“I’m sure he likes you too. You can be friends who live near each other. Why don’t you make him a house by the creek and see if he wants to live there?”
His face brightened. “Brilliant!” He turned and darted away, Gwen swerved out of his path, shaking her head as she came and sat. Tristanhad worried Gwen would be angry after his abandonment and then returning with a bride. A stranger. She’d been timid at first, but for a long time she’d been the only girl and now she had someone on her side. At thirteen, she was growing into a young woman and Tristan thanked his stars every night that he’d married Flick just in time.
“What time will they arrive?” Gwen asked. She held a stuffed rabbit to her chest. Another creation of Flick’s. Nervous as Gwen was, she was eager to have a friend the same age. Flick had talked about her sisters so much, Tristan felt like he already knew them.
Flick straightened and arched her back. “Oh, hopefully before dark. I’d hate to have them traveling at night.”
“Soon, Gwen,” he said.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I wasn’t asking you.”
Tristan sighed, thanking the heavens once again for Flick’s presence in his life. Nothing he did or said was right in Gwen’s eyes, because he was a boy, and boys were useless at her age. She looked up to Flick, not as a mother, but as a sister. An older, wiser, understanding, and experienced sister.
“Well before dark, I think, if anyone cares what I think,” Tristan said.
Another eyeroll from Gwen. “I’m going to wait outside.”
Flick approached him, now that both children were occupied elsewhere. He stretched out. Folding his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles. She slid onto his lap and lay on his chest, kissing his chin.
“I think she’s excited,” she said.
“I don’t think Lark Hall has ever held this many girls at once.”
“We’ll finally outnumber you boys.” She grinned. “Sam and Daisy should arrive right about the same time as Amelia and Graham. I’ll have to thank them for bringing my sisters up with them.”
“Hmm.” He wrapped his arms around her. “This house will be crawling with people. We’ll never be alone.”
“We will at night in our room.”
“As long as Dougal doesn’t have any nightmares.”
“He’s getting better. They both are. I don’t know them as well as you, but they seem happy.”
“They’ve been through so much, so young. But aye, they do look happy. This is exactly what I wanted.”
“What. A house full of people?”
“This life. You, me, our siblings, our friends. All of us together. A happy ending.”
“Ending? I like to think of it as a beginning.”
“I like that, too.”
“We’ll never have this peace again, you know. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Babies are pure chaos.”
“Who’s bringing a baby to the house?”
She straightened in his lap. “No one is bringing a baby, Tristan. We’re going tohavea baby.”
His mind blanked. He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. “We are?”
She smiled. “More people than you bargained for?”
He touched her stomach, her body still slim but growing stronger since they’d been here laboring to put the house to rights and make it a home again.
