Page 10 of Tying the Knot with her Sweet Scrooge

“Hey! Can anyone hop in this ‘Hug-A-Thon’…” Ortega said from the doorway glibly – and she was nearly bowled over as Logan stumbled where he was holding her. Ortega had barrelled into the trio and was now at her back, hugging her. “Congrats, little Mama…” And Jill laughed tearfully, realizing that her husband had told Ortega about the baby too.

Maybe they were right about Houghton being happy. Maybe they were right abouteverything, and she needed to rely on that silent strength that had gotten her through so many years of loneliness. If she could be strong for her marriage then, she needed to be that way now.

“Friendship, trust, and understanding,” Logan murmured, kissing her on the forehead. “Hold onto that because it’s the best motto from a friend I truly admire – but don’t tell Jules I said that,” he finished, chuckling as they all laughed quietly, the four of them hugging in the kitchen like this was normal.

None of it was normal, but it was beautiful. God had blessed their marriage with a child after all this time; there had to be a reason it was happening now, at this point in their lives, whentheir closest friends and ‘family’ were here to celebrate with them.

“Daddeeeee!” Rose’s high-pitched voice came from the other room. “Come dance with me!”

“Duty calls,” John chuckled softly – and slapped Ortega on the shoulder. “Get ready, your turn is coming.”

“Nuh-uh, I’m gonna have a boy so I can play Hot Wheels with him.”

“Whatever…”

Logan chuckled as the two men walked back into the other room, and he smiled at her.

“Are you okay?”

“I am,” she nodded and then hesitated, smiling. “I wonder if his mother put ‘the curse’ on him when he was younger?”

“The ‘your kid is going to be twice as bad as you were’curse?” Logan laughed easily. “I hope for Lena’s sake she didn’t.”

“Me too.”

CHAPTER 6

HOUGHTON

He was a pitiful excuse for a man, Houghton thought wretchedly as he saw his wife’s lonely smile as she walked toward him with a cup of eggnog and handed it to him.

“There’s a touch of whisky and cinnamon, just like you like…” she whispered and leaned down to kiss his forehead. He simply grunted and took a sip, because if he said anything else in front of everyone, he was going to figuratively shred his man card into teensy-weensy pieces that would make glitter look like sheets of notebook paper.

Oh yes, the emotional blabber and freakin’ baby talk was so close to his lips he could taste it because tomorrow morning, his surprise arrived. He was so grateful for the connections he’d made over the years to pull this off, and when he’d casually mentioned it as a sidenote during a phone call, that was when the wheels were put into motion.

“This was such a good idea to take this trip,” Lily smiled openly at the children playing in front of the fireplace together.“We don’t get snow like this back home and this makes it feel just so much cozier than a normal holiday.”

“Are you saying that I don’t make it feel like Christmas?” John teased – and Houghton smirked at the couple.

When John first told him he was getting out of the Army and retiring, the streak of envy was pretty strong. Not because he finally found someone but because he was so close to his own exit. Logan stayed the longest, and he understood why. There was a sense of obligation to those men around you that was hard to explain. When he finally left the base for the last time, it had been such a strange and eerie feeling turning his makeshift office over to Gretchen and saying ‘goodbye’ to everyone… but the only thing that got him through those heart-wrenching moments was knowing that Jill would be waiting for him.

“Only because ‘Santa’ is getting a ‘bowlful of jelly,’” Logan teased, leaning over and poking John in the gut. The two swiftly started arguing about ‘Dad-Bods’ and how they became ‘footrests for tiny toes’ when the kids stood on their stomachs… making him look down at his own slight pooch that was starting to appear.

And I don’t even care in the slightest,he thought, fighting back a smile as he took a sip of his eggnog again and simply patted the seat beside him as Jill returned from the kitchen with her cup of hot apple cider. The surprise in her face and rush of pleasure to her smile made him quickly take another sip before he disgraced himself. Jill sat down beside him, thigh to thigh, and gave a little wiggle as if to snuggle against him.

Oh heck…

I wuvs you, Tootsie-Wootsiewas on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he swallowed painfully and gave his two friends his strictest glare, putting step one of his secret into motion.

“Are you two numbskulls taking the kids out to see the deer shortly?” he said bluntly and knew the children were looking athim in shock. Rose moved from a seated position to standing like a meerkat on her knees, her head higher than the two boys, her eyes blazing with awareness. Yeah, she was a cutie-patootie and understood why John was wrapped around his daughter’s little finger.

“Deer…like Bambi?”

“Yup.”

“Mr. Houghton, sir, there areBambi-deersat your house?”

“And Moo-Cows just like Clarabelle from the cartoons,” he chuckled, unable to fight the smile at the little girl’s awestruck face… that quickly faded.

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