My Sister's Baby Was My Husband's, So I Wed Beside Them novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Page Two

By night the house on the river smelled of formula and pine soap.

Hamish had cleaned out the spare room that afternoon.

A neighbor had lent a crib and brought a casserole without asking a single question.

Ivy lay curled in the big bed in the other bedroom, with her rabbit and one hand flung over the edge of the mattress.

The baby slept in the borrowed crib with his fist at his cheek.

I stood in the doorway of the spare room for a long time.

Then I went downstairs.

Hamish sat on the back porch in the dark, with the river moving in front of him.

The little wooden box lay open on his knee, with the ring inside it.

His own steel watch, the one marked C.R., lay beside him on the boards.

I sat beside him on the boards.

He didn't look at me.

"I thought I'd be angry when I saw her," he said. "I wanted to be. I had a speech."

"You didn't use it."

"She was sitting on a crate. She'd been running from the same thing I'd been running from, only she picked the worse door."

"That doesn't excuse her."

"No." His voice was very low. "But I could have been the one who didn't pick up. I could have let a call go to voicemail and been sitting at home on the day it counted."

I put my hand over his.

He turned his palm up and held on.

"He'd have liked you," he said. "He'd have said you were too good for me."

"Then he'd have been right."

"Marina."

"I'm joking."

He laughed, and it came out wet.

I leaned my forehead against his shoulder.

We stayed like that on the porch while the river went by.

"Dalton will be here at eight," I said into his shirt.

"Do you want me beside you?"

"Yes. Say nothing."

"I can do that."

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