GRACIE
I PRY MY EYES OPEN and spend a few seconds trying to get my bearings. My mouth feels like a nun’s noonie and tastes like something has crawled into it and died.
I’d come to bed almost as soon as we’d got home last night, but Koa had stayed up with Kai. He understandably wanted to check that his son was doing okay after everything kicked off the way that it did at Shannon and Dean’s.
As I headed up the stairs, they were sitting in front of the fire talking.
I must’ve crashed as soon as my head hit the pillow; the same head that feels like Michael Flatley is river dancing his way around it in spiked heels.
The sound of a loud knock carries through the house, and I realise it was that sound that woke me.
I turn my head to face Koa, who is flat on his back, mouth hanging open, sleeping like a starfish. The sound of his phone ringing echoes through the house, and I know that it’s gonna be up to me to go and deal with another crazy ex.
Luckily, I’m fully clothed, well, wearing a decent pair of PJs, at least. Ignoring the performance going on in my head, I run into the bathroom, find a scrunchy and throw my hair up in a bun. Thankfully, I removed my makeup before getting into bed last night, so I don’t look too bad.
“Koa,” I call as I walk back towards the bed.
Nothing.
I pull the quilt back and can’t help but to lick my lips at the sight of his big, hard body lying in my bed. He’s wearing Under Armour trunks in a silvery colour, and they outline his semi-hard dick perfectly. Shame I’m not gonna have time to enjoy that anytime soon.
“Koa,” I tug on his beard this time, and he finally stirs. “Round two, Cowboy. Your other psycho-bitch-ex is at the door. I’m gonna go open it before she knocks it down. Splash your face and clean your teeth, you smell like a brewery,” I order.
His eyes open, and he gives me the most beautiful smile I’ve ever been on the receiving end of.
“I think I wanna marry you,” he sings croakily. I’m stunned into silence for a few moments.
“What?”
Another bang at the front door has me worried that the stained glass is gonna rattle out of its frame and smash to the floor.
“All right,” I call out. “Hold your horses.”
The smile disappears from Koa’s face as he finally catches up and scissors from the bed.
“Splash your face, clean your teeth. I’ll head ’em off at the pass, Cowboy.”
He slaps my arse, and I give a “Yee-haw,” twirling my invisible lasso around my head as I gallop to the door as if I’m riding a horse.
His discombobulated marriage proposal has caused an adrenalin high to rush through my system, and I’m feeling a little out of control.
I hit the bottom stair and can see the outline of two people right in front of the door. One tall, one small. I swing it open.
“Who’a you? Where’s Daddy? I like your jammies.”
I look down at another clone of Koa. This version is tiny, petite, and female. She marches right by me. I reluctantly turn my attention to the woman still standing on the front veranda.
“Morning,” I offer cheerily.
She’s stunning in an overly made up for seven in the morning Kate Beckinsale kind of way.
“Where’s Koa?” She ignores my greeting, much like I expected.
“Just getting out of the shower, he won’t be a sec.”
“And you are?”
I debate whether to tell her I’m the brass he paid to spend the night giving him blowjobs and anal but decide it might be a tad inappropriate seeing as she’s about to leave her daughter in our care.
“I’m Gracie.”
“Daddy,” Malia shrieks from behind me, her little legs struggling to get up the stairs.
My eyes meet Koa’s and give a massive role as he swoops in and picks up his daughter.
“Good morning, baby girl. Look how much you’ve grown in two days. You’ll be taller than Kai soon.”
“I know. I know. I’m so big. Where’s Kai, can I see him?”
“Sure can, but first let me talk to Mommy, okay?”
“Ooookaaay.”
Once again, my emotions twist and tie themselves in knots inside me as I watch Koa interact with one of his children. I’ve become an expert at swallowing the sensation of constantly forming lumps in my throat.
Koa moves down the stairs effortlessly with his daughter on his hip. He’s pulled on a loose pair of jogging bottoms and a grey T-shirt. His feet are bare, and the mere sight of them together makes my ovaries attempt to combust.
When he reaches me, he kisses my temple and throws his arm over my shoulder.
“You picking her up Sunday?” he questions.
“That’s what I said on the phone, isn’t it? Who’s she?”
“Wow, excuse me?” I don’t even attempt to keep my trap shut. That was rude.
“Gracie, forgive me. This is Lucy, Malia’s mother. Lucy, this is my girl, Gracie.”
“Your girl, Koa? Aren’t you a bit old for girls?”
“I like your hair, Gracie.” Malia reaches out and touches my bun as she speaks. “Can Gracie hold me, Daddy? The whiskers on your arms make me itchy.” She leans forward and launches herself into my arms. Koa has no choice but to let go, and I have no choice but to catch her.
“Girl, woman, call her what you like, Lucy. Like it or don’t. All you need to know is that she’s mine.” Koa kisses my temple again while Malia plays with the colourful strands of my hair.
“Mine, too,” Malia cheers. “Gracie’s mine, too! Right, Daddy?” Her little hands reach out and capture Koa’s face, and she squishes his cheeks together.
How can this woman’s heart not burst at watching them together? How could she have had this and walked away? What material thing is there that could replace witnessing and being a part of this every day? What Koa has with his kids is something that money can’t buy. I have no answers to any of those questions.
My entire body is humming, and I’m more hyper now than I was when Koa first opened his eyes and asked me to marry him just a few minutes ago.
I want that. I want him, this, his kids, our kids. I want it all. Everything.
THE DINER FALLS SILENT AS we walk through the door. It probably doesn’t fall completely silent, that’s just in my head. Still, a lot of the conversations definitely come to a halt, and a number of heads turn our way.
Malia has a tight grip on my hand and is swinging it to and fro as we wait our turn to be seated. After her mum left, all she wanted to do was head into town for pancakes at the diner her brother has told her about, so after a quick shower and a few words of encouragement aimed at Kai to help him get out of bed and moving, we all bundled into Koa’s truck.
A winter market and festival is going on in town, so it had taken us a while to get parked, and it is probably gonna take a while before we actually get to eat.
“I’m hungry,” Malia declares for the twenty-seventh time.
“Hey, Kai, when did you get back?” The cute blonde waitress that approaches us asks.
“Hey, Ruby. Wednesday. Just here for the weekend, but I’ll be back for good by Christmas.”
Koa clears his throat. “We’ll see. Table for four please, Ruby.”
“No problem, Mr Carmichael, we’re just getting table eleven cleared for you.”
Koa gives a nod as his eyes scan the room.
“Mr Carmichael? You old git,” I tease.
“What’s a git?” Malia asks. I thought I’d said it quietly, apparently not.
“Shit,” I whisper between my teeth.
“Oooh. Gracie said a bad word, Daddy.”
“Boll—sheet, I said sheet. We need to remember to put the sheets on your new bed when we get home,” I lie.
We haven’t shown Malia her pink palace yet. I thought we were gonna have today to get it finished, but her arrival early this morning has put paid to that. Koa has a couple of his blokes coming over later to fix the timber butterflies we bought last weekend to the ceiling, then the room will be ready to be dressed. I don’t want her seeing it until then.
“Gonna have to watch that dirty mouth around my kid, Essex. She has radar hearing.”
“Sorry. I’m not used to being around children.”
He gives me a half smile. “Best get used to it then.”
He’s been a bit quiet since Malia arrived, or is it since his ex-wife left? The woman’s a complete arsehole, and I’ve no clue how Koa ended up married to two total bitches. One a drunken psycho, the other a straight-up C-U-Next-Tuesday.
Ruby returns, fluttering her eyelashes at Kai and guides us to our booth. Kai and Koa slide in one side, Malia next to me opposite of them.
At her insistence, she’s wearing one of my beanies on her head, and despite the fact that I rolled it up a couple times, it’s still way too big and sliding over her eyes.
She sits up on her knees and rests her elbows on the table.
“Pancakes, please. Just syrup, no bacon. Thank you,” she tells Ruby, who hasn’t even begun taking our orders yet.
“Wait up, Lia,” Kai tells her. She sticks her tongue out at him in response.
“You all right?” I ask Koa. “You’re very quiet.”
“Hung-over more like. Can’t hold your liquor like you used to, huh, old man?” Kai quips.
“I can hold my liquor fine, boy. Just got a lot on my mind.” He winks at me, and I melt into the PVC seat.
Ruby takes our drinks orders—green tea is now on the menu—and hands Malia a cup full of crayons so she can colour the picture on the back of her kid’s menu.
I skim my eyes over my menu and then flick them to Koa, who’s fidgeting in his seat. Kai’s scrolling through his phone, and Malia’s humming to herself as she colours in a mermaid, so I kick his foot under the table to get his attention. He puts his menu down and looks at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask just as Ruby arrives with our drinks and Malia’s pancakes. Koa shakes his head at me. I frown in confusion.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
My mind trips right into full-on overdrive, and I begin speculating about what I might’ve done to piss him off. Though, he doesn’t appear pissed off, just a little quiet and maybe agitated or uncomfortable.
I think back to earlier this morning when he first opened his eyes and sang, “I think I wanna marry you.” Perhaps he’s regretting that? Or concerned that I might have actually taken him seriously.
Pffft.
Not at all.
Okay, for a split second.
Maybe.
Okay, so I admit, I went to Pinterest and may have started researching Aspen weddings.
Malia stops her humming long enough to order her pancakes, and Koa tells Kai to put his phone away before the rest of us place our orders.
The lack of conversation makes everything uncomfortable, and I rack my brain for something to say that’s not too random.
“So, your names, are they all Hawaiian?”
“Mine is. It means Mary in Hawaiian. Like baby Jesus’s mom, and Daddy’s great grandma who comes from Hawaiian land. Right, Daddy?” Malia says all that without looking up from her now purple-and-pink haired mermaid.
“Right, baby girl.”
“What’s yours mean?” I ask Kai.
“Ocean or sea,” he tells me.
“You have middle names?”
“I do. Malia Lucinda Carmichael. Age four,” she announces proudly and holds up four fingers.
I get my first genuine smile since we arrived from Koa, causing involuntary pelvic floor contractions to start.
“Hmmm. MLC, I can’t really do anything with that.”
Koa raises his eyebrows and chin questioningly.
“I like to shorten people’s names according to their initials, Kimmie and Ryan don’t have middle names, but their surname’s O’Donaghue, so they’re Kod and Rod, but I can’t do anything with MLC. What’s yours?”
“Dad and I both have the same, but that’s not—”
“Important,” Koa interrupts his son. “Middle names are not worth worrying about. I don’t know why people bother with them.”
I notice Kai grinning as Koa speaks.
“What?” Kai laughs harder and starts shaking his head. “What is it?” I ask again.
“Kai,” Koa warns.
“It’s Orlando.”
“What is?”
“Our middle names. They are Orlando.”
Hmmm. Different. But again, I like it.
I take a sip of my tea, and then I spray it across the table when I fail to contain the laugh that bursts from me.
“Koc,” I announce in a fit of laughter. “You’re a pair of Kocs.”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo,” Malia crows.
Kai throws his head back and laughs. Koa tears his napkin into tiny pieces while shaking his head at me.
“I’m changing that on my phone right now. You are so going in my contacts as Koc.”
Malia is now standing on the bench seat and attempting a cockerel impersonation with her bent arms and crowing as our food arrives. I catch my breath long enough to spot Danielle approaching our table, Misty hovering in the background. Every ounce of humour is suddenly sucked from the room.
“Seriously?” I look at Koa and ask. “One day. Just one day without this sh—nonsense would make my life happy.”
He looks to see what I’m talking about before he closes his eyes and groans.
“Well, ain’t this cosy? Not sure what happened to my invite, son, but I didn’t get it.”
I twist sideways in my seat away from them and try to distract Malia by getting her to sit down and eat. She doesn’t need to witness Danielle’s poison.
Ruby leaves us without a word. Danielle doesn’t. She folds her arms over her belly and stands there glaring at us.
“Didn’t send you an invite, because I don’t want you here, Mom. I told you last night in my text that until you get yourself sober, I don’t want you in my life.”
“I’ll get sober when I’m good and ready, son. Ain’t you or nobody else gonna tell me when or what I can drink.”
I watch as Martha moves from around the counter and heads our way.
“Well, then, you need to stay away from me until you are good and ready because I want nothing to do with you until that time. And don’t bother calling or texting me, I’ve blocked your number.”
“Okay, Dani, knock it off. Out, the pair of ya,” Martha orders.
I’ve chopped Malia’s pancake into tiny pieces, and I keep looking at her, rather than getting involved in what’s going on around us.
“Me? You’re throwing me out? So, Mr Hotshot, who hasn’t shown his face in town for how long, comes waltzing back, and it’s me you’re throwing out?”
“Koa might not have been around in recent times, but Kai comes in regularly with the rest of the construction guys, and I’d rather have his business than yours any day of the week. So, yeah, it’s you I’m throwing out. So scoot before I call the cops.”
“Ha, who needs the police when you’ve got the queen of fucking England here? Have you met Koa’s next baby momma?”
“Watch your mouth, Danielle,” Koa warns her.
“Mom, please don’t keep doing this.” Kai’s eyes fill with tears as he pleads. Malia senses the tone of her brother’s voice and looks up as a tear falls from his lashes to his cheek and her little chin starts to tremble.
I lose my shit.
“Out!” I turn and slide from the booth. “Get the fuck out. Go away and drink your sad and lonely little life away down some alley or in some park, anywhere but near my family and me.”
I push Danielle as hard as I can in the chest, and since she’s plastered at eleven in the morning, she can’t keep her balance and lands flat on her arse.
Koa’s right beside me, and I hear Malia crying over my shoulder. “Sorry,” I shout out to anyone that wants to listen. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have sworn or pushed her, but fuck me, she’s getting on my last nerve.”
All I hear is Koa saying quietly, “You called us your family. I’m so gonna marry the shit out of you, Essex.”
I struggle to contain the smile that wants to escape and spread across my lips. Then, when Danielle slips twice before managing to get up on her feet, I actually laugh, and that’s when Sheriff Nelson comes walking through the door.
“Carmichael, Ms Elliott. However did I spend my days before you two arrived in town?”
TWO HOURS LATER, THE WHOLE ugly encounter has been pretty much forgotten. We’ve wandered around the market and chosen two Christmas trees to be delivered on Saturday, bought a ton of hand-carved decorations, and eaten two bags of doughnut holes between us.
We’re now watching Malia while she gets her face painted and transformed into a stunningly sparkly, pink-and-purple butterfly.
Koa hasn’t stopped smiling at me since Dinnergate, but he still seems a little worked up about something and hasn’t ceased fidgeting.
“Do I need to get you one of those spinner things the kids were all going mad over earlier in the year?”
“What spinner things?”
“A fidget spinner. Parents give them to kids that can’t sit still. What’s wrong with you today, you got ants in your pants?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“What? Wha’d’ya mean?”
“Those wipes of yours that you left in my bathroom, they’ve made my ass sore,” he bends his knees and lowers himself so he can talk directly into my ear.
“What wipes?” I’m confused.
“Those wipes you have, the ones I asked you about when I helped you first unpack, there’s a packet of them you left in my bathroom. I’ve been using them all week, and they’ve made my ass itch like fuck.”
“I didn’t leave any—” My hand comes up to cover my mouth as realisation hits me. “Oh, Koa.” I desperately suck in my cheeks and try not to laugh.
“What?”
“They’re not arse wipes, my love. They’re lemon scented bleach wipes I found in your utility room that I used to clean your toilet with.”
“What?” He frowns and looks thoroughly pissed off as he processes what I’m telling him.
“So, let me get this straight, I’ve been lemon scenting and bleaching my asshole all week?”
“’Fraid so, babe. No wonder it’s sore. At least it’s clean and smells nice, though.” I snort as I attempt to talk and laugh at the same time.
“Fuck off.”
“Babe, come on, it’s funny.”
“I might’ve done permanent damage.”
“Awww, you need a cuddle, Princess?”
“Your bedside manner sucks.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that already.”
“That was the other week, before you loved me.”
I begin to choke on thin air. Did I hear him right?
“Before I what?”
He wraps his arms around my shoulders and looks down at me. My eyes dart to Malia, who’s chatting to the girl painting her face, who’s busy giving Kai her number.
“Before you loved me, Essex.”
“Who says I love you now?”
“Me. You called us your family. You’re living under my roof, sleeping in my bed, and eating food at my table. You took on a woman that upset my kids—twice—and you called us your family. If you don’t love me yet, then I guarantee that you will before this weekend’s over.”
Emotion builds in my chest. My head, heart, and belly feel like they have fluffy pink clouds floating around in them. Teeny tiny pixie-like fairy people jump from one cloud to the other, shouting “Weeeee” in squeaky pixie voices as they go.
I open and close my mouth several times, but not a single word comes out.
“And just so you’re aware, I meant what I said earlier, I’m gonna marry the fuck outta you.”
“When?” I wheeze.
“Whenever we can make it happen. I looked online the other day at what needs to be done about a visa and all that kinda shit. We’ll get an agent, let them deal with it.”
“The other...but I...this is—”
“CowSex, Gracie. That’s what this is. Fuck KimKay, BrAngelina, Hollywood, their twenty-eight kids, and whoever the fuck else. What we’ve got is real. Our very own fairy tale. Once upon a time, a Cowboy tackled an Essex Girl to the ground, they had CowSex, filled a house full with CowSex babies, and lived happily ever after.”
“KimKay?” I don’t even bother to fight my smile.
“Whatever the fuck they’re called. Just say yes.”
“Is that the end?”
“If you say yes, it’ll just be the beginning.”
“Yes.”
He grins down at me as snow starts to fall.
“Really?”
“Nah, I was joking.”
His smile falters for a second but soon returns when he catches mine.
“Koa. Stop. What are you doing?”
He slides all the way down my body to his knees. Right there in the middle of the Christmas market people that were walking past, have now stopped to stare, and snow is falling all around us.
It’s exactly like a real-life fairy-tale. We even have wicked stepmothers and ugly sidekicks.
My eyes dart to Kai, who appears to be filming the whole thing on his phone. Face painter girl has stopped what she’s doing and is staring at us with her mouth open, and Malia is chatting to anyone that wants to listen about the butterfly tattoo she’s gonna get when she turns twelve.
“Marry me, Essex. Let’s take a chance, go crazy, and marry the fuck out of each other?”
“Koa,” I say his name on a whispered sob before I nod. “Yes. So much yes. Yes all the yeses. I’ll marry you.”
Koa climbs back to his feet in one swift move, grabs my hand, and holds it up. “She said yes, people. She said yes.”
That earns us a cheer from our growing crowd, and then Koa steps in and kisses me senseless.