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Twenty-four letters.
Twenty-four was one of Luke’s favorite numbers.
As was twenty-three.
For his wife.
Andalise Rhodes MacCallum now.
Yeah, that had taken a bit of convincing. But when he’d finally laid the favorite number card on her during the proposal — as well as a platinum band engraved with a delicate pattern of feathers he’d drawn up in the shop — Andy had acquiesced to the name change pretty quickly.
And she’d grown to love tracing the latest additions to his tat collection.Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five.Luke had inked them all in the swirl of a large shell over his heart.
Luke’s favorite numbers.
His family.
Luke smiled as his son chugged down his milk in the cradle of his lap, one small hand batting Luke’s leg, the other clutching his bottle. And all the while, those big blues peered up at Luke so trustingly.
“You’re stealing your momma’s thunder right now, kid. You really are. And that’s generally very hard to do, seeing as how she’s so remarkable.”
Cas’s mouth spread in a tiny toothy grin around the nipple of the bottle.
Davis giggled. “I can feed him if you want to watch.”
He could do both, but knowing his wife’s post-surfing routine, he should probably take Davis up on the offer.
“Thanks,” he said, kissing a rosy baby cheek before handing Cas over to his grandma.
Davis sighed happily as she held him in her arms. “No,” she said softly, gaze flickering from Caspian to Luke. “Thank you.” She glanced out to the waves, which were still fairly nonexistent. “She loves it out there so much. I’m not sure my daughter would have ever found that out if it wasn’t for you.”
Luke followed Davis’s gaze to where Andy was floating amongst the other three women in her heat. They were all sitting up now. Probably all assuming, as the spectators did, that this show was over.
All except for Andy.
Oh, she was sitting up too, but there was a tension in the graceful curve of her back as her face remained fixed upon the horizon. Alert. Waiting. Ready.
Because his Firebird never gave up.
Not even with one minute left on the clock.
“Nah. She would have. She always had this in her.” Luke slanted a smirk towards his mother-in-law. “She just needed a gentle push and some colorful sideline coaching.”
Davis laughed as she cuddled her grandchild.
Luke lifted his binoculars, zooming back in on Andy as she crouched lower on her board. His wife was suddenly looking a bit like Birdie did when she discovered a mouse toy she wanted to bat around.
His wife had picked up on something the other surfers hadn’t. A change in the air. A whisper on the wind. Francesca MacCallum blowing her angel breath down onto the sea. It could have been anything. But whatever it was, Andy clearly sensed it.
Tim whistled from the shoreline. Luke’s gaze shifted to him as he pointed to Andy’s right.
There it was. A little rogue forming. An anomaly rising up. Luke cut back to Andy just as she took off, hauling ass to get to that wave before anyone else.
Jordan Buchanan, the woman sitting third on the scoreboard, tore after her. The top two ladies sat back, seemingly content to let them battle it out.
And it was a battle.
But Andy had a head start, and the locals hadn’t recently nicknamed her “Arms” just because of her initials. No, Luke’s wife had put on a bit more muscle on those biceps of late, and that combined with the natural speed of her stroke made her fast as hell in the water.
