“No, no, one set of hands is all I need to do some weeding.”
“I’ll come out when I’m done,” I told her. “It won’t take me too long.”
She set her wide-brimmed hat on her head and paused before she walked out front. “Actually,” she said, tugging her gardening gloves on, “I know how you can help.”
I glanced over. “Yeah?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “A great-grandchild would be lovely.”
As she walked outside, I was still laughing because she found so many ways to remind Noah and me that she needed a baby to spoil.
The door swung back open, and my smile softened when Noah strode back into the cabin.
“Forget something?” I asked.
He snatched his water bottle from the counter. “It’s hotter than hell out there.”
“I’ll take another kiss while you’re here.”
He was already sweaty, one of my very favorite looks on the man I loved so much. When he came around the couch to cage me in with his arms and take my mouth in a deep, searing kiss, I felt that desperate urge rush through me, just like it always did.
Honestly, it was a miracle I wasn’t pregnant with how often he took me to bed.
Noah had proven that frequent sex did not hurt his performance on the field in any way. Mr. Defensive Player of the Year had proven it well, too.
I licked my lips when he pulled back. “And your dad would notice if you didn’t come back outside right away, right?”
Noah hummed. “Yes.”
I trailed my finger along the edge of his jaw. “Okay. I can wait until tonight.”
His eyes searched my face and landed unerringly on my mouth. “Can you?”
My heart started pounding wildly, and my toes curled up. “Yes?”
“I can’t,” he stated.
My lips spread in a slow smile. “No?”
As usual, my big man was quick to make his decision. “Nope.”
And he scooped me up, both hands under my ass. My legs wound around his waist as he straightened, turning us toward our bedroom.
I loved the bed in that cabin. It was my second favorite bed in the world.
“Noah?” I said breathlessly as he sucked along the edge of my throat.
He growled something unintelligible into my skin.
I gripped the sides of his face so I knew he was paying attention to me.
“Wha?” he said. He already had that dazed look in his eye that he got when my clothes started disappearing.
“Make sure to lock the door,” I said. “I don’t want any interruptions for what I’m about to do to you.”
He grinned. His hands tightened on my body as he walked us into the bedroom, his foot delivering a swift kick to the door.
No matter how our love story started, as long as it brought us right here, it was perfect.
Claire
Searching the internet for glimpses of your mother brought about strange emotional reactions. Unless you’d experienced those reactions, it was hard to put them into words. Occasionally, we’d get a postcard from her with an updated address, or a caption-less picture would show up on the usually quiet Facebook account she still had access to. Those tiny snippets were the only way my sisters and I knew where Brooke was currently spending her days.
My heart and my head warred mightily when I studied the last few pictures she’d posted. I wasn’t furious at the thought of her; it was hard to be when we had such a happy life in her absence. But I didn’t feel nothing either. Sometimes I wanted to punch her. Sometimes I wanted to hug her. Most of all, I wanted to sit across from Brooke Ashley Huntington-Ward and pick apart her brain. That was the most desperate feeling of all of them, fighting for first place in my head. I wanted to understand why, and it drove me abso-friggin-lutely batshit crazy that I might never have that understanding.
As I scrolled through, counting five pictures posted in the last three years, my twin sister’s phone lit up on the desk next to me where it was charging. My eyes cut to the screen, a force of habit because it was often a group text from one of our other sisters or Paige.
It wasn’t from any of them, though. What appeared was a text from Finn, my twin sister Lia’s best friend, and like I’d trained my body to do it, my heart sped up at the sight of his stupid name.
Finn: Lia, PLEASE, I’ll owe you a million favors if you help me out.
“I’ll help you,” I mumbled miserably. It didn’t even matter what he needed help with. I’d do it. I’d do it without a million favors. If I closed my eyes, I could picture every detail of his face. The way his smile was a little lopsided. The width of his shoulders that seemed to expand every year. The shy exterior that hid a personality that was so, so funny and dry and sarcastic. But I didn’t close my eyes because picturing my twin sister’s best friend was another thing that made my head and heart war mightily. And every single time, my head won.