Epilogue
BINGO – HOLD YOUR NERVE FOR THE ULTIMATE PRIZE.
Five years later
‘Found you!’ came the excited voice of four-year-old Faith McQueen as she pulled back the curtain to reveal her mother crouched on the window seat behind it.
‘Darn! And I thought I had the perfect hiding place,’ Soli said with a grin, ruffling the hair of her eldest daughter and pulling her in for a kiss.
‘Mum, let go – I still need to find Dad and Joy,’ Faith said, struggling out of her arms, but not before dabbing one last wet kiss on Soli’s cheek.
‘Okay, go ahead,’ Soli said, unfolding herself from her cramped position with a sigh of relief and heading back to the kitchen, where she still had some last-minute preparations to do for Xavier’s birthday meal.
She’d made one of her famous chocolate fudge cakes for dessert and she needed to get it out of the oven now so it’d be absolutely perfect.
It wasn’t long before Xavier came striding in through the door with two-year-old Joy on his shoulders and Faith clinging around his waist with her feet on top of his, doing the penguin walk.
‘You seem to have a new hat and pair of trousers,’ she joked. ‘Did you get them for your birthday?’
She laughed as Xavier shot her a rueful look while he tried, and failed, to prise his children off him.
He was amazing with them, as Soli had always suspected he would be, and they’d both become real Daddy’s girls to prove her right. He clearly adored them and had even hinted he’d be very happy to have more kids if she thought she might too.
‘Where’s everyone else?’ Faith asked, her eyes round with excitement when she saw the kitchen table laden with the special birthday meal.
She was talking, in part, about Soli’s mother, who had moved in with them and taken the downstairs bedroom when her Parkinson’s had worsened and it had become impossible for her to manage stairs.
It was a great arrangement because it meant the girls could spend lots of time with their grandmother, and she absolutely adored having them around her.
She often said to Soli that they kept her young.
After acing her degree at Oxford, Domino had gone on to do a master’s in pure maths and was now starting a PhD at King’s College London.
She’d moved in with them last year – eventually bringing her boyfriend too, another PhD student from her department, who was deeply devoted to Soli’s brilliant sister.
If the two of them had kids, Soli suspected they’d be so smart they’d go on to solve all six of the remaining mathematical Millennium prize projects or something.
The house was no longer the silent show home it had been when she’d first moved in. It was now always full of life and laughter, which Xavier happily asserted would have delighted his great-aunt Faith, and openly admitted that he loved too.
Soli had sold the business on to another board game enthusiast when she fell pregnant for the second time and had decided she wanted to be able to spend more time at home with both the children and her mother.
She didn’t regret it for a second. It had always been her father’s dream really, and it had been high time she’d chased her own.
To that end, she’d enrolled in college to study fashion design, something she’d really enjoyed at school, and was now in the process of setting up her own clothing line, which she’d decided to call Solitaire.
It was all up for grabs, which was exactly the way she’d come to like it.
‘Speaking of birthday presents,’ she said to Xavier once he’d finally freed himself from his daughters’ vice-like grip.
‘You know I didn’t want you to get me anything.’ He gave her a mock-stern frown, then pulled her hard against his body, wrapping his arms around her. ‘Just this,’ he said, dropping his mouth to hers for a long, sweet kiss.
‘Well, I’m afraid I ignored your instructions,’ she teased, when they finally broke apart, flashing him a smile.
He let out a long, fake sigh. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘I thought you might like this though,’ she said, pulling out a long, flat package.
He frowned, taking it from her and pulling off the wrapping paper to reveal a pregnancy testing kit.
‘You’re pregnant again?’ he asked, his eyes lighting up with excitement.
‘I am,’ she said, grinning as he pulled her back against him and planted little kisses all over her face.
‘Well, that’s the best birthday present I’ve ever had,’ he said gruffly, grinning from ear to ear.
‘You realise there are going to be even more years of hide-and-seek to get through now,’ she joked, laughing as he began to kiss down her neck.
‘That works for me,’ he said, his voice muffled against her skin. ‘I know all the best hiding places in this house now.’
She smiled, thinking how much he’d changed since she’d first met him. He was so full of love and happiness with his place in the world now, she barely recognised the withdrawn, emotionally scarred man he’d been then.
Contentment swelled in her chest as she looked at her family gathered around her.
Right at that moment she couldn’t have been happier. She had everyone she loved right there with her and an exciting future stretching ahead with Xavier by her side.
A future she was no longer afraid to face.
She was proud of the brave, strong and confident person she’d become, thanks to Xavier’s belief in her.
In fact, they’d made a pact that there would be no more hiding from life – for either of them – ever again.
He’d been absolutely right: they made the perfect team.