It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the house. The sun was beginning to mellow, casting long, gold lines across the wraparound veranda. The air smelled like home cooking and blooming bougainvillea, heady and sweet, like something from a postcard.
As I stepped through the door, the sight that greeted me caught me off guard.
There, at the kitchen table, was Jordan. One knee pulled up, barefoot, hair a mess, completely absorbed in a Lego kit with his six-year-old niece, Bella. She was cross-legged on the chair beside him, bossing him around with absolute authority.
“No, that piece goes there.” She giggled, pointing with a little finger. “You’re doing it wrong again!”
Jordan sighed dramatically, holding up the instruction booklet. “Look, Bells, if you’re going to supervise like this, you need to bring better snacks and more positive reinforcement.”
She shrieked with laughter.
And I just stood there for a moment, watching them. His brows furrowed in concentration, hers crinkled in glee. Their heads were bent close together over a pile of pink bricks. My heart did something I couldn’t quite describe, somersaulted, maybe. Or melted.
God, this man doing the simplest of things made my heart flutter.
He looked up and spotted me then, that slow, cheeky grin creepingacross his face. The one that lit up his whole face, right through to his eyes.
“You survived then,” he said, rising from his Lego lair, stretching his arms as he padded over to me.
“I did,” I said smugly, still a little breathless. “And I learned so much about little Jordan today. It was deeply educational.”
He groaned and dropped his head to my shoulder. “Oh God. What did Mum tell you?”
“That your first crush was your surf instructor,” I said, “and that you cried when she got married.”
“That’s slander,” he muttered, looping his arms around me, his hands a warm relief against the small of my aching back.
“She also told me about the time you tried to kneecap your brother with a cricket bat.”
“Okay, that one’s true.” He smiled. “But he deserved it.”
I laughed, pressing a kiss to his temple. He smelled as if his skin had been warmed by the sun all day.
He tilted his head back to look at me, his eyes softer now. “You alright?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Perfect.”
His hand found my bump, his thumb grazing gently as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. And then it happened. Without warning and unmistakeable. The baby kicked. Hard.
“Jesus…was that…?” Jordan froze, staring at me.
I caught his hand and moved it back to the spot where I felt him turning. “Yeah. Shit, it’s never been that strong before. Did you feel that one?”
His breath hitched. His eyes glazed over, and for a second, he looked like he couldn’t even speak. I’d been feeling our son fluttering around for weeks, but this, this was the first time Jordan had.
“Bloody hell, yes,” he whispered, his voice breaking as his palm spread wider over my belly, desperate to catch another. His lashes were wet now, but he grinned through it, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s our boy.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Kate
I’d been warnedabout the annual Taylor family New Year’s Eve cricket match. Multiple times.
Izzy had mentioned it like a rite of passage. Sue had called it “chaotic but good-hearted.” Jordan, meanwhile, had just smirked and said, “It gets competitive,” which I’d quickly learned was Taylor code for utter mayhem.
But I hadn’t truly understood the scale of it until I stepped out the back door into the sprawling garden at Jordan’s parents’ place, and walked directly into what looked like a semi-professional cricket arena—if said arena had fairy lights strung across the patio, coolers full of beer, and an eleven-year-old manning the scorecard with a Sharpie.
The backyard pitch was marked out in proper chalk paint. Folding chairs and coolers lined the sides. Kids were darting around with face paint and makeshift flags. Someone had rigged up speakers playing “Eye of the Tiger.”
