“It was their last few hours of uninterrupted peace.” Gage takes a careful step back and leaves Nathan struggling to balance on his own two feet, and I gasp. Carefully, I do the same, and Barron looks up at me as if I’ve just left him by the side of a cliff, and I feel likecrap.
“Don’t move,” Gage whispers as we watch the boys to see what they’ll do next. And they do the unthinkable. Barron throws out his left foot and looks up at Gage as if asking forapproval.
“You can do it, big man.” Gage does his best to cheer him on. “It’s all you.” He looks to Nathan who’s staring up at him with rapt attention. “You,too.”
And just like that, the boys each take a wobbly step at the very sametime.
“Oh my goodness!” Mom claps up a storm from behind and sends both boys flat on their bottoms, wailing at the top of theirlungs.
Gage lifts a brow my way. “There goes that good time. But wesawit. We got to witness our boys’ first steps.” He leans in and blesses me with that mouth, and I’m suddenly anxious to get him back to bed. Yes, moving to Emma’s backfired on us twice in one month, but I gave it my best shot. Once she started in on a dirty diaper rant that spanned three hours—I knew picking up stakes was for the better. And for the record, I did not let my boys sit in their mess. They sort of blew their poopy load once she walked into the room. A coincidence? I think not. But, in my defense, our home is just about ready. In fact, I have no clue why we can’t move in right now. It looks perfect to me. Lex has helped me furnish it with the overflow from a decorator’s warehouse in Seattle, and I now actually have a dream home behind the gates at Paragon Estates. It’s too good to be true, and on no level does it feel real. It went from beast to beauty in a single miraculous year. Plus, Gage and I are stronger than ever. Our boys are walking. The love between Gage and me blooms anew each and every day. We really do have itall.
My gaze drifts to my gorgeous husband, and my body cries out for him. Suddenly, it feels like a damn good idea to have a thousand babies with GageOliver.
The guests pour out into the yard with Emma and Barron each quick to snap up agrandchild.
Mom drags Tad over and tries desperately to draw the Olivers into polite conversation—an oxymoron in and of itself, considering both Tad and Emma arepresent.
Tad whacks Barron in the leg with his cane. “Rumor has it, I’m about to dump a couple of freeloaders in less than twenty-four hours! I’m popping the bubbly tonight. Canned beer for everybody! Who’s withme?”
Mom is quick to smack him down like an unwanted gnat. “I said it was asurprise, Tad Landon! I should take that cane and beat you with it!” Mom is quick to drag Tad off, berating him all the way to the edge of the patio, and for a second I’m fearing she’s about to give him a firm shoveoff.
Emma spins poor baby Barron away from the potential beatdown, not that she wouldn’t want to watch. Heck, that might be the most entertaining aspect of the evening, considering I shot down my mother’s offer to dress like a pasty-faced demon. It’s amazing how many times I had to shoutno clownsdirectly in her face before she got the message that she wouldn’t be donning copious amounts of red lipstick while she overshot hermouth.
“What’s this?” Emma looks from me to Gage as if we had some explaining to do, and hewinces.
“I was going to save this for later.” He pulls me in with that loving look in his eyes. “Your mom was helping me out with a littlesurprise.”
“That usually doesn’t end well.” My hands glide down to the seat of his pants, and I cop a feel before moseying right back to his waist. I wasn’t kidding when I said Gage looked especially delicious tonight. Dear God, I hope baby number three doesn’t make his or her—or God forbid,theirdebut in nine months’ time. This boy has my ovariespopping.
Gage sheds that signature grin, and I die in the sweetness of the pure joy he’s exuding. “It ends well tonight.” He digs his hand into his pocket and emerges with a shiny gold key. “We’re spending the night in our own home. Happy birthday, Skyla.” His eyes gloss with tears. Gage Oliver is radiating with elation, and right now so am I. “We’re goinghome.”
“Home!” I clasp my arms over him tight and take in a breath that feels as if I’ve waited years to inhale. “Oh my God!” I jump up onto him, and he spins me with a laugh. “Gage! I love you.” I slip down in his arms until we’re face-to-face once again. “This is the third best gift you’ve ever givenme.”
He inches back a notch, clearly stymied and perhaps a bit affronted by myclaim.
“First, there was you, then our children, and now a house that we get to spend the rest of our lives turning into a home. Life couldn’t get any sweeter thanthis.”
His grin widens, and the whole universe gets suctioned into those dimples that I long to worship with my tongue tonight. I’m pretty sure Gage is growing tired of all the tongue baths I’ve implemented over the years. But I can’t help it. Gage is delicious, right down to the very last bite, and tonight I do plan on biting in all the rightplaces.
He glances out toward the woods, and his grin dissipates amoment.
“Hey?” I wave my hand over his eyes, and his attention jolts back to me. “Everythingokay?”
His body relaxes beneath me. “Everything isgreat.”
Barron breaks into spontaneous applause, but all Emma has to offer is a scowl as if I’ve just shit all over her petunias. How is it that my mother-in-law of all people can’t seem to standme?
“Well, your father and I sure didn’t move in behind the gates at quite a young age,” she starts. It’s Emma’s new song. Complain and whine about what Skyla and Gage have. “And that beast of arefrigerator.” She rolls her eyes. Emma has had quite the list of complaints after inspecting my decorator choices. There wasn’t a hair of carpet that she couldn’t find ten negative things to say somethingabout.
I spot Mom off with Demetri while poor Tad has his head all but dunked in the punch bowl, and I’m thankful for the fruity offense because I’m sure he’d love to play off Emma’s poor-me, privileged-you routine. Emma looks to Gage. “Your father and I decided not to install a refrigerator that cost more than a car when we redid our kitchen. It was a practical decision because we knew you’d be off to college soon, and boy were we right. Have you seen the tuition costs at Host?” She narrows her judgmental gaze my way. “Don’t act surprised in seventeen years when they’re off seeking higher education, and there’s not a penny in the pot. I’m warning you tonight. It’ll be here before you know it.” She smacks her traffic cone orange lips together and shoots her gaze to her son like a skilled sniper. “Are you sure you needed those top-of-the-line appliances? Really? The Wolf range with the red knobs? A double oven at that? Skyla”—she turns her jealous wrath my way once again, and suddenly I’m feeling moved to shove someone off the patio myself—“when was the last time you evenopenedanoven?”
“This morning when my mother asked me to put Tad’s underwear on the top rack.” Honest to God, the dryer is on the fritz, and he won’t get out of the shower unless my mother warms his tightywhities.
Emma’s face grows pale, flaccid, and sickly—a trifecta of agony that usually has the power to shut her down for a few solidminutes.
Although—good God, Emma has a point. If the one and only thing I put into the oven this year was Tad’s underwear, we are off to one fucking bad start as far as my culinary skills areconcerned.
“But Emily volunteered to give me cooking lessons.” I look at Gage with a furious nod as if this totally justified my outrageous choice in kitchen appliances. “Lex says I won’t regret a single move I made. In fact, she said our new kitchen is so drop-dead gorgeous she’s offered to take pictures of it and submit it toParagon Today. We’ll be housefamous.”
