Page 38 of The Sunday Brothers Novellas

Christ . Even after months with Hawk in my life and in my bed, after weeks with my ring on his finger, there were moments when my feelings for this sweet man simply swamped me.

He was the kindest, purest soul I’d ever met; a person who cared about not only every square centimeter of Little Pippin Hollow, but every being—whether crotchety human or feral cat—who lived here.

“Sometimes change does suck,” I agreed gently.

“Sometimes when relationships change, it means you’re pulled away from the people and places you love, and that’s hard.

But I’d argue that sometimes it’s necessary.

Things have to change so you can find the life, the love , that’s meant for you.

Sometimes change is a good thing, baby.”

I bit his shoulder lightly and felt his body come alive, primal need and deep affection arcing like electric currents between us as they always had… or, at least, as they had since I’d pulled my head out of my ass last summer and recognized the beauty in front of me for what it was.

“Welllll, when you put it that way...” Hawk arched his neck, giving me better access to lick over the place I’d bitten.

“I suppose there are certain changes I approve of,” he conceded.

He twisted in my arms and wrapped his arms around my neck.

“For example, last year, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. ” He pressed a soft kiss to my jaw.

“Mmm. So true. And last year I wouldn’t have been able to do this .” I nipped at his lower lip, and when he opened his mouth on a gasp, I cupped his jaw in my hand and tilted his head back to kiss him deeply, savoring the sweet-tart flavor of his moan on my tongue.

When Hawk pulled back, his eyes were glazed and his hands were tangled in my hair. “You make…” He sucked in a shuddery breath. “A compelling argument.”

I laughed. “Very open-minded of you,” I said solemnly, “to admit that you were wrong.”

“Hey! I didn’t say wrong .” He shifted further so he was straddling me. “Just that I’m willing to be convinced that change is good.” His hard cock rubbed against my stomach and he groaned. “Preferably someplace warmer. Preferably now .”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

Hawk

“And then she fell from the horse, hit her head, and woke up with amnesia?—”

“Hold up,” Jack said from behind me. “Elizabeth Bennet fell from her horse—the spirited thoroughbred she’d insisted on buying because she’s a talented equestrian, with the money that she inherited because she’s secretly a nobleman’s daughter—and got amnesia? Baby, how long is this book?”

I stifled a laugh as I clomped down the narrow trail in the forest behind our house, with Jack on my heels.

The sun was warm enough that I’d stripped off my windbreaker on the way up the trail an hour ago, and although the weather forecasters claimed we were in for a cold and snowy November, there was no sign of it on this October day.

The air was autumn-crisp, the trees had donned their most colorful leaf-peeping ‘fits, I was feeling pleasantly sore after spending the morning doing dirty things with my fiancé on the hardwood floor and the afternoon hiking—two of my favorite activities ever—and since Jack and I both had the day off, I was looking forward to an extended round two when we got home… in approximately five more minutes.

In short, life was perfect. Perfectly perfect. The kind of perfect that I would never, ever want to change because, no matter what Jack said, change almost always equaled awful.

I gave Jack a teasing glance over my shoulder. “I haven’t even told you about the pirates yet.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “Poor Lizzie. And where was Darcy when all of this bullshit was happening? Don’t tell me—off somewhere brooding about something, and practicing his inscrutable look for when he comes in at the eleventh hour to save the day.”

I stopped short and turned around, arms folded over my chest. “You will not,” I said in my most threatening voice—which, unfortunately, was not very threatening, especially when I was talking to the man I’d been in love with for the better part of a decade, “talk about Fitzwilliam Darcy in that dismissive tone, Jack Davidson Wyatt.”

Jack let out a long, low whistle. “Wow. Middle-naming and last-naming me. Serious stuff. ”

“It is.” I lifted my chin. “I have come to feel fond acceptance for your football-watching obsession, Jack. I have even learned to love your snoring?—”

“I do not ? —”

“But this is a bridge too far,” I said. I was mostly—only mostly —teasing, and the look in Jack’s eyes said he knew it…

and found it all kinds of adorable… which was the best feeling in the world.

“Since it’s a lovely day and I’m feeling magnanimous, however, I’ll accept your apology.

” I rolled my hand in a get on with it gesture.

“Magnanimous,” Jack repeated slowly, testing the weight of the word on his tongue.

He stepped closer, so his chest bumped against my folded arms, and he grasped my hips.

“That’s quite the vocabulary word. And here I thought I sucked your brains out through your dick mere hours ago, Henry Hawkins Sunday ?—”

My face went hot as flashfire memories of this morning seared my brain, which made it a little hard to come up with a witty retort… But it didn’t seem to matter anyway, since Jack’s eyes were busy scanning the area and his face wore a faraway, distracted expression.

“What?” I demanded, unfolding my arms so I could look around also, but I saw nothing except forest.

Jack shook his head, his gaze focused on me again. “Nothing,” he said, though the tiny frown between his eyebrows belied his words. “What was I saying?”

“You were apologizing for your thoughtless words about our lord and savior Fitzwilliam Darcy,” I reminded him. “At least, you’d gotten to the part where you said Henry Hawkins Sunday , and I’m almost positive the abject apology part was forthcoming.”

He laughed. “Henry. Hawkins. Sunday,” he repeated, like each word filled him with delight.

He slid his hands down my arms and laced our fingers together, then lifted my left so he could run his thumb over the shiny gold engagement band there.

He tilted his head. “Have you considered what you want to do when we get married?”

“Do?” I blinked. “What do you mean, do? If you’re trying to distract me, Jack?—”

“I meant with our names. Like, you could go with Henry Hawkins Sunday-Wyatt. Or Wyatt-Sunday. Or just Sunday. Or just Wyatt.” Startlingly blue eyes met mine. “I don’t care what you choose, but I’d like to share a name with you, I think.”

I tried to suck in oxygen, but my lungs had forgotten how breathing worked and I ended up making a series of short gasping sounds. If Jack was trying to get out of apologizing… he was absolutely succeeding.

Total, unmitigated success.

“I mean, only if you’re into it.” He shrugged offhandedly, like it didn’t matter to him one way or another, though I was pretty sure this was a lie.

“You’d… become a Sunday?” I managed to whisper. “Really?”

“Of course.” His eyebrows rose. “Is that what you want?”

“I… yeah. Yes.” I couldn’t have stopped my smile if I tried. “I mean, let’s think about it for a minute and make sure, but… I want to share a name with you, too. I want to share everything.”

He grinned. “Good.” He wrapped our joined hands behind my back, pulled me against his chest, and lowered his mouth to mine…

Then stopped.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered against my lips. The frown was back on his face.

I paused and listened, then shook my head. “Nope.”

“I’d swear it was coming from over—” He lifted his head. “There. Hear it?”

If I strained my ears, I could just barely hear a faint, high-pitched noise. A bird call maybe. Or an animal .

“Do you think something got hurt?” I wondered, suddenly worried. “Come on, let’s look.”

I tugged Jack along the path toward home, stopping every so often to listen for the noise. Eventually, when we were so close to our house that I could see the chimney through the gaps in the trees, the sound became a bit louder. Closer.

Jack and I exchanged a look, then he moved left into the underbrush, his heavy boots clearing a path through the ferns and his strong arms helping me over a fallen log, until finally we saw what we’d been looking for.

Under the low branches of a pine tree sat an ancient wooden crate tipped on its side, and inside the crate was…

“Potato!” I cried softly. “Oh! Oh, wow. Look, Jack, he?—”

“She,” Jack corrected, staring at the cat… and the four tiny, brown-and-white kittens crawling around her. “Definitely a she.”

“I don’t want to get too close and spook her right now, but we need to bring things for them,” I decided. “Food. And water. And something to keep them warm?—”

Jack darted a look at me. “I know where we can find a blanket or two.”

“—and if Potato will let us, we should try to take her and the babies home with us, at least for the winter. I think we should call them Jane, Lizzy, Mary, and Lydia,” I said seriously. “Not Kitty because that would be too on the nose.”

“Are you being—?” He gaped at me. “Five cats, Hawk. One, two, three, four, five . You want us to take in five cats.” He shook his head. “Baby, I’m not sure if I’ve ever explained to you that the reason I never had a pet of my own is because I’m not much of a pet guy?—”

“Or maybe you didn’t used to be a pet guy?” I suggested, biting my lip.

He narrowed his eyes. “This is going to be like the throw blanket situation, isn’t it?

You say, ‘Jack, you don’t mind if I get one or two little cats for the back of the sofa, do you?

’ And I say, ‘Hawk, this is your home. You don’t need permission.

’ And suddenly, there are multiple cats in every room, draped on every chair and bed?—”

I rocked up on the balls of my feet. “But you admitted that the blankets came in handy, remember? That time you wanted to try countertop sex, and Uncle Drew stopped by to surprise us with a pumpkin flax loaf, you pulled the plaid one around me like a kilt and I think Drew really believed I was wearing it on purpose?—”

Jack snorted. “No, sweetheart. He really didn’t.”

“Would you consider it, at least?” I pleaded. “I won’t insist, if you’re really against it, obviously. And we don’t know if Potato will even be happy with us, if she’s not socialized, and we’d need to get a vet involved, but I’ve always wanted a cat. Or… five cats.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Hawk. That would be quite a… change .”

“It would,” I agreed with a sigh. “I know. But?—"

“And my fiancé tells me change sucks, so…”

I looked up and caught the teasing glint in his eyes. “Oh my god. You’re still trying to get me to admit I was wrong, huh?”

Jack shrugged, unrepentant, and grinned broadly. “Hawk, you wound me--”

I cupped his gorgeous face in both of my palms, running my thumbs over the stubble there.

Nothing in the entire world had ever made me as happy as I was every single minute I was with this man, and I knew nothing ever would.

So I lifted up on my toes and kissed him gently…

and then not-so-gently because my fiancé was seriously fucking hot and I couldn’t help myself.

“Fine. Fine ,” I admitted breathlessly, several minutes later. “Sometimes change doesn’t suck. Sometimes it’s totally and completely necessary. Sometimes it brings you all the things you wanted and didn’t think you could ever have. ”

Like a new home. A new name. A new purpose. And love. Always love.

“So now will you think about becoming a pet guy?” I demanded.

Jack grinned and traced one blunt fingertip over my cheek. “Pretty sure I don’t have to be a pet guy, ’cause I’m already a full-on Hawk guy.” He rolled his eyes. “We can keep the damn cats.”

I threw my arms around him exuberantly. “You’re gonna love them,” I promised. “Eventually.”

His big arms wrapped around me, pulling me tight. “I’m gonna love you , Hawk Sunday,” he whispered in my ear, his voice strong, his promise unwavering. “And that’s something that’s never going to change.”