Epilogue
Dark brown curls danced in the wind as laughter carried across the field. I smiled as I drank my tea on the back porch of our home. I loved hearing their laughter. It never failed to bring a smile to my face. Prim tilted her head back to look up at her big brother as he pushed her on the swing she’d gotten for her third birthday last week.
Wills was her hero. From the moment she could toddle around on two feet, she’d followed Wills around the house. When he left for school, she would stand at the door with big crocodile tears in her eyes, watching him go. The moment he walked in the door in the afternoon, she would run to him with her arms wide open.
There was a time when I feared she might not get to know her brother. Stone had gone after his father with everything he had. Child abuse had been his first accusation. Not just for Wills but for the abuse he had suffered. Then he’d submitted the proof of Wills’s DNA.
The trial never came, and the fight ended quickly. Not because his father backed down but because he suffered a stroke that put him in a coma for six months. During that time, Stone was able to get temporary custody of Wills. Having him with us had been wonderful, but we were still haunted that it might prove temporary. Now that we had Wills losing him wasn’t something either of us could face. Stone worked hard to continue to build a case against his father. Hilda was unresponsive to any contact we attempted with her.
When his father didn’t wake from the coma, but his body started slipping away, Stone was called in because his current stepmother wasn’t on his father’s living will as the person to decide to pull him off life support. Stone was. He couldn’t make the call that day. It was something he had to be sure was the right thing to do. He spoke with several doctors. Each one said his father was slowly passing, and there was less and less brain activity. To the point, if he ever woke up, he’d be in a vegetative state at best.
Stone didn’t sleep that night. He’d sat outside on the porch.
He made the final decision, and three weeks after I gave birth to our daughter, Stone’s father was buried. His stepmother didn’t contest the will, seeing as she received the home in Manhattan and twenty million dollars. Much more than she would have gotten in a divorce. The prenup made that very clear.
Hilda once again signed over custody of her child, this time to Stone, when the courts tried to say that Wills legally went to his mother. Wills didn’t even ask to see his mother. He began to accept that he was safe with us, that we loved him, and that he had a home here. Soon, he began to act more like the child he was than the child too old for his years.
Heidi loved staying with us over the weekends and spending holidays together. She adored her niece and nephew, and they loved her. She had a room in our home if she ever wanted to live with us, but she was happy with her life at Among the Spanish Moss.
The door behind me opened and I turned to see my handsome husband walk outside. He was watching the kids play with a pleased smile. His eyes shifted to me. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
I held up my cup. “The ginger tea Geraldine suggested works wonders. Just like it did with Prim.”
Stone walked over and pressed a kiss to my head. “You decided when we’re gonna tell them yet?” he asked, referring to the kids.
I hadn’t yet, so I shook my head.
He shrugged. “Whenever you’re ready. No hurry. We can let them think you’re getting fat.”
I shoved him and laughed. “Not funny,” I said, not amused even a little.
“I like it when you’re big and round. It’s the only time I know Jasper isn’t looking at my wife and imagining her naked.”
“He doesn’t do that,” I replied, then rolled my eyes.
“Hell yeah, he does.”
The kids loved their Uncle Jasper, and I was thankful that Stone and Jasper had restored their relationship. They needed each other. They weren’t brothers by blood, but they were brothers in every way that mattered.
Stone sat on the patio sofa beside me and pulled me into his lap. “Come here. I need to hold you before you get too heavy.”
“If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you,” I told him.
“You couldn’t hate me. I’m too damn lovable.”
He was right, he was. At one time, he didn’t believe that. At one time, I didn’t believe it either. But life has a funny way of playing out in ways you never imagined.
One day, a man walked into my life, and I had believed he was a beautiful, elitist asshole. And now I couldn’t imagine a day without him by my side.