by C. C. Wood
Despite the chaos of the day, I could see myself doing things like this with J.J. for the rest of my life.
In fact, I looked forward to it.
Epilogue
"Is Lydia ready yet?" I called from the bathroom.
"Almost."
I rolled my eyes at J.J.'s response. That meant that she wasn't anywhere near ready and he was just pacifying me while he continued to play with our daughter instead of getting her dressed.
I heard a big, baby belly laugh followed by a deep chuckle and grinned at my reflection in the mirror.
Okay, so I couldn't be too annoyed when I heard them both laughing.
Six months ago, I'd been terrified that this moment would never happen.
Lydia Camilla McClane made her appearance in this world seven weeks ahead of schedule.
Despite the fact that I'd stopped cleaning houses in December after school let out and all the breaks that Cam made me take at work, I developed preeclampsia in January. Dr. Stubens put me on partial bed rest. She allowed me to continue school but refused to let me work at Crave.
Thank God for Harmony. When I'd first started working at the shop, she called in fairly regularly. Cam had been on the verge of letting her go when we learned, by accident, that her mother was ill and her father had vanished as soon as the cancer was diagnosed.
After that, Cam had worked with her on her schedule in every way she could.
By the time I'd been put on bed rest, Harmony's mother had finished chemotherapy and was doing much better, so Harmony was free to help more at the shop. When she'd graduated high school in May, I'd still been recovering and unable to work full-time, so she'd stepped in.
Now, she was doing the same thing I'd done at her age—she was living at home, commuting to college, and working part-time.
I fully intended to ask Cam if she could take over my assistant manager position at the new Crave location because now that I had Lydia, I wanted to stay at the original store since it was in Farley rather than thirty minutes away.
I had a feeling she would say yes.
Despite doing everything Dr. Stubens told me to do when my blood pressure started to rise, I ended up in the hospital after my seven-month visit. They monitored me closely for a week and realized that there was no way I was going to carry Lydia to term.
My blood pressure kept rising and I developed a persistent, agonizing pain in my right shoulder. After a final urine test, Dr. Stubens decreed that I was having a baby that day.
Within an hour, my little girl was introduced to the world.
For the rest of my life, I would never, ever forget the look on J.J.'s face when he heard her first cry.
We'd both been so scared going into the OR, worried if she would be strong enough to survive being born seven weeks early.
It seemed Lydia was determined to show us all what she was capable of. Within hours, she was off the CPAP machine. Three days later, she was taking a bottle. At twelve days old, they let us take that teeny, tiny baby home with us.
She weighed four pounds when she was born. When they weighed her the next day, she was three pounds and twelve ounces. The nurse in the NICU explained that she'd been swollen with retained fluid at birth and had lost a few ounces due to that.
But she started gaining weight quickly after she got home.
Probably because I followed Malcolm's advice to the letter. I was able to breastfeed and I wanted to, which he said was good since mothers of preemies produced exactly what their babies would need. He also told me to wake her up every two to three hours, even if she was sleeping well, because she was so little that she wouldn't be able to wake up on her own and she couldn't afford to lose any more weight.
Now, six months later, you wouldn't be able to tell that she'd been born early. She was chunky and had rolls of fat on her thighs and chubby cheeks.
She was absolutely beautiful.
I realized I'd been standing in front of the mirror with a mascara wand in my hand for the last few minutes and put the wand back in the tube.
After a quick brush through my hair, I walked out of the bathroom and found J.J. leaning over the bed where our daughter lay, wearing nothing but a clean diaper.
"Almost ready, huh?" I asked, leaning a hip against the footboard.
He looked up and grinned at me. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. We were playing and got distracted." He turned back to Lydia. "See? You got Daddy in trouble."
She waved her arms and legs in the air and gave another shrieking laugh, as if her Daddy being in trouble was the funniest thing ever.
I suppressed my own laugh and scooped up her clothes from the end of the bed. In a few short minutes, I had her fully dressed in a plaid tunic and jeggings that showed off her thick thighs. Tiny brown boots followed.
"Oh, God. She's adorable," J.J. said, picking her up and blowing on her belly. Lydia smacked the top of his head and laughed again.
She was the happiest baby. Even after she was born, she rarely cried unless she was hungry or wet.
"My mom and your mom are meeting us at the pumpkin patch in twenty minutes," I reminded him. "And you're still not wearing a shirt or shoes."
"Shi—uh, shoot."
J.J. handed Lydia to me and hurried to the walk-in closet.
True to his word, J.J. had found someone to design an addition to my house, which had turned out to be a master suite. We now had a large bedroom, a walk-in closet, and a large, airy bathroom with both a glassed-in shower and a free-standing soaking tub that J.J. and I used at least once a week.
He emerged from the closet a few moments later, pulling a t-shirt over his head. His shoes were on his feet.
Much to my surprise, it had only taken one thing for J.J. to change his life-long habit of leaving his shoes everywhere in the house.
A few weeks before Lydia was born, I'd tripped on a pair of his tennis shoes when I got up to pee in the middle of the night.
I'd managed to catch myself on the doorway into the bathroom, but J.J. had woken up and immediately realized what had almost happened. I'd assured him I was fine, but his face was ashen when he realized I'd tripped on his shoes.
From that day on, his shoes were either in the closet or on the rack by the kitchen door, which we used daily.
"We can't be late to meet your grammas," J.J. cooed to Lydia when he got closer.
He reached out for her, but she curled into me and rested her head on my shoulder, blinking at him bashfully. It was a game they played often. J.J. would reach for her and she would pretend she didn't want him to hold her.
As usual, J.J. stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. Then, he grinned when she relented and lunged for him.
Secure in her daddy's arms, Lydia gave me a toothless grin.
"Traitor," I teased her.
Her only response was to giggle.
J.J. pulled me closer with his free arm so we were all in his embrace.
"My girls," he murmured, kissing my neck.
I hugged him. "We could always try for a boy."
He didn't release me but I felt him shake his head against my shoulder.
"No. One is enough."
"Jay—"
He lifted his head and looked at me. "It's too risky, Lee. I know you don't remember that first twenty-four hours but I was so scared I was going to lose you. Please don't ask me to do that again."
This was the only big issue we'd faced since Lydia's birth. I wanted to try again when she was a year old, but J.J. was adamant that we not have another child. Though Dr. Stubens assured me that the risks would be lower now that we knew it was a potential problem, J.J. wouldn't hear of it.
All he could remember was that I'd nearly died.
He was right, I didn't remember any of it. The surgeon had sedated me right after the C-section because my blood pressure spiked dangerously high. I vaguely remembered waking up a couple of times to vomit after, but that was it. J.J. stayed by my side the entire time, only leaving to spend a few minutes in the NICU with
Lydia every two hours.
He said that they assigned a nurse to watch me and had to call a specialist across the country every half-hour because none of the usual therapies were working. He also said that I'd been pouring sweat and the nurse assured him that I wouldn't stroke out because of the medication they had me on.
Thirty-six hours after Lydia was born, I woke up a little sore and tired, but otherwise feeling fine.
Within six weeks, I was off blood pressure medication and no worse for wear. Dr. Stubens said she'd never seen anyone bounce back that quickly from such a bad condition in twenty years of practicing medicine.
But no matter what I said or what Dr. Stubens said, J.J. had made up his mind.
And I couldn't be angry because the first time I'd tried to argue with him and almost lost my temper was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.
So, even though I occasionally brought it up, I knew, deep in my heart, that he wasn't going to change his mind.
And I wasn't going to push him to it. Not when he was so scared of what might happen.
I couldn't force him to go through that again, even if I was willing.
So, Lydia would be our only child.
Neither of our mothers seemed upset by that. In fact, my mother told me she was glad that J.J. had put his foot down because she'd planned to do it the first time I mentioned having another baby.
Since they knew she would be my only child, they doted on her and spoiled her absolutely rotten. Something that J.J. seemed determined to outdo.
The alarm on my phone went off and I sighed.
"Time to leave," J.J. said, kissing my lips. He pulled back and looked deep into my eyes. "Please don't be mad at me. I don't want to lose you."
"I'm not mad," I said. And it was true. I wasn't angry. "Just disappointed and a little sad."
He hugged me again, closer this time, until Lydia shrieked between us at being closed in. "We could always adopt."
Just when I thought I couldn't love this man any more than I already did, he had to prove me wrong.
My heart swelled and I blinked back tears.
"We could," I replied.
"But I'd be happy with just my girls," he said.
I gave up on trying to suppress the tears and rested my head on his shoulder while I cried.
"I'm happy with my girl and guy, too," I whispered against his neck.
We were going to be late meeting our mothers, but I knew they wouldn't mind.
Right now, I wanted a few minutes with my two favorite people in the world.
The End
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About the Author
Born and raised in Texas, C.C. Wood writes saucy paranormal romances and romantic comedies featuring strong, sassy women and the men that love them. If you ever meet C.C. in person, keep in mind that many of her characters are based on people she knows, so anything you say or do is likely to end up in a book one day.
A self-professed hermit, C.C. loves to stay home, where she reads, writes, cooks, and watches TV. She can usually be found drinking coffee or wine as she spends time with her hubby, daughter, and two beagles.
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Also by C.C. Wood
Novellas:
Girl Next Door Series:
Friends with Benefits
Frenemies
Drive Me Crazy
Girl Next Door-The Complete Series
Kiss Series:
A Kiss for Christmas
Kiss Me
Westfall Brothers Series:
Texas with a Twist
Paranormal Romance:
The Witch's Gift
Novels:
Seasons of Sorrow
All or Nothing
Romantic Comedy Series:
Crave Series:
I Crave You
Wild for You (coming September 2020)
Only for You (coming October 2020)
NSFW Series:
In Love With Lucy
Earning Yancy
Tempting Tanya
Chasing Chelsea
Paranormal Romance:
Bitten Series:
Bite Me
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bitten
One Little Bite
Love Bites
Bite the Bullet
Blood & Bone Series (Bitten spin-off)
Blood & Bone
Souls Unchained
Forevermore (Contains Destined by Blood)
Paranormal Cozy Romcom:
The Wraith Files:
Don't Wake the Dead
The Dead Come Calling
Raise the Dead
