Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) Gwen Rivers (sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT) 📖

“If you want me to go,” I begin, even as I wonder where I can go.

Her eyes widen and she blinks. “No, that isn’t what I meant at all. It’s just, do you have a plan?”

“Not exactly.” I get up out of bed. “Let’s go make those cookies. It’s Chloe’s life rule. When in doubt, eat something chocolate.”

She smiles and then proceeds me down the stairs.

I sit at her cozy little table and watch as she extracts chocolate chips, flour, and sugar from a high cabinet. The butter and eggs are already sitting out on the counter. I raise an eyebrow when she pulls out a wooden spoon.

“No electric mixer?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t even own one. Besides, I like mixing by hand. It’s how my grandmother taught me to bake. All the gadgets remove love from the process.”

“They taste as good to me.”

“Just you wait and see.” She smiles in that secretive way.

Once the batter is mixed, I grab a tablespoon and start plopping cookies onto the baking sheet.

“You can trust me, you know.” Sophie’s tone is mild. “Anything you tell me will stay strictly between us.”

I stare at her, this older version of me. Odd to think I will never have the laugh lines around my eyes and mouth the way she does. Or the threads of white that shine a little more brightly under the fluorescent lights than the white-blonde strands.

“I’m waiting,” I say as I plop another cookie onto the tray.

One blonde eyebrow goes up in inquiry. “For?”

“Aiden, mostly. It doesn’t feel right to make plans without him. It’s his baby, too.” I know he has to be out of his head, wondering if I’m all right. If only we’d been able to cement our bond.

She studies me for a time and it’s an effort not to shift under her scrutiny. “Does he know you’re pregnant?”

A sigh escapes. “Not unless someone else told him.”

She turns and places the first tray of cookies in the oven. “It took me a long time to work up the courage to tell Garret about you.”

This surprises me. The two of them seem to have such a close relationship. The kind where partners confide in one another and share all sorts of intimacies. The kind I’ve never understood. “Why?”

She taps her finger idly on the side of the bowl. “Well, for a start, I didn’t think he would stick around. I mean, I’d already done the hard part.”

“You mean giving birth?”

“I mean giving you up.” She shakes her head. “It felt like I was handing over a piece of myself to strangers and trusting them to do what is right for you. I would lie in bed at night and just…ache. Knowing a part of me was missing.”

Tears sting behind my eyes though I’m not sure why. I can never let this woman know that one of those strangers had left me for dead at six. “You didn’t trust him after he knocked you up? Garret I mean?”

A chuckle escapes. “It’s not as black and white as all that. I didn’t blame him or anything. Neither of us had expected to be more than a summer fling. My dad was still alive and I was stuck here. He had a life, a future at a big fancy school.”

“So, it was shitty timing?” I wonder if the powers that had placed my reincarnated soul inside Sophie knew she would give me up. Had intentionally driven Garret away so she wouldn’t have a choice.

And then I want to kick myself. Of course, they knew, they were the freaking Fates, always dicking with our reality. Even if they hadn’t actively kept Sophie and Garret apart, I had every confidence that Addy had foreseen the outcome.

“You could say that. Garret, well, he’s adjusted now but there was a time where he stuck out like a sore thumb. A tourist and a city boy all in one.”

I was having a hard time picturing Garret walking down a busy city street. Obviously. Sophie knew him better than I did. “So, when did he come back?”

Her lips curve up and her eyes are distant, as though she’s lost in remembering. “About three years after I signed the adoption papers. Garret was relentless in pursuing me. He sold his fancy sports car for a beat-up old truck so he could help me transport fish from my father’s boat to the market. He just wouldn’t go away. We fell into this rhythm that has become our life. Working side by side, taking comfort from each other. And by that point, I was afraid of his reaction when he found out.”

Her face is so easy to read, every feeling she’s experiencing written right there. I can see why Garret couldn’t forget her. No games, no pretense.

It’s easy to let a person like Sophie love you. Easier still to love her back.

Sophie lets out a sigh. “When he asked me to marry him, well, I knew the time had come. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life with the man and not tell him that we already had a child together. Even though I knew I had to tell him, I dreaded his reaction.”

I realized I was holding my breath. “How did he take it?”

She grimaces. “I have never seen him so upset, not before and not since. He went away for a full month and I was sure I would never see him again. And then one day, he came back and offered me this.” She plucks her diamond solitaire out of the lopsided ceramic dish. That must be Tate’s work.

I look at the ring. “So, he got over being mad?”

She shakes her head. “No, he never has.”

I frown. “I don’t understand.”

“Garret is mad at himself. Because he couldn’t protect me.” Her smile is inclusive. “Or you.”

I look away, deciding not to tell her that he’d essentially admitted he would have pushed for an abortion. Let Sophie keep her Prince