Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Come live in my heart, and pay no rent.”
—Samuel Lover
“Chase is finally asleep,” Cam whispered to Will, yawning as she joined him in bed after checking on their kids. “He’s so excited, I thought he’d never sleep.”
“I’m just so thankful to have him back to full health,” Will said, yawning right along with her, “that I don’t care if he’s up all night.”
“Shhh, don’t say that, or he will be.”
Murphy and Molly had been asleep for hours, but Chase had been a holdout.
“He’s so excited to see your dad tomorrow,” Will said.
“My dad is equally excited to see them all.”
The man who had once been an absent, remote father was a devoted, hands-on grandfather to their children.
“He wants to know how long he has to wait until he can pick them up in the chopper and take them to New York for a weekend.”
“A few more years,” Will said. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
Cameron cuddled up to him, arranging herself the way she did every night, with an arm and leg sprawled over him. “Neither am I. I’d miss them too much.”
“Funny, isn’t it, that there are days when we’d do anything for a break from the madness, but when someone who loves them as much as we do offers to take them off our hands, we’re like, no, not yet.”
“I know,” Cam said with a little laugh. “We’re silly to say no to that.”
“How about if we let him and Mary stay with them at our house for a few days and we run away together after Christmas?”
“That I could get on board with, as long as we don’t go far.”
“I might’ve already arranged this with your dad, Mary and a lovely bed-and-breakfast in Stowe. We’re leaving on the twenty-eighth, so we don’t miss game night, and we’ll be back on the first.”
Will anticipated Cameron’s squeal of excitement and kissed her to drown out the noise. “Good surprise?”
“The very best surprise ever. I can’t wait for some time alone with you.”
“And maybe after four nights with the hooligans, your dad will stop asking when he can take them to New York for a while.”
“No doubt,” she said with a grunt of laughter. “Mary will save his ass.”
“As she always does.”
“Remember when you saved my ass?” she asked, pressing against him suggestively.
He cupped his favorite ass and gave it a squeeze. “Best night of my whole life, except for every night since then.”
“Me, too. Best night ever. I still have those suede boots you rescued.”
“I know. Remember when I suggested you get a new pair?”
“That didn’t go over well. I’ll never part with them—or you.”
“And I’ll never part with you, love of my life, mother of my children, maker of magic.”
“This is my favorite night of the whole year, being here with our whole family. Thank you for giving me that, Will.”
“Thank you for giving me everything.”
She moved so she was fully on top of him and kissed him. “Definitely my pleasure.”
Lucas and Landon snuck into the barn shortly after one a.m. A fire department colleague had dropped them off after the holiday party at the fire barn.
They’d had such a busy December that they’d had no choice but to have the party late on Christmas Eve, after everyone had spent the earlier part of the evening with their families.
“What the actual fuck?” Landon asked when he tripped over something in the mudroom.
Lucas turned on the light and gasped when he saw Dexter sleeping on a gigantic bed.
“Moo,” Dexter said, visibly annoyed by the disruption.
“Only in this house would you find a full-grown bull moose sleeping on a dog bed in the mudroom,” Lucas said.
Landon snorted out a laugh. “Right?”
When he burped and then hiccupped, they cracked up.
“Moo,” Dexter said more insistently this time. In other words, get the hell out of my bedroom.
They tiptoed through the house to bedrooms on the second floor, whispered good night and then entered their assigned rooms.
It was crazy, Landon thought, how he missed Amanda and their kids after being apart for only a few hours, during which they were asleep anyway.
On a normal night at home, he’d sit up watching TV after they went to bed, feeling thankful that they were upstairs.
That was all he needed to feel content, to know they were close by.
He dropped his clothes into a pile on the floor and stepped around the air mattresses of sleeping children to get to his love.
The first thing he noticed when he slid into bed with her was that she must’ve used different shampoo, because it didn’t smell right.
And she was curvier than usual, too, and what the hell, why were her boobs so big?
And then a scream came from across the hall that had Landon launching out of bed and running for the door, tripping on the air mattress and nearly falling in his haste. He opened the door to find his naked twin standing outside the door, looking completely undone.
“Wrong room, bro,” Lucas said. “Your wife is over there.”
“Oh my God. I just felt up Dani.”
Lucas’s brows narrowed into a thunderous expression. “Get out of there. Right now.”
Amanda came to the door across the hall. “You freaking idiots,” she said on a hiss. “Landon, get over here.”
Landon put his hand over his bare junk and gave her a sheepish grin. “Yes, dear.”
Dani came to the door. “What’s going on?”
“Your husband was in my bed, and my husband was in yours,” Amanda told her.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time.” Dani grabbed Lucas’s arm. “Get in here before you wake up the whole house.”
“Hey, baby,” Lucas said, “I missed you.”
“Shut your mouth and get in bed.”
“I love when you’re stern with me.”
She gave him a push into the room and shut the door.
Amanda dragged Landon into their room. “Just when I think you two can’t top yourselves…”
“We like to keep things interesting.”
“If you wake up one of these children, I’ll neuter you.”
“Gulp.” He got into bed and waited for her to join him before turning toward her.
“You stink like beer and whiskey.”
“Love you, too, and I’m sorry I touched the wrong boobies. I was just wondering why she smelled different when I heard you scream and came running.”
“And I bet you noticed her boobs are bigger than mine.”
“I noticed no such thing.”
“Don’t make it worse by lying to me. I’m going to find a bigger penis to feel.”
He guffawed. “Good luck finding one bigger than mine.”
“Shut up, Landon.”
“I’m just saying… Good luck with that.”
She pinched his lips closed, making him laugh.
He drew her in close to him and kissed her bare shoulder as he breathed in the familiar scent that he’d know anywhere as his love. “Sorry for the mix-up. There’s only one Amanda Abbott, the only one I want to grow old with.”
“If you ever touch someone else’s boobs again, you won’t live long enough to grow old.”
“Yes, dear.” He kissed her neck. “Merry Christmas, love.”
“Merry Christmas, Landon.”
“What was all that?” Linc asked when Molly returned to bed after investigating the screaming.
“Your jackass sons got in bed with the wrong wives.”
“Need I ask which jackasses?”
“No, you don’t.”
Linc lost it laughing. “Those two…”
“They’re grown men with wives and children, and they’re still nitwits.”
“And we wouldn’t have them any other way.”
“Thank God for Amanda and Dani. They’re a couple of saints.”
Linc put his arm around her. “Indeed, they are.”
“Landon was bare-ass naked in the hallway, hand over his privates and a wild look in his eyes as Amanda pulled him into their room.”
“Too bad you didn’t get video of that.”
“I want to scrub the sight from my brain,” she said with a giggle.
“Just when we think we’ve seen everything with this family,” Linc said.
“They go and top themselves.”
“This is my favorite night of the year, having them all sleeping under our roof.”
“Mine, too, even with the chaos.”
“What would the Abbotts be without a little chaos?”
“They get that from your people,” Molly said, as she always did when the kids behaved outrageously.
“You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?” he asked with a chuckle. “My people were far less unruly than your people. After all, there’re no moose whisperers in my family. She gets that from your people.”
“The moose whispering is uniquely hers,” Molly said of their eldest daughter.
“Speaking of moose, there’s probably one in your mudroom by now. Nolan was going after Dexter when I went to bed. Something about him raising a ruckus at home.”
“Of course there’s a moose in my mudroom. Wouldn’t be Christmas without Dexter.”
“This family is batshit crazy,” Lincoln said, chuckling.
“To quote the great Lincoln Abbott… We wouldn’t have them any other way.”
Wade Abbott woke from a sound sleep and couldn’t figure out where he was for a second, until he recognized his childhood bedroom, which was really a closet that he’d repurposed.
A few years ago, in anticipation of the Christmas sleepover, he’d added a second bunk above the first one, which was where he and Mia were sleeping while their kids, Carlee and Corbin, slept below them in the bed that had once been Wade’s.
“Why are you awake?” Mia whispered.
“Not sure. Something woke me up.”
She was pressed to his right side without much room to spare in the twin bed.
They slept in a king-sized bed at home but used about this much of it on a regular night, so it was no hardship to sleep in the small bed for one night.
Everyone looked forward to the big Christmas Eve sleepover, even, surprisingly, Wade, who was known as the family loner.
Growing up, he’d commandeered the former closet out of desperation to have a space away from his raucous family.
As a father of small children, peace and quiet were in short supply, so his original family didn’t get on his nerves the way they used to.
Wade turned toward Mia and put his arm around her. “Our sixth Christmas already,” he whispered. “How is that possible?”
“Best six years of my life.”
“Mine, too.”
“Did you talk to your mom earlier?” he asked her.
“Just for a minute. We got to say Merry Christmas.”