“Forty minutes or so.” Abe sat down beside her with Theo in his arms. “How long do you think he’ll stay down?”
“AN HOUR IF WE’RE LUCKY,” Sarah said, leaning over to kiss their baby’s soft cheek. “I’ll take the next wake-up call.” She was utterly exhausted, sleep-deprived… and madly in love with both the big man seated on her bed and the tiny child he held in his muscular arms. Abe was just as sleep-deprived and as exhausted as her, but he’d proven endlessly patient.
Where others might’ve crumbled under the stress of a newborn, Abe was thriving. He soaked up the advice Diane gave them both about how to care for a baby, his joy in being a father open—he was already “teaching” Theo the piano by holding their baby in his arms as he played.
Theo always listened intently—and every so often, Sarah would wake in the night to the music of Abe playing the piano. It seemed to settle their little rock baby better than anything else. “Music didn’t work today?”
“The peanut’s a harsh critic.” Fisting his hand in her hair, her husband tugged her into him for a kiss that was slow and lazy and lush. “How about it?” he murmured. “Got enough energy to make a different kind of music?”
Sarah’s toes curled. “Let me put him down.” She took that precious, warm weight, overwhelmed by love. “I feel like snuggling him a little.” Carrying Theo across the carpet and into the adjoining room, she put him in his crib after a long cuddle. “Dream happy dreams, sweet baby.”
She tiptoed out and slipped into bed beside Abe… to find him fast asleep on his front, his breathing deep and steady. Laughing softly, she pressed a kiss to his shoulder. He stirred long enough to say, “I love you, Sarah.”
“I love you too,” she whispered, tracing his lips with her finger.
He pretended to bite at it, though his eyes were already closing again.
“My Abe,” she whispered, stroking his bristly jaw before settling down against him to sleep… just as a whimper came through the baby monitor.
Abe started awake. “I’ll—”
“Shh. I’ll go.” Slipping out of bed, she scooped up Theo, who was all wet eyes and trembling mouth. “Mommy’s here,” she said, snuggling him close.
He didn’t cry this time, apparently just needing a little cuddle.
When she walked into the bedroom, Theo in her arms, she found that Abe had turned onto his side and was facing the nursery. Though his eyes were heavy, he’d managed to open them. “I’m a lucky man.”
Sarah’s heart just burst, her own eyes stinging.
Going to sit in bed beside his sprawled form, she rocked their baby as she watched her husband sleep. No doubts. No fear. This, her and Abe, their family, they were forever and always.
EPILOGUE
FOUR MONTHS LATER AND Theo watched wide-eyed and smiling from Abe’s arms as Noah promised to love and cherish Kit until the earth stopped turning and the stars stopped shining. The peanut was an honorary groomsman, complete with his own tiny suit that matched those worn by Fox, Abe, and David.
Looking at his happy little face, you’d never know this was the same baby who’d screamed down the house six weeks running.
These days, Theo had his mother’s Zen going on.
Sarah stood on the other side of the bride, her smile misty as she watched Kit speak the same promise in return. It was as well Abe had already given her a handkerchief. Yep, there she went, wiping away a tear.
“…husband and wife!”
Abe grinned as Noah went in for the kiss. He’d expected laughing passion or maybe a raw lip-lock, but his hands cradling Kit’s face, the guitarist kissed his new wife with a tenderness that had every single woman in the room sighing and all but melting into the floor.
Abe shook his head. “He really doesn’t give a flying you-know-what about his bad-boy image does he?” he said to David.
David shot him a laughing look, his golden-brown eyes shining with happiness for a friend who’d found his way out of the darkness that had haunted him for so long. “Says the man holding a baby and avoiding the F word.”
Abe grinned as Noah and Kit turned to walk back up the aisle, the guests showering them in flower petals that fell softly over the fine lace of Kit’s long veil and train as beams of sunlight gilded the entire scene. That light came from endless rows of delicate glass windows, the venue the ballroom of a venerated country home.
Sarah had told him Kit had been firmly against the big wedding her parents wanted to throw her and Noah until her mother dragged her to this place. “It’s so elegant and lovely, it’s no wonder she buckled,” Sarah had said. “Especially after Thea found her that incredible gown. It needs a dramatic venue.”