epilogue
Mirren
July
“I know we have a big to-do Saturday evening at Zipper’s for your birthday, but can I take you to lunch tomorrow as a pre-celebration?”
“You never have to ask, Freckles. I’d love to.” Strider says, looking up from his desk.
Running Electric Peoria from here isn’t ideal.
He’s made a trip back to Illinois at least once a month since December.
It’s been an easier transition on Jim and Diane.
It also means he comes home each time with cookies Diane’s made for us, with a recipe card tucked inside so I can keep her son in the sugary treats.
If I dared to bake even once a month, we’d be flush with cookies way too often.
While I’m running again, slowly and only for short distances, my body’s changing.
Everything got softer December through March, and while my body knows what to do and how to spring back, everything seems to be working against me, including the aforementioned cookies.
I head toward the kitchen island and pull the trigger on my plans, setting in motion what I schemed up for his birthday surprise.
The agency put me on a desk job in December “for the foreseeable future.” It was helpful for my rehab and gave me a ton of flexibility working from home. It was also the slap on the wrist I expected.
I managed to keep Nate out of everything. No one knows he helped me, much to his disappointment. He says it was some of his best work, and it’s gauche of me to take credit. Gauche is saving his ass, so he can kiss mine.
But now seven months in, I’m antsy, even if I’m not dying to get back out into the thick of it. I understand Mom more and more.
And more.
Strider is suspicious the next morning when I tell him we have to go. “You said lunch, but I won’t complain about Mona’s.”
“You never do.” Moving to the driver’s side of the car, I swing in. “I swear she’s taken to you. If I didn’t have a ring on my finger…”
“She’s not my type.” He pulls off his glasses and wipes them down. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to my glasses fogging just because I dared to step outside.” Sliding them back on, he continues, “But I can’t argue, she can cook.”
That she can. She’s no Queenie with the sauces and creative concoctions, but the woman can man the fryer and griddle like no one’s business.
It takes a while before he even questions where we’re heading. “Are we trying someplace new?”
“No. Just going someplace we haven’t been in a while.”
“I don’t remember eating this far away since I moved.”
“Oh, you’ll recognize the place.” Making a left into the parking lot, I put the car in park and enjoy the shock on his face.
“We’re at the airport. Did I miss the memo that food courts are your thing?”
“Come on, honey. Trust me?” I exit the car and head for TSA.
“With everything I am, yes.” He catches up, grabbing my hand and walking next to me. “But I’m suspicious.”
“I’d be worried if you weren’t by now.”
I hold up my phone, showing two QR codes for our tickets and drop my purse on the conveyor belt. Strider follows, placing his wallet and keys in the bucket.
“Really suspicious,” he reiterates as he slides through security to find me waiting.
Mobile airport is small. Within three minutes, we’re at our gate and within fifteen, we’re on board. The beauty of this airport is “one hour early” means an hour to kill. Walk through and walk on. It’s perfect.
“So…” he begins, buckling his seatbelt. “Nashville?”
“I’m craving Dimitri’s. And I wanted something unforgettable for your first birthday as my fiancé.”
“How about my only birthday as your fiancé? Can we get busy with wedding plans?”
“Yeah. I have some ideas,” I offer, knowing they’re firmer than ideas.
“Want to clue me in to those?” he asks as our plane lifts into the sky.
“Not yet. They’re still percolating.”
“You agreed, you know.” He levels me with his gaze. “I could always kidnap you to Vegas or something, and we could elope. Except your brothers have very colorful ways of killing me and wrecking the evidence.”
“And you’re not taking into account Mom and Dad.”
“Hypothetically, do you think your dad would be as brutal as your mom?”
I bob my head repeatedly. “Oh yeah. Don’t let him fool you with that author persona. Mom might revel in it and take her time to make it hurt. Dad would just slit your throat and stand over you as you bled out. Quick and clean. They’re yin and yang.”
Strider shivers next to me.
“Now, if you’re okay with it, I’m gonna nap.” Lifting the arm rest, I burrow my shoulder under his arm and rest my face on his shoulder.
I’m not terribly sleepy, but I’m on a mission and don’t want to blow my cover.
Once an agent… Always an agent.
Strider
It’s a bit much, flying to Nashville for lunch, but I have to admit Dimitri’s is crave-able. We’ve talked about it a few times since we were here in November.
Yes, it’s that good, but also that weekend, something shifted. And so this city and his restaurant have a special place in my memory and in my heart.
Holding the door open for Mirren, she walks in ahead of me and, as fate would have it, drops into the same seat she took last time at the same table.
“Want what we got last time,” I ask over the menu. “Or are you feeling like trying something new.”
“I’m open.” She closes her menu. “You choose. Happy either way. Just no feta for me.”
I study her. We’ve talked about those feta fries each time the subject of Dimitri’s has come up.
“You okay?” I drop my menu to study her.
“Yeah. Just not feeling it. So inconvenient, right?”
So inconvenient, right? That doesn’t sound like my Mirren at all.
“What’s going on, Freckles?”
“Hey, you two.” Dimitri looks between the two of us. “It’s been a while. What can I get you?”
I look at my fiancée. Something’s going on, but I don’t know what. Extending a hand, I offer that she order first.
“Chicken gyro plate, no feta please. And a lamb gyro with your special loaded fries,” she says to the man at our table.
“I thought you didn’t want the loaded fries,” I say to her in front of him.
“I’m good if you are.”
Her speech is different.
“And two waters. Thanks, Dimitri,” I offer to the man who smiles down on us before walking away. To Mirren, I extend both of my palms face up and wait for her to place hers in mine. “Freckles, you’re acting off. What’s going on?”
“I didn’t want you to miss out on the feta fries. I just can’t have it right now.”
“You aren’t feeling it or can’t have it… which is it?”
“I can’t have unpasteurized cheese for a bit.”
“Why?”
She slides her palms from mine and grabs her purse, fishing out a slender, unadorned white box and hands it over.
I lift the lid, and my jaw drops. I stare at the gift and then at the giver, back and forth until joy bursts from my body in a huge laugh. It’s not something I can contain, nor would I ever want to. Falling to my knees in front of her, I stare into her gorgeous gray-green eyes. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re pregnant?”
She nods.
“And you flew me to Nashville to tell me?”
She shrugs. “We were here last time, and it felt rather poetic.”
“Except we’re in public and we can’t celebrate,” I grumble.
“Celebrating is what got us here.”
“I’m not complaining.” I place a hand on her belly.
“Don’t listen to anything else today but this, okay, little one?
Daddy loves you and can’t wait to meet you.
I’m so excited you chose us. Now, earmuffs.
” I look up into the face of the woman I love.
“I fucking love you. I love the life we have and the one we’re creating. Marry me.”
“Again with the command.” Mirren acts affronted.
Surging up, I take her mouth, one hand to the back of her head, not even attempting chaste or considering that we’re in public. Lips still touching, I whisper, “If we weren't in public, I’d fuck that smart mouth. Later will have to do.”
“Later”—her eyes dance with mischief—“I’ll suck you till you explode, honey, and drain you dry.”
Fuck! Now I have a semi, have the evidence to prove it, and am still on my knees in a restaurant.
“Ahem.” A throat clearing brings me back to the here and now. “The chicken plate for the lady. And the gyro and loaded fries for the gentleman.”
Looking up from my place on the floor. “Thanks. We’re celebrating.”
“Congratulations. I knew when I met you that you two would make it.”
Standing, I use my napkin strategically to hide my erection and retake my seat.
“Your place is special, Dimitri.” Mirren cuts in. “We wanted to come back. Strider’s birthday is tomorrow.”
“And Mirren agreed to marry me,” I finish.
“Love like yours is obvious.” He taps two fingers on the tabletop. “Love and garlic… the two best things in the world. Enjoy both.” He smiles a huge smile and wanders away.
Mirren digs into her plate as I unwrap the foil around my gyro. “So these plans you have percolating…”
“Think we can get your family to Alabama for tomorrow night?”
I drop my gyro and stare, a fry frozen halfway to my mouth. “Tomorrow?”
“We’ll all be together. I don’t need fancy. I need you. But just like I wouldn’t cut my family out, I won’t cut yours out either.”
Dropping my fry, I pull up the airline app. I can get Mom and Dad to Mobile tonight. Same with Liam and Lorien. Same with Sam and Billy.
“Eat your gyro while it’s hot, but if we can make it work, let’s do it. But don’t tell them. Just say it’s your birthday and we’re cooking out.”
“You’re thinking surprise wedding?”
“I’m thinking all the people we love are together and we commit ourselves to each other. Did you want something more elaborate?”
“I want you, Freckles. Every day for forever. I don’t care how we make it happen, just that it happens.”
So we do…
The next day, with my parents mingling with friends who’ve become family, and with Lorien and Liam fighting the South Alabama humidity, we celebrate my forty-first birthday.
There are no black eyes or broken bones like last year—but that’s a story for another day. Sam and Billy declined the invite, but that’s just Sam, and I understand.
Sometime between the barbecue with all the sides and the huge cake and ice cream, not to mention the cookies Mom brought, Mirren yells, “Can I get your attention?”
All eyes turn to her in her lemon yellow sundress with its white lace edges. Jamie being Jamie strides to her side, on guard and ready to defend her. I should’ve planned as much.
She lifts on her toes and tugs his shoulder to whisper something in his ear. He shakes his head but smiles anyway and returns to the circle of onlookers.
“Strider?” She extends a hand—one I gladly accept, one I’ll hold until the day that I die.
“Strider and I hope you’ll indulge us for two minutes and then we’ll go back to the festivities.”
“Better not the fest—” Mikey starts, but Jamie clasps a hand over his mouth, cutting off what surely would be a raunchy thought.
Turning Freckles to face me, I take both of her hands. “I promise you forever. I promise to love you, to challenge you, to protect you. I’ll be faithful to you forever. You are my one great love.”
Tears brim Mirren’s eyes, but they don’t fall, and I know they won’t.
She’ll cry in my arms, but rarely will the world see her fear.
“I promise you a lifetime of joy and fun. I will love you first, challenge you second, and tumble into your chest any chance I get. I will always be faithful. You are my everything.”
With that, I slip both hands to her face as she threads hers through my hair and fall on her mouth like a man starving. Only she is my water, the quench to my thirst, the healing to my weary soul.
“Thanks for coming to our wedding,” I say loud enough that everyone can hear, but my eyes never leave Mirren’s.
My love, my life, my wife.
I was right all those months ago…. Mirren’s a reward I don’t deserve. But she’s mine. And I’ll love her until the day that I die.
“I love you, Mrs. Anderson.”
And, though I can’t see them, I’m fairly certain fireworks go off overhead amidst the gasps and cheers of our family.