Bonus Epilogue
July
Ben
The big day had finally arrived.
Our family had been looking forward to our boat rental since Xavier had won it back in December.
Evelyn couldn’t wait to fish.
Xavier and Ruby were all about being pulled in a tube behind the boat.
And true to character, our Skyler was most excited about the food. She’d been guessing all week what kind of food would be included in our picnic lunch prize from the Country Market. Her delight at finding out we got to choose our dishes was priceless.
Emerson had enlisted our youngest daughter’s help with all the picnic decision-making, and we had, in our cooler and picnic basket, ham and cheese pinwheels, fruit and cheese kabobs, chicken tenders, PB and J on a stick, ranch Goldfish snack mix, strawberry lemonade, and chips and salsa.
On top of all that, we’d stocked up on cookies from Sugar, more cookies than we should eat in a week, but I felt confident they’d be demolished by the end of the day.
Emerson and I had agreed we’d let it happen.
We’d also stashed a half-dozen for the llamas back home to ensure our furry princesses had what they believed was their God-given right.
As the six of us walked toward McNamara Marina, the kids skipped ahead, giving Emerson and me the semblance of twenty seconds alone.
“Are you excited?” I asked her, taking her hand in mine.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “The kids are wound up tighter than a tick.”
“Are we crazy to trap ourselves on a small vessel with four hyped-up kids for several hours?”
“One hundred percent.” She laughed. “Good thing they’re cute.”
“I can’t wait to get out on the water. No phone calls, no appointments, no interruptions, no sick animals, no arguments over TV shows or who feeds which horse. Nothing can get to us out in the middle of the lake.”
Emerson narrowed her eyes. “Almost sounds too good to be true.”
“Bite your tongue.”
Work had been extra insane for the past few months.
What it came down to was that there were more pets in Dragonfly Lake than I could provide care for, so two months ago, I’d hired another vet and a third tech.
In the long run, it would work out well, but getting the new people trained and used to the way we did things took extra effort on top of an already overfull work week.
I gazed out at the lake as we headed to the entrance. It was calm, dappled with sunlight, dotted with boats, but it was a large lake. We’d find our piece of serenity.
Twenty minutes later, we headed out from the dock in our mid-size pontoon.
Our family would’ve fit on a small one, but Cade had arranged for the medium one as the prize, so that’s what we got.
The kids were all in the front, the bow.
I wasn’t too fluent in nautical speak, but I did know how to drive a boat.
Emerson was in the seat next to my captain’s seat as we set off to find a spot where the kids could swim before we ate. Cade had offered a couple of tips, places we might find some relative privacy and good swimming spots.
I increased our speed at the kids’ urging—“Go faster, Daddy, go faster!”—and headed to the eastern half of the lake.
All four kids were Holloways as of two weeks ago, but Skyler and Xavier had started calling me Dad from the day I married their mother. My girls, too, called Emerson Mom. Evelyn insisted on referring to Leeann as Mama to distinguish between the two, which I thought was a touching idea.
“How does this look?” I asked Emerson as I slowed the pontoon in an area where there were no other boats.
“I’m no expert but this looks swimmable.”
We dropped the anchor with the kids buzzing with excitement. Emerson stood and shed her cover-up, revealing a modest blue and purple bikini that made me wish we were alone. Before she could join the kids at the stern, where there was a small deck, I pulled her close.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” I said so the kids couldn’t hear.
She kissed me quickly with a heated look in her eyes that I knew was a promise for tonight. I turned my thoughts to practical things like our children’s safety in an effort to cool my jets.
After coating them with sunscreen and double-checking their life jackets, we helped them jump off the back of the boat with noodles, a raft, a tube, and a floating ball.
I took my shirt off, thinking I’d need a dip in the water to cool off soon.
Emerson and I stood watching them for a few minutes. Once we were sure the kids were comfortable and safe, we went to the bench seats at the bow and each stretched out our legs on them.
“Ahh,” she said as she re-secured her hair in a scrunchy. “Can you hear that?”
I glanced at her pretty, relaxed face as she leaned back against the end cushion, and it hit me. “Relative quiet?”
The kids were talking but at low volumes for the time being. Their voices were like white noise to us anyway, so it seemed peaceful.
Our home hadn’t been peaceful for five weeks, as we’d contracted with Levi Dawson’s construction company to add on to the house.
The addition would enlarge our master bedroom and add a master bath on the main level and a fourth and fifth bedroom on the second floor, so each kid would have their own space and Berty could stay with us any time as well.
It was going to be perfect for all of us, and it was almost finished. That couldn’t happen fast enough.
I reclined, keeping one eye on the kids, and let out my breath, feeling as if I hadn’t for…months.
Five seconds later, Emerson shot upright.
“Did you hear that?” she asked, more curious than alarmed.
“Hear what?” I heard water sounds, the kids’ voices, the creak of the boat as it rocked.
She listened for a few seconds, then relaxed a degree, shaking her head. “I’m not sure. Something super high-pitched, I thought, but I don’t hear it now. Maybe it was my imagination or my ears reacting to low decibels.”
I laughed. “We’re pretty programmed for all loud, all the time, huh?”
As she stretched her legs out again on the bench seat, I fought not to think about them wrapping around me as I pounded into her. I swallowed hard, stood, went to the cooler, and grabbed myself a bottled water. “Want a drink?”
“Iced tea, please.”
I grabbed a bottle for her, watched the kids playing some kind of game with their noodles, then went back to sit with my wife, whose eyes were on the kids too.
“Thank you, Dr. Holloway,” she said oh-so-properly, knowing exactly how that made me want to mess her right up. A few seconds later, she sat up again. “There’s that sound.”
I strained my ears but didn’t hear anything different. Eventually my wife relaxed again.
“It was bound to happen,” I teased her. “Just seven months in the Holloway household and you’re losing it.”
“I was losing it after one night and that crazy cock—the one in the chicken house—woke me up.”
“And still you married me.”
“Thank God,” she said, taking my hand across the small space between our benches.
“Thank God,” I repeated, meaning it times a hundred.
After about twenty minutes of relaxing, watching the kids, I stood. “I’m going in. Care to join me?” I held my hand out to Emerson.
She took it, stood, and kissed me. I caught her with my arm and pulled her in again, kissing her for more than a peck. She moaned low, which did nothing to make me want to let go of her, but the kids were right there.
That was the story of our life. It wasn’t easy to find alone time with my gorgeous wife, but we managed to as often as possible.
After swimming, we were famished. The kids’ enthusiasm didn’t wane at all as they climbed out, dried off, and gathered around the picnic basket. Skyler took pride in her job of distributing the food, and then she filled her plate to overflowing, making me grin.
The six of us were sitting in the back half of the pontoon, eating our lunches, discussing which food was the best, when I heard something faint and high-pitched. My gaze went to Emerson, who stopped chewing and raised her brows, telling me she’d heard it too.
“What was that?” Xavier asked, glancing around. “It sounded like an animal.”
“We’re in the middle of a giant lake,” Evelyn told him. “All the animals are far away except fish and birds.”
The sound came again. It definitely came from a living thing. Something on the boat.
I jumped up at the same time Emerson did, both of us eyeing the bench seat under Xavier and Ruby.
“Stand up, kids,” I said.
Emerson took a step back as the sound came again. Whatever was in that storage bin was small and unlikely to hurt us. I wasn’t going to be careless though.
Standing to the side, I removed the cushion, then eased the storage lid up. My jaw fell open.
Before I could get any words out, Evelyn said, “A mama cat and kittens!”
Ruby peeked over the edge and squealed and jumped up and down. “Daddy, can we keep them?”
Emerson’s hand shot over her mouth to catch a laugh, then she sent me a wide-eyed look of disbelief. “Too good to be true,” she muttered, repeating her earlier suspicion.
I bent down to get a closer look. “Those are newborns,” I said.
The mother eyed me warily, tiredly, and I took a step back, respecting her need to protect her babies. With my mind spinning, I gently closed the storage lid.
“Let’s give them some space,” I told the kids. “Those babies can’t be more than a few hours old.”
“Ooh, Daddy, I want to hold them!” Ruby said, dancing from one foot to the other.
“We can’t,” Evelyn told her. “The mom needs to bond with them. We’ll need to take them home, Daddy.”
Emerson and I exchanged a glance that said, Not so fast.
“There’s a good chance the cat belongs to Cade or one of the McNamaras,” I said optimistically.
“Can you call them and see?” Ev asked.
I picked my phone up from the console where I’d left it and saw, unsurprised, I didn’t have a signal out here. “I’ll have to ask when we take the boat back. Or as soon as we get a signal.”
“Can we look again, Daddy?” Skyler asked. “I didn’t get to see them.”