Page 57 of Intimately Faithful

“But you know what the ginger rascal girl did, Misha? While the boy was laid on the floor with his broken ankle and skinned knees and tears streaming down his face with all the other boys laughing at him, and him feeling like a failure because he couldn’t impress his princess. She ran all the way home to get his mammy, and when she came back she sat with him, and made him laugh and rubbed his hair and told him how cool he looked leaping through the air.” He went on, while Aoife fell more in love with the rumbling of his deep voice as he spoke of their shared past.

Every good memory had Danny in it.

“The moral of this story is, little one, sometimes you fall in love when you’re a six-year-old boy trying to impress a ginger rascal girl.”

Aoife moved then, with her tumbling belly and flamed cheeks, she pushed open the door to see Danny cradling a now sleeping Misha in his arms like he was made to hold a baby.

Oh, there went her crazy-wanting ovaries.

She wanted at least a hundred babies with him.At least.

“Did they live happily ever after, Danny-boy?” She asked, more in a whisper as her bare toes brought her further near him.

He’d been out of bed when she’d woken. Doubts had crept in because she didn’t know how he’d feel this morning. Maybe he’d have the night before regrets.

But he smiled, and the smile reached his gorgeous eyes.

“I wondered when you’d show yourself.”

She winged up both her eyebrows. “You knew I was listening?”

“You’ve never been quiet, Aoife. More like a bull in a china shop.”

She giggled and her whole body heated over when he held out a hand toward her. She scurried as fast as her feet would carry her and climbed into his lap.

“So … do they?”

“I hope so, sweetheart,” he rasped, kissing the side of her neck. “I really hope so.”

There was no morning after the night before talk, she realized as she snuggled into his lap just as comfortably content as Misha was laying in his arms.

It wasn’t needed.

Because just like that, as if seven years’ worth of space hadn’t separated them, Danny and Aoife became in sync again.

With a million problems to solve before they could legitimately have their happily ever after, she felt at peace with a heart full of hope and a gorgeous man with his arm around her and his mouth nuzzling the sensitive skin near her ear.

She was hopeful she was on the right path to righting all the wrongs of the past.

When you knew deep in every part of the body that you were meant for one place and one man, hope didn’t let go. It guided you through the turbulence in order to get you back to where your heart belonged.

“Can you still fly, Danny-boy?” She whispered so she didn’t disturb the baby and also because she was so giddy she thought she too might fly away.

She played with his hair and did her own nuzzling.

“Only when I’m inside you.”

Dead. She was dead.

And she’d been killed by a sexy as sin pastor of all people.

Oh, the deliciousness.

Pity life had to intrude.

It was a pity happiness wouldn’t last more than a few hours.

THIRTEEN