Page 242 of Fighting Chance

Bursting into a fit of laughter, I manage to say, “Absolutely not, and stop changing the subject. What happens now?”

“Clever one, you are.” Blowing out a breath, he goes on. “Honestly, I have no idea. They said there will be an investigation into the claims I’ve made and the current state of the home. I expressed my concerns about the foster home shutting down and they assured me that if she’s removed that won’t happen.”

“If?”

“Yeah, I picked up on their choice of wording too.”

“Would you hold to your threat?”

He licks his lips. “It would be the right thing to do.”

Sliding my hand in his, I give it a squeeze. “I hope you’re not forced to do anything you don’t want to. I hope they do their job accordingly and remove her, sentence her too.”

Kieran nods, suddenly changing the subject. “What do you want our life to look like?”

Poking the fire with a stick, I hum to myself, allowing him the reprieve he clearly needs. “To be full of fun and adventures.”

“What type of adventures?”

“Like this. Camping, water fights, trips to the bookstore.” Smiling to myself, I bite my lip. “Kieran, everything you’ve done for me, that’s the life I want to live. The one we’ve already created.”

“It’s a pretty spectacular one, isn’t it?”

“It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”

“But if you could add more?” he asks huskily.

Allowing myself to dream, I whisper, “I want to publish children’s books.”

“You will,” Kieran declares confidently. “It’s not about if, sunshine, it’s about when.”

“Bella said she would love to draw the illustrations for me.”

Kieran’s lips twitch. “I knew she would. You watch, she’ll be up until the crack of dawn drawing and we’ll be getting grumpy texts from Grayson to return his girlfriend to him.”

I laugh as the very realistic text messages I’d receive from my best friend’s boyfriend come to mind.

“He’d absolutely blame us, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh yeah, Bella can do no wrong in his eyes.”

Looking at him out of the corner of my eye, he catches me watching him.

“What?” he asks.

“I want to hear what you want. There’s a lot of worry about me being happy but I want to make sure you get what you dream of, Kieran.”

Kieran stretches his legs out in front of him, the teasing in his tone long gone as he tilts his head back and gazes up at the stars. “I want to adopt children, a lot of children. I want to give them a home. At the foster home I’d pray that someone would adopt me. I want to make a child’s dream come true and give them everything they were robbed of. I want our house to be full of children’s laughter, to be filled with warmth and happiness.” Heturns his head to me then, a smile teasing his lips. “And I know we can create that together. You’ll be writing books for kids, working with Bella, and I’ll be skating and hopefully teaching one of our kids how to on the weekends.”

Twisting to face me fully, he whispers, “But before all of that, I want to experience life with you and Emmy. I want to go on adventures and take us all camping. I want to spend our free days in the library, watching my two girls read while I build Legos. I want to come home to you in our bed and wake up to you sleeping on my chest.” He snorts to himself. “I even want to come home and smell the food you burn.”

I slap his shoulder. “Hey! I’m getting better…sort of.”

“It wouldn’t matter anyways, because we both know I’ll come home and you’ll beg me to fix it and cook for you.”

“Maybe,” I tease.

Kieran leans forward, capturing my lips. “I want all those small moments with you, sunshine, burnt food and all.” His features grow serious. “How would you feel if Emmy called you Mom?”