AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Barrett met my eyes, worry ripe behind the kaleidoscope of color. “Careful of the stairs.”
“I would guard her with my life,” I murmured.
He relaxed his stance and released his wife. “I believe you would, actually.”
“Hi, Thor,” Mara teased Barrett as she gently patted the side of her sister’s bump.
Willa turned to follow me but was stopped momentarily by Barrett’s hand around the back of her neck as he pressed a brief kiss to the top of her head.
I watched as she closed her eyes at the contact, her agitation momentarily soothed.
I envied her.
Not in the way that I wished her good fortune away from her. God knew she deserved that beautiful Viking, but I wondered how it would be to love like that. To be loved like that.
“I’m being a bitch,” she grumbled as we walked across the grass.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I soothed.
She looked at me sideways, her mouth twisted with amusement. “I assure you; I have had my moments.”
I met her eyes, and we laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Rebecca, or Bex as everyone but Rhys called her, folded into her chair and kicked out her feet.
“Willa’s grumpy,” I smiled.
“Of course, she is.” Bex leaned over and patted Willa’s belly. “You’re what? Thirty-eight weeks?”
“That and she’s got a baby Viking stuffed up her twat,” Junie bounced in and perched her tiny butt on the edge of my chair.
Bex snorted out a laugh setting the rest of us off.
Mara looked around quickly. “Where’s Olivia?”
“In the house with Rhys. The twins and the dogs are there, too. Rhys said he’ll bring her out with him.”
Bex and Rhys had two tiny chihuahuas that were well-loved by their children as well as Olivia. Bex and Rhys often brought the dogs to family events to put Olivia at ease. They made their tiny presence known a few minutes later when a jumble of laughter and high-pitched barking spilled out of the house.
Olivia gently cradled Lilliput in her arms, her bag of happiness filled with the day’s necessities hanging off her elbow, as she carefully made her way down the porch steps.
Holy handsome, Rhys ambled across the grass beside Olivia, his smiling eyes resting on his wife.
Rebecca’s tiny form wrapped around him, his big hands on her hips, his sexy face tight with ecstasy as he drove up into her.
I felt a shameful flutter but smiled through it.
Rhys greeted the rest of us in his deep, raspy voice, then tossed a blanket on the grass a few feet away from us, spreading it out flat for Olivia and Lilliput.
“You comfortable, Livvie?” he asked softly.
She nodded and pulled out her headphones and her iPad.
Rhys slipped a dog toy from his back pocket and tossed it down on the blanket for the dog.
“Okay, sweetness,” he said to Rebecca, his big hand wrapped around her shoulder. “I’m going to go shoot the shit with Zale and Lenny.”
“Charming,” she teased.
