“Where did you get that?” Colm asked, somewhat surprised to see that Pop Pop hadn’t updated his photo with a current picture of him and Kelli. There would have been plenty to choose from. He could have used the one of the two of them at Christmas, announcing their engagement. Or one of the small wedding ceremony they’d held at the pub in January. Or even one of the two of them revealing that Kelli was pregnant at a family dinner on Valentine’s Day.
Instead, Pop Pop had somehow found an old photograph of him and Kelli, sitting in his parents’ backyard at a summer picnic. He remembered the day well because they’d just graduated from high school the week before, and they were both excited and ready to head off to college.
Kelli was laughing and talking to him—with her hands flying, of course, one of which held a hot dog. Colm was sitting next to her. She had ketchup on her mouth, and he’d reached over to wipe it off with his finger.
For nearly fifteen years, the picture had been relegated to a slot in one of his mom’s countless photo albums, forgotten.
Colm didn’t have to ask why Pop Pop had chosen it. The answer was written right there in Colm’s eighteen-year-old eyes. His younger self was grinning like a fool…and looking at Kelli as if she hung the moon.
He couldn’t ever recall consciously thinking of her that way, but had he?
God knew he looked at her like that now. Every freaking second of the day.
She’d become his world, and his only regret in life was that the stupid teenager in this photo hadn’t leaned forward and wiped that ketchup away with his tongue…followed by a kiss.
“So many wasted years,” he murmured.
“Oh no, son. That’s not what I see at all. I see two headstrong, stubborn, independent people who had a lot of life to live before they could see and truly appreciate what they’d found. This moment…it was just the beginning of your story. An epic tale.”
“Complete with blackouts, karaoke, wine, and babies.”
Pop Pop laughed. “As well as laughter, friendship and love. The best kind of story. Because it has a happy ending.”
“I love the picture.” They both looked at it for a moment longer before returning to their chairs.
“Twins,” Pop Pop said quietly. Like Colm, it seemed as if the only way for Pop Pop to truly believe it was to say the word over and over a few thousand times. It still hadn’t sunk in for Colm either. It was just too good to be true.
“So,” Pop Pop said. “It sounds like your father’s prayers for you when you were a teenager have come true.”
Colm tilted his head, curious. “Prayers?”
“He always said he hoped you had children just like you,” Pop Pop said with a wink.
Colm laughed. “I think you and I both know that wasn’t a prayer, Pop Pop. It was a curse.”
Pop Pop reached out and patted Colm’s hand. “And you and I both know…it’s not.”
“You’re right. It’s not. But telling you about the babies isn’t the reason I came here. At least, not the only reason. You and I have some work to do.”
“We do?”
“Yeah. Names. If these babies are boys, I want names that mean something tough. None of these stone or dove names. Something rugged. Like a gladiator. Or maybe even a god.”
Colm chuckled to himself as a name popped into his mind.
Kelli would kill him.
“What’s Thor mean?”
Don’t miss out on Darcy’s story, Wild Embrace, coming Oct. 2020. You can preorder it now!
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Wild at Heart
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Wild Embrace
Love is full of bad clichés.
Falling for your boss.
The widowed dad and the nanny.
How did Darcy manage to find both of them in Ryder Hagan?
His broken heart and wounded pride means he only sees her as an employee in his company and part-time caregiver for his sons.
Until another cliché surprises them both:
The old broken elevator trap.
And the wild attraction he’s kept buried begins to break out.
Can his perfectly ordered life survive discovering love again?
Preorder Wild Embrace.
About the Author
Virginia native Mari Carr is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller of contemporary erotic romance novels. With over one million copies of her books sold, Mari was the winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Passionate Plume award for her novella, Erotic Research. She has over a hundred published works, including her popular Wild Irish and Compass books, along with the Trinity Masters/Masters Admiralty series she writes with Lila Dubois.
Find Mari Carr on the web at
www.maricarr.com
