I watched him walk away until the end of the hall, and then he turned the corner, and I turned back to Daisy. To my daughter.To my future.
Chapter 33
Daisy
Ididn’t think I could love Max any more than I did the day he surprised me with Lucy’s Narnia nursery and the handmade crib. But every time I saw him gently lower our daughter into it so as not to wake her, I managed to love him even more.
Maybe it was my new perpetual state of exhaustion, but the last six weeks since we’d brought Lucy home from the hospital had been the happiest of my life.
We came home to the house Max had bought for us. The house that had been fingerprinted with my things. Lucy’s things. Transformed every day by the new memories we were carving into its fabric. And for the first time, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
“I don’t know how you always manage to get her down without waking her,” I whispered when Max came back over to me, where I stood watching him from the door.
“I have a magic touch,” he teased and pulled me into his embrace, adding low, “I have one for you too.”
I hummed as his head lowered, and he kissed me slow and sweet—a stolen second in days that sometimes devolved intochaos. Somehow, he always managed to steal a second or several for me. For us. To hold me. To rub my back. To play with my hair. To massage my feet.
Laughter floated upstairs from the kitchen, and Max groaned as he pulled away. “Can I kick them out?”
“Absolutely not.” I chuckled and took his hand, leading us to the stairs.
Max’s family—in any and all combinations—had been at our house in some capacity almost every day since we brought Lucy home. To bring food. Gifts. Clean. Do laundry. Hold the baby so I could take a power nap.
They always said it took a village, and I’d never been more grateful to have one. There was no world where I’d let Max kick them out—even if it was for a delicious reason.
Max grumbled all the way downstairs, where we joined his family—and our belated Thanksgiving celebration.
I’d given birth the week before the holiday—discharged only days before. Without even asking, Ailene and Gigi came to visit us at the house and informed us that the big Kinkade-Hamilton Thanksgiving would be postponed and joined with Christmas. So we planned a Christmas brunch followed by a turkey dinner.
As I walked into the kitchen where everyone was gathered, I couldn’t help but think how I’d gone from basically no family to…all this. A house brimming with people and stuffed full of love, and my heart had never been fuller.
Back downstairs, we joined the jovial crowd, my phone with the video monitor app always in my hand and Max always by my side.
“Daisy, come open your presents.” Frankie swooped her arm through mine. “Max, you’re going to have to let her out of arm’s reach for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes. I’m timing you,” he said as she led me toward the tree Jamie and Kit had put up two weeks ago when we’d taken Lucy to her doctor’s appointment.
Within moments, my hands were filled with food and presents. Lou shoved a blueberry muffin in one hand, and her twin made me open a present with the other. New pajamas—matching ones for me, Max, and Lucy. A gift certificate for a massage. Gift cards for restaurants. Several of them. And then at least two dozen outfits for Lucy…on top of all the hand-me-downs they’d already dropped off.
In return, I doled out all the presents Max and I had ordered while we’d been up in the middle of the night with Lucy. I’d rock the baby, and he’d throw out present ideas for his family.
“Harper’s Christmas gift arrives right after the holiday,” Frankie teased when I set a large box in Harper’s lap, the contents a large fuzzy blanket that she told me she’d been eyeing. The cottage she lived in on the Hamilton farm never got warm enough in the winter, or so she said. “Blaze Stevens and daughter. Residents of Stonebar Harbor.”
“Not funny and not my present,” Harper returned, and to her credit, her voice came out practically emotionless.
“So you aren’t pining for him anymore?”
“It was a high school crush, Frankie,” Harper groaned. “I’m sure you had plenty of those and that Chandler wouldn’t appreciate it if I started teasing you about them.”
I watched as Frankie opened her mouth to reply, but then snapped it shut as her eyes narrowed.
“Are you…dating someone?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Harper’s eyes bulged like she’d been caught, and I waited for her answer too. She hadn’t said anything to me about a boyfriend, but to be fair, every single moment since Lucy hadbeen born, I’d been selfishly focused on my sweet baby, and so had all my conversations with my sister-in-law.
Before Harper had a chance to answer, she turned and looked above me just as a warm voice rumbled over my shoulder.
“Don’t forget my gift,” Max rumbled, joined on either side by his dad and Ailene, who was holding Lucy.
