“She beautiful?”
“Only one thing more beautiful I’ve ever seen in my life and that’s her Momma standing beside a Charger outside a prison. But I’ll tell you, man, love my wife but I’ve never felt anything more beautiful than the weight of my baby girl in my arms. So fuckin’ heavy, so fuckin’ light, so fuckin’ tiny, so fuckin’ huge. She’s everything. Everything that’s Lex and me. So she’s fuckin’ everything.”
Keaton brought them full circle, murmuring, “Then it’s that easy.”
Ty held his eyes.
Then he replied, “Yeah.”
Keaton nodded before muttering, “I gotta go get Faye from her folks’, bring her in so she can make her statement.”
“Go,” Ty invited.
“After that, she’ll wanna meet Ella.”
Ty grinned again. “You do, get the bug.”
“Faye?” Keaton asked, his lips twitching.
“No, brother, you,” Ty answered and Keaton shook his head.
“Got it already,” he told Ty and Ty felt his brows go up.
Then he asked, “How many?”
“Three.”
“Faye on board with that?”
“Yep.”
“Lexie wants four.”
Keaton’s lip twitch turned into a grin. “Now I’m thinkin’ I want four.”
“Better get to work, man,” Ty advised.
Keaton’s grin faded before he said quietly, “We got time.”
Ty locked his gaze on Keaton and replied just as quietly, “Yeah, Chace, you got time.”
Keaton lifted his hand Ty’s way, Ty took it but they didn’t shake. Their fingers curled tight and they held on a moment, eyes locked, grip firm and strong.
Then they broke and Chace moved to his truck.
Ty moved into the Station to tell Sterling he was going back to his wife and baby girl at the hospital.
*
Faye
One week later
“Girl time!” Lauren shouted, moving from the fridge with a bottle of champagne toward me sitting at the island in her kitchen in her house. “You guys were supposed to be gone half an hour ago!”
When I sensed movement, I shifted in my chair and watched Tate sauntering down the hall, all tall, dark, bearded badass. I did this thinking that if Chace had never come to town, I’d still have a major crush on Tate Jackson.
Lucky for me, Chace came to town since Chace was awesome and since Tate was taken.
Tate grinned at me and this solidified the knowledge that if I didn’t have Chace, I’d still have a major crush on him. I smiled back as he rounded me and went directly to the cake on the tall stand on the island in front of me. I watched as he shoved his finger into the creamy, white frosting, scored it through taking a long finger full with it then he lifted his finger to his mouth and sucked it off.
Oh frak.
Yeah, if I didn’t have Chace, I’d totally have a crush on Tate Jackson.
“Are you serious?” Laurie asked and, with effort, I tore my eyes off Tate sucking frosting off his finger to look at Laurie who was, shockingly, unaffected by this and instead of looking like she wanted to jump him, she looked pissed.
“Baby, you girls are not gonna eat this entire cake,” Tate replied and I looked back at him to see he was grinning.
“Who says?” Laurie asked.
“I do,” Tate answered.
“Right, that’s a challenge we’re accepting. We’re eating this entire cake,” Laurie shot back, I felt my eyes get big and I looked down at the enormous cake.
It looked delicious.
Okay, maybe we could pull it off though I wish I hadn’t had lunch.
“You manage that, I’ll buy you a piece of Jenna’s jewelry,” Tate muttered.
“He’ll buy one for me anyway,” Laurie told me. “I have so much silver I could open my own store.”
Tate’s brows drew together over narrowed eyes and it was such a scary look, I fought the urge to lean away from him. “You bitchin’ about my silver?”
“No,” Laurie retorted. “I’m just saying you’re generous.”
“Sounded like bitchin’,” Tate returned.
“Well it wasn’t,” Lauren fired back.
“Yeesh, only these two could fight about Dad buyin’ Laurie gifts,” Jonas, Tate’s teenaged son, muttered, wandering in, looking like mini-Tate, giving me the understanding that in a few years, me and every woman over twenty-five years of age in Carnal would be moved to become a cougar.
Then he went directly to the cake, shoved his finger in, swiped off a load of frosting then shoved his finger in his mouth.
“Jonas!” Lauren snapped.
“What?” he asked, eyes big, mouth full of frosting.
Lauren looked to the ceiling before she aimed her eyes at her boys.
“Get out before I throw the cake at you,” she threatened.
“Waste of cake,” Jonas muttered.
“Out!” Lauren semi-shouted, her arm coming up, out straight, finger pointed to the back hall.
Tate grinned at Lauren then at Jonas who was grinning at Lauren then his grin went to his Dad.