Title: Love Grows in Time

Rating: currently PG/K, may go to T later on

Reason: tiniest bit of suggestive content in this chapter

Genres: Romance, Drama

Series: #2 in the "Road of Life" series, preceded by "Oh, Baby!"

Description: Married life has been treating one Duke boy very good in the past six months, but not so much with the other. Maybe time will be able to change that...

A/N: Sorry this took so long! But as those of you who have me on your alert lists know, I've been BUSY! I apologize ahead of time for the length and quality of this chapter, but it kinda just opens and introduces you to the changes that have happened in the six months since the close of "Oh, Baby!"

Midnight Cries

The night was quiet and still in its darkness, peaceful as could be. Sweet sleep held everyone in the small farmhouse under its protective spell, carrying them into the realm of dreams. The sweet dreams were virginal, unbroken the entire night through thus far…

Until a whining cry pierced the still night.

Groaning in deep irritation, Lou rolled over and squinted at her alarm clock sitting atop the bedside table. Just as she'd expected, the glowing red numbers read 12:30 AM.

It'd been like this for the past six months—the first six of little Johnny's life. He woke up every night at exactly 12:30 and cried to be fed, waking up his currently agitated mother and his hard-sleeping father on occasion. Lou was relatively certain she could set her watch by her son's crazy routine, if need be, and she was about ready to set her alarm to wake her five minutes before that every night.

Moaning again and deciding against getting up, she instead reached an arm down along the edge of her bed. Her hand groped around in the darkness and finally found what she was looking for: a slipper.

With one swift movement, she hefted it in the air and tossed it across the darkness.

A fairly loud thump followed by an annoyed groan told her she'd hit her target dead-on. The aggravated and sleepy moan of her victim further broke the silence of the night over the sound of Johnny crying.

"Lou, did you throw that?" Bo grumbled.

Rolling her eyes in his direction, Lou snuggled down further on her pillow. "No, Bo, it's raining slippers in the house. Yes, of course I did. You hear your baby crying?"

She could faintly see Bo sit up a little and rub at his face about five feet away on his separate bed. "Yes, of course."

"Well then get up and do something about it!"

Bo grunted angrily, sliding back down onto his pillow. "Lou, why can't you do something?"

"Because it's your turn for one and I'm busy sleeping for another."

Scoffing, Bo rolled out of his bed anyway. "You seem pretty awake to me."

Pressing her face down into the pillow, Lou's reply left her lips and became muffled on its way to her husband's ears. "Hey, I can't hear you. I'm sleeping." She began snoring exaggeratedly loud just to prove her point.

"Yeah, whatever you say, Lou." Despite his words, Bo stood and lifted his son from the crib, ending the crying fit.

"Bottle's in the fridge."

"Yeah, I know," Bo mumbled. Holding the little baby in his arms, he wandered out of the bedroom.

"Thank you!" Lou called after him.

-+-+-+-

Luke had learned to be a fairly light sleeper these past six months with a baby girl constantly waking up during the night. As many times as Jo got up to deal with Yvonne, Luke wanted to help as much as possible and graciously handled the late-night feedings half of the time.

So he stirred immediately when Yvonne's crying broke the still darkness.

As did the woman who'd been sleeping in his embrace. Giving a light moan before bringing the flat of her palm against her eyes, she rubbed away at her eyelids sleepily. Opening them, she rapidly blinked her gray eyes at him, apparently trying to see in the surrounding darkness.

"Is it twelve-thirty one already?" she yawned. "I'd barely gone to sleep, and now I've got to get back up again. Our little girl just has the world's best sense of timing, doesn't she?"

"Hey, don't worry about it," Luke whispered against Jo's ear. "I've got Yvonne this time. You just go right back to sleep, honey."

"You sure, Luke?"

"I'm sure, Jo," he replied. Somewhat reluctantly, he untangled his arms from around his wife and flung his legs over the edge of their bed. "I'm sure. Just go back to sleep."

"Will do," she replied around a wide, loud yawn. "Will do."

Smiling, Luke took his baby daughter from her crib and into his arms. Her crying immediately stopped as he hoisted her on to his hip and instead she clung tightly to her father's side, babbling incomprehensible M sounds.

"Hey, that's all you wanted wasn't it, spoiled Princess Yvonne," he whispered to his daughter, bouncing her up and down a little as he carried her out into the kitchen. "All you want is somebody to hold you all the time, hmm?"

Tugging on one of her dark curls, Yvonne gurgled in reply.

Luke half-expected to find either Lou or Bo in the kitchen warming a bottle for Johnny—who had the odd habit of waking up only one minute before Yvonne every single night—and he wasn't disappointed. Putting two apparently cold bottles in the microwave—one for Johnny and one for Yvonne—Bo was holding his son with one arm and furiously pressing buttons with the other.

"Having trouble, Bo?" Luke asked his cousin.

"No," Bo grumbled in reply, demonstratively pressing the START button and turning the microwave on.

"Something wrong?"

"Just the headache I have from getting hit by Lou's slipper right smack dab in the forehead." Bo's free hand rubbed at the left side of his head. "I was sleeping just fine until she decided to just pick up her shoe and throw it right at my face."

The only thing that kept Luke from smiling at Lou's antics was the knowledge that it would infuriate Bo. While the shoe-to-the-face would've been funny to Lou and practically everyone else in the world, victimized Bo would never understand that.

But the microwave's beep saved Luke from having to say anything.

Taking both bottles out, Bo put the nipple of one right in little Johnny's mouth and handed the other to Luke, who then gave it over to Yvonne.

The little girl's eyes closed sleepily already as she worked away on it, sucking out the milk passionately. One tiny hand clutched in a death grip on the plastic bottle while the other balled into a fist against her cheek.

Careful not to jiggle little Yvonne, Luke strode into the living room and sat down on one of the two couches, laying his daughter back in his arms for more comfort all around.

It wasn't long ago that this couch had been his bed, Luke mused. Just a little over six months ago, before he became a husband and father, he'd slept here on the sofa. But recently, Daisy had sacrificed her queen-sized bed over to the newlywed Luke and Jo, also cleaning out a space in the corner of the room for Yvonne's crib. At first, little Jo would have none of it—she wasn't about to take that from Daisy. Eventually, Daisy had convinced her it was nothing.

For about the first month, Daisy had taken the sofa as her bed. But that hadn't worked for long with all of the late-night feedings between the always hungry Yvonne and Johnny. Someone was always accidentally waking Daisy up, with no good reason. Now she often stayed at friends' homes for the night and was home whenever possible during the day to compensate. It pained them all, but Daisy argued it'd only be like this until both of the newlywed couples had their own homes.

A little less gently than Luke had, Bo sat down beside him on the couch.

Now Bo, on the other hand, was currently sleeping in a separate bed from his wife. The newlyweds were sleeping on the two twin beds in what used to be Bo and Luke's room, with Johnny's crib against the wall by Bo's bed. Luke remembered Lou quite adamantly refusing to share a bed with Bo, despite his strong arguments that they were, after all, married—and that they'd done it more than once before. Still, Lou was not hearing any of it.

But that was Lou and Bo for you: making each other's lives as difficult as possible.

It would take the end of the world to get them to admit anything, wouldn't it?

"Johnny's asleep," Bo muttered, stroking his son's hand where it curled around an already almost-empty bottle. He yawned widely. "And I'm going back to bed. Good ni—morning, and I'll see you in about nine hours for breakfast, unless Lou and Johnny have something to say about it."

Shaking his head at Bo as he walked off, Luke wondered what in the world had possessed his cousin for the past six months.

Maybe, just maybe, he mused, it's that Bo fell in love with the one woman in the entire world that could turn him upside down and right-side up again with one sentence. And the one woman who tore Bo up the most, the one who drove him craziest, and probably the one he'd sworn to stay away from.

Glancing down at the now still child in his arms, Luke realized Yvonne too was asleep. With a sigh, he got up and wandered his way back to his and Jo's bedroom, toting his snoozing daughter.

TBC ASAP!

Now I know you guys haven't forgotten my reviewing policy already...

By the way, I got 95 reviews on "Oh, Baby!" Let's try and break 100 on this story!