Epilogue #3
He was focused on watching his wife coming.
The next morning…
Marcus took in a breath then took hold of the
case holding a pearl necklace against a bed of blue silk.
He took it to his pajama drawer, shoved the clothing aside,
laid it on the bottom of the drawer and pulled the clothing over it.
After that, he went downstairs and nabbed the two glasses
with peacocks on them that his wife had on display in a glass-fronted cupboard,
the only things on their shelf.
He took them upstairs to their closet and set them where the
pearls had been.
In the coming days, weeks, months, he knew she’d noticed the
pearls were gone.
And it carved right through his heart what it meant when she
didn’t say a thing.
But his Daisy knew how to do one thing very well.
She knew how to move on.
And Marcus was put on this earth to do one thing and do it
well.
To help her to get to that, if the need arose, and then be
at her side when she did it.
Two and a half months after that
morning…
The door opened and Ren, sitting in a chair
in front of Marcus’s desk, turned his head to it.
He went still at what he saw.
Marcus looked that way.
And he went solid.
A second later, he forced himself to stand.
So did Ren.
“Hey, Ren,” Daisy said and she walked in.
“Daisy,” Ren replied. “You okay?”
Marcus was rounding his desk.
“Uh, yeah. Can I…sorry to interrupt. But can I have a second
with my husband?” she asked, moving into the room.
“Of course,” Ren murmured.
Marcus vaguely felt his partner’s gaze, but only vaguely.
His focus was on his wife.
He had his hands spanning her waist, heard the door close
after Ren, and instantly asked, “Which Rock Chick?”
“Pardon?”
He stared at her face and repeated, “Which Rock Chick?”
Her brows drew together, her head (and mess of hair) tipped
to the side, and she asked, “What’re you talkin’
about, sugar?”
“You look…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you look.”
And he didn’t.
Even with all the shenanigans of the Rock Chicks, Daisy had
never looked like this.
And those shenanigans had all ended, even if Daisy now spent
her days being PA to Ally Zano in her private investigations business. A
business that was situated right across the hall from Marcus and Ren’s so the
men could (unobtrusively) keep an eye on their women.
“I don’t know how I look either.”
With the stunned expression etched in her face, he lost
patience and growled, “What’s going on?”
“Marcus,” she said, but that was all she said.
“Daisy,” he clipped out.
She put her hands to his chest and looked into his eyes.
“I just got back from the doctor.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Penance.
Fuck.
His fingers gripped her tight as the entirety of his chest
contracted to the point it felt like it was going to implode.
His voice was hoarse and rough and not his own when he
asked, “Why were you at the doctor, darling?”
“I’m…”
She looked to his chin, his throat, his chest, and when she
lifted her eyes to his, they were filled with tears.
Fuck!
“Pregnant,” she finished.
Marcus again went solid.
“I…she doesn’t…” She shook her head. “She doesn’t know how
it happened. But when I skipped one month, then two, I took seven pregnancy
tests at home. They were all positive. So I went to her. And she confirmed it.”
She leaned into him. “Marcus, honey, I’m preg—”
She didn’t finish because his mouth crushed down on hers.
When he ended the kiss, he cupped her head and shoved it in
his chest.
“I’m takin’ that as you bein’
happy,” she noted, her voice muffled against his shirt.
His voice was just gruff when he forced out, “Yes. I’m
happy.”
His wife wound her arms around his middle.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered into his chest.
Marcus was breathing through his nose.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated.
Marcus closed his eyes as the wonder in her voice started
coating the region around his heart.
He felt her push her head back.
And he also felt her hand on his jaw.
Last, he felt her thumb trail through the line of wet that
was on his cheek.
He opened his eyes and saw her gazing up at him, her blue
eyes lit with happy.
“We’re pregnant, baby,” she whispered.
Then her body bucked and she let out a sob that ended in a
peal of laughter that filled his office with bells.
Only then did Marcus smile.
Six and a half months later…
Marcus walked into the room.
“Well?” Tex boomed.
He looked at the big man with his big beard and wild head of
gray-blond hair in his plaid flannel shirt, and then his eyes swept through the
room.
It was so full, some were coming up from sitting on the
floor.
“God, tell us, brother,” Duke demanded, and Marcus locked
eyes with the man with the gray braid, leather vest, black T-shirt, and red
bandana wrapped around his head.
“Serious, dude, spill!” a man (loosely termed as thus) who
called himself The Kevster shouted. He was standing
but doing it shifting foot to foot.
“It’s a girl,” Marcus said. His eyes moved to one of the
women in the room. “Her name is Annamae Shirleen.”
Delivering that, he watched as tears slid down Shirleen’s
cheeks.
Marcus looked through the Rock Chicks, their men, and the
rest of Daisy’s friends that were family and finished, “Both mother and
daughter are perfect.”
“Holy crap,” Indy breathed then burst into tears and shoved
her face in Lee’s chest.
“Oh my God,” Jet murmured then smiled a smile that made a
very pretty woman stunning, turning to aim it to her husband, Eddie.
“Holy cow,” Roxie whispered, then she too burst into tears
as well as shoved her face in her husband, Hank’s, chest.
“Damn,” Jules muttered though a huge smile, and leaned
against her husband, Vance.
“Awesome,” Ava sighed, her body visibly trembling from
either trying not to cry, or perhaps laugh, so her husband Luke pulled her
closer.
“Lordy be,” Stella mumbled, also smiling, standing in the
round of her husband, Mace’s arm.
“Aces,” Sadie breathed, tears brimming, and her husband,
Hector, pulled her into a tight embrace.
Shirleen just stood in the curve of her adopted son, Roam’s
arm, silently weeping.
“Righteous,” Ally muttered, looking like she was about ready
to burst out laughing. She had both her arms wrapped around an equally smiling
Ren’s middle and she gave him a visible squeeze.
“Cigars, all around!” a woman named Annette declared loudly,
opening a big macramé bag and pulling out a fistful of brightly-colored,
plastic-covered cigars made of bubble gum.
“Oh my God,” Tod mumbled and turned to his husband, Stevie.
“Thank heaven I went with the pink baby book. I know the ultrasound said girl,
but sometimes they mess that up. I was thinking yellow, just to be sure. But
Daisy screams pink! Seeing as I already filled it with seven-dozen
pictures of her pregnant, and seven dozen more of that shower May threw her, I
can’t go back now. I’m glad in twenty years I don’t have to explain a pink baby
book to a surprise boy.”
Stevie just shook his head at his husband, but he did it
smiling.
“Rock ’n’ roll!” Tex bellowed for some reason,
making some jump, others smile, and the rest start laughing. “Can we see her?”
he asked. “That bein’ both hers,” he
clarified. “Daisy and Mini-Daisy?”
Marcus nodded but said, “She wants Shirleen first.”
He nearly had to jump out of the way as Shirleen sprinted to
the doors behind him.
Sniff, Shrileen’s other adopted
son, chuckled.
“Woman’s nuts for babies,” he muttered.
“Thank God,” Ava mumbled into Luke’s chest.
Marcus let his gaze slide through the Rock Chicks. “She’ll
want the lot of you next.”
He got nods and then Marcus looked to Darius. He looked to
Lee. After that, he looked to Luke.
He felt Michelle come up to his side. His sister gave him a
hug.
He hugged her back and said into her ear, “Be ready. We need
to take turns, but she wants you too.”
He lifted his head and looked down at his sister in time to
catch her nod and witness her wet cheeks before a
smiling-so-big-his-face-had-to-hurt Doug pulled her from Marcus’s arms into his
own.
Before he turned to retrace his steps, he looked at two last
people.
“She wants the both of you too.”
Smithie’s smile split his face, he grabbed LaTeesha’s hand, and they followed Marcus as he led them to
his wife.
And their baby daughter.
Daisy
Five days later…
“You know what?” I asked Marcus.
He was across from me in our bed. His body on his side, his
legs curved up, his knees touching mine because I was in the same position,
mirrored opposite him.
Annamae lay sleeping in her swaddles between us.
His beautiful blue eyes came from the top of her dark fuzzed
head to me.
“What, honey?” he asked.
“She never has to do it.”
He took his hand from our baby girl’s belly, reached out,
and ran the tips of his fingers down my cheekbone.
“Do what, darling?” he whispered.
“She’ll never have to build castles.”
That was when his hand curved around the back of my head and
he pulled me across the pillows until the tops of our heads collided, our eyes
aimed at baby fuzz.
“Never,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Not ever,” I whispered.
Finding his hand and linking it with mine, I held it at the
bottom of her swaddled feet against the sheets on the bed where we’d made our
Annamae.
Me and my prince charming in our castle with our happily
ever after swaddled and sleeping between a momma who loved her, a daddy who
adored her, born into a world that just with that, she had everything.
Thirteen years later…
“A Southern woman always has her table laid.”
“Yes, Momma.”
I took my eyes from my daughter as I saw a flash go across
the doorway to the dining room.
A flash of a dark head on top of a tall, lean
eleven-year-old body.
“Smithson Sloan!” I called. “What’d I say about runnin’ in the house?”
Marcus sauntered in the doorway and stopped.
He winked at his girl.
He grinned at me.
“Your son doesn’t listen to his mother,” I declared.
“Stretch!” he bellowed. “You best be listening to your
mother.”
“Right, Dad!” Stretch shouted from somewhere, probably
making trouble, and definitely lying.
Shouting in my house.
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.
Annamae giggled and it sounded like bells.
I rolled my eyes to my girl.
I loved that sound.
Even so.
“This isn’t funny, honey bunches of oats,” I told her.
“It’s hilarious, Momma,” she replied, her finger in her
necklace, not twisting, just looping around.
My girl loved her pearls.
I knew this because she’d worn them every day since the day
her daddy and I gave them to her.
Marcus came into the room, took his daughter in the curve of
his arm, and kissed the top of her head.
Having done that, he looked to me.
“Are you cooking or am I?” he asked.
Had he lost his mind?
What kind of question was that?
“Whose house is this?” I asked back.
“Ours,” he answered.
Okay, he was right about that.
“Whose kitchen is it?” I went on.
He grinned and pulled his baby girl closer. “Yours.”
“Then who’s cooking?”
“Darling, get on with it. Your family’s hungry.”
“I’m givin’ Southern woman lessons
to my daughter, comprende?”
“She gives them to me, like, every day,” Annamae whispered
to her daddy.
“I don’t want you to forget,” I shot at her.
“Momma, if a boy doesn’t open my door for me, Daddy’ll break his legs and Stretch’ll
shoot him. You got nothing to worry about.” Her grin got cheeky as she
concluded, “Comprende?”
I comprende’d because
that was probably the sorry truth.
My son needed to stop hanging with the Hot Bunch and their
crazy posse. He was better at target practice than Vance, something Vance
shared with me proudly.
Something that gave me heart palpitations.
I didn’t even think of what Stella told me that Mace told
her that he’d taught him to do, and Mace didn’t even live in Denver anymore.
He’d taught him over Skype, of all things.
And I’d had to have a facial and call my masseuse
when Stretch came back after spending an afternoon with Tex.
To communicate my feelings on the matter, I huffed.
“You gonna help your momma cook?”
I asked my girl.
“Yep.”
“Then get your behind in the kitchen, sugar.”
She grinned at me again, looked up at her daddy, and grinned
at him and got a kiss on the nose for her troubles.
I felt that in my belly.
And right in the heart.
Annamae took off from the room, my husband watched her, and
when she disappeared, his eyes came to me.
“You do know our daughter has a huge ole crush on Callum
Nightingale,” I shared.
His face turned thunderous.
Uh-oh.
Right, time to fix that.
Easy.
“Love you,” I whispered.
The thunder went out of his face.
“Love you too,” Marcus whispered back.
“Walk me to the kitchen, sugar?”
He lifted his arm to me.
I rounded my grand dining table set with the finest china,
crystal, and silver that I could find.
I took my husband’s arm.
And he escorted me to the kitchen.
We barely crossed over the threshold when Stretch shouted
from somewhere not close, not far, “I want Las Delicias!”
My boy, shouting in the house and dissin’
his momma’s cooking.
I glared murder at Marcus.
My husband just burst out laughing.