Epilogue 2
Eighteen years later
Calvin
" Y ou sure you're okay with this?"
Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel.
"Your support means a lot to her."
I'm still processing the paperwork our daughter handed me earlier today.
"I just don't understand why she can't wait till she's eighteen?"
"Because she'll only be seventeen when she graduates. She wants to go right out of high school. Like her daddy did."
Our oldest wants to be a fighter pilot.
Of course I'll be signing off to let her join before her eighteenth birthday. Nicole has known she wanted to fly jets since I took her to her first air show. She's got a damn good chance, and I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't support her military dreams.
It just hit me hard when she came to talk to us about joining early.
The kids are all teenagers. My gray is closer to white these days, and my sexy young wife is close to earning her own "silver fox" status.
Our boys aren't far behind Nikki, with Carson just getting his driver's license a couple months ago, and Collin ready to start high school next fall.
Carson has military plans as well, but he says he's doing college first and going in as an officer.
Coll-- well, that boy has had a different plan every year of his young life. Last I heard, he was going to be a rodeo clown.
I think the military might be safer.
"You want me to sign off on this?"
Penny snuggles up close to me under the covers of the bed we've been sharing for nearly two decades now. She's wearing one of my old t-shirts and I love the way it clings to her full breasts as she moves toward me.
"Are you really thinking of saying no?"
My wife knows I won't. We've talked about this too many times-- but I'm willing to find out what she's prepared to do to convince me.
"Why don't you talk me into it?"
I've never been happy about the way it happened.
I wish Penny hadn't gone through the pain of losing her first husband, I sure as hell with she hadn't attracted the attention of those nutcases, and I'd rather not have had to leave their bodies lying on the forest floor, staged to look like it was their own doing before I knew Harlan's crew would be around to clean up for me.
But I'm damn glad she showed up in my life, needing a bodyguard and ready to start over; even if was with an old man like me.
My wife slithers down my body, deeper under the covers. When I reach to turn the light off, she stops me.
"I want to you to watch me change your mind," she tells me, peering up at me with a naughty little grin that has me leaving the lights on, and throwing the covers back.
She's my world. I'll guard her forever.