“We should probably get up and shower. I have to start cooking.”

He held my eyes. Then his big, warm hand pressed lightly into my belly and his gaze moved there.

When his touch didn’t ease and his gaze didn’t shift for some time, I called softly, “Ty?” and his eyes, those beautiful, light brown eyes with their thick, black, curly lashes came to me.

“Proof,” he whispered.

“What?” I whispered back, lost in his eyes, over five years with my man and, still, I frequently got lost in those eyes.

“Proof,” he repeated then explained, “Lady Luck likes us.”

I grinned because she did. I’d had five beautiful years and I wasn’t sure but I was thinking we were favorites.

“Yeah,” I said softly.

His hand pressed slightly deeper as his head bent so he could touch his mouth to mine. Then his lips went away but his forehead touched mine.

Then he was out of bed but reaching in and then I was out of bed.

Then we were in the shower.

It was a long one.

Seriously, if my man didn’t want so many kids, he should probably stop f**king me so much.

Then again, at that point, the damage was done so we might as well have fun.

* * * * *

The doorbell rang and there were three, “I’ll get its,” one from Bess, one from Honey and a deep, rumbling one from Ty.

Ty won and I knew this because Bess and Honey didn’t stop what they were doing and Ty moved.

At his rumble, I had looked over the counter and I saw Bess’s man, Roland, and Honey’s man, Zander, sitting in armchairs but I watched my husband appear from behind the couch in our sunken family room. Ella Alexi was on his back. We called her “Lella” or “Lell” because, when she started speaking, that was how she referred to herself.

She called my other Ella Gramma.

My husband shifted to his feet with his daughter on his back with practiced ease. This was because both Lell and Vivie considered their father’s large frame their own personal jungle gym and treated it as such.

He didn’t complain. Not once.

Lell locked her arms around his neck, her little legs not long enough to surround his chest (even though she was well off the charts for height, still, she wasn’t even five) but they still clutched tight. Ty helped, curving a long arm behind him under her bottom.

Lell secure on his back, I watched as he bent then I heard a squeal and he came up with Vivian Bess, our Vivie, carrying her under his free arm like a sack of grain. She kept squealing but it wasn’t her pissed off squeal, it was her giggly squeal.

Then he strode to the four steps then up them carrying his daughters while his head turned and his eyes slid to me. I grinned at him. He grinned back. Vivie squealed again. His grin turned into a smile.

Then I lost sight of him as he headed to the front door.

I looked back to the sunken living room which had floor to ceiling windows out in a point that were nearly a story and a half tall and gave a view of the hill, Carnal and the hills and mountains beyond. The family room was vast. Up the four steps it opened into an almost equally vast kitchen that sat at the heart of the house and faced the family room over a high counter with stools. Off to one side and up two steps was a circular room that was a dining room that had huge windows and French doors to a deck. Off to the other side and down two steps was a square room that was an office, ditto with the windows, doors and deck. Down the wide side hall to the front door at the front of the house was a more formal living room and a set of stairs that led to the top floor. Down the other wide, side hall off the office that also eventually led to the living room was a smaller opening that included a butler’s pantry and an area the developers called a “Mom’s Unit” which included cupboards and a long counter with a cutout at one end that gave space for a chair. That was where I had my sewing machine and did my craft stuff. Further down that hall on one side was a half bath, on the other side was the door to a three car garage. On top of all this vast space was another, smaller, open family room, five bedrooms and three full baths, one of those full baths being in Ty and my gigantic master suite that also faced front in a point with floor to ceiling windows to our spectacular view and off the side opposite the bath there was a private deck.

I found the house about three weeks after our ordeal finally ended for good. It was in a cushy development up a hill off the north side of Carnal. The houses were few and very far apart. Ours had been ordered by a family whose father unfortunately and unexpectedly lost his high-paying job so they had to back out. The good news about that was, they’d gone for the gusto on build with all the upgrades they could order and the developers were scrambling to find someone who’d take it off their hands. So we got it for a song though that song was still a whack.

Once I saw it, I went back with Laurie, Wendy, Betty and Maggie who all agreed it was the shit then I went back with Dominic and Kayeleen and they told me I had to have it so I took my husband there thinking he’d say no way.

It was huge. It was pricey.

But it was us.

Ty, being Ty, walked through without comment then stood in the empty space of the master suite that had only two weeks before been carpeted and had criss-cross stripes of tape on the massive windows. He stared out the windows for three seconds then looked down at me and muttered, “Get it, mama.”

I didn’t demur. I got it.

We made a whack on the condo, we had a whack in the bank and we recovered the whack that Arnold Fuller stole from our safe. Our mortgage ended up being the same as the condo and we still had money in the bank.

I had Ella Alexi and finished my massage therapy certification which didn’t triple my salary, it quadrupled it (not to mention, I loved being a massage therapist because I was right, peopled loved coming to see me, I was the highlight of their day).

So it was all good.

I heard movement and mutterings and looked to the side, my hands on a rolling pin rolling pie dough, and I saw Laurie, Tate, Ty and my daughters emerge from the hall. Lella was still on her Daddy’s back but now Vivie had her little arms wrapped around Tate’s neck, one of his arms was behind him supporting her booty, the other hand lifted and holding onto her forearm.

I smiled at him then looked to Laurie who was talking.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted Ella, Bessie, Honey and me, all of us in the kitchen cooking, something Ty told me I should not allow (except Bess and me) but something, since it was Thanksgiving, I really couldn’t stop them from doing.

Laurie got heys back and walked into the kitchen, dumping bags on the counter beside me and saying, “Sorry, honey, but Jonas is a no show. This week he and his girl have decided it’s forever and he’s at her parents’ house for dinner. We didn’t get the news until about an hour ago and thus ensued a father son talk that I was dragged into as an innocent but silent bystander, silent because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, so I didn’t have a chance to warn you.” Then she leaned in and said quietly, “This has not made his father happy.”