Wrapped Up in You (Heartbreaker Bay, #8)(80)

She looked down at Kenzie, now lovingly cradled in her daddy’s hands. “I don’t need any presents.”

“We’ll call it the present that you didn’t think you need then,” Kel said.

Curious now, she turned, and time stopped.

Brandon stood there, looking leaner and entirely uncertain of his welcome. “Hey,” he said. “I see you kept your cop.”

“I married him,” she managed through a raw throat.

This had become their standard, teasing greeting over the past five years whenever she’d visited him in prison. But she hadn’t been this year because of a difficult pregnancy.

“You’re out early,” she whispered.

“Good behavior.” He lifted a shoulder. “I’ve been practicing.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she nodded. “It’s good to see you.”

Some of the worry left his eyes and his shoulders dropped from where he’d held them practically up to his ears. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I mean it.”

He held her gaze with his mismatched eyes. “Part of my early release was contingent on me having a place to stay and work. Kel got me a job working for him and Donovan. I’m going to live in the employee barracks on Donovan’s property.” He paused. “If that’s all okay with you.”

Ivy thought she was choked up before, but she could scarcely draw a breath, overwhelmed with love and affection for her amazing husband. She looked up at him and hoped she conveyed her love and affection and gratitude back, because she couldn’t speak.

With a smile, Kel leaned in and gave her a quick, warm kiss.

“I love you,” she managed to whisper.

“I know,” he whispered back before lifting his head and looking at Brandon. “I think it’s safe to say it’s okay with her.”

“Very okay,” she said and reached for Brandon, pulling him in for a hug. When little Kenzie mewled her protest, Ivy pulled back with a laugh. “Meet your niece, Kenzie Snow O’Donnell. She’s as impatient and feisty as her mom.”

Brandon stared down at Kenzie in awe. “Wow.” He seemed choked up. “She’s . . . amazing.”

Just as choked up, Ivy nodded. “Guess us Snows have a future after all.”

Brandon let out his first smile. A small one, and it felt a little rusty, but totally genuine. “Didn’t see that coming.”

She looked up at Kel, knowing her heart was in her eyes. “I didn’t either. But I met someone who made me see anything was possible.”

Kel smiled down at her. “To our future,” he said softly.

“To our future.” And once again she kissed him to seal the deal.





Announcement to Almost Just Friends




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ALMOST JUST FRIENDS



Arriving January 2020

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Chapter 1




“Chin up, Princess, or the crown slips.”



Piper Manning closed her eyes and plugged her ears against the horror. She’d known this would happen even as she’d begged against it, but sometimes there was no stopping fate. You’ve survived worse. Just push through it. Pretend you’re on a warm beach, vacationing, and there’s a hot surfer coming out of the water. Wait, scratch that. A hot Australian surfer coming out of the water, heading for you with a sexy smile—

Someone tugged her fingers from her ears. Her best friend and EMT partner, Jenna. “It’s over,” she said. “You can look now.”

Piper opened her eyes. No warm beach, no sexy surfer. She was still at the Whiskey River Bar and Grill, surrounded by her coworkers and so-called friends, and way too many birthday streamers and balloons, all mocking her because someone had thought it’d be funny to do it in all gloom-and-doom black.

“You do realize that turning thirty isn’t exactly the end of the world?” Jenna said.

Maybe not, but there was a reason Piper hadn’t wanted to celebrate. She’d just hit a milestone birthday without being at any sort of milestone, or anywhere even close to a milestone. Certainly nowhere near where she’d thought she’d be at thirty.

“Hey, let’s sing it again now that she’s listening,” someone called out. Ryland, no doubt. The hotshot firefighter was always the group’s instigator.

And so everyone began singing again, laughing when Piper grimaced and did her best not to crawl under the table. Truth was, she’d rather have a root canal without meds than be the center of attention, and these asshats knew it. “It’s like you all want to die,” she muttered. But someone put a drink in her hand, and since she was off duty now for two days, she took a long gulp.

“I was very clear,” she said when the alcohol burn cleared her throat, eyeing the whole group, most of whom were also first responders and worked with her at the station or hospital in one form or another. “We weren’t going to mention my birthday, much less sing about it.”

Not a single one of them looked guilty. In fact, they ignored her. “To Piper,” Ry said, and everyone raised a glass. “For gathering and keeping all us misfits together and sane.”