Epilogue #2
I’d been working all day on a sketch of Mom and Dad.
Mom was pregnant—with Jude, I thought, based on the fact that they were at Dad’s parents’ place, when they still had their house.
Mom looked beautiful: round and happy and leaning against Dad, grinning on a porch swing.
I’d been thinking absently of Seamus like I did most mornings, wondering what he was doing right at that moment and trying to put off the itch that had started coming up around him.
It’s time.
I’m not ready.
It’s time.
As I shaded a small structure next to the house where my young parents sat, I froze, picking up the photo I’d been working from. I’d been drawing a chicken coop. And there, in the dirt by the house, were chickens.
That’s when I knew. I didn’t want to get my own house because I already knew what house I wanted to live in. A white clapboard cottage in the hills, with a special view right onto the valley.
I’d dropped my pencil and run straight for Eli’s door.
“Eli, now’s the time.”
“What?” he’d asked, his eyes bleary with sleep. I realized what time it was—not even seven in the morning. I’d gotten up to the draw the sunset, but after discovering it was raining, I’d switched to this drawing instead. I had a client meeting later, but I could move that to tomorrow easily enough.
“You need to deal with that storage locker. I need to win back Seamus. It’s time to go straight through the pain.”
We were driving through the rain with Betsey’s muffins and coffee to-go an hour later.
I was prepared for it to be painful. Seamus could well have moved on. Even if he hadn’t, he might not want to be with me. Even if he did want to be, he could run screaming if I told him I wanted to move in with him. Not that he was there right now, anyway.
It was ludicrous.
But he hadn’t moved on. Seamus had been there, and he’d gotten Lola, too. After we kissed and I thought the world couldn’t get any brighter, he’d brought me back to his place in Jewel Lakes and there she was, bounding off the porch and into my lap, licking my face like we’d never been apart.
Winona had hearts in her eyes. “It’s like a damn fairy tale.”
“How about you?” I’d asked. “You have your eye on any Prince Charmings?”
“Oh darlin,’” she’d said. “Those fairy tales aren’t for girls like me.”
Then she’d called for the check before I could tell her I hadn’t thought they were for me, either.
“Is it weird to be jealous of a water bottle?” I asked as Seamus came over to me now. He’d gotten his last nail in and I’d insisted he take a break. He was walking my way now, squirting water all over his hair and then shaking it out like a puppy.
I would have laughed, except I was mesmerized by the droplets rolling down his chest and the tight V of muscle under his abdominals sliding in and out of his jeans.
“Yes, it is weird,” he said. “You have a problem, Chelsea Kelly.”
“You knew exactly what you were doing.” Before I’d called him over, he’d given the beam he’d been working on a pat—more like a little slap—then a full-on caress. I’d gasped so loud Lola had stood up and wandered a few feet over for a quieter resting spot, where she was now.
“If you want wood, I can show you wood,” Seamus said, kneeling at my side. I laughed, my heart swelling at the way this man was around me. He told me everything. He showed me everything. He trusted me with the words he gave to no one else.
I spread the hammock open. It only stretched as far as the length of my arm.
Seamus looked skeptical. “I don’t think that’s going to hold us both.”
“We’re not too far off the ground if it doesn’t,” I said.
He hesitated only a moment longer before gingerly folding his big body into the fabric next to me. It took a bit of maneuvering, but soon Seamus was stretched out on his back next to me, with my arm curled over his chest. The rope looped around the tree at our heads creaked, but held.
I trailed my fingers lazily down Seamus’s chest. When I asked him to climb in with me, I’d wanted him for more carnal purposes than this.
But the way the hammock molded me to him, I felt almost too good to move.
The soft sway of the hammock only added to the relaxing cocoon sensation.
“I like being wrapped up in you,” I said.
“Me too, baby,” he kissed the top of my head.
For a moment we lay in comfortable silence, my hand resting on the soft trail of hair at his stomach. In a minute, I’d bring my hand down further, but for now, this was too good.
“Hey, I almost forgot to ask you,” Seamus said after a moment, his voice still a murmur. “Did Eli tell you if he was seeing anyone?”
I almost laughed. “What? Eli? No.” I hadn’t heard of Eli dating anyone in months, if not longer. “Why?”
“When I stopped by the hotel today to talk with Sarah, I saw him kissing a woman.”
I blinked. “Are you serious?”
“I am. And the weird thing was, the woman looked a helluva lot like Reese Franco.”
“That’s impossible. Reese hates him.”
“I know. So it had to be someone else.”
Eli hadn’t told me about the locker right away—it tracked that maybe he hadn’t told me about a woman he was dating.
At work.
But he should have told Seamus. “I thought that’s the kind of thing best friends talk about?”
“Not since his best friend started dating his sister.”
I laughed, my eyes growing heavy again. “Yeah, I guess that would put a cramp in things.”
Seamus yawned. “Just wait til we get married.”
My stomach jumped. Suddenly, I was wide awake, all thoughts of my brother gone. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Seamus said. I could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you think gazebos are for?”
“You’re teasing me,” I said softly.
“Maybe,” he said, stroking the hair at my temple. “But I love you, Chelsea Kelly, and the minute you let me, I’m going to marry you.”
My throat swelled, my eyes growing wet. I blinked, my gaze going to the trees, where Kevin’s memorial stood, the soft turquoise cloth still now, the breeze gone.
Not everyone had time. But now that we had each other, I didn’t want to rush.
I wanted to savor every moment with Seamus, to draw every memory.
“Of course I’ll marry you, Seamus. Right now, if that’s what you want.
But we have time for that later.” I kissed his chest, the warmth of his skin radiating through me.
“Yes, baby,” Seamus said. “We have all the time in the world.”
I hope you loved Fall For Me!