“You did, Violet. You saved our family. All of us.”
She smiles.
“And as much as you helped me, believe it or not, that spiked scotch helped, too.”
“Did it?”
I nod. “Instead of those demons I had hiding in the crevices of my mind like they’d been doing, that forced them out into the open. Under the spotlight of a drug-addled waking nightmare. Maybe that’s part of why I feel like I’m in a different place. They’re all out there now. I’ve faced them all.”
“That makes sense,” she says.
“What do you wanna do today?”
“Besides fuck my husband all day long?” she asks, light in her eyes.
“Besides that.”
“I want pizza,” she says.
“First pregnancy craving?” I ask. “That isn’t gingerbread,” I add.
She laughs. “Maybe.
“And this will be an important experiment,” I say.
“Oh yeah? How so?”
I kiss her nose. “We’re about to find out if this baby likes pineapple on pizza or if he or she has actual taste in pizza and makes you puke it up.”
Epilogue
Killian
Almost 8 Months Later
“Fuck, baby, yeah,” I slam my hips forward again, sinking into her tight heat from behind. We’re spooned, one of a select few positions that works for her at this stage of her pregnancy. My hand snakes around her hip so I can press fingers to her clit. I work it in circles as she whimpers.
My wife is sexier than ever with my baby growing inside her. I can barely keep my hands off her and lucky for me, she’s horny as fuck. The morning sickness disappeared at ten weeks, and she’s been healthy, happy, and enjoying the rest of her pregnancy. Except for the past two weeks. She’s ready to be done and meet our child.
We’re fucking not only because of her horniness right now. We’re fucking because she’s a week overdue and she heard sex can help bring on labor.
I’m not about to complain about helping her hurry things up, not when I get to sink inside my favorite place.
We don’t know the sex; we decided to be surprised. We have no boy names picked, deciding we’ll mee the baby first and decide, though Violet jokes that if it’s a girl the name Ginger is the frontrunner. Violet’s hospital bag is by the door, and the cradle is set up and ready for Baby Coulter.
As she rocks into me, panting, grabbing my hand that’s between her legs and holding it in place, she whispers, “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
“Never,” I vow.
“I love you,” she breathes, “Ah, ah, Killian, yesss!”
“I love you,” I growl and then she convulses around me, crying out my name.
This sets me off, too, and I explode into her.
As I come down from cloud nine, or as Violet says, cloud ninety-nine, I kiss the side of her throat.
“Apple juice,” she requests. “Hurry.”
I chuckle and slide backwards before rolling, looking at how gorgeous she is, wearing nothing, her belly big and round, her curls spread over the pillow like she’s set up for a boudoir shoot.
I hold my hands up in frame shape over her and make a shutter-click sound. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Mrs. Coulter.”
She flashes dimples and blows me a kiss.
I haul my trackpants up my legs and head to the kitchen for a drink for her.
“Killian!” she calls, sounding panicked.
I rush back.
“What?”
She’s got wide eyes and she’s also smiling.
“My water. I think it just broke. It worked!”
I see the dark spot around her on the burgundy sheets.
Yep. Baby Coulter is coming.
***
Violet
Five Years Later
It’s eight years to the day since Killian and I first set eyes on one another, five since the night we officially met.
But today, we’re not together to celebrate the milestone because Killian is out of the country on a business trip.
Me? I’m in the wildflower field beside the house in Tillamook. We’ve made this house ours and we spend a lot of time here. Every room has my stamp on it, and we’ve made a lot of fantastic memories here. Family sleepovers. A couple months after our first child was born we had our do-over wedding with my grandmother’s roses in my hair.
We’ve come here for Christmases. Birthdays. Lazy days doing nothing. Our second child was conceived in this house.
It’s big enough for our family and our extended family. Mom, Dad, Cody and his fiancé come often, sometimes without us. Grampa, who now lives with Mom and Dad loves fishing here, too.
My aunts and uncles come by regularly, as do Susanna and Wes and our other friends. Yes, they wound up together. It took a while and it was kind of dramatic, but it eventually happened. They have a six-month-old set of twin girls. Suse said she never wanted kids, but clearly changed her mind when she fell for a man who couldn’t wait to have them.
Our four-year-old son Chance is sitting on a blanket, blowing wishes with a handful of dandelions gone to seed that he just plucked. He’s making his toddler brother Gabriel clap with glee as the wishes float around them.