Page 191 of Power Shift

“Don’t apologize for that. Don’t carry his actions on your back, Sadie. You need to focus on your life and the gorgeous baby girl in your arms right now. Nothing else matters.”

She nods, but I can see the war raging in her eyes. The inner battle of whether she should agree with me or keep pushing because the guilt hasn’t just vanished like we wish it would.

It’s going to be there for a while. That’s just how guilt works, even the kind that we shouldn’t have at all.

“I’m working on that,” she says.

“And if there’s anything you need while you are?—”

She finishes my statement with a quirk of her lips. “Call you.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you want to hold her?”

My excitement is instant. “Can I?”

“You and Clover are currently two of the three people in the world I trust to.”

“Then, I’d be honoured.”

She nods once before trying to stand. Her wince has me hopping off the couch and rushing toward her.

“Stay seated, Sadie. You have stitches in places no woman should ever have stitches. Let me do the lifting right now.”

“I have been moving around on my own for a few days now,” she pokes but doesn’t argue further when I sweep Calla out of her arms and into mine.

“And I wish you didn’t have to. Just let me help while I’m here. Then you can go back to being supermom again.”

“Supermom,” she echoes, laughing lightly. “You flatter me.”

Calla coos, her tiny face scrunched in sleep. The soft yellow blanket she’s bundled up in is the same one we wrapped her in atthe clinic. Her name is stitched on the upper-right corner, done by the same older woman who’s been doing all of our Harbour of Hope babies blankets since we opened.

Her hair is a blonde so light it’s almost white and so thin she could pass as bald. It’s adorable, and with her brown eyes, she looks just like her mom.

I rock her gently, rubbing the palm of my hand up and down the small length of her back. There’s a yearning sensation in my chest. A pull as I inhale the soft scent of her skin and get bursts of the future.

A heartbeat later, there’s a knock on the wall behind us.

“We finished the lawn. It shouldn’t need to be mowed again in a couple of weeks, but once it’s too long, you can just give us a call. Fall’s coming soon, so it could very well stay short until the spring,” Jasper says.

I spin to face the small archway leading to the front door and smile at him. “Did you get the weeds pulled in the flower beds?”

“Is that what’s kept you all outside for so long? Doing my outdoor chores?” Sadie asks, halfway between laughing and crying.

Jasper offers her a tip of his chin before his stare falls on me, growing heavier the longer he watches me rock the newborn. There’s a tug on the longing I feel, like someone’s there plucking at the end of the thread.

When he answers Sadie, he’s still looking at me.

“You shouldn’t need to worry about chores at all right now.”

“Well, I appreciate the help,” she replies.

“Any friend of Briar’s is a friend of ours.”

“Stop bothering them, Jas. There’s an entire section of the yard that’s covered in ant hills. That’s not good for a baby, is it? What if one crawls into her shoes and up her legs?”

Dash’s questions ripple through the living room, sending me into a giggle fit. Jasper rolls his eyes, lifting his stare long enough that I can slip mine to our worrisome beta.

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