CHAPTER TWENTY
THREE WEEKS LATER.
I had the best baby in the entire world I’d decided after Annabelle started sleeping through the night a week ago. She would have a feed at nine p.m. and then sleep through until five a.m. That counted as all night to me. It meant I got time alone with Kai and enough sleep that I could function semi normally.
Kai was by far the best man I had ever met, and Gabe and Axel weren’t far behind him in that department. Before I met them, I didn’t know that people could be this genuinely selfless. They had all come for me when Trent had taken me. None of them had given any thought to their own wellbeing. They’d just acted on instinct.
I now knew there was literally nothing Kai wouldn’t do for me. Including filling condoms with water and freezing them to soothe my sore who-ha. I’d needed five stitches after giving birth to Annabelle, and from what I’d read, I’d gotten off lucky.
Gabe had told Kai to take a few weeks off to spend with me and Bubba while we all settled into a routine. Today, would be Kai’s first day back at work since she was born. “Daddy will be home soon, baby. You be a good girl for mumma now. No more projectile spews, yeah?” he cooed to her as he walked to the door with her in his arms.
“I’m going to miss you, blossom,” he said. Then he kissed both her chubby cheeks and handed her back to me. “I’ll miss you too, Pretty Girl.” He winked and planted a swoon-worthy kiss on my lips before he closed the door behind him.
I sighed. “Your daddy is pretty amazing, baby girl,” I said as I carried her over to her swing in the corner of the lounge room. Ivy and the girls would be here soon to keep me company on Kai’s first day back at work.
Being a mother was hard, although I had gotten lucky with a particularly chilled out baby. But it was still nerve-racking. The first night she’d slept through, I’d nearly had a panic attack because she’d slept through her one a.m. feed. I didn’t know if I should wake her or leave her or what. I’d called Ivy, and she’d told me to leave her be. I did, and she’d done it every night since.
I got my special cushion and placed it at the end of the couch closest to Annabelle’s swing and lowered myself down onto it. I sat there, watching her as she drifted off to sleep while the swing swayed with a gentle rhythm, and thought about how much my life had turned around in the last year.
I’d been nothing and nobody a year ago. I’d had nothing of my own and no one who truly loved me. Now I had it all. Everything I could have ever dreamed of. A family of my own, a beautiful home, friends who actually cared about me, and a man who owned my heart and soul.
The sound of little girl’s laughter echoed through the door right before I heard the knock. “It’s open,” I called out, not being bothered to push myself back up off the couch.
Ivy let herself and the girls in. “Quiet now, baby Annabelle looks like she’s sleeping. You remember the rules—no waking sleeping babies,” she said sternly to the twins. They looked over at the swing and then back up to Ivy. “Yes, Mummy,” they said in unison.
I frowned. “When did they start saying that?”
Ivy smiled proudly at her daughters. “Not long ago. Maybe while you were in hospital?” She waved her hand. “It’s new, so no, you didn’t miss it.” She laughed.
“Where are my kisses? I need my kisses from my beautiful girls!” I said and waited for them to climb up to give me said kisses.
Gracie was on my lap in a flash and smothering my face with kisses. “Mia, baby Belle,” she said, pointing at Annabelle. I smiled wide nodding at her.
Then Tessie was at my back wrapping her arms around my neck. “Pretty baby,” she said also pointing at my sleeping cherub.
“Yes, I know, isn’t she lovely?” I said to them. “But we mustn’t wake her, or she will cry and get cranky with us,” I said. They both nodded together.
Ivy dropped a beach-sized bag of toys down beside the couch. “Here you go. Your toys are over here so you can play without waking little Annabelle.” The girls slid off the edge of the couch on their tummies and ran over to their toys.
“I need coffee,” Ivy declared. “You?”
“Oh god, yes,” I replied. Even though Annabelle was a fantastic sleeper, I was still dead on my feet most mornings since she would wake at five and stay that way until eight. It was now nine, and I hadn’t had a coffee yet. I needed the caffeine to wake me up today. Kai had been taking the morning shift, meaning after I fed her, he would take her out of our room and let me go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
He really was amazing. I sighed dreamily as I thought about all the amazing things about him. Ivy’s voice was like a bucket of cold water bringing me back to the moment. “Huh?” I said, not quite having caught what she was saying.
“You were thinking about when you get to have sex again, weren’t you?”
I blushed. “No.”
She smirked. “Yes, you were. I know that look.”
I looked at anything but her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-ha, that’s why you’re blushing. Because you weren’t thinking about being able to rip his clothes off as soon as humanly possible.”
I gave up. “Fine, I was thinking about him naked. Happy?” I glared at her.
She ignored my glare and smiled knowingly. “Yep.” Then she placed a steaming cup of glorious caffeine on a coaster on the solid arm of the couch for me.
She made the best coffee ever. Seriously. I’d never met someone as serious about coffee as Ivy. And she’d rubbed off on me in a big way. I’d only been drinking coffee since I’d had Annabelle and only one a day at that, but throughout my pregnancy, Ivy had tortured me with the incredible aroma that would drift over to me from her side of the desk that we shared at McLeod Investigations.
The first one she’d made me could only be described as heaven in my mouth. It was that good.
“So you know you don’t have to wait the six weeks to get busy that all the books talk about, right?” Ivy said, pulling me from my coffee fog.
“I don’t?”
She shook her head, sending her shiny blonde hair over her shoulder. “Nope, you just have to wait until you stop bleeding. Then give it a couple of days, and as long as you feel up to it, you’re free to jump back on the horse. Or cock as the case may be.” She laughed.
I rolled my eyes. “You have problems, you know that?”
Her response was a shrug and, “You’ve met my husband.”
It was true. Gabe and Ivy were incredibly open about sex. It had taken some getting used to, but now I was glad for it. It made talking to her about girl stuff a lot easier. “So, how long did you guys wait?” I asked her.
“Four weeks. And it was pure torture. No lie. I mean, yeah, I was tired and exhausted, but I still had needs, you know? Like every time he’d walk out of the bathroom after having a shower and he hadn’t dried himself properly, I’d have to sit there just watching the water droplets roll down his back and over his—”
I cut her off, “I get the picture.”
She smiled coyly and went on, “So are you still bleeding?”
I sighed dramatically, talking to Ivy often gave me a flair for the dramatic. “Yes. And I’m pretty sore. I’m still using those condom icepack things to soothe it.”
She nodded in understanding. “I see.”
Glancing down at Annabelle, I sighed again, only this time, less dramatic. “But it’s okay, I mean, look what I get to snuggle anytime I want,” I said my eyes glassing up. My damn hormones still hadn’t gotten back to normal, and I was still an emotional wreck.
“Don’t you go getting emotional on me. You know if you start crying, I will too,” Ivy scolded.
Smiling, I blinked the tears away. “I’m just sayin’ I can wait a little longer to get in his pants, is all. But I know what you’re saying about the coming out of the bathroom naked. I mean, can he not take in a fresh set of clothes with him when he goes in there?”
Ivy and I burst out laughing and spent the rest of the morning chatting and fawning over my precious baby girl. The twins had turns nursing her on the couch, and I practically had to tackle Ivy to get her to hand my baby over. I swear she’d steal her if I turned my back. And after everything I’d been though to bring her into this world, nobody, not even my best friend, was taking her away from me.