Page 57 of Finding Peace
My head tips back in laughter as I smack his chest. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
A wide grin spreads across his face. “Never, Red.”
He kisses me then.
Slow at first. But it deepens quickly. His hands slide to my waist, and he lifts me onto the bathroom vanity with ease. I gasp softly against his mouth, fingers tangling in his hair.
His palms move under the hem of my shirt—
And the sound of the front door opening booms through the house.
A deep male voice calls, “Boys?”
Jasper smiles against my lips. “Mom and Dad are home.”
My stomach flips violently.
“Oh god,” I breathe.
Yeah. Definitely going to puke.
Chapter seventeen
Abigail
FortheloveofGod, Mom. Please stop.”
Lawson’s voice carries across the living room, deep and strained in that familiar way he gets when he’s two seconds away from physically separating Beau and Jasper. Meanwhile, I’m sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the coffee table, three thick photo albums stacked in my lap like treasure, and I absolutely refuse to let his mom stop now.
“Oh no,” Billie says before I get to, all while flipping another plastic-covered page with deliberate slowness. “There’s no stopping me now.”
Lincoln groans from the couch behind me. “I find it funny how you didn’t want to stop by your house first, and yet here you are. Three photo albums deep, which were conveniently keptat your house.”
I clutch them tighter to my chest. “Please don’t make her stop. You guys were so cute.”
Beau laughs from the armchair, long legs stretched out in front of him. “I was the cutest though, right, Darlin’?”
I smile widely at him.
If someone had told me only a few hours ago that I’d be on the living room floor, giddy over awkward teenage photos, I would have… well… I would have felt less like throwing up, that’s for sure.
When the front door opened and Chris’s voice boomed, my heart tried to crawl up my throat and out of my mouth. My palms were sweating. My brain was spiraling.
But all it took was one look at them both, and I felt my heart rate instantly slow.
Billie wasn’t what I expected—and somehow exactly what I should have.
She’s a little taller than me, but she carries herself like she’s taller than every man in the room. Her eyes are bright green—same as Lincoln’s—and they’re sharp in a way that says she misses absolutely nothing. Her hair is dark brown, the same deep shade as Lawson’s, threaded with silver strands she doesn’t bother hiding. It falls in soft waves around her shoulders, framing a face that’s lined just enough to tell you she’s lived a full, complicated life, and smiled through most of it.
There’s strength in her posture. In the way she stands, with her weight evenly balanced. In the way she looks at her sons—like sheknowsshe raised good men.
She’s beautiful.
And she didn’t hesitate when she saw me. Didn’t narrow her eyes or stiffen. She walked straight past all four boys to me and pulled me into a hug before I’d even properly introduced myself.
“You must be Abigail,” she said, squeezing me tight. “You’re just as pretty as I knew you’d be. My boysare quite lucky.”
I don’t know what it was about those words, but tears stung at my eyes.
