Coming Home (Sequel to This Time Around)

Chapter Twenty-EIght

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

After spending a wonderful afternoon on the beach, she and Loki and four very wiped out children made their way back to the palace. Tyra ran a bath for Selig and Aislinn, while Kirsten took the twins. All four would eat and be ready for the ball, although they would only be in attendance for the first hour or so.

While they did that, Loki flashed McKenna a grin that made her knees go weak, and he led her back to their chambers, where he filled their tub as well. As she sank back against him in the hot, bubble-filled water, she sighed and let her eyes droop shut.

He wrapped soapy arms about her and murmured, “Where are you, Midgardian?”

“I’m right here,” she murmured back. “Because there’s nowhere else I’d want to be.”

It was still so difficult to believe how everything could change in the span of a day. A little over thirty-six hours earlier, she was convinced she would never smile again and now there she was, in Loki's arms once more.

Part of her was still convinced it was all some wonderful dream or maybe Eir had given her something to calm her nerves that resulted in an amazing hallucination. Part of her was still a little afraid that at some point, she’d open her eyes or be jolted awake only to find herself a widow once more.

Loki's lips skimmed along her left shoulder, the tip of his tongue warm as it brushed her wet skin. “Today was one of the best days we’ve spent here,” he said between kisses.

“It certainly was. It’s too bad we don’t get to play like that all the time.”

His laugh came as a warm puff against the slope of her neck. “I don’t think we’d appreciate it as much if we did.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “As much as I hate to admit it, being away from you as long as I was, makes me appreciate being with you that much more.”

“Me, too,” she confessed, opening her eyes to peer at him over her shoulder. “I took an awful lot for granted until I thought you were gone forever. It just seemed like, once Odin forgave you and we were able to be married, I just assumed you’d always be here. And then you weren’t and I thought of all the things I should have said, but didn’t. And all the things I shouldn’t have said, but did.”

She shifted to face him, water sloshing slightly as she did. “In the days right after Odin told me you were dead, I couldn’t remember what you sounded like. I couldn’t really recall what you even looked like. And that scared me so much.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “And then, when I went back to Jersey, and I saw our wedding picture, it all came screaming back at me so hard… I just kind of lost it.”

His eyes softened as they held hers. “Lost it?”

“I kind of… shattered the picture frame. I threw it. I was so angry at you for leaving us, which is really kind of stupid, since it wasn’t really your choice, but I couldn’t help it.” Her bottom lip quivered, so she caught it momentarily between her teeth and as her eyes stung, she swiped at her left eye with the tip of that pinky. “All I wanted was to hear you. To see you. And not in my mind, but in reality. I told God that if He brought you back, I would never take any of those little things for granted,” she finished in a pained whisper.

A hint of a smile played at his lips even as his eyes remained soft. “You smashed a picture frame?”

“I destroyed it. Two of them, actually. I was angry.”

“Which pictures?”

“The one of us in the Western Courtyard and the one of you holding Selig when he was about a month old.”