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Paige trudges across the floor to the door. “Why her?”
Ripley doesn’t look at her. He looks at me with those heavenly eyes and says, “Because she’s perfect.”
Epilogue
One year later
In the back yard of our Vail home, we celebrate our daughters birthday. “Mom, stop wiping her face with your spit-laced fingers. I hated it when I was a kid, and she hates it too.” What is it with moms and their superhuman spit? I find myself doing the same thing with Jamie, even though I know only her father’s saliva has super powers.
“She’s got cake all over her face, and I don’t want it on my outfit.”
Ripley comes to the rescue with a wet wipe. “Here, sweetheart. Let daddy clean your face.” She offers her face to him without a fuss, whereas she’d fight the rest of us tooth and nail, but I know the power that man has over women.
A week after Paige was tossed out on her skinny ass, Ripley had me down at city hall in front of a judge, and we were married.
I stand back and watch him with our baby girl. He’s not only the most amazing husband, but he’s the best father too. She leans to me, and I pull her into my arms. She smells like brown sugar and cinnamon. Ripley says she gets that from me, but I’m not sure.
“Come to Uncle Luke.” Luke and Malcolm stand in front of me and try to coax her from my arms. Jamie goes straight for them both, giggling and wrapping an arm around both their necks. She’s a lucky girl to be surrounded by so much love.
We didn’t conceive after that first time of unprotected sex, but once Ripley knew he had my love, we never used a condom again, and three months later we made Jamie. She’s everything that’s right when you mix the perfect ingredients together.
“I bet we can sneak off for a few minutes and try to make her a brother.” Ripley pulls on my hand and tugs me toward the house. It’s a wonder the man still wants me. He’s had me every which way he can imagine, and he’s pretty imaginative. I peek over my shoulder and watch everyone surround our girl on her first birthday.
“How about we just make love?” We walk straight back to our room and shut the door.
“Too soon to hope for a son?” Seeing the want in his eyes thrills me to no end.
“No, baby. Our next bun is already in the oven.” I lower my hand to my stomach and rub. “But, we can still practice.”
Ripley never needs to be asked twice. If there’s a chance he can be buried somewhere in my body, he’s always willing.
“I love you, Maddy.”
“I love you too. You’re mine.”
“Yours,” he says as he whips out his whisk. One look at his cock and all I want is for him to fill my croissant.
Take Me-Sneak Peek
One
TABITHA
I have the greatest job ever. Which is odd because I’m the unluckiest girl in the world. Don’t believe me? In grade ten, I was on the debate team (yeah, I know, geek alert!), and I was on stage in front of the entire school, about to make my final speech about why plastic should be banned, when my shirt buttons decided to quit on me. I took a deep breath and ‘pop’! All of them. All at once. It was like they said, ‘Ready? Now!’ In front of twelve hundred kids.
Good thing I was wearing my oldest cotton bra that I had turned that sickly gray when I washed it with my black jeans the day before. It wasn’t even underwire, so I had that whole saggy boobs thing going on. That little incident earned me the nickname ‘Gray Boobs’. My last name is Gray, so that made it extra easy for the jerk who came up with it.
After that, I learned about the glories of good lingerie, which I had to hide from my super religious step-mom, Lorraine. She spent my teenage years telling me about the dangers of boys and sex and the diseases you can get from them. She’s so disgusted by the whole thing that I swear I don’t know if she’s ever had sex, even though she has three kids of her own. All boys. All dick-heads. Lorraine and her boys are the reason I’m still a virgin. Between the four of them, they managed to turn me off guys and sex right around the age when most girls are starting to get curious about those things.
My dad married her three months after my mom died. Told you I was unlucky. We lost Mom to type one diabetes when I was ten. My dad was working nights, so the two of us were having girls night in. She and I were going to snuggle up and watch Beauty and the Beast right after she had a quick shower. She kissed me on the top of my head and told me to work on my spelling until she came down. Twenty minutes later, I realized something was wrong and went up to find her. By then it was too late. She was already gone.
That’s when Lorraine swooped in and snapped up my dad. He was a cop. A good one. And a great dad. Generous, but careful enough with his money so that we had a pretty nice house and no debt. Lorraine and her boys moved in, all traces of my mom immediately disappeared, and I was suddenly part of our ‘new family’. Three years later, my dad died. He got shot trying to break up a domestic disturbance.
And that was that.
I was alone with Mother Mary, Huey, Dewey, and Ewey (the one who always had a finger jammed up his nose).
As soon as I finished high school, I packed my lacy unmentionables and got the hell out of Virginia for good. Gray Boobs has left the building. I went to Washington University where I got my degree in economics, then managed to score my new job. I work for Theo Breckenridge—you know the one—the man who owns half of the western seaboard, the airline bearing his name, and most of the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.
