Epilogue
Dallas
Four Months Later
Christmas music plays on the TV in the living room, and I strip off my clothes in the laundry room, snatching my swim shorts off the rack.
Thank you, Krisjen. Or maybe it was Aracely. Whenever I leave laundry here—accidentally, of course—it’s magically washed for me.
“No one has any sweaters!” Anna-Katherine cries from her room upstairs.
We’re staying in the Bay for the holidays, celebrating with lots of parties and outings with the kids. Anna-Katherine won’t let us miss out, and it’s a chance to capture some new pictures, in any case.
“We’ll buy clothes when we get there!” Callum shouts back up to her window.
I peek around the corner, across the kitchen, and through the window, seeing him waist-deep in the pool. Hanging his elbows on the edge behind him, he pulls a cigar out of his mouth, blowing out smoke and tapping the ash into a dish.
“Just pack toiletries!” he adds.
“I’m not buying underwear with you guys around!”
I laugh to myself, tying the waist and grabbing a bottle and two glasses as I head outside.
Stepping into the balmy night, I hear fireworks popping not so distantly, Christmas Eve upon us.
Macon appears at the corner of the house as I round the pool, greasy from the garage as he stares at Callum. “The screaming?” he prompts as if Anna-Katherine is a toy that needs its batteries removed.
But his wife brings in the mail from the street.
“Get used to it,” she tells him, looking stunning in a strapless floor-length white lounge dress, her hair up in a high bun as she moves effortlessly with her small baby bump.
She still has three months to go, but Macon’s going to have a screamer of his own soon.
They both disappear back into the garage, and I set down the glasses and bottle next to his ashtray and drop into the pool.
“Where have you been?” he says as he brings the cigar to his mouth.
He narrows his eyes, trying to look stern, but it only makes me want to play.
I press my body to his, reaching behind him to pour us each a glass. His own leather bracelet—with the hourglass and the snake—wraps around his wrist, but I’m trying to talk him into a tattoo. I want the family symbol on him.
“Meeting with the landscaper about the cemetery,” I reply.
“Aren’t you landscapers?”
I cock an eyebrow. “You’re just dying to see me mow a lawn again, aren’t you?”
Finally, he breaks into a smile. “It was the best day of my life,” he muses. “For a long time.”
If I were a better guy then, I would’ve been more careful with him, but…
Would we have been ready for each other? It’s hard to have any regret anymore, because we ended up here and happy. Like that’s the way it was supposed to go all along.
“You were so hot,” I coo, taking the cigar from his fingers. “Standing up there, looking like the man with a girl hanging off you, but you wanted my ass, didn’t you?”
I take a puff as he tugs the chain around my neck, pulling me in. “You liked me looking.”
“Damn right, I did.”
We’re about to kiss, but a shrill voice slices through our moment. “I can’t find my charger!”
A tool clangs against the garage floor, and I wince. Macon’s going to have a fucking fit.
“We have extras!” I call out as quietly as possible.
Leaning in, I return my attention to my man. “Seriously, how many fucking chargers can she lose?”
“She’s excited to see snow,” he tells me.
We’re taking her to Colorado—to Vail—and letting her learn how to ski and ice-skate and wear lots of scarves through the New Year. We leave right after Christmas.
I remember that night she told me she could leave after she sees snow, but she doesn’t say things like that anymore. Anna-Katherine hasn’t had an episode since living with Callum and me. No one fucks with her or ever will. She feels safe now.
I press my forehead to Callum’s. “And I’m excited for the nights.”
I don’t think I’m going to like the cold, and I definitely won’t remember my manners in this ritzy hotel he booked, but we do have our own room with a balcony and a fireplace and a hot tub.
Perfect place to ask him to spend the rest of his life with me.
I pull him in, taking his mouth in mine and wrapping my arms around him. I taste the cigar mixed with mint, his tongue stirring my insides until I can barely breathe.
Still holding him, I break the kiss and stare into his eyes, thinking back to our mission the last five years. Make the Bay too valuable for them to take.
I had no idea he was going to be the asset that made us priceless.
“What?” he asks me.
I just shake my head. “Just funny how life works out.”
But even if he brought nothing to the table, I wouldn’t care.
“I’m scared.” I swallow to clear my throat. “To lose you, I mean.”
His eyes play with me. “Well, it would serve you right to learn how it feels.”
I laugh with him, but I take his face and kiss him again. And again.
“Never stop loving me,” I say.
He grabs my hips. “I never did.”
I can feel him harden, and we’re about to get too heated for outdoor display here, but before I can tear myself off of him, we hear footsteps.
“Someday, this will stop being awkward,” my sister says.
I look up, seeing her and Clay walking by in swimsuits.
Fuck.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” Clay chirps, climbing down the steps into the pool.
I drop my arms, stepping back a few inches. I’m going to get hard if I keep touching him.
“Looks like we showed up in the nick of time,” Liv teases, sitting on the edge opposite Callum and hopping in. “You can’t go to bed yet.”
I take another drag of the cigar as Callum grabs his drink. “Why?”
“Dinner, opening-a-present tradition, Midnight Mass…” Clay drones on.
“We can sleep in tomorrow,” Callum says, but it sounds like a question.
Liv shakes her head. “Not too late.”
She pulls Clay’s back into her chest, and I blow out smoke, setting the cigar down in the dish.
My sister explains, “Block party Christmas dinner at three, weather permitting, and you guys need to set up tables.”
Great.
“I could’ve hired someone to do all this,” Callum mumbles to me.
But Liv hears. “Rich boy.”
He makes a face, because we’re not exactly poor, either, but he knows what she means. He grew up with it. He hires people for the heavy lifting.
A breeze sweeps through the trees, the palms swaying overhead, and I lean in to leave a kiss on Callum’s neck and then his jaw.
He draws in a deep breath, circling my waist again as his groan escapes.
“Is Iron home yet?” Liv asks.
“I haven’t seen him.” I jerk my eyes to hers. “Shit.”
That’s right. Where is he?
It’s Christmas Eve. He should be home already. It’s a good five hours’ drive.
But Clay assures us, “He’s on his way.” She pulls her hair up into a ponytail. “I ran into Army in town. He spoke to him.”
I relax a little. Good.
“Sure isn’t in any hurry,” Callum adds. “I thought he had more leave.”
“Maybe he’s finally found his niche,” Liv jokes.
“Please.” I throw my sister a flat stare. “I’ll admit Macon knew what he was doing with the rest of us, but I’ll be glad when Iron comes to his senses and pursues a new direction. This is beyond stupid.”
“Oh, give it a chance,” Callum teases. “He might like it.”
“Would you like it if it were me?”
He chuckles. “Well, thank God it wasn’t.”
“It almost was.”
His eyes go wide, the glass he was about to take a drink from lowering again.
“Yeah.” I smile wide, enjoying the look on his face. “I never told you about that, did I?”
For a moment there, I almost wasn’t the teacher in the family.
Why is it so hot in here?
I stumble down the damn stairs, my jeans hanging off my hips as I rub the sleep from my eyes.
I hit the wall ahead, checking the thermostat.
A bed bangs against the wall upstairs, Iron making good use of the three-day furlough he was granted to attend an elder’s funeral. He has to go back to prison tomorrow.
The thermostat is set at sixty-eight. Why the hell—
Then I feel the draft. Twisting my head, I see my family outside in the old courtyard, the door to the dining room wide open.
Macon paces, Krisjen sitting on a chair with her legs crossed…Who else is out there?
Drifting to the door, I clear my throat.
Army, Trace, and Liv—home from her first year in college for spring break—all sit around, darting their gazes to me. What the hell are they doing?
“Do you have someone here?” Macon asks me.
“No,” I reply. “I was sleeping, but Iron is damn near knocking the walls down up there.”
I took Mars’s room while he’s at his parents’ this weekend, letting Iron go bananas in ours.
I step down onto the cement tiles. “What’s going on?”
No one’s speaking, just sitting in silence. It’s starting to get really fucking hot out, the spring evening humid and heavy.
“The diocese wants to promote Father McNealty to bishop,” Macon tells me.
“So?” I retort. “It should’ve happened a long time ago.”
He should be an archbishop by now.
“He refused,” Macon continues, “but it did occur to me that he’s almost seventy years old. He’ll be retiring in the next ten years in any case.”
“So?”
They all look at me, and I know right away, this is going to be a whole fucking conversation.
Rolling my eyes, I take a seat.
“Father McNealty is in a unique position,” my oldest brother explains. “He does the couples’ counseling, marriage counseling, confessions, baptisms…”
As he did all of our baptisms and will do Macon and Krisjen’s wedding…So what?
“He’s an integral part of the community,” Macon tells me as if this has already been explained to everyone else.
“He knows everyone and is trusted. He’s been useful in influencing the approvals process for our construction and planning permits.
When he welcomes us into a space, everyone else follows. ”
“Isn’t that why Krisjen is running for city council?” I fire back.
She can have the same influence. Almost.
“I’m not a man.” She frowns. “Men influence men. There are avenues he can cross that I can’t. We need him.”
Well, we still have him. He’s refusing to be promoted. He’s still head of Marymount Academy for the time being. What—
Then it occurs to me.
“But he’s not going to live forever,” I state, and then I run my hand through my hair. “I’m afraid to ask where this is going.”
Silence looms in the whole courtyard, and I can tell everyone is aware except me. And if it’s a problem not yet solved, then they’re expecting me to play a part.
“We need, uh…” Macon trails off, and that never happens. “We need someone to take his place when he retires.”
I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out what the fuck he means.
Then it hits me. He could only mean one thing.
A new priest.
Oh, what the fuck?
I start laughing, shaking as fatigue burns my eyes. He’s got to be kidding.
“Well, the firstborn son.” I throw my hand at my oldest brother. “Isn’t that the custom?”
Give the first one to God and all that shit?
He just sneers. “Preferably someone who’s not getting married.”
I dart my eyes to his fiancée. She flashes me a tight smile and drops her eyes in an apology.
“I can see that you’re serious.” I rise to go inside. “I need a drink.”
“Dallas…”
I spin around. “Not a fucking chance!” I growl. “I agreed to the teaching because it will put me in Callum Ames’s path on a regular basis, being in St. Carmen, but I am not feigning abstinence!”
Fuck, no.
“It doesn’t have to be forever,” Liv explains, trying to make it sound less horrendous. “Even just seminary and coming home to be in McNealty’s orbit, gaining access to the people he does…”
I gesture to Trace. “What about him?”
“Everyone’s happy in their assignments,” he says, looking like he’s trying to be invisible.
Yeah, I’m sure he is! He gets to own a bar, stay out late, drink, and keep an eye on good-looking ass strolling in every night.
Army will have a badge. Authority.
I got stuck being the teacher. I’m going to have to talk to all their pricky parents and enforce rules I don’t even follow now.
And Iron, he…
I pause, hearing footsteps above, all of us turning as he and Paige jog down the stairs, laughing.
“Well, not everyone has an assignment yet,” I point out.
We watch her wrap her arms around him, her tight red dress hugging every curve of her ass. “God, you’re crazy,” she breathes hard. “Don’t forget about me.”
“Thanks,” he says, holding the towel around his waist. “I needed that.”
He opens the door for her to leave, and then he closes it, spotting us all out here.
I turn my head to Macon.
He glances at his wife.
She bites back her smile, and before I know it Liv, Trace, and Army are all joining in.
Iron walks to the door, his grin falling when he sees us all staring at him. “What?”
I snort, laughter breaking out around me.
“Sit down,” Macon tells him. “We gotta talk.”
“Oooh,” Callum coos as I finish the story, coming in to whisper in my ear. “I’m glad it wasn’t you, I guess. You would’ve looked hot in a clerical suit, but I would’ve had a hard time being alone with you in a confessional.”
I lean in to his mouth, closing my eyes. Same here.
Liv and Clay drift to the other end of the pool, caught in whispers like us.
“I think we would’ve found a way, though,” he points out, coming back up to face me. “St. Carmen and Sanoa Bay are the strongest and most harmonious they’ve ever been. You were always going to be mine.” He holds my eyes. “And I was always going to be yours.”
It was meant to be.
Taking his face in my hand, I run my thumb over his cheekbone. I hate to sound sentimental, but he’s right. Life in the Bay is as good as we always hoped, and I may not have wanted to fall in love, but thank God I realized that I can’t be my greatest purpose. He’s the air in my lungs.
Shit, I’m happy.
“I still can’t believe I deserve you,” I tell him, trying to hold back my grin. “Army, Trace, Anna-Katherine…” I sigh. “They deserved to find someone before me.” I kiss him again and again. “And Iron. We definitely need to get Iron laid when he’s back from seminary tonight.”
“Your games are for me,” Callum chides, grinning. “Leave him alone.”
I come in to shut him up with a kiss.
He evades me. “Because I’m dying to see how this plays out.”
“Stick around.” I brush his lips with mine, a jolt springing from my chest to my stomach. “We’ll keep you entertained.”