DeAndre slid the ring on her finger, and Aniyah couldn’t stop crying as she kissed him. Miss Lily turned to her sisters and dabbed away a tear. “We’ve still got it, ladies.”
Sienna Ashton Parker was sitting in bed reviewing a patient file as her husband, Ryan, cheered on the University of Kentucky Wildcats in basketball. Her dog, Hooch, sprawled on her other side with his gigantic head resting on her unborn baby. Hooch seemed to enjoy the feel of the baby moving beneath him.
“What a play!” Ryan clapped as he reached out with his other hand to hold hers. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
Sienna shook her head. “No. Not okay.”
Hooch’s head shot up and he howled loud enough to wake the dead.
“Indigestion again?” Ryan asked as he reached for the chewable tablets. Hooch was frantic now. His wagging tail was clearing the clock and lamp from the nightstand and his nose was pressed to Sienna’s belly. He was snorting in and howling out.
“What is the . . . are you in labor?”
Sienna only nodded at the contraction rippled across her belly at the same time Hooch howled.
“I’ll call—”
“No! Just us!” Sienna managed to say between gasps. “Holy crap, that hurts.”
“Okay, what do I do? I mean, breathe. Good. Now breathe again.”
“I know how to freaking breathe! Get the bag and start the car.”
Hooch lay down next to her as Ryan went running. The dog’s big brown eyes looked worriedly at her as he nuzzled her belly. Sienna ran a hand over his head. “Don’t worry, big guy. Soon you’ll have a little one to meet.” Hooch wagged his tail and whined.
“Okay,” Ryan called out as he raced back into the room. Suddenly everything slowed for Sienna. There was no more panic, only joy. Soon they’d be a family of three. “I have the bag in the car, the garage door open, and the car heating. Is there anything else I need?”
“Maybe some clothes?” Sienna suggested with a laugh as her husband stood in the doorway completely naked.
Ryan laughed and Sienna held out her hand. He raced over and took it as he helped her from bed. “I’m excited,” Sienna said as she stepped out of her pajamas and pulled on a sweater dress.
“I am too,” Ryan admitted before he gently kissed her.
* * *
“One last push now,” Dr. Emma said from the foot of the bed. Okay, so she had called one person. But Dr. Emma had delivered half of the kids in Keeneston.
“You’re doing great,” Dr. Ava, Emma’s daughter, said with a smile as she held one of Sienna’s legs.
Ryan leaned over and kissed her forehead. “One more push and we meet our child. You’re amazing, Sienna,” he said with tears in his eyes.
Sienna pushed and there was the sound of baby crying. Ava went to assist her mother and Ryan kissed her again as he squeezed her hand. A nurse left the room, but Sienna didn’t notice anything except the baby Dr. Emma had lifted up to place on her chest. “Say hello to your son.”
“Oh, Paige, we have a grandson!” Sienna heard her mother call out.
Sienna looked to Ryan and shook her head as she heard her mother cry out from the hallway. “Just let them in,” she told her husband as Dr. Emma cleaned her up and Dr. Ava weighed her son and wrapped him in a blanket.
As soon as she was ready, Ryan opened the door and her mother, his mother, and Grandma Marcy burst into the room, full of tears, cookies, and gifts.
Ryan approached the bed as Sienna’s mother, Kenna, kissed her and ran a shaking finger over the baby’s chubby cheeks. Ryan took a seat on the other side of the bed and put an arm around his wife. Sienna looked up to see a smile so filled with love and pride that her heart melted all over again.
* * *
“Oh, he’s perfect,” Paige, Ryan’s mom, said through tears.
Sienna handed the baby to Ryan and looked to where Grandma Marcy sat with silent tears streaming down her face. Ryan carried the baby to her and put him in her outstretched hands.
“My first great-grandchild,” she whispered as she placed a kiss on his forehead.
“Can you die happy yet?” a voice from the hallway asked.
“Grandpa,” Ryan laughed as Grandpa Jake came into the room with Ryan’s father, Cole, and Sienna’s father, Will.
“I have a lot more great-grandbabies to hold before I die,” Grandma Marcy said as Grandpa Jake ran an arthritic finger over the baby’s cheek.
“How did y’all know I had the baby?” Sienna asked.
“Since you’re a mother now, we can tell you,” Grandma Marcy said, handing off the baby to Kenna. “The secret is to bribe the nurses. I always bring one of my apple pies, so I got a call before you were even admitted.”
Kenna nodded too. “Cookies.”
“Brownies,” Paige added as Kenna passed the baby to her. “Are you crying?”
“No,” Cole said, wiping a tear away as the baby reached out and grabbed a finger.
“He has the Davies eyes,” Will said to Grandpa Jake, the originator of the hazel eyes that many of the Davies descendants had inherited. Grandpa Jake just nodded, too choked up with emotion to talk.
Finally, after everyone had a turn, his son was back in his arms. Ryan looked down at him and his wife in wonder. She had brought this gift into their lives and he didn’t think he’d ever been so happy. As soon as he heard that baby cry, it was as if his whole life changed in that one instant.
Kissing his son one more time, he placed him in his wife’s arms.
“What’s his name?” Will asked.
Sienna looked to Ryan who nodded for her to tell them. “Ashton Davies Parker. We’re going to call him Ash.”
At that pronouncement, Will sniffled as Marcy and Paige burst into tears. “What a way to honor the entire family,” Will finally said.
“Welcome to Keeneston, Ash,” the Rose sisters said from the door as they smiled at the happy family.
Epilogue
Piper looked at her reflection. Eight weeks. It had been eight weeks since Aiden had entered her life and somehow it felt as if he had always been in her heart. She placed the veil over her face and took a deep breath.
“Are you ready, honey?” her father asked.
“I am,” she said, taking his arm. The wedding and reception were held at the distillery. People were seated at their tables with an aisle down the middle. The dance floor was covered with a red rug and two Christmas trees decorated with white lights, gold ribbon, and red bulbs were on each side of where Father Ben stood with Aiden.
As Cassidy went ahead of Piper as her maid of honor, Aiden broke with the old English tradition of keeping his back turned and looked right at her. Piper’s breath stuck in her throat as she looked at him. He was devastating in his black tuxedo, his eyes filled with love and his lips tipped up into a smile. Wick, his best man, winked at Cassidy as she took her spot, and then he whispered something to Aiden.
Piper’s heart was so filled with love when she stopped next to Aiden. That walk seemed to have taken forever to get to him.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m the lucky man who gets to marry you,” he whispered to her as he took her hand.
“We come together . . .” Father Ben began and all too soon while not being soon enough, “I give you Aiden and Piper Creed.”
Piper danced in the arms of her husband as the town joined in. She smiled as her friend Ava, or Doc Ava as everyone had started calling her when she graduated medical school, danced by her with Luke Tanner holding her tight.
“Who’s he?” Aiden asked. “I feel like I’m getting to know everyone in town, but I haven’t met him yet.”
“Oh, he’s not from here. He’s from Moonshine Hollow, Tennessee. He helped with Reagan and Carter’s rescue when her plane went down,” Piper told him. “And that,” she said, pointing to a tall man with dark hair, “is my cousin Gavin. He’s from Shadows Landing, South Carolina. Next to him are his sister and cousins. The one talking
to my cousin Colton is Ridge Faulkner. He’s a builder and has designed the new fire station for Keeneston.”
“I can’t wait to meet them. But first, I have a gift for you,” Aiden said, leading her from the dance floor.
“What is it? You already gave me this necklace for the wedding.”
“Here you go,” he said pulling an envelope from his tux pocket.
Piper opened it up and found two plane tickets for the next morning. “New Zealand!” she gasped. “But you said you didn’t have time for a honeymoon right now.”
“I lied. I wanted to surprise you. I know you’ve always wanted to go. We leave tomorrow morning and will fly back to Atlanta right in time for Sydney and Deacon’s Daughters of Elizabeth Ball.”
“Oh, Aiden!” she cried, flinging her arms around him and kissing him.
“Come on, wife. Let’s mingle, and then you’re all mine.”
Piper laughed as Aiden’s fingers entwined with hers and they set off on their happily-ever-after.
Tammy watched as her son Dylan, so big and brawny, danced slowly with his littlest sister in his arms. It surprised her how her sons had taken to little Cricket. Not just sons, but all their cousins. Jackson had had the last dance, and Jace was waiting for the next. And when they weren’t holding Cricket, they were holding Ash.
“I think they’re doing it to get women,” Tammy said to the table filled with her friends. They looked to the side of the dance floor where tens of women stood practically drooling.
“Good point. Shoot, I’m through menopause, and I can practically feel my ovaries crying out,” Katelyn said with a laugh as Tammy smacked her.
“Ladies,” Dani Ali Rahman said, lifting a glass of champagne, “to all our achievements this year and to our first grandmothers.”
Kenna and Paige gave a mock bow before clicking glasses in celebration.
“Did you know Ryan would be such an attentive father?” Annie asked her sister-in-law.
“Yes,” Paige said with a small smile. “He was always such a good big brother. Both he and Jackson loved to take care of Greer.” The table looked to where Ryan was now standing with Ash in his arms, talking to his siblings.
“And Sienna is the most peaceful mother I’ve ever seen,” Bridget said, as everyone’s eyes shifted to where Sienna stood talking with friends.
“She’s taken to it with gusto,” Kenna told them. “But now we need to get back to business.”
“The next couple we are going to pair up,” Dani whispered to the group as she brought out the old notebook the Rose sisters had passed down to her, Kenna, and Paige.
“The way Jackson is with little Ash, I would say he’s ready,” Paige said.
“I could say the same for Dylan with Cricket,” Tammy responded.
“What about Wyatt?” Morgan asked Katelyn.
“I would love nothing more than for my son to be married. Soon, but not yet. He’s still struggling to get the farm back on track while running the large animal vet practice. Another year and then he’ll be ready. But my daughter better be giving me a grandchild soon, though,” she said, looking to Sydney.
“And here I am with two children married and not a grandchild to be seen,” Dani added. They all knew Mila and Zain were having fertility issues. But so far Gabe was falling into this diplomacy roll well and Sloane loved working as a counselor at the high school so they appeared to be holding off for a bit.
“I guess I can’t complain about Reagan and Carter since I have baby Ash.” Kenna grinned.
“I can,” Gemma said with offense. “That’s all fine and dandy that you don’t feel the need for Carter to have a baby, but he’s married to my daughter, and I have two daughters married and no grandchildren,” Gemma complained as she looked at her twin girls, Reagan with her husband, Carter, and Riley with her husband, Matt.
“Well, I’m thrilled,” Annie grinned.
“Of course you are. You’re going to be a grandmother next year,” Morgan snorted as they all watched Nash hovering over Sophie. “But there is someone without any chance of becoming a grandmother.”
Everyone at the table looked to Bridget. Neither of her kids, Abby or Kale, was married.
“Ahmed would lose his mind if Abby got married,” Bridget said with a sigh.
“If Cy can get over it, so can Ahmed,” Gemma said with certainty. It had taken quite a bit for Cy to get over his baby girls being married, but now he loved Carter and Matt like sons.
“Miles loves Walker,” Morgan added. “And you know how crazy protective he was of Layne.”
“But is Abby ready?” Dani asked.
Bridget looked over to her daughter standing with her old high school boyfriend, Nolan. Just then Jackson and Dylan joined them. They stood laughing and talking, but there was something in her eyes. Her daughter was closed off. She’d been like that since she graduated college and went to work in a job Bridget knew wasn’t personal security as Abby claimed.
“She might not think so, but I do. It’s time for her to step out from the shadows and be the woman I know her to be. And that means to find a man who will love all of her, including the parts she doesn’t want anyone to see. My husband is going to have to deal with it.”
“Bless his heart,” the table said as one, as Dani wrote Abigail Mueez in the notebook.
“But who do I write beside her?” Dani asked, looking up. “Nolan? Jackson? Dylan? Someone else?”
Bridget looked at her daughter. She could pretend all she wanted, but Bridget knew her and knew her well. “I have an idea, but let me give it a push first to see if I’m right.”
Dani closed the notebook and raised her glass again. “To Abby. May she find true love.”
Aiden held his wife’s hand as they ran through the shower of red rose petals out to their limo for the short drive into Lexington. They were staying in a penthouse suite for privacy and ease to head out on their honeymoon the next morning.
Aiden paused at the door to the limo and bent down. “What’s this? Someone’s knickers?”
“The panty dropper!” Piper gasped as the town crowded around.
“Excuse me,” Miss Lily said as the driver stepped forward to see what was going on. “Did you see anyone out here?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been staying warm in the kitchen. I came out ten minutes ago to start the car. Why is he holding someone’s underwear?”
“Blast! I will find you!” Miss Lily yelled as everyone from the town laughed.
Two people in the crowd laughed, but their laugher was nervous—very nervous. They’d been too careless this time, missing the driver by mere moments. But again, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. This was the last time. Maybe.
She held her husband’s hand as they walked into their bedroom. “What a beautiful wedding.”
“It was,” her husband agreed. “It makes me think of our wedding. You were such a beautiful bride.”
“You’re so sweet,” she said, kissing her husband. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“I’ll be waiting for you in bed.” He wiggled his eyebrows and she laughed. She loved her life.
She turned on the shower, undressed, and then paused as she looked at her naked self in the mirror. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . . it had been eight weeks since she’d had her period. Wait? That wasn’t possible, was it?
She looked at the door and thought about running to tell him, but it was probably just stress. Since this had happened before, she didn’t want to get him excited, so she reached far under the sink for the pink bag she kept there. She unzipped it and pulled out a pregnancy test.
After taking it, she set it on the counter and got into the shower. She thought about it more and knew it had to be stress. That, and her cycle wasn’t the most regular. She’d been down that path twice before, only for her to get her period the next week. She turned off the shower, toweled off, and pulled on her robe. Almost not wanting to look at it and be disappointed again, she told h
erself to just get it over with.
She picked up the test, Pregnant, and screamed for joy.
Her husband raced into the bathroom. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”
She was crying so hard that she couldn’t answer as she handed him the pregnancy test. He looked at it, then at her. “We’re having a baby!” he screamed as he picked her up and spun her around.
* * *
The End
* * *
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Bluegrass Series
Bluegrass State of Mind
Risky Shot
Dead Heat
* * *
Bluegrass Brothers
Bluegrass Undercover
Rising Storm
Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Series Novella
Acquiring Trouble
Relentless Pursuit
Secrets Collide
Final Vow
* * *
Bluegrass Singles
All Hung Up
Bluegrass Dawn
The Perfect Gift
The Keeneston Roses
* * *
Forever Bluegrass Series
Forever Entangled
Forever Hidden
Forever Betrayed
Forever Driven
Forever Secret
Forever Surprised
Forever Concealed
Forever Guarded Page 23
