Indoor camping proved not to be one of Harley’s better ideas. He woke, crick in neck, numb in ass, and having aged forty years to a cranky old man. Camping or glamping was for young bucks, or at least fully grown men who didn’t have a fully grown woman using them as a mattress for most of the night.

Harley winced defensively as Bree, draped mostly on top of him, stirred in her sleep and almost kneed him in the nuts. Not her fault since they were jammed together in the zipped-up sleeping bag with very little wriggle room. Shit. It’d sounded a lot more romantic than it actually was.

He stared up at the roof of the tent in the dim early morning light and felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. She’d been a good sport about his crazy idea of camping indoors, throwing herself into playing with the sand toys with Tāne and toasting marshmallows with Carter. Then giggling like a teenager as the two of them wedged themselves into the sleeping bag and tried to find a comfortable position on the wooden floor.

Which, trust him, was virtually impossible.

He stroked a hand down the curve of her spine and cupped a firm butt cheek encased in thin pajama bottoms. She murmured in her sleep, her fingers tightening on his biceps where they rested. Was she dreaming of him? After months of married life, of him unintentionally—and okay, sometimes intentionally—doing little male things like flipping the toilet roll to over when Bree insisted under was correct…was he still the hero of her dreams?

Or had some smooth-talking, designer-stubbled actor who didn’t challenge her about, well, almost everything replaced him in her nocturnal adventures?

His mates, other than West, didn’t understand what having a baby meant to a couple. Yeah, Ben had the two girls, but they didn’t require twenty-four-hour supervision. West got part of it. Holding your child for the first time changed a man—changed a relationship—at a cellular level. But West didn’t have the sort of childhood that Harley and Ford had survived. He wouldn’t have experienced that gut-wrenching doubt that he’d somehow screw up such perfect innocence. The fear that overtook him the first night that Tāne wouldn’t be comforted and screamed at an unbearable decibel for over an hour.

He blew out a long sigh. Every time he thought he’d gotten a grip on this parenthood thing, something happened to yank the rug out from under him. But it’d been a hell of a ride sharing it with the amazing woman curled around him.

Through the nylon sides of his tent, Harley heard the familiar grizzling whimpers of Tāne waking. For the first few weeks after he was born, Harley had barely slept—and not because the baby woke him with his regular feeding times. Night after night he’d risen to check on his sleeping son, marveling, heart in his throat, that he and Bree had created someone so perfect.

Although his kid, by the very fact of being born a Komeke, could also be a perfect pain in the butt.

Harley unzipped the side of the sleeping bag with one hand and managed to ease out from under Bree without waking her. He slipped out of their tent and into the kids’, grinning at Carter who was curled on one side like a prawn holding the edges of the sleeping bag tight around his head and neck. The boy looked like a cross between a turtle and a Jedi knight.

With Carter still fast asleep, Harley crawled farther into the tent and peered over the top of the portable crib. Two wide-open brown eyes stared back at him. The grizzles immediately ceased and the Komeke grin spread from ear to ear on his boy’s face.

“Morena, son,” Harley whispered. “Time for breakfast, eh?”

Tāne gurgled and kicked his legs under the blanket. The boy was gonna have strong kicking legs when he got older, and his Uncle Ford had already envisioned him playing in the kids’ rugby team he coached. Though, considering his boy’s skill at smearing food over his high chair, maybe he had more of Harley’s artistic talent.

He scooped the baby up in his arms and held him close to his chest as he backed out of the tent. Tāne latched onto Harley’s hair and yanked.

“Mate, maybe Santa left me a toupee under the tree so you can pull my hair to your heart’s content.”

Tāne just gave a delightful belly laugh and yanked again. Harley rolled onto his back and lifted his son into the air above him, wincing as his scalp bore the brunt of the move.

“Are you going to be one of those boys who pull girls’ hair to show they like them?”

Tāne gurgled around the fist he now sucked on, his little onesie-covered legs kicking.

“We’ll address that when you get a little older, eh?”

Harley rolled his head sideways to the morning sunlight streaming through the studio’s picture windows. Baubles on the Christmas tree sparked red and green fire and the tinsel was almost blinding. Beneath the tree were neatly wrapped gifts—courtesy of Bree whose gift-wrapping skills were badass—one of them for Carter containing a set of clues which would eventually lead to the four-wheeler junior quad bike stashed in Ford’s garage. He grinned, picturing Carter’s face when he and his two ‘uncles’ took him for a ride with them on their bikes. And then, when Tāne was a little older…

Tāne’s fist slipped out of his mouth with a pop and that sound was followed by the well-rehearsed where’s my breakfast? grizzle.

“Hungry, little one?”

He returned to his tent to find Bree had woken up and was sitting cross-legged inside the sleeping bag with it draped over her head—like mother, like older son. She slitted a sleepy-eyed glance at them.

“What time is it?”

“Boob time,” he said.

“Always the same with you Komeke males.” She gave him a saucy smile as she held out her hands for the baby.

“We’ve got good taste.” He placed Tāne into her arms, his stomach and chest giving the familiar warm squeeze at the sight of his beautiful wife nursing their beautiful son.

Once the baby was settled, Harley cupped Bree’s jaw and leaned in for an extended good morning kiss. He eventually drew back when Tāne, sandwiched between them, discovered his dad’s chest hairs. In the tent next to them came the rustling sounds of Carter waking up. His artist’s eye skimmed over Bree’s mussed hair peeping out of the sleeping bag, the peace and love smoothing her features as she glanced from him to their baby. She really was Papatūānuku nourishing the first man, Tāne.

Her gaze flicked up to his again, this time narrowed with suspicion.

“You’re thinking about painting me, aren’t you?”

His woman knew him far too well. He pulled a who me? face and sat beside her, dropping a kiss on her temple. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Fine.” She sniffed. “But no boobs in your painting. It’s bad enough everyone thinks they’ve seen me naked thanks to the woman in red painting.”

He chuckled. “You look particularly sexy rendered in oils.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “You’re lucky I love you.”

He was. So, so lucky she loved him. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

“I love you, too,” Harley whispered. “Meri Kirihimete, baby.”