Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“She’s just good at manipulating you,” Jules replies with a smirk. “She was fine until you walked in here. Did you buy the ice?”
“Yeah, I got it and dumped it in the coolers.” I kiss my daughter’s head and then lean over to kiss my wife’s lips and smell the white chocolate mocha on her breath. “You got a coffee without me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m dead on my feet.” She lowers her voice. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Yeah, Wildfire, you freaking will.”
“When is Uncle Bridger coming?” Caden, our four-year-old, demands as he runs into the kitchen. “He’s bringing a fire truck.”
“Uh, buddy, I don’t think he is.” I frown down at my son as he reaches for a cookie, side-eyeing his mom.
“He said he would,” Caden replies with a shrug. “Bryce and I are gonna play on the climbing wall today.”
“Oh good, someone will leave here with a broken arm,” Jules mutters. “Why don’t you play in the sandbox?”
“Because the neighbor’s cat poops in it.”
Her eyes shoot to mine in horror, and I can’t help but laugh.
“I cleaned it out. It’s fine. We forgot to cover it over the weekend before we went camping.”
“I don’t have time to think about poopy sand. I have to get this salad made.”
“I thought you brought home a crap ton of food from the restaurant?” My woman’s business has grown a ton in the past five years, adding on more staff and another baker, and I couldn’t be prouder of her.
“I did, but Harper’s pregnant again, and she needs this salad. I forgot to get it from the restaurant earlier.”
“You’re a really good sister-in-law,” I murmur in her ear before I kiss her cheek.
Before I can blink, the house and backyard start to fill up with family. We’re hosting a cookout at our big house on the corner, which has been finished for three years now. It took us a while to get it exactly the way we wanted it, but I’d say it’s just about perfect.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Michaela squeals, her little legs pumping as Blake grins at her over my shoulder. “Come here, gorgeous. Come hang out with me.”
“He’s such a ladies’ man,” Harper says, shaking her head. Then her eyes go round when she sees Jules making her salad. “Oh my God, you’re my favorite sister-in-law.”
“I heard that,” Billie says as she swings through, then kisses Michaela’s cheek.
I love seeing my siblings with my kids. I love being with their kids.
Billie has three of them already. It took her a while to get pregnant that first time, and then it seemed she was pregnant every time Connor just looked at her sideways. With Bridger’s two, Beckett’s daughter, who never stops dancing, and Blake’s one with one on the way, we’re a full house.
My parents are thrilled with ten grandkids.
Ten grandkids.
I shake my head and then grin and open my arms when Birdie walks into the house and straight to me.
She’s still my special girl, even if she is twelve.
“Uncle Brooks?” she whispers, pulling me away from everyone else.
“Yes, peanut?”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“I. Will. Kill. Him.”
She dissolves into laughter, making me glare at her and cross my arms over my chest. This is an ongoing joke we have running, but someday, she won’t be joking.
And then, I really will likely go to jail for homicide.
The kids filter outside to play on the structure my brothers and I built last year, and as I stand on the patio watching them, Jules joins me and slides her hand into mine.
“This was the dream,” she says and laughs at Beckett and Skyla’s daughter, Ashling, doing pirouettes across the grass as Belle turns cartwheels. “This is what we wanted all along.”
I glance around at all of the kids running around. At Birdie sitting at the table, her nose in her phone, and then my siblings with their spouses, and my parents, each with a baby on their hip. They’re smiling so big, it makes my chest catch.
And then I gaze down into my wife’s gorgeous blue eyes. My soulmate. The one who fits me in every way, and I bend over to kiss the top of her head.
“We did this together,” I murmur so only she can hear. “You and me, Wildfire. It was worth waiting for.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking.”