'Which one?' Charlie asked, leaning in with a curious expression as the rest of us groaned and shook our heads, really not wanting to know.
'The wheelbarrow,' Daphne confirmed. 'He only had a heart attack from all of the exertion and effort of trying to keep her legs in the air and fell on her. She was found pinned under him the next morning, as she hadn't been able to get up to ring the emergency alarm.'
'No!' we all gasped, Georgie covering her mouth as she tried not to giggle at the thought of it.
'And that's not the worst of it,' Daphne advised.
'I'm already pretty grossed out, do we really need to hear more?' groaned Quinn.
'They had to call the fire service out, as rigor mortis had set in and, well, let's just say I think it took a crow bar to separate them.'
'Oh my God,' I winced, covering my eyes as everyone else chuckled. 'Charlie, you've made Dilbury a hot house of old age pensioner iniquity.'
'I think I'd better start putting a disclaimer in my books,' she laughed.
Miller opened some champagne and set more bottles of beer on the table as we all gathered around to tuck into our feast, laughing and joking, especially with Dean telling us some new stories from Miller's youth.
'Mummy,' Jackson yelled from the bottom of the garden, 'I got Teddy poo all over me.'
'Great,' I sighed. 'Why does he want me for the messy jobs and Miller for the fun ones?'
'I'll sort him out,' Miller smiled, grabbing the box of wet wipes off the table.
'Don't eat it please, Jackson!' I called back, making everyone laugh. I didn't dare admit to them that I was being serious, it had happened before.
'Ewww, it's stinky. Bad Teddy,' Jackson scolded, as my boy bounced around him, yapping.
I had half an ear on the conversation at the table as I watched Miller trying to clean Jackson up. Teddy stole a fresh wipe from the box and raced around with it clutched in his jaws, shaking his head as he growled. There they were, my boys. My family. My heart and my home.
'Excuse me a minute,' I said to no one in particular as I got up and left the table and made my way down the garden.
'I still don't understand how you got it all over your hands, Jackson,' Miller was saying as he wiped his own.
'I was moving it, Daddy.'
'Why? You know to tell me or Mummy to come with a poop bag to scoop it up.'
'Teddy was sniffing it. I thought he was going to eat it. Mummy said it's naughty to eat poo, that it makes you poorly, and I didn't want Teddy to be poorly. He's my bestest friend in the whole wide world.'
'He is, isn't he?' I agreed as I joined them and put my arms around Miller's waist. 'Maybe we ought to find you both another best friend to play with. Would you like that, someone you and Teddy could have fun with?'
'Who?' Jackson asked, his eyes curious as he looked up at me. I looked up at Miller with a smile, holding his gaze.
'Well, Mummy's going to be having another baby in about seven months' time, so you'll have a little brother or sister to play with.'
'Yay,' Jackson squealed as he clapped his hands. Miller gawped at me, blinking a few times. We'd got pregnant with Jackson so fast, we'd assumed it would happen that way again when Jackson was two and we decided to try for another. But it hadn't. We'd been devastated that after two years, nothing had happened. All the tests we had recently had showed nothing was wrong, so we couldn't understand it. We'd pretty much assumed it wasn't going to happen again, until Georgie and Daphne had spotted the signs before me, just like last time. Miller had been busy with a new game release and hadn't noticed.
'Seriously? We're pregnant again?' he asked, searching my eyes, as if he was fearful that I was pulling his leg.
'Seriously,' I confirmed. 'I'm seven weeks according to the test I took earlier in the bathroom.'
'God, Abbie! Best. News. Ever,' he exclaimed. His smile lit up his face as he lifted me up onto his hips and we kissed. My stomach did a somersault just like it always did when he kissed me. It was a feeling I never wanted to lose. 'I hope it's a girl this time,' he whispered against my lips.
'Me too,' I confirmed, linking my arms behind his neck as we smiled contentedly at each other. 'How about you, Jackson? What would you like, a boy or a girl?'
'Dunno,' he huffed. 'Will it be fluffy like Teddy?'
'No,' laughed Miller as I giggled and buried my face in his neck. 'It will be like a tiny version of you.'
'Oh,' Jackson responded, not sounding overly enthused at that bit of news. 'I'm not sure I want one then. I love Teddy's fur.'
'Well, we can't send it back!' I teased, lifting my head to roll my eyes at Miller.
'I'm gonna have no cookies soon, not with all these new people who are gonna want to eat them,' Jackson moaned.
'You and your cookies,' Miller chuckled. He smiled adoringly at me, making my stomach flutter, then kissed me again. The sound of his watch alarm forced us to break our embrace. 'Sprinklers,' he confirmed. 'You cancelled the timer, right?'
'No, that was your job,' I reminded him.
'No, I said, "We can't forget to cancel the sprinklers today," when we were having breakfast.'
'Well, that's not asking me to cancel them, Miller. That's a statement.'
'So you haven't?' he asked, a panicked look crossing his face as his eyes darted up to our friends who were all sitting at the edge of the lawn.
'No,' I replied quietly. 'I take it that means you didn't ei-' I screamed as the lawn came to life, jets of cold water showering us both. I also heard the yells and screams of our guests as they tried to move out of range. Jackson chortled with delight, loving nothing better, other than his cookies, Teddy, and train rides, than playing in the water spray in the summer heat. Teddy yapped and jumped up and down, biting at the jets that were attacking him. 'Damn it,' I wailed, the water saturating my clothes as Miller started laughing.
'What is it with you and me and getting wet, Abbie Davis?'
'I've no idea,' I laughed, using one hand to push my wet hair out of my face and thinking back to the first day I'd met him when we'd both got soaked. 'But if the offer's still on to take a hot shower with you, I'm all over that action.'
'We have to kick out our guests first,' he reminded me as we started squelching our way back up to the house.
'They're wet too, they'll all want to get home.'
'And we have a four-year-old who we can't leave alone.'
'We can ask Auntie Quinn to watch him,' I suggested.
'Someone's desperate,' he observed with a wide smile.
'Make the most of this phase, before the super-tired and extra-irritable one kicks in again,' I warned him, feeling my heart racing as I drank him in. Was it normal to still be so madly in love after nearly eight years?
'I'll take you any way I can get you, baby,' he murmured, kissing the tip of my nose. 'I love you. You, Jackson, Teddy, Quinn, and now my new little bump. I've finally got the family I'd always dreamt of. You've made me so happy today.'
'You make me happy every day, Miller,' I said, never more sincere. 'I'm so exceptionally happy you chased me through the sprinklers all that time ago.'
'Even when I'm grey and old and zipping around in an electric scooter like Daphne, I'll still chase you through the sprinklers, Abbie.'
I put my head on his shoulder as he carried me over to where our guests were trying to shake off the water, while Jackson and Teddy raced around, trying to get more on them.
I'd truly believed I was cursed the day I'd stood there in that rainbow dress, but it turns out it had led me to my own pot of gold. Miller. I had everything I could ever wish for, and then some.
The End
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If you enjoyed this, then try my other romantic comedy, Until We Collide.
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Next Release
I'll be staying in Dilbury for a while, bringing you more romantic comedy tales from the villagers, including Quinn, Charlie, Heath Jones, and Lord Kirkland, as well as a newcomer to the quaint English village, Fleur Dubois.
Georgie will be back this August in her romantic comedy story,
The Great Escape – Dilbury Village #2.
A tropical beach paradise in Mexico was the last place Georgie Basset expected her decimated heart to be jump-started again, not after she'd been jilted the year before by her fiancé, leading to said breakage. But when she spotted Weston Argent jogging along the beach, all bronzed with ripped muscles like some Greek God out of a modern day Baywatch scene, she nearly choked on her cocktail. She knew immediately she was in trouble, she'd never reacted so strongly to a man on first glance.
However, after a disastrous first date with him, she headed back home to Dilbury, resigned to never seeing him again. That is, until Weston turned up unexpectedly at her dog grooming parlour with Bertie the bulldog, a species she had a real weakness for. She couldn't help but wonder if fate was playing a helping hand. But each time she saw him, their encounters never went smoothly, resulting in some mortifying and hilarious escapades. Despite their undeniable attraction, there was something about Weston that she couldn't quite put her finger on, something that held her back.