49. Epilogue
Chapter forty-nine
Epilogue
Ellie
“Mornin’, Ells.” Hunter grins at me as I stumble into the kitchen with Hayes, our youngest, on my hip. He was up all night teething and when he’s worked up he wants absolutely no part of being anywhere near Hunter.
It’s so good to be loved.
“Good morning, guys.”
Hunter’s sitting at our kitchen table with Audrey, and Addie, our middle child.
Our golden doodle, Milo, is under the table, catching scraps from breakfast. They’ve been busy this morning, or at least Hunter has.
There are eggs, bacon, and toast on the counter, and the girls have matching French braids.
Audrey insists that she has to have her hair French braided for soccer games, and Addie insists that she has to have her hair like her sister’s.
They are only a year and a half apart, and with their matching light blond hair, they’re often mistaken for twins.
Addie lives for that. Audrey, not so much.
“Your coffee’s on the table. Sit down and I’ll make your plate,” Hunter says. Bless his beautiful heart. I take a seat at the table and sip my coffee. Mmm … nobody does it like Hunter. I’m so glad I kept him around to make my coffee.
“Audrey and I have to leave in fifteen minutes. You’ll be alright bringing Addie and Hayes?” Hunter places a couple of pieces of bacon onto my plate. “The game starts at ten.”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine. I just need time for my elixir to kick in.”
Hunter sets my plate in front of me, then ruffles Hayes’ dark hair.
“Come on, bud. Let’s get you in the highchair.
” Hayes blows bubbles as Hunter gets him set up for breakfast. “Oh. Mom called. She said they’re going to make it to the game after all.
And she said she saw your collection has finally shown up on that website. She’s been stalking it.”
My clothes! I’ve been working for two years to get them into the biggest retailer that sells to boutiques nationwide. My clothes will be set up at events for shop owners, and apparently they are already up for wholesale orders online.
Forget the elixir. I’m awake!
I glance around for my phone, and when I realize I’ve left it in the bedroom, Hunter’s shows up in my hand, open to the website.
I lock eyes with him. “It’s happening.”
“I always knew it would.”
I wave to Ms. Truman across the field. She’s coaching her grandson’s team.
Come to find out, she was a crazy talented high school athlete.
She’s got her team doing drills our team couldn’t perform on their best day.
Somehow, Hunter’s authoritative personality hasn’t been effective with this particular group of kids.
Still, they have only lost one game this season.
They may not like to listen, but at least they’re natural athletes.
“Hey, Ellie.”
I turn and find Toran, a woman from the support group I run for domestic abuse survivors at the community center. She looks good this morning. She’s just gotten away from her husband, and I’m praying it sticks.
“Hey. Good morning.” I put my arm around her and squeeze.
“Morning. Ron’s here. I thought I’d watch with you, if that’s alright.”
“Of course it is. We’ll cheer the Monsters to victory.” The Monsters is the name the team chose. I couldn’t have chosen one more fitting. They’re good, they’re just wild and all over the place.
I watch as my flaming-hot husband calls his team to gather around him. The way we got here wasn’t in any way normal, but I have to say … I picked a good husband.
Hunter
There’s not a tactical manual in the world that can prepare you for coaching soccer to a bunch of five- and six-year-olds. These kids were more unpredictable than the Madrigal family and louder than a whole flock of Heiheis. Which, unfortunately, is a reference I understand now.
You’d think, at the very least, my own kid would listen to me.
You’d be wrong.
Currently, Audrey is squatting over the soccer ball, telling her friend Olivet, Cleo’s daughter, that it’s a magical egg that will hatch into a unicorn. Olivet starts crying because she wants to be the unicorn.
Meanwhile, Finn—the resident dinosaur expert—is telling me about watching A Land Before Time the night before. Apparently, his parents had the audacity to show him the “completely unrealistic” movie, thinking he’d love it.
“Apatosaurus and Stegosaurus lived in the Late Jurassic, and Triceratops lived in the Late Cretaceous,” he scoffs, as if I understood anything that just came out of his mouth.
“How old are you again?” I ask.
He holds up six fingers and I shake my head.
Trevor approaches me, holding up his hands to reveal … a frog. I wipe my hands over my face, trying not to groan.
“Everyone line up behind this cone!” I yell to the kids. No one even glances my way. I sigh.
It’s going to be a long day.
We lost our game against Mrs. Truman’s team. Not that Audrey seemed to notice—she was too busy picking dandelions on the field and handing them to Ellie and Addie.
“Let’s go get some ice cream,” I whisper to Ellie when the game is over. We usually only get ice cream for special occasions. Hyping up our three-year-old with a hundred grams of sugar before nap time is worse than sleeping in a fighting hole in a rainstorm.
Ellie leans in and whispers, “I don’t know if we need ice cream. Audrey seems to be taking the loss in stride.” She glances down at our daughter, who is cradling the soccer ball like a baby and cooing to it.
“It’s not for Audrey, it’s for me,” I tell her.
“Ah.” Ellie goes up on tiptoe and gives me a quick kiss. Then, she turns to the Dawson clan congregated on the sideline and claps her hands. “Let’s go get ice cream!”
A collective cheer from the kids goes up and there’s an audible groan from the adults.
“Sorry, not sorry,” I tell Asher, who has his arms full with a fussy toddler. He glares at me before saying, “You can come handle naptime then.”
“I’ll be otherwise engaged,” I tell him, as Ellie hands off Hayes to me.
“I can help with naptime,” my mom says sweetly to Asher and I can’t help but roll my eyes. He’s almost thirty years old, yet he’s still the biggest baby.
On the drive to the ice cream shop, we pass by Willow Beach, where I first found out Ellie was engaged to Dylan. At the time, that night was one of the worst of my young life. Dreams and hopes dashed—permanently, I thought.
I reach across the center console and take Ellie’s hand, twining our fingers together. She gives me a soft smile and squeezes my fingers in hers. All those years ago, I thought I’d lost my opportunity to be with Ellie, and yet, here we are.
It was a broken road if there ever was one, but we made it.
It’s been five years since Dylan was arrested. He was convicted on multiple federal trafficking and money laundering charges. Between his sentence and the years he'd already spent awaiting trial, Audrey will be well into adulthood before he’s eligible for release.
After our successful sting, Connor offered me a job with his private security firm.
As Director of Security Operations, I oversee security teams from the comfort of my home.
Every now and then, work sends me on the road, and one weekend a month, I trade business casual for cammies to drill with my Reserve unit.
But these days, my most important title isn’t director or Marine. It’s husband and dad.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
We pull into the ice cream shop. The Dawson family has always been big, but as we’ve expanded over the years, we have taken up the entire store. I look over at Ellie, with Hayes on her hip as he grabs a handful of her hair. I reach over, prying his fingers open and then taking him from her.
“Thank you,” she says, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “That’s what I get for growing my hair out.”
“You’re beautiful all the ways,” I tell her.
“It’s a good thing you think that because I’m about to buzz my hair off.”
I laugh, but she looks a little too serious as she declares she’s already made an appointment with Maria for her haircut. I make a mental note to circle back to this conversation after the kids are asleep tonight.
We place our orders—Cotton Candy Explosion for the kids, Double Chocolate Fudge for Ellie, and Cake Batter for me.
The kids who can run around are playing tag between the adults’ legs while the parents argue good-naturedly about which side of Starlight Valley has the better air—North Carolina or Tennessee.
I’m a North Carolina man, personally, but Wyatt’s pulling out his phone to show us air quality charts in favor of Tennessee.
Traitor.
Henry and Raquel’s daughter, Izzy, toddles over to Grandma DeeDee, stretching up her chubby arms to her great-grandma.
She scoops her up easily—a fact that she’s very proud of.
“I take all the senior fitness classes at the community center,” she likes to brag.
“And I whip all of those old fogies into shape.”
She’s going to outlive us all.
Every once in a while, when we’re gathered like this, I catch sight of my parents.
I’ve noticed they like to stand back and watch us when we’re together.
Today my mom leans on my dad, his arm tight around her.
Her eyes are misty as she takes in the whole crowd.
My dad places a kiss on the top of her head and whispers something to her, which makes her laugh.
I pull Ellie against me, kissing her briefly. As she settles against my side, her fingers slip beneath the edge of my sleeve and brush over the tattoo on my arm. It’s a habit she’s never outgrown.
Always Faithful.
The words meant something different when I had them inked into my skin all those years ago. A promise to the Corps. To my brothers. To something larger than myself.
They haven’t lost any of that meaning. They’ve only gained more.
Now they mean Ellie. Audrey, Addie, and Hayes. The family we fought for and the life we built together. They mean choosing them every day, for as many days as God gives me.
I can’t wait for the rest of our lives. I can already envision us in twenty-five years, just like my parents, watching our own family grow into something as loud, close-knit, and full of love as the Dawson clan surrounding us now.
And I promise you, I can’t think of anything better than that.
THE END
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Did you know you can read about Henry & Raquel in Shoot the Moon, Cleo & Ansel in Cozy by the Fire(man), and Beckett & Sadie in A Christmas Court(ship)!?
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