But before she could answer her brothers were there.
I’d finally met the last two, Cole and Brody, and I liked them quite a bit.
In fact, I liked all of her brothers, even though they had no problem threatening my manhood every chance they got.
“Time for cake!” Brody yelled loudly, even though we were all standing right there.
Reba rolled her eyes, “Seriously, Cole?”
“I’m Cole. That was Brody,” Cole said to his mother in exasperation.
“Just wait until you have kids of your own, then tell me if you care if you mix up their names,” Reba grumbled. “Now, come on, my girl. It’s time to cut your cake.”
Reba was the impromptu wedding planner for our wedding.
In the beginning it’d started out as just her helping, but it quickly escalated into her taking over the whole show when we realized just how many people were coming.
Sawyer was happy that she didn’t have to deal with it.
She had more than enough things on her plate without having to worry about that, too.
“Wait!” The photographer said. “I need to take a family picture! I don’t want you to get cake on your wedding attire!”
I sighed.
My daughter had insisted on the wedding photographer, and although I did think it was a good idea to take pictures, I was down for the guests doing it with their own cameras, and sending them to me in an email or something.
This jackwad was like a man with a whip.
Although, I was fairly sure the pictures would turn out phenomenally.
But I was getting tired of having the man tell me when to kiss, and not to kiss, my wife.
Where to put my fuckin’ hands, and how I should look at her.
One by one, our ‘family’ lined up and Gasten, the photographer’s, mouth went slack.
“Uhh, I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to get all of you in the picture,” he finally admitted.
I looked behind me at my children and their families. Then at Sawyer’s immediate family. And finally at the rest of the Dixie Wardens and their families.
“This is our family. And not one of them better be left out of the picture or I’ll shove my foot up your ass,” I said. “Maybe you could take a panoramic or something?” I added as an afterthought.
It turned out to be a damn fine picture.
One I would cherish for the rest of my life.
***
Later that night
“Your mother’s a fuckin’ slave driver,” I groaned as my back finally hit the bed.
I groaned when Sawyer followed me down.
“Sawyer,” I said, finally striking up the nerve to ask her what’d been on my mind for months now.
“Yeah?” She asked, her face pressed into my chest.
“Do you want kids?”
I didn’t know if I did want more, but I also didn’t know if I didn’t.
I just wanted her to be happy, and if that meant a kid for her, then I’d damn well do it.
“Yes, one or two,” she admitted. “We’ll just start with this one, first.”
My lungs froze, and my breath seized in my chest.
“Say again?” I asked carefully.
I could feel her smile against my chest.
“Yep. You heard right. Exactly eight weeks,” she said. “I was going to tell you tomorrow at the barbeque. Tonight was supposed to be just for us.”
My arms went around her, and I pulled her in close.
“I’m going to die of a heart attack trying to chase after another kid,” I told her my fear.
She sighed.
“Silas, you are the most in shape fifty-four year old I’ve ever met. Get the hell over it,” she said in exasperation.
I thought back to the night I was guessing we’d conceived…it was the only time I’d ever gone without a condom since we’d been together.
It’d been the night I’d officially been released for work after my ‘accident’.
In our exuberance to celebrate me being able to fuck my woman without a guilty conscience, I’d gone and forgotten my first rule of fucking.
Protection.
And I’d come inside her tight, hot * without a second thought.
Now, though, those repercussions made themselves known, and I realized that I wasn’t upset about it in the slightest.
In fact, I was pretty goddamned excited.
I couldn’t wait to raise a child the way I always wanted to raise my others.
And although my other children all ended up pretty fucking awesome, if I did say so myself, I still wanted a second chance.
And it was here, in my arms.
“I love you, Sawyer,” I told my wife.
She hummed in contentment.
“I love you, too.”
And we fell asleep like that, me holding the woman of my dreams in my arms and her arms wrapped me.
And not one nightmare made itself known throughout the entire night.
***
“What are you doing?” A voice asked from behind me.