Chapter Seventy-Six

Five months later, Tess went into labour.

The seven of us gathered around her hospital bed, silently admiring her beautiful little boy. We all smiled when his eyelids fluttered open and revealed deep blue Scott eyes.

"What are you going to call him?" asked Sawyer. He was standing beside me, his hands on my protruding stomach.

As Tess opened her mouth to speak and to name the baby, the door of the small hospital room burst open. John Fenning ran in, out of breath, and joined the small crowd around the bed.

"Tess! I'm so sorry, I just heard. He's perfect," said John.

"Yeah," said Tess quietly. He looked at her in surprise. In the past five months, John had done everything that had been expected of him, everything he'd promised to do. But the warmth was gone from it. The beautiful friendship they'd once shared had withered and died.

"Are you mad at me or something? What did I do?" he asked. In that moment, Tessa Lydia Scott seemed to snap. She let out a small yelp that surprised the child in her arms.

"God! You're such a tard sometimes!" she said in frustration. Rearranging the child so he could rest on her without her support she reached up and took his face in her hands. Yanking him down to reach her, she brought her face up to kiss him.

The rest of us looked on as his lips parted and they sank deeply into the kiss that had been coming for months.

"I love you," he breathed when they were finally done. I bit back a cheer.

"It's about time," she whispered, leaning up to kiss him again. She focused her attention on the rest of us.

"His name," she said, pausing dramatically, "Is Gavin Scott." She paused again, and looked into the eyes of the man she loved. "Gavin John Scott."

I tugged on Sawyer's arm to discreetly lead him out of the room.

"That's going to be us in a few months," commented Sawyer.

"Yep. Basically," I agreed.

"Except for the whole… you know. But I'm happy for her," he said.

"Yeah. Killing two birds with one stone, no?" I inquired.

"What?"

"Oh, your sister gets to be happy, and you get him out of the way," I said.

"Sure, why not. Whatever you say," he said. I rolled my eyes.

"Let's go in here," I suggested. We were passing an empty room. He looked in, shrugged and nodded.

He sat down on the end of the bed and waited for me to join myself. Willing myself to gain courage, I closed the hospital door behind me and looked straight at him.

Sawyer's eyed widened as I began to walk slowly and seductively toward him. As I reached him, I took both his hands, climbed onto his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist.

"Are you sure…" he began. I cut off the flow of words by kissing him deeply. Slowly he fell backwards on the bed, and wrapped his arms around me.

My pregnant stomach made it more difficult, as did our long months of abstinence. But as we had before, we found our way around each other's bodies in the way we'd always been able to do.

"I missed you," I said at last, when we lay half clothed in each other's arms.

"I can't believe we let that bastard take anything away," said Sawyer.

"Don't. I don't want to think about it anymore," I said. The months of therapy had given me too much time to think about it.

"Okay. I can't believe my little sister just had a baby and we're in here," he said.

"She's busy, too," I said softly.

"This has been the most insane year of my life," he commented. I thought about that-it had been a year. Last year in May we'd begun to piece together the mystery of Nikki, which was when the whole craziness thing happened.

"Mine too. The best also. During some parts of it. In other parts, it was the worst," I said.

"Surprisingly, I know exactly what you're talking about," he said. We shared a laugh.

"Shh," I said suddenly, as two familiar voices passed by the room. I walked silently to the door and opened it a crack to listen.

"It's our anniversary soon," commented a voice. It was Mom's voice. I peered through the crack to see her and Daddy resting on a bench opposite our room.

"Yeah. Nineteenth. Maybe we should just skip it in preparation for our twentieth," suggested Daddy jokingly.

"Shut up. Lucas got out of rehab," she said.

"I heard. I hope he can get better," said Daddy.

"Sadly, I think the best thing for him to do would be to get the hell away from here," she said.

"Yeah. Sad. I cannot believe it's been nineteen years," he said.

"Yeah. Nineteen years, two babies… One breakup, one reconciliation. Um, two houses, three job changes, one marriage, one pregnancy, one year of complete and total shock…" recited Mom. Daddy laughed and kissed the top of her head.

"Wouldn't give it back for the world," he said.

"Jake, this is the world," she said. Their eyes met and they kissed.

"I once wished with all my heart that Nikki would come back to me. That we could be a family. I'm glad she never did," he said.

"She did. You just saw through her," Mom reminded him.

"She tried again, when she showed up last year," he said.

"I knew."

"You knew?" he said in shock.

"Of course I knew. Truly evil people can be counted on for one thing: To always be truly evil."