Free To Have & to Hold by Mackenzie Lucas

door to her bedroom and pushed it wide. She paused, allowing the calm the room evoked to steal over her. With its high, knotty pine A-frame ceiling and wall of windows overlooking her back yard and the forest beyond, the master suite provided a much needed refuge.
    Sage green walls and white trim blended with the lush green landscape visible through the bank of windows. She walked into the room then continued straight ahead to look out at the patch of garden next to the flagstone patio where she ’ d spent so much of her time this past month and a half , working the rich soil, trying to coax the stubborn primrose bushes back to life. She ’ d planted gerbera daisies, lavender, and Asian lilies just last week. The heads of the daisies swayed and bent low under the onslaught of bad weather. She didn ’ t know if the garden would survive the day.
    A cold draft of air brushed her bare forearms and curled around her neck. Her skin tingled, f rom her tattoo and radiated lower . Danger. The whispered word echoed through her brain in Grayson ’ s soft, husky timbre and had her head snapping to the sliding glass door on her right.
    The door stood open five inches or so. She couldn ’ t rem ember opening it before she left for town this morning. But who knew these days? Pregnancy, not to mention the added stress of her life, had a way of making her forgetful. Or at least that ’ s what Hattie said. Cate chose to believe her. Wind billowed the sheer white curtain. Rain blew inside, puddling on the wide plank floor.
    Cate grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wiped up the water, then locked the door to the porch that wrapped around the entire house. Over-sized green rocking chairs bobbed a ghostly dance. Wind and rain pinged against the glass. She hadn ’ t seen it rain this hard in a long time, if ever.
    She turned her back on the wild scene outsid e, ready to snuggle in her king- sized bed. That ’ s when she noticed it. A bottle of champagne sat propped on her pillow, a note beside it.
    She lifted the bottle and read the label. Not just any bottle of champagne. Nineteen-eighty-five Krug. Vintage. Expensive. The same wine she ’ d bought for Grayson for their anniversary that fateful night on the Celtic Sea. The night she should have died.
    Had Hattie delivered it for Grayson?
    She sat the bottle on the nightstand and read the note.
    I ’ ve missed you. Let ’ s celebrate new beginnings together.
    Grayson? He didn ’ t want to have anything to do with her or the baby. He ’ d made that perfectly clear in his dry-as-dust letter. So where had the bubbly come from? Hattie would know. She reached for the intercom next to her bed on the nightstand to ask. The machine didn ’ t squawk like normal when she pressed the button. She pressed again. Nothing. She followed the cord, only to find it unhooked from the wall jack. She stared at it. She was too tired right now to worry about the intercom. Nor could she begin to bend and twist herself to get it plugged in behind the heavy headboard.
    She stared at the champagne bottle. Memories battered her. All the tender moments they ’ d shared. Tears welled in her eyes. God, she mi ssed him. Who was she kidding by h o lding tenaciously to her denial? No one but herself. She wanted him more right now than she had four months ago. Lust tugged hard at her. It had been four long months. But who ’ d count those four months as a trial when she ’ d waited a whole year for him before that? Okay, so, four unbearable, lonely months, after the greatest sex in her life felt like an eternity. Abstinence, apparently, made reunion sex world-shattering. Yeowza . Heat rushed through her body at the mere thought of that day. His bare chest and ripped abdomen. The trail of dark hair that dove into his jeans, pointing the way to fulfillment. Muscular arms holding on to her as if she ’ d hung the moon and the stars, and his sweet tongue confirming she ’ d accomplished just that feat as he coaxed her