A few minutes after midnight, Matias entered the maternity ward hallway alongside Grant’s sister. Soon after the helicopter had left, he’d left Clara and Lawson to send the food home with their guests. Fable had needed company on the last ferry to the mainland. She’d been in no condition to drive to whatever hospital her family ended up being taken to. Matias had in no way minded being her chauffeur. The sooner he got to Violet, the better. He wasn’t going to push her to continue their conversation, not after dealing with such a serious emergency. He’d be satisfied to wrap his arms around her and make sure she knew he loved her more than anything or anyone else in the world.
The hospital lights were low, the noises limited to a few beeps and dings and some quiet chatter from the nurses’ station. Fable’s funky heels clicked on the linoleum. She hadn’t changed—they’d had to race to make the ferry—so was wearing a silky, swirly dress that, against the muted colors of the hallway, looked like a carnival in the middle of a beige convention.
She wrung her hands and recited the room number they’d been given. He didn’t intend to follow her into Renata’s room—the last thing Ren needed after major surgery was a visit from anyone but her closest people—but he did have a certain midwife to find.
“Three-oh-two,” Fable said triumphantly before giving him a tight hug. “Thank you. I couldn’t have made the drive myself.”
“Happy to help,” he said. He wasn’t going to tell her how he’d nearly had to pull his truck over on the I-5 a few times to puke. Violet hadn’t been the one in danger, but his body was having a hard time telling the difference.
Fable disappeared through the door, leaving him in the empty hallway.
He pulled out his phone to text Violet to ask where she was.
The door opened again, saving him the trouble.
She shuffled out toward him. Her elephant-print scrubs in no way coordinated with the ballet flats she’d worn to the party. The fabric was tight across her round belly. The bright teal color made her eyes pop extra blue. Washed out her complexion, too. Or maybe that was the dimmed fluorescent lights.
Or exhaustion.
He opened his arms.
She fell into them. “You brought Fable to the mainland. That’s really sweet.”
“I came for you, Violet.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “You did? Even after I—I pushed you away?”
“This might not count as ‘space,’ but I gambled that you wouldn’t mind. No matter if we’re together romantically, I’m your partner in parenting. When you need support, I will provide it, as best as I can. And this situation seemed like one where I had to step up.”
She sighed, tightening one arm around his back and curving her other hand under her belly.
He nuzzled the messy bun on the top of her head. All those beautiful curls she’d fussed over, yanked into a utilitarian knot she’d no doubt had to jam under a protective cap while in the operating room.
“I can’t believe you came.” Her voice cracked. She was leaning all her weight on him.
Good. Holding this woman up was a privilege.
“You smell so good,” she said.
“You smell like a hospital,” he teased.
She buried her nose against his chest. “Mmm, let me...”
Her grip around his waist weakened. She groaned out a curse.
“What?”
“I’m dizzy. I need to sit down.”
She crumpled in his arms.
His pulse pounded in his ears. “Violet, you just dealt with a pregnant woman falling. How could...” She wasn’t responding. Her head lolled. His whole body went clammy. “Help!”
A white, middle-aged woman in blue scrubs came running. A stethoscope was looped around her neck. The badge clipped to her front pocket read Dr. Jones, OB-GYN.
A small measure of relief washed through him.
“What happened?” the doctor said. “Oh, my word. Violet Frost, I told you to take a break hours ago.”
“She’s out,” he said.
Dr. Jones nodded curtly. “Did she hit her head?”
“No, I caught her.” Holding her up was not going to work. He scooped her into his arms, cradling her to his front. She moaned, but her eyes didn’t open. “She was pale.”
“She’s been flying all over the hospital since she got here. Do you have her? Come, come, there’s a gurney over here. Let’s get her revived and see if we can figure out what’s going on. My gut’s saying dehydration or low blood sugar.”
“Right.” He believed her. But after the earlier emergency, his system was primed for the worst.
He had to not go there.
He laid Violet on the gurney, and Dr. Jones lifted her legs.
“Violet, wake up.” Her hazel gaze landed on Matias. “Are you her partner?”
“Yes. My name’s Matias.”
“Mmm, fiancé,” Violet mumbled, lifting her arm to cover her eyes.
What? Shock buzzed in his veins.
“That’s it, wake up for us,” the doctor said. “You didn’t tell me you were engaged, Violet. Congratulations. To you, too, Matias.”
“I honestly had no idea,” he muttered. What was going on in Violet’s head? Earlier this evening, she’d wanted nothing to do with marriage. The mere mention of it had prompted her to demand time apart. Was she confused from fainting? Did she have some sort of brain injury?
If Dr. Jones heard him, or thought his bewilderment was strange, she didn’t show it. “Let’s switch places, Matias. I’m going to do an assessment, see if I need to admit Violet.”
Violet’s eyes fluttered open. The brightest blue. Like earth from space, which made perfect sense. She was his world.
“Don’t admit me,” she protested. “I need some water. Maybe a banana.”
“Violet,” he warned.
Sorry, she mouthed at Matias.
He shook his head and did as Dr. Jones had asked, sitting on the end of the gurney and propping Violet’s feet on his chest. He rubbed her calves and ankles while the doctor checked her blood pressure and other vitals, including laying the bell of the stethoscope on Violet’s belly.
“Ah, there’s the heartbeat.” She checked her watch, lips moving silently. “One-forty-three. Right on. When did you last eat?”
“Um.” Violet’s cheeks finally showed some color.
“That’s not an answer.” She put the stethoscope to Violet’s chest.
“I guess lunch.”
“Twelve hours ago?” Matias couldn’t keep in his disbelief. “Jesus, Violetta.”
“Don’t judge me,” she snapped back. “I was helping set up for your shindig, and couldn’t exactly eat dinner while trying to keep my friend alive.” Her expression softened. “And then introducing Grant to his son. You should have seen the look on his face.”
“Sorry,” Matias said. “Today’s been overwhelming.”
A smile wobbled on her lips. “For all of us.”
The doctor finished taking Violet’s temperature. “Lie here for a while longer while I ferret something out for you to eat and drink. And you can put her legs down now, Matias.”
He gently returned Violet’s feet to the cot as the doctor strode toward the nurses’ station.
“I guess if you’re going to faint, the hospital’s the place to do it,” he said, scooting farther up the gurney to take Violet’s fingers in his.
She clutched his hand to her chest. “You caught me. Literally.”
“Of course. Part of my job. As your...fiancé?”
Red flagged her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“You might need to explain the real story to Dr. Jones,” he said.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Because you’re embarrassed?”
“Because I want it to be true,” she said.
A lead weight rolled through his stomach. He squeezed her hand. “A few hours ago, you were insisting I slow down.”
“A few hours ago, I hadn’t watched a close friend of mine on the verge of dying.”
His heart tripped, in relief for Renata, but it was double-edged. Something could happen to Violet and there was nothing he could do about it. No wonder she’d been struggling with her nerves this whole time. “So it was that bad?”
“It—” She squeezed her lips together and nodded.
Looping his arms around her back, he held her tightly without lifting her too far off the gurney.
“Going from asking for space to calling me your fiancé is a big swing, Violetta. I think need more consistency than I realized. I don’t know what to feel, here.”
A hiss of regret escaped her.
Dr. Jones sailed up to them, dropping off two juice boxes, a banana and a muffin on a small tray. “Eat and drink all of it!” she instructed, interrupting their hug in order to raise the head of the gurney. “I’ll be back soon to check your vitals again.”
“Thank you.” Violet gave the departing doctor a weak thumbs-up.
Matias stuck the straw in a juice box and handed it to Violet.
She drank obediently.
“Christ, you scared me,” he said, rubbing a hand over his sternum. “I don’t think my pulse has come down all day. First, the dinner for our family and friends, and then Renata and now this.”
She winced. “Plus my overreaction to you mentioning marriage.”
“I hit a nerve. I wasn’t tuned in to your feelings,” he said.
“I could say the same for yours. Of course you’re sensitive to someone being emotionally unavailable. Your parents... What they did to you probably hits way harder than me being jilted.”
“It’s not about who’s got the worst baggage.” He passed her the muffin. “We just need to recognize our sore spots and be mindful around them.”
She took a cautious nibble, then swallowed. “Well, I’m feeling very mindful right now about wanting you to be happy. And that fear isn’t always a good reason not to do something.”
“Okay...”
After a few more bites of her muffin, she continued. “I don’t want to have to pass our child back and forth, either. I mean, the first year at least I’m going to want to try to breastfeed. Sharing space would make it way easier.”
A kernel of hope spread from his gut to his chest. “What kind of sharing space?”
She shot him a “what do you think” look. “The kind where I wake up in the morning and know you’re going to be on the other side of the bed from me. Where we have the bassinet close by so we can take turns with nighttime feeds. Or you can bring me the baby and then deal with diapers after I deal with the milk part. The kind where, separate from being parents, we’re partners, Mati.”
His heart leaped.
“Never know, you might wake up with a face full of Labrador,” he said lightly.
“Otter is a sweet baby angel, and I want to spend the rest of his life spoiling the tail off him.”
“I’m sure he’d be amenable,” he said. “And where would this bed be?”
“Well, babies are tiny, but toddlers manage to take up a hell of a lot of space. It’ll be a squish, having all of us in my one-bedroom. Would you be okay with trying yours? And keeping an eye out for a bigger place, if we need it.”
“We don’t have to decide everything today, Violet.”
Though they hadn’t circled back to the whole fiancé part...
She popped the rest of the muffin in her mouth.
With each bite and sip, he relaxed a little more. The color was back in her cheeks, and her eyes were bright. He handed her the second juice box.
Dutifully, she finished it, and the banana.
He rested his hand over a couple of the silly elephants dancing across the belly of her borrowed scrubs. “Feeling better? Is everyone okay in there?”
“More than, I think. Here.” She shifted his palm to the underside of the curve.
Something bumped his palm. “Is that...”
She nodded.
“Violet.” He held both his hands over her stomach. “Come on, little one. Give me a good one.”
The smallest, most mind-blowing movement he’d ever felt brushed his palm.
“Unreal, isn’t it?” she murmured.
He nodded. She’d been feeling the baby move for a few weeks, but he hadn’t managed to catch it, until now.
She sat quietly until he’d soaked in the tiny flits for a few more minutes.
Removing his hands, he picked up one of hers and kissed the outside of her thumb. “I could do that all day.”
“Once we’re home, that can be arranged.” Happiness danced in her gaze. “Help me up?”
He guided her upright.
She ended up in his embrace again.
“Oops,” she said, laughing. “God, Matias, how did it end up being you? You’re always asking the right questions, saying the right things, just holding me.”
“I’m working on it,” he said.
“I didn’t plan on you. Or on falling in love again, or even considering getting engaged or married...”
“And I didn’t plan on starting with a baby. We did things backward.”
“Backward turned out to be exactly the right direction,” she said, kissing him.
He could picture kissing these lips in so many moments. In four years, as she pretended not to cry while sending their child off to preschool. In ten years, once he’d taken the beer world by storm and Hau‘oli was a household name in the Pacific Northwest. He’d be proud of his work, but even more proud of coming home and kissing Violet. In twenty years, when they were a little gray at the temples, driving their kid to the airport to go on an adventure like Nic’s. As long as his life was grounded in Violet, he’d be happy.
“I got carried away,” he said. “I don’t need a ring to know you want to spend your life with me.”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “It’s the promises we make, choosing each other, not the jewelry we wear on our fingers. But...”
“But what?”
“I think those promises would mean more for both of us if we made them in front of our family and friends.”
Cupping the sides of her face, he stole another kiss. The sweetest taste of her, tinged with forever. “Tell me when you’re ready for me to propose, and I’ll plan something perfect.”
She glanced around at the institutional walls and the hallway lined with maternity equipment. “What about this place doesn’t scream ‘perfect romantic proposal,’ Matias Kahale?”
“Um...”
She put her hands on her hips.
“You mean it?” he said. “I’d pictured getting down on one knee in the cockpit of the Albatross, but—”
“Don’t kneel on the floor,” she blurted. “Hospital floors are a big nope.”
He chuckled. “I don’t have a ring with me, either.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “There’s only one part of a proposal that really matters.”
Threading his fingers through hers, he rubbed his thumb along the still-bare base of her left ring finger. “The ‘will you marry me?’ part?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She pressed her lips to his, smiling all the while. “And the part where I say yes.”