And Baby Makes Six
Page 16
He shrugged. At that moment, the baby opened her eyes and blinked at him. He put his finger next to her hand and tried not to look too pleased when her tiny fist wrapped around him. “Angela is cool, I guess.”
Paige crowded closer. “I like Angela, too.”
“Me, too,” Riley added.
Abby’s gaze rose to meet Devlin’s. “What do you think?”
“I’d say it’s unanimous,” he said.
Two months later, Devlin came home to find the house empty. The only light seemed to be the one coming from the living room.
“Abby?”
“In here,” came the reply.
He tossed down the keys on the counter and walked through the kitchen to the living room.
His wife was standing with her back to him, trying to start a fire.
He frowned. “Let me do that.”
She stepped back and handed him the matches. Within a few minutes, the flames began to eat up the wood, casting a rosy glow to the room. Turning around, he saw Abby was dressed in the satin lounging outfit he’d given her for her birthday. Need stampeded through him. It had been too many months since he’d made love to his wife.
“Where are the kids?” he asked.
“Angela’s just been fed and should sleep for a couple of hours. Jason’s staying at a friend’s house. And Riley and Paige are spending the night at Cash and Rebecca’s.”
“Just the two of us for a couple of hours?” He tossed off his jacket. “I wonder what we should do.”
“I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Such as?”
She reached behind her and pulled out a file folder. “I thought we might want to officially get rid of this contract.”
She offered the sheaf of papers to him.
He took them from her hand without looking at them. His gaze never left hers. “No regrets?”
“None.”
He leaned down and fed the paper to the flames. As he slipped his arm around his wife’s shoulders, she said, “I have a gift for you.”
“If it’s what you’re wearing under that pajama thing, I can’t wait to start unwrapping it.”
She laughed, a tinkling sexy sound that made his body snap to attention. “That’s your other present.” She went over to the end table and picked up a thick envelope.
He took it but made no move to open it. “What is it?”
A mysterious, seductive smile chased across her lips. “Open it and you’ll find out.”
He would have preferred to open his other present but curiosity got the better of him and he flipped up the flap. Inside, he found five bank-account passbooks. Opening them one by one, he discovered that each one bore the name of one of their children and contained an equal amount of money. He looked up at her. “You started savings accounts for the kids?”
“I took the money from the sale of the house in Cincinnati and opened college accounts for each one.”
He lifted the cover of the fifth book, which was identified as the A & D account. “What’s this one for?”
“It stands for the Abby & Devlin account,” she explained. “I don’t know if we’ll have any more children or not. But in case we do, I didn’t want him or her to be left with nothing. I wanted all the kids to be treated equally.”
Abby’s soft heart couldn’t bear the thought of another child being caught on the outside looking in. Not the way she had been.
The fact that she’d treated the boys as equally as she’d treated the girls brought a fullness to his chest. She had taken his children to her heart and accepted them as hers. But Abby being Abby, he wouldn’t have expected anything different.
“You approve?” she asked.
He didn’t really care what happened to the money. She could do whatever she wanted with it. It was the love they had for each other that was important. It was a love that grew each day and was fulfilled through their family as well as themselves.
He set down the envelope and opened his arms. “It’s perfect, and so are you.”
Abby walked into them without an ounce of hesitation. “Now do I get to open my other present?” he asked, his fingers already starting to unfasten the buttons of her fancy pajamas.
She laughed, a sound that was both seductive and teasing. “We could always look at those whirlpool brochures again and review your floor plans for our new bathroom, if you’d like.”
“Later. My top priority is to make love to my wife.” He lifted her into his arms. “Any objections?”
Abby offered her face to him and he saw all the love and trust he’d ever hoped for. “Not a single one.”
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About the Author
Pamela Dalton is the author of five books and is working on her next novel. She and her husband live in Wisconsin and have two adult children.
Discover other titles by Pamela Dalton:
SECOND CHANCE AT MARRIAGE
WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN HER BED?
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About The Author