Warm, brilliant sun shone down on Meredith’s shoulders. Today marked her and Liam’s daughter’s first full month of life, and they were celebrating with a picnic outside their house. It was Liam’s idea, his surprise, and since Teagan, which meant “beautiful,” hadn’t given them many hours of sleep last night, Meredith had agreed.
Her infant daughter always seemed calmer when they were outside in nature, which seemed to show she took after her father in that regard. In other ways, too. She had Liam’s rich, dark hair and green-and-amber eyes. What she had of Meredith’s, so far, at least, was a love for ABBA and a very vocal set of lungs. This amused Liam to no end.
He liked to tease Meredith—whom he still called Goldi most of the time—that she’d brought sound back into his life due to her love of talking. She didn’t think he’d ever fully understand that her love of talking hadn’t existed until she’d met him. It was with Liam that she had truly found her voice, and it was their conversations she loved.
Stretching her legs on the quilt Liam had laid on the ground, Meredith waited for her husband—they’d married when she was six months pregnant—to bring actual food to their picnic and looked over at her sleeping daughter who rested next to her, protected from the sun by the arch of the tree’s branches above them.
This tiny baby was...everything. Happiness and love and sweetness all bundled together in one beautiful, if loud, package. And Meredith couldn’t wait to see the person her daughter would grow into. What her interests would someday be, what her smile would look like and if she would laugh in Liam’s booming or in her mother’s softer, yet no less joyous, manner.
The storm that had brought her to this life, to the man she loved, no longer held any remnants of the terror she’d felt that night.
How could it? If not for that storm, she might never have found Liam, never dreamed about the life she now led, never become a mother to Teagan.
Of course, when she said such things to Liam, his logical brain forced him to point out that she wouldn’t have known the difference. That she couldn’t have missed what she didn’t have, hadn’t known about. But he was wrong. She would’ve known in her heart and her soul that her life lacked something. Someone. And she would’ve yearned.
Now, the most she yearned for was more than three hours of sleep at a time, but that, too, would come to her again. Until the next baby and then the next.
Three was the number that she and Liam had agreed upon, but she kind of thought they’d end up with four. In her dream, they’d only had two children, but...well, dreams could change.
Her husband appeared then with a picnic basket in his hands and Max and Maggie at his heels.
The shepherds came to her first, to show their love, before carefully taking up their guard-dog positions around Teagan, one at her feet and the other above her head. She was theirs, too. One of the pack. And they were never far from the baby for very long.
“Hope you’re hungry,” Liam said, dropping onto the blanket next to her. “And if so, you better eat up fast. Before the little one decides she’s hungrier.”
This man treated her so well. Cared for her. Protected her. Allowed her to do the same for him, so what they ended up with was a true give and take. A true partnership.
She was easily the luckiest woman in the world.
“I am hungry,” she said. “But first, if you don’t mind, I could use a hug. Maybe a kiss.”
His arms came around her, his lips met hers and just like their very first kiss, the world disappeared and all that was left was just the two of them. The emotion that existed between them, their friendship and...yes, the heat that erupted into being.
Instantly.
She fell into the kiss, into the man, and could’ve stayed that way, locked in his embrace, with his mouth on hers, for all eternity. If not for Teagan deciding that now was the precise time to wake up and demand to be fed.
Her whimper turned to a wail, which led the dogs to whining and then howling, which softened Teagan’s tears, rather than ramping them up in volume.
Liam broke off the kiss, ran his hand down the side of her face. “I love you, Goldi.”
“I love you, too.” Meredith turned to reach for the baby. “More than you know, even.”
“Oh, I have a good idea. Even so, I am pretty sure I love you more,” he teased. “I mean, ABBA. In the morning, afternoon and when I’m trying to work. Just saying.”
Shifting Teagan so that she could feed her, Meredith smiled at her husband. He did put up with a lot, especially for a man who had lived in these mountains for so long in almost complete solitude.
“A good point. I can start using my earbuds more often, to give you some peace.”
“You could, but that wouldn’t be you,” he said, playing with Teagan’s tiny fingers. “And you are the woman of my dreams. So, don’t change. A thing. Okay?”
And that...well, that said it all.
* * * * *
THEIR CHRISTMAS ANGEL, the next book in Tracy Madison’s delightful miniseries, THE COLORADO FOSTERS, will be available in November 2017 wherever Harlequin Special Edition books and ebooks are sold!
And don’t miss out on previous books in the series:
Available now from Special Edition!
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE COWBOY’S SECOND-CHANCE FAMILY by Jules Bennett.
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