Coltons ultimate test, p.22
Colton's Ultimate Test, page 22
Sophia took Morgan’s hands. “Now what’s this about not knowing what to do with Roman?”
With a sigh, Morgan returned to the end of the hospital bed and looked for the best way to explain. “I guess for you to have the whole picture, I should let you in on something that happened to me when I was twenty.”
She told Sophia about her attack, recapped recent events for both women and explained how Roman’s tattoos had been a trigger for bad memories. She told them she planned to contact a trauma counselor, realizing she hadn’t put the attack behind her as she’d believed. “In recent weeks, with so much turmoil and tragedy in the family, I’ve had this feeling of danger looming over me. I just don’t feel safe anywhere. And this morning when we figured out Spence had been in my house—” She shuddered. “And if you could have seen the look on Roman’s face when I told him I didn’t want to go to his place... I know he thinks I’m rejecting him because of his tattoos or all our differences. Maybe our differences are part of why things feel unsettled between us—”
“Morgan, I know you’re looking for a nice, tidy answer. But emotions and falling in love and past trauma—none of that is neat or tidy,” Alexa said. “Relationships just aren’t black-and-white. They’re not even shades of gray. They’re green. And yellow. And bright pink. They’re swirled colors and beautiful rainbows.”
Morgan blinked at her sister and chuckled. “Is that my sister or the painkillers talking?”
Sophia laughed quietly. “I actually like that way of putting it.” Sobering, she met Morgan’s eyes with her warm hazel gaze. “You need to deal with your past. I think it’s clouding how you look at everything else, including Roman.”
“Answer this for me, Morgan,” Alexa said, and wagged a finger. “No deliberating, just gut feeling, instant answer. Okay? What would your future be like if Roman weren’t in it?”
Morgan’s heart wrenched, and her soul seemed to wither. “Bleak. Lonely. Horrible!”
“Well, there’s your answer,” Sophia said.
“If you don’t want a future without him,” Alexa said, “fight to keep him. Show him you love him and want him in a way he can’t dispute. Then allow yourself to be happy.”
* * *
The next day, Christmas Eve, Roman puttered around the Corner Pocket, wiping down glasses and debating closing the bar since so few people were coming in. If he closed, though, he’d officially have nothing to do except dwell on the fact that a future with Morgan seemed remote. She hadn’t wanted him last night when she’d been upset about finding Spence had been in her home. He didn’t need the unfinished conversation to know he represented all things scary to her. Risk. Rule breaking. His tattoos...
His cell phone beeped, signaling an incoming text, and he checked the screen. It was from Morgan. Meet me at my office in an hour.
He considered refusing. What was the point of belaboring the issue? But he supposed a clearly defined breakup and closure would be better for both of them.
“Let’s call it a day,” he told Penny, and his waitress couldn’t take her apron off fast enough. Hector had the kitchen cleaned up and turned off quickly, and he locked the door behind them. He killed thirty minutes upstairs in his apartment, feeding Rufus and changing into clothes that didn’t smell like beer and chili. Then, though he’d be early, he set off for the offices of Colton and Colton.
The door to the law office wasn’t locked, and Roman let himself in, calling, “Hello? Morgan?”
“Back here!”
He found Morgan sitting behind her desk, talking with Sophia. The two women were giggling like teenagers over some private joke.
“Knock, knock. Am I interrupting?” He waited at the door until Morgan waved him in.
“Speak of the devil!” Sophia said, her grin widening. “Good to see you again, Roman.”
“Likewise. How are things in the—” He wracked his brain for Sophia’s profession. Was she the social worker? The DA? Then he remembered her quizzing the ER doctor the day before. He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Pediatrics game treating you?”
Sophia chuckled. “Lots of runny noses and coughs this time of year, but nothing our office can’t handle. How’s the bar and billiards game treating you?”
“Lots of holiday toasting and rounds of eight ball this time of year, but nothing my staff can’t handle. Today was slow, though, so I closed early.”
Morgan rose from her chair and started around her desk to greet him. She swayed on her feet and had to brace herself with a hand on her desk. “Whoa. Who made the floor move?”
Roman frowned. “Peaches, are you...drunk?”
“No! Well, not exactly.”
“But I think you should drive her home, just the same,” Sophia added. She checked her phone and gasped. “Gosh. Look at the time. I better get going. I still have to make my pies for the big Colton gathering tomorrow.” She rose and gave Morgan a hug. “I’m serious. No driving yourself for several more hours.”
Morgan grinned and drew an X with her finger on her chest. “Cross my heart.”
Sophia gave a little wave as she hurried out of the office.
“What’s going on? Why can’t you drive if you’re not drunk?” Then adding Sophia, a doctor, into the mix, a new concern swelled in him. “Are you ill?”
She pushed away from the desk and stumbled a couple steps to him. Looping her arms around his neck, she smiled up at him. “I have something to show you. I did something today. Two things, really, and...well, consider it my answer to the question about where I see us going, what I think of our future.”
Roman arched an eyebrow. “That sounds...intriguing.”
Morgan levered away from him and returned, unsteadily, to her desk chair, where she opened the bottom drawer of her desk to get her purse. She dug in it, pulled something out. She circled the desk again—this time he met her halfway and caught her around the waist to steady her.
Now he could see a mix of anxiety and doubt in her blue eyes, and his pulse hammered. “Morgan, spill. What’s going on?”
She raised her closed fist, turned it over and opened her fingers. On her palm lay a key. “I want you to have this. It’s a spare key to my house.”
He lifted a corner of his mouth. Leave it to Ms. Practical to think of such a detail. Then she added, “I know living over the bar is handy and all, but...well, I hope soon you’d consider making this the key to our house.” A dent formed at the bridge of her nose, and it seemed her eyes darkened. “Will you move in with me?”
With his thumb, he rubbed the wrinkle on her brow. “Well, the apartment over the bar is terribly convenient for work.” He leaned in to kiss her nose. “But your house is more convenient to the woman I love. The woman I want to spend my future with, so...” He hesitated when he realized what it was about her eyes that seemed off to him. Her pupils were bigger than seemed right. When he added this fact to her wobbly gait, his smile faded. “Why are your eyes dilated? If you’re not sick or drunk...what’s going on?”
She patted his chest and licked her lips. “I took a painkiller that made me a little loopy.”
He scowled. “Because?”
She stepped back from him, propped her bottom on the edge of the desk as she raised her shirt and tugged down her skirt a few inches, exposing a red, raw-looking place on her hip. When he looked closer, he noticed something darker in the red and swelling. “What the—?”
“I got a tattoo!” she said and laughed.
“You what?” He leaned in to look closer and, sure enough, the conservatively dressed, mother hen, type-A lawyer was sporting ink. A small heart around the initials RD.
“I survived the application process...barely, but when I was finished, I hurt! I took a something left over from that time last year when I broke my arm. Don’t worry. I didn’t drive. Sophia was with me.”
Roman blinked, met Morgan’s eyes, bent to look at the tattoo again. The significance of her decision was not lost on him. “You got a tattoo.”
“The place was next door to the hardware store where I had the key made, and it seemed like a sign. Once the idea came to me, it just felt...right. Symbolic.” She touched the tattoo lightly, winced, then canted forward to drape her arms around his neck. “The ink is permanent, just like my love for you. As is my promise to talk to a counselor about my PTSD from the attack. I want nothing negative to stand between us.”
Warmth filled Roman’s chest, and after giving her a big kiss, he tucked his shoulder under her arm to brace her and hitched his head to the door. “Come on, Peaches. Let me drive you back to our house.”
Epilogue
Valentine’s Day
Morgan poked her head into her mother’s bedroom, where Theresa, Hilary, Sophia, Aubrey and Rachel were already gathered and chattering excitedly as Isa finished applying her makeup. Aubrey rose from the settee where she’d been sitting and crossed to Morgan with a broad smile on her face.
“Oh, thank God! Quick, Morgan, talk to me about something that does not involve swollen ankles, birth canals or morning sickness!”
Morgan laughed, but when she glanced from face to face of the other women gathered with Aubrey, she realized the pregnancy hormones had to be off the charts in the room. Poor Hilary was so large in the late stages of her pregnancy with twins, she wasn’t sure how Oliver’s wife could even walk.
Rachel, who already had one-year-old Iris, had announced at New Year’s that she and James were expecting another baby in July. For most couples, two children under two would be too much, but James had opened his own law firm, so he could set his own hours and spend more time at home with Rachel and Iris.
Sophia was well into her sixth month of pregnancy and rubbed her rounded belly with a loving hand.
Besides Aubrey, only Ezra’s new wife—as of a tiny private New Year’s Eve ceremony—Theresa wasn’t currently pregnant, but she was, even then, regaling Hilary with tips and her own stories of giving birth to twins.
“After having my girls, I found the best thing for stretch marks was coconut oil and staying hydrated. The skin needs moisture and elasticity to heal. Bonus that coconut oil smells like a tropical vacation!” Theresa said.
Morgan put a hand on Aubrey’s arm and squeezed. “It’s okay, sis. Pregnancy isn’t contagious.”
“It’s not that Luke and I don’t want children, but do I have to talk about pregnancy acne and squashed bladders before I get pregnant?” Aubrey asked, rolling her eyes.
“Sorry.” Sophia raised her hand and flashed a sheepish grin. “I got it all started by telling the bride she didn’t look like the mother of twelve and grandmother to a growing number of little ones.”
“And I asked how the mothers-to-be were feeling,” Isa added, dusting powder on her nose. “It took off from there. Aubrey, dear, don’t let morning sickness or swollen ankles dissuade you. I had twelve babies and never regretted a minute of any of my pregnancies. You’ll make a wonderful mother when you and Luke are ready.”
The bride paused in her preparations and grew pensive. “I do hope we will be in town when all these babies come. Theo and I have gone a little overboard with all our travel plans.” Isa had recently put her house on the market and would be moving with Theo to a new home in town where they could make a fresh start. “It’s just with him retiring... Well, we want to see the world while we can. Time waits for no one.”
Morgan couldn’t help but think of her own chances for becoming a mother. At forty, she was past the safest years for childbirth. But more and more women were having babies after forty, and Sophia could help connect them with the best obstetric doctors. Or, like Caleb and Nadine, who were poised to adopt the three foster children they’d recently been caring for, she and Roman could adopt a child.
She gave her head a small shake and cleared her mind of those thoughts. Roman had only moved into her house two months ago. One step at a time. Even though her counseling was going well and she had no regrets about any of her recent changes, she could be patient.
She looped her arm through Aubrey’s. “Shall we talk about your wedding plans, then? May might seem far off, but it’ll be here before you know it!”
“Thank you for scheduling it for the end of the month. The last thing I’d want is to go into labor during your ceremony!” Sophia said.
“That makes two of us,” Aubrey said with a wink. Turning to Morgan, Aubrey said, “We know it will be at the ranch, and we are hoping by then Luke’s family can join us. Beyond that I haven’t gotten far, but I plan to grab a minute with Mom’s caterer before they pack up and go home. I’m thinking about a barbecue after the ceremony. Thoughts?”
Rachel covered her mouth and looked rather pale. “Please. No talk of food right now. I’m queasy enough as it is.”
“And I could eat a whole rack of ribs and gallon of potato salad,” Hilary said. “It’s hard work growing twins. I’m starving!”
“Same here,” Sophia added.
“Well, we can’t get these hungry mothers to the reception until I’ve said ‘I do.’” Isa snapped her compact closed and stood. “I’m ready if Theo is.”
“We’ll go check on the groom,” Morgan volunteered and tugged Aubrey out into the hall with her.
“I hope I didn’t sound too harsh. You do know I’m tickled pink and baby blue about all my current and future nieces and nephews, right?” Aubrey asked, a tiny furrow in her brow.
Morgan put an arm around her sister’s shoulders and gave her a side squeeze. “Of course I do! Even talk of something as joyous as babies can be overwhelming for someone not yet in that stage of life. Just two months ago, I was more than a little envious of all of you finding your husbands and wives. It was both easy and hard to smile when one of you talked about how in love you were.”
“But now you have Roman.”
Morgan could feel the power behind the smile that lit her face. “But now I have Roman.”
“And may I just say, hubba hubba and mrow! He’s is quite the catch, sis. You always were a high achiever.” Aubrey bumped her with her hip and waggled her eyebrows. “Although he’s not the kind of guy I pictured you marrying.”
They’d reached the room where the men, including Theo, were getting ready, but Morgan hesitated, facing her sister. “Honestly, me, neither. But love and fate are odd things, hmm?”
Aubrey nodded, then cocked her head. “Um, are you planning to marry him, then?”
She lifted a shoulder. “The jury is still out.”
Aubrey gave her a shrewd look. “Meaning he hasn’t asked yet?”
“Precisely.” Morgan squared her shoulders. “But I have no intention of letting him get away, and he’s assured me he’s not going anywhere. And my Rome is a man of his word.”
Aubrey pulled her close and kissed Morgan’s cheek. “Oh, Morgan. I’m so happy for you!”
At that moment, the door to the men’s dressing room opened, and Luke filled the doorway. “I thought I heard the voice I love.”
Aubrey leaned in to kiss her fiancé. “The bride is ready. How are things at this end of the hall?”
“We’re a go!” someone called from inside the room. The clamor of male voices in the groom’s room was as loud and jubilant as the bride’s, so Morgan couldn’t be sure which voice was whose.
“Then let’s round ’em up and move ’em out!” Aubrey called over the men’s voices. “C’mon, Morgan. Let’s corral the rest of our herd to their seats.”
Within minutes, under Morgan, Aubrey and Alexa’s direction, the family was in place, and the processional music began. Roman looped his arm around Morgan’s waist and held her near his side as she watched her mother, beaming with happiness and love, take her place beside Theo. Morgan savored every minute of the ceremony, frequently brushing away tears of joy. Once the vows were said, the rings exchanged and the newlyweds introduced, a cheer went up that could have shaken the foundation of the Rockies.
The reception was an equally loud and boisterous affair. Morgan circulated the perimeter of the dance floor, where Jasper and Kayla were showing everyone their best moves, and she made a point of spending a few minutes with each of her siblings and their partners. If the past year had taught her anything, it was how fast life could change, for good or ill, and family should never be taken for granted. Besides, she wanted Roman to have a chance to get to know her family better. She’d teasingly told him there’d be a test at the end of the day, and he’d taken on learning the family roster as a challenge.
“So that was Naomi and Philip. I remember them because Philip was on-site at the warehouse the day we caught Spence,” he said, sotto voce. “Their wedding is...this summer? He’s with the PD in Boulder, and she’s...” He snapped his fingers trying to recall.
“A TV producer. Her twin, Alexa, is the US marshal.”
“I remember Alexa,” he said, his face sobering. “Hard to forget when you see someone struck by a car during a gun battle.”
“But she’s fine now. How could she not be with Dane doting on her?”
Hands linked, she led him to the spot where the triplets congregated with their significant others. Oliver and Hilary were snuggled on a couch with Ezra and Theresa, Dominic and Sami standing facing them.
“Hey! That’s close to us!” Theresa was saying to Sami, a bright note in her tone as Morgan and Roman approached the circle.
Dominic noticed his oldest sister and moved to wave them into the gathering, holding out a hand to shake Roman’s. “Hey, man. You’re getting quite the indoctrination to the Coltons the last couple months. First Christmas à la Colton, which is a holiday on steroids, then a family wedding seven weeks later. Whew!”
“It’s eye-opening, for sure. But a blast,” Roman replied with a smile.
“Morgan, Sami was just saying she and Dom have bought a house close to us. Isn’t that exciting?” Theresa said.
