Epilogue

Epilogue

Annamae

Daisy

I stood in the suite and stared out the windows at the snow-covered mountains while Michelle closed the door behind the girls who’d done my hair and makeup.

“Gosh, but you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I turned to watch Marcus’s sister walking toward me and smiled. “Well, thanks, sugar.”

She looked me up and down and then she got misty.

I moved to her, my skirt swaying with me, and it had to be said, it felt nice. So nice, I never wanted to take that dress off. Not ever.

But if I didn’t, it wouldn’t stay as pretty as it was.

And it’d be difficult for Marcus to give me some wedding nookie. He could get creative. But I didn’t want any of his creative ruining my dress.

I got close and took her hands in mine.

“You gotta quit cryin’, darlin’,” I advised, doing so because she’d burst into tears no less than six times since she and Doug had met us up in Aspen two days before. “You got your makeup done too and you’re pretty as a picture. Marcus and Doug’ll be all upset you show puffy-eyed and red in the face.”

“Marcus won’t even know I’m there.”

He loved his sister but I reckoned she had that right.

She pulled a hand from mine, lifted it, and cupped my jaw. “I’m glad he waited to find the right girl.”

In response, I gave her the understatement of the century.

“I’m glad I was the right girl.”

We grinned at each other.

A knock came at the door.

“I’ll get it,” she murmured, moving from me.

Taking another one of the half a million (slightly exaggerated) opportunities I’d taken since I’d donned my dress, I turned and looked into a mirror.

It had all come together perfectly.

I was Daisy but Daisy did her wedding just a little bit differently seeing as it was the day she was going to become Mrs. Marcus Sloan.

That meant my hair was teased full at the top back, but the sides had three soft twists in them, pulling them back to a big, swirly bun that nearly took up the entire back of my head. There was a diamanté comb tucked in one side (a girl’s gotta have her sparkle, especially on her wedding day) and tendrils dangling around my ears. My bangs were full and brushed my brows.

I’d given up the smoke, the makeup girl bestowing on me subtle contouring, cheeks in pink, eyes in creams, browns, and pinks with magnificent shading and a set of fake eyelashes that I’d memorized the brand and style because they said perfection with a kapow!

My hair was romantically fabulous.

My makeup was understatedly dramatic.

My dress was d-i-v-i-n-e, divine.

It was white because I might not be a virgin but I was still a good girl and I reckoned I’d earned white, one way or another.

The bodice was a V-neck that went low (I might be going romantic for my Marcus but I was still Daisy, so if cleavage could be had, and I was a woman who could have a lot of it, it was had—and it was).

The whole top was made of lace, but the part from the built-in bustier over my shoulders, the lace was see-through. I had a rhinestone belt that was thin and pretty and made my waist look teeny-tiny. And the skirt flowed down in huge, soft, angelic, slanted vertical gossamer ruffles with a nice train at the back.

My wedding flowers (you could probably guess) were big cream gerbera daisies with little black buttons in the middle mixed with some cream roses, and subtle pretty pink velvet ribbons were bunched under the petals of the blooms so you could just catch a touch of their color.

I had the diamond earrings Marcus gave me the night I officially moved in with him in my ears. They looked like a passel of daises, so big they had to drop down in loop after loop. I also had the diamond bracelet on my wrist he gave me just because.

And of course, I had on the huge-ass diamond solitaire ring he gave me when he asked me to marry him.

He’d gone ostentatious with the engagement ring.

My man knew me well.

I’d picked a fluffy, wide, lacy blue garter for my blue and it was already on my thigh.

The dress and shoes (platform pumps with peek-a-boo toes covered in lace, with lace crawling up the back of my heel, a lace rosette at the toe with rhinestones in the middle, and high heels covered in diamanté—again, I was Daisy) were my new.

I had a lacy handkerchief that LaTeesha had given me stuffed in my cleavage that had been her grandmother’s. That was my old.

And my borrowed I’d been in a panic about until I saw the pearly pink fingernail polish that Michelle brought and had shown me that morning. I’d loved it so I immediately replaced the one I’d picked because hers was way more perfect.

I was set.

Like I said.

Perfect.

“You can’t see her,” I heard Michelle say at the door.

“Honey, I’m walking her down to the restaurant,” Marcus replied and I craned my neck to see down the hall in an effort to catch a glimpse of my man.

But Michelle had the door mostly closed, her rounded body in its pretty, pink bridesmaid dress wedged in the part that wasn’t.

“You’re meeting her at the door and walking her in,” Michelle returned.

“Will you just let me see my wife?” Marcus asked on a sigh.

His wife.

Oh my.

“She isn’t your wife yet and seeing her before the ceremony is bad luck! Heck, walking her to the ceremony is bad luck even if it starts at the restaurant doors! I don’t know how I agreed to this. Like I told you two dozen times, you should let Doug give her away.”

Michelle was freaking out.

And she was super sweet, if right now acting a little crazy. I’d thought that (except the crazy part) since I’d first laid eyes on her (okay, maybe the crazy part too).

I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d be sweet. But since the day I met her months ago, I’d thought the same.

Partly because she took one look at me, burst into tears, and shouted, “You’re perfect!”

But mostly because she helped make my man all the man he was.

And that man was a lot.

“We’ve had enough bad luck, every one of us,” Marcus growled, and I watched him push in the door, doing this looking down at his sister who had his hair, but she had warm brown eyes. “No god there is would give a single one of us more.”

Boy, I sure hoped that was the truth.

But I did it holding my breath.

Because Marcus looked fine all the time, in clothes, but especially out of them.

Though in a tux?

My coochie quivered.

Marcus was sauntering purposefully in the room, but the second he turned his head from his sister to me, he stopped dead.

“Hey, honey bunches of love,” I called.

He said nothing.

His face was slack with wonder as he stared at me.

God, I loved my man.

I swirled my skirt side to side with a sway of my hips. “I take it you like it.”

“Leave us,” Marcus ordered his sister curtly.

I stared.

He might get exasperated with his sister’s sweet brand of crazy, but he never talked to her like that.

“Marcus!” Michelle cried in shocked surprise.

See?

He twisted at the waist to look back at his sister. “Don’t make me shove my own sister out of a suite in a fucking five-star hotel.”

“Your language!” she yelled. “I thank God you had the control to curb it in front of the kids.” She looked at me. “And he did. But barely.”

I giggled.

“Michelle,” he warned.

“God, you’re annoying,” she snapped.

She also gave me a look that included a roll of her eyes right before she left.

But when she did, I panicked.

Because what I knew would happen, happened.

The minute the door clicked, Marcus stalked to me.

I lifted a hand his way, grabbed hold of the back of my skirts with the other one, and retreated, warning, “Don’t you be messin’ up my face and hair, sugar. We got us a fancy photographer and I’m gonna be picture perfect, not have sex hair!”

“You take one more step away from me, darling, I’ll guarantee sex hair.”

I halted.

Marcus got close.

“Christ, how can you get more beautiful?” he asked when he stopped, looking me up and down.

I planted my raised hand in his chest, shoved (ineffectually, I’ll note), and hissed, “Now you’re gonna make me cry.”

“Yes, I am,” he declared. “But the makeup girl is outside. I stopped her from leaving so she can fix it if she needs to.”

“I don’t have time to cry and have a makeup fix,” I returned. “We’re gettin’ married in ten minutes.”

“Daisy, honey, I hired out the entire restaurant. The only guests they have are you, me, Doug, and Michelle. They’re good to wait.”

Well then.

“I don’t want a red face and puffy eyes in my wedding photos,” I tried.

“You won’t care.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No you won’t.”

“Yes I will!”

“Baby, every time you see it, you’ll remember the day you married me was also the day I returned these.”

And with that, he lifted his hand between us and from it dropped a necklace with a dainty gold chain and thirteen perfect pearls at the bottom. The biggest one in the middle, they got smaller but no less beautiful up the sides.

I’d know that necklace anywhere, if I’d seen it the day after I’d hocked it or if I saw it when I was old, addled, and a hundred-and-three.

My entire body seized.

Marcus moved behind me.

I felt the coolness of pearls and the tickle of a dainty gold chain at my neck.

Then I felt his lips at my ear.

“You thought Miss Annamae wanted you to get married wearing these pearls. And Miss Annamae helped make you the you for me. So you’re getting married in these pearls.”

He killed me, every time so softly, the fall felt like hitting a cloud.

“How—?” I started.

He kissed my neck and then wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“Your life starts now,” he said all gentle and still in my ear. “The one you’re meant to be leading. The one you’ve always deserved. I thought it best to mark that occasion in a way you’d never forget.”

I twisted my neck to look at his handsome face.

“I would never have forgotten, sugar.”

“It’s my job to be sure.”

God.

Marcus Sloan.

“I love you so much, I don’t even know what to do with all of it,” I whispered.

“I’m thrilled someone else understands that feeling.”

God.

Marcus Sloan.

The tear lingered but finally traced down my cheek.

Marcus leaned in and caught it with his lips.

My belly fluttered, my heart clenched, and my hands went to his at my middle.

He lifted away and looked at me. “That all you got?”

“For now.”

“Want to go get married?”

I nodded.

Fast.

And smiled.

It was shaky but it was big.

He smiled back at me, came around, took my hand, and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

He stopped long enough to offer me my bouquet and take hold of Michelle’s to give to her.

Then he led me out of the room.

I held it together until I walked into the restaurant of the hotel that Marcus had hired out because it had two stories of windows and an unencumbered view of the mountains of Aspen covered in snow. We were going to be married in front of them. Then we were going to have a five-course meal in front of a blazing fire, all alone, the only guests in a beautiful, cozy, five-star restaurant in a beautiful, cozy five-star hotel.

After that, Doug and Michelle were going back to the suite, Marcus and I were spending our wedding night at his (no, our) place in Aspen, and tomorrow we were going to fly to the Maldives.

When I lost it, I didn’t lose it because of the view.

I also didn’t lose it because the big sprays of gerbera daisies and roses with their pink velvet ribbons that stood on columns that floated up from diaphanous sheers of white that would be what Marcus and I would stand between to get married (and stand around to have pictures taken by our fancy-ass photographer) were exactly what Michelle said they were when she’d checked on them after they’d been delivered.

That being perfect.

I didn’t lose it because the fullness of Marcus getting me Miss Annamae’s pearls back finally hit me.

And I didn’t lose it because I felt beautiful, looked beautiful, and the beautiful man whose arm I was holding on to was about to become my husband.

I lost it because our small wedding party had an unexpected guest.

He looked older. I actually barely recognized him, especially looking stiff and uncomfortable in a suit.

But when Marcus and I hit the doors to the restaurant with Michelle trailing and Doug got up from his chair, looking at me with his mouth hanging open, and that man turned his eyes to me and they immediately got wet, I knew.

I knew he was a man called Stretch.

* * * *

“Daisy, darling, wake up.”

I moved, blinked, opened my eyes, and from where my head was resting on Marcus’s shoulder, I looked drowsily out the windows of our limousine.

It was dark. No streetlights. No overhead lights in a garage.

Just what seemed to be shadowed trees.

We were just back from our honeymoon.

The honeymoon was fab-you-las.

The return flight was killer.

I lifted my head and asked, “Where are we?”

“Home.”

I looked to him. “Honey bunches of oats, this ain’t no underground parking.”

Eyes twinkling even in the dark car, he smiled.

Ronald did a sweep with the limo before he stopped and muted light came into the car.

Marcus’s smile changed in a way I felt in my belly.

I stared at it and whispered, “What’d you do?”

I heard Ronald’s door open.

Marcus took my hand.

But he didn’t answer.

“What’d you do?” I repeated.

Ronald opened Marcus’s door.

This Ronald didn’t do. Unless otherwise instructed, Ronald opened my door first if I was in the car.

Marcus slid out and pulled me with him.

My platforms hit gravel.

My eyes hit light.

And my mouth dropped open.

Because in front of me, amongst a dark backdrop of not-quite-fledgling trees, stood a huge castle.

Yes.

A castle.

Just like it had been brought stone by stone straight from Germany or England or something.

It stood strong, high and proud, with turrets and everything.

Lit up totally with lights, I saw every inch.

Even the drawbridge.

And the moat.

Marcus’s arm slid around my waist, curling my front into his side, and his lips found my ear.

“Welcome home, Daisy.”

Well, apparently, way back when, I did blather on about my castles.

So Marcus built one for me.

My body bucked.

The sob sounded painful.

But it was the most beautiful pain I’d ever experienced.

And it was the pain of knowing I’d never really needed a castle.

I just needed my prince charming.

And I’d found him.

* * * *

“They’ll be fine right there.”

“You should wear them.”

“They’ll be fine right there, honey bunch.”

Marcus turned me so my eyes left the glass-covered case with its ice-blue silk amongst which the circle of an add-a-pearl necklace was perfectly placed. A case that was standing displayed on a slant on the shelf that was above the seven-drawer jewelry cabinet in our walk-in closet.

The only other thing on that shelf was a fabulous wedding picture with a beautiful bride, a handsome groom, and three other dolled-up people, everyone smiling big, standing amongst daisies with a backdrop of mountains covered in glistening white snow.

The bride and groom were holding each other.

They were also holding glasses filled with champagne and etched with peacocks.

I looked up into my husband’s eyes.

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” he asked gently.

“I want them perfect for her when she comes to us and it’s time to give them to her,” I replied.

I knew Marcus got it.

Because he always got it.

And because his smile took my breath away.

* * * *

Marcus

A number of years later…

“Darling, would you like to share with me what’s troubling you?”

Marcus had his eyes on his wife.

Since they’d come home from the party, she’d been subdued.

She didn’t normally come home from a Rock Chick party or after having anything to do with the Rock Chicks subdued.

She could come home drunk. She could come home exhausted from dancing in a club mostly populated by gay men. She could come home sharing she’d tipped a number of drag queens (or strippers) so many fifty dollar bills, he was out thousands. She could come home having used one of her (seven) stun guns. She could come home to an angry and/or alarmed husband because she’d been shot at or in a car chase.

This was the life of a Rock Chick.

Which meant he led the beleaguered life of the man of a Rock Chick.

As insane as it was, he wouldn’t have it any other way. The women she’d found and formed into her posse were the best he’d ever met.

And they loved his wife down to their souls and made her happy.

“Nothin’, darlin’,” she murmured, turning toward the stairs. “I’m thinkin’ tonight’s a facial night.”

He caught her as she would pass him and pulled her in his arms.

She looked up into his eyes.

“Tell me what’s troubling you.”

“Nothin’ is, sugar.”

“Then what’s on your mind?”

“Ally’s pregnant.”

His chin jerked into his neck. “Christ. Those people breed like rabbits. How many is this?”

“Lee and Indy, two. Eddie and Jet, three. Hank and Roxie, two. Vance and Jules, three. Ava and Luke, two. Stella and Mace, one. Sadie and Hector, two. Ren and Ally, this will be two. Which makes almost seventeen.”

Marcus had gone still.

She had them counted out.

Seventeen for her girls.

None for Daisy.

Marcus and his wife had everything.

But they couldn’t have kids.

They’d tried.

But according to the doctors, and after two failed tries at in vitro, they’d been told it most likely just wasn’t going to happen.

“Baby,” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

He held her closer and dipped his face to hers.

“I’ll say it again, and I really want you to think on it this time. We can adopt. Now, especially, we can adopt.”

He’d taken all of his concerns legitimate and gone into business with Vito Zano’s nephew, Daisy’s friend Ally’s husband, Ren Zano. There was nothing preventing them from adopting. Not their ages. Not money. Not his business. Not now.

She nodded. “I’ll think on it, Marcus.” Her eyes focused on his. “I’m real happy for her, sugar. Just—”

“I know,” he said quietly, and fuck him, but he did know, and he hated knowing it. He bent to give her a soft kiss. “Go do your facial, darling. I’ll bring some champagne up.”

She gave him a distracted smile.

He let her go and watched her walk up the stairs.

Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it, seeing her before their wedding in her gown. Maybe he’d given them bad luck.

Or maybe there was a god, theirs, who wanted them to remember not to take anything for granted.

But he suspected there was a god, his, who wanted to use the most important thing in his life to remind him, to have the life he’d been able to give her, there was penance to be paid.

He’d done all he’d done and, especially when it allowed him to give Daisy the life she deserved, he’d done it without remorse.

But Marcus stared at the stairs up which his wife had disappeared.

And for the first time in his life, repentance sliced through him like a blade.

* * * *

She moved on him, her hands trailing his abs, her eyes watching, her glides slow, her face languid, her bottom lip caught in her teeth.

Christ, she was beautiful.

Marcus put his hands to her hips, bucked and turned, taking her to her back, him over her, loving hearing her breathy gasp.

He lifted his head, moved inside, feeling her sleek, wet silkiness gorgeous and tight around him. He looked in her eyes, found her hand, and laced his fingers through hers.

“Love you, baby,” she whispered, rounding his thighs with her legs and lifting her hips to take him deep.

He touched his nose to hers. “Love you too, Daisy.”

Then he took her mouth, tightened his hand in hers, slid his other one between them, down, and found her.

She whimpered against his tongue.

Marcus went faster.

“Love you,” he whispered against her lips.

“You too, Marcus.”

He kept moving, faster, deeper, harder.

“Love you,” he repeated.

Her fingers clenched his hand.

“Love…” her body jolted, “love you. So much. Love you, honey.” On that, her neck arched back and she breathed, “God, Marcus.”

Her hand tensed in his, so hard it caused pain through the webbing.

He didn’t care.

He was focused on watching his wife coming.

* * * *

The next morning…

Marcus took in a breath then took hold of the case holding a pearl necklace against a bed of blue silk.

He took it to his pajama drawer, shoved the clothing aside, laid it on the bottom of the drawer and pulled the clothing over it.

After that, he went downstairs and nabbed the two glasses with peacocks on them that his wife had on display in a glass-fronted cupboard, the only things on their shelf.

He took them upstairs to their closet and set them where the pearls had been.

In the coming days, weeks, months, he knew she’d noticed the pearls were gone.

And it carved right through his heart what it meant when she didn’t say a thing.

But his Daisy knew how to do one thing very well.

She knew how to move on.

And Marcus was put on this earth to do one thing and do it well.

To help her to get to that, if the need arose, and then be at her side when she did it.

* * * *

Two and a half months after that morning…

The door opened and Ren, sitting in a chair in front of Marcus’s desk, turned his head to it.

He went still at what he saw.

Marcus looked that way.

And he went solid.

A second later, he forced himself to stand.

So did Ren.

“Hey, Ren,” Daisy said and she walked in.

“Daisy,” Ren replied. “You okay?”

Marcus was rounding his desk.

“Uh, yeah. Can I…sorry to interrupt. But can I have a second with my husband?” she asked, moving into the room.

“Of course,” Ren murmured.

Marcus vaguely felt his partner’s gaze, but only vaguely.

His focus was on his wife.

He had his hands spanning her waist, heard the door close after Ren, and instantly asked, “Which Rock Chick?”

“Pardon?”

He stared at her face and repeated, “Which Rock Chick?”

Her brows drew together, her head (and mess of hair) tipped to the side, and she asked, “What’re you talkin’ about, sugar?”

“You look…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you look.”

And he didn’t.

Even with all the shenanigans of the Rock Chicks, Daisy had never looked like this.

And those shenanigans had all ended, even if Daisy now spent her days being PA to Ally Zano in her private investigations business. A business that was situated right across the hall from Marcus and Ren’s so the men could (unobtrusively) keep an eye on their women.

“I don’t know how I look either.”

With the stunned expression etched in her face, he lost patience and growled, “What’s going on?”

“Marcus,” she said, but that was all she said.

“Daisy,” he clipped out.

She put her hands to his chest and looked into his eyes.

“I just got back from the doctor.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Penance.

Fuck.

His fingers gripped her tight as the entirety of his chest contracted to the point it felt like it was going to implode.

His voice was hoarse and rough and not his own when he asked, “Why were you at the doctor, darling?”

“I’m…”

She looked to his chin, his throat, his chest, and when she lifted her eyes to his, they were filled with tears.

Fuck!

“Pregnant,” she finished.

Marcus again went solid.

“I…she doesn’t…” She shook her head. “She doesn’t know how it happened. But when I skipped one month, then two, I took seven pregnancy tests at home. They were all positive. So I went to her. And she confirmed it.” She leaned into him. “Marcus, honey, I’m preg—”

She didn’t finish because his mouth crushed down on hers.

When he ended the kiss, he cupped her head and shoved it in his chest.

“I’m takin’ that as you bein’ happy,” she noted, her voice muffled against his shirt.

His voice was just gruff when he forced out, “Yes. I’m happy.”

His wife wound her arms around his middle.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered into his chest.

Marcus was breathing through his nose.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeated.

Marcus closed his eyes as the wonder in her voice started coating the region around his heart.

He felt her push her head back.

And he also felt her hand on his jaw.

Last, he felt her thumb trail through the line of wet that was on his cheek.

He opened his eyes and saw her gazing up at him, her blue eyes lit with happy.

“We’re pregnant, baby,” she whispered.

Then her body bucked and she let out a sob that ended in a peal of laughter that filled his office with bells.

Only then did Marcus smile.

* * * *

Six and a half months later…

Marcus walked into the room.

“Well?” Tex boomed.

He looked at the big man with his big beard and wild head of gray-blond hair in his plaid flannel shirt, and then his eyes swept through the room.

It was so full, some were coming up from sitting on the floor.

“God, tell us, brother,” Duke demanded, and Marcus locked eyes with the man with the gray braid, leather vest, black T-shirt, and red bandana wrapped around his head.

“Serious, dude, spill!” a man (loosely termed as thus) who called himself The Kevster shouted. He was standing but doing it shifting foot to foot.

“It’s a girl,” Marcus said. His eyes moved to one of the women in the room. “Her name is Annamae Shirleen.”

Delivering that, he watched as tears slid down Shirleen’s cheeks.

Marcus looked through the Rock Chicks, their men, and the rest of Daisy’s friends that were family and finished, “Both mother and daughter are perfect.”

“Holy crap,” Indy breathed then burst into tears and shoved her face in Lee’s chest.

“Oh my God,” Jet murmured then smiled a smile that made a very pretty woman stunning, turning to aim it to her husband, Eddie.

“Holy cow,” Roxie whispered, then she too burst into tears as well as shoved her face in her husband, Hank’s, chest.

“Damn,” Jules muttered though a huge smile, and leaned against her husband, Vance.

“Awesome,” Ava sighed, her body visibly trembling from either trying not to cry, or perhaps laugh, so her husband Luke pulled her closer.

“Lordy be,” Stella mumbled, also smiling, standing in the round of her husband, Mace’s arm.

“Aces,” Sadie breathed, tears brimming, and her husband, Hector, pulled her into a tight embrace.

Shirleen just stood in the curve of her adopted son, Roam’s arm, silently weeping.

“Righteous,” Ally muttered, looking like she was about ready to burst out laughing. She had both her arms wrapped around an equally smiling Ren’s middle and she gave him a visible squeeze.

“Cigars, all around!” a woman named Annette declared loudly, opening a big macramé bag and pulling out a fistful of brightly-colored, plastic-covered cigars made of bubble gum.

“Oh my God,” Tod mumbled and turned to his husband, Stevie. “Thank heaven I went with the pink baby book. I know the ultrasound said girl, but sometimes they mess that up. I was thinking yellow, just to be sure. But Daisy screams pink! Seeing as I already filled it with seven-dozen pictures of her pregnant, and seven dozen more of that shower May threw her, I can’t go back now. I’m glad in twenty years I don’t have to explain a pink baby book to a surprise boy.”

Stevie just shook his head at his husband, but he did it smiling.

“Rock ’n’ roll!” Tex bellowed for some reason, making some jump, others smile, and the rest start laughing. “Can we see her?” he asked. “That bein’ both hers,” he clarified. “Daisy and Mini-Daisy?”

Marcus nodded but said, “She wants Shirleen first.”

He nearly had to jump out of the way as Shirleen sprinted to the doors behind him.

Sniff, Shrileen’s other adopted son, chuckled.

“Woman’s nuts for babies,” he muttered.

“Thank God,” Ava mumbled into Luke’s chest.

Marcus let his gaze slide through the Rock Chicks. “She’ll want the lot of you next.”

He got nods and then Marcus looked to Darius. He looked to Lee. After that, he looked to Luke.

He felt Michelle come up to his side. His sister gave him a hug.

He hugged her back and said into her ear, “Be ready. We need to take turns, but she wants you too.”

He lifted his head and looked down at his sister in time to catch her nod and witness her wet cheeks before a smiling-so-big-his-face-had-to-hurt Doug pulled her from Marcus’s arms into his own.

Before he turned to retrace his steps, he looked at two last people.

“She wants the both of you too.”

Smithie’s smile split his face, he grabbed LaTeesha’s hand, and they followed Marcus as he led them to his wife.

And their baby daughter.

* * * *

Daisy

Five days later…

“You know what?” I asked Marcus.

He was across from me in our bed. His body on his side, his legs curved up, his knees touching mine because I was in the same position, mirrored opposite him.

Annamae lay sleeping in her swaddles between us.

His beautiful blue eyes came from the top of her dark fuzzed head to me.

“What, honey?” he asked.

“She never has to do it.”

He took his hand from our baby girl’s belly, reached out, and ran the tips of his fingers down my cheekbone.

“Do what, darling?” he whispered.

“She’ll never have to build castles.”

That was when his hand curved around the back of my head and he pulled me across the pillows until the tops of our heads collided, our eyes aimed at baby fuzz.

“Never,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Not ever,” I whispered.

Finding his hand and linking it with mine, I held it at the bottom of her swaddled feet against the sheets on the bed where we’d made our Annamae.

Me and my prince charming in our castle with our happily ever after swaddled and sleeping between a momma who loved her, a daddy who adored her, born into a world that just with that, she had everything.

* * * *

Thirteen years later…

“A Southern woman always has her table laid.”

“Yes, Momma.”

I took my eyes from my daughter as I saw a flash go across the doorway to the dining room.

A flash of a dark head on top of a tall, lean eleven-year-old body.

“Smithson Sloan!” I called. “What’d I say about runnin’ in the house?”

Marcus sauntered in the doorway and stopped.

He winked at his girl.

He grinned at me.

“Your son doesn’t listen to his mother,” I declared.

“Stretch!” he bellowed. “You best be listening to your mother.”

“Right, Dad!” Stretch shouted from somewhere, probably making trouble, and definitely lying.

Shouting in my house.

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.

Annamae giggled and it sounded like bells.

I rolled my eyes to my girl.

I loved that sound.

Even so.

“This isn’t funny, honey bunches of oats,” I told her.

“It’s hilarious, Momma,” she replied, her finger in her necklace, not twisting, just looping around.

My girl loved her pearls.

I knew this because she’d worn them every day since the day her daddy and I gave them to her.

Marcus came into the room, took his daughter in the curve of his arm, and kissed the top of her head.

Having done that, he looked to me.

“Are you cooking or am I?” he asked.

Had he lost his mind?

What kind of question was that?

“Whose house is this?” I asked back.

“Ours,” he answered.

Okay, he was right about that.

“Whose kitchen is it?” I went on.

He grinned and pulled his baby girl closer. “Yours.”

“Then who’s cooking?”

“Darling, get on with it. Your family’s hungry.”

“I’m givin’ Southern woman lessons to my daughter, comprende?”

“She gives them to me, like, every day,” Annamae whispered to her daddy.

“I don’t want you to forget,” I shot at her.

“Momma, if a boy doesn’t open my door for me, Daddy’ll break his legs and Stretch’ll shoot him. You got nothing to worry about.” Her grin got cheeky as she concluded, “Comprende?”

I comprende’d because that was probably the sorry truth.

My son needed to stop hanging with the Hot Bunch and their crazy posse. He was better at target practice than Vance, something Vance shared with me proudly.

Something that gave me heart palpitations.

I didn’t even think of what Stella told me that Mace told her that he’d taught him to do, and Mace didn’t even live in Denver anymore. He’d taught him over Skype, of all things.

And I’d had to have a facial and call my masseuse when Stretch came back after spending an afternoon with Tex.

To communicate my feelings on the matter, I huffed.

“You gonna help your momma cook?” I asked my girl.

“Yep.”

“Then get your behind in the kitchen, sugar.”

She grinned at me again, looked up at her daddy, and grinned at him and got a kiss on the nose for her troubles.

I felt that in my belly.

And right in the heart.

Annamae took off from the room, my husband watched her, and when she disappeared, his eyes came to me.

“You do know our daughter has a huge ole crush on Callum Nightingale,” I shared.

His face turned thunderous.

Uh-oh.

Right, time to fix that.

Easy.

“Love you,” I whispered.

The thunder went out of his face.

“Love you too,” Marcus whispered back.

“Walk me to the kitchen, sugar?”

He lifted his arm to me.

I rounded my grand dining table set with the finest china, crystal, and silver that I could find.

I took my husband’s arm.

And he escorted me to the kitchen.

We barely crossed over the threshold when Stretch shouted from somewhere not close, not far, “I want Las Delicias!”

My boy, shouting in the house and dissin’ his momma’s cooking.

I glared murder at Marcus.

My husband just burst out laughing.