Page 35 of Secret Heart
She holds the bag out. Instead of pulling the paper, Penny digs through the bag like before. She holds out her clenched fist to Emily. The card is a bit mangled by the time it makes it into Emily’s hand, but it doesn’t erase the information on it. It’s made of thick paper, the kind used for weddings and pack celebrations. When she flips it open, the name and logo of one of the luxury boutiques in Jackson Hole fills the upper portion of the card. The bottom portion is a branded gift card. Emily frowns as she looks from the card to Triston, her gaze flicking so fast it makes me nauseous. The question is clear in her face, but she doesn’t voice it.
Triston clears his throat.
“Scott mentioned you developed pretty severe postpartum anxiety. I thought maybe…” He shrugs and drops his eyes. He traces the fake laces of Penny’s shoes. “When we went dancing on the Fourth, you talked with Olivia about how you wanted to get a piece from there, something heirloom that you could pass down if you ever packed up.”
Softness just about takes me out at the knees, no matter that I’m already sitting. I dig my hand deeper into Emily’s waistband, now needing the point of contact for my own sake.
She’d never said that while we were fooling around. Hell, not even when we were just existing. Those comments were ones she made to the girls. The only reason I know is because I’d asked Mom what to get her that first Christmas. I’d wanted it to be something special and unique that wasn’t related to the baby or the house. Emily was so focused on Misty Mountain and the pregnancy, she’d brushed me off each time I asked for a list with more than just a spa day. Mom told me about the trunk show Emily’d mentioned back in the summertime.
She’d never brought the store up to me at all.
Triston had heard a conversation that night? And he’d remembered it all this time?
Emily’s scent pulses, and Triston swallows again. Hard. His hand falters where he’s still tracing the fake laces. Emily flips the card over and frowns.
“How…” She clears her throat. “There isn’t an amount on here.”
Triston nods.
“What’s the amount?”
His eyes are unfathomable as he drinks her in. Penny wiggles off his leg and runs back to the bubbles, the blanket in one hand and trailing along the ground. Triston carefully sets the dog plush in the rainbow bag.
“There isn’t one,” he admits after nearly a full minute. “I set up an account with them. It doesn’t have a limit.”
Holy hell. I’d saved for nearly eight weeks to buy the small pendant I’d given her that first Christmas. It had been more than my rent in town at the time, and the only reason I’d really been able to get it was the Christmas bonus Ethan had given all of the ranch hands.
I knew in theory just how much those sponsors must pay him, but having it so plainly laid out is still hard to swallow.
Penny screeches, and Triston’s focus whips to her. Her hand is straight out, grabbing at him in the way she does when she wants someone to come to her. Then she smacks the blanket on the top of the whale, tears lining her eyes between one breath and the next. He runs a hand through his hair and clears his throat again.
“The flowers are for you, too,” he says without looking at either of us.
Then he stands and walks to Penny, grabbing the bubble mix from where I’d set it beside me without missing a step. She giggles as he refills the reservoir and the first round of new bubbles come out from the top of the whale.
Chapter Nineteen
EMILY
“Oh! Jonas!” Olivia’s voice cuts through the growing din of conversation. “Don’t pop the balloons!”
She rushes past me and down the porch’s stairs, her hands outstretched as she tries to keep Jonas away from the nearest cluster of balloons we have lining the long driveway. Beau brushes past me, running his hand along my hip as he hands me a soda from the cooler. He avoids the chalk drawings slowly edging out from the center of the concrete and joins Ethan and Kyle. Paul joins them, too, his daughter perched on his hip. She’s a few months older than Penny, almost perfectly splitting the gap between when Jonas was born right after Christmas and Penny’s birth the next May.
Mom climbs the porch steps and pauses next to me. Her brown hair is curled to perfection in large barrel rolls that fall around her shoulders. Her green and blue floral dress is probably a bit more formal than needed, but it suits her in the same way most of the men wearing worn Levis and their preferred cowboy hats suit them.
“The chalk is such a perfect idea,” she says. “It keeps the kids all entertained without being too messy.”
“Speak for yourself, Lynn.” Caleb chuckles as he steps onto the porch. “Your dress has exactly zero hand prints.”
She laughs. “Better than being soaked to the bone from a wayward sprinkler,” she says.
Caleb concedes the point.
Camden rushes past him, a small flower in his hand. He skids to a stop in front of Ethan and holds out the daisy that had been sitting in a vase on the island counter. Beau must have given him permission to take it. It’s something we all do when we have flowers. Camden loves them so much, loves giving them to anyone who might smile at the kindness. It’s never bothered me before. And yet this time a fierce possessiveness swells under my sternum, stealing my breath and infecting my scent as it pulses around me.
Caleb frowns.
“Shit, sorry. I can have him put it back,” he says. “Beau didn’t say this set he got you was off limits.”
