Page 79 of Beautiful Exile

Isabella smiled at Linc. “Don’t worry. Sometimes, he just needs a snack. He’ll get over it.”

Linc glanced at me. “Get that boy some cookies before I end up with a shiv in my spine.”

I burst out laughing, and Brutus barked happily at the sound. “Cookies, it is.”

Everything hurt.I swore even my hair felt a little abused. And I was in shape. I trained with Kye weekly. I rode my horses almost daily.And my work was physical on top of it. Yet there was nothing like an entire day wrangling tiny kiddos.

Hands landed on my shoulders as I stretched, kneading the knots there. “You okay?” Linc asked.

“I will be if you keep doing that forever,” I mumbled.

“I could be convinced.”

“I’m not above a little sexual coercion.”

He chuckled. “Good to know.”

“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” I asked, looking around at the destruction left in the kids’ wake. Hannah, Isaiah, and Farah were getting them off to their parents while Linc and I were handling clean-up duties.

“I think this has convinced me I don’t want six kids. I think three is good.”

I whirled, gaping at him. “You want six kids?”

“Wanted,” he corrected. “I’m good with three now.” He paused for a moment. “What about you? You want kids?”

My palms instantly started to sweat as my heart rate picked up. “I’m not sure,” I croaked.

Linc studied me in that assessing way of his, the kind of look that peeled back the layers in search of understanding. “Not sure or scared?”

My fingers went in search of something—anything—to hold on to. They found one of the threads on my favorite jeans and began to twirl it. “Why do you have to see so much?”

He shrugged. “I pay attention to the things that are important. And you’re important.”

I pulled the string tighter, cutting off the blood flow to my pointer finger. “I don’t know if I’d be good at it. I can’t even tell my family I love them. I freak out about weird things. I don’t know if it’s fair to saddle a kid with that.”

But it didn’t change the fact that I wanted it. I wanted a chance to do things differently than my parents had, to focus on therightthings, and make sure my kids knew that happiness didn’t come from havingmorebut from the people you surrounded yourself with.

Linc reached out, taking my hand and unwrapping my finger. “I watched you today. You have a gift when it comes to children. You reach them. You make them feel seen. If you decide you want to have some one day, they’ll be the luckiest kids in the world because you’re their mom.”

My throat constricted, a burning sensation surging. “Thank you.” The words were barely audible, but they were there.

A throat cleared.

I jerked at the intrusion into such a private moment. When my gaze found the reporter hovering in the courtyard, my annoyance doubled.

“Yes, Mr. Levine?” I clipped.

He didn’t seem put off by my tone. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

He wasn’t wrong, but that was my prerogative. “I told you I don’t do press.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You said you’d go on background.”

“No, I said you could hang around if I was on background. There’s a difference.”

He huffed out a breath. “This article won’t be half as good without your involvement.”

I shrugged. “Oh, well.”

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