“Daisy! I didn’t know you were in town!” I walk behind the counter of Bertha’s Cupcake to give the woman a big hug.

“We just got in this morning.” She points at her husband, Caine, who’s sitting at a table with Bertha. “And he’s already bugging her about her bookkeeping.”

I shift my gaze toward the table at the back where a handsome man wearing khakis and a button-down shirt is pointing his index finger at a thick, physical book.

Bertha, distracted by us coming in, ignores him. Instead, she waves and grins at us.

I wave back then turn to Daisy, grimacing. “She still hasn’t switched to a computerized system?”

Daisy laughs. “What do you think?”

“Hi, Daisy,” Eli says as he herds the kids through the glass door.

“Hi, Eli. Oh my God, is that you, Nicole? You’re a teenager now,” Daisy gushes. She’s a sweet woman who loves kids, and we can go on for hours just trading mom tips.

“Yeah.” Nicole gives her a smile. “Hi, Daisy.”

Eli puts his hands on Ariana’s and Astrid’s shoulders. “Say hi to Daisy, kids.”

The girls shyly wave and greet Daisy.

After moving back to Ashbourne, I worked at Bertha’s Cupcakes for a few years and got to know her family even though they don’t live in town.

Her husband, now retired, lives here in Ashbourne, too. According to Daisy, he used to be a micro-manager handling multiple billion-dollar businesses. But these days, he takes it easy and doesn’t even want to hear any of Caine’s work-related news from the city.

Obviously, he doesn’t help with Bertha’s bookkeeping either. Aside from dropping in to eat some cupcakes and flirt with his wife, he doesn’t have much to do with the shop.

Daisy touches my belly. “How far along are you again? I keep forgetting?”

“Seven months now.” I give her a big grin. “On my last visit, the doctor told me he’s looking really good.”

“That’s wonderful news.” Daisy knows about my problems with infertility and shares my excitement over this miracle pregnancy.

“Yeah, and to think I thought I was deathly ill when I first felt the pregnancy symptoms.” I giggle.

“I don’t blame you. Pregnancy can be really rough . . . from what I can remember, anyway.”

We pause our little chat as Eli and the kids place their orders. Daisy and I grab a bunch of cupcakes with pink frosting and put them on a big, fancy plate.

“Maybe you’ll finally be ordering some blue cupcakes soon.” Daisy grins.

Despite Daisy’s protests, I pay for the cupcakes in full, ringing in the order myself at the register.

I know nobody in Bertha’s family is hurting for money, but that doesn’t mean I can just take their stuff for free.

I mean, the whole reason I quit working here—aside from us adopting Astrid and Ariana at the time—was because Eli’s furniture business blew up online, and he needed help dealing with the customers.

“I’ll talk to you later, okay? Looks like Eli’s got his hands full,” I say to Daisy.

“Go. Go. You told me you don’t get to spend much time with Nicole anymore, right?”

“Yeah. We have to schedule our weekly visits here or we’d never see her at all.”

“Teenagers.” Daisy rolls her eyes, laughing.

I grin as I waddle toward our table. I pull out a chair and take my seat.

“You should’ve let me take care of the payment,” Eli says. “You need to stop moving around so much.”

“I wasn’t just paying. I wanted to chat with Daisy, too.”

“I know. You can talk about the city and stuff.”

Eli still thinks I miss living in the city and working a high-powered job. The truth is, Daisy and I never discuss the city at all.

But there’s no need to tell Eli that because we talk about our kids and our men instead.

Eli doesn’t need to know that I’ve told Daisy about our seven-year separation and Nicole’s origins.

He also doesn’t need to know that even though Caine and Daisy first met at the hospital where she worked as a nurse, the next time they met was when she was moonlighting as a lingerie waitress. I was shocked when sweet, soft-spoken Daisy told me that after seeing her half-naked, Caine had paid her a large amount of money so she’d live in his apartment for a month.

I mean, I love my life. And, as far as I can tell, Daisy loves hers, too.

But when day after day I spend my time looking after my kids, sometimes it’s fun to talk about my grown-up life before the children came.

Nicole is fourteen now, so we can at least talk about make-up and boys. She has also asked me about her mom, Angela, and I told her the truth.

I told Nicole that Angela and I had used to be friends when we were her age but then stopped being close before she had a baby and left town. I also told her about Angela applying for a job at the office where I had worked in the city, which was the last time any of us ever heard from her.

Nicole had a lot of questions for me to answer, but I didn’t have much to tell her. Still, Eli and I are probably Nicole’s only sources of information on her biological mom because she lives with her Grandma, who still doesn’t like to talk about her missing daughter.

Eli and I moved out into our own place when we got married. We had the chance to christen every room in the house before we adopted Astrid and Ariana, who are biological twins. They were only two years old when we got them, and they’re seven now.

I don’t know what we were thinking when we decided we could handle twins. To be fair, though, we love them and they seem to be happy, well-adjusted girls.

Even Astrid and Ariana are starting to grow more independent from us day by day. They’re eating on their own, taking the school bus on their own, and . . .

“Mom, we need to use the restroom,” Ariana announces.

“Yeah. Restroom,” Astrid parrots her sister.

I start to get up from my chair, but Eli puts his hand on my shoulder. “You should stay, pregnant lady.”

“Yeah, Mom. We can go ourselves,” Ariana says as she walks away.

Astrid says nothing as she turns her back on us, trailing behind her sister.

“Can you go with them?” Eli asks Nicole.

“Sure,” she says reluctantly, her head buried in her phone as she makes her way to the restroom, too.

Eli and I exchange a look.

“You think a boy will be easier?” I ask.

Eli laughs. “Not a chance, if he’s anything like I was.”

“You were a good kid. You helped your mom a lot, and you even helped raise Nicole.”

“Yeah. That was when I was older,” Eli says. “When I was the twins’ age? Trust me, I wasn’t an easy kid to deal with.” He notices the worry in my eyes and adds, “We’ll be okay, though. I promise you.”

“Yeah. I know.” I turn to look at the door of the restroom. “Do you remember when I hid in there, waiting for you to leave the shop?”

“Of course,” Eli says, laughing. “It feels like yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

We share a wistful look, wrapped up in our own little, private moment—a rare thing these days, with two young kids in the house.

“Did you ever regret . . .” I let my sentence hang in the air as I rethink my words. “Never mind. I’m being silly. Silly, pregnant lady.”

“Come on. You can’t just stop there.”

“Did you ever regret not having more biological kids?” I let out a sigh. “It’s been seven years. I know we’re lucky I’m even pregnant at all, but you could’ve had up to seven biological kids by now if you were with someone else.”

“Princess . . .” Eli takes my hand and looks into my eyes. “I have no regrets. My life is perfect.

“I was an idiot when I told you the thing about wanting, like, ten kids. Now that we have . . . two and a half and another one on the way, I—”

“Wait a minute. Does Nicole count as a half?” I laugh.

“Yeah. We kind of share custody of her with my mom.” Eli shrugs. “Anyway, we’re going to have three and a half soon, and we’ve got our hands full, wouldn’t you say?”

I nod. “I guess . . .”

“I wouldn’t say no to more if that’s what you want. But, I’m perfectly happy with what we have,” Eli says. “Things may not always go according to plan. But I’ve learned that if you’re lucky and keep readjusting your plan as life happens, you may end up somewhere amazing, still.”

“And you’re lucky?” I ask even though I already know his answer.

“The luckiest man alive.” Eli leans in and kisses my smile.

“And you’ve made me the luckiest woman alive.”

* * *

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed Sophia and Eli’s story.

Mountain Man’s Baby Plan is also available in the , which contains SEVEN stand-alone romances and bonus, exclusive chapters, featuring the seven couples from the stories included in the box set:

• My Brother’s Best Friend
• Mountain Man’s Baby Plan
• Knocked Up
• Baby for My Brother’s Friend
• Again
• Royal Beast
• My Brother’s Friend, the Dom