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A Mingled Yarn Page 6


  “Why don’t you go back to bed and catch some sleep while you can?” he answered. “Finn’s out cold, but Fiona’s sleeping like an actual baby. She’s fussing and stirring; I can tell she’s going to wake up soon.”

  Sasha removed the coffee pot from the base of the maker, activating the pause feature, and poured herself a partial cup. Then she stretched onto her toes and kissed her husband.

  “You sound like a grizzled, old pro,” she told him.

  He smiled down at her. “It’s fun, isn’t it?”

  It was fun. The two tiny humans sleeping upstairs were, by turns, exhausting and exhilarating. But she was having fun watching their impossibly long eyelashes grow, listening to them coo to one another, smelling their milky baby smell while she rocked them to sleep. She was also having fun watching Connelly make dinner with exaggerated, silent motions, while she swayed back and forth on the porch swing with a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other. Life had become a series of slow, small vignettes to be savored.

  “It is.” She rested her mug on the counter and laced her fingers together behind his head. “I have an idea that might also be fun.”

  “Oh yeah?” he tipped his head back and gave her a searching look.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She trailed her hands down the sides of his neck and let them come to a rest on his solid chest. His heart thumped under her palm.

  “Why do I think you’re not proposing a game of Scrabble?” he asked. He gave her a crooked smiled and pulled her closer.

  “Because I’m not.”

  He dipped his head and covered her mouth with a kiss. He lifted her as though she weighed nothing and sat her on the counter.

  And then the silence shattered. Dueling high-pitched wails rose from two sets of healthy infant lungs, shrill and constant, and echoed throughout the house.

  She started to laugh and held out a hand. Connelly steadied her while she hopped down from the counter then handed her coffee mug to her. As they hurried up the stairs, they passed Java and Mocha on their way down—both cat and dog were smart enough to beat a hasty retreat when the little hairless creatures started howling.

  “Fun, right?” Connelly shouted over the din.

  “The soundtrack of our lives,” she shouted back.

  THANK YOU!

  Thank you for reading A Mingled Yarn. I hope you enjoyed Sasha and Leo taking on their biggest challenge yet—parenthood (of twins, no less)! The eighth full-length novel in this series, Informed Consent, is available for preorder now! You can get it here. In the meantime, here are some more suggestions to keep you busy:

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  About the Author

  Melissa F. Miller is a USA TODAY bestselling author and a commercial litigator. She has practiced in the offices of international law firms in Pittsburgh, PA and Washington, D.C. She and her husband now practice law together in their two-person firm in South Central Pennsylvania, where they live with their three young children. When not in court or on the playground, Melissa writes crime fiction. Like Sasha McCandless, she drinks entirely too much coffee; unlike Sasha, she cannot kill you with her bare hands.