Page 116 of Hold the Line

My lips parted in awe. “It’s beautiful, Jett.”

This man, who’d become my friend since Deacon and I had gotten married, was a true artist. I’d given him a description, and he’d brought it to life. A spray of watercolor flowers was the background for a wooden rolling pin—my weapon of choice.

Beneath it were the words that meant everything to me:Hold the line.They were a mantra, a promise, a reminder to hang on and be brave.

Hidden in the flowers was a little surprise just for Deacon

Jett swiped his forehead. “Phew. If I gave you ink you hated, Deke would disown me.”

I held my sore arm out, twisting it to see from all angles. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

Jett lowered his chin. “I know my boy. He’d love you in any form, but that”—he nodded toward my new tattoo—“he’s going to piss his pants.”

“Oh goody!” Hannah clapped her hands. “That’s exactly the reaction Phoebe was looking for, piss pants.”

He snorted. “You’re sassy. Anyone ever tell you that?”

She feigned surprise. “Me? Never. First I’m hearing it.”

He wagged a finger. “Remember, you’re next to go under my needle. Too much sass and I mightaccidentallyscrew up.”

Hannah turned to me. “He’s joking, right?”

“Absolutely. When it comes to sass, you and Jett are pretty even,” I replied.

Once their playful bickering died down, Jett got to work on Hannah’s tattoo—a horseshoe with Remi and Silas’s birth month flowers around it. He left room for more flowers when they added to their family.

We left the shop an hour later, bandaged and ready to head back home. While I drove, Hannah checked her phone.

“They’re on their way to the park. Remi says Silas is in the mood to boogie. It sounds like I’m in for it,” she reported.

I laughed. My nephew, not quite a year and a half, was exactly like his mother—always on the go, keeping his parents on their toes. Hannah had boundless energy, and Silas really pushed it. Deacon and I had babysat him a handful of times, and by the time he went home, we always ended up looking like we’d survived a war. We loved him to bits, but, man, was he exhausting.

Hannah put down her phone, twisting in her seat. “This was it, right?”

“What?”

“The final thing you want to do before you start trying…”

I clamped down on my bottom lip, nerves flitting in my stomach like butterflies. “This was it.”

Deke and I had gotten engaged a month after Richie had taken me, and we were married six months later. We’d decided to focus on our marriage, careers, and healing before trying for a baby.

I loved being Deacon Slater’s wife. Best decision I’d ever made, even better than opening Sugar Rush. He was cut from the same cloth as my father—different origins, but the same kind of man. A family man. Hardworking. A man who loved his woman with every fiber of his being.

Deacon loved me so well, so deeply, I’d never had a single cause to question how strong and unbreakable we were together.

We’d met the goals we’d set for ourselves. We had a house with four bedrooms—one that was Hailey’s for when she stayed with us—and a yard big enough for a workshop. Sugar Rush was thriving, and I’d hired a third full-time employee to lighten my load. Deacon’s carpentry business had picked up so much, he’d been able to quit his roadwork job. We’d gone to baseball games in Denver, taken weekend trips to California, and visited Yellowstone. Deacon had even gotten a passport, and we’d snuck away for a long weekend in Mexico.

There were miles of things we still wanted to do, but we had the rest of our lives for that. This tattoo had been the last box for me to tick before tossing out my birth control pills.

Hannah giggled softly. “Deacon’s going toreallylove that tattoo.”

I was excited to have a baby with him, but first came the babymaking… “Oh yeah. He’s definitely going to love it.”

And so would I.

We arrived at the park just as the band started playing. We didn’t live close enough for me to listen to the summer concerts from my window anymore, but that was okay. Deacon and I rarely missed one. We always brought chairs, but they usually went unused in favor of dancing.

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