Sitting there on the side of her hospital, she admitted to herself that she’d been a first-degree idiot.
Staring at the three tiny bodies cuddled together inside the clear plastic of the portable bassinet, Patience McKinnon quickly realized that her life wasn’t over; it was only just beginning.
Looking at the three completely innocent lives she’d helped create, she recognized something else about herself, too. She now had three more people in her life that she’d happily kill or die for if it meant protecting any one of them from a second of pain.
Rising from the bed with the help of Abel, she shuffled toward her children, her blue eyes glued to their little sleeping faces. Two babies were swaddled in blue fleece blankets while another was snuggled tightly in a pink floral print wrap. “Two sons and a daughter,” she managed to choke as she reached out to touch the full cheek of her first son. “What’s his name, daddy?” Patience breathed, unable to look away from her firstborn.
“If you didn’t mind, I’d like to call him Bronson after my grandfather?” Abel suggested, smiling as he watched Patience gently unwrap the baby and count his fingers and toes.
“What about his middle name?” Patience asked in a hushed voice as she rewrapped her firstborn son, patting his tummy gently when the baby stirred. “What do you think of Bronson Isaiah Turner?”
“A strong name for a strong boy. He might have been our smallest weight-wise, but I have it on good authority from his nurse that he is the loudest.”
“How big was our boy?” Patience murmured.
“Four pounds, five ounces. It’s a respectable size for a triplet,” he assured her with a decisive nod.
She sighed as she felt Abel’s arm wrap around her, pulling her against his side. “We make pretty babies, Hellion. Next, you’ll see my little four pound, one ounce princess,” he declared with a nod toward their daughter.
Sniffling, Patience silently agreed with him as her eyes moved to the center baby. A daughter. Wrapped in her blanket, she slowly opened her eyes, blinking rapidly as the light seemed to blind her. “Oh, God,” she whispered raggedly while her eyes moved over the features of her little girl’s face, “She has my momma’s eyes and chin, Abel. I want to call her Harriet. We could call her Harri.”
“I think that’s a wonderful name, darlin’,” Abel averred quietly as he watched his woman repeat the process of unwrapping Harri and counting fingers and toes. “Do you like Lyndyn for a middle name?”
“Harriet Lyndyn Turner. That’s her name, Abel. It’s perfect,” Patience remarked while she rewrapped the blanket around her sleepy infant.
Lifting one hand to wipe her damp cheek, her eyes moved to take in the details of her second son... her little surprise baby. “Hello, baby,” she said to the wide-eyed newborn. “I’m your momma,” she introduced herself as she slowly pulled back his blue blanket. “And you,” she continued, “are the biggest gift that I never knew I wanted until now.”
Abel watched mother and son bond with a faint smile on his face. “What about our four pound, two ounce Baby Bombshell, here,” Abel chuckled, reaching down to touch his son’s hand. “What are we going to name him, Hellion?”
“I don’t know,” Patience mused quietly. “We’ve got a Harri. And I imagine some people will call Bronson by the nickname of Ron when he gets older…”
“Patience, I love you, but I’m obligated to protect my children. So, if you think I’m letting you name my son Hermione, you’ve lost your mind,” Abel warned the woman he adored quickly. “I’d give you a lot today, but not that.”
Patience laughed as she re-wrapped her baby, shaking her head. “Daddy’s silly, isn’t he? Hermione is a girl’s name. Even momma knows that.” Turning her head to smile serenely at Abel, she pointed out hopefully, “But, Granger isn’t. Granger is a boy’s name.”
Abel was silent for a long moment before he inclined his head slightly. “You’d make J.K. Rowling real proud, Hellion,” Abel finally commented dryly.
“So….” Patience prodded, chewing her lower lip as she waited for his decision.
“So, I think Granger is a very unique name for our son. What about his middle name, though?”
“I’ve always liked Thomas,” Patience proposed in a low voice.
“Harriet Lyndyn, Bronson Isaiah, and Granger Thomas Turner. Welcome to the world, Team Turner,” Abel greeted his newly named children as he pulled their mother closer to him.
It was in that moment when Patience stood with her head resting on Abel’s broad shoulder and one hand resting on baby Granger’s plush blue blanket that she noticed the sparkling ring gracing her left hand. “Abel?” Patience drawled slowly.
“Hmm,” the man hummed, obviously caught up in his own thoughts as his arm contracted around Patience’s waist.
“Abel, there’s a ring on my finger,” she stated evenly, her voice almost placid as she spoke. “I don’t wear rings.”
Glancing at the hand in question, Abel shrugged. “Things change. You didn’t used to be a mother either, but you’re adjusting quite well to that change,” he rationalized blandly. “I think you’ve got it in you to endure one more modification to your life, don’t you?”
Patience laughed a bit hysterically. “Let me get this straight. You thought you’d just sneak an engagement in on me while I was unconscious?” she whispered almost violently, well aware her children were sleeping just a foot or so away from them. “Are you insane?”
“Slightly,” Abel returned easily. Too easily. “After all, a guy has to be a little off his rocker to take on a McKinnon sister.”
“Cute,” Patience hissed, turning slightly to glare up at him. “If these are the lengths you go to in order to get engaged, how were you gonna marry me? Get me drunk? Maybe slip a mickey in my drink?”
Abel grinned. “So, that’s a yes to the proposal?”
“What proposal?” Patience retorted indignantly, propping one hand on her hip. “I don’t remember hearing one.” Even as she scowled at him, her heart overflowed with love for him. He wanted to marry her. After everything she’d put them through, he still wanted to claim her as his wife. Either he really loved her, or the fool-headed man was a glutton for punishment. Either way, she knew she’d happily spend the rest of her life at his side.
Spontaneously dropping to one knee, Abel looked up at her. “You want a proposal, Hellion, I’ll give you one,” he offered seriously, reaching for her hand and threading their fingers together. “Marry me, Patience? Spend the rest of your life with me, darlin’. Challenge me when I need it, give me hell when I deserve it, and love me like only you can. I promise to always be true, to never stray, and to always love only you every day of your life for as long I live. We’ll always fight. It’s our foreplay, darlin’. But as much as we’ll fight against each other, we fight for each other even harder. Because we’re stronger together than apart. I’ve lived with you, and I’ve tried livin’ without you….I know which way makes me feel whole and happy…and that’s not livin’ alone. Take my name and let’s raise these babies together as man and wife, momma and daddy. What do you say, Hellion? You gonna be mine?”
Choking on her tears, Patience smacked Abel’s shoulder. “I’ve always been yours, you fool! You were just too blind to see it.”
“I’ll see to gettin’ some glasses then; just say you’ll marry me,” Abel begged softly, tightening his fingers around hers as he pulled her closer.
“I’ll marry you,” Patience agreed, grimacing when she tried to bend to kiss his lips. “Ouch,” she groaned as Abel quickly rose to meet her kiss.
“Easy, Momma, you’ve still got quite a bit of battle damage,” Abel admonished her sternly as he enveloped her in his arms.
Leaning heavily against him, Patience sighed. “I’ll be your wife, Abel, but we’re gonna have to have to negotiate the terms regarding this wedding nonsense.”
“Absolutely, Hellion. Compromise is my middle name,” Abel murmured happily as he stared over his head at the thr
ee precious miracles he and Patience had made together.
Epilogue
One Week and Three Days Later
“I still can’t believe it,” Honor McKinnon whispered as she sat on her sister’s comfortable couch with her nephew, Granger, cradled in her arms.
Patience smiled serenely as she sat cuddled against Abel while he held their daughter, Harriet, closely, feeding her a bottle. Glancing across the room at where Zeke paced in front of the fireplace, rocking her fussy son, Bronson, in his arms, Patience realized she was living a dream. A wonderful dream that she never wanted to awaken from.
This was her heaven. Right here. In this house with these people.
“I’ll tell you what I can’t believe,” Harmony McKinnon said from the corner where she sat in her husband, Jake’s, lap while their daughter Heaven colored at her feet. “I can’t believe that you have a freaking event planner for a sibling and still chose to get married this morning in your freakin’ Mickey Mouse PJs,” she admonished, gesturing at her pajama-clad sister.
Honor’s lips twitched as she shifted the baby in her arms. “Let it go, Harm,” she advised with a small laugh. “Everybody in this room knows that it isn’t the kind of wedding that’s important; it’s the marriage that counts.”
Patience beamed at her youngest sister. At least Honor got it. She hadn’t wanted a fancy dress and a long, drawn out ceremony. She’d just wanted Abel. And their kids. As long as she had those people, she had everything. Besides, planning a big to-do with three infants would have been impossible, even with Harmony’s help. “I told you that you and Faith can plan a baby shower slash wedding reception for next month. Honor and I should be healed by then,” she reminded Harmony.
“Yeah,” Faith grunted, wincing as her own daughter latched onto her breast for her afternoon snack as her husband Cain sat beside her with an arm around her shoulder. “Be happy we got her to agree to that, Harmony. That took a minor miracle.”
Nodding gratefully toward Faith, Patience tried to hide her grimace as she watched her niece suckle Faith’s breast. While she was happy that her sister found pleasure in nourishing her child that way, Patience was still glad she’d chosen to bottle feed. She couldn’t imagine breastfeeding all three of the triplets. She’d literally have a baby attached to her breast twenty-four hours a day if she’d gone that route. And she’d be deprived of seeing the pure joy on Abel’s face every time he fed one of their kids, she thought with a smile as she watched her new husband lift their daughter to his shoulder and begin the burping process.
“Hey, I’m just happy she married me at all. She could have told me we were getting married, naked, on top of the Paradise courthouse for the world to see and I’d have shown up in my birthday suit,” Abel chuckled, offering his wife a playful wink as his hand gently thumped against Harri’s back.
“And I would have been there to arrest you after the vows were spoken,” Zeke assured them all with a smirk. “Although, those would have made for some interesting wedding pictures,” he mused, passing Granger off to where Aunt Orla sat in the rocking chair.
“Now, that’s a weddin’ I would have shown up to watch,” Aunt Orla cackled, taking Granger from Zeke’s arms and pulling him close to her body. “We sure would have, wouldn’t we, Grange? I’ve been tryin’ to get a picture of his pierced pecker for years, but nobody will show me one,” she shared with the now cooing baby.
“Aunt Orla!” Honor hissed. “There are babies in the room.”
“I know, I plan on bribin’ ‘em into getting’ me that picture just as soon as they can walk,” Orla reasoned with twinkling eyes.
Patience laughed at her Aunt Orla’s antics. She didn’t mean anything by it…well, nothing much, anyway. And Honor’s embarrassment when it came to all things intimate had been providin’ them all with a laugh for years.
“Orla, you have a pecker at home,” Uncle Jethro announced, crossing his arms over his chest where he sat in the Lazy Boy next to Honor. “Two of ‘em if you count the one in the bedside table.”
Honor gasped as the rest of the room broke into laughter.
“What’s a pecker, Daddy? Can I have one, too?” Heaven asked innocently, standing up to put her hand on Jake’s knee.
Harmony scowled as Jake nearly choked on his tongue. “I’m gonna kill you, Auntie,” Harmony threatened under her breath.
“I say we look for an old folks home in the Antarctic,” Jake grumbled when he could finally speak again.
Seth Turner shook his head at them all as he limped toward his son, Abel. “Gimmee my granddaughter, Boy. You’ve hogged her long ‘nuff. At least your brother lets me hold his gal. You’re just plumb stingy,” Seth complained, holding out his arms as he sat down next to Patience.
Patience chuckled as Abel shot his father an irritated look. “You tried to kidnap her last time you held her.”
“Abel, your father is in his eighties and has a half lame leg; I think you can catch him,” Patience chided in a low voice. “Give him his grandbaby,” she ordered, giggling as Seth pressed a kiss against her temple. Helping her husband shift the baby over to her grandfather, Patience looked up as the doorbell rang. “Who the heck is that? We’re all here.”
“I’ll get it,” Patience offered, stealing a quick kiss from her new husband’s lips. God, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to thinking of Abel that way. She had a fricking husband! It still seemed unbelievable to her, but she couldn’t deny that she was happier than she’d ever been in her life.
Quickly weaving through the crowd sprawled across her new living room, she headed to the door and opened it quickly, her face still wreathed in an elated smile. Quickly recognizing the man standing on her doorstep, she was still surprised to see him. “Wrath? What are you doing here?” she asked the town mechanic and president of the local chapter of the Hounds of Hell Motorcycle Club.
The room went silent as they realized they had company that wasn’t family, and Abel and Zeke both quickly stood.
“Come on in,” she invited, ushering her first real guest into the house and gesturing toward the living room. “As you can see, our gang is all here.
Wrath McKay stood over six feet tall and had black hair threaded with a few strands of grey at the temples. The man was built like a football linebacker and was a guy who spoke as few words as possible. Though in his forties, it was obvious that he’d kept his hard body in shape with a lot of physical labor, and if Patience McKinnon wasn’t now happily married, she might have been tempted to take a walk on the wild side with that man if he’d ever crooked his finger at her.
She couldn’t help it. The man was walking, talking sex on a stick and every red-blooded woman in town knew it. Heck, even man-hater Old Lady Winslow fanned herself when Wrath McKay walked into the café.
And for some reason, he was now standing in her house.
Tipping his head at the room in general, Wrath shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans – jeans that hugged his tree trunk thighs like a second skin, Patience thought with a mental grin. Catching her husband’s keen gaze narrowed on her, she gave him a wicked grin. He’d caught her looking, and she couldn’t wait to pay her penance with him later after their kids were tucked up in the nursery. Hopefully, the room they’d given Honor when she’d agreed to recuperate with them for a week or so was far enough away that she wouldn’t hear anything that would embarrass her.
“I’m sorry to interrupt family time, y’all, but I was hopin’ to talk to Zeke and Abel,” Wrath said gruffly.
“’Bout what?” Aunt Orla asked suspiciously, her faded blue eyes sharp as she stared at their visitor.
Shuffling uncomfortably on his feet under the room’s scrutiny, Wrath exchanged a look with Abel and the Sheriff. “It’s about the car accident, ma’am.”
Patience stared at Abel with concern in her gaze. “No, you tell all of us. Tell him, Abel.”
Sighing, Abel slowly nodded. “Whatever it is you know, I think we all need to hear it,” he stated g
rimly as Patience watched Zeke move behind where Honor sat on the couch.
Whatever Wrath had to say, obviously it wasn’t good news. “Go on, Wrath. Just spit it out.”
Clearing his throat, the man nodded. “Zeke and Abel asked me to go by the precinct and give Honor’s car a thorough going over earlier this week. I told Zeke and Abel already that ever since I heard ‘bout the wreck, something didn’t sit right with me ‘cause I’d just serviced Honor’s Impala the week before the accident and everything checked out fine. So, I was relieved when Zeke asked me to come by and take a look. I’m glad I did. See, everything looked fine when I climbed back under the car ‘cept one key thing.”
“What was that?” Honor asked, staring at the mechanic worriedly.
“Honor, honey,” Wrath began gently, “Your brakes didn’t just give out on that hill. They were cut. Both lines. Clean through.”
Patience stiffened as she absorbed that information.
“And what exactly does that mean?” Patience heard her baby sister question shakily.
Closing her eyes, Patience inhaled deeply as the room went completely quiet. Slowly stepping in front of Wrath, she met her sibling’s nervous eyes. “It means that our wreck was no coincidence, sis. Somebody was trying to kill one of us. What I wanna know is why.”
Honor’s face whitened and Patience smiled sadly as she watched Zeke’s hands settle on her baby sister’s shoulders. Moving her gaze to Abel, she sighed. “Looks like somebody is tryin’ to end our story before it even gets started real good, huh?”
Abel shook his head as he strode toward his wife. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her against his chest and looked around the room. “No, Hellion. This story doesn’t have an ending. We’ll figure out who’s tryin’ to hurt us, and we’ll put a stop to it for good.”
Ready, Willing and Abel (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnon Sisters Book 3) Page 45