Her expression grew serious. “Really?”
He nodded. “Maybe after this season. Parker’s coaching offer got me thinking.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to miss anything else. The girls are growing so fast. And your business is taking off. I want to be part of all of it.”
Sunny’s smile was soft in the dim light. “I’d support whatever you decide, you know that. But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love having you around more.”
“We could expand the daycare,” he suggested. “Maybe look for a bigger place eventually, with more outdoor space.”
“We could travel in the summers,” she added. “Show the girls the world.”
“Make more babies? Have a family extension,” he asked softly, watching her reaction carefully. They hadn’t discussed it much since the miscarriage — a wound that had healed but still ached when touched.
Sunny’s eyes widened, then softened. “I… I’d like that.”
Liam pulled her closer, marveling at how they were planning for a future again, something that had seemed impossible in the dark days after Kate’s death. They talked until Sunny’s responses grew sleepy, her body warm and relaxed against his as she drifted off.
He woke sometime in the early hours of the morning to find her gone, the sheets beside him cold. For a split second, old fears resurfaced — of abandonment, of loss — before he heard soft movements in the hallway.
Slipping out of bed, he found Sunny in the girls’ doorway, watching them sleep. She’d wrapped herself in his dress shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking like she belonged exactly where she was.
“You okay?” he whispered, sliding his arms around her waist from behind.
Sheleaned back against him, never taking her eyes off the sleeping girls. “We did it,” she whispered. “We made a family out of our broken pieces.”
Liam rested his chin on top of her head, watching over all three of them, his heart full to bursting.
“Come back to bed,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple.
As they slipped back under the covers together, Liam held her close, thinking about the journey that had brought them here and the one that stretched before them. There would be challenges ahead — there always were — but for the first time in so long, he felt ready to face them. Not alone, but with this remarkable woman by his side, with his daughters growing stronger every day, with a future full of possibilities he was finally ready to embrace.
His heart’s true second chance.
Sunny stirred against him, her voice thick with sleep. “What are you thinking about so hard? I can practically hear the wheels turning.”
“Just that I love you,” he said simply. “And that I’m not afraid anymore.”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “Good. Because we’ve got a lifetime ahead of us.” Then, more hesitantly, “Liam? There’s something I’ve been waiting to tell you. I wanted to be sure before the wedding…”
Liam tensed slightly, an old reflex. “What is it?”
Sunny took his hand and placed it low on her still-flat stomach, her eyes opening to meet his in the darkness, filled with a mixture of joy and apprehension. “I think… I think we might have already started on that ‘family extension’ plan.”
II
Three years later
Sunny
The first golden rays of dawn crept through the kitchen window, painting warm stripes across the marble countertop where Sunny Anderson stood alone. She cradled her coffee mug between both hands, savoring the quiet solitude before the house awakened. These stolen moments were precious — the calm before the storm of family life engulfed her day.
Three years.
It amazed her how completely her life had transformed in just three years. She glanced around the kitchen, taking in the evidence of their expanded family life. Ethan’s finger paintings adorned the refrigerator door — splashes of bright color that never stayed within the lines, just like their exuberant two-year-old. Beside them hung Maddie’s latest science fair certificate and Hailey’s ballet recital program.
Sunny’s gaze drifted to the wall of family photos — the “life wall,” as Liam called it. Their wedding day centered the collection, surrounded by a constellation of moments: the girls with cake-smeared faces on birthdays, Liam holding newborn Ethan with tears in his eyes, the five of them at the beach last summer. Nestled among them all was Kate’s photo, eternally young and smiling.
Sunny’s fingers touched the silver bracelet on her wrist — Kate’s grandmother’s bracelet, with the added sun charm given to her by Kate’s parents at the wedding. Beside it, a beaded bracelet Maddie had made for her also held pride of place. She never took either off.
A calendar hung beside the pantry door, today’s date circled in red with “Visit to Mom” written in Maddie’s careful handwriting. Their monthly tradition. Sunny had insisted they keep it, even after Ethan was born and schedules became more complicated. Some things were sacred.
