by Stacy Gail
“It’s not confirmed,” she said frantically, in the hope of lessening the impact. In her mind she heard that terrible echo of her father yelling that he’d been trapped and hadn’t wanted ever wanted a baby… “I mean, in the past couple of days I’ve peed on seven separate pregnancy test sticks, and they all came back as positive for a pregnancy. But I haven’t had it confirmed by a doctor or anything.”
“Whoa.” Somewhere behind them, Essie whispered, “You peed on seven separate sticks?”
“Holy crap, who needs a doctor when you’ve peed on seven sticks?” Rocket raised her bottle of summer ale and clinked it with her man, Fisch. “In my book, that’s confirmation, know what I mean?”
“I made a doctor’s appointment for Monday to see if that’s what’s going on.” Tentatively she pressed her hands against Twist’s chest. “Are you okay with… uh…” Panic strangled the rest of the words as again she heard the echo of her father. But the ache in that still-tender wound vanished under the dazzling smile that began to dawn in Twist’s eyes.
“A baby.” That smile bloomed with such beauty and awestruck force, it swept away all doubt. “We’re having a baby.”
“THEY’RE HAVING A BABY!” Lynette let out a whoop that made Angel start and Emily squeal before the two mothers were hugging and crying and trying to figure out who should be Nana and who should be Gramma.
If anyone wanted to be called Meemaw, she’d freaking die.
Before she could voice that aloud, strong arms swept her up and spun her around, and though Twist’s hold was tight, there was a new and careful gentleness that made her heart sigh.
Already her beautiful man was protecting his baby.
“I love you so much,” he whispered against her ear before his mouth came to hers. “I was supposed to be giving you a dream house for your birthday, but instead you’re giving me my greatest dream—the start of our family.”
She smiled against his lips. “Like I said, it’s not confirmed.”
“It’s confirmed, baby. Seven peed-on sticks don’t lie.” Oblivious that they had a smiling, happy audience, he gently put her down and rested his forehead against hers. “I guess all that grdmwla-ing worked.”
She laughed, loving that they still enjoyed using their code word. Heaven knew they certainly enjoyed what the code word stood for. “I know that we’d just decided to try—”
“Little girl, this is the best news of my life, making this the best day of my life, and I’ve already had some truly amazing ones with you.” He touched his mouth to hers, then smiled as he looked a little dazedly at the crowd around them. “Damn, we’d better get this house built fast.”
“Not a problem,” Jackson announced while everyone laughed. When Angel looked over to her father, she had to bite her lip to keep from blubbering like an idiot when she saw his eyes were wet. “I want to revise the plans just a bit to add in a nursery—”
“Daddy, don’t go to any extra trouble, please. We can scrunch a crib into the weight room or something, no worries.”
He looked as offended as if she’d told him they were going to sell their unborn child to the circus. “I’m building a house for my first grandbaby, hopefully the first of many. There will be no scrunching.”
“Absolutely, and not another word about it, young lady,” her mother admonished, then gasped and grabbed Lynette’s hand. “You know what we have to do? We have to go shopping. We have a grandchild on the way!”
They squealed like teenagers.
Angel tried again. “It’s not confirmed—”
“Seven peed-on sticks.” This time it was a chorus from just about everyone.
She sighed. Perhaps it was time to change the subject.
“The nursery could probably go where I had the separate dressing area outside the His-and-Hers closets,” her father was muttering to himself, staring hard at a gathering of balloons off to the side of the master bath. “And if I bump out the walk-in shower area, I can get a nice window into the nursery with a view of the pear tree and part of the edible garden outside…Yeah, I think I’ve already got this figured out.”
“I have just one final request, Jackson,” Twist said, and he was smiling as he tucked her to his side. Clearly distracted by thoughts of creating the perfect nursery for his first grandchild, her father glanced back at him. “We need extra-wide doorframes for all the bedrooms. I have a feeling that with all the artists in this growing family, we’re going to need a lot of doodling space.”
Her father’s eyes lit up at that, as did her heart, because in that moment her world was perfect. And as she rested her cheek against Twist’s chest, she knew that this perfect moment was merely one of many to come.
Note From The Author
Hi there! So, here we are at the end of Twist’s story, a 90K-word book that fairly gushed out in a little less than four months. Up next at the plate will be Sass, as promised, and it’s a story that is so alive in my head I’ve already got the first couple of pages done, when I should have been finalizing Twist. Needless to say, it starts off with a bang! *bounces*
I LOVE hearing from readers, just as much as I love interacting with them. Please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected], or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. If you mention that you’ve read House Of Payne, I promise to follow back and say hi! :)
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There’s more lust, lies and love to be had in the House that Payne built. Look for Sass’s story this Fall:
House Of Payne: Rude
About the Author
A competitive figure skater from the age of eight, Stacy Gail began writing stories in between events to pass the time. By the age of fourteen, she told her parents she was either going to be a figure skating coach who was also a published romance writer, or a romance writer who was also a skating pro. Now with a day job of playing on the ice with her students, and writing everything from steampunk to cyberpunk, contemporary to paranormal at night, both dreams have come true.
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(See you in the Fall!)