Matt was up for a solid two hours before Natasha stirred. He did a short workout, then grabbed a shower and made coffee before grabbing a book and curling up next to her in bed.

She slept until nine-thirty, and when she finally woke up, grumpy-faced and beautiful, he was waiting beside her with an extra-big cup of coffee and a gentle kiss on her pouting lips.

“Do you want pancakes?”

She gave him a wide-eyed look. “I don’t know.”

“How about a bath?”

That got a very slow nod before she gingerly took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm. Good.”

“I’ve never seen you hungover before.”

“I haven’t been that drunk in forever.” She managed a half-smile. “It was fun, but…ouch.”

He grabbed the painkillers he’d set on the bedside table. “What can I offer you?”

She took two Tylenol, washed it down with more coffee, then handed back the cup and curled up under the blankets again. Bath might wait a while longer. “Thank you,” she mumbled from under the bedding.

Matt grinned. His pleasure. “How much of last night do you remember?”

There was a long, pregnant pause. “Uh,” she finally said, her voice muffled. “All of it?”

“Are you sure?”

“Why, what did I do?” She yanked the blankets down and gave him a stricken look. “What did I say?”

“Nothing bad,” he assured her. “Not bad at all. But…we got a bit dirty. And then we gave up on the dirty, because tequila.”

“I think I remember that.”

“And then when you were falling asleep, you got a bit sweet, too.”

She frowned. “I did? I don’t remember anything after I started hiccuping.”

“Aww, that’s too bad.” It had been adorable. Nuzzling, kissing, the world spinning around him as she brushed her lips against his ear and confessed—

“Did I say something about wanting another baby?” she whispered.

He grinned. “Yeah.”

She reached for her mug and took another ginger sip of her coffee. “Okay.”

“And I liked it.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t freak out.”

“Too late.”

He crawled under the covers with her and set her mug aside. “Come here.”

“I’m never drinking tequila again.”

He kissed her head. “You know what I’m going to say, right? We’ll do this at your pace. But that was really sweet. Remember that. You shared a little secret with me and I loved it. That’s all.”

There were some things they needed to do before they talked about babies for real.

They needed a dining room table.

The apartments had to be finished.

And he needed to make her some more promises. Grown-up ones.

Matt was a half-hour early for his next shift. He headed for the break room first to put his sub in the fridge.

Owen was waiting for him. “You’re early.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Got a few minutes to talk?”

The old Matt would have a snappy response here. Something about having an endless capacity for talking like a good little EMT. He could feel it rising inside, but instead of it exploding out without thought, this time he caught it. He was getting better at that. “Sure,” he said. Soft, reasonable. “What’s up?”

A whole new Matt.

“Just wanted to check in and see how everything’s going.”

He told his boss about the move to Wiarton. “That’s why I was early. Wasn’t sure about the weather on the drive, but it was fine.”

“Well, congratulations.”

“Thanks. Actually…” Matt glanced around, making sure they were still alone. “I could use a favour.”

Owen grinned. “Deja vu.”

“Yeah. You know, that course got all this started. That’s the week I met Natasha and her daughter. Which brings me to this. She’s in the middle of renovating her house, really close to the end. And I want to help get it done. So I know you’re already accommodating me six ways from Sunday, but I was wondering if I could put in a last-minute request for another week of vacation.”

Owen laughed. “Man, if you are voluntarily offering to take some down time—even if it’s to renovate a house—I am all over that. Yeah, sure, as long as it’s not in the next week.”

“Two or three weeks from now.”

“Consider it approved. Get me the exact dates at the end of your shift, okay?”

“Deal.”

Owen held out his hand. “And Matt—I want an invitation to the wedding.”

“You got it.” Matt clasped his friend’s hand and shook.

Demolition started the first week of February.

They backed Matt’s truck up to the back door and hauled the old tub out in pieces, hacked to bits with a reciprocating saw he borrowed from Jake. Then the old flooring and tiles came out by the shovel full. Natasha filled buckets and he carted them out to the bed of his truck, emptying them onto a tarp.

It took an entire day, with a pause for Tasha to pick up Emily from daycare and another at dinner.

The next day, the plumber came to move some of the rough-in pipes.

The day after that, Matt picked up a new bathtub and they got that into place all by themselves.

“Holy crap,” Natasha said after they wrestled it into place. “I can actually see how it’s going to come together.”

“Tomorrow, we put up the new drywall.” Matt slung his arm around Tasha’s waist. “And tonight we sleep like the dead.”

“I’m so glad we’re having someone else do the tiling,” she whispered. “I have DIY limits.”

By the end of Matt’s week off from work, they’d done all the walls, patching, and painted too. The tile work started next.

He did two night shifts back-to-back, and when he woke up from his morning nap after the second one, Emily was sitting on the bed next to him.

“Hey there, Miss Monkey,” he said groggily. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mm-kay.” He reached for his phone. One in the afternoon. He’d slept long enough, because he’d get a full sleep that night. “All right. I’m up. What’s going on?”

“Mommy said I should play in my room and be quiet.” She walked a pony onto his chest. “But that was boring.”

He laughed. “Well, sometimes I need to sleep, but this time it’s okay.”

“Do you want to play ponies?”

Natasha appeared in the doorway. “Emily!”

He waved his hand. “It’s fine, I’m up.” He swung his legs out of bed and stretched. “How goes the work in the apartments?”

“It’s all done. Well, grout tomorrow, but the tiles are all up. Do you want to come see?”

He grabbed a pair of socks and a hoodie, pulling those on over his sweatpants and t-shirt. “Are beavers frisky? Hell yeah.”

She giggled. “What does that mean?”

“It’s from a book Dani’s reading. I’ll tell you about it later.” He glanced at Emily. “Not for little ears.”

“What’s not for little ears?”

He picked Em up. “Don’t you worry about it. Want to go see a pretty new bathroom in the apartment?”

“Okay.”

Natasha beamed as she led the way, then presented the bathroom with a flourish—and it was totally deserved. She’d picked a really clever tile design, mostly big, white rectangles, but with a vertical stripe of tiny glass squares. It was modern and bright.

“Wow,” he said as he took it in. There was a matching tiny backsplash behind the mini sink—a total deal she’d scooped from the clearance bin at work. And the floor had a line of the glass tile running around the perimeter, too. “This is slick. I’m…speechless.”

“I know,” she whispered. “So I think I can take pictures tomorrow and get the listing up.”

That’s exactly what she did. Matt kept Emily busy as Natasha spent an hour on the phone with her sister hashing out the best language for the listing—”Do you think that will grab someone’s attention? What’s another word for cozy that doesn’t sound claustrophobic? Should I use the word romantic since Valentine’s Day is coming up? Right, I guess that would work year round, wouldn’t it?”—and then his phone vibrated.

He clicked on it, and it pulled up a listing on a vacation rental site.

She appeared in the doorway of Emily’s room, grinning. “Don’t you dare. They take a percentage of the sales.”

“But maybe if I book it right away, then it’ll tell them that it’s a hot commodity.”

Laughing, she flopped on Emily’s bed. “That’s not how it works. But…yay! It’s done! It’s live!”

Emily crawled on top of her. “Way to go, Mommy.”

“Aww, thank you, baby.”

Matt scooted over to the foot of the bed and wrapped his hand around Tasha’s calf. He squeezed, and she smiled down at him.

“Thank you, too,” she said softly. “For everything.”

“You worked hard for this. We should celebrate.”

“How about we wait until I get my first booking?”

He hesitated. What if it took a while? But he had faith in her. “Deal.”

It took five days.

By the fourth day, Natasha was a stress ball, and she’d gone back to her wall of ideas. “Maybe I should try finding a longer-term tenant,” she said, her arms tightly crossed in front of her body.

Matt stood behind her and hugged her. “Have some faith,” he murmured into her hair. “Maybe it’s the low season.”

She huffed a frustrated sigh.

But the next morning her phone vibrated, and when she checked it, she shrieked.

Matt and Emily both jumped.

She pressed her hand to her mouth and waved her phone at Matt. When he took it, he saw a booking request for three nights, arriving on Valentine’s Day.

“Calling it romantic paid off, eh?” He picked her up and swung her around before handing her phone back. “Go on, confirm the booking.”

She did that, dancing on the spot. “I have to call Meredith. She’s not going to believe this.”

“Yeah, she will.” Matt laughed. “She’s your biggest fan. Or one of them, anyway. She has competition here.”

“Eek!” Natasha dialled her sister’s number. “Mer! Guess what?”

She told her sister about the booking. “Yes, I’m putting on the kettle. Of course I am. It’s tea—” She stopped and looked at Matt. “Oh my God. A kettle.”

“What?”

“Mer, I have to call you back. Make tea, this will just take a few minutes.” She ended the call. “I didn’t get a kettle for the kitchenette in the apartment.”

“I’ll go and get one for you.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all. And I can pick up something special for dinner, too. What do you want?”

“Cheesecake.”

He cupped her face. “You’ve got it, rock star.”

After having a long-distance cup of tea with her sister, Natasha put on some music and had a dance party with Emily in the kitchen before going to her wall.

She already had a pre-guest-arrival list, but she wanted to triple-check it. And she should write her welcome and instruction emails in advance so she could have Matt beta-test them by pretending he was arriving at the house.

Once she was done that, she did a walk-through of the apartment. The crisp white bedding and perfectly folded towels in her brand-new bathroom made her so happy.

Chocolate, she realized. It would be a nice touch in both the bedroom nook and on the coffee table. She texted Matt.

Still shopping? How long did it take to pick out a kettle?

He texted fifteen minutes later that he was on his way home. Since the grocery store was a block and a half away, she kept a eye out for him. If he’d spent that long at the grocery store, he’d probably need help with bags.

But when he pulled up and got out of his truck, he only had one bag of groceries—and in his other hand, he had a gallon of paint.

She held the door for him, and he stopped to give her a kiss before setting the paint down on the front step.

Then he gave her the bag of groceries. “Put this in the kitchen, then come back out.”

“Oh-kay…” She gave him a curious look but he wasn’t giving anything up.

She did as instructed, stowing the cheesecake and chocolate on the counter. Then she pulled on her boots and coat and headed outside.

Matt was unloading lumber from the back of his truck.

“What…?”

He stopped and turned around. “Hey.” He held up his hand. “I also got a kettle. It’s on my passenger seat.”

“Okay.”

“Ah… And I stopped in to see Raj Patel while I was out. I used your employee discount. I hope you don’t mind.”

She walked down the steps, trying to figure out what his madness was all about. “What did you do?”

He closed the gap between them. “I bought wood.”

“I see that.”

“I want to build you a white picket fence.” He gestured at the snow-covered front yard. “Not now. I’ll put the wood in the basement until the ground thaws. See, it’s a bit of a tradition in my family that the men build houses for the women they love. But the woman I love already did that. You built a home for Emily, and let me crash land in it. So I want to add a fence, and hang a tire swing in the big oak out back for your daughter, and promise to be a part of every project big or small you dream of in the future.”

She was crying. It wasn’t even adorable tears, she was full-on bawling.

And Matt wasn’t done. “I know this isn’t what you were looking for. But it’s what I want with you. It’s what I want with Emily. I want a yard we can play soccer in, where she can kick the ball as hard as she wants, and it stays safely enclosed. I want a border around our space that says, inside these pickets is a family.”

Inside these pickets is a family. She couldn’t breathe.

His arms slid around her and she buried her face in his neck. “I want that.”

“Me, too,” he whispered. “I want to build this for you so you see it every day and know that no matter how bruised and jaded and broken you might feel, because life is rough, that I want to build castles in the sky for you. That I see how hard you work, and I appreciate you, and I want to honour you.”

“Matt…” She needed a fucking tissue. She swiped at her eyes with frozen fingertips. “That’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. You make me so happy, you big dork. A white picket fence?”

“Yeah.” He carefully touched her chin, lifting her face. “Happy is my middle name. Last and final version. And I was wondering if maybe you and Emily wanted to adopt it as a common middle name. Natasha Happy Kingsley, wife of Matt Happy Foster, who is the proudest step-dad in the world to Emily Happy Kingsley.” He stepped back, pulled a ring box out of his pocket, and lowered to one knee. “I didn’t get this at the lumber store.”

“What are you doing?” She whispered. One of the more ridiculous questions she’d ever asked, but she was awestruck. “You already got me a ring.”

“This one is more than a promise. This one is a vow.” He opened the box and pulled out a diamond solitaire. “Natasha, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said through fresh tears. “I’ll marry you tomorrow if you want.”

“You have guests arriving in a few days, maybe we should wait.” He slid the ring onto her left hand, then stood up. “I was thinking maybe Christmas Eve. Here. With our family. I can make stew and you and Emily can decorate the cupcakes.”