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“I love you, too,” she said, leaning in for another kiss. “And I’d love to sit here kissing you all day. But…do you think you can untie me first?”
He sucked in a breath, and she half turned so he could see her hands. He…didn’t even know what to say. It had just slipped his mind for a second… Oops?
He quickly untied her hands and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. And then groaned, releasing some pent-up frustration. “I swear, if you ever scare me like that again, I’m going to put you over my knee and spank you.”
Instead of looking properly chastised, her eyes lit up with a mischievous curiosity, and he blinked at her in shock for a few seconds before shaking his head and muttering, “You are impossible,” under his breath.
“Yes, but you love me anyway,” she said, having heard him despite his taking almost no care to keep her from doing so.
“Heaven help me, I do.”
He pulled her to her feet, his hands searching her, trying to make sure she really wasn’t injured. “Are you okay?” he asked, cupping her face.
She nodded, and he leaned down to kiss her again, his heart thudding in his chest. He pulled her into his arms, and she buried her face against him. They held each other for a few moments, and then she took a long, shuddering breath and shook her head.
He looked at her, brows raised in question. “What?”
“I guess there went your retirement.”
His laughter rang out through the street. “No way. That will be the last time I ever pull those damn guns. I’m retired.”
Epilogue
Gray forced a smile and waved goodbye to yet another neighbor who’d dropped by tooohandahhover the town’s newest resident and leave a food offering with her exhausted parents.
He peeked under the napkin covering the basket and sniffed.
“Who was that?” Mercy asked, walking with a slight bounce as she cradled their newborn.
Gray glanced up, his breath catching at the sight of his girls. He cleared his throat. “Frank and his wife. It looks like…” He took another sniff. “Meatloaf. And potatoes and biscuits and corn and…there might be a pie in there.” He frowned and Mercy laughed.
“What?” she asked.
“We’ve had people coming by day and night for two weeks. How much do they think a man can eat?”
Mercy snorted. “Never thought I’d see the day you would complain about having too much food to eat.”
Gray raised an eyebrow and swallowed the piece of biscuit he’d just crammed in his mouth. “I wasn’t complainin’. Just curious.”
“Um-hmm. They are only trying to help out. Lord knows I don’t want to be cooking right now. Maybe if this little lady would let me sleep for more than two hours a night,” she said, giving their daughter a smile so full of love and sweetness that Gray had to clear his throat to get rid of the sudden lump.
“Yes, well, if I see one more apple pie, I’m going to cram it down their—”
“Gray!” Mercy said, laughing.
He shrugged and went to put the food in the kitchen. He came back holding some sort of wooden contraption that looked like a two-pronged fork with a ball stuck between the tines.
“And what is this thing?” he asked, handing it to Mercy.
She grinned and took it from him, shaking it in front of the baby’s face. “It’s a rattle, silly. Haven’t you ever seen baby toys?”
He shrugged again. “Never really spent much time around babies.”
“Hmm well, we’re definitely going to change that. Here,” she said, handing him his daughter. “You take her for a while.”
Gray opened his mouth but didn’t object, though that was always his first instinct. She was just so…small. And soft. He was afraid he’d squeeze her too tight or drop her if she squirmed. But she settled back into his arms with a contented coo, blinking her big blue eyes a few times before settling back into sleep.
Mercy draped her arm around his waist, resting her chin against his shoulder. “We still need to come up with a name for her,” she said. “Can’t keep calling her Baby her whole life.”
