Epilogue
AVERY
My driveway is full when I get home at one o’clock on Nora’s first birthday, and the garage space is open because June knows better than to block my car at my own house.
Paper flowers cover the porch rail, and a crooked banner hangs between two posts because Bones believes measuring tape is an insult.
Children race around the side yard while somebody near the grill swears about propane, and the late-May sky comes down bright enough to make every windshield in the drive hurt.
Nora sits on Roxanne’s hip in a green dress with one sock missing, pointing at every arrival as though she approved the guest list herself.
June meets me halfway up the path wearing a yellow dress and looking as though the occupation is somebody else’s fault.
She has sent three messages since eleven claiming my backyard has been occupied, which is what happens when I give a woman the gate code and trust her to use it like a person instead of a small invading army.
“Before you start, the smash cake is intact, no child has been inside your office, and I have banned Bones from nailing one more fucking thing to your house.”
“Why is there a motorcycle pi?ata hanging from my maple tree?” I give her the work folder before she can find another decoration to defend.
There is frosting on one sleeve from the cupcake Mara opened beside my keyboard at noon, after Nadia announced I would not be allowed to work through my daughter’s birthday, and a signed settlement in the bag under my arm.
“Gage bought it.” June takes my bag, looks inside, and returns the work folder with disgust. “I told him it teaches children that motorcycles are full of candy. He said that was the point. Now there’s a line of eight-year-olds waiting to beat a bike with a stick, so nobody learned anything.”
I locked my office at noon with my name still on the glass and a promotion letter in the drawer.
I work four days most weeks now. One afternoon belongs to Nora, and one evening belongs to June whether we eat takeout or swear over furniture instructions.
The schedule is mine. Declan built his around it.
Nora was born one year ago tonight. At this hour last year, Declan was beside my hospital bed writing down every instruction I told him to keep, and I threatened to divorce a man I had already divorced if he asked me one more time what I needed.
By nightfall, our daughter was on my chest, furious about the entire arrangement, and Declan learned she was a girl from my mouth, after I met her first. Today she has six teeth, no respect for the word no, and three unsteady steps she took between the couch and my knees last week.
Declan missed them while he was at the clubhouse.
He listened to me describe every part before asking for the video, then watched it enough times that Nora now claps when she hears my voice from his phone.
Nora sees me and pitches forward hard enough that Roxanne has to catch her beneath both arms. I take my daughter before June can finish defending the decorations, breathing in sunscreen, cake icing, and the warm little neck I kissed before work.
Nora grabs my earring with one hand and smacks the other against my cheek, delighted that I returned on the day everyone gathered to admire her.
“Happy birthday,” I tell her, working my earring free. “I carried you for nine months, and this is how you greet me?”
“Da,” Nora says, pointing over my shoulder with the confidence of a child who has discovered that one of her two words can summon an enormous man from almost anywhere.
Declan’s motorcycle turns into the drive before I look.
He stops near the garage, removes his helmet, and Nora bounces against me shouting the same word.
The Enforcer patch is back on his cut, restored two months ago under the safeguards the club adopted after Sasha.
Gage keeps the routes and protected files.
Declan handles the men and the immediate threats, and no order carrying my name reaches him.
Cruz asked me before the motion reached the table.
I agreed only after the club wrote my family file outside Declan’s reach and made the two-reviewer rule part of the rank itself.
The whole table voted on the patch and the condition together.
Declan argued once in the closed meeting where he was allowed to argue, then accepted it.
Declan unclips the gun beneath his cut before he comes near the kitchen door.
He removes the knife from his boot, opens the garage box, and locks both inside.
The routine happens every time, even when he returns for something he forgot.
Today Nora leans so far toward him that I have to brace one hand across her stomach, but he tests the lock before reaching for her.
The green indicator appears. Some days I walk inside after hearing the latch.
Today I pull the handle myself. The door holds, and Declan waits with his helmet under one arm while I finish.
The quarterly access test reached me at work that morning, after Cruz warned me it was coming.
Gage opened my record with Nadia’s office on the line.
Declan’s name appeared on the recusal row, and my phone and Nadia’s secure account received the same notice.
The system worked without asking me to trust a promise.
“Did Bones read the warehouse change back to you?” I ask when Nora tries to climb out of my arms.
“Twice. The pickup moved to Tuesday, Bones signed beside me, and Gage has the route. Nothing else changed.” Declan holds up the completed review, then lowers the phone before Nora can grab it.
“Good.” I lift Nora toward him while she repeats the demand. “Your daughter is losing patience. Take her before she fires me.”
He puts his helmet down and takes her when both of my hands release. Nora plants her mouth against his cheek in something more like a collision than a kiss, then grabs the edge of his cut and says, “Da,” directly into his face.
“I heard you the first time.” Declan kisses her hair and looks at me over her head.
A year of night feedings hasn’t made the sight of him holding our daughter any less distracting.
The black shirt beneath his cut pulls across his shoulders when he shifts Nora higher, and the new gold band on his hand catches against her green dress.
He notices where I am looking because he is an arrogant bastard despite every lesson of the last two years.
“Do you need me in the yard, or do you want five minutes inside?”
I want ten minutes upstairs with the bedroom door locked, which won’t help while our daughter’s party fills the backyard. I point him toward the house instead. “Put your boots beside mine, wash your hands, and rescue the grill before Gage poisons somebody. I’ll want you after the cake.”
Declan’s mouth moves as though he has several filthy answers and enough sense to keep all of them away from the child chewing his collar. “After the cake.”
He leaves his boots on the mat beside mine and carries Nora toward the sink.
He keeps his cut on because half the yard wears one, but the gun and knife stay behind the locked garage door.
I check the indicator once more before I follow.
The second look hurts less than pretending I don’t want it would.
Mara comes up the path behind Nadia while I am crossing back toward the yard, carrying the gift bag she has refused to let anybody else hold, though the board book inside weighs less than my purse.
“If June has taken control of the yard, should I bring identification?” she asks, holding the gift between us. “Your last message sounded like a warning from inside an occupied building.”
“Hand over the present and don’t make eye contact until she offers you food.” I take the bag when Mara tries to balance it on her purse. “If she asks whether you can braid hair, lie, or she’ll put you to work before you see the baby.”
“Can you braid hair?” Mara hands the gift over once Nadia has gone ahead of us toward the shade at the side of the porch, apparently willing to trust my warning but not my ability to carry one book.
“No. That has never stopped her from handing me a comb.” I tuck the bag beneath my arm and walk her past June, who is already reaching for the comb in her pocket.
Mara started at Bell & Rourke after Nora was born, so Declan entered her life later, through photographs on my desk and the days he brought Nora upstairs when childcare failed.
She heard about the conference room in her first week, because a firm cannot replace a glass wall quietly, and nobody has ever given her the part that happened before it.
I like having friends who learned my name before they learned what patch my husband wears.
The party grows around us instead of waiting for a perfect photograph.
Gage burns the food until Roxanne takes the tongs, and Nora claps at the smoke, because Declan ruins the first batch of pancakes every Sunday morning and our daughter has decided the smoke alarm is an announcement about breakfast. Bones blames the crooked banner on my porch and retreats when Tessa asks him to repeat that to my face.
Hutch gives Nora a wooden puzzle and teaches her to remove every piece.
Trigger lets the children attack the motorcycle pi?ata while Cruz guards the parked bikes.
Declan carries Nora through the mess until she reaches for me again, then gives her back without showing disappointment. He asks where I want my plate and takes the chair at my other side when I pull it closer with my foot.
“How was the center?” Hutch asks him while Nora crushes a piece of melon across her tray.