Page 107 of Beached Wedding

“The traffic doesn’t quit. They’ll feed us on the plane,” Fox said.

“They’ll feedyouon the plane. I’ll get four pretzels and have to share a wet wipe with my seat mate. You cheap fucking bugger.”

“Oh, my God. Just tell him,” I begged under my laughter.

“Absolutely not.” Fox said, offering in a louder voice, “I packed protein bars. You want one?”

“One?”

“Okay, two.”

I tucked my smile against Fox’s shoulder. “You’re so mean.”

“Are you feeling better?”

I nodded. “I missed this. I feel like I’m home.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You are.”

EPILOGUE

Four years later…

“You’re here!”I had heard the honk of the van, but didn’t even get out the door and down the stairs before Fliss was bursting in and throwing herself into my arms.

I hugged her tight, pulling back to see she was still not one for make-up, still wearing her hair in a scrappy knot, but was maybe a bit taller than when I’d last seen her. Taller than me now, anyway.

“How was the flight? How was New Zealand?” I asked.

“Good. Oh my gawd.” She broke away to move through the doors I’d opened between the living room and huge veranda. She hung her mouth open as she stared at the surf curling toward shore. It wasn’t right below us, but it was an easy walk down a well-worn path and a few flights of wooden stairs.

“Technically the bank owns more of it than we do,” I hurried to remind her. And I ran it like a hotel, so it didn’t always feel like ours, but we had no regrets.

This property in Margaret River had been showing its age when we’d driven here two years ago, taking a rare day off fromopening a T&B shop in Perth. Fox had been acquainted with the owners through Shane and we’d only stopped in to say hello literally because we were in the neighborhood.

The owners, former pro surfers, had been sweet, but were getting on. This had been their retirement plan, but they had mentioned wanting to downsize and move closer to their grandchildren, but they were reluctant to sell to just anyone.

The house had a full suite downstairs and there were three bungalows tucked into the trees on the hillside. The place was a bit of a fixture, being so well-situated to the beach and well-known enough by serious surfers that it rarely had vacancies for anyone else.

One thing led to another and we made an offer that afternoon. We’d actually lived in one of the bungalows ourselves while the main house was updated. Each one had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, two baths and a loft.

Everything was done and dusted now and I had booked a full week for my family and Fox’s to stay with us.

“Ryan! I’ve missed you, mate.” I hugged the eight-year-old who walked through the open door. He grinned and hugged me like he’d missed me, too.

“Where’s Fox?” he asked.

“Here.” Fox came out of the bedroom with our six-month-old daughter, Penny.

Okay, so, funny story. I swore I wouldn’t have a baby without planning for it, but around the time we’d bought this place, my IUD started giving me issues, feeling like it was trying to migrate into my left kidney. I had it removed and started using a birth control patch. We’d been in the middle of opening the shop and buying this place, not to mention flying back and forth to Sydney every few months to keep everything afloat there. It was definitelynotthe right time to start a family.

But one day I realized I’d lost my patch in the surf. You’d think it was an oil spill, I was that upset at littering in the ocean, never imagining I’d actually lost it two days before that, in the shower. By the time we found it and realized what was going on, we’d been using condoms for a week, but it was already too late.

Because I was late.

We’d both been goofily happy, though.

Penny was blinking awake from her nap, but already kicking with excitement when she saw me. She let Fliss hold her thought, when Fliss flexed her greedy hands at her.

---