EXTENDED EPILOGUE

NOAH

It was amazing how much life could change in just one year. Twelve short months ago, I hadn’t even known my breathtaking fiancée yet, and I wouldn’t have been meeting her for another four months.

As I stared at her now, her golden blonde hair fanned out across the duck-egg linen of our bedding where she was reclined on our bed, I honestly couldn’t even remember what my life had been like before I’d met her. I had the memories, obviously, and I was still part of City Lights, so I also still had the guys around almost every damn day to remind me, but still.

I shook my head, bringing my glass of crisp white wine to my lips. Condensation from the melting ice inside it rolled over my fingers, but that was a good thing.

Gemma being naked just a couple feet away from where I was sitting on my ass on the bedroom floor wasn’t doing me any favors. Ice—even just the condensation from the glass it was melting in—was necessary right then.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” I’d asked her this at least a dozen times in the last hour since I’d come home from the recording studio to find her like this.

Gemma was as naked as the day she’d been born, legs splayed open and arms spread out at her sides. Our air-conditioning was turned all the way down, and honestly, when I’d walked in here, despite the heat outside, my balls had tried to climb all the way into my body.

It was fucking freezing or at least, it had been until my gaze had fallen upon her waiting for me like that. Instantly hard enough to hammer nails, I’d been about to rip my shirt off when she’d let out a soft groan.

It had all been downhill from there.

Apparently, even my cologne was making her feel sick.

Which was why I wasn’t even on the bed with her but sitting as close as she’d allow me to while she rode out whatever bug she’d caught. Worry churned through my insides even as my hands itched to touch her and my cock was trying to punch through the zipper of my jeans.

Gemma wasn’t the type to take a day off just because she had the sniffles. My woman would power through a virus that would strike others down for a week without ever slowing down.

Yet here we were.

“I’m fine,” she finally croaked, her hands suddenly flying to her stomach before she sat up.

White as a sheet, her body made this weird rolling motion like she was about to gag, but just as I was about to jump up to grab the waste basket, she lay back down. “False alarm.”

I sighed, glancing down at my phone in my hand before I looked back at her. “Just give me all your symptoms again. I don’t know how to help you unless we can figure out what’s wrong.”

“Dr. World Wide Web has never helped anybody. Ever,” she rasped out. “It’s a stomach bug, baby, but if you plug it all into a search engine, it’ll convince you that I have some rare bacterial infection that I could only have picked up from a river in Nicaragua.”

“We haven’t been to Nicaragua,” I responded on autopilot, and Gemma tossed an arm over her eyes and groaned again.

“That’s the whole point, my love. You’ll only freak yourself out if you look up symptoms online. If it’s not better by tomorrow, I’ll go see the doctor.”

I sat up straighter. “I can have a doctor here in less than an hour. Just let me make the call, Gem. Please?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, though I knew she was anything but.

For starters, nothing kept this woman down. For the last six months since we’d gotten engaged, she and I had been on the go together constantly.

We’d traveled a lot, be it for my work or our pleasure—but we definitely hadn’t visited Nicaragua. Yet. I had the sudden urge to do some research to see if we should add it to the bucket list, though—but in all that time, and regardless of our extensive travels, I had never seen her take one day off.

Over and above that, she wouldn’t allow me near enough to check her temperature, though she had to be feverish to be getting as hot as she was in this icebox. My heat was coming from being horny as hell.

I was always primed and ready to go for her, but walking in to find all her delicious curves on display, her nipples taut in the cold air inside our bedroom, and her perfect pink pussy right there for the taking?

I stuffed my hand into my mouth and bit down on my knuckles. Fucking awful person. She’s sick, man. Who cares that her skin looks like sun-kissed porcelain or that she got waxed last week? She’s sick.

I must’ve made some sort of sound—or Gemma really could just read my mind—because she suddenly let out a weak chuckle. “I’m sorry, love. If I’d known you were coming home early, I’d have texted you to stay out of the bedroom. I can watch you help yourself, if that’d help?”

“Nope.” No way was I getting off while looking at her lying there, dry heaving every so often and looking like she’d seen a ghost for how pale she was. “Thanks, but I’ll survive. Unless something happens to you, of course, in which case, they’ll be burying me right next to you.”

“I love you too, baby, but I really am going to be fine. It’s a stomach thing. Why don’t you go grab a swim? Or go have drinks with the boys. You really don’t have to sit here watching over me.”

“Hard pass.”

I wasn’t moving a fucking inch. She might not have wanted me any closer, but I could see her from here. My girl was sick. I was keeping my eyes on her at all times.

“Okay, then.” She let out a soft sigh. “Are you sure you don’t want—”

“Gem,” I growled at her. Growled.

Because I did that now.

Just like I’d gone shopping for bedding that wasn’t blue or green but duck egg, and spent entire weekends rummaging through antique stores and art galleries all over Tennessee. I glanced at my gorgeous, naked fiancée again.

“I’m fine,” I insisted as vehemently as she had been doing for the last hour since I’d gotten home. “I always want you, baby. This is nothing I don’t live through every day of my life. I’m very sure. Not that I don’t still find you sexy as hell even when you’re sick, but I’d never stop feeling like a total dick.”

“You are a total dick,” she teased.

I rolled my eyes, my lips quirking into a half-smile. “Never to you, but it’s good to know that you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

It really was a good sign actually. Now that I thought about it.

Gemma and I had purchased a home in Nashville about a month ago. While we’d been traveling, we’d also been trying to figure out how to make our lives work together as an engaged couple.

I had little to no control over my schedule. Our record label worked with our management company, who put us on planes and made sure we got to the right venue at the right time. Gemma had joined us for our tour from January to June, and last month, in May, she and I had come across this house on the internet.

City Lights had a lot of gigs in Nashville. When we weren’t on tour, most of us were here, and we’d found this rambling, newly renovated farmhouse that sat on two private acres while dreaming aloud one night.

Immediately, I’d known this was the place. There were stables out back, a massive, family-style kitchen, claw-footed tubs in the bathrooms, a cellar, a games room, an infinity pool.

It had everything—including a hefty price tag. Gemma had loved the place at first sight until she’d seen the dollar amount on the listing, and then she’d immediately shut my laptop.

I’d called the realtor the next day. Made an offer that got accepted. Finally, my fiancée had signed on the dotted line. After many, many hours of groveling so that she’d understand that we were getting married on Halloween this year—on the anniversary of our first meeting—and that when that happened, everything I had would be hers as well anyway.

When she’d eventually come around to the idea, reluctantly, she’d been super excited about the move. Living here put her within easy driving distance of Laurel, who still lived in Franklin, and that had been a major tick in the plus column for Nashville being the place where we would make our home.

Plus, since City Lights was big here, Gemma’s company was big here too. Everyone in town knew her name if they knew mine, and a lot of people knew me here. During our travels, she’d taken on all the events for our management company—no interference from me. It’d been all Alana, but the vast majority of her new clients that were not related to the band or the management company were based in Nashville.

Now, so was she. So was I.

Through it all, she’d never once lost her sense of humor. The fact she still had it? I blew out a rattling breath.

We had been settling into our new life here together spectacularly until today. I was more in love with her than ever and I swore I woke up every morning even more in love than I had been the day before—and now suddenly, she couldn’t stand having me closer than a couple feet from our bed.

Fuck.

“I’m calling Doc Elle,” I said, referencing the general practitioner that the band had on retainer. “Why didn’t you just tell me this morning that you were feeling so bad? I could’ve had him here hours ago.”

“I don’t need the doc, Noah,” she said gently. “I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have gone to the studio if I had, and you needed to be there today.”

“But I—”

“Do you really want to make yourself useful?” she asked suddenly, sitting up slowly, but at least she didn’t start heaving this time when she tried. Her usually vibrant green eyes were tired as they clashed with mine. “My car needs to have its oil changed. Do you think you can do that for me?”

I frowned. “Take your car for an oil change?”

“Now would be great. Thank you, my love.” She flashed me a weak smile, but I noticed her moving her bicep to the side of her breast, pressing gently and wincing so fast that I thought I might’ve imagined it before she schooled her features. “Please, Noah?”

I groaned. So much for not letting her out of my sight.

“Fine. Fuck. I’m on it. Just call me if anything changes or if you need anything at all, and if you’re not better when I get back, I’m calling the doc. There’s no harm in having him check you out.”

She pursed her lips at me, but there was a vaguely faraway look in her eyes as she nodded. All day long, she’d been acting off and worry rolled through me again.

What is going on with you, baby? What are you not telling me?

Exhaling through my nostrils, I got up and left my mostly full glass of wine on the dresser, leaving and grabbing her car keys on my way out. I took the car for the damn oil change it turned out it hadn’t even needed. Icy terror started to spread through my insides as I made my way back home once the job was done.

Why would you lie to me about this?

“Gemma?” I called as I strode in through our wide front doors, leaving them open in an attempt to get a bit of a breeze through the house. Air out any other scents that could potentially be bothering her. “How’re you feeling, baby?”

She didn’t respond, and my heart almost stopped in my chest. Our place was big, but I’d projected my voice. I knew she’d heard me.

Panic immediately sinking in, I raced down the long corridors to the primary suite, but my naked, sick angel was gone. My chest ached. “Gemma! Where are you?”

I rushed out of our bedroom, darting back down the hallway I’d come from only to spot an unfamiliar flash of color in the guest bedroom nearest our suite. Slamming to a halt, I stopped and walked back until I was in front of the door. Then I frowned.

Inside a bedroom that was still empty, there were at least a dozen blue and pink balloons. Gemma was sitting on the one piece of furniture in here, an old rocking chair that had belonged to her grandmother back in the day.

As we’d been moving, her grandparents had also been emptying out an old storage unit they’d kept in Austin all these years after they’d retired in Florida. Gemma had swung by to pick up some old family photo albums and had spotted the chair.

The paint was peeling in places and the cushion was torn, but we planned on having it fixed up to use in our nursery one day when she was—

I blinked hard, taking a second look around the room. Aside from the pink and blue balloons covering the floor, Gemma was dressed in a loose-fitting dress thing, sitting in that rocking chair and staring out the window.

On the windowsill, there was a little black pegboard of sorts with a dark wooden rim and white letters on it. Before I could even begin to focus on what she’d written, my gaze dropped to the handful of pen-looking things arranged in front of it.

And it all suddenly fell into place.

Why she had been feeling so sick. Why she was so sensitive to scents. Why she’d winced when she’d touched her boob. Even why she was in this room.

“Gem, are we...” I trailed off.

At the sound of my voice, she started, like she genuinely hadn’t realized I was there, but as she stood up smiling, she put her arms out to her sides, eyes wide and disbelieving on mine.

“Six weeks, apparently.” She motioned at the little blackboard thing, and I finally focused on the letters she’d pegged into it.

Will you be my Daddy?

Utterly stunned, I glanced at her belly first, but I’d seen her naked like, an hour ago. I already knew there was nothing there. Besides, six weeks? That was way too early.

“We’re pregnant?” I finally asked, my voice a low, awed murmur. “You’re sure?”

She strode up to me and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing up on her toes to touch her lips to mine. “According to five different pregnancy tests, yes. I’m sure.”

“Holy shit!” I snaked my arms around her hips, grabbing them and laughing. I lifted her clear off her feet, spinning her in a circle before laying a hard kiss on her lips.

When I set her back down, I dropped to my knees, my hands on her belly as I felt that insane pressure behind my eyes that I’d only ever felt as an adult in significant moments with her. “Hi, in there. Hi. I’m Noah, but you can call me Daddy.”

Gemma brushed her fingers through my hair, seeming suddenly woozy as she swallowed too hard. “New rule. No picking me up or spinning me in circles.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” I wrapped my arms around her, leading her back to our bedroom slowly and carefully as I tried to contain the grin on my lips. “How is this even...”

“Well, you see,” she started playfully, her voice strained, but she really hadn’t lost her sense of humor. “Sometimes, when a mommy and a daddy reeealllly love each other and they decide to stop using any form of protection in the hopes of getting pregnant fast after the wedding, stuff can happen a little earlier than planned. Especially when Mommy and Daddy can’t keep their hands off each other and Daddy has an amazing dick—”

“Okay. Okay, I get it.” I chuckled as I helped her onto our bed. “I’m just...”

She paused for a beat, reaching for my hand and squeezing it as her gaze darkened with worry. “Are you okay with this?”

“Okay?” I blinked hard at her, a lump forming in my throat. “Baby, I’m over the fucking moon. If I wasn’t so worried about you right now, I’d have been jumping all over this house with you in my arms. I love you, and I love our baby already.”

Shit. Our baby.

I let that sink in for a minute, and then the tears finally came. I hadn’t shed any in years. Over the last few months, I’d felt that pressure building a couple times, but no moisture had leaked from my eyes.

As I stared at Gemma now though, knowing that a miniature version of one of us was growing inside her, I couldn’t contain it. I’d never been this happy.

She sat up and wrapped her arms around me. Holding me, she cried her own tears of joy. She held me regardless of the fact that I clearly needed to buy new cologne if I was going to be allowed near her at all for the next eight months. She’d always loved this one, but obviously, it had to change.

So did so many other things in our lives, but I was ready. I wanted this. With Gemma, I wanted everything with her. Now, slowly but surely, we were both finally starting get it.

All our dreams were coming true on every level. I didn’t know if there was some supernatural force looking out for us, but holy crap, it sure felt like it.