Epilogue
Zara
Four Years Later
“Come on! We’re gonna race.” Cormac went running at a snail’s pace, and Miriam nipped at his heels, giggling like a maniac.
“I win, Daddy!” she squealed.
“You have to catch me,” he called, letting her keep up with him.
I chased after them, laughing and recording their race on my phone. Miriam looked back over her shoulder, making sure I was there.
“Go on. Catch Daddy. We can’t let him win,” I said.
“Me!” she cried, raising her chubby arms over her head. “I’m gonna beat you, Daddy!”
Miriam was just a month away from turning three, and everything was a race to her. She lived by the motto “Why walk when I can run?” Luckily, she had almost infinite space to roam and a horde of cousins to exhaust her. Her dad was her favorite partner in crime, though.
It didn’t take us long to make it to the river, but I was out of breath all the same. Cormac and Miriam celebrated her victory with a little dance then he came over to me to check in.
“You’re panting,” he said, resting his hands on my shoulders.
I pointed to my big belly. “Your son is compressing my lungs.”
His smile was so tender my eyes immediately stung.
I would have blamed it on the hormones, but that wasn’t really it.
Cormac was just…wonderful. He loved me so well it regularly sent me into fits of emotional upheaval.
And seeing him with our little girl was just as I’d always imagined.
He had bottomless wells of patience and energy, and he was so loving I knew she would never doubt she was safe in his arms.
Just like me.
“You’re beautiful, even when you’re breathless,” he said, cradling my belly.
I cupped his cheeks, bringing him to my level, and kissed around his mouth before he got fed up and stole one from my lips.
Laughing, I squeezed his face. “You’re so cute, I can’t stand it.”
He growled. “Not cute. Devastatingly handsome.”
“That too, of course.”
He really was, and it was for that reason I got pregnant with Miriam before we had planned. We also hadn’t been careful in our prevention, so the truth was, we’d been fine with having a surprise, and once she came along, it had been clear the timing had been exactly right.
My little blue-eyed, raven-haired girl. A rancher from birth, she’d ridden horses and milked a cow by the time she’d turned two. She was an outdoorsy girl like her mama, and easygoing like her daddy.
She did like lots of attention, though. When she decided Cormac and I had loved on each other enough, she’d squeeze between us and hold her arms out, and Cormac would scoop her up, squishing her between us.
She patted my belly. “Baby brother.”
“Yes. He’s in there. Are you excited to meet him?”
She gave me a different answer every day. This time, she thought about it, tapping her little round cheek and humming.
“Is he gonna be like Avie?”
Avery was her youngest cousin, Phoebe and Deke’s third child. They’d had her a year after their boy, Anderson, was born. She was a wild handful like her cousin, Silas, but she was a teeny-tiny, adorable little imp too, so she got away with most of her mischief.
“Maybe,” I said. “We have to meet him and let him show us who he is.”
She hummed again. “Okay. I’ll meet him.”
Cormac grinned at me. “Good thing she’s willing to meet her brother.”
I swiped my forehead. “Phew. I was worried there for a second.”
They raced back to the house, with me trailing slowly behind. Miriam ran inside, and Cormac circled back for me. If I’d let him, he would have carried me the rest of the way, but I wasn’t at the point in my pregnancy where I was ready to give up walking.
Inside, Miriam had found her great-grandparents. They were sitting together on the couch, Miriam snuggled between them, jabbering away about her day as they nodded along attentively. Cormac and I stopped at the living room threshold to watch, leaning against each other.
When we got married, Lily and Connell had offered to move to the guesthouse so we could have this house for our family, but we hadn’t even considered accepting.
This was how I’d grown up, with extended family close by, and what I’d wanted for my kids.
Besides, I loved my morning chats with Lily and asking Connell questions about the ranch whenever one popped into my head.
It wasn’t the same as my relationship with my own grandparents, but it was close enough to soothe a part of me that had ached since their loss.
I looked up at Cormac, and he turned to peer down at me.
His eyes were soft, but deep down, there was sadness brewing.
Because one day, in the not-too-distant future, this would be gone.
Lily and Connell were healthy, but they were almost ninety, and no one lived forever.
We’d love them and treasure them as long as we had them, and I tried my hardest not to mourn them while they were still here, but carried a pit of dread in my stomach for the day that they weren’t.
“We’ll be like them one day,” he whispered.
“I really hope so,” I whispered back.
Lily turned our way, assessment sharp in her blue eyes. “Are you keeping secrets over there?”
“As if we can have secrets in this family,” I said.
I pulled Cormac into the living room with me, and we sat beside each other on the sectional. Well, I was half in his lap, where he’d tugged me. If we sat here long enough, I’d end up fully on his lap, one way or another. That was just how we were.
Lily pinned me with a stern look. “Don’t do that.”
My eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
She lowered her chin. “You know.”
Miriam kicked her feet, her hands on her great-grandparents’ knees. “What is Mommy doing?”
Lily tucked Miriam’s hair behind her ear and smiled. “She’s being silly and worrying about things that are inevitable. Do you know what inevitable means?”
Miriam shook her head.
She took Miriam’s hand in hers. “Well, inevitable means something that is meant to happen. Like your mommy and daddy falling in love and getting married. That was inevitable. And like you”—she poked Miriam’s tummy—“being born. Inevitable and wonderful. And things coming to an end when they’re supposed to.
That’s inevitable too. So worrying about them is just plain silly. ”
Miriam nodded like she understood, which I doubted. “You’re silly, Mommy.”
Connell’s laugh was still a deep rumble. “She has a point, darlin’.”
Sucking in a breath, I smiled. “Then I won’t worry, since I don’t want to be accused of being silly.”
Cormac had told me a long time ago we were lucky to have known what it meant to lose each other, so we would treasure the time we now had.
He’d promised to hold my hand and me in his arms as often as he could, and he’d kept that promise.
In my heart, I’d promised to stop focusing on what we’d lost and look forward to all we would have.
We already had so, so much. Nieces and nephews, parents and grandparents. Our children, each other. Health, sunshine, happiness.
I wished I saw Steven and Zane and their twins, Zak and Sophie, more often. I wished my parents lived in Sugar Brush full time and not just during the summers. I wished I could erase the years I’d wasted when I could have been with Cormac instead.
Those were things I could not change. And what we had, how we grew, tipped the scales so far in our favor, it was hard to dwell on any of it for too long.
Cormac brushed his thumb over my knuckles, reminding me he was with me, like he always did. Miriam’s laughter rang out, bright and unbothered, as Lily and Connell hung on her every word.
Life would keep moving. Seasons would turn. Babies would be born. Goodbyes would come when they must.
But right now, the house was full. My husband’s arm was around me. Our daughter was safe between generations. Our son kicked beneath my heart.
And this love-soaked moment wasn’t something to mourn or wish different.
It was inevitable.
And it was ours.