I walk into the room. Mads turns to me, grinning as I step closer and lean over her shoulder to see my four-week-old niece.
“Perfect. Just perfect,” Mads sighs. “Wanna hold her for me? I’m dying for the loo.”
“Yes!” I say, holding out my hands and wiggling my fingers. Mads hands me her tiny baby, and I cuddle her to my chest.
“It won’t be long now,” mum says, placing her hand on my big bump. “Are you still not going to tell me if my grandbaby is a girl or a boy?”
“I’m excited to know as well!” Vivian says, smiling at me. I smile back, our uneasy friendship something I had to get used to since she and Damien started dating three years ago. They met randomly and hit it off. I can’t say I was impressed to meet her and find out the girl my brother was obsessed with was my guy’s ex-girlfriend. But not once has she looked at Storm as more than a friend, and it’s always been clear she is deeply in love with Damien. The one-year-old little girl they have is a good reminder as well.
“I should check on Éile,” Vivian says, walking around me. “I’m sure she is waking up from her nap soon.” She rests her hand on my shoulder as she passes me, and oddly Vivian might be someone I could call a good friend.
Funny how the world works sometimes.
“I’m going to join the guys!” Ruby says, kissing mum on the cheek, and she shoos her away.
“Let’s go and sit in the garden. It’s a lovely day, even for December,” mum suggests, pulling the door open to the hallway. I follow her past the living room, peeping in to see dad, Storm, Killian, Seth, Pey and Damien all crammed in the room, laughing at something Dominic is saying. Dominic moved into my parents’ seven months after the war when we finally found him. Since then, he hasn’t really left, and I know my mum and dad are in no rush to send their adopted son out into the world. I’m sure he will go when he is ready, but with immortality to face like us all, there isn’t a rush. Mum holds the garden door open for me, and I walk out, careful to balance the sleepy baby in my arms as I walk down the steps. My baby kicks inside me as I sit down on the cold bench and breathe in the slightly cold air.
“I miss snow,” mum tells me as she sits at my side, wrapping her arm around my back.
“Don’t tell Storm that. The last time I did was the great snowstorm in France six years back. It had never snowed in that little village before,” I remind her, and she laughs.
“I’m so happy you went travelling after the war and saw the world. It’s important to find yourself out there before settling down,” she softly tells me. “I know your mother, Maria, dreamed of travelling.”
I still love that mum talks so openly about my mother and my aunts now. And my grandparents. All the stories over the years make me feel like I know them both so well.
“I have something to tell you,” I say. “I was planning to tell you as a Christmas present tonight, but it can be a little early.”
“What is it dear?”
I look down, smiling at the little sleeping baby. “We found out our baby is a girl, and we have decided we are going to call her Maria Blaine Kismet. And the guys are changing their last names to Kismet. We all need a little luck in our lives, and our daughter is our gift.”
Mum’s eyes fill with tears. “I think our family was so lucky when it gained you. Thank you.”
“No, thank you for taking me in. For loving me so ferociously and teaching me how to love like that,” I tell her, taking her hand on her lap. “Thank you for everything.”
She actually cries this time, and thanks to hormones—yup, I’m blaming them—I burst into tears too. Mads walks out to see us both crying and stands speechless.
“Is everything all right?” she asks us. I chuckle and hand her back her baby before kissing her cheek.
“Yes,” I tell her, looking back at my mum. “Everything is just how it’s meant to be.”
Thanks to a little karma.
G. Bailey is a USA Today and international bestselling author of books that are filled with everything from dragons to pirates. Plus, fantasy worlds and breath-taking