Page 243 of When Love Takes Root

She laughed softly.

“Good?”

“Means you ain’t transplanting nowhere.”

Her laugh grew louder.

“Transplanting?”

I nodded toward the garden.

“You know what happens when you keep digging something up every time it starts growing?” She shook her head. “It never gets deep enough to survive a storm.” The smile on her face softened. I cupped her cheek. “I’m not spending the rest of my life replanting us every season, Red.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “I’ve been putting roots down since the day I walked into your salon.”

A tear escaped before she laughed.

“That’s your romantic speech?”

“No.” I kissed her forehead. “This is.” Resting my forehead against hers, I smiled. “Even if fear had uprooted you, I’d have planted myself right back beside you.”

She closed her eyes.

“I love you.”

“I know.” Her eyes opened again. “I do.”

“How?”

“Because love doesn’t wake up every morning and keep choosing somebody by accident.” I rested my hand over hers where it covered our babies. “And neither do roots.”

She wrapped her arms around me as much as our son and daughter would allow.

“You really weren’t ever letting me go, were you?”

“Not a chance.”

She laughed through her tears.

“That’s a little possessive.”

I kissed her temple.

“No.” I looked around the garden we’d built together, then back at the woman who had become my greatest answered prayer. “That’s gardening.”

She laughed so hard she had to lean against me, and I held her there while the breeze carried the scent of lavender through the yard.

After a while, she took my hand.

“Come on.”

“Where we going?”

“I want to check on our baby boy and baby girl.”

We walked back into the house and climbed the stairs to the nursery.

The room glowed beneath the soft evening light. Two white cribs stood beneath the mural of sprawling oak branches, their roots painted deep into rich brown earth while stars stretched across the ceiling above them. The rocking chair finally sat exactly where Celeste wanted it, angled toward the window overlooking the garden.

She rested both hands beneath her belly.