Dear Diary, two and a half years later!
“I have something for you.” Zach’s delicious husky rumble trilled into Maddie’s ear as he lowered himself onto the step next to her. All sorts of delicious, wicked sensations jamboreed through her.
He nuzzled her neck as he pulled his hand from behind his back and held it in front of her face. “Hmmm ... you smell delicious.”
Her skin tingled where his mouth lingered.
Maddie grinned.
He presented a slim, baby pink gift-wrapped box roughly a foot in length and two inches wide.
“What is it?” A tennis bracelet? No, the box was too long. Zach often gave her lavish gifts, but he also bought simple presents. She couldn’t guess what it might be.
“Open it and see.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth. “You’re going to like it.”
“Thank you, Zach. I’m sure I will—whatever it is.” Why a pink gift-wrapped box should bring her to tears, she had no idea. Only that Zach had been the most amazing husband from the start. He was everything she ever desired in a spouse.
“What’s the occasion?” She glanced over at their twins playing on the grass with her mum and dad near the decorative fenced-off pond, which housed several lush Starfruit plants. More tears crowded her vision. And he was everything she could want in the father of her children.
“Do you need an occasion?” He wrapped an arm around her waist and tucked her close to his side. “Can’t I give my wife a gift because I feel like it?”
“You can give me as many gifts as it pleases you. I’d just like to know your reason.”
“It’s a ‘thank you’.”
“For what?”
“For giving me the twins a year ago today.”
“You’re giving me a present on the twins’ birthday?”
He nodded. “Open it.”
“Shouldn’t Eden and Evan be the ones getting presents today, not me?” She glanced back toward their toddlers. Zach had been touched when she told him she wanted to name their daughter Eden after his mum. And they named their son Evan because it meant God is gracious.
God had been gracious to Maddie all her life. After all, he did bring Zach back.
“I think you should have a present, too.” His tips tipped in a smile, setting off that familiar feather-tickle in her tummy.
“On the twins’ birthday?” She raised her brow. By now, none of Zach’s antics should surprise her, yet they still did.
“Yep.” He nodded.
“Because I had them?”
“Correct.”
She used to think she had to be more exciting to be attractive to Zach. She’d learned that she was most alive when she was with him, and Zach found her exciting without her even trying. She didn’t have to prove anything. He loved her because she was enough.
Maddie tugged the cerise ribbon from the top. She couldn’t stop smiling. “Does this mean I get a present on their birthday every year?”
“Absolutely.” He may have sounded playful, but when Maddie met his gaze, she saw the hint of sadness that never seemed far away.
A giant knot tangled her stomach. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’ve told you a thousand times, Zach. It wasn’t your fault.”
“So why can’t I forgive myself?”
Maddie’s heart squeezed for him. “Do you know one of the things I love so much about you?”
“My amazing abs?”
He was avoiding the subject. “I love your incredible compassion. You called Kimber’s dad because you thought it was the best thing for her.”
“And it kills me to know I was wrong. That day at the cabin if I had phoned the police instead of calling her father, she wouldn’t have gotten a second chance at you. I’m never going to forgive myself for that.”
Maddie placed the unwrapped gift on the step next to her feet, angled her body toward Zach, and held his face between her hands.
“Honey, I don’t blame you. I never did for a second. Kimber is evil, and she’s finally being held accountable for crippling Lucy, and for her attempt on my life. She’s going to spend a long time in prison for what she did.”
Zach rested his forehead on hers. “It still gives me nightmares.”
Maddie knew. Zach never spoke about it, but he’d woken her often by shouting her name in horror and rooting in his sleep. When Maddie was five months pregnant with the twins, she’d gone with her mum to shop for baby clothes in Kent. They’d stopped to have lunch at an outdoor cafe when Kimber had attempted to run Maddie down.
Maddie’s angels must have been looking after her that day because it was by the grace of God that Kimber had missed hitting her and had driven through the front window of a vacant shop. Kimber had stunned herself long enough for a burly off-duty police officer, who’d witnessed the attempt on Maddie’s life, to apprehend her.
Maddie had walked away unhurt, but shaken, and Zach hadn’t been able to forgive himself for letting Kimber go when he should have had her arrested in Vermont.
“When I look at our babies and think that there was a possibility we wouldn’t have them, it tears me up inside.”
His words, so heavy with pain, forced a lump to Maddie’s throat. She understood what he felt. So often, she thought the same.
“But we have them, and they are perfect.” She eased back, kissed him, then turned her attention to their children. Their daughter was currently trying to kiss her brother who wasn’t cooperating, despite his grandmother’s efforts to hold him still so Eden could land the kiss on his mouth. “Look at them, Zach. Look at how blessed we are.”
He followed the direction of her focus.
He chuckled. “I’m not sure Nanny Raquel is going to be a good influence on them. Already she’s teaching Eden bad etiquette.” Raquel had Evan on her lap, holding him steady for Eden’s kiss. “I shudder to imagine what Eden will do when she’s old enough to kiss boys.”
Maddie laughed. “I thought you were referring to Mum’s brush with the law.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Deciding to go along with her friend’s grand plan, Raquel had chained herself to Andalucía and refused to leave until the demons behind CCP Development agreed not to demolish the house. The police had carted her and her friend away, and it had taken Zach’s intervention to keep them from pressing charges. Apparently, her mum had resisted arrest by kneeing one of the arresting officers in the ‘leg’. The cop claimed it was more centre of his pelvis than that, and Raquel had denied the charges vehemently.
Raquel had soon forgiven Zach for his part in all of it once Maddie told her what he’d done to save their ancestral home. How he’d risked his business to do so. Raquel had been even more elated when she discovered that not only was Maddie going to restore the house, she was giving her mum full responsibility for the decor choice and an open invitation to stay over whenever she wanted.
Which worked out pretty handy when they needed a doting baby-sitter.
“So...” Zach tipped his head toward the forgotten gift at Maddie’s feet. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
Maddie released his face after one last kiss and retrieved Zach’s gift. Her hands shook. Her husband brought her presents all the time, so why was this one making her tremble?
She yanked off the ribbon, ripped open the wrapper, lifted the lid, and stared.
“Zach?”
“I love you, Maddie.”
“What is it?”
“A brushed steel arrow.”
“You got me an arrow?”
“Not just any old arrow, babes. It’s a secret message arrow.”
Maddie drew out the shiny silver pointy object from its satin bed and held it up. “Where’s the message?”
“Inside.” Zach grinned like an excited little boy, reminding her so much of Evan. “You have to twist the head.”
Maddie did as instructed. A miniature scroll popped out.
“Read it.”
She stretched the tiny scroll. Zach’s decisive scrawl filled the paper.
Maddie,
I know nobody writes notes anymore, but I wanted to do something romantic and send you a message from Cupid’s bow. I wanted you to know how much I love you. I hid my feelings behind friendship and almost missed having you as my wife. Then you sashayed into my heart, gave me twins, and made me the happiest man alive. You taught me how to love when I wasn’t sure I knew how. My heart beats your name because it belongs to you. You are my wife, my lover, my best friend, and that’s the way you’ll remain ... until the very end.
I love you!
Zach x
Tears welled in Maddie’s eyes just as her heart melted.
“Oh, Zach.” And this time she couldn’t blink the tears away. First one escaped over the edge of her lashes and trailed a path down her cheek, then another tracked the opposite cheek. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. “I love you!”
He pulled her back for another kiss. One that disregarded company and went straight to bedroom mode. Maddie parted her lips, inviting, welcoming his tongue. He tasted of fresh mint—of sweet wild primal need—and smelled all citrusy.
Her favourite scents.
There was a time when Maddie had convinced herself she would never possess Zach’s love. Now he told her several times every day, showed her in so many touching ways how much he loved her. It’d taken ten years to get her guy, and he was more than worth the wait.
She was going to make sure he got past his guilt over Kimber’s last attempt to destroy their happy-ever-after. Even if it meant dedicating her life to showing him how being with him made her the happiest woman alive.
A warm tingle started a fire in her midsection, radiated heat to exciting places. Places she couldn’t wait for Zach to get his hands on. His kiss, the slow deliberate thrust and retreat of his tongue, quaked her knees, curled her toes.
She eased out of the kiss.
“Zach.” Her breath puffed out in shallow pants. “I have a present for you, too.”
“Yeah?” His breathing stuttered in time with hers.
She nodded. “Um-hmm.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll have to come with me. I left it in our bedroom.”
Zach scooped her into his arms. “Is it in the hot tub?”
Who wouldn’t have guessed he would have insisted they install a hot tub in their en suite?
“No...” Maddie pressed her lips to his ear, loved the way he shivered when she did so. “It’s on our bed.”
“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go get it.”
“Hey, where are you going?” Maddie’s dad called, stopping Zach in his rush to get indoors.
Zach turned with Maddie clinging to him. His hard bicep pressed against her thigh giving her a string of naughty thoughts. Thoughts about slow deep kisses, which lasted hours. Of bodies joined in hot drawn-out lovemaking that took all night.
“Maddie has something she needs to show me. We’ll be back in five minutes.”
Maddie jammed her free hand on her hip. “Zachary Canady, if you think I’m going upstairs with you for five minutes, you can put me down now.”
“How long do you think it’ll take me to open your gift?”
She chuckled, ignored his wicked subtext. “A lot longer than five minutes.”
“What should I tell them then?”
“Probably what they used to tell me. We’re off to have a ‘private discussion’.”
Zach laughed so hard he nearly dropped her. The sound vibrated through Maddie, flaming her insides from slow smoulder to fast burn.
Maddie didn’t think it was all that funny. It certainly hadn’t been while she was a teen.
Adán raised his head from his low conversation with Maddie’s mum. “Since we have three hours before the twins’ party starts, why don’t Raquel and I take our beautiful grandbabies out for ice cream?” Adán rescued Evan from his sister, who was offloading her fistful of grass onto his head. Adán held his small grandson against his chest and Maddie’s heart melted.
Zach arched a roguish brow as he glanced at Maddie. “Three hours?”
She grinned, liking the idea. “Three hours.”
Zach smirked. A second later, he spun on his heels and planted an all-fire kiss on her mouth.
After waiting ten years, Maddie got what she always craved—the complete chemical reaction thing. Zach still made her palms go sweaty, gave her stomach dips and missed heartbeats. He made her knees weak and warmed her insides every time he appeared. And, above all, he made her laugh.
In Zach, she had the whole man candy, butterflies-in-the-stomach deal, and he loved her even if—despite Zach assuring her of the opposite—she wasn’t very adventurous or exciting ... because she, Maddie Canady, was all her husband needed.
When he released her, Maddie waved her free hand at her parents. “Sounds like a treat, Dad.”
With a chuckle, Zach carted her off to their room.
“What?” She
gave him a wink, added a deliberately saucy grin. “I could do
subtext, too!”
~♥~