"Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "I feel better already."
"Good. Because we can't miss out on dinner," she told me. "This food is other level good."
"Let's go get some then," I suggested, moving to stand, surprised how much better I felt already.
With that, we moved back into the house, finding everyone already seated at the dining tables. There were two spots open, one next to each of our men. Who had been extra sweet and grabbed plates for us already.
"You good?" Rush asked, voice low, when I sat down, his hand squeezing my thigh under the table.
"No," I told him, shaking my head. "I'm awesome," I told him, smile tugging at my lips as I glanced around the room, finding everyone lost in their own conversations, no one paying Dusty or me any mind.
She was right.
They just accepted us.
Took us in, issues and all.
If there was a family I could be excited about joining, it was this one.
"I know your dirty little secret," I told Rush, lips twitching.
"That I can't get enough of you?" he asked, giving me a wink.
"Well, that," I agreed, feeling my chest warm up like it had been doing a lot lately. "But also that you were the one who taught Becca to drive."
"How did you—" he started.
"Say what now?" Fiona asked, looking across the table at us.
"Uh oh," I said, pressing my lips together.
"I'm gonna get you back for this," Rush warned, a dark promise in his eyes.
"I'm looking forward to that."
Rush - 7 months
"Don't look at me like that," she said, grabbing a blanket off of the back of the couch, wrapping it around her shoulders that already had on a long-sleeve tee, a sweatshirt, a cardigan, and a robe.
"Yes, sixty degrees is practically the arctic," I agreed, shaking my head at her as she slipped her feet into a pair of rubber-soled fluffy slippers, following me out onto the porch.
It was barely dawn. The birds were still fast asleep in their nests. I wanted to be up in our little nest, waking her up with my tongue and fingers.
But we'd had grand ideas in bed before falling asleep the night before. About grabbing some coffee and blankets and making our way to the lake, sitting on the rock and watching the sun come up.
I was holding us to it. Even if Katie was intent on bringing every blanket in the cabin with us.
"Wait, did you grab the bat?" she asked, turning back.
"I thought we covered this. There are no cannibals," I reminded her, smiling.
"No," she agreed, rolling her eyes. "But there are bears."
"Love that you think I can fight off a bear with a bat, baby," I said, grabbing the bat to humor her. "Okay. Anything else? A heated blanket, perhaps?"
"Hey, it's not my fault I have a chill," she reminded me. "Someone insisted he would wake up in the middle of the night without an alarm to re-stoke the fire."
"Yeah yeah yeah. I fail at the manly fire setting things. But if I recall correctly, someone sapped me of all my energy last night," I reminded her.
We'd made it back up to the cabin just about an hour before bedtime, so we'd skipped food, fell into bed, and fucked until we couldn't move anymore.
And since we weren't in the middle of a power outage, and the heat was working fine, I'd mistakenly thought she would be warm enough.
I should have known better by now.
This was a woman I'd once caught turning the heat up to seventy-five while wrapped up in a comforter.
She wore two hats, a scarf, gloves, woolen leggings, and three layers of sweaters and jackets just to run out to her pre-heated car, the system I had installed for her as a Christmas present. She'd been more excited about that than the books, the jewelry, the invitation to move into my apartment... after I put in the soaking tub she wanted.
I didn't bother telling her the move would be a temporary one; that I wanted to get a permanent place. The kind with a yard. Some extra bedrooms we might put a kid or two in one day.
"Okay, fine, this was worth it," she told me forty-minutes later, leaning back against my chest, both of us watching the pinkish-yellow sunrise, hearing the bird waking up, seeing the occasional fish ripple the surface of the water.
Sun on her face, she pushed the blanket off her shoulders.
And, well, maybe my hands helped her remove the robe, then the sweater, the shirt, laying her down on the pile they all provided, sliding off her pants and panties, burying my face between her thighs until she was crying out, then burying deep inside her.
I flipped our positions, liking the view better when she rode me, back arching, tits bouncing, the sun casting little beams of light over her body.
"Fuck me harder, baby," I demanded, my hand pressing between her thighs, working her clit, driving her up harder, faster, feeling her walls tighten around me. "Come," I demanded, thrusting up into her as her hips moved in circles.
When she came, she cried out my name, startling the birds in the trees above us as she milked my orgasm from me.
"Know what I think?" I asked as she lay over me, my hand drifting up and down her back.
"What's that?" she asked.
"This would be a great place," I told her, reaching into my pocket, finding the box.
"A great place for what?" she asked, pushing back, looking down at me, a sleepy, satisfied smile toying with her lips.
"For this?" I told her, opening the box, waiting for her gaze to fall on the ring.
"Rush," she said, sighing out her breath.
"Marry me," I demanded, hand reaching for hers.
"But it's only..."
"Been one better day after the next?" I supplied, daring her to deny it.
"That's true," she agreed, smile wobbly. "You're sure?"
"Never been so sure of anything in my life."
"Then yes," she said, beaming, reaching for the ring, shoving it on her finger.
"What?" I asked, brows pinching as I stared up at her intent gaze.
"This ring. There's something familiar about it."
To that, my lips twitched. "You've got a good memory. It's from the book."
"Which book?"
"The one you were reading when we were here last here. Wasn't my favorite book, but the ring sounded nice. Plus, I thought it had some significance."
"I love it," she declared, smiling down at it, then me. "And you," she added, folding forward, pressing her lips to mine.
"This would be a nice place for the wedding too."
"We'd never all fit," she reminded me.
"Well, Beau said he was building new cabins. We have time."
"I'm picturing the Mallick kids waiting until we are all asleep, sneaking out, and coming back to scare the hell out of us," she declared, grimacing.
She was getting to know them well.
Of course she was, when she was expected to be at Sunday dinner every week.
She and her mother got brave once every month and hosted a brunch for everyone as well. Which I was pretty sure they instantly regretted when we all descended on her mom's cozy little ranch-style home, packing it to the gills, nearly bursting it at the seams. But once everyone got a taste of their breakfast concoctions, there was no way they would be able to keep us away.
"Know what would be nice?" she asked, smiling a little wistfully.
"What's that, baby?"
"A morning wedding. I mean, why take up the whole day, y'know? We can get up, walk down here to the lake, get married, then head back for a nice little family reception."
There would be nothing little about a Mallick and Rivers family reception, but I liked her idea nonetheless.
"With a crêpe bar," I demanded.
"As if there was any question about that," she agreed, smiling. "And everyone can get day-drunk on mimosas. They will love that."
"We'd need someone to officiate," I reminded her, my fingers tracing over the tops of her thighs.
"Do not utter those words anywhere tha
t Peyton might hear," Katie demanded, a mix of grave and amused. "She would probably come with props. Of the R-rated variety."
"Hey, we like those R-rated props," I reminded her. Peyton had given all the couples baskets full of obscure sex toys for Christmas, which made for a lot of red faces and wide eyes in Helen and Charlie's living room.
"Yes, but not at our wedding."
"She is going to take over the bachelorette party," I said, nodding. "As much as that thought terrifies me," I added.
"Well, Atlas is probably going to take over yours," she reminded me.
"True. But things are different now."
And they were.
As it turned out, when he stuck around for more than a few days put together, Atlas found someone worth sticking around for. But that was a story for another day.
"So who should officiate? Fiona? Seems like the right person since she set all this up," Katie mused.
"So long as we have Dusty check over her speech," I agreed. "Make sure she doesn't say anything over the top."
"I mean, this is our family, they are always over the top," Katie reminded me.
My heart swelled at that.
She'd taken a while to think of them that way.
As hers as well.
Even though they'd taken her into the fold quickly, immersed her completely.
I think it was always just a little straggling confidence issues holding her back, making her think she might not be wanted.
But she was.
God, she was.
I'd never wanted anything more in my life. Which was crazy because I already had her. But the urge was still there. To pull her closer, to fill out the paperwork, to make it official.
Hell, I probably would have asked her months ago if I thought she was ready. I'd known she was the one for so long, and didn't exactly see a reason to hold off on sealing the deal.
"Stop being in such a rush," Kingston had demanded. "This is some of the good stuff. Take your time, enjoy it."
That was what I did, giving her the time she needed to trust me completely, to see the kind of future I'd been seeing from the beginning.
But when Katie had surprised me for my birthday with a little long weekend at the place where things really got started for us, I decided it was too perfect not to take the opportunity to ask her.
"You know what I think we should do for the honeymoon?" she asked, and I couldn't help but smile up at her as she got excited.
"What's that?"
"That road trip we keep talking about. We should take that. Go to try out those skis that are collecting dust."
"While you sit in the lodge drinking hot chocolate?"
"Naturally," she agreed, beaming.
"Then you can warm me up in front of the fire?"
"Of course."
"Then it sounds perfect to me."
Katie - 2.5 years
"It's not your usual anxiety," Dusty said, shaking her head at me. "It's your fancy new mom anxiety. It has all the hallmarks of the old anxiety, but unlocks the levels that include being terrified about keeping a little human alive, about your man no longer being attracted to the sleep-deprived milk machine you've become, and the concerns about not 'contributing' to the household while you are home with the baby."
I should have known Dusty would be who I needed to talk to sooner.
I'd been digging myself into an anxiety hole for the ten weeks following our son's birth—a nine-pound beast with pudgy everything who had no business growing so big inside my too-small body. He looked like his daddy. Of course he did. Dark hair. Dark eyes. All the charm. Everyone was wrapped around his little finger.
Leaving me feeling like the worst mom in the world because I was stressed out and short-tempered when I was supposed to be enjoying every second of this experience.
"You're a good mom, Kate," Dusty insisted, jiggling little Kade around, calming a sleepy fuss without any effort at all. "It's just your mind telling you different. Are you getting depressed or think you might be getting postpartum?" she asked, point-blank. "It's normal if you have," she insisted. "I had it a little bit after my second. Got back to therapy real quick. And started accepting more of the help that everyone around me was offering," she added, giving me a raised brow look.
She was right.
As soon as Kade came into the world, everyone in the Mallick and Rivers clan had been offering me all kinds of help from food cooking to grocery shopping to house cleaning to actual baby care.
It had been my pride that made me brush it off.
Well, my pride and my fear that accepting help somehow made me less of a mom.
"It's not normal to do this alone," Dusty went on, pushing Kade up against her shoulder, rubbing a palm up his spine, his little legs bunching up as she worked a pesky gas bubble up. "Up until very recently in history, taking care of babies was a tribe thing or, at the very least, a multi-generational thing. Everyone helped out. That was what was considered normal. Literally no one is going to judge you for accepting help when you need it. Even if that means help every single day until you are feeling better. You know you have it."
I did.
I had more help than I could have accepted even if I decided to take to the bed for a week.
My mom and Helen alone were constantly dropping by, doing instead of asking, seeming to know how things were for me, how I was struggling to say I couldn't do it all.
"I am going to keep a standing drop-in," she told me. "Nope. I won't hear it," she said when I started to object. "I would just drop in unannounced, but I know that won't be good for you. So just so you know, I will be coming at ten a.m. Every Tuesday and Thursday for a couple of hours. You can take that time to shower, to go to therapy, to just catch up on sleep, or reading. That is your time. Me and Kade will be just fine. And I can all but guarantee that once the others get wind of this, they will all pick a day too. And you are going to let them come to help. Hell, you won't be able to pry Lea away from this one," she said, taking a sniff of Kade's head. "She misses the babies. We all do. This way, you give us that baby fix, and you get some help. It is a win/win."
"Sorry I'm la—" Rush started to say, coming to a stop at seeing Dusty sitting there, giving her a grateful smile. "Good," he declared, nodding.
"Did you call her?" I asked, straightening, offended that he might have gone behind my back.
"Baby, no," he said, snorting. "I wish I had thought of that. But my brain is a little fried," he admitted, walking over to rub the top of Kade's head, but not taking him from his aunt, coming instead to sit next to me, pulling me onto his lap—breastmilk stains, greasy hair, and all.
"I'm Tuesdays and Thursdays in the mornings," Dusty told him. "Someone else is going to take a night a week so you two can reconnect. Be humans and husband and wife instead of mom and dad. It's good for you," she insisted. "Why don't you guys go be humans and partners?" she suggested. "Go get some food. Take a drive."
Rush turned to look at me as my neck craned to look up at him.
"Nap?" he asked, giving me a tired smile.
"Oh, thank God," I said, sighing out my breath. "I was worried you would want to go do something," I admitted as we both untangled, moved off of the couch.
"I barely have the energy to walk to the bedroom," he admitted, rubbing a hand absentmindedly down my spine.
Rush was a great dad.
Attentive to a fault.
Even when I was up with Kade since I was the one with the milk, he would get up too, get me snacks, adjust the blankets, bring the changing stuff to the bed so I didn't have to get up, take the old diapers away, then come back and pass back out with me.
I loved him for doing it even though I knew on a rational level that if he slept while I did the feedings, that he could take Kade when he was awake or just fussy so I could sleep.
"This feels like a vacation," Rush said as we both climbed into the sheets. I didn't remember the last time they'd seen the inside of the washing machine. The next time H
elen offered to do the laundry, I was going to let her. Dusty was right, I had this whole tribe, there was no reason to push them away when I needed them most.
"Remember eight hours of sleep?" Rush asked, pulling me in to his side, arm going around me.
"Not really," I admitted, a big yawn escaping me.
"Just think, in thirteen years, we can wake him up at six a.m. on a Saturday morning as payback."
"Sounds like a plan," I agreed.
"But for now, sleep."
"Yes, sleep."
Parenthood was harder than I'd been prepared for, despite all the warnings I'd gotten. But there was no one, no one, in the whole world I would rather go through it with than Rush freaking Rivers.
Rush - 4 years
"Nope, leave Mom alone," I said, snagging Kade on his way toward Katie's closed office door.
"Mama!" he whined as I snagged him around the waist, hauling him up, tucking him under my arm like a football, getting a little squeal out of him.
"I know. I miss her too, bub, but she's got to work. She's bringing home the bacon."
"Bacon."
"Yep. The good stuff," I agreed, walking him through the house and into the backyard, knowing Katie couldn't think straight if she heard Kade whining for her, and she was on a strict deadline.
It was funny how life worked.
She'd never set out to change careers.
After Kade, we just figured she would work part-time if she wanted to, helping out Fee's ever-growing business. But we never thought there would be any major life change.
But then one of the girls from For A Good Time, Call... messaged her out of the blue, asking if she would be willing to edit a book she was going to be publishing for her, knowing that Katie did, eventually, finish her degree. Even if life did make it take much longer than it should have.
She'd done it as a favor to an old friend.
Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3) Page 19