Reeling
Page 19
He didn’t need further encouragement. He dropped his jeans, stripped off his T-shirt and jockeys, and waded into the lake.
“So it’s official. I’m on mat leave,” she said as he got close.
He smoothed his arms around her slippery, slightly cold belly from behind and pressed his chin to her shoulder. “And how are you feeling about that?”
“Great, actually. Aimee will do marvelously with the store. I’m so glad I hired her way back when—and my students seem happy enough for a break in lessons. I’ll probably lose a few, but that’s life.”
Her skin glimmered with beads of lake water. He pressed a kiss to the ridge of her clavicle.
“You’re not even listening, are you?”
“I am totally listening,” he said seriously. “I’m just also doing some other things at the same time.”
She shrieked as he gently forced her legs apart and cold water found warm spots.
“Not here, not in the lake—not at this stage,” she panted.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know. I’m just playing.”
“Just torturing, more like it,” she said with a soft groan, sliding against his hand.
“If it’s any consolation it’s hard on me too.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I can tell. Very hard from the feel of it.”
It was his turn to groan, half with humor at the terrible pun, half in frustration at what he’d started but wouldn’t get to finish . . . yet.
“How about we move this party to the beach? I think it’s time to stop playing and get to work.”
“Get to work, hey?” she said. “Very flattering.”
He laughed—then sighed when she shook her head. “Not yet. I want to cool off some more.” She dove beneath the surface on her last word and he followed her.
“Would you ever have guessed this?” she asked when they came up for air.
“This?”
“You know. That first time you caught me here . . . that it would lead to this. To us. To summer months out here in paradise and the rest of the year on a small farm, all as . . . a family?”
Treading water, Gray undid her bun so that it trailed down her back in wet tendrils. “I couldn’t have even hoped,” he said truthfully.
Mia lifted her legs and floated on her back. When she drifted near him, she caught his hands and placed them on her stomach. “I was thinking,” she said softly, “that maybe, if our baby is a girl . . . she could be a Celine. Or if he’s a little boy . . . a Simon.”
A tidal wave of feeling nearly drowned Gray. How kind she was. How generous. For a moment he forgot to kick and sank a little in the water. He recovered quickly.
“No,” he said firmly. “Our baby needs his or her own name. I’ll tell them all about their brother, but I never want them to feel even the tiniest, niggling worry that they were some sort of stand in or replacement for Simon.”
Mia looked thoughtful, still afloat and drifting. They were in shallower waters again though. Gray could just touch. He took her wrist, anchoring her. “Just like you are fully, in every way, not a consolation wife or a substitute for something I lost.”
Mia’s head bobbed and she darted a look at him, slightly surprised.
“I’m serious, Mia. I don’t tell you enough. I’ll never pretend to understand what happened to Celine and Simon, let alone be grateful for it—but I will always be awed that somehow you came to me, found me, took me on. You are the love of my life.”
“The love of your life now,” she whispered.
“The only love of the only life I have,” he corrected. “The Gray who lived and loved Celine and Simon died when they did. This Gray you resurrected is all yours.”
Mia smiled up at the limitless reaches of the sky. “I’ll take it.”
“Oh, you will, hey? That’s good because you made your bed. Now you’ll have to lie in it.” Gray grabbed one of her ankles and tugged her down.
She shrieked and thrashed, splashing with abandon. He caught her wrists, pulled her slippery body against his, and kissed her until they were both breathless.
“I love you, Gray,” she whispered happily as they half swam, half floated, arms and legs wrapped around each other.
“I love you too, mermaid,” he said against her mouth. “And I hope it works for you that wolves mate for life.”
Mia blinked away what Gray thought might be tears—but then decided must’ve been lake water because her smile was big and bright and lovely. “It works very well for me. Very, very well, in fact.”
Gray’s mind flashed on the memorial stone he’d finally had made for his beloved Celine and little Simon. Then his eyes rested on his precious wife floating in their serene wild place with her life-filled belly. He felt very full. Very fortunate.
There was so much hard stuff in the world, so much pain, so many unanswerable questions, but there was also so much beauty, so much good. And sometimes, when you were very blessed, there was even joy.
Dear Reader,
I hope Reeling had you reeling—and that you love Mia and Gray (and Wolf!) as much as I do. If my River’s Sigh B & B series is new to you, you’ll be happy to know you can “book” other romantic getaways in Wedding Bands, Hooked, Spoons, Hook, Line & Sinker, One to Keep, and Silver Bells.
Want to connect? Yay! Click here to sign up for my newsletter to learn about upcoming books, and/or visit evbishop.com, find me on Facebook, follow my Tweets, or drop me a line at evbishop@evbishop.com. I’d love to hear from you! And on a similar note, reviews really help authors. If you’d be so kind as to leave a few words on GoodReads, your blog, Facebook, or anywhere else you hang out when your nose isn’t in a book, I’d be very grateful.
Thank you so much for reading!
Wishing you love, laughter and adventure—inside the pages and out,
Ev
About the Author
Ev Bishop is an award-winning author, who lives and writes in a remote small town in wildly beautiful British Columbia, Canada, a place that inspires the setting for her cozy romance series, River’s Sigh B & B.
She currently has eight novels published through Winding Path Books: Bigger Things, a standalone Women’s Fiction title, and her River’s Sigh B & B series, which consists (so far) of Wedding Bands, Hooked, Spoons, Hook, Line & Sinker, Silver Bells, One to Keep, and Reeling.
Ev also writes under the pen name Toni Sheridan (The Present and Drummer Boy, White Rose Publishing).
In addition to writing novels, Ev is a long-time newspaper columnist with the Terrace Standard and a prolific scribbler of articles, essays, short stories and poems.
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Also by Ev Bishop
River's Sigh B & B
Wedding Bands
Hooked
Spoons
Hook, Line & Sinker
Silver Bells
Reeling
River's Sigh B & B Vol. 1 - 4
Standalone
Bigger Things