“Besides,” she says, resting her hand on his bearded cheek. “That’s not what’s really wrong.”
His handsome face clouds. His face, hard and controlled, makes her ache for him. She sees so much in those dark blue eyes. What will haunt him forever.
“What if you had died?” His gruff voice shakes with emotion.
She thinks about it. She does. What if she had died? What if her baby had died? What would Solomon have done? It had been her fear for so long, leaving her son the way her mother left her. But all she can do is live.
She’s here for Wilder. She’s alive. And for that, she only has her body to thank. The strange voice inside her head, a woman’s whisper, telling her to stay awake. To hang on. For Solomon.
Life is precious, and she still has it. Giving those worries roots isn’t healthy. For either of them.
“I didn’t.”
Solomon’s large frame sags, and he gathers her in his arms. “What if—”
“No.” She cups his strong jaw in her hands and forces his gaze to hers. “We don’t do what-ifs. We do what now. What next.”
They have to. This is the life they fought for.
Their fate all up in the stars from the night they met.
Nodding, Solomon slips an arm around her waist and holds her tightly. His face softens. “Then what next, Tess?”
“This.”
Their mouths crush together, Solomon’s beard tickling her chin. God, that beard. How she loves it. Urgent groans work their way out of both of them, and then Solomon is hauling her into his broad chest, careful with her yet firm, not letting her go. Never again.
A growl tears out of him, and finally, he kisses her like she’s been needing to be kissed for so damn long. Primal. Forever.
Tessie whimpers, running her tongue over his lower lip. Her body arcs into his touch. Dissolves. His need echoes hers. Hungry. Gentle. He grips her waist, lifts her up, and places her on the counter. Tessie wraps her legs around his thighs, yanking him closer. Then his hands are tangling in her hair, his big palms cradling her face. “God, I love you,” he murmurs between frantic kisses, his hand slipping up her shirt to cup her breast, heavy with milk.
Tessie gasps at the sensation and has no choice but to close her eyes. “I love you.”
“Too much, Tess,” Solomon growls, angling forward to press soft, hungry kisses down her throat. His voice shakes with emotion. “I love you too goddamned much.”
They break away, breathless, as a faint wail sounds throughout the cabin.
She lowers her brow to his chest and laughs.
Solomon chuckles. “Right on time.”
Then he picks her up in his arms and carries her upstairs to their son.
Four Months Later
With a sigh, Tessie rolls her chair away from the computer screen. She adds a last-minute note to her planner, adds a final Pantone color to the mood board, then shuts her laptop. Turns off the slow croon of her Crosley.
Done. She’s done for the night.
The first late night she’s had since she started her new adventure.
Over the course of the last four months, while nursing Wilder those long, late nights, it came to her. What she wanted to do. Really do with her life. Be a mother and have a career. But her way. While she’s grateful to Nova for letting her take on a few virtual projects, Tessie took another great flying leap. She started her own online interior design firm. Truelove for your True Home. For all budgets. For all people. Not just celebrities.
Though her planner is still in use, she will do motherhood her way. Make time for a life, love. Her family.
Tessie finds Solomon and Wilder curled together on the leather couch in front of the blazing fireplace. An empty bottle lay beside them. Peggy Sue at their feet. Solomon’s asleep, his son pulled into the protective cradle of his arm. It’d take a crowbar to pry the baby away from him. With Solomon’s calm and steady nature, Wilder could not be an easier baby. Already long and tall like his father, Wilder has Solomon’s black hair and Tessie’s dark chocolate brown eyes.
The prettiest Pantones she’s ever seen.
Watching Solomon grow comfortable in his role as a father these last months—it turns her on and makes her want to weep simultaneously. Because he’s such a good man, a good human, and her son will be too.
Wilder will have what she never had. A home with both parents who love him. A father who will never leave. And Tessie will tell Wilder about her mother, how she was badass and brave, and introduce him to country music and a Crosley that will spin just for him.
For a long moment, Tessie watches them, her heartbeats, then smiles. She grabs a jacket off the hook and slips out onto the front porch.
The April night is bitingly cold. Though winter should be long over, it’s near-blizzard conditions thanks to a relentless late season dump of snow. Each snowflake shimmers silver. Tessie’s breath puffs white from her mouth, and she draws her jacket tighter around her. She’s gotten used to the short days and the long nights. Because she always has her stars.
She was made for stars.
She and Solomon are stars. Existing wordlessly together, shining as a group, a team, just as they’ve done these last few months while raising Wilder. Learning how to be a mother hasn’t been easy. A lot of sleepless nights. A lot of tears. Learning how to feel sexy in her new body. But Solomon has her. Never letting her doubt herself as a mother. Believing in her sometimes more than she believes in herself. Always letting her rage or cry. Always showing her how badly he needs her.
She could have done this without him, but she never wants to. She will never be without her Solemn Man.
The door cracks. A jingle of dog tags.
Strong arms band around her waist, and Solomon’s there, pulling her into him as Peggy Sue bounds for the yard.
“You get your project done?” he asks, his deep voice a rumble against her hair.
“Mm-hmm.” Relishing the sensation of Solomon all around her, she drops her head back against his broad chest. “How’s your little sous chef?”
“Asleep. Finally. Drunk on milk.” A glass of honey-colored liquid appears in front of her. “Thought we could have a drink of our own before dinner.”
Tessie smiles and spins around to face her husband. “My hero,” she says, accepting the glass of whiskey. She takes a sip, passes it to him, where he does the same. Then he drops his mouth to hers.
Tessie inhales him.
Heat, the buzz of the forest, builds around them.
This is their wild life now.
Days, Grace watches Wilder while Tessie works and Solomon opens and preps Howler’s Roost. Late nights, they sip whiskey on the front porch, sharing conversation about their day, nothing around them but the inky black of the night sky, the stars.
Two months after Wilder was born, she and Solomon were married. They waited until she healed and then had an intimate ceremony at Howler’s Roost. A wild and wondrous wedding, where Tessie rocked a short white dress and stilettos, and Solomon wore his flannel. They were themselves. They were in love. And they weren’t waiting any longer.
That’s one thing she’s learned this last year. Waiting, delaying one’s happiness, never works. She’s so damn thankful that baby inside her pushed her to grow. Pushed her right into Solomon’s arms. His kind heart. His beautiful soul.
She wants more babies with him. Wants to learn their life together, because so far, they’ve fallen into a blissful rhythm she never thought possible.
“This reminds me of when we first met.” She lifts her chin to meet her husband’s piercing blue eyes. “The stars. The whiskey.”
His muscles tighten around her. “The gorgeous woman in my arms.”
“Hmm. All that small talk about the stars worked.”
“It did,” he says, sobering. “I love you, Tess.”
Her heart skips a beat, swells. He never fails to say it. “I know. I love you.”
He dabs a finger on the tip of her numb nose. “Are you cold?”
“Maybe.” She arches a suspicious brow. “Why?”