Cameron placed an arm around her shoulders and proudly proclaimed what Tori and Drae already knew. “She’s developing a preschool program for the Double M. Lots of regulation and stuff so it won’t happen fast but my smart and clever wife is already on the job.”
“Holy cow, son!” Drae all of a sudden barked. Covering his nose he waved with his other hand and took a step back.
Tori started laughing hysterically. “Mr. Poopy Pants has spoken. This is what I get,” she snickered, “for letting him try the bandolero baked beans. He’ll be farting all night.”
“That hippie chick you fangirl over? Charlie Wilde?” Drae said. “You have to tell her those are the best damn beans we’ve ever tasted. Carmen made it her business to lock down the recipe.”
“I heard Finn and Bella are tag-teaming Meghan with cooking lessons.”
She turned a shocked face on her husband. “How do you know these things?”
“I pay attention,” he quipped. “Now say your goodbyes. It’ll be dark before we get home if we don’t keep moving.”
Many hugs and baby kisses later she and her guys continued down the lane. Without Danny to keep things lively, Dylan was starting to fade. He needed a quick cat nap before dinner and so did she.
As they turned into the drive and she got her first full glimpse of their wonderful home, Lacey filled with happiness. Fully decorated with lights and happy Christmas scenes, Casa de Cameron looked like Santa threw up on it.
The final countdown to Christmas had begun.
She couldn’t wait.
“I love what you’ve done with this room.” Ashleigh Marquez nodded as she looked around the nursery with a happy smile on her face. “Leave it to Alexander to think knocking down a wall in an old house like this would be no problem.”
Meghan laughed. Her mother-in-law had no idea. Alex was like a man on a mission once they decided what was going to work best and he’d even dragged Caleb Merrill into the process as soon as he realized the bathroom was too far away.
Next thing she knew tarps went up and she was prevented from moving down the hallway outside their master so a crew of workmen could take down a wall to make the nursery bigger with a bathroom right next door. Eventually, when the twins outgrew being in the same room, they’d repeat the process on the other side to create a two-bedroom suite with a connecting bath.
Happily, the construction phase was completed, walls painted and carpeting installed before her in-laws arrived. After the holidays she and Ashleigh were going shopping in Phoenix for a few days because her mother-in-law had an old friend who ran a baby boutique. Meghan had a few ideas about what kind of furniture she wanted and was eager to sit down with a professional to start planning.
“You look tired, my dear. Have you been sleeping okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I just start running out of steam late in the day. Can’t imagine what it’ll be like in a couple of months when I’m huge.”
Practically overnight, she went from a modest baby bump to a real belly. She was carrying high at this point – a result, her doctor said, of having tremendous abdominal strength. Being physically active and taking her yoga practice seriously produced unexpected benefits. All positive.
“It’s normal,” Ashleigh said. “And besides, you’ve got two percolating inside there,” she said with a gentle caress of Meghan’s tummy. “Give yourself a break. When we’re pregnant, our bodies work twice as hard and don’t forget with twins, it’s more like triple the work.”
“I’m so glad you’re here. Alex tries to be Mr. Stoic but I know he’s overjoyed to be able to share all this with you guys.”
They left the nursery arm in arm. “It was time,” her mother-in-law confessed as they walked. “We loved running the vineyard and winery all these years but Arizona is our spiritual home.”
The comment wouldn’t have seemed funny if Ashleigh Marquez wasn’t a dead ringer for Stevie Nicks. Right down to the delicate half moon on a chain around her neck. All she needed was a bit of black chiffon, a top hat, a tambourine and a wind machine to make the resemblance complete.
“And with two of my children in residence, well really. What’s a mother supposed to do?”
“Mom,” she murmured thoughtfully when she saw her chance to bring up Ashleigh’s third child. “What’s going on with Sophia? And please don’t say nothing. You’re putting off a strange vibe and Sophie is deliberately vague when she talks to her brother.”
It was an unfair maneuver but she didn’t care. Getting to the bottom of whatever was going on gave her license to pat her growing belly and complain. “It’s me who has to put up with Alex when he gets his nose tweaked. Some background information to help me deal with him would be great.”
Ashleigh sighed heavily. “You’ll find out soon enough I suppose,” she murmured, “but my daughter made me swear and there are some promises a mother just has to keep.”
“Ambiguous much?” she grumbled.
“I’m sorry, dear. I know it’s unfair but it’s Sophie after all. And she requires deft handling. She’ll be here tomorrow and then I dare say all will be revealed at that time.”
Meghan all but groaned with frustration.
“But I will say this.” They were in front of Abuelita’s portrait where Ashleigh fussed with the vase of flowers that always sat on a table beneath. “Cris and I are totally behind the decisions she’s making. This has been a long time coming.” She turned a brilliant smile on Meghan and squeezed her wrist. “Happy changes are happening for all my children. Next year will be a banner one for the family.”
Getting information out of her in-laws sure wasn’t easy. Guess I’ll have to wait for tomorrow, she thought. Just like everybody else.
When he rolled, his shin smacked the solid wood footboard on their bed making Alex yelp from pain. The naked auburn-haired goddess rolling with him started to laugh. Shifting away from the end of the bed he tried dragging their entwined bodies back to the middle of the mattress only to end up nearly dumping his pregnant wife on the floor in the process.
The whole thing was funny enough to crack up laughing, a new and exciting sensation because their howling belly laughs accentuated the fact that at the present time he was buried balls deep inside her.
Nothing like having an attack of the giggles right in the middle of making love. It was so them, which only made the whole thing funnier.
The erotic comedy continued after they got in the shower and he accidentally poured conditioner onto a shower pouf instead of bath wash. He couldn’t understand why there weren’t any suds as he gently scrubbed her back and legs. When they figured out what he’d done the laughter started up again and just kept going.
“How do I look?” she asked. He thought it cute how she twisted and turned in front of the cheval mirror in order to check out her appearance from every possible angle. “Is this dress too short?”
“You look beautiful. Far too beautiful to be saddled with a messy beast.”
“Who are you kidding?” she teased. Attaching delicate looking gold earrings to each ear she looked at him and smiled. “That messy beast thing makes me look good!”
“If you say so,” he told her with a hearty chuckle.
“We better hurry. I want to eat some toast before she gets here.”
“Is your stomach bothering you?”
His concern was evident but she quickly set his mind at ease. “No problems but nibbling on something every couple of hours helps.”
She eyed him critically and then ran her hands through his hair. No matter how much she tried to make him presentable he’d be a mess before they reached the first floor.
Standing close, her belly kept bumping him and she’d laugh every time. “I think my growing profile will need some, uh… recalculating,” she droned like the voice of their car’s navigation system.
Recalculating. He grinned and straightened his shoulders, although claiming pride for having a sassy, clever woman s
eemed a bit cocky, even for him.
“Help me, husband,” she purred. Her hand swept across his wide chest.
“Dick at the ready, my love.”
Her stupefied reaction was so funny he broke up laughing. “Oh my god. Your face,” he hooted.
Beast began happy dancing when snotty teacher crossed her arms and glared at him. Leave it to his goddess wife to remind him who was really boss.
“You did get the memo, right? The one titled Rules for Handling a Pregnant Horny Wife. I believe number four on the bullet list was do not make dick jokes unless you want to be flattened to the floor and ridden like a carousel pony.”
Now there was a pretty visual. Up and down and up and down, real slow and sexy like. “Sounds good to me.”
The Meghan Elizabeth O’Brien Valleja-Marquez pout was one of the world’s natural wonders and deserving of its own Wiki page.
“Please don’t tease me,” she whined. “As far as flirty comebacks go, that one held too much truth. I don’t want to ruin my dress,” she griped.
Uh, holy crap. She was serious. He read the conflict on her face. Her brain was considering a leisurely pussy workout atop his cock. She was destroying the corner of her lip with her teeth and wringing her hands. Their sex life was red hot before they got pregnant and since then has become a swirling lava pool of perpetual heat. It was no longer him pushing her limits. Now it was his wife with the non-stop, insatiable demands.
He really needed a fucking T-shirt that read It Does Not Suck To Be Me.
Alex considered the dress she worried over. His wife was one of the most feminine women he’d ever encountered. Even in jeans she there was no mistaking she was one hundred percent female. But what she brought to a dress was mind blowing.
What she normally preferred and jokingly referred to as retro 1950s fashion centered on outfits with belts, flared skirts and sexy necklines. Her maternity style only altered that look slightly. Belly hugging dresses with ties or a ribbon around a high waist now filled a section of her wardrobe.
Today’s outfit was simple and in his opinion, elegant. Blue, v-neck, and tied under her boobs, it showed off her cute bump.
She was making an effort for Sophie while he wanted to open a can of sibling whup-ass on her for playing a mind-numbingly murky game of secrecy and bullshit complete with the stench of an impending gotcha. Wordy way of saying he was certain the Marquez middle sister had something up her sleeve so making an effort seemed to him like playing right into her hands.
His wife’s conflicted frown reminded him how unusually vulnerable she seemed at the moment.
Bitches like romance, right? So he complimented her outfit and gave an assuring wink.
“You’re absolutely right, Double M. The dress is too lovely to ruin. And I was having a guy moment with the dick comment. My bad. Now what kind of help do you really need?”
It was hilarious how fast she dropped the pout and took a sharp left turn onto chatty and effervescent boulevard.
“My shoes. Those,” she said with a finger pointing at a pair of strappy heels. “Do you mind helping?”
He had to restrain from caressing the smooth softness of her calves when he knelt before her and slid on her shoes like Prince Charming with a magic slipper. Alex found it deeply satisfying tending to things like the laces on her sneakers or a zipper she couldn’t reach. Beast liked the husbandly tasks too. There was something gentlemanly about it. Gentlemanly with an undercurrent of rapacious carnality. Just the way they both liked it.
She was still rattling on as they descended the back stairway into the kitchen. It never failed to amaze him, all the shit she had in her head.
Didn’t take long to guzzle some herbal iced tea and make short work of the muffins Carmen left out for them, and then it was time to grab a seat in the living room and wait for his folks to arrive with Sophie.
After Alex shut down all their arguments, they’d agreed to let Ben drive them to and from the airport in the limo. He thought it ridiculous that two adults thought it necessary to go fetch a thirty-something year old grown woman who’d done plenty of solo travel in her time. Was his sister an invalid all of a sudden?
Well, he hmph’ed as he got Meghan settled. She looked at him funny when he snorted. These and many other mysteries will be solved once she got her diva ass here.
Not too much later Zeus appeared and made a leisurely beeline for the front door. A sure sign that there was activity in the driveway. The long, ridiculous wait was over. He heard the sound of laughing voices approaching and snickered. It was official. The entire Marquez family had feet on the red ground in Arizona and a new chapter in their lives was about to begin.
Meghan scooted to the edge of the sofa and stood up. She reached out to him. For a long minute he stayed seated. With a deep breath, he stood and took his love’s hand.
Let the wild, sibling rumpus begin!
It felt by the reluctant foot dragging her husband displayed like she was pulling a fully loaded wagon as Meghan moved him to the foyer to await his sister’s return to the family home.
She understood his reticence. Alex was struggling with his place in all the changes happening in their world. So was she. Sometimes, like right now, it seemed like a lot to take on.
The front door swung open and let in a blast of seasonably chilly air. Zeus woofed and trotted forward to greet the arrivals.
Cristián came first, lugging an enormous wheeled suitcase and weighed down with two bags strapped across his chest. “Feel like a damn mule,” he muttered with amusing mockery.
Ashleigh and Sophie were arm-in-arm and chatting excitedly as they came down the walkway and crossed the threshold. A gust of wind ruffled her mother-in-law’s flowy wrap and made the long ends flap.
Beside her, Sophie was the picture of happy radiance. What happened to the sober taciturn she-wolf Meghan expected?
“Play nice,” Cris murmured as he passed Alex’s side.
Meghan bit back a laugh. Same thing her dad always said when she and her brothers were in the same room.
Ashleigh pushed Sophie into Alex’s personal space and smiled happily. “Say hello before you start sniping at one another.”
“Hey,” her restrained husband mumbled. “Welcome home.”
Sophie gave the best sibling side shade she’d ever seen and pithily commented, “Ew. Are you still here? I thought she’d have thrown your moldy ass to the curb by now. Hi Meghan,” she said sweetly after disparaging her big brother.
Not one to let a snide remark go without getting in a few shots of his own, her alpha Major frowned until his brows tilted. “Did they make you check your broom at the airport or is that how you flew in?”
Okay, so that was too funny not to laugh at so she did, but not before giving her surly husband a tiny nudge reminder to be good.
Her in-laws crowded in and laughed too. “Okay you two, one more shot for each of you and then cut it the fuck out.”
Ashleigh nodded approvingly at her husband’s edict and then waited on her children to wrap up their sibling squall.
Sophia went first. “So I see the little prince has a secret service detail now. Nice security net, bro, but seriously. What? You afraid of breaking a nail Alexandra?”
Score, Sophie.
Alex made a production out of looking around his sister and glancing out the open front door. “You forget something?”
Meghan took the bait and looked before she heard the taunt.
“Where are the flying monkeys, sis? Hmm?”
Silence counted down from five and then the Marquez family broke up laughing. Sophie rushed forward to hug Alex. He met her halfway, and wrapped her in a fierce hug before quickly releasing her to step back. His face was a mask of astonishment and shock.
“What the fuck?” he barked. Looking wildly at Meghan and then back to Sophie, he seemed like a man with all the wind knocked from his sails.
That’s when Sophie calmly unbuttoned her coat and removed it to toss on a chair by
the door. When she turned back around and ran her hands down the sides of her tunic shirt, Meghan vapor-locked and reached blindly for her husband’s hand.
“I’m pregnant!” Sophie proclaimed with undeniable glee.
Nobody moved, said anything or breathed for the longest time and then Ashleigh rather lamely squealed, “Surprise! Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked.
Slack-jawed and completely dumbfounded, it took real effort to stay standing.
She’d been through her share of family bombshells but this? Holy fuckballs with a side of ‘am I being punked?’ This was the mother of all head fucks.
The grouchy, ill at ease handful that was the Sophie Marquez she knew was pregnant, radiant and beaming. Had hell frozen over and nobody told them?
“Oh for god’s sake Alex. Chill, would you?”
Sophie regarded her brother with quiet amusement. He wasn’t used to being kept out of the family loop. Not where big decisions were concerned. But she had her reasons and he was just going to have to deal with it.
“To borrow one of Angie’s expressions, suck it up buttercup because this ain’t about you.”
“Goddammit, Soph. Really? You turning up on my doorstep pregnant has nothing to do with me? You better start ‘splaining sis because I’m not finding any of this amusing. It’s fucking Christmas, my wife is pregnant and has enough on her plate with the twins. Swooping in with a surprise kid shuts down your argument. How did this happen?”
Her older brother’s grumpy reaction was all sorts of funny. Showed that he really loved her and considering how hard she’d pushed everyone away and kept them at arm’s length for all these years, the evidence of his feelings for her was just what she needed.
A long time ago she put Alexander on a pedestal right up there next to her dad. Good men like them were in dismally short supply. In her experience, anyway. Explaining her situation to him wasn’t going to be easy but at least she knew he would be in her corner no matter what.
Unforgettable (Family Justice Book 5) Page 49