Ginger
Three months later
“Tyr, babe, you know I love you. But you need to know this stroller isn’t built for off-roading.”
“We’re not going far.” He hefted the triple-tiered stroller up and over a curb, a chilly autumn breeze sifting through trees that were fast losing their leaves. Today was my thirtieth birthday, the day before Halloween, and we had a ton to do at the house to get ready for my annual birthday party. I had been told by Ashtray and Roxie—Roxie, of all people!—that they wouldn’t feel like it was a successful party unless someone wound up axed by the end of it.
I had the weirdest friends.
The one thing I hadn’t expected was for my husband to wake me before dawn with his mouth between my legs, making me come so hard my cries woke our sons in the next room. But I wasn’t complaining. Having an orgasm as the first thing you did in your thirtieth year was a stellar way to kick things off.
The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon by the time he let me out of bed, with instructions to get the boys fed and dressed warmly for a little surprise he had for me somewhere in the great outdoors. I wasn’t known to be an outdoorsy girl—total urban girlie all the way—so I was a teeny bit leery that he might want to surprise me with some sort of fishing or camping activity that I literally had no clue how to do.
The one thing I never imagined was Tyr packing us all up in my trusty Mommy Mobile, a heavy-duty Suburban that felt more like a tank than a car, and driving us to a freaking cemetery.
The birds began to awaken as we at last came to a stop at a simple square grave marker embedded into the ground. Tyr maneuvered the stroller off to one side of it, gave each boy a quick murmur and kiss before turning to grin at me.
“Did you know most Colgraves are cremated, and not buried? My old man was cremated, but his father, Titan, really went out with a bang. According to my dad, they gave him an honest-to-God Viking funeral. I’ve got it in my will that I get a Viking funeral, too. Same with Loki.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I shivered in the chilly early-morning wind, before a terrible thought hit me like a lightning bolt. “You’re not trying to tell me something bad, are you? Oh my God, Tyr, are you sick? Are you—”
He busted out laughing. “Snap, I’m fine, okay? All I’m doing is keeping a promise I made to you a year ago. And I’m doing it on your birthday, because today is also the anniversary of the end of the Gravedigger war.”
“Oh.” Weakly I clutched my chest. “Dude, don’t scare me like that.”
“Aren’t you interested in what promise I’m referring to?”
I blinked. “What promise?”
“Look down.”
I looked. My gaze snagged on the bronze grave marker. It was surprisingly large, probably three feet square, with raised lettering in bold typeface.
Here lies Hades Colgrave, loved and missed by absolutely no one. Drug pusher. Child abuser. Murderer of his own brother. Never shed a tear over the death of his sweet daughter, Olive. Feel free to use this spot as a dance floor.
Oh.
I swear I’m bringing this fucker to the end he deserves, and then we’re going to dance on his grave.
Ohhhhh.
“I’ve spent some time trying to figure out what would be the perfect song for this, because I really wanted to meet the moment, you know?” Snagging his phone out of his pocket, Tyr thumbed through various screens, a smile on his face. He smiled so easily now, and while the death of Hades helped with that, I knew it was mainly because of me and the family we’d struggled so hard to build. “First, I thought about that song ‘Patience’ from Guns ‘N’ Roses, because getting to where we are right now was a friggin’ slog, thanks to this asshole beneath our feet. But then I remembered you don’t like Axl’s voice, so that was out. Next on my list was that song from Percy Sledge, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ but that didn’t fit me, because there’s no way in hell I’m sleeping in the rain for you. I’m kicking the damn door in, shucking off the wet clothes and making sure you’re happy to have me warm and dry in your bed, because I’m the one who makes you wet.”
I had to laugh at that, because he was so right. He’d won me over against impossible odds, so no way was he going to meekly accept being left out in the rain. My man kicked down every obstacle to be with me, and my life was a million times better for it.
“Then the most perfect song just sort of came to me when I was driving home, looking forward to seeing that amazing smile you always hit me with whenever I walk through the door. This song has all the romance of Percy Sledge and all the relentless determination of the song ‘Patience’. Any guesses?”
I was so flummoxed by how much thought my man had put into this, I could only shake my head. “I’m drawing a blank.”
“Boys, your momma has no imagination,” he informed our three-month-olds, who were all color-coded—Oliver in camo or anything remotely like olive-drab, Gus in red, and Magnus in blue. They’d been born as bald as cue balls, but blonde fuzz was starting to show up, and their blue eyes were already turning tawny. Apparently I got the privilege of carrying them, but they were all going to look like their daddy, and nothing like me.
I couldn’t have been happier.
Laying his phone down on the fabric top of the stroller, he held a finger over the screen and looked at me. “Ready?”
I couldn’t seem to stop smiling at him. God, he was perfect. “Born that way.”
The strains of Etta James’s “At Last” filled our little corner of the cemetery.
Oh, my God.
Sweet, happy tears stung my eyes as he closed in on me, hand raised.
“Mrs. Colgrave, Snap, love of my life, and mother of my children. May I have this dance?”
I couldn’t stop the tears from falling as I gazed up at the man who completed me and touched my soul with all his passion and ferocity and absolute, unwavering love. In his arms was where I belonged, now and forever.
My lonely days are over…
“You may, my husband.”
Without another word, he led me onto the grave marker he’d designed to be a dance floor built for two, and fulfilled his promise while our infant sons looked on.
For you are mine…
At last.