Epilogue
Just because the villain was dead and the family was saved didn’t mean we got a happily ever after.
After murder in our kitchen, life went on.
It had to.
My restaurant opened to glowing reviews. Each night, every table was filled, the reviewers, food bloggers and ‘influencers’ raving about it. Kiera had come for the grand opening then stayed for a little while longer. Both to bask in the joy that Mabel was and to recharge herself. I could see that my friend was burning out. Her social media life had catapulted, so she featured in a constant stream of posts, events, videos. Though she pretended that this was all she’d ever wanted, I knew my friend, and she was fraying at the seams.
Not that she admitted that to me. Which wasn’t a surprise since I knew she was watching me for signs of unraveling. She didn’t know about the big secret, no one except Kane and Knox did, but she saw me, saw the results of it.
Which was part of my not so happy ending.
I had a thriving business, was back in the kitchen, was married to a man I loved, and most of all, I had an amazing, healthy baby girl and a family I’d reconnected with.
And I’d only just started recovering from postpartum anxiety when a former enemy came into our home, armed, and threatening to steal my baby. Brax had been ready to kill me before my brother-in-law shot him and dragged his body away somewhere it, presumably, would never be found.
A counterbalance to our happy ending.
It turned out that almost dying in front of your infant daughter, having the prospect of her being in the hands of a madman and seeing that madman die was pretty traumatic.
I knew in theory that I was dealing with heavy stuff. But I expected to be able to compartmentalize the event, to tuck it away somewhere deep, where it wouldn’t affect me.
I’d excelled at that, organizing things neatly in my mind to ensure that they never leaked into other parts of me.
Yet my mind was not organized.
Before the event, and most certainly after, my mind was muddled. Was any mother in possession of a stable mind, even on her best day?
Although Mabel had finally started to sleep in her crib in her nursery, I could no longer stand her to be even a room away from me. I’d watch the monitor obsessively until my eyes could no longer stay open. Then I’d wake up in a cold sweat, scrambling to her room in order to make sure she was still there, still breathing.
Kane was there during all of this, rubbing my back, murmuring that he’d watch over her so I could get some sleep.
I trusted him with my life, with Mabel’s, but I still couldn’t let go.
I’d begun to bring her into bed with us, aware of the controversy surrounding such things, but I couldn’t sleep, could barely breathe without feeling her warm body next to mine, my hand on her chest, feeling it rise and fall.
Kane didn’t protest; he was willing to do anything and everything to get me sleeping. To help. I knew he felt powerless, that he was battling his own demons about the event.
Blame.
He carried a lot of it.
For not being there.
For not killing Brax in the first place.
He needed Mabel next to him just as much as I did.
My doctor prescribed me pills to help with the anxiety. I didn’t take the pills. Not solely because I didn’t think I needed them, but because a warped part of me felt that was letting Brax win.
Mabel still slept in bed with us. I still struggled with working the kitchen at Tides every night. I had the control I craved. Got to work in a space where I was sure, certain. An expert.
Yet all I did was long to get home, wistful over missing her bedtime.
Kane had given me a gift with the restaurant, an incredibly thoughtful one based on who I’d been before. And at face value, it was all I’d ever wanted. My mother had been right: all I yearned for were a few moments to myself. But once I had a kitchen to myself, all I wanted was our living room and its cemetery of toys and diapers.
Then there was the reading I was doing. Upon Fiona’s advice, I had gotten rid of all of the parenting books, but now I was pouring over books on trauma in childhood and how it impacted them as adults.
The first three years of a child’s life was when they set the emotional foundation for their entire personality. Their emotional brain developed. Any trauma during those three years could follow them into adulthood.
Mabel hadn’t technically seen anything; I’d been in her line of vision initially. But she’d heard the conversation, and although she likely hadn’t understood the words, I was sure she might have tapped into the overall vibe.
Kane was less worried about her emotional health and more worried about mine. Which I guessed made sense.
“She’s resilient,” he tried to reassure me for the hundredth time. “She’s got an entire life of love ahead of her, a father who will move heaven and earth to ensure that she doesn’t endure any trauma for the rest of her life.”
I pursed my lips. I wanted that too. But my sense of hope seemed to have died with Brax.
“Right now, that’s gonna be easy since I’m never fuckin’ leaving her side again,” he continued, his voice thick with shadows that followed him since that day. “So let’s get you right, Chef.”
“I’m fine,” I said immediately.
He raised a brow. “You watched a man die. You faced the prospect of death yourself…” His fist clenched, and his body shook with rage.
If Kane could find a way to turn back time and beat Brax to death, I knew he would’ve.
He took a visibly deep breath, forcing himself to calm.
“You were moments away from death,” he whispered. “That’s going to affect you. You tell me how to fix it. How to fix you.”
“You can’t,” I sighed. “And I can’t fix how it affected you. We just … get through it. Together.”
Despair shone in his eyes. I could taste his sense of powerlessness. But he nodded, grabbing my neck and pulling me so our foreheads touched.
“Forever,” he vowed.
Mabel was in her own bed.
A win for the night.
Especially since she’d been in there over an hour. I wasn’t working at the restaurant. I’d managed to arrange things so I was only there every other night. Though I yearned to be home full-time, I knew that I needed the kitchen too. Just not every night. Which I could do now that I trusted my team enough to go a night without me. I was there for hours every afternoon, prepping, but I always made it home for bedtime.
I’d also done something stupid. I added to my plate. With Maisie in mind. During her last visit, I broached the idea.
“Freezer meals?” she questioned as she cut up cucumbers for our salad. Her hands were never idle.
“You’ll help me design them, using simple ingredients. They’ll be like a … made to order menu for new mothers who don’t have the time or energy to prepare healthy meals.”
I’d been brewing this idea for a while and had spoken to Kane about it. Unsurprisingly, he’d instantly been supportive and had already made calls to the people I needed to be in contact with to make it happen. Though I had plenty of my own connections in the culinary space too. I’d also put out feelers and had several companies jumping at the chance to have my name on this.
But it wouldn’t be just mine. It would be Maisie’s too.
“Partners,” I said. “Both of us.”
Her eyes welled. “You’re serious.”
I nodded. My sister had her hobbies, friends, but she’d devoted her life, her early twenties, to being a mother. She’d worked part-time when she was a single mother but now she didn’t need to. Though she seemed perfectly content, I sensed that she was looking for something new, another purpose as her boys grew older.
“If you don’t want to, don’t feel pressure.” I suddenly felt self-conscious. I had only just started to get to know my sister again; this was presumptuous. Business and family didn’t mix. It was a recipe for disaster.
“I want to,” she clutched my hand. “I love the idea, Avery.”
So the ‘Made from the Hart’ company was born. Kind of a corny name, but I liked it.
We were still in the development stage, figuring out production, scale, packaging, ingredients. But I had a good feeling about it. This was not cheap cookware I was simply putting my name on. This was something immensely personal. This was family. This was my way of helping other mothers who desperately needed it.
And my way of creating something with Maisie.
It added to my pressures, but I was learning to delegate. To switch off from my business and be present in our home.
I’d cooked for us. Nothing fancy, shrimp scampi with herbs from our garden.
Kane was inside doing the dishes, having banished me to the porch with a glass of wine and orders to relax. As if such a thing were possible.
Even with all the changes, the nightmares and anxiety lessening, I still hadn’t learned how to relax. There was always something to be done. With the restaurant, the house. Then I had to eat, shower, sleep. Even with help, the to-do list was never-ending. Even with all the help.
It did take a village.
And I needed it.
But then there were the nights of Mabel splashing in the bath, reading stories with her father and us putting her to bed. There were nights of quiet meals and easy conversation, an old yet hot attraction simmering between us. We hadn’t devolved to the ‘roommate stage’ like everyone scaremongered us into expecting.
There were days and nights when we spoke only about bowel movements, nap times and feedings. But we were still each other. Somehow.
The door opened, then Kane emerged, his cheeky grin lit up by the last rays of sunlight. For a moment we were in a crowded party, eyes meeting across the room, electricity buzzing between us.
My body responded just like it had that day. Viscerally, passionately.
“You look relaxed, Chef,” he observed, coming to grasp my hips then seemingly effortlessly pulling me out of the chair, sitting in it himself then repositioning me on his lap. My body practically purred at the contact.
I leaned into him, inhaling the scent of him mixed with the sea breeze and a faint whiff of Mabel’s spit-up. It comforted me. All of it.
“I am relaxed,” I told him honestly.
He stroked my head. “Well that foils my plans. I had expected you to still be tense. So I planned on peeling off your panties, making you sit in front of the ocean, in front of me while I ate your pussy and the waves drowned out your screams.
I stared at him.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m always serious about your pussy,” he replied, leaning in to nip my neck.
I glanced at the monitor which showed Mabel sleeping peacefully. I then gazed over to the empty beach.
It was unlikely that we’d get caught, seen, but it was possible.
An old flame of excitement sparked within me. One that was born in a dive bar in New York. One that hadn’t died with motherhood, with my identity shifts. One that hadn’t died with Kane.
“Is that an affirmative, Chef?” Kane asked, hunger in his tone.
I looked from the ocean to his eyes. “Oh, it’s definitely a yes.”
And that was how I ended our night, with Kane’s face between my legs, bringing me to exquisite orgasm.
There was a lot ahead of us, a whole life together.
And for the very first time, I was in the moment.
And that moment was pretty darn good.
KANE
They were both sleeping. Curled up together in our bed, faces inches apart. I etched that image into my memory, wishing it could push out all the other terrible ones, the one that had me up at two in the morning when I should’ve been in bed with my wife and daughter.
Brax.
On the ground of our kitchen—Avery’s kitchen. Her one solace, sanctuary, poisoning it with his presence, his death.
Mabel, mere feet away, squealing in glee at me while the dead body of her would be kidnapper cooled.
I squeezed my eyes shut then opened them, my blood pressure accelerating with the image burned into the backs of my eyelids. Yeah, there were plenty of other ingredients in my trauma soup—my past, my prison sentence—but they paled in comparison to my wife and daughter being in danger and me not being there.
It took great physical effort to leave the room. I ached to stay there, watch them for the rest of the night, but the roof was too close, the walls beginning to close in. I took my phone, having set up another monitor in our room so whenever I had to leave it, I could watch them sleeping. Blanche was pressed up against the bed, even more clingy to both of them after what happened.
I fucking swore, if dogs could feel guilt, she was coated with it. Brax had poisoned her. He’d known about her, had been watching us, and had lain in wait for Avery to let her out.
It was a fucking miracle she survived.
We exchanged a look as I left, her silently telling me she’d watch over them. Or that’s what I liked to think.
I walked through the dark house, willing my mind to quiet.
I was free.
Our daughter was safe in her mother’s arms. There were no threats.
Yet I walked into every room, checking.
Nothing.
The ocean air hit me as I went outside to the deck, breathing it in, wishing my breath to steady. The sky and the sea yawned in front of me, comforting me with their endlessness.
My entire body tensed at the dark form emerging from the shadows, my heart clenching and the dragon inside of me roaring, happy, ecstatic about the threat, the chance to prove myself, to let go of this fury.
“Easy,” my brother said as he came into focus.
“You gotta stop doin’ that shit,” I gritted out, my fists staying clenched.
“What am I gonna do? Ring the doorbell at two in the morning?” he asked dryly.
I shook my head, sitting in our outdoor chairs.
He sat beside me.
“Baby and Avery sleeping?” he asked.
I nodded, rubbing at my jaw.
“She doing better?”
I nodded again. “She’s doing fuckin’ great.”
I knew she didn’t think so. Knew she punished herself for every one of her feelings she considered weaknesses. But she was a great fucking mother. An excellent chef, had bridged the gap between her and her mother and sister, had made friends, laid roots in Jupiter. I considered that to be something to be in awe of. Which I was. Every day.
“Good,” Knox replied.
We didn’t say anything for a long while, listening to the waves crash in the darkness.
“How do you do it?” he finally asked.
I looked at my brother’s profile, seeing him in the dim light. He looked … different. Almost tortured.
“Do what?”
He continued looking at the ocean. “Love someone.”
My jaw dropped. He was tortured because he was in fucking love. My brother. The man who considered himself a monster. And he was wrecked over it.
Fuck, I was elated. Or I wanted to be. It wasn’t going to be simple for him. It was going to be wrought with pain. That much I understood. I yearned to ask questions, a shitload of them, about this person who’d ensnared my brother, scaled his countless defenses.
But that was not the time.
“It’s not somethin’ you do, brother.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s something you … surrender to.” I smiled at him. “Know you’re not exactly practiced in surrender.”
He laughed without humor. “No. I’m not. And I can’t. I won’t ruin her life.”
I opened my mouth to tell him no way in fuck was that true, but he stood, running his hands through his hair in an uncharacteristic gesture.
“This was a mistake,” he muttered. “All of it.”
Again, I opened my mouth to try to bring him back, to help him. But he was already turning his back.
I watched him walk toward the beach. It wasn’t my job to save him. I hoped to fuck whoever this woman was, that she could do it.
I glanced down at the monitor, to my sleeping girls. I prayed my brother would find the strength to surrender like I had, because there was nothing in the world like it.
Then I took a breath, stood. I went back inside, curled into bed with my baby and my woman and thanked my lucky fucking stars that I got this gift.
Finally, sleep came easily.