I closed my eyes.
“Ducane has always adored you. He may be upset, but he wants his family. I can’t allow my hopeless romantic ass to believe anything else.”
I laughed, hoping she was right.
“I hope you’re right, sis. I gotta go.”
I ended the call and exited through the airport doors.
This would take some getting used to again, but I was so happy I didn’t have to drive thirty minutes home at midnight. I just wouldn’t tell Ducane that.
“Reem, can you get me home in twenty minu?—”
“Ducane?”
He filled up the doorway in a hoodie and sweats, and tucked against his chest, knocked all the way out, mouth open, bonnet crooked, was our daughter.
He’d actually come. With her. At damn near midnight.
Every smart thing I’d been saying to Fee left my head.
He slid over with Cadence in his lap. I climbed in, trying to hide how giddy and emotional I suddenly felt.
I moved Cadence’s feet into my lap and looked out the window. I needed a moment. A lot of moments. Then Ducane’s hand came up soft against my face, and I turned to him.
“What’s gotten into you?”
He didn’t answer right away. His thumb moved slowly along my cheek, his eyes on Cadence sleeping between us before they came back to me.
“Do you think he knew?”
I blinked. “Do I think who knew what?”
“My father.” His jaw tightened around the word. “About her. About Cadence. All this time.” He looked down at our daughter, her bonnet sliding off, her little chest rising and falling against him. “Carter thinks he knew.”
“Cane, what does it matter?” I said, when he didn’t answer. “You can’t keep searching for somebody else to be mad at. We did this. I did this.”
“Skye, you know it’s more than that.” He looked away for a second, jaw tight, before it came out of him. “Why does he hate me so much, huh?”
“I don’t know, love. I really don’t, because he’s missed out on the best parts of you.” I softened, then made myself hold the line. “But again. We did this. We own this. I take accountability for my part.”
“And what part is that, Skye? Because at the heart of all this, for me, is you saying you needed more than my words. I married you. Made you my wife. What else needed to be said?”
“And you believed that meant they’d respect us. That they’d just get over it.” I shook my head. “That was a risk I wasn’t going to take. Now what?”
“You so damn stubborn and nonchalant about robbing me of time with my daughter.”
“That’s your pride talking. Please.”
“Yeah, you right. It is.” He didn’t even fight me on it. “You wouldn’t even let me protect y’all. My family. And that’s on me, because I was blind to the snake that raised me. I’m fucked up about that.”
He sighed. I reclined back with a sigh of my own.
For a second, neither of us said anything. Then I gave him the truth I’d been sitting on.
“He knew, Ducane.”
His head turned with flexing fists.