Epilogue
DELTA
Ten Years Later
The warmth of the sun licks at my toes, and I wiggle them with a pleased smile on my lips. Memories of the past years always flood my mind when I’m sitting at the beach, staring at the ocean. The sight of it makes me so nostalgic.
“Look, Mommy! A princess’ house!” Winry calls out, motioning for the pile of sand in front of her.
“It’s called a castle, dummy,” the boy sitting across from her rolls his eyes.
Fred is one year and a half older than his sister, but he adores acting like he’s much more responsible and mature.
“Here, let’s fix it.” And though Winry complains at first, she lets him teach her how to use the blocks to create squares. “These are the towers, get it?”
“Fred,” I call, arching an eyebrow though my lips twist into a smile. “Don’t treat your sister like that. She’s not stupid.”
“I’m not saying she’s stupid,” he mutters, pressing his finger to the side of the castle to adjust the angles. “But if it’s a castle, it needs towers.”
“He has a point,” Lisa York, my mother-in-law, says from the chair next to mine.
She’s stretched out in the shade, like I am, in a bathing suit and a shawl wrapped around her hips exactly like me.
The suits are even from the same brand since we went to the mall to buy them together.
“But your mother has a point, too, Freddie. You shouldn’t call your sister a dummy. ”
He pouts his lower lip, then mutters an apology and goes back to helping with the castle. Winry has a smile on her face, and soon Fred lets go of the gentle scolding and throws himself into play again.
I slide a glance at my mother-in-law. With my father-in-law gone for almost a year now, I keep wondering if she’s fine and how she’s handling grief.
Her answer is always the same when I ask—he was ill and she had the time to prepare.
I’m glad he had the chance to meet his grandchildren.
Even with all the bad blood between Vance and his parents, none of it ever spilled onto the kids, and I’m crazy glad about it.
Soft steps crunch the sand, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know it’s my husband. He fits his hips between our chairs, then leans forward. Vance’s lips touch my temple first, then his mother’s, and he places two tall glasses on the table between us.
“Please, tell me this is a Long Island Iced Tea,” his mother asks with a grin on her face.
Vance chuckles. “We all know you’d slap me if it wasn’t.”
We laugh, and he sits next to me on the chair, his hand searching for mine.
Our fingers intertwine, joining like this is the way they’re meant to be.
It’s funny how our hands fit. How my fingers rest on his knuckles as if this is the way things are supposed to be.
His touch is natural, and I do not know what I would do if I could never feel him against me again.
Vance lifts my hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. “Your assistant called,” he says. I make to sit up, but he holds me in place. “It’s alright. She just wanted to tell you the meeting went well, and she sent the memo to your email. Nothing you need to rush about.”
I arch an eyebrow, but he doesn’t let me go.
After Vance helped me open my company, focused on serving authors, especially the independent ones, I have been having problems dealing with my time management.
Vance insists vacation time is vacation time, and I’m slowly learning to let go of the business. It’s a work in progress.
Blowing a sigh, I get comfortable once again and focus my attention on my children. They’re the most important thing in the world, next to the love of my husband. They’re what matters the most.
“How’s the charity event coming along, Vance?
” Lisa asks. It’s so good to hear her calling him by his name instead of the plastic darling.
That’s what she used to call everyone, and it always felt like she loved Vance the same as she loved her friends.
Things changed, even for the older Mrs. York.
Her relationship with her son improved tenfold, and I’m so glad I get to witness it.
Winry waves to her father. “Daddy, help me dig a hole!”
Vance lets my hand go, then scoots closer to our daughter. “A hole? What for?”
“I’ll eat my shoes if she doesn’t want to bury her brother,” Lisa teases, sipping from her drink.
Winry squirms with laughter, and we all know that’s exactly what she wants to do. “You can’t eat a shoe, Grandma,” she says and starts digging her hole. Freddie helps, delight on his face as his father joins them.
“The event is going fine, Mom,” Vance replies, Winry sitting on his lap. “But I’m not sure I want to go.”
Lisa arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Why not? They’re putting it together in your honor. Because of the money you donated, they can open an entire new wing in the hospital.”
The memory of it makes my heart flutter. Vance changed so much, and for the better. Every little thing he does makes me love him even more.
“I know, but it looks like I’m bragging, and that’s not why I did that,” he replies.
“I think we should go,” I tell him, meeting his eyes. “Just because it would be rude to let them prepare a party and not show up.”
Lisa nods. “That’s true. Besides, she has to be there since the wing is being named after her.”
My stomach plummets. I whirl around to face her. “What?”
“Mom!” Vance cries out, then slaps a hand full of sand to his face. “It was a surprise!”
I snap back to gape at Vance. “You have to be kidding me.”
“Oops,” his mother mutters, going back to her drink as if nothing had happened.
“Vance!” I call out, scooting to the edge of the chair to get closer to him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Of course, I don’t,” he replies, shrugging. “But I felt it was the right thing. They wanted to put my name on it, but I’d rather have it be yours. It was you who convinced me, after all.”
“But it was you who accepted it. If you didn’t want your name on it, you could have named it The Yorks or something.”
Vance makes a face. Though his father treated our children well, the way he treated Vance his entire life left a mark. Vance doesn’t need to say it, but I know he didn’t want his father credited there, not when the man insisted on never giving a cent of his away.
Relaxing, I brush his hair back. He looks up at me, and we’re locked in a bubble of love when our gazes meet. I smile, and he smiles back, and then the children cackle.
Freddie has lain down in the hole and Winry throws sand everywhere as she tries to bury him.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” Vance says, pushing sand onto Freddie’s toes. “It was meant as a surprise.”
Bending on the waist, I kiss his shoulder. He intercepts me to kiss my lips. No words are exchanged because we don’t need them. I feel his love in every look and in the way he treats me and our children together. There’s nothing else I need.
Nothing else, but our little family.
THE END OF BOOK 12