Dominic grinned at Bronagh when she cringed as she looked at me and said, “Sorry.”
I looked down at my niece when I removed my hands and said, “Your Mammy has a sailor’s mouth.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Dominic said then grunted when I guessed Bronagh socked him one in the stomach.
“Four more,” he rasped. “That was the deal.”
“You made a deal on how many kids you were both havin’?” I asked on a snicker.
“We talked about it midway through me pregnancy with Georgie,” Bronagh said with a grunt. “Dominic and the brothers have this weird thing about the number five. There are five of them, so they each want five kids.”
I remembered Keela calling Alec and asking him about that a couple of years ago, and he mentioned the same thing, but I thought it was just a joke.
“Well, I’m not havin’ five kids,” I firmly stated. “I’m thirty-three and don’t plan on spendin’ the rest of me thirties pregnant.”
My sister instantly looked at Ryder.
“You’ve gone and done it now,” she said then grinned at me when I glared at her.
“Why not, Bran?” Ryder asked me, stepping between me and my sister to force my focus on him.
I shrugged. “‘Cause it’s a lot of kids.”
“Yeah,” Ryder agreed. “It is, but it’s a good number.”
For him maybe.
“We’re both thirty-three, if I have four more after this one, it’ll take years to pop them all out. That’s not addin’ in the time it would take to get pregnant. We got lucky on this baby, but it doesn’t always work out like that. Sometimes tryin’ can take a long time.”
Especially the older you get.
“Branna, we aren’t old,” Ryder said with a shake of his head. “We’re in our early thirties. Since when is that old?”
“Since I started havin’ to dye me hair every three feckin’ months to hide me grey hairs!”
I still felt sick about that. My roots weren’t growing out as dark brown anymore; they were growing out a lighter brown and grey. I was only thirty-three, and my pigment was fading. It broke my damn heart.
“Mate, really?” Bronagh winced from behind Ryder. “That sucks.”
I threw my hands up in the air.
“See!” I stated. “Bronagh knows the importance of hair and what goin’ grey means.”
It meant I was getting old.
“People can get grey hairs from anything, not just growing old,” Dominic commented. “I’d put it down to stress in your case. You’ve been through a hell of a lot over the last year and a half, and you have a hectic job.”
I leaned to my right and narrowed my eyes.
“Butt out, Slater.”
He clamped his mouth shut, but the corners of his lips turned up in a grin. I looked back at Ryder then quickly down at Georgie when she started to sing a song of sorts.
I beamed at her. “You have a lovely singin’ voice, me love.”
“We’re not done with this conversation,” Ryder said, amused that I was point-blank ignoring him. “We have two whole weeks to straighten this out, and you can’t hide from me where we’re going.”
My heart jumped.
“Promises, promises,” I teased.
Ryder growled, and it made me grin.
Oh, yeah, this was going to be a fun honeymoon.
“Bad news, Sweetness.”
My heart stopped at Ryder’s words. A terrifying flashback of being in my kitchen many years ago and him telling me Bronagh had been abducted played in my mind, and a sick feeling of dread swirled in my abdomen.
“What is it?” I nervously asked as I gripped the handle of my suitcase.
I was in the middle of wheeling it out to the hallway to leave it next to the front door of our house.
“We can’t leave until tomorrow.” He frowned, his shoulders sagging. “Heavy rain is due this evening, and I don’t want to take the risk with you in the car.”
My physical reaction mirrored Ryder’s. My shoulders slumped in disappointment, and my face fell, but my heart practically deflated with relief. I was gutted that we had to wait one more day for our getaway, but bad news from one of the brothers usually meant one of them telling me my sister or one of my friends were in serious danger, so this piece of news was easier to digest, but I couldn’t tell Ryder that.
“It’s fine,” I assured him when he frowned deeper at my reaction. “It’s only one night, right?”
He quickly nodded. “The storm breaks during the night, so we can leave in the a.m.”
I looked down at my big suitcase next to Ryder’s small duffle bag and said, “Well, at least we’re already packed.”