Chapter 35
BOONE
By six a.m., the sun is just starting to drag itself over the ridge, and I find Roxie exactly where I suspect she’ll be, in the nursery.
She stands by the dresser, rearranging neatly folded onesies she’s already arranged by color, then by size, then by fabric softness, her own system that terrifies me a little.
“Sweetheart,” I murmur from the doorway, leaning against the frame as I watch her. “If you reorganize those drawers any more, the babies are going to end up filing a complaint.”
“I had to reorganize them.” She doesn’t even look up. “They were a mess, and we’ve only got eight weeks left. At most. Everything needs to be perfect.”
“It was already perfect.”
“No, it wasn’t. Who puts the 0–3-month pajamas with the newborn pajamas? That’s chaos.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “I think you’re nesting.”
“I am not nesting,” she says firmly, then picks up a tiny onesie with bear ears on the chest and melts a little. “Okay. Maybe I am. A little.”
I walk up behind her, sliding my arms around her waist and resting my chin on her shoulder. She sighs and leans back into me, soft and warm, thirty-two weeks pregnant.
“You’ve cleaned out every closet, labeled everything in the pantry, color-coded the spice rack, and reorganized the freezer by type of cuisine and calorie count,” I murmur into her hair. “It’s extremely impressive. Terrifying, but impressive.”
She lets out a quiet burst of laughter. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“It’s not bad, but you also need to rest at some point.”
“I will,” she counters immediately. “At some point. Just not right now.”
For a moment it’s just the two of us in the quiet morning, the sunrise washing the nursery floors in warm gold.
There are no sounds of Dillon gaming until midnight and no Chance hammering something out on the deck.
I don’t have to worry about ticking something off the endless lists taped around the house like we’re preparing for a tactical operation.
It’s just the two of us. My miracle.
I breathe in the sweet scent of her shampoo, taking in the moment before I let her go. “Come on. Let’s go make breakfast before you start reorganizing the diapers by absorption ratings.”
Her eyes widen like I’ve just given her a fantastic idea, and I groan, shaking my head as I take her hand. “Nope. We’re going. Now.”
She sighs but heads downstairs with me. We take it slow, since she insists she’s “not waddling”, even though she is. Just slightly.
To no one’s surprise, our fridge is already packed with enough frozen meals to feed the entire county, and our house is baby proofed to the extreme. And yet her gaze darts around the kitchen as if there has to be something left to do.
“What are you feeling like?” I ask as I crack eggs, needing to distract her before she starts rearranging cookbooks by size. “French toast? Omelets? Pancakes?”
“Fruit,” she says. “And toast. Maybe some bacon.”
“Done.”
By the time I have breakfast plated, Dillon stumbles into the kitchen in nothing but sweatpants and a scowl that says mornings are a personal attack on his senses.
“Why is it already past six?” he grumbles, dropping into a chair.
“Because that’s when the sun rises,” Roxie says sweetly.
“Well, tell it to stop.”
“Good morning to you, too,” Chance says as he comes in barefoot, his hair a sweat-damp disaster and his face red enough to tell me he’s already been in the gym. He also looks way too pleased with himself for this hour as he leans down, kisses Roxie’s cheek, and steals a piece of her bacon.
She swats him. “That one had my name on it.”
“I didn’t see a label.”
“Don’t tempt her,” I mutter. “She’ll label every food item in this house and then color-code them.”
Roxie points a warning finger at me. “You joke, but I have the label maker charged and ready.”
We all laugh, the morning as easy, warm, and simple as it always is these days. After we finish eating, Chance nudges Dillon with his elbow. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Dillon says, grinning like a kid hiding fireworks behind his back.
“Ready for what?” Roxie asks suspiciously.
“Come outside,” I say, taking her hand. “We have a surprise for you.”
She stands, her eyebrows drawing tight with suspicion, as we lead her through the back doors onto the deck.
There, she stops dead, her breath catching when she sees what we’ve done.
The deck is twice as big as it used to be, with fresh railings, new boards, and enough room for two tables and a grill, but she goes straight to the swing.
Her hands fly to her mouth as she stares at a huge porch swing, custom-made from reclaimed timber, suspended with thick ropes, and wide enough for four adults. Or two exhausted grown men and a couple of newborns.
“Did you…” She trails off, her voice barely above a whisper as she turns to look at us over her shoulder. “Did you build this?”
“Chance did,” Dillon says proudly. “Boone and I helped by providing moral support and snacks and running interference so you wouldn’t come out here while he was busy.”
Chance shrugs, but he’s glowing with pride too. It’s a pretty damn impressive achievement. “Babies like rocking. You like rocking. It made sense.”
She turns and hugs us one at a time. We wrap her up in our arms, guiding her to the swing when we break apart.
“There’s more,” I say, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out a small black box.
Roxie’s eyebrows jump up. “Boone—”
“It’s not what you think,” I tease. “I’d marry you again in a heartbeat, but this isn’t another ring.”
She takes the box from me, her fingers trembling a little as she flips open the top to reveal the necklace inside. At the center sit four small gemstones in a clustered pendant, a deep blue for Chance, warm amber for Dillon, green for me, and a soft rose quartz for her.
There are two empty settings at the bottom. She glances up at me, but I don’t wait for her to ask me to explain. “It’s for when they’re born. We’ll have their birthstones put in when we know exactly what they are.”
Tears fill her eyes, but before they can spill, Dillon bends over and brushes his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Uh-uh. None of that today. In the great state of Montana, it’s illegal to cry on a brand-new porch swing.”
She laughs through the emotion, clutching the necklace to her heart and sweeping her gaze across the deck. “Thank you. Really. I love it all, but you seriously don’t have to keep surprising me with gifts.”
I shrug. “We might not have to, but we want to. You changed our lives, Rox. Before you, we’re just working. Surviving. Making anonymous donations and thinking that’s as good as it was going to get.”
Dillon and Chance bring the new grill up from the garage, and the rest of the day passes in one of those rare, perfect late-spring hazes.
It’s May, warm enough for short sleeves but cool enough for comfort.
Wildflowers paint the hillside in yellows and purples, and all the snow is finally gone from the peaks.
Deer wander through like curious neighbors. We sit outside until evening, eating lunch on the new deck and debating baby names. These last few weeks, we do that just about every damn day.
“Colt,” Chance suggests. “If one of them is a boy.”
“You cannot name our child after a weapon,” Roxie insists.
“It’s a solid name!”
“It’s also a gun.”
Dillon chews on the inside of his cheek before he suddenly grins. “What about something mythological? Like Argo. Or Perseus.”
“We’re having babies,” she says flatly. “Not Greek demigods.”
“What about Nolan?” I offer eventually, but at this point, they’re going to be Baby A and Baby B forever if we can’t find names we all like.
Roxie gives me a soft smile. “I like Nolan, but I’m not sure.”
Chance mutters, “It’s better than Perseus.”
Dillon throws a grape at him. By ten, we’re all exhausted and still no closer to choosing names than we were when we started.
When eleven rolls around, we give up for the day, and we’re in bed with her between us, enjoying the last few weeks of just being able to be together without someone having to get up to do the diaper drill.
Sometime close to midnight, she pokes me, whispering, “Boone?”
“Mmm?”
“Ice cream.”
I crack one eye open. “Which kind?”
She shrugs. “Yes.”
I snort. “We have, like, eight different flavors, sweetheart. Which one would the babies like today?”
Chance and Dillon sit up behind her, but I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ll get it.”
“No, I’ve got it,” Dillon says.
“Move,” Chance says, already halfway to the door, surprisingly fast for a man who’d been snoring three minutes ago.
Roxie giggles, burying her face in the pillow as Chance disappears downstairs with single-minded determination. I roll onto my side, propping my head on my hand. Dillon lies on her other side, whispering something to her belly.
The two of them together, naked and tangled in the sheets, laughing softly and both so happy, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. So beautiful that, frankly, I’m still struggling to believe this really is my future.
This is everything I didn’t know I could have back when I married Tessa, thinking that I had to give up the part of me that had always wanted a future with Dillon and Chance in it. But as I watch Dillon press a kiss to her belly and whisper to our babies, I feel something settle deep inside me.
This is what I’ve been made for. Not violence or shadowy fighting venues or simple survival, but this.
A home filled with love, laughter, and acceptance. I’ll spend the rest of my life protecting it with everything I have and loving every last minute of it.