Page 73 of A Sudden Response

She nodded. “I’ll put out twenty times a week if I can have ice cream with it.”

“Then, you can have ice cream, you little gold digger,” he said with a put out sigh.

“Then, my answer is yes,” Joe said, not even caring that she was crying anymore as he leaned in and kissed her. She was happy, but more importantly, she was his.

EPILOGUE

Four years later...

“He’s going to kill her,” Joe felt obligated to point out as they watched in fascination as Nathan’s eyes darted from his butter knife to the really annoying woman that Alice was trying to set him up with.

“But it will entertain us, and really, that’s all that matters,” Eric said as Emily, their two-year-old daughter who loved to drive them crazy, climbed onto his lap.

Eric adjusted her on his lap so that she could steal his dessert. He kept one hand pressed against his little girl’s tummy as he laid his arm across the back of his incredibly beautiful wife’s chair.

“Are you okay?” Eric asked for probably the hundredth time since he got off work and picked them up.

“I’m fine,” Joe said, giving him a tight smile as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

He moved his arm from the back of her chair so that he could place his hand on her belly. “Is he giving you problems?” Eric asked, rubbing his hand soothingly over her belly, chucklingwhen their little boy decided to follow the moves with little kicks that his mother probably didn’t appreciate.

“He’s just really active today,” Joe said, pushing her plate of triple fudge cake towards Emily only to have it snatched up.

Eric watched in amusement as his brother dug into the cake. “I need it more than she does,” Nathan grumbled and Eric couldn’t agree more as he had to wonder where their mother kept finding these women.

“What is it that you said you did again?” the woman that he didn’t bother learning her name demanded suddenly.

It wasn’t until he looked away from his brother that he realized that she was speaking to him. When they were introduced two hours ago, she’d barely acknowledged them before she focused on annoying the hell out of his brother.

“Drug lord,” Eric answered, chuckling when Joe poked him in the ribs. Nathan smiled for the first time since this dinner from hell started and their mother even cracked a smile, but not the ice princess. She simply glared at him.

“He’s a paramedic for the city and a field supervisor,” his mother said proudly, making him roll his eyes. The woman did love to brag.

“But I’m still his boss,” his beautiful wife pointed out with a teasing smile.

The ice princess looked at Joe and blinked as though she’d just realized that his wife was there. How she could have missed Joe with that huge belly, he’d never know, but she looked genuinely surprised to see her there.

“She’s a supervising dispatcher for the city,” his mother said proudly as she sent Joe a warm smile.

“Oh,” the ice princess muttered with a dismissive look. Not that he was a snob or anything, but he really didn’t think a woman who worked part-time at the lost and found counter at the mall was in a position to look down her nose at anyone.

“Grandma?” Emily said, drawing his mother’s attention.

“Yes, pumpkin?” she asked, giving Emily the smile reserved solely for her.

Emily pointed a damning finger at Nathan as she said, “He took my cake.”

“Nathan Parish!” their mother said in shocked outrage as she reached over and took back the half-eaten slice of cake and placed it in front of Emily, who happily attacked the frosting.

“Tattletale,” Nathan grumbled even as he sent his niece a wink that made her giggle.

“Alice? I’m not trying to be rude or anything,” the ice princess started, and he seriously doubted that since she’d been rude throughout the entire meal, “but I think you have a leak or something.”

“What?” Alice asked, looking confused as she peered down at the floor.

“Not a leak,” Joe said, gasping. “My water just broke.”

“Shit!” Nathan gasped as Eric stood up and passed his daughter over to him.

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