Page 19 of Hounds of Hellfire MC, Vol. 2

EXTRA EPILOGUE

THEA

“ S taring at your screen isn’t going to make that email pop up any sooner.”

Glancing toward the door, I flashed Baylor a soft smile. “I know, but I was really hoping they’d be here before the kids got home from school, but time’s up since you’re back already.”

“I’m sure they’ll be great.”

I heaved a deep sigh, my shoulders slumping as he circled my desk. “Being worried that they’ll suck isn’t why I’m impatient to get these particular illustrations.”

He brushed a kiss against the top of my head. “I know, baby.”

I never thought I’d ever want to write anything other than romance, but then I had kids. Being a mom, I wanted to be able to share my fictional worlds with my children. Especially when Skye got old enough to ask me about the books on the shelves in my office.

The look of disappointment on her little face when I told her she was too young for me to read them to her at bedtime broke my heart. So I started fiddling with a children’s book idea.

I figured that even if my kids were the only ones who ever read it, that was more than okay with me.

Since the stories and audiences were vastly different from my romances, I didn't expect much to come of it.

But when I mentioned the project to my agent, with just an offhand comment, she jumped on board with pitching it to publishing houses.

The next thing I knew, I had a deal for a three-book series about a little girl and boy who got into all sorts of trouble in their neighborhood.

In the first book, they escaped their back yard on their battery-powered trikes—similar to the Harley-Davidson themed one that had been handed down from Skye to Wyatt—and found their neighbor’s lost dog.

As I was writing the story, my daughter and son loved that the characters were based on them.

When we got the first set of sketches for the artwork, they were thrilled to discover the dog they rescued looked almost identical to Cerberus.

They were much less excited when new characters were introduced to the series because they had to share the fictional limelight with Madison and then Chad after they were born.

As far as they were concerned, welcoming their baby sister and brother into their home should’ve been enough. Something I was hoping they’d outgrown.

Only a few years after the first one was released, I now split my time fairly evenly between romance and children's books. We had a special set of shelves built for the series about the kids, and my newest release had Skye and Wyatt showing Madison and Chad how to ride on dirt bikes.

“Is the artwork here?” Skye asked, not far behind her dad in making her way to my office after he picked her and her brother up from school.

Wyatt rubbed his hands together with a grin. “Yeah, I wanna see how I look since I’m almost taller than you.”

“Whatever,” Skye huffed, rolling her eyes.

Wyatt shrugged. “Not my fault that you can't handle the truth.”

If I let them go on like this, the bickering would never stop and might get loud enough to wake up their sister and brother when they should be down for their naps for at least another half hour.

With only three years separating them, sometimes Skye and Wyatt fought like cats and dogs.

But they always had each other's backs against anyone else.

It was a good thing that Wyatt was big for his age since he had no qualms about going up against a third grader to defend his sister, even though he was only in kindergarten. It didn’t hurt that he knew every other Hounds of Hellfire kid in his school would jump into the fray if needed.

Luckily, the ding of a notification presented me with the perfect distraction. Tapping my fingers against the keyboard, I teased, “It's almost as though you two have an internal radar. I just got an email from the artist.”

They rushed around my desk, luckily coming around both sides so they didn't bump into each other, and peered over my shoulder as I opened the attachment.

“Cool,” they murmured in unison, quickly followed by, “Jinx.”

My lips curved into a smile as their giggles filled my office. “I take it you both approve?”

Skye nodded with a big smile. “I will never get over seeing myself in character form in books that are read by thousands.”

“More like hundreds of thousands,” Wyatt corrected her.

I swiveled my head to grin up at him. “Actually, Sarah let me know that the series just surpassed the one million mark last month.”

“Whoa,” they breathed in unison, eyes widening.

Baylor let out a low whistle of approval. “Damn, baby. That’s awesome news.”

“It sure is,” I agreed.

“Wait a second.” Wyatt’s eyes narrowed, and he elbowed Skye in the side. “Who’s that?”

Baylor put on his reading glasses and peered over our shoulders and murmured, “Looks like your baby brother to me.”

We had found out a couple months ago that the baby I was expecting was a boy, but we decided to wait to share the news in a special way.

“Baby brother?” Skye squealed.

“Yay! Boys rule, girls drool,” Wyatt cheered, doing a little victory dance.

While Skye glared at her brother, Baylor patted her shoulder. “Maybe the next one will be a girl to even the numbers out.”

“Next one?” Skye, Wyatt, and I all asked in unison.

Baylor grinned and I shook my head in exasperation.

In the end, she had to be happy with a girl puppy instead since I was able to convince my husband that five kids were enough.