Creed
Thirteen months later…
Creed shut the door on the rental, his other hand curled around the handle of the cooler.
He moved through the trees into the grass, feeling the warmth of the sun shining on his head and beating through his tee.
He walked through the grass, his mind registering the cool of the turf on his bare feet.
Something you didn’t get in Arizona.
Something you got in Kentucky.
He lifted his head from his study of the grass, his eyes took in the scene and his body rocked to a halt.
Brand was in the lake, screwing around, able to entertain himself just as he was skilled at entertaining others. He was happy to be swimming on his own.
Kara was in her bikini at the side of the lake, feet probably sunk to the ankles in mud. Still, she was smiling and bouncing in the water, a giggling, squealing Jesse in her arms.
Sylvie was sitting at the end of the pier in shorts and a cami, her tanned legs over the side, her arms behind her, weight in her hands, head tipped back to the sun. The huge rock that he’d placed a diamond encrusted band under in Vegas two months after she moved to Phoenix blinking in the rays.
As he suspected, neither of his kids had a problem with him making Sylvie his wife. They also didn’t blink when told they were getting another sibling. Brand had two new people to jabber to and Kara had two new people to love.
They were happy.
Sylvie was happy.
So was Creed.
He forced himself to come unstuck and started moving again thinking what he thought when Kara was put in his arms. When Brand was set there. When he tucked his and Sylvie’s bundled Jesse close. When he studied his Sylvie, sleeping in sheets filled with rose petals.
He was thinking his Dad would like one f**kuva lot all the love that Creed had created, but better, earned.
“You got him?” he called to Kara as he put his foot up on the pier.
“Yeah, Dad,” Kara called back and shit, she was growing into her beauty. A year, two, he was going to be f**ked.
God, he hoped the kid in Sylvie’s belly was another boy.
Please, God, he prayed, let it be another boy.
He moved down the pier and saw Sylvie had twisted, her torso just slightly but her neck all the way around. Her arms were still behind her. The diamonds he gave her twinkling. The green at her neck sparkling.
Every day, every single day, she wore his green.
Every day.
She smiled at him.
Warmth that had nothing to do with sun radiated down the pier and saturated him all the way through.
Creed smiled back.
There she was, his woman wearing his ring, his green with his baby in her belly sitting at the end of their pier.
His Sylvie.
His dreamweaver, able to weave dreams doing nothing but sitting on a pier and smiling.