Power (The Keatyn Chronicles Book 9) (24 page)

She nods and I hold her hand on top of the turner. We gently slide it under the pancake then carefully flip it.
 

“We did it!” she says, excitedly.

“Now, you do the rest.”

“Oh, shoot. I messed that one up a little, but look!”

“You are officially the new pancake maker. Now I can sleep in late.”

“No way. Pancake making is fun because we’re all together.”

After we’ve demolished the pancakes, the girls head up to the playroom.
 

“Thank you,” Vanessa says to me, as she’s clearing dishes.

“For what?”

“For this morning. Sharing your girls with me. This is what I always dreamed of, a house full of kids.”

“Have you ever thought of adopting?”

“I’ve thought of a lot of things. I just kept thinking—never mind, it’s silly.”

I pull her into my arms. “Tell me.”

“I was hoping there’d be a father in the picture. Would you want more kids?”

“Yes. But not yet.”

“Oh.”

“Not until—”

“Until what?”

“Until I get married again.”

“Oh,” she says, a grin creeping across her face.
 

“Come here,” I say, guiding her lips toward mine.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center - Los Angeles

KEATYN

We make it to the hospital just in time. Dallas runs to get scrubbed in and Riley and I collapse in the private waiting room.
 

I reach out and grab his hand. “You’re a good friend and pretty freaking brilliant. What made you think of the helicopter?”

“It was my pilot’s idea. I just agreed to pay for it.”

“Well, it was smart. If we would’ve had to go through traffic, we wouldn’t have made it.”

“How was Homecoming?” Aiden asks, joining us and greeting me with a kiss.

“It was good,” Riley says. “Thanks for letting her come with me.”

He laughs and squeezes my hand. “Somehow I don’t think I had a say in it.”

“She is pretty stubborn,” Riley teases. “But it was good. Ariela was there. We talked. Partied together. And decided to think about things this week. We’re deciding at the wedding if we want to try again or not.”

“At
my wedding!
? Oh, no, you’re not!” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s supposed to be a happy occasion! Don’t make her leave the wedding, Riley.”

“I’m not going to make her leave. We just don’t know if we should try again. We aren’t the same people we were back in high school.”

“I think that’s a good thing,” Aiden states.

“Why do you think that?” Riley asks him.

“Because you’ve grown up a lot. You’ve lived a lot. You’ve had a lot of life experiences. If things do work out for the two of you this time, you will appreciate it more. You’ll cherish it.”

Dallas steps into the room. “Ready to meet the newest McMahon?”

I’m the first to react, jumping up before the guys.
 

Aiden takes my hand and we follow Dallas into their room.

RiAnne is sitting up in bed, holding a little pink bundle.
 

“It’s a girl!?” I screech. “You were so sure it was a boy!”

“I know!” RiAnne says, happily. “We’re so glad we didn’t find out. It was a very fun surprise.”

I slather on hand sanitizer and then gently touch the baby’s cheek. “Look at her. Oh, RiAnne, she’s so beautiful.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Dallas says, nestling the bundle in his arms and continuing to talk to it. “Carder put your Mommy through ten hours of labor. And your sister, Fallon, twenty hours. So, you’re already our favorite.”

He hands the bundle off to me and I notice that he discreetly takes a box from Aiden.

“Thanks for picking it up, man,” he says, giving Aiden a guy hug.

“Congratulations,” Aiden says back. “You’re a blessed man.”

“That I am,” Dallas says, returning to RiAnne’s side and taking her hand.

Aiden sits next to me and caresses the baby’s cheek while I unwrap the cocoon of blankets.
 

“Look at her little chubby cheeks,” he says. “They’re so perfectly pink.”

“And look at her hands,” I say. “They’re so dainty. Ri, did you decide on a name?”

“I think we should go with Farryn,” RiAnne says to Dallas. “That was your favorite, right?”
 

He kisses her hand and looks into her eyes. “You’re my favorite,” he says sweetly to her.
 

RiAnne looks toward the baby and gets teary eyed. “We’re so lucky. It’s hard to believe my getting pregnant and us getting married so young turned out like it did.”

“No, it’s not,” Dallas says. “I knew this is exactly how we’d be. Happy. With a mess of kids. And I was thinking . . .”

“About what?” she asks.

“Our wedding.”

“Our wedding was a bit of a disaster,” she says with a laugh. “Remember how the wind picked up and almost blew the altar over?”

“I remember the groom was pretty hung over,” Riley says.

“So were the groomsmen,” Aiden adds with a laugh.
 

“It was still beautiful,” I say. “You were both so in love that the weather didn’t matter.”

“I think we should do it again,” Dallas says seriously.

“Do what again?” RiAnne asks.

“Get married. What would you think of doing it up right? Renewing our vows? Having a killer reception. We have a lot to celebrate in our life. Five beautiful, healthy children. We’re still in love. I know you hated being pregnant, especially this time, but this, this moment right here makes all that bitching worthwhile. Look at her. Ten perfect toes. Ten perfect fingers. And this one isn't a cone head.”

“Dallas!” she chastises but then he puts the box Aiden just handed him in front of her and opens it. RiAnne’s eyes practically bug out of her head.

“Son of a biscuit!” she says. “Is that for me?”

“Yes,” Dallas says, taking her hand, slipping off her wedding ring, and putting the new ring on her. “This one has five rows of diamonds for our five children.”

“And the huge diamond in the middle?” she asks.

He takes her face in his hands. “That one’s for us. Will you marry me again?”

“Ohmigawd, Dallas. Yes. Yes.”

Then she says, “Keatyn, holy shit, come look at this!”

I hand the baby off to Aiden, who pulls her close to his broad chest, causing my heart to swell. I can only imagine what it will feel like when he’s holding our own little bundle of joy in his strong arms. His smile will be on perma-blaze.
 

I go to the side of RiAnne’s bed and
ooh
and
aah
over her ring, but I can’t stop sneaking peeks at Aiden. He has on an pale green oxford shirt that plays off his beautiful green eyes. His sleeves are rolled up showing off strong forearms that look perfect with a baby in them. I laugh to myself thinking about what Katie said about Knox. That he would make her ovaries explode. That’s how I feel when I look at Aiden, only my heart feels like it could explode with joy. I touch my own little baby bump and smile.

After a little bit, a nurse comes in and shoos us out, saying the mother and baby need their rest.
 

“What are you doing now?” Aiden asks Riley.

“No plans, really,”
 
he says.
 

“I bought some steaks. Thought we could grill out.”

“Marvel’s night off, huh?”

“It is.”

“You know what?” Riley says. “I think I’m going to take a rain check. I’m going home. This weekend has given me a lot to think about.”

“Are they happy thoughts?” I ask, giving him a kiss on the cheek goodbye.

“They are. In fact, when I get home, I’m going to call Ariela. I actually can’t wait to talk to her. We used to talk on the phone for hours. Sometimes we’d fall asleep talking to each other. It always amazed me how we never ran out of things to talk about. And now we have ten years of things to talk about.”

“I think that’s awesome,” I say, smiling at him.

“And I second the awesome motion,” Aiden says. “You seem happy. Is it because of the baby or because of the weekend?”

“I’m happy for Dallas and RiAnne, but I’m also happy for me. I’m lucky to have friends who care enough about me to force me to face something I didn’t want to face. And she showed up there too. I’d say that was fate.”

 
“I’d say it was fate too,” I say, feeling so happy for all my friends today.

In the car - L.A.

RILEY

I don’t wait until I get home to call her. I do it the minute I get in the car that picks me up.
 

“Riley,” she says, her voice causing my heart to flutter. “Are you back in L.A. already?”

“I am. RiAnne called this morning in a panic because she was in labor, so we left in a hurry. How was your early morning flight?”

“I can’t believe I went straight from the party to the airport, but it was good. I slept the whole way. So, how’s RiAnne? Did they have the baby yet?”

“They did. We got there just in time. And they had a beautiful baby girl. Farryn.”

“Aww, that’s a pretty name. Remember when we named our future children?”

“Yeah, you liked Madison and Katelyn for our girls,” I say.

“And you liked Dylan and Noah for our boys,” she says then starts laughing. “I don’t think I’d want to use those names now.”

I laugh too. “Me either. So what are you doing today?”

“I just printed off my massive checklist for the wedding and am going to start running through everything in my head to make sure I’m not missing any details. Details are what make the difference between a nice wedding and a perfect wedding.”

“I bet. I had fun last night, Ariela.”

“I did too, Riley.”

“Remember how we used to talk on the phone for hours?”

“Sometimes we’d even fall asleep talking.”

“I was thinking maybe we could do that this week. Talk. Every night. I want to know what you’ve been doing the last ten years. I want to tell you about my business. My plans. I want to know what your dreams are. What’s on your life bucket list that you haven’t done yet. All that stuff.”

“I’d love that, Riley. Like, I’d really, really love that.”

I’m wearing a huge smile on my face as I get dropped off at my building and walk through the doors. “I think that’s what this weekend did for me. When we said goodbye, I started focusing on what could be—what, hopefully, will be—and not on what should’ve been.”

“That’s a big shift in mentality,” she says.

“Riley!”
 

A shrill voice stops me in my tracks, wiping the smile off my face.

“Shelby, what are you doing here?” I ask, as she gets up from the couch in the lobby. “I told you I didn’t want to see you ever again.”

“I need to talk to you, Riley. It’s important. Can I please come up?”

I know girls like her. No way I’m letting her come up.
 

Ever.
 

“Shelby, as in naked-leather strap-threesome Shelby?” Ariela asks in my ear.

“Uh, hang on,” I say to her, putting the phone up against my chest.

“Whatever you need to say, you can say here,” I say discreetly to Shelby.

“God, you’re such an ass,” she hisses loudly. “I thought you might want to do this in private.”

“I don’t want to do anything with you, in public or in private.”

“Well, you’re going to have to now, Riley. Because I’m pregnant.”

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