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“Do you keep in touch with Eddie’s family?”
“I’ll see them if I’m in town for midnight mass or something like that, but no, I don’t go over and say hello. They live their own lives, we live ours. It’d be something else again if Eddie had been an only child.”
Amy nodded. “I get that.”
They sat there quietly for long minutes. “Amy, are you sure you want to move to Virginia? You’ve built a life in D.C. Carla’s there.”
“Ryker, I knew when I agreed to marry you, I would be moving to Virginia to be close to you, I just can’t believe how fast the new restaurant is coming together.”
Ryker looked at her. She seemed sincere…
“Honey, we’ve discussed this a hundred times. Lawrence is coming with me. I have two chefs in mind. I get to keep a forty-nine percent share of Midnight while Charlie keeps the other fifty-one. It’s all good.”
“But—”
She placed her fingers over his mouth and smiled. “No buts. We’re enjoying the sunrise without the sun, remember?”
He sighed, then smiled. “I remember.” He kissed her temple and hugged her closer as he pulled the blanket tighter around them.
“Besides spending time on a beautiful beach at dawn, is there another reason we’re here?” Amy asked quietly.
Ryker didn’t answer.
“Was it just the restaurant you were worried about?”
He twisted around so he could get a better look at her. “No.”
“So spill.”
“I know you were worried about meeting my family. But instead of just meeting them, I brought you in as my fiancée, basically as ‘one of them.’ Are you surviving?”
She set down her mug and cupped his face with her warm palms. “I’m not just surviving. I’m thriving.” She leaned forward and landed a gentle kiss on his lips.
“When you talked about kids, is this the kind of family you were thinking of creating?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’m thinking of cutting it off at maybe just three kids, though.”
“What happens if the first three are boys, can we try again for a girl?”
“Have you already been taking lessons from my mom?” Ryker asked.
“No, Honey, I just know what’s in your heart.”
He didn’t say a thing. He couldn’t. He just stared into her beautiful brown eyes, and knew deep in his heart. He knew to the bottom of his soul, that Amy had been born to be his. He tugged her close, and she rested her head on his chest.
“I can hear your heart beating,” she whispered.
“It beats for you.” It did. It really did.
He felt her shudder.
They stayed like that for long minutes as the sky went from indigo to orange.
“I would live my early years a thousand more times if it meant I ended up here with you.”
Ryker tangled his fingers in her hair and inhaled the scent of peaches as his gut clenched. “And here I was wishing with everything I own that you wouldn’t have had to go through your childhood. But however it worked out, somehow the fates put us in one another’s path. I thank God for it.”
Her arms squeezed him so tight he had trouble breathing.
