“I’ll buy you another shoe.” He grinned. “Two of them, if you’re a good girl.”
She returned her gaze to him. “You’ll need to. This shoe,” she shook it at him again, “isn’t suitable to country living. But when we’re back in Denver, I’ll need it and the meager other selection I brought with me that didn’t go up in smoke.”
Taking in the strappy sandal that was minus a number of straps, some of a spike heel and a good deal of its sole, he mentally considered a visit to the vet as he advised, “Best to stock up for country living. Time we’re in Denver, you won’t need that many of those type of shoes.”
“Sorry?”
He looked to her. “Does Whiz have half your shoe in his belly?”
“No, Punk decorated our bedroom floor with half this shoe so it’s now in the garbage.”
Thank Christ for that.
Whiz whined.
“Nick,” she called.
He turned his attention back to her, straightening from the fireplace to take his feet.
“The time we’re in Denver?” she asked.
“Yeah. We should think about when we can go back. A visit. Knight’s gettin’ impatient and Kasha’s definitely—”
Her head tipped sharply to the side. “A visit?”
“A visit,” he confirmed. “Maybe a week. But we gotta think of Whiz. Whether he comes with us, which means drivin’ with a puppy, which might be the seventh circle of hell. Or he stays, which means we don’t have him for very long and then we take off on him. I don’t think that’d be cool. So we should wait a few weeks, a month, long as I can push it with Knight and Kash, and then not be gone too long.”
She stared at him so long it was his turn to call, “Liv?”
“A visit,” she said.
“Yeah, a visit,” he reiterated. “What the fuck?” he asked when she kept staring at him.
“What about your Jag?” she asked.
“Jed is gonna drive it out. He’s lookin’ forward to it. He’ll fly back. We got you your Lexus, so we don’t need it. He can do it in the spring.”
She didn’t move and began again to stare at him.
“Jesus, Liv, what the fuck?” he asked.
When she spoke, her voice had changed. There was something in it he couldn’t read.
“We’re not moving back, are we?” she asked.
She thought they were moving back?
He’d bought that house, she knew that.
Her painting was there.
Whiz was there.
Liv was there and she loved it there.
“You wanted the mountains,” he reminded her. “You wanted to be away from it all.” He swung an arm out. “So we’re here.”
“Your business is in Denver. Your life is there. Your family—”
He cut her off. “You’re here.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
Whiz attacked the rug under the coffee table.
Nick went to his woman and wound his arms around her.
“You like it here?” he asked.
“I love it here,” she answered.
“So we’re stayin’.”
“But—”
“We’re stayin’.”
“Nicky—”
He squeezed her.
She shut up.
“You get the perfect world, you don’t leave it. You love it here. I love you. We live here.”
She pressed her lips together but that didn’t stop her eyes from getting bright with wet.
She unpressed them to ask, “What are you gonna do here?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“What am I gonna do here?”
“We’ll figure that out too.”
“Your family—” she tried again.
“Livvie, we’re in Tennessee, not Timbuktu.”
She shut up again.
Then she quit shutting up. “I love you, Sebring.”
He grinned.
“Back at you, Shade.”
She smiled.
Then she stated, “I’m still calling our dog Punk.”
Whiz whined.
Liv pressed into him and giggled.
Nick listened to her giggle, feeling her body moving against his.
Oh yeah.
They were staying here. He’d die a slow death by hamburger recipes, copious use of salad dressing and Olivia’s driving need to add crumbled Reese’s cups to every dessert she made here. He’d be anywhere and do anything that made Liv giggle, openly happy.
That said, he was not calling his dog Punk.
*
Livvie
Seven Months Later
Six O’clock in the Morning
Thirty Minutes after Dawn
I sat on Nick’s knee.
“One, two, three…” I whispered into his ear, watching surreptitiously.
“It’s still five, babe,” Nick stated, sounding like he was smiling.
Five.
Yowsa.
Little Sylvie pushing that many out.
I watched her with the swaddle in her arms, holding it second nature, sitting and gabbing with Anya.
I turned my eyes back to the mayhem of our yard. Adults, but mostly kids, everywhere. Kids going crazy because their wedding gift from Nick and me were Nerf guns. Kids going crazy because it was way early and they’d had donuts for breakfast. Kids going crazy because Whiz liked kids (and showed it) but Whiz might like Nerf darts better (and showed that by trying to eat them, something Kat was in charge of making sure he did not do, a job she took very seriously if her stern eyes on our prancing puppy were anything to go by).
“Hanna and Raid gonna stop at three?” I asked.
“According to Hanna, yeah. Raid wants another baby girl,” Nick answered.