The sun was warm on Jocelyn's face.
She sat on a stone bench in the gardens of Lothian Manor, beneath a pear tree heavy with white blossoms. Bees hummed among the flowers. The air smelled of cut grass and roses, and somewhere nearby, a fountain splashed and chattered to itself.
In her arms, a baby was nursing.
She looked down at him, and her heart turned over in her chest. He was so small. A fuzz of chestnut hair, a tiny fist curled against her breast, dark lashes fanned across his round cheeks. Ashton. Her youngest. Not yet three months old.
His tiny mouth tugged hard at her breast, greedy and insistent, and the familiar ache of it pulled all the way down into her belly. Her body still hadn't forgotten carrying him. Some mornings, her back still twinged when she rose from bed.
She loved him so much it hurt.
