Silent Night (4 page)

“Cole, kitchen,” Jasper said.

“Jasper, why?”

He deadpanned. “Do you need to question
everything?”

“With you, yeah.”

“Oh, will you just get up!”

I stood. “Happy?”

“
Never been happier.” He
nodded to the kitchen
, and I followed. I wouldn’t admit that I was
intrigued because we could be going in there for absolutely any
reason. It could literally be anything.

“Well?” I asked when nothing was out of
order. There were no broken appliances or water pouring out of a
pipe in the wall. All things he’d done in his own place.

“Oh look, your wife is outside,” he said and
walked back into the living room.

I didn’t give his oddness much thought when I
saw Oakley through the window. She shivered and waved at me to go
out.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, opening the
patio doors.

Holly laughed from beside her, squeezed
Oakley’s hand and walked inside.

“Come here,” she replied, holding her hand
out.

There weren’t many times that I wouldn’t
follow my wife, despite the below freezing temperature stabbing my
bare arms.

“What’re we doing?” My body tensed. “Jesus,
Oakley, it’s so cold out here my balls have retreated,” I
hissed.

Even though it wasn’t snowing we
still had a white Christmas. The snowfall from a few days ago had
lingered
, and
the freezing temperatures would probably keep it here for a few
more.

“
I
know
,
but you love the snow,” she said. “And Everleigh is excited to show
us the snowmen she built yesterday.”

While we wrapped presents
yesterday
,
Everleigh spent the morning with Sarah and Miles. Miles had wrapped
them both up warm and spent an hour in the garden building a
snowman family.

I laughed. “Yeah, but she’s too cold to come
out now!”

“She’s too busy playing with her toys. I had
a feeling she’d do that.”

Sarah and Miles were also light
crazy
. Every
tree in their garden had lights wrapper around it. We walked around
to the side of the house where the two trees that Leona and
Everleigh had tyres hanging from were covered in twinkling
lights.

Oakley squealed and pulled my hand. “There
they are!”

Along the wall were three snowmen and in the
arms of which one was obviously me was baby Bentley. “What’s on
yours?” I asked, noticing something on the body of Oakley’s
snowman.

She squealed again and laughed, pushing me
forwards so I could get a better look. My eyes widened when I saw
exactly what it was.

“Oakley…?”

“This is what I was doing when I snuck away
from the table earlier,” she said.

I was stunned. Completely and utterly
stunned. On the belly, written in twigs was: #3

“
I found out last
week
.
I wanted to tell you but I wanted to do it in a fun way. Are you
excited? I know it’s soon after Bentley but–”

I couldn’t let her ramble on anymore. I had
to kiss her. Grabbing her thick coat I pulled her against me,
gripped the back of her head and glued my lips to hers.

My wife is fucking pregnant!

She smiled through the kiss and flattened her
body against mine. Her lips were cold from the temperature but as
urgent and needy as my own. I moaned, bringing my hand around to
cup her jaw.

Her skin was so soft. Every inch of her was
perfect to me. “I love you,” I breathed into the kiss. “I can’t
believe we’re going to be parents again.”

She pulled away just far enough so that we
could talk properly. But she was still very close and at that
lips-almost-touching distance I had a hard time remembering my own
name let alone discussing our third, and total surprise, child.

“I love you, too. It’s crazy, I know. The
doctor said that although you’re less likely to get pregnant when
you’re breastfeeding – we didn’t with Everleigh – it can happen.
Well, obviously it can because…” She gestured to her stomach. “I
think maybe it happened because we started substituting some feeds
with formula.”

“
It doesn’t matter how or
why it happened. I’m fucking over the moon here,” I said, laughing.
“How far along? When can we see the baby?” With Everleigh and
Bentley I’d probably been the most excited expectant father on the
planet
, and I felt that same level of excitement and impatience
that I did the first two times.

She looked so content as she
gaz
ed up at
me. “It’s early still. I’m about seven weeks. The midwife is
arranging a scan for the first week in the New Year.”

“
Shit, I can’t wait.” I
could count on one hand the number of times I’d cried, when Oakley
left, when she came back and the birth of our two
children
, but I felt like blubbering again. We hadn’t planned to
have more children.

Everleigh and Bentley were more than enough
for me but deep down I would’ve liked to have more. I didn’t think
it would happen since Oakley wanted to stop at two, and I respected
that, she was the one that had to give birth after all.

“Me neither.”

“Boy,” I said. “I think it’s another
boy.”

She lent into me, laughing.
“Oh
, you
do?”

“
Yeah. I don’t care either
way
,
but I think Everleigh will be the only daughter we have. Be easier
not to have to worry myself sick about penis’ chasing two of my
babies.”

“You never know…” she said raising her
eyebrow.

“Hell, I don’t care about that. If Bentley or
the new baby is gay that’s fine with me, but I won’t worry because
boys can’t get boys pregnant!”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

“More than you could ever imagine.”

She stole my breath. I’d never get over the
way she made me feel. It had only ever been her. All I needed was
her and our kids. “Oakley…” I closed my eyes. She made me feel
invincible.

“I know,” she whispered. “Want to go and tell
our families there will be another addition next year?”

“Hell yeah, I do. Plus it’ll make Jasper feel
less of a guy for being two down and I’m always up for that.”

Taking my
hand
, she
looked at me in discouragement. “You’re a man-child.”

I shrugged. “You married it, baby.”

“Lucky me,” she said sarcastically and
absentmindedly bit her lip.

Lucky me!

(Standalone
book two in the Chance series)

Nell Paisley
believes that no good can come from love. Her grandparents screwed
it up, her parents screwed it up, so why would it be any different
for her? She would rather keep it casual and protect her heart.

Damon Masters
was happy with casual through university but a couple years on and
Nell is the only woman he wants.

With the aid of
Nell’s best friend, Chloe, Damon sets out to smash down the wall
Nell’s built around herself and show her that not all love is
doomed to end in disaster.

(Book One in
the Silence series)

Oakley Farrell
stopped talking at the age of five and has remained in her own
little world since. Her mum is desperate to find out what's wrong
with her daughter, but does she really want to know?

Oakley's best
friend, Cole has stuck by her. Their friendship is easy but as they
start to become closer she is faced with a new set of issues to
deal with.

(Book Two in
the Silence series)

Four years
after Oakley, her mum, and brother fled to Australia, the trial is
ready to begin. Oakley makes the decision to return to England and
face the people who hurt her in person.

Her love for
Cole never faded, but how will he react to seeing her again? Will
they be able to put everything behind them in order to get their
happy ending?

After seven
friends take a trip to a secluded log cabin, a drunken night ends
in the tragic and brutal murder of two of them. Mackenzie and four
of her friends wake in a disorientated state to find the bodies of
Josh and Courtney on the kitchen floor.

With the police
determining that there was no forced entry or signs of a struggle,
suspicion turns to the five survivors.

(A standalone
companion novel to the Silence series)

Putting his
player ways behind him, Jasper Dane is now strictly a one-woman
man. Jasper, desperate to start a family with his wife, Abby, is
devastated when she puts their baby plans on hold.

Holly has just
arrived back in town for the summer, and after landing a job with
Jasper, the two form an unlikely friendship.

Abby’s
immediate dislike of Holly and Jasper spending time together causes
him to question his wife’s fidelity. Broken hearted at Abby’s
sudden change of heart and suspicious of her reasons, Jasper takes
action, sparking a chain of events that make his once well planned
out life spiral out of control.

To get what he
wants, he first has to lose everything.

Nothing ever
happens in the town of Long Thorpe - that is, until
sixteen-year-old Summer Robinson disappears without a trace. No
family or police investigation can track her down.

Spending months
inside the cellar of her kidnapper with several other
girls, Summer learns of Colin's abusive past, and his thoughts
of his victims being his family...his perfect, pure flowers.

But flowers
can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running
out...

(Standalone
book one in the Chance series)

Everyone
deserves a second chance at happiness, and two years after Chloe
Holland’s boyfriend dies in a bomb attack in London she’s ready to
move on. That is until the one person she can see her moving
forward with is the worst person she could have ever imagined.

Logan Scott was
the one Chloe turned to when Jace died, but she never imagined that
becoming close to him would leave her with the biggest dilemma she
could ever face. He makes her question everything. She makes him a
better person. They push the limit of right and wrong.

Unfortunately,
Chloe and Logan are perfect for each other.

Tegan Pennells
used to care about everything: family, friends, boys, school, and
music. Then her dad died and all that stopped.

She doesn’t
care about her relationship with her mum and sister. She doesn’t
care that she’s pushed almost all of her friends away. She doesn’t
care that she lost her virginity to her friend’s brother in the
backseat of his car. She doesn’t care that she uses men or what
people think about her
friends with benefits
agreement with
Kai, a guy she met in a bar.

Tegan doesn’t
care about the man that received her father’s heart. And she
doesn’t want to care about that man’s son.

She doesn’t
want to care about anything ever again.