by Brynne Asher
I’ve been looking at cars for her and after what happened to Keelie last week, I might just put her in a tank to keep her safe. I’m still working on ways to keep her away from the opposite sex.
“Chloe’s only a few months old and I’m already not looking forward to that stage,” Grady adds.
The goats start to raise hell, vying for attention from a group of teenagers who wandered over to see what they were all about.
“Since you and Keelie are officially a thing,” Grady starts and motions to the pasture. “You’re now the owner of a shitload of goats and a donkey.”
I don’t answer and raise a brow, wondering where this is going, because I can tell from his tone, his smartass is burning strong.
Grady looks to Crew and keeps talking. “And don’t pretend you haven’t come to like the cows. Every few months you come home from the auction, or whatever the hell that place is, with a new one.”
Crew smirks. “It’s better than mowing the pastures. And Vivi loves them, too.”
“Don’t make excuses. If you’re a cow lover, just be a man and own it. My point is that you two were badasses who traveled the world doing what we did and now you’re both basically farmers.”
I shake my head and Crew laughs silently.
Grady pushes away from the side of the barn he was leaning against and heads for the house. “You two should get your animals together for a playdate or some shit. Those goats would drive the cows up a fucking wall—they do me.”
Grinning, I call back, “I’m gonna get Cayden a goat for his birthday. He’ll love it.”
Grady pins me with a glare. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I shrug. “No, but Saylor would. If you dare her, I bet she’d give him two.”
Frowning, he heads for the house, probably to find Maya and his kids to get them home. Chloe’s only a few months old and he’s already talking about having a third.
“Took you a while.”
I look to Crew. “To do what?”
“To find it. But when you did, you did it up big,” he smirks.
“We’re getting married next month,” I tell him.
His eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yeah, we didn’t want to announce it before Levi graduated and take away from his day. Not that the kids and everyone else don’t know it’s coming since we’re living here. It can’t happen soon enough.”
“Happy for you. Talk to Addison if you want to have it at the vineyard. She’ll have Evan make it happen whenever you want.”
“I don’t know.” I look around at the property I just paid off—where I met Saylor and Knox for the first time, where we got Emma back on track, where Levi is celebrating a milestone, and where we agreed to plant roots together. “I think we might do it here.”
My goal is for Keelie to live easy for the rest of her life and paying off her mortgage was the first step. Before I did it, I asked her if she wanted to move, find something easier to maintain or closer to town. She thought about it for about two seconds before reaching up and putting her lips on mine. That’s when she said, “And leave my first memories with you behind? Not a chance. I fell in love with you in this house. I used to hate it and everything it stood for. But you gave me memories here—ones I love and never want to leave.”
Even though that happened late at night after all the kids were settled, her words were enough to make me want to create memories everywhere I could. I pulled her into the pantry and fucked her on the counter with the wine fridge humming away below us. A wine fridge I keep fully stocked, but it still has kiddie drinks stuffed in every available space.
This is our life. A family of six, with kids spanning the ages of eighteen to five, goats, dogs, a donkey, and enough random barn cats that I still have no idea if they’re all ours since I can’t keep track of them.
I look around at what might seem like bedlam to others—but to us, it’s become a perfect kind of chaos.
*****
Keelie
“You tired?”
He asks me this at the same moment he takes my mouth and slides his hand into my panties.
When he moves his fingers through me and circles my clit, even if I was tired, I’d push through. I’ll never be tired enough to say no to Asa.
His voice dips. “You put your ring back on.”
“I did.” I bring my hand up and touch the platinum band holding a completely ostentatious diamond, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Asa slid it on my finger three days ago. There’s been so much going on with the fall of Brett White and everything surrounding that debacle—not to mention Levi’s graduation—I wanted to wait to tell everyone. Levi deserved to have his day.
“We’ll tell everyone tomorrow.” He kisses me again. “How about we get married here?”
My hands on his face tense and he stops to look down at me when I ask, “You’d want that?”
“It’s okay if you don’t. We’ll talk to Addy about doing it at Whitetail.”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant. I’d love to do it here, I just didn’t know if you would.” I relax and smile. “You think the animals will be quiet long enough for us to say I do?”
He grins and gives my clit more pressure. “I’ll have them shipped out for the day. They can go to a goat hotel.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or moan. “You’ll have to be the one to explain that to Saylor.”
“I can handle Saylor.”
“Yeah.” My smile fades. “You do it like you were meant to—like you were meant to be here for both of them.”
He kisses me again before murmuring against my lips. “Love you, baby. Love all of you.”
“Love you, too.” I kiss him back before adding. “And thank you for working so hard at unfucking me.”
Before he kisses me again, I get his smiling, hazel eyes. “I’ll work at unfucking you for the rest of my days. You can count on it.”
I know I can, because that’s Asa. His most precious gift is him.
Epilogue
Gifts
Four Years Later
Keelie
I jump as cold water droplets hit my overheated skin. Lifting the enormous hat from my face, all I see is my nine-year-old daughter leaning over me, soaking wet from the turquoise waters of the South of France.
“Are you gonna swim or what?”
I squint from the sun shining around her like a halo, but in true Saylor Hollingsworth fashion, she’s no angel and shakes her long blond hair all over me.
I jump in my lounge. “Stop it, baby. That’s cold.”
“It’s not cold. The water’s really warm.” She takes my hand and gives me a tug. “Come on, you promised.”
I did promise, but I also secretly promised myself a nap since this is our last day and we go home tomorrow.
In what has become our new normal since we’ve become Hollingsworths, we’re vacationing. Asa likes to vacation. Even more than that, he loves to show his family the world. We’re coming to the end of our two weeks in Europe, and as much history as he packed into our itinerary, he gave us a few days at the beach to relax before going home to start school in a few weeks.
Traveling like this is new for my kids and Knox eats it up like candy. He still inhales every bit of information he can out of life. Asa sees this, feeding it to Knox as fast as he can take it. This trip was for all of us, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize our activities were centered around Knox and his interests.
When Asa first came to me with the list of things we were going to do, he said, “I know it’s a lot but, baby, if we show him the world, he’ll know there’s nothing too big for him. He’s got the head on his shoulders to do anything he wants—let’s show him he can.”
Of course, that made me cry.
As much as I still hate crying, when Asa does shit like that, he brings me to my knees. Not only did he make Knox and Saylor legally his, he’s claimed them as his by doing what he does best—giving himself in everything
he does.
Knox and Saylor have taken it all. Every trip, every book, every cuddle, and every ounce of love and attention. They’ve declared him as theirs, wanted to take his name, and with Levi and Emma to love on, too—we’re complete.
A family.
And our family has grown since that day I married Asa in our backyard with only our immediate friends and family watching. Levi surprised us a year ago when he announced he and Carissa were engaged.
Asa doesn’t lose his shit often, but he did that day.
Levi was barely twenty-one and Carissa wasn’t even twenty. She followed him to Hopkins and, just like in high school, they were inseparable. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why we were surprised, but as much as Asa tried to convince them they were too young and as dramatic as Danielle’s antics became—Levi was adamant.
I kept my mouth shut and did the only thing I knew to do. Later, when we were alone, I calmed my husband. Levi was an adult who got great grades, majoring in molecular and cellular biology, for goodness’ sake. As horrid as molecules and anything biology sounds to me, he’s smart and Asa and Danielle both needed to trust him in everything. He’s focused and hardworking like his father—I just had to make Asa see it.
Levi and Carissa have been married for eight months now, and as I toss my hat to the lounge I was napping on, I see them walking along the beach, Carissa in a tiny bikini and both of them tan from our days lounging by the ocean. Levi is holding Carissa’s hand while she has her other rested on her bare, four-month baby bump.
They’re moving in fast-forward, even if they don’t see it that way. Levi is about to start medical school in the fall and Carissa graduates in a year with a degree in speech therapy. I’m not sure if they could be any happier and my husband finally realizes it, too. How could he not? We’ll have a grandchild to spoil soon.
“You coming, Emma?” I look back at my stepdaughter who’s about to start her sophomore year at UVA.
Emma turned it around in high school and was back on the honor roll the following year after her nightmare experience as a freshman. She found a good group of friends who stayed out of trouble, and unlike her older brother who went to college and was only about Carissa and his grades, Emma is all about the social scene. Unlike the quiet, meek girl I met more than four years ago, she’s got a million girlfriends in her sorority and enough young men banging down her door to drive her father to hell and back in a nanosecond.
Emma’s lying face down in her lounge and doesn’t even open her eyes when she waves me off. “This vacation has been a marathon. I’m not moving from this spot until the sun goes down and then it’s only to find food. Would you please not let him plan trips like this anymore? I’m exhausted.”
I grin at her and can’t argue. We’ve gone ninety-to-nothing the whole time.
I follow Saylor through the pristine sand with my eyes on my husband. He hasn’t changed a bit since the day I met him on the side of the road. Standing knee-deep in the water, he throws a frisbee to Knox before looking our way. Saylor gets just close enough when he reaches for her and tosses her into deeper waters—her little girl arms and legs flying as she screams with delight until the water swallows her up. They’ve been doing this for hours.
Asa grins. “Maybe we should put in a pool. As big as she’s getting, I’ll just throw her around and won’t have to lift anymore.” His eyes drop to my body. “And only seeing you in a bikini on vacation should be against the law. I’ve just decided we’re putting in a pool.”
I shake my head because the last time he added on to our house it was only supposed to be an extension off the garage. We ended up with an additional bathroom, media room and a game room. Who knows what we’ll end up with if he says he’s going to put in a pool.
I tuck myself into his side and wrap my arms around him. “As much as I’m afraid we’ll end up with a waterpark the way you do things, I do think a pool would be great.”
He ignores my comment, which makes me worried about the waterpark, and pulls me close. “Did you get a nap?”
I smile. “I did until Saylor came over dripping water all over me.”
He grins and leans down to kiss me when I hear Knox yell, “Dad, it’s coming your way.”
He pulls away and I try to duck so I don’t get a frisbee concussion, but Asa puts his hands to my hips and before I know what’s happening, I’m flying through the air in the same direction he threw Saylor. I scream as I hit the water, and when I come up gasping for air, my husband and all our children are laughing. Wiping the saltwater out of my eyes, it’s hard not to smile as I try to glare at him. “Oh, you’re in trouble.”
He raises his brows from behind his sunglasses as a dare. “Come do your worst, baby.”
Knowing I couldn’t possibly manage to bend his little finger backward if I tried, I do the only thing I can think of and splash water in his face. It doesn’t faze him and he reaches up to catch the frisbee. Right after he tosses it back to Knox, he takes the three strides to get to me and pulls me to him at the same time he circles and I end up on top of him in the water.
“Let’s leave the kids with Emma in the suite and go out by ourselves for our last night.” He slides his hand into the back of my bikini bottoms under the water. “You good with that?”
“Maybe.” I lean in to kiss him. “If I forgive you for dunking me by then.”
He gives my ass a tight squeeze. “You were hot. You needed cooling off.”
I roll my eyes and start to complain again, but Saylor pounces on my back and all three of us roll in the water.
My daughter—she still doesn’t understand personal space. Going out by ourselves tonight sounds perfect.
*****
Asa
I look to her through the moonlight where we’re sitting alone on the beach. “We’ll come back, just you and me.”
She smiles from where she’s tucked between my legs. Her long hair is blowing in the breeze, and just like every time since the first day she gifted me with her blue eyes, my chest constricts. Never experienced a pain so beautiful.
“We haven’t been anywhere by ourselves since our honeymoon. We should come back—or we could go somewhere else. I don’t care.” She looks back out to the ocean and settles into my chest. “We can stay home for all that matters. As long as I’m with you.”
I wrap her up and we listen to the ocean lick the sand.
“Asa?”
“Yeah?”
She shifts in my arms and puts her hands to my face before kissing me. “Thank you.”
I shrug. “It was just a trip.”
She shakes her head. “No. I mean you. I’ll never know or understand how life led me to you. I’m grateful every single day that it did.”
It’s my turn to kiss her. She doesn’t know the half of it. Keelie, Knox, Saylor—all three of them are gifts I didn’t deserve. I’m never letting them go.
~
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for the next novel in the Killer Series —
the story of Jarvis and Gracie.
About the Author
Brynne Asher lives in the Midwest with her husband, three children and her perfect dog. When she isn’t creating pretend people and relationships in her head, she's running her kids around and doing laundry. She enjoys decorating and shopping, and is always seeking the best deal. A perfect day in “Brynne World" ends in front of an outdoor fire with family, friends, s’mores, and a delicious cocktail.