Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(58)

“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.