Epilogue
Scottish summer was my favourite day of the year. After almost a decade in which we’d all got used to the better weather, the rain and gloom had returned to Scotland with full force.
Sometimes you only realised what you were missing once you didn’t have it anymore.
I leaned back on the picnic blanket and took a few more of the quartered grapes Stella had brought to our seaside hangout, and glanced over at my wife.
She and Stella were deep in conversation about the best brand of rain gear for kids and about Stella’s handcrafting business.
She’d moved to Carranbrae a few years ago to work at Gust & Grind, the Scales sister cafe.
It had been her partner Mikke who’d encouraged her to pursue her art business on the side.
Since Saga’s birth three years ago, she only took occasional shifts to get out of the house.
I grinned and pushed up to my feet, but not before grabbing another few grapes. The sand crunched under my hooves as I trudged over to the boulders scattered around the beach at the bottom of the cliff that held Carranbrae’s lighthouse.
Stella and Mikke’s daughter crouched beside a tide pool with her brown fox ears twitching.
Briar charged past her a moment later with all the grace of our kind, sending sand flying everywhere. He chased a sea gull that was almost as big as he was. Mikke called something that I couldn’t hear over the sea breeze and laughed.
“Everything alright?” I asked him.
“Sure! Little Briar is very brave.” He gave me a wide grin that exposed his sharp fangs. “Battling the gulls.”
I snorted and ducked just in time to grab my small son in mid-run.
“Oi, wee bull, leave the gulls alone, will ye?” I nuzzled my nose into the crook of his neck. Briar wriggled in my arms, the tiny nubs of his horns barely visible in the riot of russet curls.
“Down,” he demanded with all the stubborn authority of a calf who had already decided the beach belonged to him.
I sighed and set him back on his feet.
“You know that he’ll keep chasing the sea gulls, don’t you?” A giggling Autumn ducked under my arm and slipped hers around my waist.
I bent down and kissed the top of her head. “‘Course he will. When has that stubborn bairn ever listened to me?”
“Aww.” My wife scrunched her nose and pouted up at me. “Poor daddy.”
“Mh, I like it when you call me that,” I rumbled and pulled her closer to my side. Ever since we’d got together officially, I had thought I couldn’t adore her more than I did.
Then, about a year after our wedding, we’d found out that we were expecting a baby. I’d seen her carry and birth our wonderful son, and with every day that passed, my love for both of them deepened.
“You look so beautiful today.” Autumn leaned her head against my chest when I rested my palm on her bump. Soon we’d be able to feel their little kicks.
“I feel like a whale already.” She poked my side and exhaled. “I bet they’re going to be as huge as Little Horns was.”
“They’ll be perfect, just like our wee bull.”
The wee bull charged through the surf again, spraying Saga, Stella, and Mikke with water. They all laughed and chased after him.
“I’m just scared, Ross. Briar’s a handful, what if…”
“Then we’ll manage together.” I hugged her.
“Business is booming thanks to you. I’ll be around a lot, and once they’re a bit older you can go back to the workshop and I’ll stay with the bairns.
Just like we did with Briar.” She followed my lead when I tilted her face up and placed a soft kiss on her lips.
Briar crashed into my leg and flung his small arms around both our thighs. “Mama, help!” he shrieked.
I chuckled and kissed my beautiful wife again.
“We’ll be fine, Autumn. I promise you that.”
THE END