She smiled as she sat back into her seat, the worried look in her eyes fading. “Really? Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“And?”

“Better than I imagined. I’m planning to do more of that on Friday. Just sayin’.” He opened his door and got out before he did anything else. The last place he wanted to feel the glory of her nipple against his palm was in a car after all the drama of the conversation between Ben and their father. And damn did he want to feel that.

He bent and looked inside at her and smiled. She returned the gesture, nearly felling him with the look on her face. “Night, Cope. I’ll see you on Friday.”

“Night, Red.”

Her laugh topped his day, wore away some of the sadness about his dad, and he straightened, closing her door and waving.

He strolled away, looking back at her, watching her pull out into traffic and drive toward her place.

8

Ella wiped down the stainless-steel counters in the small kitchen in the café for what would be the very last time. She smiled as she did it.

“I’m going to miss this,” she said to Erin, who sat nearby drinking tea and eating almond cookies Elise’s mother Martine had brought by sometime earlier. Her OB had told her she needed to spend more time off her feet and resting. “Well, not the cleaning up part. I’m just fine to hand that off to one of the others. But I suppose, feeling a part of this place, like it was mine too.”

“If you make me cry, I’m going to pinch you.” Erin winked, her eyes already shining with tears. “This is an awesome time in your life, Ella. Celebrate it. All the best parts of your past will still be here without the crappy pay and having to wipe stuff down.”

That was true. “Pay wasn’t so crappy because my boss was a soft-hearted wench. This café was my safe place for several years. It’ll be hard to lose that.”

“We’re your safe place, El. Me and Elise. The guys. We’re your family. You don’t need to pull lattes. You have your degree, you have a great job and you’ll take the crappy part of your past and use that to help people get to the good part of their future.”

“Now you’re going to make me cry, and I can’t pinch you because you’re pregnant.” Ella sighed and hopped up to sit on the counter. “I feel like it’s graduation day in a sense, you know? I’m scared. Not that I can’t handle my new job. I love that job, and I think I’m a good fit for it. But you know, the other things in my life that are all changing all at once. It’s exciting and scary.”

“The dating stuff?”

“That and having a social life. I feel . . . exposed maybe? I didn’t do so well the last time I tried this. What if ...”

“What if it’s you? What if you’re just a horrible judge of character, and you’ll attract some guy who’ll do to you what Bill did?” Her tone told Ella that Erin thought it was all bunk.

Damn. Well, she supposed that’s what you got when you had real friends who understood you, warts and all.

“Yeah, I guess so. Am I so obvious?”

“Here’s how I know. I rolled out of a self-induced haze of self-loathing and fear to see Todd. Could I actually have something with this man who had gone from my life years before? Could I, totally messed up and broken, risk opening up to anyone new? And then there was Ben.” Erin laughed. “Just when I’d figured out how to be with Todd, here comes another man into our life. I took chances, and yeah, I was afraid.”

Ella grabbed a cookie. “But look at you now.”

Erin rubbed her hands over her belly. “Yeah, look at me. Happy. In love. Loved like I’d never imagined before. It’s not easy. It hasn’t been easy. I hate that Ben and his father have this huge gulf between them. I hate that two of Todd’s siblings won’t even speak to him. I brought that into their lives, and I regret it.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“It’s totally my fault, El. But that’s all right. Because in the end, all that’s anyone else’s business is that everyone in our relationship is treated with dignity, respect and trust. We have that. It’s not traditional. It’s not what anyone’s mom and dad would have planned for, but other than the basics, it’s none of their f**king business. I’m not giving in because some jerk can’t deal with something that isn’t his to be worried over. What’s it to Billy Copeland that Ben is in love with two people? How is that any of his business? It makes Ben so sad, and that’s what bothers me.”

“I’m sorry about all that. And you’re right, it’s not their business, and it’s not their choice.”

“And there’s not some flaw inside you to blame for Bill. You broke up with him. You got a protection order. You did everything right, Ella. He’s the one who was wrong. He’s the one who hurt you. Andrew Copeland is a lot of things, but he’s no thug. He’s gone over you. I’ve never seen that before. And you are blossoming at this new stage in your life. Your eyes are clear, there’s a bounce in your step and you will make this work. Because you’re you.”

“I invited Bill in.” She hopped down from the counter and began to put things away. Hanging the spoons, tucking clean linens back into drawers. “I brought him into my life. I chose him. I loved him at one time.”

“It’s not as if you didn’t pay for that. An awfully big price for such a stupid mistake. So you liked the wrong dude. You had kicked him out and had moved on nearly a year before the attack. You made the right choice, Ella.”