Maeve looked exhausted but beautiful as they returned the babies to her, letting her hold them against her chest with his assistance. She looked up toward him with her tired smile. He moved in beside her, reaching out and letting their daughter wrap her tiny fingers around his pinky. It was the most amazing feeling on the planet as they looked at his bright blue eyes and shock of dark-colored hair, a perfect blend of the two of them.
“Maeve, I’m going to make a couple of quick stitches and get things sorted back out down here. The nurse will take the babies to get them cleaned up a bit more and examined by the pediatrician on call while we finish up and get you taken up to a room to recover. After that, they’ll bring them back in for you to spend some time with and feed. Okay?”
“Okay,” they both said simultaneously, as he quickly retreated to the top of the bed to hold her hand again.
She smiled up at him, and he patted her hand softly.
“Do you have names picked out for them yet?” one of the nurses asked.
“Michael Edward, Austin Graham, and Fiona Nicole,” she said.
“Beautiful choices,” the woman replied.
“I think so too,” Ronan said, looking at the best choice he’d ever made in his life . . . Maeve.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Maeve
If anyone had told Maeve a little more than a year ago that she would move to America, marry a McNally, and become the mother of three tiny bear cubs, she’d have called them crazy. Still, there she was. There they were.
She had everything a girl could ever ask for and so much more. Her food trucks were thriving, with both mobile units experiencing long lines of customers on a daily basis. It was a busy life, but it suited her, and it seemed to suit Ronan as well. With them all settled in at home and work, he had gone back to working for the family full time but seemed to find equal enjoyment working around the house.
As she stood at the kitchen sink, looking out over the back yard, she spotted him working by the tree that sat there. Though he had not said anything about it, he was replacing the rope on the old tire swing that hung from the big oak. She watched him as he carefully wound it through the tire and sliced off the old bit of rope before standing back to admire his handiwork.
“What are you doing out there?” she asked from the back door, not leaving the confines of the house because the babies were down for their naps.
“Just making sure the swing is safe for them,” he replied proudly.
“You do know they can’t even sit up on their own yet? I doubt they’ll be coming out to bounce back and forth in that old tire for quite some time, and you’re going to need two more anyway.”
“They’ll be in it before you know it, and when that time comes, it will be ready for them!” he replied, looking back at the swing and then back at her. “I’ll put up two more.”
She laughed and went back inside. She was once again struck by just how precarious life was for everyone. Change one thing and you might change your fate altogether. Make an unwise decision and shift your entire future in a matter of seconds. She had been lucky that her life had shifted for the good in the end, leaving her here with a man she loved deeply and their newborn children.
She didn’t know which way the wind might blow tomorrow, but today, life was perfect. Today, life was everything she could have ever dreamed of and so much more. She walked back to the back door to call out to Ronan again.
“You know, the babies are going to be asleep for a bit if you want to come inside and practice making more.”
Ronan turned to look at her for a moment and then dropped the tools he had in his hand, bounding across the back yard toward the kitchen. Inside, he pushed her up against the kitchen sink and spread her legs open, pushing up her dress and reaching between her legs to grab her panties. He yanked them forward, ripping them free from her body and dropping them on the floor behind him.
“I liked those panties,” she complained.
“I’ll buy you another pair just like them.”
“Damn right, you will,” she replied. “Now fuck me like you own me.”
“I do, don’t I?” he said.
“Not a chance.”
“That’s my girl,” he laughed, pulling her hips forward and slipping inside her.