Page 123 of Burning Love
She went into his arms. “You had no idea your brothers were coming?”
She snorted. “No. And when I saw West was calling from here, I jumped in the car and raced over to give them a piece of my mind. I thought they were going to intimidate you. Or try to. Then I feared you’d think even more I’d take our child away. They were only going to make it worse.”
“Looks like everyone got played by your mother,” he said drily.
“Yeah. I should have realized that too. She’s horrible that way. But she gave us the push we needed.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “West said he knew.”
“He did. She would have told him and he would have been able to round up the troops and keep everyone in line at the same time.”
“Your family loves and supports you. Big brothers today, not fathers. I could see it.”
“Me too,” she said. “Are we good now? The last four days waiting for you have really sucked.”
Jace laughed. “They have. We’ll be good in a minute. I love you. I want you to move here. I want you to marry me. Not because of the baby, but because of our love. If you’re not ready for it, then I’ll wait. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll ask you when you’re ready, but I’m expressing my wants as openly as I can.”
“I’m ready,” she said. “I just needed to hear the words and know that you were saying them for the right reasons.”
“I’m holding all the reasons in my arms. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you!”
EPILOGUE
Six Weeks Later
“You look beautiful, Talia,”West said, coming into the room. “You’re sure you want Mom to do this?”
“Yes. I’m not choosing between any of you and I need you as my brother today, not my father.”
West leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, careful not to mess up her hair. “Then that is what you’ll get.”
“You like Jace, right?” she asked shyly.
Not that she needed her brother’s approval, but she desperately craved it
West ran his hand down her arm. “We do. All of us. We would have imagined this all differently, but I guess you’re more like Mom than we all thought.”
Her mother laughed. She’d been sitting in the chair getting the finishing touches of her hair done.
The Friday after Thanksgiving was normally for shopping, but for Talia and Jace, it was both their wedding day and gender reveal party.
Six weeks wasn’t a lot of time to plan for a wedding, let alone find a place. But money talks along with the Carlisle name and they secured a restaurant and had it shut down for the day.
On such short notice, not all of her extended family could make it, but a lot of her cousins lived close by and since it was a long holiday weekend for people, it worked out well.
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t have as many kids as me,” her mother said.
“No,” Talia said. “I’m glad that the morning sickness is gone too.”
“I’m laying bets on the gender,” her mother said.
“Keep quiet, Mom,” she said, grinning and bouncing on her toes. “And go, West. We’re almost ready. I want to get to my groom.”
She looked down at her left hand, at the diamond ring they’d picked out together the day after she’d said yes to him.
She’d been stunned he increased the size of the diamond on the ring and had no idea until it was placed on her hand when they picked it up.
