“Lee and Indy, two. Eddie and Jet, three. Hank and Roxie, two. Vance and Jules, three. Ava and Luke, two. Stella and Mace, one. Sadie and Hector, two. Ren and Ally, this will be two. Which makes almost seventeen.”
Marcus had gone still.
She had them counted out.
Seventeen for her girls.
None for Daisy.
Marcus and his wife had everything.
But they couldn’t have kids.
They’d tried.
But according to the doctors, and after two failed tries at in vitro, they’d been told it most likely just wasn’t going to happen.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
He held her closer and dipped his face to hers.
“I’ll say it again, and I really want you to think on it this time. We can adopt. Now, especially, we can adopt.”
He’d taken all of his concerns legitimate and gone into business with Vito Zano’s nephew, Daisy’s friend Ally’s husband, Ren Zano. There was nothing preventing them from adopting. Not their ages. Not money. Not his business. Not now.
She nodded. “I’ll think on it, Marcus.” Her eyes focused on his. “I’m real happy for her, sugar. Just—”
“I know,” he said quietly, and fuck him, but he did know, and he hated knowing it. He bent to give her a soft kiss. “Go do your facial, darling. I’ll bring some champagne up.”
She gave him a distracted smile.
He let her go and watched her walk up the stairs.
Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it, seeing her before their wedding in her gown. Maybe he’d given them bad luck.
Or maybe there was a god, theirs, who wanted them to remember not to take anything for granted.
But he suspected there was a god, his, who wanted to use the most important thing in his life to remind him, to have the life he’d been able to give her, there was penance to be paid.
He’d done all he’d done and, especially when it allowed him to give Daisy the life she deserved, he’d done it without remorse.
But Marcus stared at the stairs up which his wife had disappeared.
And for the first time in his life, repentance sliced through him like a blade.
* * * *
She moved on him, her hands trailing his abs, her eyes watching, her glides slow, her face languid, her bottom lip caught in her teeth.
Christ, she was beautiful.
Marcus put his hands to her hips, bucked and turned, taking her to her back, him over her, loving hearing her breathy gasp.
He lifted his head, moved inside, feeling her sleek, wet silkiness gorgeous and tight around him. He looked in her eyes, found her hand, and laced his fingers through hers.
“Love you, baby,” she whispered, rounding his thighs with her legs and lifting her hips to take him deep.
He touched his nose to hers. “Love you too, Daisy.”
Then he took her mouth, tightened his hand in hers, slid his other one between them, down, and found her.
She whimpered against his tongue.
Marcus went faster.
“Love you,” he whispered against her lips.
“You too, Marcus.”
He kept moving, faster, deeper, harder.
“Love you,” he repeated.
Her fingers clenched his hand.
“Love…” her body jolted, “love you. So much. Love you, honey.” On that, her neck arched back and she breathed, “God, Marcus.”
Her hand tensed in his, so hard it caused pain through the webbing.
He didn’t care.
He was focused on watching his wife coming.
* * * *
The next morning…
Marcus took in a breath then took hold of the case holding a pearl necklace against a bed of blue silk.
He took it to his pajama drawer, shoved the clothing aside, laid it on the bottom of the drawer and pulled the clothing over it.
After that, he went downstairs and nabbed the two glasses with peacocks on them that his wife had on display in a glass-fronted cupboard, the only things on their shelf.
He took them upstairs to their closet and set them where the pearls had been.
In the coming days, weeks, months, he knew she’d noticed the pearls were gone.
And it carved right through his heart what it meant when she didn’t say a thing.
But his Daisy knew how to do one thing very well.
She knew how to move on.
And Marcus was put on this earth to do one thing and do it well.
To help her to get to that, if the need arose, and then be at her side when she did it.
* * * *
Two and a half months after that morning…
The door opened and Ren, sitting in a chair in front of Marcus’s desk, turned his head to it.
He went still at what he saw.
Marcus looked that way.
And he went solid.
A second later, he forced himself to stand.
So did Ren.
“Hey, Ren,” Daisy said and she walked in.
“Daisy,” Ren replied. “You okay?”
Marcus was rounding his desk.
“Uh, yeah. Can I…sorry to interrupt. But can I have a second with my husband?” she asked, moving into the room.
“Of course,” Ren murmured.
Marcus vaguely felt his partner’s gaze, but only vaguely.
His focus was on his wife.
He had his hands spanning her waist, heard the door close after Ren, and instantly asked, “Which Rock Chick?”
“Pardon?”
He stared at her face and repeated, “Which Rock Chick?”
Her brows drew together, her head (and mess of hair) tipped to the side, and she asked, “What’re you talkin’ about, sugar?”
“You look…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you look.”
And he didn’t.
Even with all the shenanigans of the Rock Chicks, Daisy had never looked like this.
And those shenanigans had all ended, even if Daisy now spent her days being PA to Ally Zano in her private investigations business. A business that was situated right across the hall from Marcus and Ren’s so the men could (unobtrusively) keep an eye on their women.
“I don’t know how I look either.”
With the stunned expression etched in her face, he lost patience and growled, “What’s going on?”
“Marcus,” she said, but that was all she said.
“Daisy,” he clipped out.
She put her hands to his chest and looked into his eyes.
“I just got back from the doctor.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Penance.
Fuck.
His fingers gripped her tight as the entirety of his chest contracted to the point it felt like it was going to implode.
His voice was hoarse and rough and not his own when he asked, “Why were you at the doctor, darling?”
“I’m…”
She looked to his chin, his throat, his chest, and when she lifted her eyes to his, they were filled with tears.
Fuck!
“Pregnant,” she finished.
Marcus again went solid.
“I…she doesn’t…” She shook her head. “She doesn’t know how it happened. But when I skipped one month, then two, I took seven pregnancy tests at home. They were all positive. So I went to her. And she confirmed it.” She leaned into him. “Marcus, honey, I’m preg—”
She didn’t finish because his mouth crushed down on hers.
When he ended the kiss, he cupped her head and shoved it in his chest.
“I’m takin’ that as you bein’ happy,” she noted, her voice muffled against his shirt.
His voice was just gruff when he forced out, “Yes. I’m happy.”
His wife wound her arms around his middle.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered into his chest.
Marcus was breathing
through his nose.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated.
Marcus closed his eyes as the wonder in her voice started coating the region around his heart.
He felt her push her head back.
And he also felt her hand on his jaw.
Last, he felt her thumb trail through the line of wet that was on his cheek.
He opened his eyes and saw her gazing up at him, her blue eyes lit with happy.
“We’re pregnant, baby,” she whispered.
Then her body bucked and she let out a sob that ended in a peal of laughter that filled his office with bells.
Only then did Marcus smile.
* * * *
Six and a half months later…
Marcus walked into the room.
“Well?” Tex boomed.
He looked at the big man with his big beard and wild head of gray-blond hair in his plaid flannel shirt, and then his eyes swept through the room.
It was so full, some were coming up from sitting on the floor.
“God, tell us, brother,” Duke demanded, and Marcus locked eyes with the man with the gray braid, leather vest, black T-shirt, and red bandana wrapped around his head.
“Serious, dude, spill!” a man (loosely termed as thus) who called himself The Kevster shouted. He was standing but doing it shifting foot to foot.
“It’s a girl,” Marcus said. His eyes moved to one of the women in the room. “Her name is Annamae Shirleen.”
Delivering that, he watched as tears slid down Shirleen’s cheeks.
Marcus looked through the Rock Chicks, their men, and the rest of Daisy’s friends that were family and finished, “Both mother and daughter are perfect.”
“Holy crap,” Indy breathed then burst into tears and shoved her face in Lee’s chest.
“Oh my God,” Jet murmured then smiled a smile that made a very pretty woman stunning, turning to aim it to her husband, Eddie.
“Holy cow,” Roxie whispered, then she too burst into tears as well as shoved her face in her husband, Hank’s, chest.
“Damn,” Jules muttered though a huge smile, and leaned against her husband, Vance.
“Awesome,” Ava sighed, her body visibly trembling from either trying not to cry, or perhaps laugh, so her husband Luke pulled her closer.
“Lordy be,” Stella mumbled, also smiling, standing in the round of her husband, Mace’s arm.
“Aces,” Sadie breathed, tears brimming, and her husband, Hector, pulled her into a tight embrace.
Shirleen just stood in the curve of her adopted son, Roam’s arm, silently weeping.
“Righteous,” Ally muttered, looking like she was about ready to burst out laughing. She had both her arms wrapped around an equally smiling Ren’s middle and she gave him a visible squeeze.
“Cigars, all around!” a woman named Annette declared loudly, opening a big macramé bag and pulling out a fistful of brightly-colored, plastic-covered cigars made of bubble gum.
“Oh my God,” Tod mumbled and turned to his husband, Stevie. “Thank heaven I went with the pink baby book. I know the ultrasound said girl, but sometimes they mess that up. I was thinking yellow, just to be sure. But Daisy screams pink! Seeing as I already filled it with seven-dozen pictures of her pregnant, and seven dozen more of that shower May threw her, I can’t go back now. I’m glad in twenty years I don’t have to explain a pink baby book to a surprise boy.”
Stevie just shook his head at his husband, but he did it smiling.
“Rock ’n’ roll!” Tex bellowed for some reason, making some jump, others smile, and the rest start laughing. “Can we see her?” he asked. “That bein’ both hers,” he clarified. “Daisy and Mini-Daisy?”
Marcus nodded but said, “She wants Shirleen first.”
He nearly had to jump out of the way as Shirleen sprinted to the doors behind him.
Sniff, Shrileen’s other adopted son, chuckled.
“Woman’s nuts for babies,” he muttered.
“Thank God,” Ava mumbled into Luke’s chest.
Marcus let his gaze slide through the Rock Chicks. “She’ll want the lot of you next.”
He got nods and then Marcus looked to Darius. He looked to Lee. After that, he looked to Luke.
He felt Michelle come up to his side. His sister gave him a hug.
He hugged her back and said into her ear, “Be ready. We need to take turns, but she wants you too.”
He lifted his head and looked down at his sister in time to catch her nod and witness her wet cheeks before a smiling-so-big-his-face-had-to-hurt Doug pulled her from Marcus’s arms into his own.
Before he turned to retrace his steps, he looked at two last people.
“She wants the both of you too.”
Smithie’s smile split his face, he grabbed LaTeesha’s hand, and they followed Marcus as he led them to his wife.
And their baby daughter.
* * * *
Daisy
Five days later…
“You know what?” I asked Marcus.
He was across from me in our bed. His body on his side, his legs curved up, his knees touching mine because I was in the same position, mirrored opposite him.
Annamae lay sleeping in her swaddles between us.
His beautiful blue eyes came from the top of her dark fuzzed head to me.
“What, honey?” he asked.
“She never has to do it.”
He took his hand from our baby girl’s belly, reached out, and ran the tips of his fingers down my cheekbone.
“Do what, darling?” he whispered.
“She’ll never have to build castles.”
That was when his hand curved around the back of my head and he pulled me across the pillows until the tops of our heads collided, our eyes aimed at baby fuzz.
“Never,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Not ever,” I whispered.
Finding his hand and linking it with mine, I held it at the bottom of her swaddled feet against the sheets on the bed where we’d made our Annamae.
Me and my prince charming in our castle with our happily ever after swaddled and sleeping between a momma who loved her, a daddy who adored her, born into a world that just with that, she had everything.
* * * *
Thirteen years later…
“A Southern woman always has her table laid.”
“Yes, Momma.”
I took my eyes from my daughter as I saw a flash go across the doorway to the dining room.
A flash of a dark head on top of a tall, lean eleven-year-old body.
“Smithson Sloan!” I called. “What’d I say about runnin’ in the house?”
Marcus sauntered in the doorway and stopped.
He winked at his girl.
He grinned at me.
“Your son doesn’t listen to his mother,” I declared.
“Stretch!” he bellowed. “You best be listening to your mother.”
“Right, Dad!” Stretch shouted from somewhere, probably making trouble, and definitely lying.
Shouting in my house.
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.
Annamae giggled and it sounded like bells.
I rolled my eyes to my girl.
I loved that sound.
Even so.
“This isn’t funny, honey bunches of oats,” I told her.
“It’s hilarious, Momma,” she replied, her finger in her necklace, not twisting, just looping around.
My girl loved her pearls.
I knew this because she’d worn them every day since the day her daddy and I gave them to her.
Marcus came into the room, took his daughter in the curve of his arm, and kissed the top of her head.
Having done that, he looked to me.
“Are you cooking or am I?” he asked.
Had he lost his mind?
What kind of question was that?
“Whose house is this?” I asked back.
“Ours,” he answered.
&n
bsp; Okay, he was right about that.
“Whose kitchen is it?” I went on.
He grinned and pulled his baby girl closer. “Yours.”
“Then who’s cooking?”
“Darling, get on with it. Your family’s hungry.”
“I’m givin’ Southern woman lessons to my daughter, comprende?”
“She gives them to me, like, every day,” Annamae whispered to her daddy.
“I don’t want you to forget,” I shot at her.
“Momma, if a boy doesn’t open my door for me, Daddy’ll break his legs and Stretch’ll shoot him. You got nothing to worry about.” Her grin got cheeky as she concluded, “Comprende?”
I comprende’d because that was probably the sorry truth.
My son needed to stop hanging with the Hot Bunch and their crazy posse. He was better at target practice than Vance, something Vance shared with me proudly.
Something that gave me heart palpitations.
I didn’t even think of what Stella told me that Mace told her that he’d taught him to do, and Mace didn’t even live in Denver anymore. He’d taught him over Skype, of all things.
And I’d had to have a facial and call my masseuse when Stretch came back after spending an afternoon with Tex.
To communicate my feelings on the matter, I huffed.
“You gonna help your momma cook?” I asked my girl.
“Yep.”
“Then get your behind in the kitchen, sugar.”
She grinned at me again, looked up at her daddy, and grinned at him and got a kiss on the nose for her troubles.
I felt that in my belly.
And right in the heart.
Annamae took off from the room, my husband watched her, and when she disappeared, his eyes came to me.
“You do know our daughter has a huge ole crush on Callum Nightingale,” I shared.
His face turned thunderous.
Uh-oh.
Right, time to fix that.
Easy.
“Love you,” I whispered.
The thunder went out of his face.
“Love you too,” Marcus whispered back.
“Walk me to the kitchen, sugar?”
He lifted his arm to me.
I rounded my grand dining table set with the finest china, crystal, and silver that I could find.