I tugged the rattle and my phone out of my pocket. I had a plan for this. I queued up the music, turning up the volume as much as it would go on my phone. Out in the empty field, it would be loud enough. “Aubrey and Nico, I know you’ll never remember this moment, but just know this is how much your Auntie Mak loves you,” I cooed. I wiggled my fingers toward them and hit play.
“Is that…?” Ridge’s eyes widened before a deep, booming guffaw busted from him. His chest shook with laughter, bouncing Nico up and down. Zoe’s eyes were huge and round, staring at me in shock.
“Smile, y’all!” I said and rattled the rattle along with the song, shaking my hips.
“You can’t be serious,” Zoe said.
“Hey, ‘Baby Got Back’ by Sir Mix A Lot worked for Ross and Rachel on Friends. It can work for you too. Look, look! Aubrey is smiling!”
Zoe glanced at the baby in her lap and smiled as she saw Aubrey’s gummy grin. Ridge’s laughter faded, but he still grinned as he bounced Nico in his lap, Nico’s eyes trained on me as I danced around behind the camera, using the rattle as a musical instrument, and sang with the rap song.
“This is great, so many great shots,” Jojo said, her finger holding down the shutter as she moved around, capturing the picture-perfect family on the blue gingham blanket from different angles. “I think that’s a wrap.”
I turned off the song and stopped dancing around. I strode toward the babies and held my arms out for Aubrey. Zoe handed her to me. I planted a kiss on Aubrey’s head. “I’m glad you won’t remember that one day,” I said.
“They may not remember, but I got the video proof,” a deep, masculine voice said behind me. Colt’s voice never failed to send shivers down my spine. It was the perfect voice for a romance audiobook narrator or a sex phone operator. That voiced paired with his rugged good looks was downright unfair.
I steadied myself and turned toward him, supporting Aubrey against my chest as Ridge helped Zoe to her feet. Colt wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were lighter and small crinkles framed them. It was as close to a smile as he got in a typical day. “How long have you been here?”
“Walked up just in time for the song to start playing. I’ll show it to Aubrey and Nico one day.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “If you do that, I swear I’ll get you back somehow. Don’t go showing it to anyone else either.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“Mak, you basically challenged the man to a prank war. That’s the only time the bastard smiles,” Ridge said. Ridge and the other firefighters were in a never-ending prank war with Colt and the rest of the police department. It went back further than either of them, but they’d all taken up the mantle and took it seriously.
I waved to Jojo as she walked across the field back to her car. “You wouldn’t make fun of me, would you, Aubrey? You liked my dance moves, didn’t you, sweet girl?” Aubrey gurgled and yanked on the ends of my hair. I winced but kept on smiling at her. Since the day I’d met Aubrey and Nico at the hospital, just hours after they were born, they’d both had me wrapped around their little pudgy fingers.
I ached to hold my own baby.
I swallowed and shook my head, erasing those thoughts from my mind before I went into a downward spiral. I shrugged my shoulders, playing nonchalant. “Show it to them. My dance moves are badass.”
Colt snorted.
“I’ve got to go,” I said. “My mom is expecting me back at the store. We have a wedding tomorrow we need to finish preparing for.” I kissed Aubrey one more time before handing her off to her mom and strolled to Nico, in Ridge’s arms. “Bye, handsome boy.” And I kissed his head too.
“Bye, Mak,” Ridge said.
I raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t talking to you with the handsome comment. I was talking to Nico.”
I smiled at Colt and waved as I passed him and felt his eyes on me, just as I always did, as I walked away.
I placed the final bridesmaid bouquet in the shallow water and transport carrier with a flourish. “The McPhearson wedding is done.”
“Perfect,” my mom said. She’d been measuring and cutting the ribbon we use to tie bouquets and placing them in bins, sorted by color. I glanced at the clock hanging above the doors to the refrigerator.
“You’ve got to get going, Mom.” She had a standing weekly appointment with a masseuse for an hour massage. After my dad dropped the bomb that imploded our family, the mother I’d always known—with freshly colored hair, manicured nails, pristine makeup, and a touch of botox here and there—slowly disappeared. She was still beautiful, always would be, but she no longer cared to spend her time doing anything for herself. I didn’t know if it was because she no longer enjoyed it or if she’d only ever done it for my father’s sake and, with him gone, no longer cared.
It’d taken years of me pushing her to pamper herself in some way. She worked hard keeping our family business running, being a devoted mother, and holding her position in town as a woman that will be there for you with nothing more than a phone call. My mom kept frozen lasagnas in her freezer just in case someone from town fell on hard times. She’d be there with a lasagna and fresh flowers so they wouldn’t have to think about cooking. She only thought of others.
Except for one hour a week, when she accepted a little “me” time for a massage appointment. Even two years into the standing weekly appointment, she still tried to avoid it or stay at the shop to help me. I didn’t let her though; she deserved some time for herself, even if I had to push or con her into it.
Her eyes drifted to the clock and she sighed. “I suppose you’re right. My shoulder is hurting a bit today.”
The computer beeped with an incoming order alert from our online system, and my mom frowned, the ever-present worry lines taking root between her brows. “I can stay if you need help.”
I opened the order request. “It’s an order of a dozen red roses. Looks like Carl has some apologizing to do to Margie. Again. If I can’t wrap and send a dozen red roses with our delivery driver, I think I’m in the wrong business.”
My mom chuckled and shook her head. “Oh, alright. I’m going. I’m going. Maybe we should ask Carl if he wants to set up an account.”
“I’ll ask him. I think Carl finds any excuse to send Margie flowers. Margie loves it when they’re delivered to the office.” Margie worked the front desk at the local dentist’s office, and Carl was a real estate agent. They’d been together on and off for a few years, and it wasn’t unusual for them to have a huge blowout fight in the center of Main Street one second, and the next a make-out session a little too passionate for the public eye.
“Go,” I said to my mom again and shook my head. She hadn’t budged, was still worrying her lip. “Really, you need to fire me if I can’t count twelve roses and bundle them together in a pleasing way.”
She huffed and left as I pulled a clear vase from below the counter. It was tall and slender and would make the long-stemmed roses appear even taller and more grand. I’d made countless bouquets for Margie and knew exactly what appealed to her. The grander and more eye catching, the more people would ask, the better.