Back to Me (Book Three ✓)

forty-three

EMMA

Today is a good day - the best day even. The weather is perfect, nice and warm and full of sunshine, but with a slight breeze to keep it from being too hot.

Beau is pulling the car around, while I wait on a bench just outside the hospital, Maggie's car seat tucked beside me.

Maggie. All I do is stare at her. She's so perfect, so sweet, so little. Her hair is light and fluffy, like mine was when I was born. Beau's hair dye couldn't do much there. Her tiny button nose sits between chubby, rosy cheeks. Her eyes, rimmed in dark lashes, are a light blue, Beau says like his mother's.

Secretly, I wonder if they'll darken into a green that matches his.

Maggie suckles, her pink lips popping open and closed as she makes a small fuss.

"Shh, baby. Mama's here." I rock the car seat, enjoying my time alone with little Maggie.

Gemma and Nadine have proven to be lovely aunts already, spoiling me with coffee and chocolates, and doting on Maggie so much that she hardly knows what it's like to not be held.

But moments like these, when it's just me and her bring me back to the beginning. I can't get enough of this feeling, of looking at her, counting every toe and finger again and again.

She's unreal.

"Hey hot mama, you lookin' for a ride?" Beau winks out of the open window, quickly jumping out to help me into Gemma's car.

She left it when she realized Beau hadn't really thought out how he'd drive us home in his mustang. Parker was happy to bring it home, despite Beau's vow to murder him if he so much as scratched the paint.

Beau tucks his phone into his back pocket, trying hard to mask the disturbed expression on his face.

"Only if it's from you," I murmur, pressing my lips to Beau's as he takes the car seat from me and expertly gets it into the seat.

More than impressed, I raise my brows at him.

"What?" His cheeks redden slightly. "I might've made Parker help me practice. No big deal."

Embarrassed, he rushes to the drivers side. A smile on my face, I shake my head, imagining Beau and Parker using a baby doll to run trials.

Ignoring the security already getting in their cars to tail us, I take a deep breath of fresh air and exhale, the happiness running through my veins.

Today is a good day.

We pull into my condo parking lot so that I can grab a few things that I should've been keeping at the lake house anyways. Just in case I, I don't know, went into labor early.

Things like special afterbirth underwear I never want Beau to find, some comfier pajamas and the most gorgeous mobile Val sent from a small boutique in California.

The perfect shade of light blue, it has sweet, little bumblebees dangling from fine ribbon. It's absolutely perfect for the nursery at the lake house.

Figures, since I left it here instead.

"Go on in, I'll get all this shit inside." Beau murmurs, gesturing over his shoulder at the numerous gifts Nadine and Gemma spoiled us with. A number of pink balloons and bouquets require a couple of trips on their own, the trunk is overflowing with teddy bears and maternity clothes and more than I even need.