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Page 26


  Naomi appeared in the bedroom doorway, a bouquet of red roses in one hand, a brown paper bag in the other, the broadest smile on her beautiful face.

  I smiled lovingly at her. She’d been my wife for eighteen months, and I still couldn’t believe she was real — that she was all mine. Well, sort of.

  She put the roses and bag on the foot of our bed. “Hi, baby.” First I received my kiss, the most precious part of the day. “Hello, my little angel,” she whispered gently to our daughter, before kissing her forehead.

  Suddenly, a cry erupted from the crib beside our bed. We exchanged knowing smiles.

  “It was your voice,” I said.

  Eyes glistening with joy, she lifted our son from the crib, planted a kiss on his forehead. “No one forgot about you, honey,” she said with a laugh. He stopped crying almost instantly.

  At just three months old, our twins had already chosen their favorite parent. Her voice could wake them up, get them to sleep, to drink their milk, to stop crying; she was the baby whisperer. Truth be told, it had been that way while I was pregnant with them. Every time they heard her voice they would kick my bladder to death! They loved her long before they met her; they loved her as much as I did.

  She crawled on the bed, sat beside me, one baby to each of us. She let out a contented sigh. Even when she’d had a long, stressful day at work, she always looked happy to see us, happy to be here. She’d scaled back her work considerably since my pregnancy, was spending much more time at home, yet she still hadn’t grown sick of us. The way she looked at us, the adoration in her eyes, told me she never would.

  When she leaned over and kissed me again, I knew what it meant. Thank you. Whenever she looked at our son and daughter — Gabriel and Skye — perfect and healthy and loved, she would kiss me that way, out of gratitude. She was grateful to me, while I was grateful to her. I didn’t think she would ever fully comprehend how our little family, and this life that we’d built together, meant more to me than anything ever would. How allowing me to take her name, allowing me to become Dakota Pierre, thereby vanquishing Adams forever, made me feel whole. I was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Truly born again.

  There wasn’t a Christian alive who could have convinced me that I wasn’t blessed. The arrival of not one but two healthy babies was proof enough that I’d made the right call two years prior. It was as though I’d been dealt an awful hand for thirty years, and then my luck turned right around. A series of miracles that couldn’t be explained. I knew as soon as I held my children in my arms that I was blessed.

  “Mario sent a calzone for you. And sends his love.”

  My eyes were wide with excitement. “Mushroom and spinach?”

  “Of course.”

  “I guess this means that he’s forgiven me for marrying the love of his life, huh?”

  She chuckled. “I think he’s still bitter about it.”

  We fed the babies their bottles with the milk I’d expressed that day, then we lay them side by side, between us. We patted their backs while they gurgled. It was the picture of pure bliss.

  “I’ve been thinking, I don’t wanna go back to work,” I said after a while.

  “Then don’t. It’s entirely up to you, baby.”

  We’d talked about me returning to work when the babies were six months old, and hiring a nanny to take care of them. But somehow I’d stumbled into living my ultimate dream, one I didn’t know I had until I became a wife and mother. I wanted to be a housewife. I wanted to cook, and clean, and take care of our children, and greet my wife with kisses and ask her about her day. A homemaker whose job it was to make everyone in the house feel happy and loved. This was the stuff I lived for.

  “Besides, there’s really no reason for me to go back,” I said with a cheeky smile. “My wife’s loaded.”

  She laughed, then leaned over and kissed me. “I love you,” she said. She kissed our son and daughter on their heads. “And I love our small army.”

  THE END

  BOOKS BY HEIDI LOWE

  Series:

  My Mother’s Best Friend

  Justified Affair

  The Neighbor

  Set Dreams

  Le Coeur Island

  Novellas:

  Crave: Nikki’s Story

  Crave: Faye’s Story

  At Her Service (Service Girl Chronicles, Book 1)

  Back in Service (Service Girl Chronicles, Book 2)

  Out of Service (Service Girl Chronicles, Book 3)

  After Service (Service Girl Chronicles, Book 4)

  Novels:

  My Beautiful Sin (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 1)

  Sinning Again (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 2)

  Sinning Forever (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 3)

  The Queen of Miami

  Strummed

  Her Lesson in Love

  A Scarlet Kiss

  Before You Were Mine

  Born Again

  Mega Bundles:

  Girl Love: 11-Book Lesbian Romance Mega Bundle

  Beautiful Sin Saga

  Service Girl Chronicles

  BLURB

  Dakota Adams lives a simple, uncomplicated life. She’s a born again Christian, in a long term relationship with a respectable man, and she’s just about to start a new job. She’s come a long way...

  But her life is thrown off course when she learns that her new boss is the notorious Naomi Pierre, aka The Glacier Queen. The two women get off to a bad start, something Dakota just can’t seem to put right. And she’s desperate to, because Naomi has woken something in her that’s making her question everything, namely her sexuality. She’s going to get a rebirth of a different kind...

  Winning Naomi’s heart won’t be easy, not when there are others vying for the beautiful woman’s affections. And not when Dakota’s battling her own demons that have suddenly resurfaced.

  Her simple life’s about to get very complicated.

  Born Again is a steamy lesbian romance/drama.

  Table of Contents

  Born Again

  Title

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Books by Heidi Lowe

  Blurb