She made a ‘come in’ gesture to the window in the door, and when it opened, she grinned. “Baby mama is awake.”
The three of them crowded in. Heath went straight for my mouth, kissing me hard, his eyes bright with a mixture of concern and excitement. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Liam told you?”
Rowe grinned. “As if he could have kept that quiet.”
I glanced between him and Heath. “How are you feeling about it… It’s a lot…”
Heath kissed me again. “Best fucking news of my life.”
I couldn’t stop my smile.
Liam perched at the foot of the bed, watching as Rowe moved in and kissed my forehead twice. “One for you, and one for the baby,” he explained. “I’d have kissed your belly, but that might be a no-go area for a few days.”
I looked to Liam. “Did their heads explode when you told them?”
He grinned. “I thought Heath was gonna bust down the surgery doors to get to you.”
“I did contemplate it for a minute,” Heath admitted. He shook his head in amazement, staring at my belly buried beneath the sheets. “I still can’t believe it.”
I couldn’t either.
This was what I’d dreamed of for my entire life. In my dreams, it had only been one man sitting beside me, but how lucky was this child? To have three of the best men I’d ever met.
“Rowe immediately claimed dibs on the ‘Dad’ title, since that’s what Ripley calls him. I’m claiming Da, and we’ve decided that since Heath is ancient, he gets Pops.”
Tori giggled.
Heath shoved Liam in the shoulder. “I’m two years older than Rowe. Fuck off. The kid is not calling me Pops.”
Their laughter echoed around me. Steve and Alora brought the boys to the hospital, and with Ripley’s arms tight around my neck, my three men surrounding me, and the tiny miracle baby in my belly, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
One day when we told the story of how we came to be, it would be full of prisons, murders, and violence. But the ending was this. Love, peace, and the family we’d all dreamed of.
It was mine.
It was ours.
And we were going to live it every day.
Free.
The End
Want to know who the baby daddy is? Need more of Vincent? Want to see who Tori’s new partner is? It’s all in the bonus epilogue! Get it free from the bonus material section of my website. www.ellethorpe.com
Or read on for a sneak peek of other Saint View series.
Want more Saint View?
There’s a new Saint View series coming in 2022. But in the meantime, have you read the original?
You’ve already met Lacey, Colt, Banjo, and Rafe in this series, but their happily ever after was full of murder, mystery, sexual tension, and hot nights between the sheets.
Read on for a sneak peek or download book 1 from Amazon/Kindle Unlimited.
Lacey
I was about to be arrested.
That was my first thought when a flash of movement outside the window caught my attention.
Extreme overreaction?
Perhaps.
But when you’d illegally let yourself into your school on a Sunday, these were the worries that plagued a girl.
Acting on instinct, I hurled myself off the piano stool and onto the floor, scuttling to the windows overlooking the quad. Maybe they hadn’t seen me yet. The late afternoon sun was sinking, and perhaps, if I was lucky, the glare would temporarily blind them. I could make my escape out one of the back doors. There was an exit in the administration hall. Others in the math and history wings. Of course, not one anywhere near the music rooms. Helpful.
Ever so carefully, I lifted to peer out the window, and yelped at the face on the other side. I ducked down again, though there was no chance he hadn’t seen me, what with his nose an inch from the glass.
I was totally busted. But at least it wasn’t the police.
Lawson’s laughter on the other side of the window made me realize how ridiculous I was being. I stood, embarrassment heating my face.
“You want to let me in?” he yelled.
I squeezed my eyes closed but nodded. “I’ll meet you at the door.”
Scrambling down the hall, I tried to come up with a plausible story that would result in the least amount of trouble. I still had nothing by the time I pulled open the heavy, ancient oak doors of Providence School for Girls.
My uncle stood on the other side, boxes of his work balanced precariously in his arms. He shifted beneath their weight, sending a USB stick and a pile of papers sliding off the top. They fluttered down around our ankles.
I knelt hastily, tucking the USB stick into my pocket and gathering up the runaway pages. I glanced up at his familiar face. “Before you say anything, just remember, I’m your favorite niece.”
“You’re my only niece,” he grumbled, but there was still a hint of laughter in his voice.
I put the papers back on top, then took the box from him, lightening his load. “Which means you won’t have me arrested?”
He kicked the doors closed behind him. “Well, that depends on how quickly you start explaining why you’re at school on a Sunday night, instead of at Meredith’s, which is where you said you were going. How did you even get in here without tripping the alarm? If you broke a window, I won’t be impressed.” He walked toward his office.
I hurried to keep up. “No, no. All windows are intact. I used the code.”
“What? How do you even know it?”
I snorted, then remembered I was probably about to be grounded until I turned eighteen. Which, admittedly, was only a couple of weeks away. But still. I tried to force my expression into something more suitably chastised. “Sorry. But you’ve been driving me to school and unlocking that door in front of me for the past three years. The code is my birthday. Just like all your passwords.”
That resulted in a withering look, but I knew he wasn’t really angry at me. We wove through the administration offices until we reached Lawson’s, his gold-plated Principal nameplate on the door. He unlocked it, and we both dumped our boxes on the table.