The morning air was cool and relaxing as I walked Bear outside the house with Gracie.

"Bear! Bear!" Gracie squealed as the dog licked at her hands.

"Okay let's go back in." I tugged on Bears leash and the two followed me inside.

"Mommy what are we doing today?" Gracie asked me as I passed by Ashton who was fixing his bowl of cereal.

"Well me, you and Aunt Ari are going to have a girls day here at the house while Ender, Daddy and Uncle Jason go to the adventure park." I explained to her while I poured Ashton's cup of coffee and handed it to him.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because I want to spend time with Aunt Ari before we leave to go on tour."

"Tour tour tour tour tour tour." Gracie began to repeat the word over and over again in silly voices and walk around the kitchen making Ashton laugh.

"So what are you and Ari planning on doing today?" Ashton asked me.

"Just girl stuff. Facials and manicures and stuff like that." I shrugged.

"Fun." He smiled.

I was topping off Ashton's coffee cup when the front door opened and Ari and Jason walked in.

"Hey." I smiled at them.

"Hi!" Ari grinned and came up to hug me before going to Ashton who gave her a shoulder hug.

"So you ready for the adventure park?" I asked Jason.

"Yeah! Should be fun." He smiled at me.

"I'll finish up and get the princess dressed and then we can go." Ashton said and took the last few bites before going to take his bowl to the sink.

"I've got it." I went to take it from him.

"No, I got it." He smirked at me.

"Give it." I snatched the bowl from him.

"That wasn't nice." He continued to smirk as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, picking me up causing me to squeal.

"No, put me down!" I giggled.

"Say you're sorry first." He teased.

"I'm sorry I tried to be a nice fiancé and wash your dish for you." I laughed as he squeezed my body.

"Thank you." He set me down and kissed my neck before releasing me.

"Now go dress our daughter." I giggled and he kissed me again before calling Gracie over to him and taking her upstairs to change her.

I washed Ashton's bowl and turned back around only to have Ari send me a wink making me blush knowing she had seen Ashton and I playing around.

Ashton came downstairs with Ender and Gracie a few minutes later, Gracie in her black leggings and dark purple shirt.

"She tried to take her outfit out of the dirty clothes hamper to wear." He rolled his eyes as he brought her over to me.

"Gracie." I shook my head at her.

"I wanted to wear my pink shirt." She said as I took her up in my arms.

"I'll wash it today and you can wear it tomorrow." I told her and she smiled.

"Can we go now?" Ender asked, standing by the door already.

"Yes, come give me a hug." I said and I set Gracie down so I could hug him. "Have fun." I kissed his forehead. "Love you."

He ran back over to the door and Jason went to say goodbye to Ari, quickly kissing her.

"Okay Gray, tell Daddy bye." I said after they had had their moment.

"Bye Daddy." Gracie said and Ashton picked her up to hug her.

"Bye baby girl, I love you." He gave her a kiss.

"Love you Daddy." She kissed his cheek and he set her down before moving to me.

"Have fun." I smiled as he put his arms around my waist.

"We will." He winked and then moved in to kiss me. It was a pretty hot kiss as we moved our lips together and the sound of Jason whistling at us had us breaking apart, laughing.

"I love you." Ashton chuckled.

"I love you too." I pressed one more kiss to his lips before he let me go.

They boys moved towards the door and waved as they left, leaving us girls alone.

"Okay, who's ready for spa day?" Ari grinned the moment the door closed and Gracie clapped her hands as Ari and I began to get things together.

We started out by giving each other pedicures and manicures, Gracie wanting to copy me and wear black nail polish.

We then made face masks with yogurt and honey and other ingredients, letting Gracie mix them and put them away so they could chill.

I let Gracie play for a bit while Ari and I sat down on the sofa to chat.

"So, you're leaving in two days, how does it feel?" Ari asked me.

"It's feels good. I'm excited. Ashton and I got up early this morning to pack and it's not as hard as I thought it would be."

"What about tomorrow when you leave for Sydney?"

"I fully expect to burst into a puddle of tears and have Ashton carry me to the car." I said and she laughed.

"I'm sure you'll be okay, I know it will be hard at first but you'll be with Ashton." She reached over to squeeze my hand.

"But what about you, are you and Jason excited to have a place of your own for a bit?"

"Yeah. Very excited. I think it will be good for us to get used to living together before the wedding." She smiled.

"I'm warning you now, living with boys is gross." I said and she laughed. "And I'm about to be living with five of them so wish me luck."

"Mommy!" Gracie called out to me from upstairs and Ari giggled.

"Mommy duty awaits you." She nodded towards the stairs and I shook my head laughing before going up to check on my little girl.

Finally we had lunch and then set off to do our face masks, Ari videoing Gracie smearing the cream all over my face, the child giggling hysterically the entire time.

Once our faces were covered we took a photo and I decided to post it even though we looked absolutely ridiculous.

'When our fiancé's are away we decide to have spa day. Hope you're having fun at the adventure park boys!'

Ashton's PoV:

"Oh God." I said as I scrolled through my Instagram as me, Ender, and Jason ate lunch and showed Jason the picture Carter had posted of her and Ari with their face masks on.

"We're engaged to aliens." He chuckled and I joined in his laughter.

"Okay End, we've done the obstacle course, rock climbing, and bowled. What do you want to do next?" I asked the kid who was drinking his soda.

"Can we go zip lining?" He asked with a big smile and Jason and I agreed, throwing our trash away before heading out to the zip line course.

"Let's send your sister a picture." I said to Ender and had Jason take a picture of us in all our zip line gear and sent it to Car.

Our instructor gave us a safety speech and then we hiked up a hill through the forest until we reached our first platform.

"I wanna go first!" Ender exclaimed and I let him, videoing him to show Carter.

I went next, loving the exhilarating feel of feeling like I was flying, and Jason went last.

We completed the zip line course then let Ender go inside to play in the arcade while Jason and I hung back and watched.

"So I was looking at Carters graduation pictures yesterday and she mentioned that Ari's mom might have a video?" I said to Jason.

"Yeah, she made sure to get her speech on recording." He nodded.

"What was her graduation speech like?" I asked him.

"It was good. She did really well, she practiced it on us like ten times and Ari had to calm her down before she gave it because she was so nervous but she did a good job."

"She's a smart girl, that's for sure."

"Yeah she is. Like freaky smart. Like could probably solve a cure for cancer smart."

I raised my eyebrows at this.

"I can't believe she didn't go to university." He shook his head.

"Did she apply?" I asked.

"No, but she didn't have to, everyone was after her. She had full ride offers to freaking CIT, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton, University of Cambridge, MIT, Harvard, and every other Ivy League school out there but she turned them all down."

"You're kidding." I blinked, not believing him.

"Nope. We almost convinced her to go to Oxford but she changed her mind and refused to go."

"Why? I mean it's Oxford."

"That's what we said, but she wanted to stay here with Ender, didn't want to leave the business. The universities were all making like special exceptions for her like saying Ender could live with her in a private dorm but she still said no."

I let out a breath and shook my head.

Carter had really turned all of those schools down?

"You should've seen her test scores man, they were perfect. She missed one question on her SAT and they had it sent back and re-graded because she never missed a question and it turned out they had it wrong and fixed it so she had a perfect score."

"She took the American tests too...wow." I shook my head in awe.

"Yeah, she's one smart girl, but she's stubborn as hell."

"Tell me about it." I laughed. "Trying to get her to go on tour with me was like trying to move a mountain."

"Yeah, you should've seen Ari trying to get her to go on dates, it was a nightmare. That's why we were so surprised when you two started dating."

"Really? Was it bad?"

"Yes, Ari got so frustrated with her because Carter would cancel every date we set her up on."

"Wow." I laughed.

"Yeah, one time I tried to set her up with one of my friends who's kind of a hot shot CEO at this law firm and when Carter cancelled Ari was so mad she went off on Carter and it was pretty bad. They didn't talk for like a week."

I laughed. "A CEO, huh?"

Jason nodded.

"Ari thought they'd be great together and when I showed him a picture of Carter he was obviously interested so I set everything up but Carter called it off. The poor guy was crushed."

I chuckled.

"But then she met you and I don't know...she was like a whole different person. I'd never seen her that happy since I'd met her when we had that double date. I told Ari that too and she agreed."

"I was worried she'd say no to going on a date with me, but she did, and it was honestly the best first date I'd ever had."

"How you pulled that off I'll never know." Jason laughed. "You got her to go on a date and get engaged to you."

"Well," I shrugged, "I like that I'm her first. I think it worked out well for us. But I have to admit I didn't believe her when she told me she had never been on a date or had a boyfriend before me, you know?"

"Honestly I was surprised too. Every guy wanted her but she was just so far out of their league so a lot of guys didn't even bother to ask her out because they knew she'd turn them down."

"She's something." I chuckled.

"Well whatever you did worked because she's so much happier than she used to be. Honestly man. Ari and I talk about it all the time, Carter is so happy now. You and Gracie changed her world and gave her a life back and we're all really thankful for that."

I smiled.

"She changed my life too. I really love her."

"She loves you too." He gave me a smile and we both looked over to check on Ender who was playing a basketball game with a few other kids. "So she never told you about the colleges huh?"

"Nope." I sighed. "But you know how shy she gets, she barely ghosted over the fact she graduated first in her class and got all bashful when I tried to talk to her about it."

"She's gotten better though. You've got her to really open up. Carter mentioned to Ari that you and her talked about her parents and the accident and Carter doesn't talk about that to anyone. She still won't even tell us what that damn letter is and it's been almost six years."

"Letter?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"We'll never figure out what that is." He sighed. "We were hoping she'd tell you, but she gets this letter every year, and she like glares at it and then rips it up into shreds and throws it away. Won't tell anyone what it is, won't even admit that it exists."

I'd never seen or heard anything about that.

"Have you asked Ender?"

"No, he's never around when she tears it up, she makes sure of it."

"And you don't know who it's from?"

"Nope. Ari tried to piece the letter back together but Carter had torn it up so small it would have taken like a microscope to do it."

"Maybe I'll ask her about it."

"I would not recommend that, trust me. Unless you plan on getting a divorce before you're even married."

"She's that guarded about it?" I widened my eyes.

"We made the mistake of asking one time and she was so upset she didn't talk to us for a month, she just shut down, got really angry at us for asking about it and said she didn't even know what we were talking about."

"Wow." I breathed.

Maybe there was more to Carter than I knew...

"The reason I brought it up was because Ari and I have noticed that the letter comes on the same day every year...and that just so happens to be tomorrow." Jason said and I raised my eyebrows. "And we just wanted to make sure you didn't bring it up because we don't want her to flip out on you."

"Yeah, yeah thanks for the heads up."

I couldn't get this out of my head now. What was Carter hiding?

I had to snap out of it quickly for Ender and we finished out our day at the adventure park.

On the drive back I kept thinking about everything Carter hadn't told me about her life. I knew she was shy and didn't like to boast, but still.

She was smart, so smart and she didn't want anyone to know, and this whole business about the letter?

Why didn't she want to tell me these things?

When we pulled up to the lot we got out and headed to the house and I opened the door to see Ari, Carter, and Gracie laying on the sofa with cucumbers over their eyes.

"What did we just walk in on?" I asked.

"Daddy shh!" Gracie held a finger over her lips and I widened my eyes. "We're relaxing."

"What she said." Ari commented and Carter started to giggle.

"Okay no, you're converting my daughter." I shook my head and went over to pick up Gracie, taking the cucumber slices off her face.

"Daddy!" Gracie whined but I ignored her.

Carter and Ari got up and cleaned up their spa mess before us adults sat down at the bar so we could talk about the things that needed to be done while we were gone.

As Carter did, she began to make a list on the yellow note pad of things such as turn on the boat every week for thirty minutes so the motor wouldn't get rusty from no use, and made a list of important things such as where we hid the spare key and such.

"Oh Ash, did you drop off the electric bill?" Carter asked me.

"Did it on our way back." I told her and she smiled before hopping off the bar stool to start dinner for us and our friends.

--

Yay! Only a few more chapters to go until the next book!

Anyone have any guesses on what the letter is?

As always, comment and vote if you'd like!

Much love xx -M