Page 240 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

She pulls back just enough to look at us, tears still on her cheeks, but she’s smiling.

Really smiling.

“I love you,” she says. “All of you. You have no idea how much.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “We know.”

Epilogue

JUNE

The first thing I notice is that people are touching the toys before they realize they’re doing it.

That sounds strange, probably, but it’s true.

They walk up to the stall because Millie’s artwork catches their eye first, bright little illustrated foxes and bears and mushrooms and sleepy moons printed onto signs and packaging, the tags tied neatly around everything with twine. But then they reach out, almost automatically, and pick something up.

A smooth wooden whale.

A little sensory board with spinning painted leaves.

A set of stackable forest animals with tiny hand-drawn faces and Millie’s warm, whimsical designs worked into the details.

And then their expression changes.

Because they get why it matters. They get why a toy made to be held feels different than one mass-produced in a factory somewhere by people who never really think about anxious little hands or overstimulated little hearts or the comfort of a rounded edge sanded smooth enough to soothe.

I watch it happen over and over from behind the stall table, my hands resting on the small of my back because, apparently, that’s just where they live now. Every time it happens, my chest goes warm all over again.

It’s real.

Not just the market stall, though that too.

Not just the toys or the signs or the fact that Millie and I stayed up way too late the last two nights finishing a display shaped like a tiny woodland cottage.

All of it.

The whole impossible life of it.

The belly under my sweater, huge and heavy and constantly in the way. The twins turning me into a waddling cautionary tale. The ring of people around me that feels less like being watched and more like being held. The home waiting for me. The workshop. My men. The fact that if I look up right now, I know at least one of them will be somewhere nearby pretending not to hover.

I smile to myself and adjust one of the little display signs.

Millie notices immediately.

“What?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at me from where she’s rearranging a stack of illustrated postcards.

“Nothing.”

“That is absolutely not a nothing face.”

I laugh softly. “I’m just… happy.”

Her expression melts on the spot. “Rude. You can’t just say things like that when I’m trying to stay professional.”

I glance around at the cheerful chaos of Redwood Run Saturday market on and lift a brow. “This is your professional?”

“Obviously.”