Second Epilogue
A YEAR LATER
WALKER
I missed my wife.
In all the years we’d been together, I’d never missed her quite like this. Moreover, I was worried about her. Sloane had been working overtime at the bakery to cover Callie who was on maternity leave. And when she wasn’t working overtime, her brain was worrying about our daughter, fussing over our grandkids Harley and Xander. Our son Harry was fifteen, obsessed with martial arts and football and uninterested in academics. This concerned Sloane who was spreading herself thin trying to make sure everyone had everything they needed from her.
Even with me there to make sure Harry did his homework, was fed, clothed, supported, and attending school and all his extracurriculars, it wasn’t enough. I helped out with Callie and the grandkids when I could. But my woman couldn’t switch off and it wasn’t helping she was practically running that bakery all by herself at the moment. Xander was only a few months old so Callie was at home with him and our granddaughter Harley.
Fuck.
Granddaughter. Grandson.
We weren’t old enough for that shit.
Well, I was.
Sloane wasn’t.
Parking my SUV in the car park behind the bakery, I carried the flask of decaf coffee I’d made for my wife. The bakery hadn’t been open today, but Sloane had gone in this afternoon to prep and she still hadn’t come home. She’d texted me earlier to tell me she’d eaten, but I didn’t know how much longer she was going to be, and I was sick of waiting at home alone. The bungalow felt so fucking empty.
School started back next week, the summer holidays already almost over, and Harry was making the most of his freedom, staying at his pal’s house in Golspie for the night. His friend’s parents assured me they were home, there was no partying, and they were holed up inside playing video games.
Far more innocent than the shit I’d gotten up to at fifteen.
I knocked on the back door of the bakery, already anticipating seeing my wife like I hadn’t seen her in years.
It felt like it.
Other than when we were in our bed, I hadn’t had Sloane to myself in weeks.
“It’s me,” I called through the door.
A few seconds later, the back entrance swung open. Ever since Callie was attacked at the bakery, I’d made both my wife and daughter promise no loud music when they were on their own and always to ask who was at the door before opening it.
Sloane’s gorgeous face split into a happy smile as she stepped back to let me in. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d bring you coffee.” My gaze swept the place. It looked like she was in the middle of cleaning up. There were trays of cakes in airtight containers waiting to be frosted, which I knew she’d do in the morning before opening. Bags of frosting ready to be chilled. Flour and bits of butter still on one of the counters.
Sloane ran a hand through her hair as she watched me set the carafe on her clean counter. Her eyes roamed over me greedily in a way I recognized after many years of marriage. Satisfaction heated my blood.
“I miss you.” She gave me a soft smile as she echoed my feelings. “It feels like forever.”
We’d been married for almost seventeen years. There had been disagreements and hurt feelings, but I could count those moments on one hand. Despite my resistance in the beginning, my wife had given me a beautiful life. I thought I’d wanted solitude. Instead, she’d given me the chaos of parenthood, as well as the gift of it. She’d filled an emptiness in me. Coming home to her and the kids fixed something broken in me. Sometimes I shuddered to think what my life would look like if Sloane hadn’t fought so hard to show me what I needed.
I think that’s why I hated sitting in the house alone.
There were very few people I’d admit that to. “Aye, it does feel like forever.”
She sighed. “I was just finishing up and then coming home to you.”
I shrugged. “I’m here now. Put me to work.”
“No. You just sit there and keep me company.” Sloane gestured to a couple of footstools over in the corner. “Tell me about your day.”
I hungrily watched her as she moved around the bakery cleaning up. “Do you remember Dr. Dick?”
Sloane scowled. “I remember.”
Dr. Dick was what Fyfe called Dr. Cameron Phillips. The moniker caught on. After I’d witnessed him trying to intimidate Eilidh into dating him, I’d made it my fucking mission to run the arsehole out of town. Eilidh was Callie’s sister-in-law. She was family. I’d known her since she was a kid. No one fucked with my people. Or with women.
Her uncle Lachlan felt the same way. Once we’d discovered Dr. Dick had a habit of harassing and stalking women, Lachlan handed that information over to a journalist down in Edinburgh. Three months ago, the story on Dr. Dick broke. Eilidh, unfortunately, was pulled into another media storm over it. The poor lass. She’d been through a lot lately. But hopefully, this was the end of it and she’d get some peace. “The board revoked his medical license. Decision came in today. Lachlan told me.”
Sloane straightened. There was that look in her eye. The one I secretly lived for. The look that said she thought I could do anything. “You and Lachlan did that.”
“Mostly Lachlan.”
“You both did it.” Her smile was soft. “I’m proud of you.”
“Proud of you,” I murmured truthfully.
Her cheeks flushed and I was already anticipating a night alone in the house with her. “Callie stopped by with Harley and Xander today. I don’t think she and Lewis quite realized how hard having two babies was going to be.” Worry creased her forehead. “Maybe we could offer to take them for a few days?”
The woman didn’t know how to stop. She’d always wanted to protect Callie (and Harry) from absolutely everything. Even new parent exhaustion. “Xander’s too young. They wouldn’t want to be away from him just now.”
“You didn’t see her. She’s worn thin.”
“And she’ll get through it,” I promised her. “When Xander’s a bit older, we’ll take them away for a long weekend. All of us. It’ll give Callie and Lewis some free time without taking the kids away from them entirely.”
Sloane considered the idea. “That could be good.”
“They’re fine. They’re better than fine. This is what they wanted. And they’re young enough to have the energy to handle it.” When we had Harry, the exhaustion was a shock to my fucking system.
“True.”
I cleared my throat, eyes devouring Sloane’s every move as she finished cleaning up and began untying her apron. Her hair was scraped tightly back from her face for hygienic reasons, and I itched to tug the hair tie out in favor of my fist. Heat pooled in my gut. “I take it now is a bad time to suggest a holiday just for two? Lachlan offered to take Harry for a week next month. He and Brechin would love it.” Brechin, Lachlan and Robyn’s son, was in the same year at school and the two lads had become best pals lately. Brechin was also at this lad’s sleepover in Golspie because wherever Harry went, Brechin followed.
Sloane turned to me, her pretty blue eyes lit with surprise. Seventeen years. I’d wondered if at some point, I’d lose my need for her. Strangely, my possessiveness for her only increased. “A holiday? Where?”
“Portugal. I might already have booked it.” A private villa overlooking the water.
“Seriously?” she asked a bit breathlessly.
“Seriously.”
“I’d have to close the bakery. Ask Callie if she minded?—”
“Callie already knows. She’s happy to close the bakery for a week.”
My wife crossed her arms over her chest, a smirk playing on her lips. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“I want my wife to myself.”
At the growl in my voice, Sloane’s whole body softened in a way I recognized. Fuck, I was a lucky bastard. “I could be alone with you for a week. What do you intend to do with me?”
“I think you know.”
“I’d still like to hear about it.”
My lips twitched. “Let’s just say I made sure the villa has a bed frame I can tie you to.”
Her cheeks flushed, eyes gleaming. “Oh, I can definitely close the bakery for that.”
“How about I give you a preview this evening?” It had been ages since we could play. Sex had become making love quietly most nights. I still held her down like she liked, sometimes missionary, sometimes on her knees. But always quiet and less energetic than either of us preferred. It was only on nights Harry was out of the house that I could fuck my wife hard and rough just as she liked it.
“Oh, I definitely expect a preview when we get home.” She reached up to untie her hair. “But maybe you could give me an appetizer right now.”
My already heated blood turned hotter as I raised an eyebrow. “Here?”
As her hair fell around her shoulders, Sloane reached for the zipper on her jeans. “I told you I missed you.”
I’d crossed the room and hauled her up onto the counter before she’d barely finished speaking. Her laugh scored through me as my hands coasted possessively over her body. “Fuck, I missed you too.”
Sloane’s lips brushed mine. “Then stop missing me.”
My answer was to kiss her as if she was the fucking oxygen I needed to breathe.
Because that’s exactly what Sloane Ironside was.
NORTH
It had been weeks since I’d seen my wife and son. Weeks .
I’d decided to surprise them by returning home a few days early and was excited to see their faces. I loved my job and I tried my best to take work that would keep me close. However, this film opportunity was one I couldn’t pass up, even if it meant filming between LA and Europe for the last four months. The role was that of a government assassin pulled out of retirement and was the most physically demanding part I’d ever played. Before it, I’d been in training for six months to get my body where it needed to be to do some of the stunts. I’d promised Aria not all of them, considering I was closer to fifty than forty now. However, I’d never been in better shape in my life.
Still, I didn’t like my wife worrying about me, so I did what I could to assuage her concerns by leaving the bigger stunts to the professionals.
Now that we’d finished filming, I’d have some time at home until the press tour started for a movie I’d filmed last year.
School had just started back, so I knew Maddox would be in class by the time I returned to our home on Ardnoch Estate. We had a beautiful coastal home, and it meant Aria was literally a five-minute drive from work. It also had the benefit of being one of the safest places on the planet for my family to live, and it gave me comfort knowing they were safe when I was out of the country filming.
Deciding to stop in at the castle to surprise Aria first, I asked them not to say anything at the gates as they let my car through. That meant no one was there to greet me at the main entrance like usual. The head butler Wakefield had retired last year, replaced by Stephen, who now went by his surname Miller. It didn’t quite have the same ring to it. I’d suggested to Aria she insist on him taking on a fake surname, but she’d just laughed like she thought I was joking.
I was in fact quite serious.
Miller was a rubbish name for a head butler.
Pushing open one of the double doors at the grand entrance of the castle, I stepped inside to find the great hall empty. My feet echoed off the parquet flooring as I crossed the large expanse and disappeared under one of the arches at the rear. I followed the wide corridor to the left, heading toward my wife’s office. Aria was the estate manager now. She’d taken over most of Lachlan Adair’s duties, freeing him up for his other business ventures. It kept Aria busier than I’d like when I was home, but it wasn’t fair for me to expect her to adjust her schedule just because I was home for a bit.
Weariness crawled through me at the thought. I missed my family. We’d fought so hard to create our family, and I sometimes feared I might look back at my life and regret all the moments I’d missed in favor of my career.
For years, Aria and I had tried to have a child. It didn’t happen. Turned out we both had issues in that department, which made us extremely incompatible as procreators. It broke my fucking heart not to be able to give Aria what she wanted. In the darkest moments of our grief, I’d thought I might lose her, even when she assured me I was enough. Eventually, we got to a place where we could talk about adoption. Once we started the process, it took a while, but we eventually got Maddox. He came to us at three years old. His mother overdosed when he was two and he’d been in care ever since. Those first few months were difficult. As to be expected, Mad was a very mixed-up wee boy. It was distressing to see that in a toddler, but it also didn’t take long for him to start trusting our permanency. Now he had no memory of that time, and Aria and I were just Mum and Dad.
He was eight years old.
Five years had flown by.
I missed his birthday this year.
I fucking hated that.
Desperate to see my family, I hurried my steps toward Aria. I wondered if I could convince her to take Mad out of school for the day. I threw open the door without knocking and abruptly halted at the sight before me.
Aria sat with her arse against the edge of her desk, her hands braced at either side of her curvy thighs, laughing up at the security guard who stood way too close to her for my comfort.
Perhaps it was just the way I’d been feeling lately, but anger and jealousy flushed through me before I could stop it. “What the fuck?”
Aria’s gorgeous eyes flew to me and widened. She straightened up off the desk and her body brushed the arsehole looming over her.
I glowered at the bloke I didn’t recognize. “Do you want to step away from my wife.” It wasn’t a question.
The security guard raised an eyebrow and stepped back from Aria. I could feel her glaring at me, but I didn’t take my eyes off the fucker who thought it was appropriate to be in his boss’s personal space. He was younger than me. Both of us. At least twenty years younger than me. “I was just relaying some information to Mrs. Hunter,” the security guard explained calmly.
“Awful cozy relaying.”
He pinched his lips together in displeasure and looked at Aria. “If that’s all?”
“Of course, Evan. And apologies for my husband’s behavior.”
I bristled as he strolled by me, almost daring me to punch him in the face.
As soon as the door closed behind him, I shook my head. “Don’t ever fucking apologize for me.”
“Don’t come barging in here after months of being away and accuse me of … of … what exactly?” she hissed, throwing her arms up in disbelief.
“You were flirting with him.”
Her outrage should have warned me I was crossing the line. But I was exhausted, lonely, and I missed my fucking family more than anything in the world, and the truth was … I wasn’t even sure they missed me that much when I was gone. Aria never asked me to stay. Whenever I spoke to Maddox on video chat, he filled my ears about days spent with his uncle Jared on the farm or Uncle Walker at the estate or how cool fucking Uncle Lewis’s motorbike was and how funny Uncle Theo was.
“I was not flirting with him. He was telling me about an issue with a member and it was kind of funny. That’s what you walked in on and the fact that you could even accuse me of flirting with another man pisses me off more than I can say right now because I’m at work and I can’t scream at you like I want to,” she whisper-shouted, beautiful face flushed with indignation.
“Well, I’m sorry,” I whisper-shouted back. “But I missed my fucking wife, and I didn’t expect some twenty-year-old to be drooling over her behind my back.”
“He’s not twenty and he wasn’t drooling. Contrary to your belief, North, not every man finds me attractive.”
“Then they’re fucking blind!”
Her eyes flashed. “Why do I want to rip your clothes off when I’m this mad at you!”
“Because you missed me too!” I crossed the room and pulled her into my arms, crushing whatever angry thing she’d semi-yell at me next. The taste and feel and smell of her filled my senses, and I remembered the months of lonely nights without her. How I’d imagined her in my arms. And having her now, even like this, made me lose my ever-loving mind with want.
Aria didn’t stop me as I tugged and pulled at her mouth, my hands roaming her luscious curves. When she moaned at the feel of my erection, everything blanked but the need to be inside her. It had been so long. Too long.
I spun her around, shoving her things off her desk to clear the way to bend her over it.
“North!” She gasped as I yanked her tight skirt up and over her plump arse. “Oh my god.”
“No, gorgeous, it’s just me.” I tested her, pushing my fingers inside her wet, tight heat. “You did miss me.” I scrambled to unzip my jeans and release the raging erection straining to get inside my wife.
“Don’t—oh, yes—think this—uhhh—means—ah—I’m not stillmadatyouohhhh!” Her back arched as I thrust my cock into her.
“Oh fuck.” I squeezed my eyes closed as I held her hips in place and enjoyed the sensation of her tight heat wrapped around me. Then the memory of her laughing up at the security guard clouded my mind. It wasn’t that I believed my wife was flirting with someone else. Or that she’d ever even think of betraying me.
It was that I wasn’t the one here on a daily basis making her laugh like that.
Longing scored through me and possessiveness had me clasping her nape in one hand and her hip in my other as I pulled almost all the way out and slammed back into her.
Aria let out a little cry and her fingers bit into the edge of her desk.
“Okay?” I grunted, squeezing her neck.
She nodded. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. I missed you. I’m really mad at you, but I missed you so much.”
Euphoria scored through me and I tightened my grip on her as I drove in and out of her body. Her whimpers and low moans, along with the clutch of her wet heat, had my balls drawing up faster than I liked.
“I missed you. I missed this. I miss us.” I slammed harder into her. “Do you need me like I need you?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she huffed. “North, please …”
I slipped a hand between her legs and found her clit.
Just one touch and she went off like a rocket, clamping down around my cock, sucking me deep as her orgasm undulated through her. That’s all it took to send me over the edge. I came so fucking hard, I forgot to stifle my shout of release.
My hands caressed Aria’s round arse as I slowly pulled out. Watching my cum drip from my wife’s body would always and forever be one of my favorite viewing pleasures. I reached across her to the tissues on her desk.
She shivered, her arms shaking, holding her up as I wiped between her legs and then cleaned myself before tucking my cock back in my underwear and jeans.
Aria tossed me a dark, sexy look over her shoulder. “You had to be loud, didn’t you. Caveman.” She pushed up off the desk, shoving her skirt back down. “If I lose my job for unprofessionalism, I will lose my mind at you.”
Feeling too satisfied and smug to engage in another argument, I shrugged. “Worth it.”
Hurt flickered over her face. “I can’t believe you think I’d flirt with someone else.”
Groaning, I tried to reach for her and she rounded the desk, putting it between us. “Gorgeous,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry. Look, I know you wouldn’t. I’m just tired.”
She crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Not good enough.”
Frustration gnawed at me. I was home for only a few weeks. I didn’t want to spend that time arguing. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Still not good enough.”
“Fine.” I threw my hands up. “I am sick and tired of missing my family and feeling like they don’t give a shit I’m never here. You tell me you miss me, but I don’t feel it. I miss you, Aria, like I’m walking around without a fucking limb. But you act like everything’s fine and dandy, that life goes on just the same whether I’m here or not. And Maddox has plenty of men around him, he barely even notices my absence.”
“What do you want me to say?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I knew this was your job when I married you.”
“That’s it. That’s all you have to say.” Crushing disappointment had me staggering back.
“No.” Tears filled her eyes. “No. But if I said what I truly wanted to say, then you’d make changes and resent me for them. And I don’t want you to make changes because of me. I want you to make changes because that’s what you want.”
“So we’re playing games? After almost two decades of marriage, we’re playing games?”
“You’re the one playing games.”
“I miss you. I want to be home more. But not if I’m not needed.” There. I’d said it. My worst fears. “Distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, gorgeous. It makes it insecure and lonely.”
“You think I’m not?” She gestured to herself. “When we got married, you chose roles that kept you close to home. Then we got Maddox and we had you all to ourselves for a while. But we weren’t enough for you.”
“What?” I glowered.
“We weren’t.” She shrugged. “You needed more. And that’s fine. But you were the one who said yes to bigger roles that took you away from us for months out of the year. You did, North. And I agreed to go along with it because I knew what I was signing up for when I married an actor. But you don’t get to come marching back after months of being away and accuse us of not missing or needing you. I’m raising our child on my own while holding down a full-time job. So the people around me who love me are stepping in to support us while you’re gone. Of course we fucking need you!” she yelled, pain etching her features. Seeing it was like a knife in the heart. “But I will not be the one who asks you to give up something you love. I don’t want to have to. As for your son, he talks about you every day. He’s just a resilient kid, and he’s making the best of not having his dad around.”
Longing constricted my chest. “You and Maddox are what I love. The most important thing. This was my mistake. These last few years, they were my mistake. Thinking I could have my cake and eat it too.” I shrugged as tears blurred my vision. “I’m not happy without you. I miss you.”
Aria licked her lips and asked tentatively, “What does that mean?”
Almost two decades this woman had been mine. I knew her inside and out. So I knew that her tone and that careful expression on her face was her trying not to hope.
Fuck.
She was trying not to hope that I might want to stay home.
That killed me. “Theo wants me to consider a role on his and Eilidh’s show. It would mean at least a season of work.”
Her lips parted, and I could see the excitement building in her eyes. “They film that forty minutes from here.”
I nodded, smiling. “Aye, they do.”
The light dimmed in her gaze. “But is that what you really want?”
“Aye.” I rounded the desk now, done with it being between us. “It’s absolutely what I want.” I pulled her into my arms, peppering her cheeks with kisses before cuddling her against me. Her fists tightened in the back of my shirt as she hung on. “I’m sorry for being such a bastard earlier.”
“When? When you accused my security guard of flirting with me or when you bent me over the desk and had your wicked away with me?” she teased.
“Should I be sorry for the latter?”
“No,” Aria grumbled. “It was hot.”
I shook with laughter, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “I am sorry. I’ve just … all of that shit has been building over months, and it spilled out in the least mature way I could think of.”
It was her turn to laugh as she pulled back to grin up at me. “It’s okay. But just so you know, we will always need you, North. When you leave, you take a piece of me with you, and that empty place that’s left inside aches until you’re home again.”
“Fuck,” I murmured, clasping her beautiful face in my hands. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
I brushed my lips over hers and we sighed into each other’s mouths. After a few moments of just soaking up each other’s presence, I said, “Do you think we can take Mad out of school early today?”
“No,” she replied instantly and sternly, making me chuckle. “But you can be there to pick him up after school. He’ll be so over the moon to see his dad.”
“Aye?”
“You’re kind of his hero, you know?”
“Really?”
“Yes.” She squeezed me. “He thinks you are very cool. And I’ve been told by those in the know that you should enjoy this time, buddy, because in about five years, he’s going to think you and I are the definition of not cool.”
Chuckling, I nodded. “Got it. Enjoy the cool while we can.”
A few hours later, after unpacking my luggage, a quick shower, and food, I drove to Ardnoch Primary. The place was packed with parents picking up their kids, and I ignored the wide-eyed looks of recognition and made my way through the crowd toward familiar faces. My best mate, Theo Cavendish, stood at the school gates with my sister-in-law, Allegra McCulloch. He and Allegra were also related by marriage as Theo was married to Sarah, Allegra’s husband’s cousin.
Theo’s daughter, my pseudo niece, Rose, was six years old, and Theo or Sarah collected her and Mad from primary school every day to help us out. Ally’s son, my nephew Collum, had just started school, and Allegra was about four months pregnant with her and Jared’s second child.
“Look at these two troublemakers,” I announced my presence.
Ally whirled around, eyes wide, and then immediately threw her arms around me. I gave her a tight hug and pulled back to note her slight bump.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Doing well? You look happy.”
“I am doing well and I’m extremely happy.” She nudged me. “So … are you sticking around for a while?”
My eyes met Theo. “My friend here offered me a part I couldn’t refuse.”
His lips curled. “I take it that’s your way of accepting the role?”
“Aye, if you still want me.”
“I’m not sure anyone wants you, old boy, but yes, you are rather perfect for the part.”
I shook my head at his drollness, my attention moving to the school as the bell rang. My pulse picked up speed. “How is my boy?”
“He’s great.” Allegra rubbed a soothing hand over my back. “Mad will be so excited to see you.”
“Aye. I can’t wait to see him.”
Conversation passed between my friend and sister-in-law, but I wasn’t paying any attention. I strained to see Maddox.
Then there he was.
Strolling out of the building, his backpack too big and bouncing off his back as he skip-walked while chatting with one of his wee pals. The day we picked him up, he’d been shyly hiding behind his social worker. I’d held out my hand to him, at once terrified of being a parent, but also determined to love him as hard as any father had loved a son. Our eyes had met and at that moment, I’d claimed him. My wee boy.
Maddox had looked warily at my hand for a second and then, as if he knew I was his too, he released his hold on his social worker and slowly reached for me. As soon as my fingers curled around his tiny hand, I’d promised to never let go.
All that love swelled up in me, and I pushed past parents so Mad could see me.
His friend saw me first, hitting Mad’s shoulder as he pointed at me.
Maddox’s head jerked around.
His entire face lit up with surprise and delight. “Dad!” he yelled.
I swear I had to stop myself from bawling like a baby as he ran through the other kids to get to me, beaming from ear to ear.
I didn’t care if he was eight and too old for it. I swooped him up into my arms, mine slipping beneath his backpack to hold him close. Maddox wrapped himself around me like a monkey, laughing with joy that I was home.
“When did you get home? Are you staying? Can you cook the chicken wrap thingies I like? When do you leave?” He blurted out all his questions at once as I carried him back toward his aunt and uncle.
“I just got home. Aye, I’m staying. Aye to the wraps and I don’t leave for a few weeks. But I won’t be long this time. When I come home again, I’ll be sticking around. How does that sound?”
He clung to my neck, bobbing his head with excitement. “Good, good. That means we can start a tournament on this new fight game Uncle Fyfe bought me. It’ll take us weeks!”
Grinning as I lowered him to the ground, I said truthfully, “Sounds fun, pal.”
He grabbed my hand, clutching tightly as he turned to Theo and Ally. “Dad’s back!”
“So we see.” Ally laughed at his exuberance.
“Sorry, Uncle Theo, but I don’t need a lift with you and Rose because Dad’s back.” He shrugged like he wasn’t sorry at all.
“How easily I’m replaced,” Theo drawled, eyes dancing with amusement.
“Dad, can we get some sweeties from the shop before we go home?” Maddox asked, already tugging me toward the car.
I nodded, my heart feeling like it might burst as every second word out of his mouth was Dad . “Dad, we should get Mum a chocolate bar too,” he prattled from the back seat. “She says they stick to her hips—whatever that means—but that you like that they stick to her hips, so we should definitely get Mum chocolate if we’re getting chocolate. It’s only polite.”
My grin almost cracked my cheeks as I laughed, driving slowly out of the car park. “Aye, buddy, we’ll get your mum chocolate. What about a chocolate cake to celebrate me being home?”
“Oh, oh, aye, let’s go to Aunt Callie’s bakery! She does the best chocolate. Dad, Dad”—he was speaking so fast, he had to catch his breath—“did you see Aunt Callie and Uncle Lewis had a baby?”
“I did, Mad. I saw that.”
“Did they have chocolate where you were? I bet it wasn’t as good as Aunt Callie and Aunt Sloane’s chocolate cake? It’s good that you’re staying for a while.” He nodded sagely.
Laughing softly, I agreed wholeheartedly. “Aye, son. It’s definitely good that I’m staying home for a long while.”