by Kaylee Ryan
“Mark.” She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “I don’t know how to tell you what that means to me. I don’t have the words to tell you how my heart feels. You’re a gift, to both of us, one I will forever cherish.”
“You just did,” I tell her. “Besides, you’re my fiancée now. That ring on your finger is all I need. The entire world will know you’re mine, and not a day will pass that you and our little girl won’t feel it.”
Her hands wrap around my neck and she pulls me into a kiss. She’s so short that she has to strain to reach me. Bending, I place my hands on her thighs and pick her up. She laughs, but wraps her legs around my waist and keeps her lips pressed against mine.
Spinning us, I press her back against the wall and devour her. My tongue explores every inch of her mouth, while my hands squeeze her ass.
“More. I need more,” she pleads, resting her head against the wall.
“Tell me what you want, baby.”
She lifts her head and smiles. “You, Mark. I want you. Any way I can get you.”
Turning from the wall, I stalk to the bed. I’m ready to put her down and ravish her when a small cry comes through the monitor. We both freeze and turn to look at the small screen. Daisy’s little arms are moving and she lets out another cry.
“I’ll get her,” I say, setting Dawn down on the bed.
“I can go.”
“I’ll get her.” I kiss her one more time before rushing to the other side of the house to get our little girl.
“Hey, sweetheart.” I pick her up and she shudders, but her cries stop. “What’s going on, huh? You hungry?” I ask as I rub her back.
“It’s time for her to eat,” Dawn says, appearing in the doorway.
“I’ll change her. You want to get a bottle ready?” I ask.
“I can change her.”
“I got it, babe. This little angel needs a bottle. Stat. Go.” I shoo her away and take Daisy to the changing table. “All right, sweet girl. Take it easy on me this go round, will ya? This is my first time with no one here to supervise. We need to show Mommy that we can do this.”
Mommy.
It’s not hard for me to refer to Dawn as such. She’s got the loving, nurturing gene, and well, that’s who she is. It’s not official, but it will be soon. And I’ll be Daddy.
“So, Daisy, your mommy and I are going to get married, which will make me your daddy. You okay with that?” I ask as I remove the soiled diaper and quickly slide the new one under her. “I promise to love you for every day of forever. I’m even going to talk to Mommy about having you a few brothers and sisters to play with. Would you like that?”
She just stares up at me like she can’t figure me out.
“There,” I say, finishing the final snap on the pink sleeper we brought her home in. “You ready to eat?” I lift her from the changing table. With Daisy in one arm, with the other, I wrap up the soiled diaper and toss it into the diaper bin. “It’s supposed to keep the stink out. I guess we’ll see if they sold me a gimmick,” I tell her.
Turning, I find Dawn leaning against the doorjamb just watching us. “There’s Mommy,” I whisper to the baby.
“You’re so good with her.”
“I’ve had lots of practice. Meghan’s kids and then Knox, Everly, Ben, and Beck. There’s no shortage of babies in our family.” I hold my hand out for the bottle. “I can feed her. Why don’t you go take a bath or a long hot shower?”
“I—” She stops and bites her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”
“You were ready to argue with me, weren’t you?” I ask, shaking my head.
“I caught myself.” She sticks her tongue out at me.
“Don’t be like Mommy, Daisy. She has bad habits.”
“Hey!” Dawn laughs.
Some of the light is back in her eyes. I know she’s still grieving, and we have a lot to learn, obstacles to face with the adoption and raising this little girl, but there is no one else I’d rather face them with. “Go,” I say, reaching for the bottle again.
She steps forward and hands me the bottle, running her hand over Daisy’s baby fine hair. When her eyes meet mine, I never could have imagined how the words out of her mouth would make me feel. “Be good for Daddy,” she says with a smile.
Daddy.
Before I can comment, she turns on her heel and rushes from the room. “Well, it looks like Mommy’s on board, kiddo,” I tell her. I settle into the rocking chair and offer her the bottle. She sucks greedily. “I hope you like your room. When you get older and can tell us what you want, we’ll change it however you want it. When my sister was younger, she was changing her room all the time. It must be a female thing, because I couldn’t have cared less.”
I watch her watch me, and my chest tightens. It’s still surreal Dawn said yes, and this little lady is going to be my daughter. Our lives are falling into place, finally. Sure, it’s not how we imagined it would go, but to be honest, I wouldn’t change it. This little girl and her aunt, soon-to-be momma, have my heart in the palm of their hands.
“I think we should talk about dating,” I tell Daisy, pulling the bottle from her mouth to burp her. She protests with a whine. “I know you’re not ready, but if we don’t do this, then your belly will hurt and we can’t have that,” I say, placing her on my shoulder and rubbing her back, softly patting too. It takes her a few minutes, but she finally gives me a burp that would rival the guys’. “Goodness, how does something so sweet and tiny do that?” I place her back in the crook of my arm and offer her the rest of her bottle.
She almost finishes the bottle before she’s snoozing away. I bring her back to my shoulder and work another manly sounding burp out of her before returning her back in her crib. I watch her sleeping, giving Dawn some more time alone. After making sure the monitor is turned on, I head to the living room and check that the second camera receiver is turned on so I can hear her if she wakes up.
Part of me wants to crash Dawn’s bath, but she deserves time to herself. With nothing to worry about and just soak and relax. She’s probably lived at the hospital the past few weeks, and I know her showers could have broken world records for the world’s fastest. So, instead of joining her, I start pulling the salad fixings from the fridge and place the garlic bread Mom left in the oven.
Dawn joins me about fifteen minutes later. “That smells so good,” she moans and my cock twitches.
“You ready to eat?”
“Yes. How did Daisy do?” she asks.
“Great. Almost the entire two ounces before she fell into a full-belly coma.” I laugh.
“Did yo—”
I interrupt her. “Yes. I burped her twice. All is good. There’s a monitor there.” I point to the receiver in the living room. “There are two, so no matter where we are, we will be able to hear her.”
“You thought of everything.”
“I tried to make this as easy as possible for both of us. We didn’t get time to process that we’re going to be parents, and slowly gather everything we’re going to need. We didn’t get time to let the realization that we’re going to be responsible for a tiny human to sink in. I know Ridge was a fish out of water those first few days until he got everything organized for Knox. I was just trying to make life easier for us.”
“And that?” She points to the plate of lasagna I just dished from the crockpot. “Did you beg your mom to cook for us?” she teases.
“Nope. That was all Mom. She insisted she made us something easy to heat through.”
“Remind me to thank her,” she says, taking a huge bite.
“They want to come over to meet her. Daisy. Knowing my mom, she has another gift for her.”
“Sure, whenever. I was worried about getting what we needed. I mean, I know you said you picked up a few things, but you pretty much took care of it all.”
“I’m sure I missed something. You should go through her room and see what we still need, and we can get that this weekend. Maybe we can have Mom and Da
d come over and watch her while we go out. I don’t think taking her out to a store with her being this little is a good idea.”
She smiles wistfully. “Look at you being a protective papa bear,” she says.
“Always when it comes to my girls.”
“Do they know?” She motions toward her ring finger.
“They knew I was going to ask you. They didn’t know when.”
“What about the gang? They know?”
“Nope. They know I love you. They know that there is never going to be anyone for me but you, but they don’t know I bought a ring, or that I was going to ask.”
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I kind of just wanted it for us, you know? I mean, I told my parents, because well, I didn’t have a choice. Mom was dropping off some clothes for Daisy and saw the bag from the jewelry store on the counter. I had just gotten home.”
“Were they okay with it?” she asks hesitantly.
“What kind of question is that? Of course they were okay with it. But you need to understand that if they weren’t, that wouldn’t change my decision to marry you. My heart”—I point to my chest—“it’s yours.”
“What if we do it here?”
“Do what here?”
“The wedding. What if we get married here?”
“Is that what you want?” It’s important to me that she has her special day. I know it won’t be the same without her parents or sister, but it still needs to be a day she will always remember.
“Sure.” She shrugs.
“No.”
Her head whips up. “No?”
“Nope. Not with a reply like sure. I want this day to be all you hoped it would be. I know it’s going to be hard as hell for you, but we’re a family, us and Daisy. You deserve a day of your dreams to celebrate that. So yeah, my answer is no. Try again.”
“You’re… let me think about it,” she concedes.
“Better. Now eat before it gets cold. I have something I want to show you.”
“There’s more?”
“Yep. It was my backup plan,” I admit.
“Backup plan?”
“Yeah, in case you said no. A man’s always gotta have a backup plan to win over his girls.”
“You’re too much.” She smiles, and it warms me from the inside out.
We finish eating, then clean up the kitchen. I can’t help but think that I’m glad that I got to propose here instead of at the hospital like I had planned. I hate that she lost her sister so soon after her parents, but I’m glad I could be there for her.
“You ready?” I ask her.
“Yes.” She sits up straighter on the couch and watches me as I stand.
“So, I thought if you said no, I would have this big reveal to prove to you that I was all in, but since you said yes, I’ve got nothing so I’m just going to show you.”
“Enough already. Let me see. Where is it?” Her eyes scan the room.
“Close your eyes.”
“Mark,” she groans.
“Close ’em, baby.”
“Fine.”
I wait until her eyes are closed to remove my shirt. Turning, I stand with my back to her. “Open,” I say. I stand still, letting her look at my back. I have lots of ink, but there was still some real estate on my back, and my girls have now claimed that spot.
“Pixie?” I ask when I hear nothing.
“I don’t, I mean, when did you? Mark, this is amazing,” she says and her voice grows closer. “When did you do this?”
“Earlier this week. It’s still healing, but you can make it out, right?”
She laughs. It’s a light and airy beautiful sound that fills our home. “Yeah,” she says with a tremble in her voice. “It’s easy to see the daisies growing in the dawn of day. This is incredible and no one has ever—” She chokes on a sob.
I turn to face her. “I love you. Both of you. You both already own my heart. I thought it was only fitting to have you etched into my skin as well.”
“It’s beautiful and incredible, and I— Turn around so I can see it again,” she says, making me laugh. Her arms wrap around me from behind and she rests her head against my back, the side opposite my tattoo. “I love you, Marcus Adams.”
“I love you too, future Mrs. Adams, and our daughter.” Moving us to the couch, I kiss her as if my last breath depends on it.
Daisy wakes up soon after so we cuddle with her before it’s time for a bath, another bottle, and bed. I want to ravish my fiancée, but we’re both exhausted. We fall into bed with full bellies and full hearts, and let sleep claim us. It was the perfect night at home with my family.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dawn
Life is passing by like a freight train. Daisy turned three-months-old last week. It’s hard to believe. My sweet baby girl is growing and thriving. She smiles constantly, and she has Mark and I both wrapped around her little finger. However, it’s not just us. Mark’s parents are just as bad as we are. Theresa has always been a stay-at-home mom and has volunteered to watch her for us. She refuses to let us pay her so we do other things like this weekend. It’s Labor Day, and we got them a weekend away at a bed-and-breakfast a couple of hours away. Their friends Jim and Tammy are going with them.
They took to her as their granddaughter without question. Theresa even went as far as to pull me aside and assure me that she will love her for my parents and her, and that we’ll keep their memory alive. Of course, I cried. I’ve cried more tears in the last year than I have my entire life. Each day it gets a little easier, but there will always be a hole in my heart that they left behind.
I’m in the kitchen packing up some bottles for our outing today. We’re headed to Tyler and Reagan’s for a cookout.
“Phew-ee baby girl, what have you been eating?” I hear through the monitor and stifle my laughter so I can hear more. “Bleh,” he says, and I have to put my hand over my mouth. “Ew, you’re stinky,” he says, in the voice he uses just for her. I hear baby laughter, which is new. “You think this is funny? Daddy needs a clothespin,” he tells her.
I stand here and listen until I hear him tell her it’s time to come and find me. I get back to work packing up the extra bottles for the day.
“What can I do?” he asks, holding Daisy in his arms.
“I’m good, just packing up some extra bottles and formula.”
“This one,” he says, jostling her in his arms and making her smile, “she about stunk up the entire house.”
“Did she?” I ask as if I didn’t hear him.
He shudders. “How can someone so tiny and so cute produce that?” he asks as if he’s truly appalled.
“You’ve smelled the formula she eats, right?”
“When can we give her baby food again?”
“Not for a few more months, but that’s not much better.”
“When is she out of diapers?”
I throw my head back and laugh. “We have lots of months before that happens.”
“What? Like seven?”
“Usually two and a half to three. Kendall started Knox at two and a half.”
“So, years, that’s what you meant to say.”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn,” he mutters under his breath.
“Still want to add to this brood?” I ask him, remembering his proposal and the promise of brothers and sisters for Daisy.
“Pft, you think a few sh— poopy diapers are going to keep me from knocking you up? Think again, beautiful.” He leans down and kisses the corner of my mouth, and Daisy squeals her delight.
There’s not really anything I can say to that, so I don’t. I focus on closing up the diaper bag after another check that we have diapers, wipes, clothes, blanket, binky, and the rest of the items on my list.
“Pack ’n Play is in the back of your SUV,” Mark says, coming in from the garage, Daisy still in his arms.
“She’s going to be spoiled if you keep packing her around like that.”
&nbs
p; “Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat. “We don’t want her to cry because she wants to be held.”
“If she wants to be held, I’ll hold her.”
“What if it’s at 2:00 a.m.?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Whatever she needs she gets.”
I can’t believe how incredibly in love with her he is. I knew he loved her, but he will stop at nothing if he thinks she needs or might want it. I’m warning him to not spoil her when the reality is, it’s too late. She’s spoiled rotten and to be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Kendall asks. “I would have thought Mark would have made you pick a date by now.”
We’re sitting in the living room. I came in to change Daisy and ended up feeding her while I was in here. Kendall came looking for me and here we sit. Daisy has long since finished her bottle.
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I can’t decide where, and Mark vetoed when I said our house.”
“Why?”
“At the time, it was just an idea that popped into my head, and when he asked if it’s what I really wanted, I said sure. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. He said no, and to figure out where my dream wedding would be and he would make it happen.”
“And now?”
“I keep going back to it. I mean, it makes sense. I want something small, and our house is set up for the kids and people to stay if they wanted to.”
“So tell him again. This time don’t let him tell you no. Tell him it’s what you want.”
“I just… the day is going to be hard enough without them there, and I like the thought of starting forever in our forever home. It’s going to be small, just all of you, your parents, and his, so it’s not like there’s not enough space. Hell, I’d be good with one of the guys marrying us.”
She laughs. “Oh my God! That’s perfect. Which one?” she says, her eyes lighting up.
I shrug. “Who do you think?”
“I’m thinking Kent.”
“You think he’d do it?”
“I know he would. You should totally do it.”