Page 50 of Accidental Wedding Crasher
“Look, sweetheart,” Mia said softly. “Do you see the vineyards? Grapes come from there.” She pointed at the rolling tresses of grapes, the vines heavy with July fruit. A sweet, fragrant scent drifted through the air.
“And over there,” Mia continued, “there are birds in the sky. See that? How many are there? One… two… three.”
“Hows?” Lucy asked hopefully. Horse, which she couldn’t pronounce properly yet, was her current favorite word. She loved horses because of a picture book Mia had read to her about a million times, which featured a horse foal exploring a farm and meeting all the different animals.
“I don’t see any horses right now,” Mia said. “Maybe later.”
Lucy pouted, but she was quickly distracted. Her big blue eyes lit up, and she wiggled excitedly as she pointed. “Dada!”
Mia turned and, sure enough, Evan was walking along the path toward them. He wore a pair of shorts and a linen top, and he looked relaxed and happy.
“Hey there.”
“Dada!” Lucy repeated, holding her arms up and wiggling with delight. Evan scooped her into his arms, twirled her around once, then took a seat beside Mia on the bench, Lucy balancing on his knee. The little girl beamed. Her fine blond hair was in two pigtails, and she wore a pink and green romper and green sandals. On Evan’s knee, they looked like they’d come from a family catalogue.
“How was the meeting?” Mia asked.
“It was fine. It only took twenty minutes, and now I’m a free man for the next two weeks.”
“Wonderful.” Mia beamed.
Evan still worked, but he’d cut back his hours and delegated more and more of his tasks so that he could spend time with Mia and Lucy. For her part, Mia had taught a few classes at her new high school in San Francisco the last school year, and she’d be going back to a full schedule this fall when Lucy started daycare. They both loved their jobs, but they loved their little family more.
“Are you showing her where we met?” Evan asked.
“Uh-huh.” Mia grinned. “We already did a tour of the villa, and now we’re looking for horses.”
“Hows?” Lucy asked excitedly.
“Sorry, honey, I still don’t see one.”
Grumpy, Lucy slid down from her father’s lap and took a few toddling steps, holding on to the bench for support. She squatted down with the boneless ease of a young child and picked a flower, which she smelled, then presented to Mia, slightly crushed.
“Thanks, honey.” Mia and Evan watched her before exchanging a warm glance.
“It’s hard to believe she’s ours, isn’t it?” Mia asked as Lucy toddled over to another flower.
“She has your hair and your personality,” Evan replied with a grin. “So, whenever I see her, I remember that she’s ours.”
“And she has your eyes,” Mia pointed out. “Still, I can’t believe it. We have a fifteen-month-old.”
“We sure do.” Evan put an arm around Mia. She snuggled into his side, smiling. “And it’s hard to believe that we’re back here, where everything started.”
“Just two years ago, we were a couple of strangers in this very same spot,” Mia said.
“A wedding crasher and a hero,” Evan put in, making Mia roll her eyes.
“A wedding crasher and a workaholic, maybe,” she countered.
“Okay, that’s a fair point.” Evan grinned. “But two strangers, either way. One of whom didn’t know the bride or the groom.”
“I already admitted I was a wedding crasher,” Mia said. Since that fateful wedding, they’d met Genevieve and Tyler several more times, and Mia had confessed that she’d actually crashed their wedding. It had turned into a joke between the four ofthem, and Tyler had told her that he planned on turning down their wedding invitation and then crashing it anyway, much to everyone’s amusement.
“You were. I bet you thought you’d never show your face at this vineyard again.”
“I really didn’t,” Mia agreed.
“And now we’re here for our wedding,” Evan added.
