“I can carry her,” he says, and I groan.
“I will take care of this.” Savannah gets up and comes over to me. “Just remember it’s going to be so much worse when he sees you in labor.” She hugs me and walks out in her mother of the groom dress.
“I would never expect him to be like this,” Kallie says from beside me.
“He followed me into the bathroom the other day,” I say, “because I said I had cramps.”
She rolls her lips. “I had gas.”
“Oh, honey,” she says, trying not to laugh, and I glare at her at the same time our child kicks. My hand goes down to my belly, and I look in the mirror.
The lace dress fits me like a glove, hugging my every curve and showing off my little baby bump. The little lace cap sleeves and then the light pink belt right on top of my bump, going tight to the knee and then kicking off into a mermaid style with a little train. “This is so not how I thought I would look when I got married,” I tell everyone in the room. “I look …”
“You look beautiful,” Kallie says, and the door opens, and Savannah comes back in.
“Okay, so if we don’t get you down the aisle, I think he’s just breaking down the door,” she says, and I shake my head. When we found out five months ago that we were pregnant, he went from laid-back to over the top. He refused to have sex with me, thinking he was shaking the water in the sac and making our child do the wave. Only when the doctor told him it was okay did he give in, not counting the times I would sneak up on him when he was sleeping.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say, grabbing the flowers and then walking to the door.
“That’s so romantic,” Chelsea says. “What everyone always wants to hear. Let’s get this thing over with.” All I do is glare at her, and she looks at me. “I can’t wait to have normal Emily back.”
I laugh now, and when I stand outside the closed door, I hear the pianist start to play, and then the door opens, and I look down the aisle at him wearing a suit with his hands in front of him, and his face breaks out into a smile. I start walking down the aisle, and all I can do is look at him. When I finally make it down the aisle, he grabs my hand and brings it to his mouth. “You look amazing,” he says, “but you could have tripped.”
“Shut up,” I say. “Don’t ruin this for me or so help me God …” Leaning into him, I say, “I’ll say no.”
I glare at him, and he just laughs at me, grabbing my face in his hands. “You wouldn’t dare, Sunrise,” he says, kissing my lips.
“Well, it seems that we have gotten a little bit off of the path,” the preacher says, making everyone laugh. I hand my bouquet to Jenna, who just smiles at me through her tears.
“Now, shall we start at the beginning?”
“Yes,” Ethan says, and he holds my hand the whole time. I don’t even hear all the things he says because I’m too busy looking over at Ethan. He is still the handsome boy I fell in love with under the stars—the boy who waited until I was fifteen before he kissed me.
“I’ve been told that Ethan and Emily will say their own vows,” the preacher says, and he tells us to face each other and hold hands. “Emily.” I smile at him and then look at Ethan.
“Ethan,” I say, suddenly nervous. “My Ethan.” I look into his blue eyes, and all I can do is feel loved. “I knew I loved you when I was fifteen years old, and I snuck out of my house to watch the sunrise with you. I knew lying there looking up at the stars that I wanted you to be with me forever. When we would see stars flying through the sky, and you would tell me to make a wish, it would always be the same thing. To always be with you.” A tear comes out of my eye, and he lets my hand go to wipe it away with his thumb. “Thank you for loving me with everything you are. Thank you for loving our child to the point of driving me insane. Thank you for being you, thank you for choosing me to walk beside you for the rest of our lives. Thank you for giving me the best life anyone could ask for.” I smile at him, and he leans forward and kisses me softly.
“Sorry,” he tells the preacher. “I don’t like it when she cries.”
“You are forgiven,” the preacher says. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Emily,” he says, “Sunrise …” I look down and then up again. “I don’t know where to start, so I’m going to start at the beginning. Asking you to be my girlfriend was the best thing I ever did.” I can’t help but smile. “Falling in love with you came so easy. I didn’t even know it was happening until one day I looked over at you and my heart skipped a beat, and I knew I could never be without you. My body, my mind, my soul, and my heart. They are all yours. Everything.” He sheds a tear, and it’s my turn to wipe it away. “Everything that I am is because I want to be that better person for you. I am going to hold your hand every single morning when we watch the sunrise. I’m going to wipe away your tears when you cry. I’m going to hold you up when you fall. I am going to hold you in my arms every single night while we sleep. I belong to you, my heart belongs to you in this life, in our past life, and in our next life, it will always be you.” He comes to me and kisses me and then looks over at the preacher. “She’s my wife now.”
“Not yet,” he tells him. “You have to exchange rings. Emily, place the ring on Ethan’s finger and repeat after me.”
He says the words, and I repeat after him. “I give you this ring as a token of my love, and I promise that from this day forward, I will love you, honor you, and cherish you, in sickness and in health for all of the days of our lives.” I slide the ring down his finger, and he smiles big, then he takes my hand and repeats after the preacher.
“Emily, I give you this ring as a token of my love, and I promise you that I will love you, honor you, cherish you all of the days of our lives, in sickness and in health.” He slides the ring down and then kisses them.
“Ethan,” he says. “You may now kiss your bride.”
“Finally,” he says, making everyone laugh. He grabs my face like he always does and brings me in closer. “Forever, Sunrise,” he says, kissing me on the lips. Our friends and family cheer and clap while he kisses me and then gets down and kisses my stomach, rubbing his hands over it like he does every single day.
The preacher now announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. and Mrs. Ethan McIntyre.”
Epilogue Two
Ethan
Four months later
“You are doing so well,” I say, pushing back the hair on her head as she tries to push again. The agony is all over her face, and it’s taking everything in my power not to punch the wall.
“It hurts,” she tells me, her voice going so low. “I’m so tired.” She looks at me, and her face is pale because she’s been in labor for two days now. Her water finally broke fourteen hours ago. We came when she started getting contractions, but we were sent home, and until they were four minutes apart, we were told that it was just the course it would take.
“I know you are, Sunrise,” I say. “And if I could, I would take away all your pain.”
“Okay, Emily,” the doctor says from between her legs. “It’s time to push again.”
“I can’t,” Emily says, crying. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I say, holding her hand. “Look at me,” I say. “Look at me.” She turns her head. “You are the strongest person I know. You can do this.”
“Push,” the doctor says, and Emily grips my hand as hard as she can and pushes while the doctor and the nurse both count to ten. “Again,” the doctor says, and Emily grunts out when she finally gets to the next ten.
“I see a head,” the nurse says from the other side of Emily. “Lots of hair.”
“Okay, I need you to give us everything that you have,” the doctor says, and Emily grips my hand again, and she does it. “One more push and your baby is going to be here,” she says, and Emily pushes one more time, and then it happens so fast. The baby comes out, she suctions something out of the mouth, and the sound of crying fills the room. The doctor places the baby directly onto Emily�
��s chest, and she sobs, holding the baby in her arms. My own tears pour down my face as I hug her and the baby in my arms. “It’s a boy,” the doctor says, and all I can hear is Emily sobbing as she talks to him.
“He’s so beautiful,” she says, kissing his head. “Ethan, look at our baby.” She doesn’t have to tell me because I can’t take my eyes off him. He is perfect and pink and huge. The nurse smiles at us.
“Daddy,” the doctor calls me. “Time to cut the cord.” She hands me the scissors and tells me to cut between two yellow pegs.
“Okay, I have to get him cleaned up,” the nurse says, taking the baby away from Emily, and I almost shout at her to bring him back.
“Ethan, go with him,” she tells me, and I just shake my head.
“I’m not leaving you,” I say, sitting next to her as the doctor finishes with her, my eye on the nurse in the corner as she does what she needs to do.
She comes back to us, our son wrapped in a blue blanket with a blue hat on his head. “He is a big boy at nine pounds, ten ounces.” She places the baby in my arms, and I don’t think I have ever felt a love like this. A love that is so unconditional that it just pours through your bones. Knowing that you are going to protect him, teach him, love him, it’s a love that is so powerful nothing can break the bond. “Good job, Momma.”
“Hey there,” I tell him between tears, his eyes blinking open and closed as he takes in his new world. “I’m going to be by your side your whole life,” I say, and he opens his mouth like he is going to answer me. “Sunrise,” I say, and she looks at me. “What do we call him?”
She smiles. “Let’s tell the family together.”
I hand her the baby and walk out into the waiting room. I walk into the room, expecting for just our parents to be there, but the room is full of family, mostly mine, and when I walk in, the room goes quiet. “I have a son,” I say, and the cheers erupt, but it’s my father who catches me before I hit the floor. “I have a son,” I tell him between sobs as he hugs me. “A son.”
“You’re going to be the best father,” he says, grabbing my head and kissing me right where the cross is. “The best of the best.”
“Can we see them?” Emily's mother, Dora, looks at me as she holds my mother by the shoulders, both in tears.
“Yeah, just the parents for now.” I look at everyone. “Then I’ll see if I can bring him out.”
I’m walking with my father as my mother and Dora walk down the hallway. “Where are Kallie and Beau?” I ask, looking at them standing there hugging. “You guys,” I tell them. “Come on.”
“Oh, no,” Kallie says, never overstepping as always. “It’s good.”
“Beau,” I tell him, and he just nods at me and brings Kallie with him. She holds my hand, and I look down at her, the tears running down her face.
“I’m so proud of you,” she says, hugging me now, and when we walk into the room, my eyes automatically do a sweep to make sure I see both of them there.
My mother hands the baby to Dora, and then Emily looks at me almost as if she wants to sleep. “You ready, Daddy?” she says to me, and I just smile at her.
“What’s the baby’s name?” Dora asks. I look at Emily, and she nods her head.
“Well,” I say, walking over to Dora as she hands me my son. “It gives me the greatest honor to introduce you to Gabriel McIntyre,” I say, and it’s my father who now has to be held up. He puts his hands in front of his mouth and sobs. I walk to him and then Kallie, who is equally sobbing. “Guys, meet your grandson Gabriel.”
ONE WEEK LATER
I put the truck in park right by the curb and get out, grabbing the white papers in my hands. I walk through the grass and stop when I get to where I want to be. I look down, seeing pink flowers, and I laugh.
“We’ve never met,” I say. “And you don’t know me, but you sent me a gift on my twenty-first birthday.” I swallow, holding the white papers up and then taking a lighter out and lighting them on fire. “For the longest time, I thought about the reason you sent them. I kept going over and over it in my head, and there was nothing that I could think of that would make this a good thing. Then I met my biological father, and I knew then that you did it out of spite. You did it because you are just a horrible fucking person. I don’t know what you wanted to achieve with them, and I don’t give a fuck. What you didn’t do is you couldn’t break the bond or the love that I have with my family. You rocked the foundation there for a bit, but what you weren’t expecting is for us to build it back up stronger and better.” I look at the sky as the papers turn to black ash. “I have a son, and I’m going to raise him the same way my father raised me. Love, respect, and dignity, something you don’t know anything about. I hope you are rotting in fucking hell, old man,” I say, placing the papers down in front of the tombstone that reads.
Mr. Clint Huntington
Loving husband & father
The End at least for now! But you know what they say in the south, when one secret is revealed another one is buried.
Southern Heart
Coming March 2021
Make sure to never miss an announcement
Newsletter
ONLY ONE KISS SNEAK PEEK
If you love my Something So and my This Is series get ready because THE ONLY ONE SERIES IS COMING.
THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN!
Chapter One
Candace
“Aaron, please explain to me how you ended up ‘balls deep’ in the Stanley Cup?” You fucking idiot, I say in my head instead of out loud, pinching the bridge of my nose as I lean back in my chair.
I close my eyes as I listen to him. “Can.” He groans my nickname. “It was a private party. I’m allowed to be naked at my house. Fuck, I just won the Stanley Cup,” he snaps.
“There were over one hundred people there. Did you know all one hundred?” I ask but then don’t wait for an answer before I continue. “I wake up this morning to phone notifications through the roof, and then I open it, and there you are. Swinging your dick like you’re fucking Tarzan.”
“You looked at my dick?” He chuckles, and now it’s my turn to groan. “I always thought you liked me. But now that you see I’m a shower and a grower…?”
“Can you for one second shut up?” I ask, trying to stay professional by not telling him that I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. “How do you want me to spin this?”
“How about you say that I was celebrating on my own private property, and that being said, I was having fun.” He almost groans out. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Actually,” I start. “It’s a huge deal, considering we spent the past year pushing you as a family man.”
“How do you think I got the family?” He laughs at his stupid joke, and I know that this conversation isn’t going nowhere.
“Auntie Can!” Hearing my name, I look up from my laptop toward the doorway and see my three-year-old niece, Zoey, running toward me. She climbs onto my lap, and I kiss her head as she leans forward to grab the pen next to my agenda. I reach for her book and open it so she can doodle on it.
I hang up with Aaron and look at my niece. “Don’t ever date hockey players,” I say and then hear my brother, Evan.
“Don’t ever date anyone,” he says, and I look over at him as he leans against the doorframe watching us. He and his wife, Zara, are in town from New York, visiting for the week. I’m in Dallas because Evan got drafted here when he was eighteen. When he turned twenty, his career really started to take off, so he began to work on his image and his branding, and that is where I as his little sister came into the picture. I took over his social media accounts, posting things each day, and the bigger he got on Twitter and Facebook, the more his jersey flew off the shelves. He brought me out to visit him, and the visit lasted longer than anyone expected. It started with him telling one person, and then the other person told another one, and I now manage the social media accounts of over fifty NHL players. I speak with each of them or their ass
istants once a month, and we go over everything they need. I also have a waitlist for the ones I can’t take on right now.
“What are you complaining about now?” Zara asks, hugging his waist. The story of the two of them is rather funny. She tweeted him, and before I had a chance to answer her, he agreed to be her plus one to crash her ex’s wedding. Well, I wasn’t the nicest person to her when she first came into the picture. To be completely honest with you, I was a bitch. I hated her before I’d even met her, but then I slowly got to know her. When he got traded to New York, he tried to get me to go with him, but my home was here in Dallas now. This is where I wanted to be.
“He’s complaining that Zoey can’t date,” I say, and she just shakes her head as I hug Zoey close to me. I kiss her head, and she looks up at me with big eyes and a huge smile.
“Did everything work out okay?” Zara asks, coming into my home office and sitting on my new loveseat. I smile when I look around because it’s decorated in my favorite color pink and everything I love from the throw pillows on the cream-colored couch to the furry pink leopard blanket that Zoey usually uses as a cape.
“I mean, define okay?” I say and then look down at Zoey who squirms in my lap to get down. Grabbing her pen and book, she walks over to the loveseat and climbs up next to Zara.
“I saw the video,” Zara says, looking down to make sure that Zoey doesn’t color on the cushion.
“You saw the video?” Evan asks in shock, coming in and scooting Zara over so he can sit next to her and pull her closer to him. “Why would you look at the video?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she says, laughing, “but it’s trending on Twitter.”
I close my eyes. “Of course it is,” I say and then look over to see that Zoey has laid down and asked for Zara to cover her.
Southern Sunrise Page 18
