Bloom (Serenity Ranch #1)

EPILOGUE

Ken Brennan dies on the sofa in his living room the same way he lived the final decade of his life; sad and alone.

She cries. The woman he loves weeps, but he knows those aren’t tears of sadness. He knows relief when he sees it—he knows it because he feels it too. Every day since, when he wakes up and knows that man is no longer in the world, he feels it. He feels it when he rolls over and sees his wife, his partner, the love of his life curled up as close to him as she can get, hogging the covers like she always does. He feels it when he looks at his children, his beautiful, perfect children, and he knows they’ll never have to meet the man who convinced their mother she was unloveable.

There isn’t a funeral. No celebration of life. Just a headstone with a name and two dates, next to another slab of granite that’s never gone without fresh flowers. They visit it once, a month after the fact, when she decides she’s ready, and she doesn’t cry then. Her bottom lip wobbles and she grips his hand hard enough to leave half-moon prints in his palm, but she doesn’t cry. She kisses the baby cradled in her arms, she hugs the twin girls wrapped around each of her legs, she leans against him and nuzzles the toddler clinging to his neck, she tells them how much she loves them, and she doesn’t cry.