Should’ve Known It’s You (Not You Again #7)

EXTENDED EPILOGUE AUSTIN

Five months after our wedding day, Kennedy and I were back at Merrick Meadows for Thanksgiving. Our family had grown significantly since last year, our gang now so much bigger than it used to be.

For starters, Winrey and Benji, who had just gotten engaged last month, and Nicholas had become part of the family. They were in the kitchen with Mom, helping to get the dishes to set the table. Their chatter filled the air, with Mom having stepped up to help Winrey plan the wedding.

Mira and Logan, Slate’s sister and her husband, were here with Beau as well, laughing with Dad in the living room. After all the help Mira had provided us with brokering the oil deal, she’d come out to see the family just as soon as Beau had been old enough for her to feel safe leaving him for a day.

She’d spent some time working, taking pictures of the site for her clients and that kind of thing, but she’d ended up spending more time with Mom and Dad than anything else. That very same weekend, she’d returned with Logan and Beau in tow, and ever since, Slate’s sister and her family had become part of ours too.

Last year, they’d had to take a trip to one of Mira’s other sites over Thanksgiving, and at Christmas, they’d been on a family holiday to Santa’s Village, but this year, Mom had insisted they join us, and they were only too happy to do it.

Jess and Slate were taking pictures of their son in his Thanksgiving outfit on the porch with the pumpkins, and so, I knew where everyone was except for Kenny. I’d gone looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found and nobody had seen her.

Frowning, I decided to go from room to room. I started upstairs, checking my old room, my sister’s, and the master before I saw that the bathroom door in the hall was closed. I knocked on it, trying the handle, but the door was locked.

“Kenny? Are you in there?”

“Austin, is that you?” she replied, her voice sounding strange.

“It’s me,” I said, feeling a ripple of concern as I realized how long it’d been since she’d disappeared. “Are you alright? Do you need anything? You’re not sick, are you?”

“I just need a minute.”

My pulse spiked, the concern blossoming into full blown worry. My wife had been looking forward to this since we’d come home from our honeymoon in Bali four and a half months ago. It would suck if she got sick just as the holiday had finally arrived.

We’d been working really hard, though. The hotel was busier than ever. We had functions and special events coming out of our ears every weekend and almost every room booked every night. I definitely couldn’t blame her if exhaustion had battered her to the point of coming down with something.

When she opened the door and emerged, her eyes were weirdly shiny, but not with tears, and she was acting a little skittish. “I, uh, can I have your car keys? I need to run an errand.”

Without hesitation, I withdrew my keys from my pocket and passed them to her. “Is everything okay? Where do you need to go? I could take you.”

I followed her down the hall to the landing.

“No,” she said quickly. “I’ll be fine. Can you hold down the fort while I’m gone instead?”

“Okay, but why?” I asked, skipping down the stairs with her. “What’s this mysterious errand?”

“Oh, just an errand. Nothing exciting. I’ll see you soon.” With that evasive answer, she sped up a little and my heart started thumping hard against my ribs.

“Why don’t you want to answer me, Kenny?” I reached for her hand, gently pulling her to a stop and turning her to face me. “Also, if you leave now, you’re going to miss dinner. My mother is putting everything out as we speak.”

“I’ll be super fast,” she said, but though she was turned toward me, her eyes were everywhere but on mine. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“Too late.” Tightening my grip on her hand, I led her back up the stairs and into my old bedroom. Jess and Slate had set it up as a guest room, having turned her old bedroom into the nursery in the end, but at least I knew we wouldn’t be overheard in here.

Far in the corner, away from all other doors, it was safe for us to speak. “Why don’t you just answer me? What’s going on, baby? You’re making me really nervous.”

She sighed. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Just tell me what’s going on.” I took another, closer look at her, realizing that the shine in her eyes seemed almost wild. “You seem a little shaken. Maybe you should sit.”

“I’m fine,” she said, waving me off. “I just need to pop into town for a minute, is all.”

“Into town?” I frowned. “At dinnertime on Thanksgiving? We’re not in the city, baby. Most of the stores are closed in Firefly Grove. I mean, there are only a few, so they’re probably all closed, but just sit down. Get some rest. We’ll figure it out. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll just—”

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, then clamped her hand over her mouth and groaned. “Damn it. I wanted to surprise you. I was going to go out to buy a cute little onesie and hide it somewhere in the house for you to find when we got back home. I just wanted to give you a special moment.”

I stared at her. “You just did.”

Blinking hard, my gaze dropped to her stomach, but obviously, there was nothing to see there yet. Even so, I stared at it for a beat before I slowly moved my eyes back up to hers. “Are you serious?”

She nodded, tears now shimmering in her eyes as she looked back at me. “I know we thought it would take longer after we started trying, but, uh, surprise?”

A torrent of emotion tore through me, joy the most prominent of all. I took her into my arms, feeling tears of my own welling in my eyes. I whispered, “This is the best news ever.”

I hugged her as hard as I dared, turning my head into her throat to pepper her with kisses. Moving my mouth up the column of her neck to her jaw, I kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her forehead, and then finally, her lips, laughing as I felt the tears on my eyelids.

As I tried to absorb the news that I was going to be a father, I couldn’t believe that the woman of my dreams was going to be the mother of my child. Just a couple of months ago, she’d been to the doctor for a checkup and to have the IUD removed.

While we’d known she could, theoretically, get pregnant soon after, I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that it would happen so quickly, but it was. My heart suddenly seemed to turn into a drunken hummingbird high on something as I held her, not quite knowing what to do with myself right then.

“My family is going to lose their minds,” I murmured through the tears, not even a little bit embarrassed about getting emotional.

Kenny laughed, crying happy tears right along with me as she clung to my shirt. “So will Winrey, but should we wait to tell them?”

“It’ll be a hard secret to keep on a night like tonight,” I said. “I understand if you’d rather wait until after we’ve spoken to a doctor or even after you’ve cleared the twelve-week mark, though. Jess told me that was a thing, waiting until the twelve-week mark.”

She pulled away to look into my eyes, then slowly shook her head and dragged in a deep breath. “I trust everyone in this house, and I want them to be a part of our joy too. Screw the twelve-week mark. Let’s do it. Let’s tell them.”

Pride, elation, and a true sense of wonder filled me. I nodded and took her hand, leading her back downstairs and joining everyone else as they sat down for dinner. Our glasses had already been filled with wine. Without making a fuss, I got Kennedy a glass of water.

As we took our seats, I raised my glass to make a toast, grinning from ear to ear and unable to blink the tears completely away from my eyes.

“Are you already drunk?” Slate asked as he narrowed his eyes at me. “No fair. Where were you drinking and why wasn’t I invited?”

I couldn’t wait long enough to create a big build-up to the moment, so I just took Kennedy’s hand and came right out with it. “I’m not drunk, but I did just find out that I’m going to be a dad.”

For a moment, everyone was so shocked that complete silence fell around the table. Then Jess looked at Kennedy with a smile. “Is he drunk, or is it true?”

“It’s true,” she whispered through her own tears.

Excited screaming erupted. Mom was the loudest. Followed closely by Winrey, who handed Nicholas off to the bewildered Benji and shot up to hug her sister.

After more hugs and handshakes were exchanged, things finally quieted down, but before we could finally start serving the food, Jess glanced at Slate.

He nodded and she grinned. “We have an announcement too. We’re expecting as well.”

I burst out laughing and congratulated them. My mom looked like she was about to fall off her chair. She was over the moon, her cheeks flushing as her face split with a wider grin than I’d even seen.

“Oh, my gosh! So many grandbabies to smother with love. I can’t wait!” She clasped her hands over her mouth and leaned into my dad, who slid an arm around her shoulders and let her bury her head in his chest. She cried, her voice muffled when she spoke again. “Thanksgiving sure is going to look very different next year with two more babies in the house.”

Dad nodded his agreement, locking eyes with me from the far end of the table and raising his glass to me. No words needed to be exchanged between us as our far bigger, happy family celebrated all around.

He and I sat quietly, smiling and knowing just how good life was. It had kicked us in the teeth a few times before it had brought us here, but I’d never been happier and I knew my parents hadn’t either.

With Tate’s decision to walk away from Addie at our wedding, it sure seemed like the curse had been broken, but as I looked around the table, seeing Mira and Logan, Slate and Jess, and Kennedy and me, all amazingly happy couples it had brought together, I was grateful I hadn’t walked away too.

In fact, I had never been more grateful for anything than I was about the fact that Slate and Logan hadn’t warned me about it that night. I didn’t know how my life might’ve turned out if Kennedy hadn’t been in it, but I knew for a fact I could never, ever have been as truly happy and fulfilled as I was right then, right there, with all the members of my extended family in our home on Merrick Meadows, a farm that now would be passed down to the next generation in turn.

A generation we hadn’t even met yet.