Page 134 of Declan

I rushed up the stairs with a smile on my face.

Eleven months later, Daphne Emerson was born.

A year after that, we added Madison Violet.

And two years after Madi, we had our boy. And after much debate, arguing, the guys all jockeying to get in there, we decided we’d never make all of the men happy, so we gave him a name that encompassed all of them and we added Jack Valor to our family.

Then I declared I was done having children because I had three horses, seven goats, numerous chickens, a garden, four cats, and three dogs.

That was more normal than any one woman could take.

Epilogue

“Dad,” Daphne whined. “Everyone else is going.”

My eyes sliced from my very beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter to my son who was leaning over the fender of his ’68 Mustang, to see him frowning.

Yeah, boy, one day this will be your life if you have daughters.

That thought made me swallow a groan—I felt old enough as it was. I didn’t need to think about Jack giving me grandchildren.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

“Inside helping Madi with her science project.”

Daphne’s lip curled, her dislike for anything not of the hottest trend clear on her face.

Now, my Madi, she loved school, loved to learn and soak up information.

Unfortunately, both of my daughters looked like their mother. In other words, a teenage boy’s wet dream.

That was precisely why I wasn’t giving in.

“Daphne, you know I love you, but the answer is no.”

“Why?” Her hands went to her slender hips and I filled a mental note to speak to Autumn about the shorts my daughter was wearing.

“How many reasons you want, kid?”

At my tone, her hands fell away from her hips and her posture sagged.

“None. I know why,” she relented.

“Right. Why don’t you invite your friends over here? We’ll drag the chairs out and I’ll build you a fire.”

“Really? That’d be cool. Thanks, Daddy.”

My girl’s face beamed and that golden blaze her mother had started all those years ago lit and I took a moment to enjoy the burn.

“One thing, Daph, that punk-ass boyfriend of yours puts his hands on your ass again, he’ll be leaving here ten digits short.”

“You have to stop threatening teenage boys,” Autumn complained as she walked into my shop.

“Baby, I don’t know how many more ways I can explain this, I am not threatening. That boy put his hands on my girl’s ass. My sixteen-year-old girl. I am not threatening shit when I explain I will cut his fingers off and not feel the slightest remorse. And when I’m done with that, I’ll give Jack permission to finish him off. And just because my boy is thirteen and that punk is sixteen don’t mean shit, because Jack’s got something that punk don’t got—love for his sister.”

“Jack can’t beat him up, either,” my wife sighed.

“I will, he touches my sister again,” Jack added and Autumn cut her eyes at me.