Of course, I left the salon immediately after my return text of, “How did it go?” went unanswered, as did my three calls.
I threw my keys and clutch on the table by the door and my heels declared how pissed off I was as they struck the floors on the way down the hall.
When I made it to the end, at a glance, I could see that Kasha was totally bossing whatever was happening in our sunken living room. In this glance, I also saw my man on his ass on the rug by the coffee table, Kat on hers next to and slouched into him. Kasha was on her feet, bossing (of course) but also leaning her front into the other side of her dad, the side that Kat wasn’t occupying.
Of course, the vision of this made me no longer pissed off which in turn immediately pissed me off again because just seeing my man with our girls made me melt and that was tremendously annoying.
I stopped at the top of the steps, looking down, my eyes pinned to Knight.
“Well?” I asked.
His mouth twitched like he was amused.
Oh yeah.
The man was exasperating.
“Babe, been gone hours. It didn’t go good, I would not have been gone hours,” he stated as a belated explanation.
“What went good?” Kasha demanded to know.
“Nothing, baby,” Knight muttered to his baby girl.
“Can we speak in our bedroom?” I asked, starting to move that way.
“You gonna give me shit, I go with you to our bedroom?” Knight asked, making me stop dead and whirl his way again.
“Do not say shit in front of the girls!” I snapped.
“You said shit too, Momma,” Kasha pointed out. “Just now.”
Knight burst out laughing.
I looked to the ceiling, making a frustrated noise.
“No need to go to the bedroom.”
At his words, I rolled my eyes back to my man.
“You remember what I said to you in that kitchen the first time you were in this space?” he asked, tilting his head toward our kitchen.
My heart skipped as I pressed my lips tight.
I remembered. I remembered every word.
He’d held my face in his hands and said, Wars fought over a face like this. A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it, poison his brother to possess a face like this.
“My brother found that face,” Knight finished.
Nick hadn’t found that face.
He’d found that woman.
Suffice it to say, I was getting it that all went really well with Nick and his girl.
“Good,” I whispered and watched Knight’s face grow soft.
“What face?” Kasha demanded to know.
“Later, baby,” Knight muttered.
“Is Uncle Nick okay, Daddy?” Kat asked quietly.
“Yeah, beautiful girl, he absolutely is,” Knight answered.
Kat smiled at her father.
“Momma, we’re playin’ Uno! Get down here and play with us,” Kasha bossed.
“We’re not playin’ Uno,” Kat contradicted. “Daddy and I wanna play Operation.”
“Operation is stupid!” Kasha, whose little fingers weren’t as coordinated so the patient’s nose was always glowing red, snapped.
I watched this go down, no longer shocked the intensely masculine, slightly scary, totally badass Knight Sebring was completely cool with playing Uno (but he preferred Operation).
Instead, I watched it remembering that I’d been tormented by bad dreams since my parents died when I was a little girl.
But when Knight entered my life and made me his in a way he told me was forever, then proved that true, I’d not had one dream.
No, in sleep, I never dreamed.
Now, watching my man with our girls, knowing Nick was somewhere safe and happy…
Life was another story.
*
Olivia
Fifteen Hours Later
“Livvie.”
I was dreaming.
I felt soft breath on my neck as a gentle finger slid over my shoulder.
“Baby.”
Happy dreaming.
A hand cupped my jaw, a thumb sliding across my cheek, my ear, into my hair.
And a whisper from close.
“Dawn is coming, honey. Open your eyes.”
I was scared.
Terrified.
If I woke up, like so many mornings before, a lifetime of them, it might be gone.
But the promise was too beautiful.
And now, I believed.
I opened my eyes.
And there it was, an inch away.
Swimming in an ocean of blue, a new day dawning.
And me?
I woke up from my dream to a living dream.
Complete, happy…
And loved.
Epilogue
Perfect World
Nick
Three Days Later
Nick opened his eyes and saw the bed empty.
Three days he’d had his Livvie there with him in Tennessee and each morning he’d had to wake her up.
Now she was gone.
He threw back the covers, knifed out of bed and saw the door to the bathroom open. Seeing that, he prowled through the house but stopped when he saw her out in one of the Adirondack chairs on the back deck.
She was sipping coffee and staring at the mountain view.
He drew in breath, let it out, retraced his steps, took a piss, washed his hands, brushed his teeth and headed back out, straight to the coffeepot.
He got his cup and kept his gaze on his girl as he moved out the back door to join her.