She nodded. “Especially when we’re hauling three or four kids around.”
Zach’s brows lifted. “Three or four?”
Paige just smiled.
“Well, then,” her husband said, a mischievous sparkle in his blue, blue eyes, “I guess we should get started.”
Epilogue
Olivia Lynn Crawford was born nine months later and christened on the one-year anniversary of her parents’ wedding.
Since Ashley and Megan had both missed the nuptials, they made sure they were on hand—with husbands and children in tow—for the baby’s baptism. Of course, it helped that Zach was able to get them all a great deal on flights through the airline for which he was now working.
And though Paige’s cousins had planned to stay at a nearby hotel, Zach’s parents had insisted that they could find room for everyone in the main house. It was a tight squeeze, but no one complained.
No one except Zach.
“I was hoping for a more private anniversary celebration,” he grumbled to his wife. “I haven’t had any time alone with you since the baby was born.”
“We’ll be alone when the kids go to sleep,” Paige said, and she knew that despite his protests, he was as happy as she was to have their family around to celebrate a year that had been filled with adjustments for both of them.
She’d passed the California bar and was job sharing with another attorney who wanted to spend more time with her children. Though she’d worried about going back to work and putting Emma in day care, Kathleen and Justin had alleviated her concerns by offering to watch Emma. They had since extended the offer to include their newest granddaughter.
It was an arrangement that made Hayden as happy as her parents, because the time they spent with the grandchildren was time they weren’t interfering in the business, and the winery was thriving under her management. It was also a convenient arrangement for Zach and Paige, since they were living in the guest cottage while they finalized plans for their own home to be built on property they’d purchased a few miles down the road.
As she looked around at everyone who had gathered, she said a silent thank-you to the friend after whom she and Zach had named their daughter, for helping her to discover the true value and importance of family.
For Paige, that included her aunts and cousins and their respective spouses and children, and Zach’s parents and sisters and all the connections that flowed from them. But at the heart of her family was Zach, the man she loved enough to follow to the ends of the earth. And the man who loved her enough to understand how much she needed a place to call home.
As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Zach put his arm across her shoulders and hugged her close. And she smiled up at him, knowing that in his arms, she was finally exactly where she belonged.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6024-9
THE BABY SURPRISE
Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Harlen
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*Family Business
†Logan’s Legacy Revisited
**Reigning Men
††Back in Business
‡The Foleys and the McCords
‡‡Brides & Babies
The Baby Surprise Page 20