Getting to the Church On Time by Erin Nicholas Read Free Book Online Page A

let himself think about having kids. He loved Hope and it didn’t matter if they had children. He’d want to be with her anyway. And he hadn’t known how she would feel about it. She’d had an interesting childhood and was still dealing with some issues with now knowing her biological father and her half-sister. In the few months they’d been together, TJ just hadn’t brought it up.
    That she was bringing it up, and saying it was something she wanted, made a desire more intense than he’d never experienced rip through him.
    He could have it all. Because of, with , this woman. Until a few months ago, he’d resigned himself to bachelorhood and being a fantastic uncle only.
    Now she was offering him love, family, the whole package.
    “A baby?” he finally managed to ask.
    “No,” she said with a little head shake. “Like four babies.” Then she added, “But not all at once.”
    He laughed. Or tried to. It was tough past the tightness in his throat. His gaze dropped to her stomach and he stroked a loving hand over it. “You know I’ll be there. We can raise amazing kids together without a wedding.” It was true. Absolutely. All of it. But damn he wanted to marry her.
    “Well, look at you being all liberal and open-minded,” she said softly.
    “I’m trying,” he said. “A marriage license doesn’t make a guy a dad or not a dad.”
    “No, it doesn’t. And a man can be a great husband to the woman he loves without a marriage license as well.”
    “Right.”
    She leaned in and put her lips to his. “I still want a wedding.”
    “Well,” he said after swallowing hard. “In that case…yes, Hope Daniels, I will marry you.”
    She smiled at him with a look of such love and trust and yes, hope, that he just shook his head. “How’d I get so lucky?” he asked her gruffly.
    She took his face in her hands. “It’s not luck. This was meant to be. I was meant to be yours.”
    And he was done talking about any other alternative than marrying this woman and keeping her by his side for the rest of his life.
    “Yeah, well, I feel damned lucky,” he said.
    Then he flipped her to her back and had her undressed in record time.

Ty & Hailey

    “Peppermint brownies—easy.” Hailey pulled a brownie mix and peppermint extract from her cupboard. “Just need candy canes. And I know exactly what to do for the decoration.”
    “No brownies,” Ty said firmly.
    She looked over at him. “Why not?”
    “Your brownies are all mine.” She’d made brownies for him when he’d first moved in next door—okay, before she knew it was him , but still—and he had an enduring fondness for them.
    She gave him a little smile. “The only brownies I can ever make again are for you?”
    “Yes.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t even get them baked the last time I mixed up brownie batter.”
    “And they were delicious.” He’d had a hell of a good time spreading the chocolatey batter all over his very favorite dessert—Hailey herself.
    “So if I don’t make brownies, what are we going to make?”
    “You told me about how you saw Levi and Kate having hot chocolate on the bench in the square the very first night they met, right?” Ty asked, crossing to the stove and reaching into the high cupboard above it.
    “Right.”
    He pulled out a bottle of chocolate liqueur and a bottle of peppermint schnapps. “He didn’t say the recipe had to be baked.”
    Hailey grinned. “We’re so winning this thing.” She put the brownie mix back into the cupboard next to her.
    He laughed and leaned against the counter, watching her. “Thought you didn’t want to compete against Delaney and Hope?”
    She waved her hand. “I’m looking at it as competing against Tucker and TJ. This was their idea. And TJ beat me out for mayor. I’m totally down for taking his wedding.”
    Ty chuckled. Hailey didn’t actually mind that TJ had beaten her in the recent mayoral race. She was now the Director of Community Development and Tourism