It Wasn't Me - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,74

the moment they were born they were pretty good babies. They slept through the night by six weeks. They went at least four hours in between feedings. They took naps. They were quiet in the car.

Which likely meant that our next baby was going to be an absolute horror.

“Y’all deserve it,” Sam muttered as he watched the girls do their stretching routine.

I snorted. “Whatever.”

Sam grinned at me. “You got the whole world, you know that, right?”

I looked at my girls.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I had no clue, before Piper, what I was missing. I just knew that something was. Something vital that stuck with me, day in and day out. Then she came along, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Then, when she had the girls? I realized rather quickly what it was. It was that feeling. That feeling that whatever I was missing was gone, and she’d taken it away.”

I remembered back to the day that she gave me my three girls. That night, as we sat in the hospital after delivering each one vaginally, I’d thought she was a superhero. Most women only have to go through that once, and if they go through it multiple times, years separate them. But my woman? She went through it three times. All three times without any medications to end her suffering.

And I’d made a promise right then and there that I would go through heaven and hell combined to make sure that I made her as happy as she’d made me.

I was convinced that one day, at the end of our lives together, I’d finally be even in the love department. That I’d even up the score.

I’d give her every last bit of love that she deserved and keep on giving it until I had nothing left to give.

“Daddy, watch this!”

I returned my gaze to my daughters, loving their bouncy curls and beautiful smiles that reminded me so much of their mother.

***

Piper

“Sweet!” I cried out and clapped. “That makes me so happy!”

My boss rolled her eyes. “Sorry that I overbooked y’all but enjoy your night off.”

I would. I so would.

Practically skipping out of the hospital, I headed straight to the gym to watch my girls’ practice.

I’d just walked in the door when I spotted my man in the front row, watching every single thing that was happening with his girls.

Jonah had always been intense. But with his girls, it was like he was hyper-focused.

Where other parents were talking to their spouses, playing on their phones, or speaking to the people beside them, my Jonah was staring straightforward, eyes on his girls, watching their every move.

He’d always been like that, though.

Even with me.

If you had Jonah’s attention, you had all of his attention.

“God, those pants,” I heard said. “He is to die for.”

I knew without a doubt that the two women in the back row were talking about my man.

I mean, there was likely not another man in the room that was the focus of almost every female’s attention.

“He really is. And that beard, and looking at those girls. He’s so good with them,” the one whispered. “His wife is so lucky.”

I was. I really, really was.

Speaking of, my eyes went to the front of the room when one of the girls yelled, “Mommy!”

I grinned when I saw her attention on me, and my breath left me when Jonah’s eyes went from his girls to me.

The sheer heat in them, even after four years of marriage, was enough to make my nipples bead and my breath come out in pants.

“Oh shit, do you think she heard us?” the woman whispered quietly.

Not quietly enough, seeing as I heard every word.

I smiled and headed in my husband’s direction, ignoring my parents and sister on the back row.

The girls went back to their gymnastics since it was much more fun than looking at their parents, which was a good thing because Jonah’s focus momentarily switched from his girls to me, which would’ve caught their attention.

I slid past a few mothers to get to the middle of the row, and since there were no open spots, I chose the best seat in the house—my husband’s lap.

His hands went out before I’d even made it to him and he tugged me toward his body, causing me to laugh.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

I wrapped an arm around his neck and dropped a kiss onto his waiting lips.

“They had two charge nurses, and I was given the