Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Even after Jo had gathered her things and headed off for her front-row runway seats, Walsh echoed that statement back to himself.
They were fine before he showed up. And they’d be fine without him.
* * *
“How ya feeling?” Kerris Mitchell settled onto the bench at the kitchen table beside her husband, Cam.
The month since the funeral had been just as hard as she had imagined it would be. Cam missed Kristeene terribly. How could he not? She had been like a mother to him. Kerris had done everything she could think of to soothe him and take his mind off the dull pain. Cam had been shocked and incredibly moved by Kristeene’s generosity in her will, as Kerris had been. She had left Cam a small fortune in stocks, along with the Land Rover he’d always loved so much. She’d willed a significant portion of her wardrobe to Kerris for Déjà Vu, the high-end consignment shop she owned with her best friend, Meredith.
“How do I feel? Like the king of the world.” Cam touched her stomach, his hand a warm weight through the silk of the kimono she wore after her shower.
Kerris smiled at how gentle and considerate Cam had been since she’d told him about the baby.
“I mean about Kristeene.”
“It’s like having the worst day and the best day of your life…on the same day.” Cam pulled his dark brows together even as the corners of his mouth turned up. “Ms. Kris would be so happy for us. You’re happy, right?”
“Of course.” She leaned her shoulder into his. “This is what we’ve talked about since the beginning. A family of our own.”
“And you don’t…you don’t regret anything?” A small storm brewed behind Cam’s blue-gray eyes, but the hand resting on her stomach remained steady.
Kerris knew, of course, what he was asking; the image he couldn’t shake. There were moments when her mind would, of its own volition, revisit that moment, too; when her guard would slip, and she would be in Walsh’s arms again. Feel his touch. Smell him. Taste him.
“I don’t regret anything.” She placed one hand over his on her still-flat stomach and ran the other hand over the silky dark hair hanging past his ears. “I’m as excited about this baby as you are.”
His eyes plumbed hers, looking for the truth. She hoped what he saw satisfied.
“I wonder how she’ll look.” Cam finally spoke, a goofy grin at odds with his handsome face.
Kerris wondered, too. Since there was no record of either of her parents, she had no idea which ethnicities had collided to create her ambiguous looks: amber eyes, dark, silky hair, and skin the color of pale honey. Cam knew his parentage, though it wasn’t much of a lineage. His prostitute mother had been half black and half Hispanic. His father, a white man. Some random john. He was routinely mistaken for everything from Italian to Puerto Rican. With their mishmash of a gene pool, there was no use trying to peg their daughter.
Wait? Daughter?
“Did you say ‘she’?” Kerris laughed and ran a fond hand over the unruly spill of Cam’s hair. “You know something I don’t?”
“I just always think of the baby as a girl. I’ll be happy with whatever, though. Healthy is what’s important, right?”
Kerris nodded and smiled. Cam kissed her before standing to his feet.
“I’ll be late for work if I don’t get outta here. Not that I’ll be working there much longer.”
“Cam, you have to be careful with that money Kristeene left you.”
“I’m not staying in that shitty graphic design job when I have stock worth millions, baby.”
“I get that, but you don’t have it yet.” She walked over, grabbing his hands between hers. “It’s a huge estate that’s incredibly complex, and it’s still being settled, papers have to be executed. I think it’s good. Gives you some time to really think about the best thing to do with the money.”
“You know what I’ve always wanted to do.” He leaned down to kiss her nose. “I want to paint. Sebastian—you remember Sebastian, right? You met him at Kristeene’s birthday party the night we got engaged.”
“I remember him.” Kerris walked over to clear their breakfast dishes from the table. “Every time I’ve swung by his gallery, he’s never there.”
“Been in Paris.” Cam threw his voice over his shoulder as he moved toward the office to grab his backpack and laptop. “He’s back. He thinks I should take a year to study in Paris. He says I have a lot of raw talent, but I need it refined. I need to train and study.”
“A year?” Kerris’s hands froze over the sink waiting for their breakfast dishes. “What would we—you mean live in Paris for a year?”
“Yeah, babe. Think about it.” Cam came up behind her at the sink to wrap his arms around her. “The three of us in Paris, where some of the greatest artists did their best work. I could study at the Sorbonne. If I apply now, I could be accepted in the next six months.”