He lifted his head and looked down at his sister in time tocatch her nod and witness her wet cheeks before asmiling-so-big-his-face-had-to-hurt Doug pulled her from Marcus’s arms into hisown.
Before he turned to retrace his steps, he looked at two lastpeople.
“She wants the both of you too.”
Smithie’s smile split his face, he grabbedLaTeesha’shand, and they followed Marcus as he led them tohis wife.
And their baby daughter.
Daisy
Five days later…
“You know what?”I asked Marcus.
He was across from me in our bed.His body on his side, hislegs curved up, his knees touching mine because I was in the same position,mirrored opposite him.
Annamae lay sleeping in her swaddles between us.
His beautiful blue eyes came from the top of her dark fuzzedhead to me.
“What, honey?”he asked.
“She never has to do it.”
He took his hand from our baby girl’s belly, reached out,and ran the tips of his fingers down my cheekbone.
“Do what, darling?”he whispered.
“She’ll never have to build castles.”
That was when his hand curved around the back of my head andhe pulled me across the pillows until the tops of our heads collided, our eyesaimed at baby fuzz.
“Never,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Not ever,” I whispered.
Finding his hand and linking it with mine, I held it at thebottom of her swaddled feet against the sheets on the bed where we’d made ourAnnamae.
Me and my prince charming in our castle with our happilyever after swaddled and sleeping between a momma who loved her, a daddy whoadored her, born into a world that just with that, she had everything.
Thirteen years later…
“A Southern woman always has her table laid.”
“Yes, Momma.”
I took my eyes from my daughter as I saw a flash go acrossthe doorway to the dining room.
A flash of a dark head on top of a tall, leaneleven-year-old body.
“Smithson Sloan!”I called.“What’d I say aboutrunnin’ in the house?”
Marcus sauntered in the doorway and stopped.
He winked at his girl.
He grinned at me.
