his forehead to my chest. “I won’t forget again,” he whispered.
I hugged both of them for a long time before leaning in to kiss Parrish. “I’m expecting an epic apology casserole, you know.”
His eyes widened. “Apology? For being late?”
I grabbed our things and reached for his hand. “No. For telling the judge on my case that you only married me for—”
He slapped a hand over my mouth before I could say the words. “Are you frickin’ crazy?” he hissed.
“My cock,” I finished against his palm.
Parrish’s face flushed pink.
“I’m referring to Lloyd and his fancy foot feathers,” I added. “What did you think I meant?”
Epilogue
Parrish
“I know we’re already running late for the Gobblin’, so I don’t expect an answer right away, baby, I’m just saying… consider it. Okay?”
I plopped down on our bed and purposely bent over to tie my boot because Diesel was standing in front of me, all warm, and strong, and twice as sexy as any man had a right to be—especially any man wearing the ridiculous outfit he was currently wearing—and I could feel his big brown eyes pleading with me… which was why I refused to look up at him. Those eyes were deadly weapons—the kind that caused me to set aside all my caution and good sense—and I would not fall for them again.
Or at least not today.
“Parrish,” Diesel had said a few weeks ago, the morning after our custody win, when we’d gone to poke around inside our rambling Victorian and found that it was not quite as move-in ready as Cameron the Realtor had suggested it was. “What if I renovated the kitchen myself so we could do everything to our own specifications? Just consider it, okay?”
He’d shown me those eyes, and my stomach had flipped, and I’d agreed enthusiastically. Anything to make my husband happy and to help him feel like this house was ours.
“Hey, Parrish,” he’d said a week after that, when our new kitchen was in the throes of demolition and the Partridge Pit flagship location’s grand opening had been a resounding success, “I’m thinking you’re right about us moving the girls up to a bigger pen at the new house, but what if we put an addition on the Pullet Palace so we could handle a couple more birds? Sid Tinson, one of my customers, was telling me about these rescue chickens and… Just consider it, okay?”
But one look in those eyes and I hadn’t needed to think twice. What bother was an extra chicken or two?
“Baby,” he’d said the following week, when the hardwood floors had been laid in the kitchen, construction of the Chicken Chateau—complete with a nest box turret—was underway, and Marigold had started cruising around the living room in a way that suggested she’d be walking in no time, Lord help us, “what if we get a dog to kinda guard the place? One that could grow up with Mari? Jim Orson was telling me his sister’s having trouble finding a home for the runt of her last litter. Just consider it, okay?”
Heck, what was there to consider when Diesel’s brown eyes were so imploring and when a guard dog would be useful anyway?
Three weeks ago, when the kitchen cabinets were in, the Chicken Chateau had been wired for light, heat, and cable television—kidding, but barely—and Marigold had taken to toddling around led by Biscuit, our new three-legged beagle/Bernese mountain dog mix, Diesel had done it again. “Parrish, since we’ve already broken the seal on getting a pet… do you think we could get another? I wouldn’t suggest it, but someone abandoned a mama cat and her kittens in a cardboard box by the splash park, and the no-kill shelter is full. Just consider it, okay?”
Poor Diesel had looked so outraged on behalf of the mama cat and her poor babies that only a heartless man could have said no, and I was not a heartless man. Especially not since Diesel Chur—that was to say, Diesel C. Partridge—had come into my life and shown me what it felt like to be truly loved and wanted for who I was.
Two weeks ago, when the countertops were in place and the kitchen was painted, when the Chicken Chateau had been outfitted with fresh straw bedding for the girls, and Marigold, Biscuit, and Drumstick—a brown-and-white tabby with the biggest ears and longest legs any of us had ever seen on a feline—were doing their nightly parade around the tiny living room back at the little house, my husband