Epilogue 2
CHRISTY
Three Years Later
It was the first spring day warm enough to be outside, and I’d stayed there on our wraparound porch as long as I possibly could. The air smelled like honeysuckle and the red tulips Holden and I had planted two years ago were in bloom. The breeze was just warm enough to tease at a hot summer.
My big toe was the only thing touching the boards on the porch as I sat on our padded swing, reading an article on my phone.
Holden pulled up in his black truck. I stood, carrying our newest little bundle in my arms. He hopped out, cowboy boots hitting the concrete driveway, wearing my favorite suit.
The charcoal gray one that hugged him just right.
He tipped his head, lips in a straight line, exasperated. “Don’t get up. You need to rest, babe.”
“Holden.” I laughed. “I need to move. My muscles are atrophying from all the sitting.”
He pursed his lips and shook his head but he didn’t protest again. Then he opened the back door of the truck and quickly loosened the car seat buckle. “C’mon here, little man.” He held his hands out, and our adorable blond-haired, blue-eyed two-year-old, Liam, jumped into his arms with a “whee!”
Holden set him down and he ran over and up the porch stairs, “Momma, momma! Up!” He held his arms out for me.
“Hey, cute boy,” I said while bouncing the baby in my arms. “I missed you.”
“Hold up, bud,” Holden said as he hurried over.
He pressed a kiss to my lips like he did every single time he saw me.
Didn’t matter if it was first thing in the morning, or the fourth time he’d come in the house from doing ranch work.
Hot Lips was still going strong. But now I was the only girl on his list.
Well, me and Maddie.
Holden took the baby, gingerly settling her in the crook of his arm.
He peeled back the pink swaddling blanket.
“How’s Daddy’s girl?” He bounced her. “How’s my Maddie Ro?
” I wrapped my fingers around his bicep and rested my chin on his arm, peering down at her.
Her big blue eyes, which I was pretty confident were turning brown just like her daddy’s and mine, looked up at him, wide and aware.
“She already has a crush on Dad. Don’t you, cute girl.” I kissed Holden’s stubbled cheek. “Get in line, Miss Mads. He was mine first.”
“Don’t talk dirty,” Holden said. “We still have two more days till you’re cleared for…you know.” He winked.
I slapped him on the rear end. “Eh, if you’re keeping count.”
“Don’t tempt me, woman.”
I wiggled my brows. “Who’s talking dirty now?”
“Momma!” Liam was still reaching up. I squatted and put my arms around him. He squeezed my neck so tight I thought my head might pop off. I blew a raspberry into his chubby cheek and he giggled. It was my favorite thing. Well, one of them. I had many when it came to being his mom.
“Careful and slow,” Holden said.
“I got it.” I rolled my eyes with a smile. “Always so concerned.” Then I slowly lifted, using my legs, not my middle. “See, piece of cake,” I said, once Liam and I were fully upright.
Holden held the front door open with one arm, baby girl in the other. We went inside.
“Oh, that’s a big yawn for such a little girl,” he said. “Did she eat?”
“Mhmm.”
He glanced at Liam and then grinned at me, eyes greedy. “I think he needs a nap. What do you think?”
I laughed. “I thought we still had two days.”
He shrugged. “He’s pretty tired. That’s all I’m saying.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Sure.”
Fifteen minutes later, both babies down for the count, Holden flopped back onto the bed next to me. I climbed on top of him, loosened his tie, pulled it through his collar, and threw it on the floor. He’d left his suit coat in the living room.
As I unbuttoned his dress shirt, I asked, “Liam had a good time with James and Griffin?” Lemon and Silas’s boys. They’d delivered a third baby two weeks before us. Another boy, named Bowen after Holden and Silas’s dad. So, three in four years for them. I was so not trying to keep up with that.
“Yeah. Though he and James were fighting over a toy truck when I got there.”
I peeled back his shirt and ran my fingers down that swole chest. He still ran those obstacle course races and I was ever so grateful for what it did for his body. But now, we ran them together.
“Good grief, man.” I groaned. “Are you trying to make my ovaries explode?” It was a cheesy line I’d read in a romance novel while I was on minor bed rest with Madeleine. We threw it into conversation daily, always with a laugh.
With a jerk, he flipped me over so fast, I got dizzy. Then he was on top of me. “I think we better give those ovaries a rest.” But then he leaned down and pressed a long, smutty, throb-inducing kiss to my lips and slipped his hand under the hem of my shirt.
“You need to quit.” I laughed. “Unless you want me to ignore the doctor’s orders.” But his lips were on my neck now, then down to my décolleté. “If you pass the point of no return, I will not let you stop,” I said in a threatening voice. “We will be going all the way. Do not mess with me.”
“Fine.” He huffed and slid off. Once his head was on the pillow next to mine he unbuttoned my jeans.
But I knew where this was going. He peeled back the waist just enough to trace his fingers over the nickel-sized Superman tattoo I’d gotten as a surprise for our first anniversary.
Right above my right hip bone. Practically microscopic because I didn’t love tattoos but I also wanted him to know that I loved him more than my dislike of tattoos. And also because…
I slipped his dress shirt down enough to see my name there on his bicep where the suicide prevention tattoo had been.
He’d wanted to have it removed but I wouldn’t let him.
It was part of his past. And his past was part of him.
But he wanted it to represent something happier.
Our future. So he’d had a design drawn up—a swirling flower with my name in cursive in the middle.
The semicolon was still there, but it was part of the bigger picture, and if you didn’t know, you would never see it.
I thought it was a beautiful metaphor for life after tragedy.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, still tracing circles over Superman.
I leaned up on my elbow so I could see him. “How was the awards assembly? Was Tally surprised?”
“Yeah. She started crying. I don’t think she believed she deserved it.” He was still tracing Superman.
Jilly, Holden, some of Savannah’s other friends, and Dahlia and Randall had started a scholarship in memory of Savannah.
Surprisingly, but also impressively, Alyssa’s family had been some of the first donors.
It was an award that gave one full college scholarship—within reason—every year to a girl who had struggled in some way.
Mental health, teenage pregnancy, abuse of any kind.
“Hmmm,” I murmured. Mostly because Holden’s swirling was getting me a little revved, and I had to focus to put a coherent thought together.
“We’ll have to tell her to sign up for Ashton’s class.
” Ashton had accepted a job at James River College, a private liberal arts school forty miles away, starting in the fall.
And that just so happened to be where Tally had chosen to attend.
Holden chuckled. “For sure. He’ll die when she walks in. They’ll get the gloves out immediately and start duking it out in front of the whole class. I’ll get Anna to convince her.” Still tracing Superman.
My fingertips trailed along his jaw. “Hey, did you see about Ford?”
He pressed his eyes shut, his expression pained.
“Yeah. Idiot is going to screw up his music career.” Ford had made it big, just like his hussy friend predicted.
We’d never seen her again after that day, but we still included her every time we told our engagement story.
Ford indeed went to Nashville and won one of those TV talent competitions.
But now it was all loose women, drinking, and gambling.
“Next time I see him, I’m going to pound him for the number it’s doing on Mom. ”
It broke my heart too. I hadn’t known her as long as Lemon or been around when they were kids, but Jenny was an amazing grandmother and mother-in-law. She’d never been anything but welcoming to me. But she was crushed for her youngest.
I pushed up when I remembered something. “Did you see about Blue Bishop though?”
He scowled. “The kid Anna was all heartbroken about after her freshman year?”
“Yeah.”
“What about him? I thought he was in California. Do they even talk anymore?”
“I don’t think so. But he’s not in California for long. He was recruited by The University of Knoxville.”
“Wow. That’s one of the best football programs in the country.” He nodded, impressed. “Knoxville’s not that far from here. Maybe he and Anna will pick things back up.”
I shook my head. “Last time Ashton mentioned Blue’s name, Anna tried to kill him with her laser beam eyes and told us never to mention him again because he was dead to her, remember?”
He chuckled. “You never know. Sometimes us stupid men just need a second chance.”
My lips quirked, and I looked deep into his eyes. “Is that right?”
“Mhmm,” he murmured, and dang if his fingers weren’t still tracing Superman.
If I’d known Holden would use the tattoo as an electric push-start button, I might’ve gotten it placed somewhere else…
Pfft. Who was I kidding? I lived for this.
Taking a play out of his book, in a flash, I growled, shoved him onto his back, and pinned his arms down, straddling him. I lowered myself right over his face, my hair making a curtain around us. His eyes were ravenous just like I felt.
“You know,” I said. “For somebody so set on doing exactly as the doctor ordered, you are pushing me very close to the edge, Holden Dupree. Do it one more time,” I dared him. “And all bets are off. Clothes will be flying. Intense lovemaking will be happening. You will not stop me.”
He smirked. And preened. And then he pried an arm loose. He tugged the neckline of my shirt over my shoulder and crunched up to press a kiss to it. “I love you, Christy Dupree.”
I stared into his autumn eyes. “I love you too, Clark. So much.”
But then his lips pulled into a smile. And his hand dropped. His fingers trailed across my stomach, and very slowly, and very intentionally curlicued Superman…
One more time.