Page 99 of Luke, The Profiler

“I know, and it’s great, especially since it was something I dreamed up for us so long ago. But I couldn’t help but pick up one or two things to show you how much I love you.”

“Baby.” The softness in his eyes was the most beautiful thing in the world to me. I’d never get tired of seeing him look at me like that. “You don’t have to do things like that, my beautiful genius. I know you love me.”

“Good.”

“And I guess I understand the need to get me things that’ll make me happy, because I got you a little something as well.”

I pulled back in surprise while the water steamed and churned around us. “You gotmesomething? That’s not how birthdays are supposed to work.”

“Hey, it’s my birthday, so I can do whatever the hell I want. And what I want is to give you the thing that’s closed up in the upstairs bathroom.”

I stared at him. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’ll give you a hint. His name is Timothy.”

My breath caught. My heart stuttered to a stop. The whole world paused in its rotation. Then those ridiculous tears, so close to the surface these days, started to flood my eyes. “You didn’t.”

“It always bothered me that you were never allowed pets,” came the shrugging reply. “I don’t want Cato to grow up not knowing what it’s like to have a whole household full of life. That means we’re also going to get a dog,” he added while my silly eyes began to leak all the more. “I always wanted one, so now’s the time.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I managed, wiping at my eyes, “because closed off in the guest bedroom upstairs in a crate is a lop-eared German shepherd-mix puppy who has the power to pee on everything while still looking at you with eyes that make you melt into a puddle of goo. We did it again—we read each other’s minds.”

“You’re kidding me.” His gaze snapped to the upstairs window of the guest bedroom before a wild grin spread across his face. “So we’ve got one kid in diapers with another on the way, a twelve-week-old kitten that’s climbed all the way to the top of the linen closet and unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper, and an indoor house-sprinkler that looks like a puppy. What if they kill each other?”

“What if they don’t? What if we all live happily ever after?”

“Then my life really is as perfect as it feels.”

“It is.” I kissed him with all the passion of love storming in my heart. Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any better, this amazing man found ways to make dreams I didn’t even know I had come true. If this wasn’t heaven on earth, I didn’t want to hear what was.

“I don’t know what good thing I did in life that convinced karma I deserved you.” At last I pulled my mouth from his to look into his eyes, letting him see all the love I had for him shining in my smile. “But whatever it was, I’ll do my best to keep on doing it. Thank you for giving me our life together, my sweet monster. I can’t imagine it getting any better than it is right now.”

“And yet that’s exactly what’s going to happen.” His hand slipped to my stomach, not yet showing with our baby. In another few weeks, that would be a different story. “Our family’s going to grow right along with our love, because that’s how you and I are—we just keep building a better perfection. So I can pretty much guaran-damn-tee you that when it comes to us, the best is yet to come.”

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