Epilogue
“Get back here, Liam!” I screeched. “You’re not supposed to touch Mommy’s mixer!”
The mixer that I had at home wasn’t an industrial mixer like the one I had at my bakery, The Sweetest Sass, but I liked to back small batches at home for my family. I’d had identical twins the first time and I was already pregnant again. I couldn’t run after Liam as fast as I wanted to.
Liam had one of the attachments to my mixer in his mouth, a whisk attachment. He wasn’t at risk of cutting himself, but it was never good to have something metal in his mouth. I knew that he’d stolen it to lick the sweet cookie dough off.
“Quinton,” I shouted. “Get in here and help me with Liam.”
Zac wasn’t a little rocket like his brother. He had to be part owl, sitting there with literal puppy dog eyes.
“You wouldn’t steal part of Mommy’s mixer, now, would you, Zacky?”
He shook his little wolfy head.
“That’s right, baby,” I said. “You’d let Mommy sneak you some.” I reached into the bowl, took a pinch of dough, and dropped it into Zac’s waiting mouth. He was an angel.
Sometimes it was hard to believe that Liam was just a shifter, because he had to have a drop of demon in him. While Zac was placid and calm, Liam was a ball of mischievous energy. He was constantly getting into things that he shouldn’t.
Quinton came down the stairs. “What has he done now?”
“He stole part of my mixer. Could you get it back?”
“Sure thing,” he said, stealing a kiss. “Where’d he go?”
“Outside, through the dog door.”
Quinton shed his clothes quickly before shifting into wolf shape, trotting outside. His wolf could keep up with a puppy.
“Are you making cookies?” Orion said. I hadn’t heard him come down the stairs. The twins had woken me up at the crack of dawn. I’d let their fathers sleep in, since we were all a little short on sleep.
My sons preferred to wear wolf-skin, since they could do much more as wolf cubs than human babies.
“Yes, if your son hadn’t interrupted.”
“Why is he my son when he’s in trouble?”
“He’s always your son,” I said, tilting my face up for a kiss. He dropped a hard, fast kiss on my mouth. “But he’s also always in trouble.”
“What about our other one?”
“Zac’s right here, aren’t you, precious?”
Zac trotted over to his father and pawed at his calf. Orion scooped him up in his arms and kissed his little nose.
I loved looking at the two of them together. Honestly, I had no idea how other families did it with only two parents. The three of us could barely keep track of two little boys. Sometimes it felt like six of us wouldn’t be able to handle two boys, especially when one was a constant explosion like Liam was.
I washed my hands and went back to scooping up little chunks of cookie dough and popping them onto a lined cookie sheet. The oven had been pre-heated, so it was just a matter of waiting.
“What kind of cookies are those?” Orion said.
“Reverse chocolate chip. White chocolate chips with chocolate dough.” I finished scooping out the cookies. “You can lick the spoon.”
I popped it into his mouth and slowly withdrew it. The look in his eyes as he ate it meant that the two of us would be doing something very adult later tonight.
“Tastes delicious,” he said, jostling Zac, who was beginning to wiggle. Zac liked affection, but he also liked to walk around on his own. Orion crouched down and let our son go. Zac went out the dog door, probably to observe his brother’s antics and analyze them. He was already a scientist while Liam was a perpetual-motion machine.
“While we’re alone,” Orion said, “let me take advantage of a few seconds.” He kissed me hard and deep. The passion between the three of us hadn’t faded during the months of our marriage. I’d had a quick and easy birth, even with two kids, and we’d agreed to have babies soon after so that they’d be close in age.
I broke the kiss when I heard paws hitting the porch.
“I think Liam is back,” I groaned.
Quinton was nudging Liam into the kitchen with his nose. Zac was in the rear, just observing. Liam whined as he went in front of me and put the attachment on the ground.
I bent down to pat his head. “It’s okay, baby,” I said. “Mommy forgives you.” I picked up the attachment with my spare hand.
He licked my hand and then immediately raced outside to get into more trouble. Quinton chased after him. We couldn’t leave Liam alone for a minute. One time, he’d gotten into poison ivy. The entire household had been purely miserable alongside him. The incessant howling meant that we’d never let him go into the woods solo again. Zac began to investigate the extremely interesting pattern in the kitchen’s wood floor.
“You’re going into work today, right?” Orion leaned against the counter.
“Yeah, just for the afternoon and evening. Karen got sick, so I have to cover her shift. Do you think that you can handle the afternoon? You need to take the cookies out of the oven in 20 minutes and let them cool.”
“Piece of cake,” Orion said.
Famous last words.
* * *
When I drove home that night, tired from helping customers during the extra shift at The Sweetest Sass, all the lights were on the house. I could see Orion holding Liam in his arms. He wasn’t cuddling him. He seemed to be scolding him. I parked and got out.
“What’s happening?” I asked as I pushed the door open.
“Liam stole my wallet, and we can’t find it.”
I sighed. Other puppies chewed shoes. Liam stole things. He wasn’t at the stage where he understood the concept of theft and property. We also knew that he would dig holes for things. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem. His fathers could sniff out where he’d hidden stuff.
Except Liam loved to bury things in the mud of the pond that was behind our house.
“You can call the banks in the morning to get new cards.” Even if we found Orion’s wallet, odds were that everything inside would need to be destroyed. Everything would be too muddy to use.
“I will,” he said. “Who knew that were-cubs could be so mischievous?”
“I think we got lucky,” I said drily. “But according to your mother, you were just the same.”
“I was as good as Zac,” he protested.
“Uh huh,” I said. “I’ve seen the pictures of you smeared in mud. Liam isn’t the only one in this family who likes to play with mud.”
“But you love us anyway,” he said, bringing Liam’s muddy body close to me as he swooped in for a kiss on my temple. I didn’t mind the mud on my clothes. I could was it. I snuggled my baby close and kissed his furry little head.
“Where’s Quinton? Zac?” I gave Liam back to his father.
“Quinton was upstairs giving Zac a quick bath. There was splashing involved.”
Zac loved bath time. He especially loved getting everyone and everything in the room wet while he played in the water.
A few seconds later, I could hear the thuds of Quinton’s footsteps coming down the stairs. He was holding Zac in his arms, a big fluffy brown-streaked towel around him.
“Someone else was playing with mud,” I see.
“It was mostly his paws, not a full-body smear like Liam.” Quinton brought him to me. I breathed in his clean baby scent and kissed his nose.
“No matter how much mud there is, I wouldn’t trade our little family for anything. I love you all so much I can barely contain it.”
“Same,” Orion and Quinton said.
THE END