Epilogue I Shiloh
Epilogue
I: Shiloh
Six months later
“Don’t wake our boy,” Ronan whispered into my ear.
Ronan nuzzled my neck, nipped my ear, and his hands began exploring and caressing…
I laughed. “How are you ready again? I need a few minutes to recharge.”
“If you insist.”
“What’s with you tonight anyway?” I reached up to sink my fingers in his hair.
“You’re in an unusually virile mood.” Actually, there was nothing unusual about it.
Ronan didn’t have an off switch. He’d been known to wake with only a kiss and be inside me a minute later if that was what I wanted. “Are we celebrating something?”
“Nope,” he said. “Oh, except that Hector and I got the bid.”
“You did?” I screeched, and we both glanced fearfully at the baby monitor on my nightstand.
Ronan had built an addition on to Bibi’s house—August’s room—where my work shed used to be. It took up most of the backyard, but leaving Bibi alone to get our own place would break her heart, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her anyway. We were a tight fit but too happy to notice.
The monitor remained quiet, and I turned my arched brow on Ronan.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He pulled me on top of him so that I lay flush with his warm, broad chest, his smile lazy. “I’m telling you now.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Well, damn, that’s amazing news. But what does that mean exactly?”
“It means we are now the proud owners of that rotting little cottage down on Beachside.”
“God, Ronan, I’m so happy for you,” I said, kissing him and marveling at how fast life moved.
The Bluffs apartments Ronan’s uncle had lived in had been condemned.
As much as Ronan hated to unhouse the tenants, there was nothing he could do.
The best option was to sell the land to the city, then use the profit to upgrade the apartment complex at Cliffside.
He hired a contractor, Hector Morales, and together they put in a new HVAC system and a new roof and upgraded the fixtures, all without raising the rent one penny.
It was imperative to Ronan that he provide decent homes for people without strangling them financially.
Throughout the process, he and Hector hit it off and decided to use Ronan’s restitution money from the state to start their own construction business…
with a bestselling author and a Grammy-winning rock star as key investors.
The only way Ronan would allow Holden or Miller to give him any money was if they were going to get it back once the business took off.
Which it would, because I knew Ronan would work his ass off to make sure he let no one down.
Just last week, he and Hector had put in a bid to buy the “rotting little cottage on Beachside” that they planned to flip and make beautiful.
Make a home for someone. A family maybe.
“I was thinking,” Ronan said, settling beneath me and brushing my braids away from my face. “We’re going to need some help with the remodel on the cottage. Neither Hector or I have the first damn clue about backsplashes or lighting fixtures or…whatever.”
I grinned. “You want me to choose the design elements? Or…whatever?”
“You’re the artist,” he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
It was total, how much he believed in me.
And with Ronan being back in our lives and taking his share of the stress off my shoulders, I’d been able to make my shop what I wanted—attending craft fairs, advertising, and reaching out to other artists for collaborations and showcases.
For the first time since its second grand opening, Rare Earth turned a profit three months in a row.
“Sounds like a challenge,” I said. “I’m in.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d love to. Anything to help. We’ll be like the house flippers on HGTV. But let’s be more Chip and Joanna, less Tarek and Christina.”
Ronan stared at me blankly. “I don’t know who any of those people are, but…sure.”
I laughed and lowered my mouth to his. He kissed me back with intention, but I still couldn’t feel my legs. I slid like butter off his hard, warm body and cuddled against him.
“Not yet, you beast.”
“Water?”
Without waiting for an answer, he drew on his flannel sleep pants and padded out to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water, handed it to me, then stripped naked again and climbed into bed.
I laughed. “You’re insatiable.”
“You’re naked,” he said. As if that explained everything.
I took a few sips, then curled into the warm solidity of him.
His fingers played in my hair while mine trailed over his skin, his tattoos.
The owl watched me, and I smiled. Ronan had explained it was for his mother.
The owl symbolized wisdom and vigilance and was her favorite animal.
He got the tattoo so she could watch over him and make sure he always did right by those who needed him. To trust and keep going.
She’d be so proud of him, a thousand times over.
“Maybe, just maybe, after you and Hector get that house flipped and after the Boardwalk Crafts Fair, we can take some time off,” I said. “I think we’ve both earned a vacation.” I frowned. “But hold up. Do I remember what that word means? I think I do…”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. France maybe.” I ran my fingertip over his luscious lips. “You can kiss me under the Eiffel Tower.”
“Sounds like mushy romantic shit. The kind you hate.”
“Maybe I’m changing my mind about mushy romantic shit. I blame you. The prom night you made for us with the butterflies and the lights… I was helpless to resist.”
“We’ll go wherever you want,” he said.
I pressed my cheek to listen to his heartbeat. “Paris might be a bit much for a two-and-a-half-year-old, and I don’t think I can be that far away from August just yet.”
“Me neither.”
Ugh, this man.
“A long weekend in San Francisco maybe?”
“That works too.” Ronan nuzzled my neck. “I’d settle for anywhere I can make you come until you scream without worrying about waking up toddlers or grandmothers.”
“Amen to that,” I said, listening to the rain and reveling in the feel of Ronan in my arms. In my bed. Back in my life after three years of excruciating absence.
“Speaking of France,” I said after a minute, “I got a very interesting order from Paris last week on the shop’s website.”
“What kind of order?”
“For a wedding ring. Do we know an Albert Bernard?”
“Don’t think so.”
“He’s a lawyer—and an artist on the side apparently, because he designed the ring himself, and it’s…”
“Ugly as hell?” Ronan supplied. “Tacky? Ridiculous?”
“Just the opposite. It’s stunning. Mixed metals, which I love—silver with gold edging and an asymmetrical configuration of three stones. An aquamarine, a blue topaz, and a diamond in the center.”
I frowned, something nipping at the edge of my awareness again, like it had when the order first came in.
“Those are our birthstones,” Ronan said just as it came to me. “Yours, mine, and Augie’s.”
“That’s true,” I said slowly. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve been around you long enough to know about the magical powers of gemstones and birthstones and crystals…”
“Magical powers.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “But isn’t that funny? It’s a truly beautiful design. And so romantic. The email said he’s going to surprise the love of his life with it, the lucky girl. It’s going to be hard for me to part with it.”
Ronan was silent, and the weird feeling didn’t leave me but grew into something like suspicion…
“Ronan?”
“Marry me.”
I froze. My heart, the only part of me that was moving, beat hard in my chest. “What did you say?”
I raised my head to find his brows furrowed, doubt painting his features.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m doing this all wrong. I have no plan. No ring. Just…blurting it out like a jackass. But this talk about other people’s wedding rings and Paris… I want to give it all to you right this fucking second.”
My breath caught. When I thought I couldn’t love Ronan more, my heart expanded and made room, letting it all in.
“There’s never going to be anyone else, Shiloh. From the moment I laid eyes on you, a part of me knew you were it for me.” He took my left hand and kissed my ring finger. “I love you. I love our boy. I love this life that we’re making. That you’ve given me. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I whispered, then louder, “Yes, Ronan. I want nothing more than to marry you.”
He shook his head, disbelieving, like a man waking up from a dream. I took his face in my hands, wanting to obliterate any doubt once and for all.
“You opened my heart and then filled it with everything I could possibly want. Filled it with everything I didn’t know I wanted and now can’t imagine living without. I love you, Ronan, and I’ll love you forever.”
His gray eyes turned smoky, and he kissed me softly, then deeper.
We sank into the kiss that was rich with love but burning hotter with every passing second.
My body came wide awake, wanting to celebrate all that we’d endured and all that we’d face together, from that moment through all the years left to us.
Ronan rolled me onto my back, his mouth making a slow migration.
“Can’t argue with that.”
The rain lashed the window, and through the baby monitor, August fussed. We both froze, eyes on the door that led to his room, attached to ours, waiting to know if it was a one-time fuss or something more.
August whimpered again, sounding scared. Ronan shot off the bed, instantly vigilant.
“I’ll get him,” he said, drawing on his flannel sleep pants.
I put on his T-shirt and my underwear and listened to Ronan talk to his son through the monitor.
“Hey, buddy. The storm waking you up?”
“Yeah,” August said tearfully.
“Don’t be scared. I got you. I got you.”
I got you.
Watching the two of them grow close over the last few months had been one of the greatest joys of my life. August accepted Ronan faster than any of us expected, asking for him when he was away at work or when he was trying to give August space.
August didn’t want space. He wanted his daddy.
Ronan’s apartment at Cliffside had been rented out by the management company he’d hired, so when he wasn’t spending his nights here, he crashed with Miller and Violet in the house they rented while Violet finished school.
But after only a few weeks, it was clear August wasn’t going to put up with that.
Ronan had moved permanently into my little room in Bibi’s house and begun plans for the addition that same week.
I worried that we might be too much for Bibi, that instead of staying with her for her sake, she’d rather have peace and quiet. But from the moment she suspected I was pregnant, she’d fallen in love with August. And Ronan…
She might’ve loved him before I did. Or before I could name what I felt for him.
Ronan reappeared, carrying our son. August wore a white onesie with cartoon trucks all over it and lay against Ronan’s bare chest, his head tucked under his daddy’s chin. His large, dark eyes were open but sleepy.
“Hey, baby boy,” I said as Ronan lay down with him between us. I kissed his soft baby cheek. “Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head, his little fingers reaching for my braids. I scooted closer to him, and he curled tight into Ronan with a handful of hair, bringing both of us into his cocoon. He was asleep in moments.
Ronan kissed his son’s head and looked to me, his eyes soft under my rainbow lights.
“I love you,” I mouthed.
“Love you,” he mouthed back, his own eyes looking heavy. I grinned as he began to drift—he who had been ready for another round mere minutes ago.
I studied Ronan’s beautiful face as he slept, his arms a protective circle around August and me.
The demons in him had been laid to rest, and he was determined to keep them buried.
He strove to be the best father for August—the kind of father he never had.
And I knew he’d never stop working for us, to make his entire life a fulfillment of his promise to his mother.
The owl on his shoulder watched me. My own eyes were growing heavy, but through my sleepy haze, it looked like she was smiling.