She’d done nothing special for today. She was wearing her yoga pants and a long scoop-necked sweatshirt. Her hair was loose and she had no makeup on. Her feet were bare. And when she opened the door and saw him in worn jeans and a T-shirt, she was relieved he’d done the same. No fuss. No grand gestures. Just their two everyday selves.
“Come on in,” she said, closing the door after him. “I have a glass of wine going, but you can help yourself to anything you want.”
“I’m good, thanks.” He looked around and then gave her a ghost of a teasing smile. “I thought you might have hung a big whiteboard up, with plans and arrows and stuff.”
“I thought about it,” she said, returning the smile. “But I didn’t make a plan for tonight because then it would be my plan. The whole point is to come up with our plan, together.”
“Together is the most important thing to me,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of soul searching. I’ve gotten a verbal ass-kicking from Amber. Which probably sounds weird, but obviously nobody knows my kids like their mother.”
“I get it.” She gestured toward the couch because it felt too formal and strange standing in her living room. “Sit down, for goodness’ sake. This doesn’t have to be weird.”
“I want you to know I’m ready to do whatever you need me to do,” he said, and her heart skipped a beat. “I’ll move here. Whatever’s going to make you happy.”
“Derek.” She reached across the space between them and took his hand. “I don’t want you to do whatever it takes to make me happy. I want us to figure out what’s best for us and for our family. And I don’t think it’s here. I don’t think Isaac and Julia would feel at home in this building and I don’t want them on company manners.”
The relief in his face was obvious, but she also didn’t doubt the sincerity of his offer. He was willing to make that sacrifice for her. But she didn’t want sacrifice. She wanted compromise.
“I know my place doesn’t work,” he said. “And not because it’s nothing like this place, but because it literally won’t work. There’s no room for you to have an office and even if you kept this place, you’d still need a space for that at home. And one bathroom’s not fun.”
“I do think a long-term plan includes a home office space and a master bath, yes.”
“I’m sorry I said a man needs to be able to take care of his family. It was pride and it was stupid. The truth is we need to be able to take care of our family. Who writes the check doesn’t matter as much as finding a place we both love.”
Her heart was beating so fast, she was surprised she didn’t pass out. This was what she almost hadn’t dared hope for. “I’m promoting Kelsey. She’s going to take on some of the workload that I’ve held on to simply because I thought I had to. Because we don’t need a place open to the public, she was able to find an affordable office space, just big enough for the three of us to work out of, since we’re going to hire an assistant for her. My career is still important to me, but I’ll be able to be more flexible. And I can focus more on the writing and other things that don’t require running around the city to keep appointments scheduled so tightly I can’t stop for a slice of pizza.”
He squeezed her hand. “Is that what you want to do?”
“I’m doing that no matter what. It’s time and Kelsey’s earned it.” She took a deep breath. “And the rent on this apartment is ridiculous. I’d rather invest that money in a home that works for our entire family.”
He struggled with that one for a few seconds, but she was quiet and let him work through it in his mind. Pride wasn’t an easy thing to set aside, but then he nodded.
“That view, though,” he said.
“You know what’s an even better view?” She squeezed his hand. “You, in Aidan’s backyard, chasing your kids with a water gun and laughing so hard you fell down. And you, when I wake up and you’re the first thing I see.”
“I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life.”
“I know Isaac and Julia are eight and ten and... I need to know if you want more kids.”
“I do. When you’re ready, we’ll go for it.”
“You’re not worried about how much age difference there will be between them?”
“Nope. Julia and Isaac will be fine no matter what, and the baby or babies will love having a big brother and sister to do stuff with.”
Olivia smiled and the crinkling of her eyes made a couple of tears spill over onto her cheeks. “I love you.”
“That’s the only thing that really matters. As long as you love me, we can do anything.” He let go of her hand to wipe the tears away with his thumb. “And I love you. I love you so much and I’m sorry it scared the crap out of me.”
“Well, it scared the crap out of me, too. Thank you for not giving up without a fight.”
“Thank you for giving me another chance.” He tugged on her hand until she slid across the couch and into his arms. “From now until forever, you and me are a team. If we’re happy, everybody in our lives will be happy.”
“You know what would make me happy right now?” she asked, almost giddy with relief and love for this man.
“Great sex followed by a pepperoni-and-sausage pizza?”
“Oh.” She considered that for a few seconds. “I was going to say a kiss, but sex and pizza does sound good.”
He was laughing when he flipped her around so she was straddling his lap. Then he buried his hands in her hair and kissed her until she forgot about pizza and everything else but the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.
Epilogue
January
“Snow day!”
Olivia was pretty sure the bed slid a couple of inches across the floor as Isaac launched himself onto it. He landed next to his dad, catching him with a sharp knee or elbow, judging by the grunt.
“Snow day!”
“You’ve only been back to school from Christmas break for a week,” Derek muttered. “It’s mostly downhill to school. Just get on your sled.”
“There won’t be anybody there, Dad,” Julia said from the doorway. “He’d be alone.”
“I was kidding, pumpkin.”
Olivia peeked at the clock and groaned. “We had ten more minutes until the alarm went off. How come you don’t get up like this when it’s not a snow day?”
“I don’t want to waste a snow day. And Dad, you said we wouldn’t have a snow day today.” Isaac jumped off the bed, but paused in the doorway to look back. “You were wrong.”
When they were gone—probably heading to the kitchen to start getting their energy levels up for the unexpected day off—Derek rolled to face her. She loved the early mornings, when his face was still soft with sleep.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled after giving her a kiss good morning. “I really didn’t think they’d cancel school for what was in the forecast. I can try to get somebody to cover my shift.”
“If it’s bad enough to cancel school, it’ll probably be a busy day for you and it’s late notice to call somebody in. We’ll be fine.”
“Maybe I can call Amber and see how she’s feeling.”
“No. Regardless of how she’s feeling right now, having two kids with snow-day energy levels isn’t going to help.”
Amber still had a month or so before her due date, but she’d had some issues and they were worried about her blood pressure. While they hadn’t directly confined her to bed, she was supposed to be taking it very easy. Sleep was an issue and she’d been struggling with mornings, so after the holiday vacation, they’d offered to take Isaac and Julia until she was back on her feet.
Derek and Olivia got them up and off to school in the morning. After school, they went to their mom’s for a few hours, and then Derek would pick them up or Olivia would on her way back from the office or a meeting. Since Jason was home on the weekends, they’d proba
bly stay with their mom, but they were all still feeling it out.
“What’s your schedule today?” he asked. “We might be able to find a sitter.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, visualizing the planner that was downstairs on the counter. “I can work from home today. I have a video conference with my team scheduled, so it doesn’t matter where I am and if the kids interrupt a couple of times, it’s no big deal. I do have one phone call with a client, so I’ll bribe them with something.”
He chuckled and snuggled closer to her. “You’ve really got this parenting thing down.”
The alarm went off and they both groaned when he had to let her go to roll over and shut it off. “I want a snow day, too. You kept me up too late last night.”
“Daddy?”
Julia was back, and Olivia was very thankful they’d adopted a wearing-pajamas policy when the kids were over since Derek had taken most of the covers with him when he rolled toward the bedside table.
“What’s the matter, pumpkin?”
“When it’s a snow day, how do you rescue people?”
“Our trucks are heavy, so we get around pretty well. If it’s really slippery, we put chains on the tires. You’ve seen those before.”
“Do the ambulances have them, too?”
Derek stood and started pulling out his clothes for the day. “Yeah, they do. They have a special system built in, actually, which is way cooler than ours. But don’t tell Cait I said that, okay?”
When she didn’t smile back at Derek, Olivia patted the bed beside her. When Julia climbed in, she pulled the covers up to their chins. “You should be running around the house yelling about snow days like your brother. Why so serious today?”
“I just wondered if ambulances can get to people’s houses in the snow like fire trucks can. And what if the ambulances are busy?”
There was so much worry in her eyes, Olivia’s heart clenched. “You know your mom is fine, right?”
“I know, but she’s not totally fine, since that’s why we’re staying with you and Daddy on school nights.”
The girl was an overthinker, which Olivia definitely understood. “She’s tired and sometimes doesn’t feel good. When you’re carrying a baby, you get tired even faster, so it’s best if she can sleep in. And if she did need help, an ambulance can get to her. And a fire truck can, too.”
“And Mr. Keegan next door has that four-wheel drive,” Derek reminded her. “You know they’re looking out for her. And that guy across the street has a snowmobile in his garage. Can you imagine your mom with that belly riding on a snowmobile?”
Julia giggled, as he’d intended, and Olivia kissed her forehead. “Your dad has to get ready for work, so how about you and I go get his coffee ready?”
When they got downstairs to the kitchen, Olivia saw that Isaac had already poured himself a bowl of cereal, since the Gilman family rule was that there were no rules on snow days. Within reason, of course.
While Julia tried to decide what she wanted to eat, Olivia made two coffees—one in a regular mug and another in a massive travel mug Derek would take with him. Then she went to the large whiteboard hung on the wall. Each member of the family had a block, and the kids had decorated theirs with small stickers.
She picked up the eraser and wiped the kids’ boxes for the day clean, which made them clap. Then she pointed to her name.
“Okay, kiddos. I can rearrange things, but I have one video chat with the people I work with that I have to do.”
“With Kelsey and Jo?” Isaac asked. Kelsey and their new assistant had a lot of screen time with Olivia, and Isaac had developed a habit of popping up over Olivia’s shoulder to say hi. They’d had to set some boundaries, as far as when he could do that and when he couldn’t—Kelsey and Jo were okay, but other people weren’t—but he’d caught on quickly and charmed both women.
“Yes, and with Brynn and Wes, too. But I have one telephone call I have to make in my office that’ll take about a half hour. What’s the rule?”
“Don’t interrupt or knock on the door unless it’s a real emergency,” Julia said.
“Like somebody being hurt or sick or a fire,” Isaac added. “Because Julia not giving my turn on the video games is not a real emergency.”
“And once my stuff is done, if the roads are okay, maybe we’ll see if your mom’s up to some company for board games. If the roads are still bad, maybe we can do the trivia game.”
It was a silly game, but it was something Amber could do with them over FaceTime, so they’d started it when she was in the hospital for observation for a couple of days. Julia’s face brightened at the reassurance nobody was going to forget to check on her mom, and Isaac started talking about board games.
While she waited for an English muffin to pop out of the toaster so she could smear it with peanut butter for Derek, Olivia watched the two kids at the table. Julia was nibbling on a banana, since she’d have eggs with Olivia after her dad left for work. They were trying to put the board games they owned into a list of most to least fun, but they didn’t agree so she knew it would keep them busy for a while.
When Derek walked into the kitchen, he kissed each of the kids on top of the head and then gave her a long, minty kiss before taking his first sip of the coffee she’d made. Then he thanked her for the English muffin and went to sit with the kids. Usually he was leaving as they got up and she knew he’d be pushing it to make it to the station on time, but he didn’t seem worried.
She poured herself a glass of juice, but she didn’t walk to the table and join them quite yet. She just watched them, embracing the familiar sense of gratitude and wonder that warmed her heart.
This was her life.
The house. A pretty two-story, brick house in a nice neighborhood still close enough to Amber’s to make running back and forth manageable, but closer to the office so her commute wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Two funny, awesome kids who had managed to claim their own spaces in her heart and weren’t simply Derek’s kids anymore. Her business was still going strong and Kelsey was thriving in her new position and responsibilities.
And her husband.
They’d gotten married a few days before Christmas in a small civil ceremony. Very small. They went to City Hall, just the two of them, because that moment was theirs. No families or kids or friends. The ceremony belonged to them.
Then they’d spent the Christmas weekend in a series of mini-parties of celebration with everybody who mattered to them, and it had been an extra-special holiday for all of them.
A home, a husband, kids she loved, a business and next year—according to her new and improved life and family plan—hopefully a baby. She had it all and she hadn’t even had to give up sleeping. Most of the time. But now she understood why people were willing to make that sacrifice. This kind of happiness was worth it.
Derek stood, and then kissed Julia’s cheek and ruffled Isaac’s hair. “You guys be good for Olivia today. And when you’re shoveling around the hydrant, stay out of the street and move away from the curb when a car goes by.”
“We always do,” Julia said. “And we give serious side-eye to the people down the street if they don’t to shame them into shoveling theirs out.”
“That’s my girl.”
Olivia laughed. Their mission to educate their new neighborhood about shoveling the hydrants out amused her, even though she knew it was serious business to Derek. “You guys know we’re not even getting enough snow to shovel, right?”
“If you do it every time it snows, it becomes a habit. Firefighters like when people who aren’t us are in the habit of clearing around the almost fourteen thousand hydrants in the city. You going to drink that juice or are you working on your juice-modeling pose today?” he teased, taking the glass from her and setting it on the counter behind her.
“That’s my fallback career for when e
verybody decides to use the calendars and task apps that come with their phones.”
He looped his arm around her and pulled her close, ignoring the ew sound from the peanut gallery at the table. “I love you, Ms. McGovern who’s really Mrs. Gilman.”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. She knew that other than agreeing they’d buy the house with the money she’d been paying as rent—because it was outside of his budget, but so perfect for their family—the name had been one of the harder compromises for Derek. But he was a smart man who loved her, so he’d accepted that everything she’d built in her life had her name on it and she didn’t want to give it up.
“I love you, too, husband. And you’re going to be late if you don’t get going.”
“You looked like you were a million miles away,” he said in a low voice not meant for the kids to hear. “Everything okay?”
She looked into his eyes and smiled. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in luck.”
“I didn’t until I got stuck in an elevator with you. That was definitely lucky.”
He buried his face in her neck for a few seconds, and then gently nipped the soft skin under her ear. It always made her shiver. “I hope I’ll get lucky when I get home tomorrow morning.”
“You usually do,” she whispered back. “Be safe and when you get home, you can crawl into bed with me and I’ll warm you up.”
He rewarded her with a soft groan. “There’s nothing sexier than a woman with a plan.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more from Shannon Stacey, please visit her website at www.ShannonStacey.com.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey.
Go back to the beginning of Boston Fire with this excerpt from Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey.
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