Dying for You Read online

  “I found three gray hairs on my head this morning, and your daughter—and my daughter—are directly responsible. I’m only thirty-two, and I’m going gray!”

  “Well, nobody forced you two to get married and have babies,” Flower said gently.

  “Quite the opposite,” Power muttered.

  “And don’t worry about Violet Number Two; she’s at home with her aunties and uncles.”

  “Great. If she points a toy gun in my face and pretends to shoot me, I’m holding both of you responsible.”

  “We can’t help it that ‘kill the witch’ is everyone’s favorite childhood game.”

  “It’s not everyone’s—”

  “What are you doing out there?” Rhea shouted. “Taking a poll? Get your ass in here!”

  “Coming, coming!” He gave his in-laws a final, harassed glance before going back through the gates of hell.

  “The baby will be your birthday present!” Flower called after him.

  “Doubt it,” Power said, glancing at his watch. “It’s almost midnight.”

  “Second babies always come faster.”

  “She’s only been in labor for four hours.”

  “Darling. It’s Rhea.”

  “That’s true,” Power said, and sat down with his wife to wait for another Goodman-Mere baby.

  “And…it’s a boy!”

  “Oh, great,” Rhea groaned. “What was I thinking? I knew it hurt like a bastard, and I let you knock me up again anyway.”

  “Hold on a minute, Mom, we’ll get him cleaned up, and then you can hold him.” The nurse had to shout over the baby’s wails to be heard.

  “Listen to the lungs on that kid,” Chris said happily. “A chip off the old maternal block.”

  “Shut up.”

  “And he’s gorgeous.”

  She perked up, as much as she could in her exhausted state. “He looks okay? I figured he was okay from all the yelling. Violet Number Two did the same thing when she was born.”

  “Here he is, Mom!”

  Rhea stared down in wonder at the tiny, perfect face. The baby was looking up at her with the blue eyes of a fair-skinned newborn, and she wondered if they would go dark like hers, or green like Chris’s. She hoped they would be green, because…

  “Welcome to the world, Christopher Goodman Mere,” she said softly, and kissed her baby at the exact moment her husband kissed her on the top of her head.

  Table of Contents

  The Fixer-Upper

  Paradise Bossed

  Driftwood

  Witch Way