Drake growls, pulling me into his arms possessively. “Who is your favorite?”
He kisses me breathless. “You. You’re my favorite. Always you.”
“Better.”
By the time Blake and Hutch knock on the door, we are both showered and dressed. I even managed to put my few clothes away in the closet and dresser. It’s not much, but just having this one small bag of my things makes me feel more centered. More like this is where I belong.
I’m surprised when shortly after Blake and Hutch arrive; Chad, Law, Travis, Mack, a couple other people who work at Invictus that I don’t know, even Sonja shows up. When Kieffer and Lindsay show up, I’m overwhelmed with emotion.
Everyone wishes me a happy birthday and gives me a hug, even stoic Sonja. We only have four chairs in the whole house, so we all find a spot on the living room floor. The room is filled with laughter and good-natured teasing. The guys and girl of Invictus are like a family. They’re all ex-military. All a little damaged and rough around the edges. But they are loyal. Some of the best people I’ve ever met.
I’m in the kitchen setting up the coffee pot, the one thing Drake made sure we had when Law comes in.
“How you holding up, kid?” His voice is just as rough as always. It’s deep and sounds like he maybe gargles gravel for fun.
“I’m doing alright. How are you, Lawrence?”
He rolls his eyes at my calling him by his full name. “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Law?”
“At least once more…”
“You are a pain in the ass, you do know that, right?”
“Yep.”
“Please, call me Law. All my friends do.”
“You sure you want a pain in the ass for a friend, Law?”
He claps his hands together and then cries out, “Hallelujah! She can listen.”
“When it suits me.”
Whatever Law was about to say is cut off when Hutch walks into the room carrying a huge birthday cake with candles, singing the happy birthday song… badly. I can tell that this was planned because everyone is snickering behind him. But he’s committed and finishes the song as he comes to a stop in front of me.
“Make a wish.”
I close my eyes, make a wish, and blow out the candles.
Epilogue
Joselynn — Three Months Later
I’m jerked awake by crying. It takes my sleep fogged brain a minute to catch up with my new reality. I’m a mom! I still get excited butterflies just thinking it. And no, it isn’t morning sickness like Lindsay and Blake tease. I mean, I have that too, but this is different. It’s a feeling of unfettered joy and hope and love. It’s every single good thing in the world wrapped up into one.
It’s funny to think about, but Sara—Stephanie—is actually the reason I’m so darn happy right now. If it wasn’t for the conversation we had the day Button was brought into the nursery, freshly born and abandoned, I never would have considered the possibility of making her mine. I guess what she said stuck with me.
Why not be a foster mom? Why not give an unwanted baby a home?
Talking about it with Drake wasn’t easy. Before I could ask his thoughts about becoming foster parents, I had to tell him about the miscarriage. We no longer had anything holding us back from being completely open and honest with each other. He opened up to me about how he got his scars, and the men he lost in the explosion. I told him about my childhood, Frankie, my time on the run, everything… except for the baby. I don’t know why I held that part back from him. I guess I wasn’t ready to let go of the guilt.
Drake wasn’t mad that I hadn’t told him. In fact, he held me as I cried for my lost baby. Told me it wasn’t my fault. That there was nothing else I could’ve done and that it was time for me to forgive myself. It was a balm to my heart hearing those words from the man I love.
When I told Drake about Button and the possibility of becoming her foster parents, he didn’t even stop to question it, he said, ‘let’s do it’ and the next day we were filling out the paperwork to become foster parents. Five days later, we were bringing Button home.
No, that’s not even in the ballpark of how long these things usually take. But with my nursing degree and work history along with Drake’s military background—plus the fact that he’s apparently a freakin’ millionaire—we were fast-tracked into the program.
It might seem like insanity to anyone who doesn’t know us, but we’ve never played by the rules. When we asked Button’s caseworker the same day we brought her home what the process for adoption would be, she looked at us like we were crazy. She was skeptical about letting us foster a newborn as it was since we weren’t married and had been together for only a short time, but her superiors overruled her doubts.
Two weeks after Button came to us, we were married in a small ceremony held in our back yard. It was perfect. A month after that, we signed the adoption papers making her Button Marie Foster. The judge looked at us funny when we declined to change her first name. I know she will probably hate it when she’s older, but from the moment I saw her, she was Button… it just fits. Though, these days we call her BB short for Baby Button.
BB let’s out another angry cry before I can get up, Drake is moving. He gives me a brief kiss then says, “I’ll get her, mommy. Go back to sleep.”
A minute later, my heart melts into an ooey-gooey pile of mush when his voice comes through the baby monitor.
“What’s wrong, sweet girl? Hmm.” There is a rustling sound, and I know he’s picked her up. I close my eyes, imagining how he looks holding our tiny bundle. My big strong husband is completely wrapped around her little fingers. And she’s just as smitten with him. A total daddy’s girl.
“We need to have a little talk about waking up mommy. She needs her beauty sleep. It’s hard work building you a little brother or sister.”
BB coos at him and he chuckles.
I love listening while Drake talks to her. He’s an amazing daddy. Which is a great thing considering we’re going to be having another one in seven months. We were a little shocked when we found out I was pregnant last month. I was on birth control, but I made the rookie mistake of taking antibiotics and not using a backup method of contraceptive.
I was a little scared to tell Drake. I shouldn’t have been. You would’ve thought I had given him the moon and the stars; he was so excited. So, we have our little Button and a baby on the way.
Most people in our position would be freaking out. I’m sure it’ll be hard since BB won’t even be a full year old when the new baby gets here. But Drake and I can do anything as long as we are together.
Plus, we have Uncle Law, Uncle, Mack, Uncle Hutch, Auntie Blake, and even Auntie Sonja who are all ready to jump in and lend a hand whenever we need. Not to mention Auntie Lindsay and Papa Kieffer, who has taken his job as grandpa very seriously. Meaning, he’s spoiling BB rotten.
There’s no reason to freak out. We’ve totally got this, and any other surprises life wants to throw our way. This is our happily ever after and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
* * *
Drake – Seven months later
“You dirty sneak!” Blake whisper shouts at me. “How did you keep this a secret from me?”
She’s talking about the babies, yeah you read that right, babies as in two, in her arms. When we found out Joselynn was pregnant with twins, I managed to get her to agree to keep it under wraps. After hearing the story of how Blake tormented me throughout her pregnancy withholding the names they picked, she readily agreed to my little game.
“And you! I thought you were my friend.” Blake points a finger at my wife, who looks beautiful, despite her obvious exhaustion. She was a freaking champ. Throughout her whole pregnancy, Joselynn was determined to have our babies naturally. She didn’t want to have any kind of pain medicine and wanted to avoid a c-section if at all possible. After laboring for twenty hours with little to no progress, the doctors were ready to operate.
My
stubborn wife had a little heart-to-heart with the babies and told them they better cooperate. Thirty minutes later, she was fully dilated and pushing out our baby boy. His sister followed three minutes later. They are both perfectly healthy. Joselynn is tired but glows with happiness.
“Sorry. It was too good a surprise to ruin,” Joselynn says with a smile.
Blake looks back down at the babies, then up at me. She barks out a laugh, scaring the twins and causing them to cry. She instantly coos, rocking them in a way only someone with lots of practice can.
“What’s so funny, sis?”
“Have you picked out their names yet?”
“As a matter of fact, we have,” I say smugly.
“Care to share with the class, brother dear?”
“We named them Jupiter and Tater,” I tell her totally deadpan. It takes a herculean effort to keep a straight face through Blake’s look of horror. Hutch, who has been quietly standing behind her, can’t hold back his laughter. Of course, he was also in on this little prank of ours.
“Quit torturing your sister.” Joselynn scolds with a smile. “Meet your nephew and niece, Madison Lee and Mason Scott.”
“Oh, thank God. I was dreading having to move across the country to get away from the wrath of mom at you daring to break tradition.”
The babies start fussing again. Blake passes them back to me, and I carry them to Joselynn, who is already tugging her shirt down so she can nurse the babies. Blake and Hutch leave with murmured goodbyes, assuring us that BB is fine with her cousins.
Joselynn is staring down at Madison and Mason as they greedily latch onto her nipples. She’s a natural at this whole motherhood thing. I knew she would be amazing from the first time I saw her with the babies in the nursery.
“You were amazing today, firecracker.”
“I didn’t even call you bad names. Not one curse word at all.”
Ever since BB started talking, we’ve had to be very careful what we say. She’s like a little parrot. We’ve both cleaned up our language. Law teased that there was no way Joselynn was going to avoid cussing during labor. He guessed she would have to put a thousand dollars in the swear jar she set up to keep all the uncles from cussing around our little princess. She took that as a challenge and was very determined to prove Law wrong. And my stubborn wife did it.
“Law is going to be so mad. You know he made a bet with the guys that you’d curse… he was the only one who bet against you.”
“One day, he will learn to never bet against stubborn women.”
“I have a feeling that’ll be a hard-earned lesson if he ever learns it,” I say with a laugh.
Twenty minutes later, both babies are settled into their crib, and I have my wife in my arms. She yawns sleepily, snuggling deeper into my arms.
Just as she’s falling asleep, she whispers, “I guess wishes really do come true.”
THE END
Acknowledgments
First of all I want to thank all of my readers. You’re the reason I do this whole authoring thing. Your love and support has meant the world to me as I fumble through this authoring thing.
Tara, thanks for letting me drag you kicking and screaming to all our sprint sessions. I wouldn’t have gotten to ‘the end’ without you.
Juliebean, I love you most. Since this book is going to be in print, it has to be true.
Anne Marie, thank you for wanting Drake to get his story almost as much as I did and for being one of my guinea pigs. I appreciate your help more than you know.
To my family… I said cock less in this book! Aren’t you proud?
About the Author
Rory Reynolds is a stay-at-home mom of two little monsters. She's a ravenous reader of romance and firmly believes that you can never have too many book boyfriends.
She writes feisty heroines, alpha heroes, and panty drenching smut with happily ever afters.
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Also by Rory Reynolds
Contemporary Romance
Claiming His Wife
Daddy’s Princess
Just Married
Dirty Girl
His Hellcat
Paranormal Romance
Dragon’s Thief
Dragon’s Curse
Dragon’s Hope
Dragon’s Ruin
Dragon’s Treasure
Dragon’s Fire
His Firecracker: Sassy Girls Series Page 21
