Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ten months later
Lady Arabella of Gunn, aged two months,
smiled and cooed at her doting papa. He smiled back and walked her
around the bedroom, burping her while her mama practiced Kalari.
Veronica loved hearing Lachlan speak in baby talk to their
daughter. It warmed her heart and made her love him even more.
“I’m almost finished,” Veronica said, her
breathing ragged.
“Mayhap you should teach Kalari to me and
the Gunn warriors. Leastways, ‘twould be a boon did you do it and
would give us an edge on the battlefield.”
“Really?” Her nose crinkled. “Your soldiers
wouldn’t take offense at a woman teaching them a martial art?”
“I dinna ken and dinna care.”
She grinned. “I love that about you.”
“You love everrathing aboot me,” he
boasted.
“Sure do. And you love ‘everrathing aboot’
me too.” She playfully stuck out her tongue.
When Veronica broke her warrior stance,
Lachlan walked to where she stood and bent his neck to kiss her.
She kissed him back as she held onto one of Arabella’s tiny fists.
Their tiny cutie-pie was blowing spit bubbles now and grinning. Her
parents grinned back.
Their lives were bliss now, their family
complete. Lachlan had already told her he didn’t care if she bore
him more babies or not because his daughter was wondrous
perfection. Considering the amount of sex they had on a nightly
basis, save for the six weeks of healing after Arabella’s birth,
she doubted she’d remain unimpregnated for very long.
“I love you, wife,” Lachlan murmured.
“I love you too, husband.” Veronica’s smile
held strong emotion. “Forever.”
“Aye. Forevermore.”
Fevered knocking at the bedroom doors broke
up the poignant family moment. With Lachlan being laird, the couple
was accustomed to untimely intrusions. They didn’t like them, but
they were used to them. “Come in!” Lachlan shouted.
It was an hysterical Victor. “Catriona’s in
labor!” he announced, his breathing heavy. “I don’t know what to
do!”
“The same thing you did to help me,”
Veronica bemusedly reminded him. “Make the poor woman’s pain go
away or at least lessen it by a lot. Then you do what Lachlan
did.”
“Pace and worry?” Victor asked.
“After that,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“He held my hand and helped me mind my breathing.”
“Got it,” Victor said, still wide-eyed.
“Will you come help me remember what I’m supposed to remember and
when I need to remember it?”
Lachlan blinked. “’Twas a mouthful,
that.”
Veronica chuckled. She kissed her husband
and Arabella before walking toward her brother. “Of course,” she
said, shooing him from their bedroom. She turned to look at
Lachlan. “Should I call Maisie to watch Arabella so you can be
there when your niece or nephew is born?”
The laird winced. “And see my sister’s naked
lady parts? I give you my nay. I nigh unto fainted watching you
birth our wee daughter.”
Veronica grinned. She loved Lachlan with all
that she was. She couldn’t imagine being any happier. “There’s no
fainting in childbirth,” she said, making an old-timer pun she
realized would go over his head.
He took the quip literally. “Mayhap not
yet,” Lachlan teased. “Yet I dinna put it past Victor.”
Veronica threw her head back and laughed.
“My brother is refreshingly honest in his emotions.”
“’Tis one way to look upon it.”
“Well, it’s the explanation we’re going with
in the event your sorcerer does faint.”
She closed the bedroom doors with a smile,
leaving papa and daughter to continue bonding. Moira was frenziedly
walking up the stairs, meeting Veronica at her doors. Two
grandchildren in as many months. She couldn’t blame Moira for her
obvious excitement. She and her mother-in-law turned to walk
together toward Victor and Catriona’s bedroom. Humanity was
carrying on.
Veronica felt invigorated and full of life.
The dark dreams were a thing of the past. Her emotional barriers
had been completely knocked down. She owed all that to Laird
Lachlan Gunn and the other people within the castle who had come to
mean so much to her. From Maisie and Finn to her husband and
brother, she had a real family, a true home, once again. It was a
happiness and fulfillment she and Victor hadn’t known since
adolescence.
Veronica smiled at Moira when they reached
Victor and Catriona’s bedroom. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Aye,” her mother-in-law replied. She smiled
back. “I think mayhap Catriona shall bear a son. She carries her
bairn low in the belly.”
Veronica didn’t care about the gender and
she realized Moira didn’t either. Moira was just thrilled to be a
grandmother again so soon. Veronica, on the other hand, couldn’t
wait for her brother to be a father. She knew he’d be a damn good
one.
They entered the bedroom side by side.
Victor hadn’t fainted yet, she mused. He was too busy mopping
Catriona’s brow and fussing over her in general. He glanced up when
he heard them enter and his gaze locked with hers.
Yes, Veronica said without words to her
brother, her eyes twinkling, at last she and Victor were home.