Like a sinking ship, my gaze drew down to where my hand was linked with his. If they knew even half the things Max had already done for me, maybe the better question was “How could they not?”
“Here, let me take that,”Ailene scolded with a smile, shifting the stack of plates from my hands to her own and bringing them to the sink.
“Thank you,” I murmured and took a seat on one of the stools at her kitchen counter. I’d only moved from the dining room to the kitchen, helping the whole Kinkade-Hamilton clan clear the table from dinner. “The tacos were amazing. Thank you again for having me.”
I couldn’t have been happier to learn tonight was taco night. The twenty-odd-person table was filled end to end with taco shells, three different kinds of meat, roasted vegetables, and all the fixings. I’d thought there were a lot of people in the house, but that was nothing compared to the amount of food.
“Oh, of course, Daisy.” Ailene smiled over her shoulder, her hands scrubbing away at the dishes with movements too coordinated to be anything but reflex now. “We’re so happy to have you here. I keep telling them we need some fresh blood at family dinner.”
“Fresh blood, Mom?” Lou laughed as she stood next to her mom and, towel in hand, took the wet plates one after one to dry them. “We’ve added Wade and Maeve to the headcount this year.”
“You know what I want, Elouise.”
Lou shot me a look and filled me in. “Mom wants to run out of room at her table.”
“Run out?”
“Yup.” Lou’s lips popped on thep.
“This way she can ask Jamie to build her a newer, ever bigger one, and then complain it’s not filled again,” Frankie connected the last of the dots.
My heart squeezed painfully—beautifully—and my eyes took a sweep through the house under rapidly fluttering eyelids. Max’s dad, George, was standing by the windows in the living room, holding a baby in each arm, Violet’s daughter, and one of Aurora’s twins, talking to each of them in turn. Next to him stood Nox, who held the other twin. In the dining room, Violet, Chandler, Jamie, and Wade laughed as they cleared the rest of the serving bowls from the table. And in the corner of the kitchen, Max, Kit, and Gigi crowded around the bar, working on a fresh round of drinks, Gigi ordering the two men around, giving them a light thwack with her cane on the back of their legs when they pretended not to listen.
It was easy to be jealous of this family. To be jealous of the way they welcomed people so easily into their fold. But it was even easier to take that green seed of jealousy and plant it deep, storing these memories away to water it later when I needed a reminder of the kind of family I wanted to give my daughter.
My gaze turned back to Ailene and Lou, my heart swelling a little bigger. This was the love I wanted her to feel. The love between mother and daughter, washing dishes in the sink. The love that was unquestionable. Tender but unbreakable. The kind of love I’d never known growing up.
Ailene had raised four children as a single mom, and as I watched her interaction with Lou, I knew it was something they’d done together like this for decades. Meanwhile, when I was younger, I’d washed the dishes alone. My mom was eitherworking or telling me it was the least I could do.The least I could do for the burden I’d caused her.
I never wanted my daughter to feel like a burden. No matter what happened to me or in my life. I wanted her to look at me the way Lou looked at Ailene—like she admired her not for how much she’d been through, but for how much she continued to give to everyone around her.
“Ugh, I miss being pregnant.” Frankie sighed and took a seat on the stool next to me, switching her son, Logan, from one arm to the other.
“You’re crazy,” Violet scoffed gently, striding around her sister-in-law toward the fridge to put away the container of remaining sour cream and salsa. “I was so bloated by the end, I told Jamie I thought I was going to lift off and float away.”
“Good thing I found a way to tie you down,” her husband, the oldest of the Kinkades, walked around her then, maneuvering his auburn head, and pressed a kiss to her neck. She laughed and turned so he could steal one more kiss, this time from her lips.
Frankie laughed, catching my attention just as she looked over to her husband, Chandler, and winked at him.
I quickly brought my glass of ice water to my mouth and took a strong gulp. I envied Max’s cousins for the relationships they had. Even at a family dinner, they still found ways to make each other feel special. I never had that with Todd. With Todd, I’d always been like a trophy by his side. Something to show off but never to take a moment to admire himself. And when we were with his parents, I was a trophy that never gleamed bright enough. And the thought of how they’d treat our daughter made me physically nauseous.
When I lowered my glass, my eyes searched for somewhere safe to land—to give the couple a moment of privacy and let the tightness in my chest that I was ashamed to admit was jealousyloosen. And my gaze found Max. Every time I searched for him, he was there.Always.
“How are you feeling, Daisy?”
I snapped my stare back to Frankie.How was I feeling?Alone. Worried. Angry…Aching.
“You’re in your third trimester now, right?” Frankie continued next to me.
Oh.She was talking about the pregnancy, not…everything else.
“Yeah. I’ll be twenty-nine weeks next week.”
“Oh.” Frankie’s eyes rounded. “I remember twenty-nine weeks.” She tipped her chin in Chandler’s direction. “Chandler remembers those weeksverywell,” she added with another wink to me this time.
The hormones.I knew. I didn’t need a wink or a reminder. I lived with the reminder every day. The way Max’s charm made my breath catch. How his touch made my skin sing. How just a glance made my stomach flutter. Being around Max fed my hormones like they’d been starved my entire life. I tried not to think that maybe they had.
“Everything okay?” Max’s smooth voice rumbled next to me, but it was the brush of his fingers on my lower back that made my breath hitch.
