felt like he was really coming home, Dylan singing along to some ’80s Christmas song, the late-autumn sun warming his skin as the prospect of creating a true home with Dylan, Laura and their baby warmed his heart.
“I still think you are nuts. And not warlock waitress nuts. Crazy. Cray cray. The baby needs to have a father on the birth certificate.”
Laura sat on the sectional sofa, butt sinking deep into the soft leather, a warm red down comforter keeping her toasty. Getting up would be harder than getting comfortable, but she had Josie to help. And, soon, Mike and Dylan. Snuggles moved a foot along the top of the sofa, chasing a patch of sun.
“Well, hello to you, too, Miss Merry Sunshine,” Laura cracked. She gratefully accepted the cup of decaf Josie offered.
“They’ll be here soon and this is the first chance I’ve had in a week to talk openly with you. Those two seemed to have had a schedule for making sure one of them was always there in the hospital.”
“They did.”
Josie’s face was agog. “All so I couldn’t talk alone with you?”
Sip. “I don’t think that’s why.” Sip. “Just, you know, because we’re—” What words were supposed to come out next? Together? Were they back together? Laura didn’t know where they stood, actually. Five days in the hospital had been long enough to learn that she was fine. The baby was fine. The polyhydramnios had actually improved a bit, though it wasn’t gone. She would need constant monitoring for the rest of the pregnancy, but they hadn’t found any problems with the baby that explained it. Being extra-big with added fluid would make it harder to move around, and could make the delivery a bit risky, but they’d ruled out birth defects.
Which had been the best news Laura had received in— well, ever. Diana had reviewed her chart with Sheri and the supervising obstetrician, Dr. Kalharian, and they’d agreed on a schedule for follow-up care.
Her orders: go home, rest, hydrate, recover.
Easier said than done, because she’d had no home. Until Mike and Dylan had offered her one. Josie, too. Deciding had been hard and easy at the same time. Josie was the easy choice, and her friend seemed to assume Laura would pick her.
But her heart, her gut—her womb—told her to go heal in the mountains.