Chapter Fifteen
Six Months Later
Torren watched the girls playing in the sand as the waves crashed against the shore where Tana stood.
Her silhouette in the little sundress she was wearing did crazy things to his libido.
Seeing her belly growing with his babies made him half-mad with lust. Getting married on a beach at sunset was his idea, and he had to admit that flying to Mexico to say their vows was a great plan.
They invited their closest friends and family, and everyone stopped their busy lives to spend a few days in paradise with them.
During the day, everyone played on the beach or the guys went hiking while the women stayed behind with the kids or went shopping.
But at night, Tana was all his. He booked the villas for everyone, and he made sure that his and Tana’s was secluded to ensure that they had privacy.
It was after all their honeymoon. They decided to wait to get married until the girls’ paperwork could be finalized.
Since Matt was dead and he had no living relatives that could contest the twins’ adoption, they were able to push through the proceedings quickly.
Torren didn’t want to marry Tana until the girls could officially be his, too.
He wanted them all to share his name because he felt like they were all his.
After Tana got out of the hospital, she and the girls moved into his house across the street permanently.
He even moved the twins’ playhouse into his backyard.
Tana’s mother, Rita, decided to stick around to help with the girls.
She didn’t want to go back home after Tana recovered, and they decided to move her into Tana’s old home.
Rita was able to sell her home and purchase Tana’s rental, and Tana was thrilled.
She missed having her mother around, and Torren liked having her live across the street.
They were able to have some alone time or even just go on a Friday night date, knowing that Rita loved her special time with the girls.
Beth took a bit of time to get over her fear of going back to the house where she watched her father shoot her mother.
She was more shaken up by that than by watching Matt die, which was understandable since neither girl thought of Matt as their father anymore.
He was just a monster that sometimes still haunted their dreams.
The twins still weren’t at the point where they could spend the night at their old house with their grandmother.
Tana and Torren were taking them to a therapist who liked to do sessions with the whole family.
It was the first time that Torren had to face his feelings about his mother’s death and his father’s leaving.
He and Tag even went to a few sessions just the two of them to work through a few things.
He loved that Tana wanted to make sure that Torren was ready to take on being a husband and father.
He’d do whatever she needed to prove that she was it for him, even if that meant sitting on a therapist’s couch and talking about his feelings.
If she asked, he liked to make a face and act like he was really put out by the idea of spilling his guts to a total stranger, and then turn around and pay them for the chat.
But he didn’t mind, and if he was being honest, he kind of liked it, although telling Tana that she was right was usually painful.
His girl was getting a swelled head with his constant praise, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
After Tana was released medically, Torren wasted no time making up for every lost minute that she spent in the hospital.
They found out about two months later that Tana was pregnant, and he was thrilled.
At first, Torren worried about it being too soon after everything that she went through, but the doctor assured them both that she was fine and completely healthy.
Another month passed, and Tana was measuring bigger than she should have been.
She told Torren that the same thing had happened with the twins, and since she already had a set of twins and Torren was a twin, they did an early sonogram to find that she was once again pregnant with twins.
Tana panicked that they were doubling the number of kids that they had, but Torren convinced her that she was an awesome mother and already knew how to handle twins, so two more wouldn’t be that big of a change.
He knew that two more kids were going to rock their world, but he would never worry Tana with that fact.
And when another month passed and they found out that the babies were both boys, he felt like the luckiest man on earth.
Beth and Sarah were excited to be big sisters and even put a few baby names in the hat, although Tana had already nixed Fred and Barney and Sponge Bob, and Patrick.
She also sent the girls outside to play in their playhouse with Tucker instead of letting them watch any more cartoons.
Torren had to hand it to the girls; they came up with some pretty creative names.
He was secretly hoping that Tana would change her mind about Fred and Barney, since he was a huge Flintstones fan, but she wasn’t budging on the subject.
When they finally got the news that he would be able to adopt the girls, he convinced Tana to combine the adoption ceremony with a wedding ceremony, legally joining their little family.
She loved the idea but was hoping for something a little more romantic than the local courthouse or being married by a judge.
That was when Torren hatched his plan to whisk his family and friends down to Mexico for a destination wedding.
He couldn’t believe that he pulled it all off, but watching his family play on the beach was worth every sleepless night of planning.
He watched Tana cradle her belly to wade into the waves, laughing at the girls when they tried to jump over one but failed and fell into the white foamy water.
Torren stood from his beach chair and made his way down to the water.
He wrapped his arms around Tana and the babies and pulled her snug against his body.
“I can’t wait for tonight,” he whispered into her ear, kissing the sensitive spot on her neck, causing her to shiver.
“Me either. I can’t believe we are here.
Thank you for giving me my dream wedding—it’s perfect.
” Tana went up on her tiptoes to kiss his lips, igniting a fire in him.
“I do have to admit that it feels like an eternity passes waiting for the sun to go down so I can have you all to myself,” Tana whispered.
He liked that she seemed to crave his attention just as much as he needed hers.
He couldn’t keep his hands off her, especially now.
She was his wife and was pregnant with his babies; it was heady to know that everything that he hoped for or even allowed himself to dream of was all wrapped up in a very sexy package standing in front of him.
Tana’s life changed so much in the last six months—sometimes she felt like asking Torren to pinch her because she must be dreaming.
After she recovered from her gunshot wound, she spent a few weeks having to go to rehab to get her strength back, and Torren was by her side the entire time.
The truth was, he hadn’t left her side since she was moved from the ICU into the room that they both shared.
He made sure that she followed the doctor’s orders, and when she was cleared to go back to work, he made sure that she didn’t overdo it.
Torren wanted her to stay home, and at first, she refused.
But when she found out that she was pregnant with twin boys, she decided that taking it easy was the best idea.
Tana took a leave of absence from the library and had to admit that staying at home with the girls was something that she was growing to love.
Torren seemed pleased with the news that they were pregnant with twins, but when he found out that both babies were boys, he was over the moon.
She felt the same way, especially since he was also adopting her girls.
They were about to have the perfect family, and she couldn’t wait to spend the rest of her life with Torren.
He truly was the man of her dreams, the one that she was hoping to find, and she just didn’t know it.
He planned the perfect destination wedding, and she loved that he thought to include both girls in their ceremony.
He gave both Beth and Sarah little gold lockets with their new initials engraved on them and promised to love and take care of them both until his last day on earth.
It was the sweetest thing Tana had ever witnessed, and there wasn’t a dry eye among their small group of friends.
Tana waited on the massive king-size bed for Torren to get back from tucking the girls in for the night.
They were both staying with her mother, a few villas down from where she and Torren were.
She loved the fact that she had her new husband all to herself every night.
She wasn’t sure how the whole “Everyone is coming with us on our honeymoon” thing would work, but it did.
She had the best of both worlds—her friends and family during the day and her sexy-as-sin husband at night.
She heard the doorknob turn and smiled to herself, knowing that Torren was probably looking at her naked body sprawled out on the bed right at that moment.
She swore she could even hear his heart beating.