Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(69)

She told me no.

We argued about it. Her stating that the timing wasn’t right. Me stating that I loved her, so the timing didn’t matter.

But then that night, only moments after I drifted off to sleep, I woke up to hear her counting to ten.

“Yes,” she whispered in my ear.

I couldn’t even be mad that she’d waited for the splice. It was a new day. And she was going to be my wife. I would never love anyone like I loved that woman. And while she believed that the world was dictated by unorchestrated coincidence, I had not a single doubt that she had been sent to me from someone up above.

I didn’t deserve her. And our lives, as twisted and tangled as they were, would never be easy.

But she was mine.

They were mine.

The rest would fall into place.

“Have you given any thought to if you want more kids one day?” I asked.

She hummed and smiled out at Rosalee. “I just wanted a family. She’s enough. We’re enough.”

I stared out at Rosalee splashing in the ocean, the tide rolling in, my guardian angel and soon-to-be wife sitting on my left, and I had to agree with her. Though some doors were better left open. “You change your mind, I want to be the first to know.”

“Absolutely. Right after I see if Ryan Reynolds is available to father my children, you will be the first to know.”

She giggled as I stared at her with a gaping mouth.

God, I loved that woman.

“If you scream, you’re going to scare her,” I stated, standing up.

“Huh?”

I put my hands on either side of her chair and repeated, “If you scream, you’re going to scare her.”

“I don’t—”

But that was all she got out before I dipped low and tossed her over my shoulder. I had to give her credit; she barely let out a squeak.

“Hey, Rosie Posie. I think Willow needs to cool off. The sun has gone straight to her head. Let’s get in the water.”

“Yay!” Rosalee squealed. “Let me get my floaties.” She trotted over to our chairs and riffled through Willow’s beach bag, throwing everything out in her furious search.

“Caven, put me down.”

“You got any more Ryan Reynolds jokes?”

“Not at the moment. But I reserve the right should one pop into my head at a future date.”

I chuckled and set her back on her feet, the water biting her ankles. She could make whatever jokes she wanted as long as she was making them with me.

“I love you, Willow. In this second and all the ones to come.”

I hooked her around the waist, dragging her into my chest, and kissed her hard and completely indecently.





WILLOW


Five years later…



“Willow!” Rosalee called down the hall. “Keira’s diaper stinks.”

I looked at Caven, who was sitting beside me on the couch. He had his legs kicked up on the leather ottoman, mine draped across his, a football game playing in the background.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” I asked.

“Are you going to cheat and use the atomic bomb again?”

I popped one shoulder. “Probably.”

“Then no.”

I laughed and shoved at his shoulder. “Come on. I’m tired. I did the last one.”

“No, you didn’t. You took the girls out back and drew on the sidewalk for an hour, blew bubbles for another hour, painted their hands and feet then stamped them in their baby books for a half hour after that. Which, babe, I know I don’t have to remind you of this, but Rosalee is almost ten. You can probably stop the baby book before she becomes college-age. But then, after you did all that, you brought them back inside and asked me to change Keira’s diaper before you went up to take a shower. But what you failed to mention was that, before I removed that diaper, I was going to need a hazmat suit.”

I laughed again. This was all very, very true.

It had taken two years and watching Rosalee graduate kindergarten for me to catch the baby bug. For as many times as Caven had asked me if I’d changed my mind about kids, I think he’d caught it long before then—possibly even before our wedding.

We had given a lot of thought to how we wanted to finish our family. Caven was concerned his family history would prevent us from adopting, so we both agreed to give IVF and surrogacy a go. However, we had no idea the emotional rollercoaster we’d signed up for.

First, it took over six months to find a surrogate we both trusted. I liked several of the women the agency had matched us with. Caven wasn’t so sure. And when I say he wasn’t so sure, I mean he threw their folders into the trash and told me that they were all unacceptable. By the fifth perfect candidate, who he ruled out because she was a coffee drinker, I realized he was just scared.

After everything we’d been through, trust was not his strong suit. And trusting a stranger with his unborn child was more than he could handle.

Eventually, Beth volunteered to be our surrogate, and while Caven was ecstatic, Ian lost his mind. They weren’t together at the time. Or maybe they had been. Who the hell knew with those two. But when she showed up to break the news to Caven that she couldn’t do it, she was wearing an engagement ring the size of Rosalee’s head (slight exaggeration, but only slight.)