Epilogue
Cat had been in bed reading—or pretending to—but the words had long since stopped making sense. She was happy, deeply so, but also overwhelmed by the tangle of emotions swirling through her.
She set a hand on her still relatively flat stomach, queasy more often than not these days.
A year ago, she’d been single, working every hour she could to earn enough money to return to Michigan. Six months ago, she’d stood in the summer sun at Langley Park, saying her vows. And somehow, miraculously, baby Harmon had been conceived almost at once—if not on the honeymoon, then soon after.
A year ago, she’d been lonely in ways she’d barely admitted to herself. Now she had everything—a home, a husband, a family, and work again. A part-time teaching post at the very school Jillian would join next year for high school.
Cat glanced at the bedside clock. Nearly eleven. Where was Rhys? She pushed back the covers, shivered at the rush of cold air, and pulled on her mother’s red-and-cream cardigan before heading downstairs.
Rhys was sitting by the cottage’s huge hearth, the fire throwing warm light over him as he worked at his laptop, still trying to wrap up the paper he’d written for the spring publication of a leading UK medical journal.
He looked up when she appeared, his expression softening instantly. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I think I’m too excited about the girls arriving tomorrow,” she said.
He closed the laptop and set it aside, reaching to draw her down onto his lap. “Who would have thought they’d want to come back this year for Christmas?”
“And do about a hundred different crafts?”
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer. “We do have new traditions.”
“And so many new memories,” she added.
“So many memories,” he agreed, kissing her. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Harmon.”
“Happy Christmas, Dr. Harmon. I love you to bits, you know.”
“I do know,” he murmured, brushing his thumb along her jaw, “and I’m the lucky one, Cat. I have you.”
The End