He laughed; a sound that used to be rare but was now commonplace. “It was worth any cracks in my spine just to see Max’s face.”
“You were looking at Max’s face while you kissed me?” I was slightly horrified that he wasn’t having the same experience I was.
Grant laughed. “I needed a distraction. Not everything in me’s retired.”
He dipped me down again and gave me a second kiss, this one a little bit longer and a cheer went up, mainly from Killian and Owen. I only hoped that the kids still had this after thirty years.
“I heard your spine click that time.” I hadn’t, but it was worth the look on his face to say it.
He laughed and stood me up. “Let’s go talk to our children before we get any complaints.”
It was Payton I found first, standing in a corner, looking at a canape as if it was a turd recently found in the Thames.
“Are you going to eat that or just admire it?”
She looked at me with eyes that were dark because her skin was unnaturally pale. I squinted and gave her an eyeball that was hairier than a yeti in a hard rock phase.
“Something you need to tell me?”
She bit her lips together. “Do you need to get something from the store?”
I raised my brows. “I could get some wine. Although given that you’re not drinking, I’m not sure we’ll need much more.”
Payton shook her head and gestured towards the door. “Let’s go. Before you make that comment any louder.”
I didn’t follow immediately, needing to catch a breath before I went into a conversation that I knew was going to change lives, and not just mine. Payton was the first child I birthed, ten minutes before Seph arrived. She’d been a stubborn little girl who cared enough for ten countries. As a child she’d been ferocious. As a teenager she’d pushed boundaries. In her twenties she’d been determined. As a mother, she’d be fierce.
I caught Grant’s eye as I left, a silent conversation that somewhere in the last three decades we’d perfected.Don’t follow, keep people away and have wine ready when I get back. I’m going in.
He gave a tiny nod and turned back to Max, who was telling some story that had Victoria rolling her eyes. I left the warmth of the kitchen and stepped out into the snow, scurrying over to the store as quickly as I could.
Payton was looking at the shelves in there and seeing nothing. A small smile played at her lips and her hands rested on her flat belly, a belly that wouldn’t be flat in months to come.
“Congratulations.” I pulled her into my arms and tried not to cry, because right now she didn’t need a tearful, over-excited mother. She needed a rock. “Are you excited?”
“Very.”
We stepped back and I saw my girl, a look of awe on her face. The tiny combination of cells and whatever other scientific terms there were, was already the focus of her love.
“What’s Owen said?”
“I haven’t told him yet. Seph knows. He was in the room when I did the test, but I need to tell Owen.”
“So why haven’t you? He’ll be over the moon.” Because that man adored Payton. It was blindingly obvious from the first moment I’d seen him look at her that he’d decided she was his.
“I needed to get my feelings in order before. I just needed that time.”
I nodded. “I get that. Took me two days to tell your father when I found out I was pregnant with you.”
“Did you know how he’d feel?”
I smiled, remembering those couple of days when I’d swung between thinking he’d be elated and then mad. “I knew he’d be happy. We’d talked about having more kids and he knew before I came over here with him that I wanted to be pregnant. I was very,veryclear with him what marrying me meant, and it meant I’d carry children as well as taking on his four.”
“Did he want us?” She looked worried and I realised that we’d never actually had this talk.
I smiled. “Yes. When I told him, he looked absolutely terrified for about ten seconds and stuttered a lot. Then he gave up trying to speak and just held onto me.” Which had led into us re-enacting exactly how he’d gotten me pregnant in the first place, but Payton didn’t need that visual. “We were trying to get pregnant, so it shouldn’t have been such a shock, but you know how well your father deals with anything like that.”
“What about when he found out we were twins?”
