Epilogue
Four months later
“I still don’t understand why you won’t tell me more about your older brother. It’s bad enough you’ve kept him a secret all this time. The least you could do is answer a few questions about the man.”
Jake sighed as his beautiful, bossy bride took the lead on the dance floor and tried to squeeze classified info out of him like a sexy spy on a mission.
“Why is he the only one that kept the Carmichael name? And how is it that you went from barely speaking to the guy to him becoming your best man? And holy crap, is he hitting on my sister?”
That last one caught Jake’s attention, as well. When he looked over to where Megan was standing, sure enough, there was Carter. Huh.
Yeah, he wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. Those two were consenting adults. They were possibly the most ill-conceived match on the planet, but, then again, most would’ve said the same thing about his relationship with Emma. So again, he was giving that entire situation a wide berth.
“I’m sure he’s just talking to her about her house,” hazarded Jake, knowing that had to be at least partially true. He’d caught Carter jotting down various things that needed fixing at Megan’s house. Jake had no doubt he’d be getting a nice covert to-do list when he and Emma came back from their honeymoon.
As far as he knew, Megan still didn’t know that Carter was the man behind a lot of the financial help throughout her life. So that meant Carter would be expecting him to get creative on getting Megan to accept his “help.”
Having Carter back in his life again was a lot of work.
But it was . . . nice.
When it looked as if Emma was getting ready to launch another wave of questions, he quickly diverted her attention to a more pressing, very real concern. “Sweetheart, are you sure I’m not going to poison all our guests?”
A doting smile overtook her features as she finally refocused all her attention back on him. “We’ve gone over this. Your last few practice runs turned out great. Everyone’s going to love the wedding cake. You’re stressed over nothing.”
He gave the leaning five-tiered cake he’d baked and spackled with frosting that morning another dubious look before replying. “Don’t play Miss Cool Cucumber. You’re one to talk. I saw you continuously peeking up at the wedding arch you’d built like it was going to fall atop our heads.”
“That’s different.” She sniffed, eyes shooting back over to the wedding arch in question now that he’d reminded her of it. They’d wrapped enough ivy and flowers around it so you almost couldn’t notice the copious amounts of duct tape Emma had used to reinforce certain areas.
“Really? How so?”
“Easy. I’m a much better teacher than you.”
He chuckled, then leaned in to whisper, “That’s not what you said the other night when we—”
Emma whacked him before he could finish that dirty recap.
“Aand, there she goes, folks,” called out Megan, shaking her head. “The first whack of their marriage. Glad to see that marriage hasn’t changed them one bit.”
The crowd laughed.
As did the bride and groom.
“She’s transformed so much,” murmured Emma proudly. “Six months ago, Megan would never have been able to host our wedding and reception in her backyard. But did you see her earlier? She was running the whole thing like a boss.”
Jake couldn’t agree more.
Their wedding had been perfect. With all their town friends in attendance and dressed to the nines, like the fifteen garden gnomes Megan had dressed in fancy little suits for the occasion.
Sans the tiny-pecker condoms.
Truth is, they no longer needed the condoms, seeing as how they’d decided to start trying for a baby the very night they’d gotten engaged. They knew better than most how important it was to live life to the fullest. And they were both ready. Business was booming, and the new home they’d moved into next door to Megan’s had a little room perfect for a nursery.
With a crib waiting for them the day they’d moved in, adorned with a big red bow.
Courtesy of Megan, whom they’d asked not only to be their future baby’s godmother but also to honor them with picking the baby’s middle name.
Megan, being Megan, had decided to keep them in suspense from that day forward, giving them wacky hints of the names she was thinking of, each crazier than the last.
Now, sitting on the deck opening wedding gifts with their siblings, Jake and Emma found that Megan had spent the past month knitting the most intricate baby blanket they’d ever seen. And in the corner of it, embroidered in a gender-neutral green was her middle-name choice for the baby.
Peyton.
Looking over at his beautiful, emotional wife, Jake leaned in to suggest quietly, “I say we make her pick again.”
At Emma’s shocked, dismayed expression, he quickly added with a smile as he wrapped his arms around her, “Because I think that would be perfect as a first name, don’t you?”
She gifted him with a stunning smile. “Peyton Rowan would be a strong name for a boy as rascally as his namesake.”
He chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. “Or a beautiful name for a girl as adorable as her mom.”
She deployed her freckles happily. “Peyton Rowan it is.” Looking around at their family and friends all gushing over the beautiful blanket, she whispered in his ear, “Should we tell them already?”
Jake felt his heart nearly bust out of his chest again, same as it had three nights ago when Emma had first told him—in her cute, bossy way—that he needed to be in charge of finding their something old, something borrowed, and something blue, because FYI, she already had the “new” part taken care of.
Immediately he’d known just the thing to satisfy all three requirements.
After kissing the hell out of Emma, he’d hopped Megan’s fence and “borrowed” the old blue yarn blob that had been serving as Gnomeo the garden gnome’s beret since the night of her first barbecue.
Given the way everything had worked out for him and Emma, it seemed fitting that the blob got to reinvent itself a second time, as well.
Turned out all the blob needed was a simple wooden frame . . . to turn into a perfect fluffy little cradle, just big enough to nestle the ultrasound printout Emma had surprised him with that night. In more ways than one.
“I have a better question,” he whispered back to his beautiful wife, his hand gently rubbing her tummy. “Have you decided which of my siblings you’re going to ask to pick the other baby’s name yet?”