F is for Finn (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

I reached out and wrapped my arms around her. I leaned down and kissed her, then held her as close as I could and looked down into her face.

“Are you happy?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“You sure? Because we could just tell the Realtor that we changed our mind and that we don’t want to buy the house. I’m sure I have a receipt around here somewhere. What do you think the return policy is on a house? Like thirty days at least, right? Maybe even forty-five?” I asked playfully.

She laughed and squeezed me. Her massive belly made it difficult to actually get near each other, but I was okay with that. Nothing in my life had been nearly as exciting as watching that belly swell. It meant my baby was growing up strong and healthy. Our baby.

Early in the pregnancy, we’d had a long debate over whether we wanted to find out whether it was a boy or a girl, or if we wanted it to be a surprise at birth. I was leaning toward getting the surprise at birth, but Wendy really wanted to know. I told her that life had so few surprises, and this one would be a really incredible one.

To which she promptly gagged and made a face in response. She told me she hated when people said that. It was such a cliche, which she was right about. I’d heard it said a lot, and it must have stuck with me. However, when she said that it was going to be a surprise no matter when we found out and that if we found out early, it meant we could name the baby and start decorating and buying things, I was onboard.

Besides, I wasn’t really right about life not having that many surprises. Wendy was a hell of a surprise. She’d come out of nowhere when I wasn’t expecting it and wasn’t looking for anything. Even if I was looking, I doubted I would have gone for someone like her right off the bat. She was gorgeous, to be sure, but she was also not the kind of woman I’d ever dated for many reasons, not the least of which was her little boy. I’d never dated a mother before and didn’t really see it as something I would go after.

Then along came these two and completely knocked me off the path I thought I was on. Olly squealed as Deana carried him inside and put him down on the floor. He had grown so much over the time I’d known him. When I’d met him, he was still so much a baby, only a few months shy of his third birthday. Now eight months later, we were looking down the barrel at his fourth birthday, and he’d grown out of toddlerhood and into being a bubbly, tumbling child.

And one of the biggest delights of my life.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, reaching down and sweeping him up off his feet and into my arms. “What do you think? Do you want to see the rest of it?”

“Auntie DeeDee said there’s a backyard,” he said.

I nodded. “There is.”

“I want to see that.”

Wendy grinned, and I put him down so he could make a beeline for the back door. She’d been so excited to finally get to show him the yard. It was one of the biggest selling points for the house we were buying together. We’d looked at what felt like dozens of houses, more than I ever would have imagined would be in Ashford, and found a few that we really liked, but they were all missing that wow factor.

This one had it. And it came in the form of the sprawling backyard overlooking the mountains, complete with a huge swing set. Olly let out a shout when he saw it and burst out of the door to run across the grass to the swings. He immediately started climbing up the faux rock wall against one side of the structure and figuring out how to work his way into the massive tree house that connected the two parts of the play network.

“Do you think we’re ever going to get him back inside?” I asked.

Wendy shook her head. “Probably not. I think he might live in that now.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s ours.”

She let out a sigh and smiled with such happiness it shone out of her eyes.

I knew this wasn’t what she saw for her life just a year ago. I understood she hadn’t wanted to stay here. Ashford had represented some challenging things for her, and she wanted to get away from that. I understood she wanted to get away from the stigma that hung over her and not perpetuate the stereotype of the struggling single mom stuck in a small town her mother had fallen into.