Page 35 of 7+Us Makes Nine

My eyes locked with his and he tossed me another playful wink. One that made me blush. I finished off my coffee and slipped by them, running my fingertip along the breadth of his shoulders. The children had stopped their questions and started eating again, giving us a moment to steal for ourselves.

Then I headed back into my room to get ready for the day.

We all piled into the car and headed into town. But Jace wouldn’t even tell me what we were doing. We drove by buildings and the kids gawked at how tall they were, asking all sorts of questions like ‘what’s that one?’ and ‘is that where you work?’. I looked over at Jace and saw a permanent grin etched onto his features. A small grin that lit up his eyes every time I looked over at him.

He glanced at me and licked his lips, reminding me of my future to come with him once the kids were sleeping for the night.

The second we pulled into our final destination, the kids went wild. Hot tubs and in-ground swimming pools were displayed everywhere, and they were out of their seatbelts before SUV came to a stopping point. They hopped out of the car and went racing for the entrance, and I quickly ran after them. I gathered the brood and waited for Jace to park the car and get to us, and I saw a broad smile trickle across his face.

“Surprise,” he said.

“You could’ve warned me, you know.”

“If you checked your phone every once in a while, you would’ve known what was happening.”

“And since you know I don’t depend on technology, the joke’s technically on you,” I said.

“Daddy, took at this one!”

“I like this one. It’s green.”

“This one sits a hundred people!”

“Can we get this one? It’s awesome.”

“Pink! Pink! It’s pink, Daddy!”

The kids ran up and down the warehouse as one of the workers guided us through everything. He talked about the specs of their most popular pools and hot tubs, then led us to the top-of-the-line ones. In-ground personal pools that could go as far as eight feet deep. Heated pools that could be kept up year-round. Pool pumps and piping systems and all sorts of things that boggled my mind to think about.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, princess?”

“Is it mine?” Michaela asked.

“This will be all of ours,” Jace said.

“So I share?” she asked.

I giggled and bent down to scoop the little girl into my arms.

“How about this? When everything gets installed, you and I will go on a night swim,” I said.

“Night swim?” Michaela asked.

“Yep. I’ll put the boys to bed, then you and me will sneak out and swim by ourselves,” I said with a whisper.

Michaela’s mouth dropped open as her eyes crept over to her father.

“No Daddy?” she asked with a whisper.

“Nope,” I said as I shook my head.

The smile on her face set my heart ablaze. It was so big it closed her eyes. She wiggled down from my arms and went running off towards her brothers, her dark curls bounding around her shoulders. I looked over at Jace and he shook his head, trying to bury the grin he wanted so desperately to don.

“Already conniving against me. I knew you’d fit in,”

Jace said.

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