Chasing The Night: Big Easy Shifters: Book Three, Knox, Abby [book series to read .TXT] 📗

bouquet of daisies to the floor to grip him with both hands.

She asked, “How do you maintain such optimism, Gavin?”

He answered her, “Because I knew you were mine before I even knew who you were. Uncertainty was never an option since the moment we met.”

Epilogue

Ten years later

Chastity

Chastity was overwhelmed.

The new house was taking too long to be built. The tattoo shop—which now also housed a comic book store to showcase Chastity’s art—was too much to handle on her own, but Gavin was taking his time as usual with an indecisive client. Just as she was getting settled into drawing a new comic, she had to leave the shop and go pick up their daughter from school.

Their oldest was approaching middle school age, and they had begun to talk about whether to home-school her until they figured out what kind of shifter she would become once she hit puberty.

On top of all that, Chastity was seven months pregnant with their second baby and obviously could not drink. Gavin had given up drinking and any other recreational drugs completely, going total straight edge for the sake of their family and the family business.

After all the trouble that drugs and alcohol had caused in the formation of their relationship, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Right now, though, Chastity wanted a drink.

Her solace was Gavin himself. He was a fantastic husband and father. Her other was her art. She was just settling in to sketch a new character when she heard an alarm sound. It was Gavin’s phone.

“Oh, it’s time to pick up Cory from school, babe.”

“I know it is.” She smirked.

Gavin smiled over at her. “Well, are you gonna go, or do I have to piss off a paying customer right now?”

She cocked her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gavin’s smile fell and he shook his head. “Nothing.”

Chastity arched an eyebrow at her husband. “No, do go on with your super-important self. I’m curious why money is a major concern here and not my art.”

Gavin put down the binder of tribal tattoos he was showing his client and rubbed his hand over his face. “Fine.” Then he turned to the client. “I’m sorry. We’re going to need a minute to get some stuff done here. Come back tonight and I’ll give you 50 percent off.”

The client shrugged and obligingly dashed out, obviously not wanting to get in the middle of a marital crisis.

Gavin locked up the shop and grabbed his keys. Before he headed out the back door to dash down the street to Cory’s school, he marched over to Chastity’s art easel and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“I’m gonna make this work. I promise.” He planted a kiss on Chastity that surprised her and set fire to her cotton panties.

She was kind of hoping this meant he would call a grandparent or a car to pick up Cory from school so they could have some alone time, because she was suddenly very turned on.

Alas, Gavin had only meant that Chastity could keep working on her art for the rest of the afternoon while he took care of Cory.

They would have plenty of time tonight for her to say thank you. And when the new house was built and they could all move out of Gavin’s small walk-up apartment above the pho restaurant, there would be even more space to make their own. As it was currently, they often waited until Cory was visiting her second cousins at the lake house to have sex.

Chas could not wait to get out of this apartment, get this baby out, and get her body back.

* * *

Gavin

“You heard me right.”

The general contractor stared aghast at Gavin. “Do you know what you’re asking? I would need to triple my crew and work through the night.”

Gavin was deadly serious. “Make it happen.”

The contractor nodded, then got on the horn.

Gavin and Cory hoofed it back home to do her homework. She slipped her adorable preteen hand in his. “Daddy, can they really get the house done in five days?”

Gavin smiled. He loved it that Cory didn’t feel too old or cool to hold hands with him or to call him Daddy.

“They better, because your Uncle Ash has already put up the money to make it happen.”

“I hope you haven’t promised Mom this, because you know she’s going to be super pissed.”

Gavin hugged her from the side as they walked. “That she will. But no need to freak out about the unknown. You just have to have faith that everything will work out.”

“That makes you an optimist.”

Gavin piped in, “And don’t forget, maker of the world’s meanest Belgian waffles.”

Cory cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, as long as Auntie GiGi’s strawberry sauce is on top, then yes, the meanest.”

Gavin feigned hurt feelings. “My daughter, the vicious killer of souls!”

Cory laughed. “You love me.”

“Yes, even when you prefer your aunty’s food over mine.”

“Just don’t tell Uncle Vann I like GiGi’s cooking better. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

If the Gavin ten years ago had seen into the future and gotten a look at his life now, he might have run away screaming. Strawberry sauce? Waffles? School pickup? Placating a pregnant shifter feline? Hell, no.

But all he had to do was take one look at his beautiful daughter, the spitting image of her mother, and his party-animal proclivities went right out the window. He was happily squared away in blissful domesticity.

* * *

Chastity

“I can’t do this anymore! I can’t! This sucks! All of it sucks!”

Chastity was having a surge of third-trimester hormones, she knew, but that didn’t stop her from seeing her work for what it was.

Gavin was blinking at her like a deer in headlights.

“Huh, maybe I should go away and come back in an hour. You hungry? Want some pho?”

Chastity started bawling. “I’m always hungry, Gavin. But that’s not what is going on with me. I never get a single fucking minute to myself, and when I do, I squander it by making complete trash,” she