Page 59 of Stronger Than Blood

The babies were on their way. According to the doctor, they were due any day. I’d had a dream the night before that we hung up Mick’s grandmother’s brooch, which I’d used to keep the monster from giving me nightmares, between the two cribs.

Yes, I knew Mick’s family had passed over. Yet, it just felt right that the brooch should be a part of giving the little ones a guardian angel.

The next day, I got up, found the brooch in the drawer where I had kept it, just in case, and took it to a frame shop in Chattanooga.

When I got it back a couple of days later, it looked exactly like the one I’d seen in my dreams. Maybe that meant I might have a little psychic ability after all.

Although I seriously doubted that. I was just very attuned to my loved ones, and I had already fallen in love with the two little people about to become my family, even if they weren’t officially here yet.

I returned home and hung the framed brooch right between the two bassinets, just as I’d seen in my dream. When Mick came home a few hours later, I was in my office, doing some paperwork for the distillery, when I heard him gasp.

I quickly rushed out of the office to check on him, having all but forgotten about the brooch, when I saw him standing in the doorway, his hands over his mouth. “You… you did this?” he asked, pointing at the frame.

I smiled and nodded. “I dreamed about it, and… it felt right.”

He turned and rushed into my arms, holding me tight. “Thank you. I wanted to do something that tied my family to the nursery, but I didn’t know what. And… well, that’s perfect.”

“It helped me when… when things were difficult for me. It just made sense that it could help them too.”

Mick pulled back, and I could tell he was thinking. Then, he went to our bedroom and returned a moment later with a feather. The brooch was mounted in the back of a shadow box, with a door in the front.

He opened the front and used a small horseshoe-shaped pin that had come with the frame to secure the feather under the brooch, then closed the door and secured it again.

“That helped me, too, something Dupris gave me. Seemed like these two things belonged together.”

I held him from behind as we stared at the shadow box with our good luck charms beautifully displayed. “So, you ready?” I asked.

“So ready,” he said, and just then, both of our phones began to ring.

When I looked at my phone and saw it was the pastor, I laughed.

“Good, 'cause I think we’re about to become dads.”