Chapter 17
Seven weeks later, James carried the pink teddy bear into a hospital room.
This time he did not drop it.
Emily was sitting upright against the pillows with a sleeping newborn against her chest. Her face was exhausted, pale, and happier than James had seen it in a long time.
“Meet Samuel,” she said.
James stopped beside the bed.
The feared head of the Bennett organization stared at his grandson and forgot how to speak.
Emily smiled.
“You can hold him.”
James hesitated.
That made her smile wider.
“Former Army colonel scared of a nine-pound baby?”
“Eight pounds, six ounces.”
“You memorized it.”
“Of course I memorized it.”
She handed Samuel over.
James held him like something both impossibly fragile and strangely powerful. The baby opened one eye, decided James was uninteresting, and went back to sleep.
Emily placed the teddy bear beside them.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then James noticed a small brass object on Emily’s bedside table.
The key.
He looked at her.
“You brought it?”
Emily nodded.
“Why?”
She picked it up.
“For this.”
A tiny ribbon had been threaded through the hole at the top. She tied it around the teddy bear’s gift bag and handed the bag to James.
He frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
Emily looked at her son.
“That key used to open the worst room I ever knew.”
Then she looked back at her father.
“Now it opens nothing.”
James stared at it.
The metal had not changed.
Its meaning had.
Ryan and Linda had used locked doors to make Emily believe nobody was coming.
Caleb had used secrets to make an entire family believe love was weakness.
All of them were gone from the room now.
Only Emily remained.
Samuel.
James.
And a ridiculous pink teddy bear that had once rolled across an apartment floor while a father discovered how badly his daughter needed him.
James sat beside the bed.
Emily rested her head back against the pillows.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Take me home.”
The same words she had whispered that day.
But this time there was no fear in them.
James smiled.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
And that was the difference.
May you like
The first time, Emily had begged to be rescued.
This time, she was choosing where home was.
