Bonus Epilogue
LOVE YOU MORE!
Take a peek into Moore and Colleen’s life about a year after they went to Jordy’s first high school musical performance… and see how so much has changed for them.
With more change coming. :)
Colleen
Sitting in front of her computer, she booted up the machine and looked around at her brand new office.
An office she wouldn’t get to enjoy for much longer.
When she’d chosen this small cabin among the options at the camp, she’d never factored in having a future partner who came with a ready-made kid.
And she certainly never fathomed that Moore would be that partner.
No matter how much a part of her had held out hope.
With a contented sigh, she deleted a few junk emails, then stared at the twelve remaining messages she needed to tackle.
This was her final project to finish her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and she was hours away from completion.
“Excellent,” Moore said from behind her, slapping a thick stack of printed papers down in front of her. The first page had a word circled in red ink. “I found a few typos, but otherwise, you’re in fine shape.”
“Really?”
His warm hands went to her shoulders, that loving touch so familiar now. The kiss he planted at the base of her neck sent shivers down her back.
“Really. Now finish the edits, submit the paper, and let’s celebrate! There’s a huge festival in town and Jordy’s waiting for us.” His wink carried more weight to it than just the festival. After they got yummy treats there, they had bigger fun coming.
“I can’t believe I did it. Eighteen months of taking classes every term online. Doc Blythe may have been right.”
“Of course he was right. You’re smart, capable, calm under crisis, and you did it. This is all yours, honey. One hundred percent. I’m so proud of you.”
Elation shot through her, his kiss paradoxically perfunctory as he leaned down, short beard tickling her face. “But the clock is ticking. Isn’t the assignment due by noon?”
“Yes.”
“You have three hours.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Git ’er done.”
“It would be easier with another cup of coffee in me.”
He bowed like a butler. “The lady of the house requests it, I serve it.”
Both of them laughing as he left, she found herself strangely blocked from just picking up the paper and inputting the corrections. Doc Blythe had offered to help her get a promotion, but also encouraged her to go further.
Get that master’s degree. Become a nurse practitioner. What she could offer to her community would be so much more in that role.
Her hand went to her belly. No occupant was in there. Not yet.
She and Moore had plans, though.
Plans that would make her mother kill her.
“Do it, Colleen,” she muttered, forcing herself to open the word processing program, pull up her file, and track Moore’s edits.
Old-fashioned in his approach, he preferred to work from a printed draft.
For a year and a half, he’d been her steady editor, unable to help with the actual content of what she wrote, but always there to step in however he could.
Moore was a fabulous flashcard partner, memorizing half of the terms along with her.
And now, as she breezed through the pages, pleased to find he was right – very few typos – she felt a fluttering in her belly.
Because by evening, she would be his fiancée.
And tomorrow, they would start a family.
And soon — married.
It definitely wasn’t the conventional path, but their relationship certainly wasn’t anything close to typical.
Neither of them was getting any older, and with Jordy finishing his sophomore year of high school, they wanted him around for his sibling.
He saw his sisters in California at least four times a year, and had big plans for a career in theater in New York, which meant they’d lose him eventually, off on his independent life.
He’d always come back, of course.
With a shaking hand, she input Moore’s final correction, laughing at a sketch he wrote after her final line of the draft of her paper:
Submit this so you can submit to me.
It included a rather explicit drawing.
Smiling, she went into the learning management system for her program, found the right place to upload, hit Submit, and stared at the screen.
A big whoosh of air rushed out of her.
She did it.
She really did it.
The last eleven emails could be dealt with later, but the hardest part was over.
Every single assignment was done.
And her graduation ceremony would happen in a few weeks.
“Here’s that coffee,” Moore said, coming into the room, but she was standing, dancing silently, punching the air with victory. He joined in, long arms flailing, legs in motion though he still favored the one he’d broken in the fall from the ladder, wordlessly joining her in joy.
That’s what made him so special.
“You’re done?”
“I’m done!”
His kiss was breathless and lovely, stirring so much inside her because now – oh, now they’d become husband and wife.
Just... not quite the way anyone had ever planned.
“We’re still doing this?” he asked, pulling back and tilting his head with a question she knew was rhetorical.
“Yes!”
“And this?” His hand went to her belly.
“More than anything in the world!”
“Rachel says she has everyone corralled. They’re all at the Winter Wonderland festival.” Taking a peek outside, she was relieved to see that this morning’s snow had ended, blanketing the area in a half inch or so, which lent beauty without bringing treacherous road conditions.
After the accident, she hated driving in snowstorms.
“You nervous?”
“Of course! I’ve never been engaged before.”
His grimace made her regret her words.
“It’s my third.”
“And your last.”
“Definitely my last. And my best.”
“Maybe you’re Third Marriage Moore.”
A groan was his only response, followed by a butt pinch. “That’s terrible, Colleen.”
“If I can be Third Date Colleen for decades, I can call you Third Marriage Moore.”
“Best Marriage Moore,” he murmured against her ear, a trail of kisses along her cheek to her mouth heating her up. Did they have time for some late morning fun?
Bzzz.
“Whose phone?” she muttered. “It might be Rachel. Something could be going wrong.”
“Like what? A hot chocolate emergency? It’s a festival, not the hospital. You swore you really were taking these two weeks off work before graduation.”
Colleen pointedly ignored that. “She’s the one helping us pull this off.”
Sure enough, it was Rachel.
All clear, Colleen read. Meet us at food truck area. Does Moore have your ring?
Does Randy hump trailers? Colleen replied.
I really, really hate that saying around here, Rachel shot back, making Colleen laugh and laugh and laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Rachel. She’s asking if you have the ring.”
He made a dismissive noise, as if offended. “Does Randy hump trailers?”
Stress began making her shake, the overwhelm more than she realized when they’d decided to get engaged today, of all days. Turning in her final project for her bachelor’s degree was its own event.
Muddying it with getting engaged, for goodness sake, was turning out to be a lot.
A lot of emotion.
A lot of action.
Just… a lot.
“Hey,” he said, brushing her loose hair off her shoulder, kissing her neck. “Is this too much? We don’t have to rush off. We decide. We’re in control.”
How did he always know exactly what to say to right her world again?
“I’m fine. Really. It’s not the engagement that’s making me freak out. It’s all of it at once. The rush of final projects. Being done. Now we’re going to Winter Wonderland and everyone’s there. Mom and Dad will be overjoyed, but knowing what we plan next…”
“It’s our life. We can elope if we want to.”
“My mother is going to freak out.”
“She doesn’t have to know. We’re giving her the proposal.”
“You’re so weird, Moore. Until us, you did everything by the book.”
“I… got Cammie pregnant during Homecoming, married a woman who screwed our wedding DJ during the reception, didn’t tell the love of my life how I felt about her for half my life, had to fall off a ladder and nearly die to change everything for the better, and all of that was ‘by the book’?”
“Huh. When you put it that way…”
On tiptoes again, she stood and kissed him, her eyes drifting to the bed as Sandwich dominated, sitting right in the middle of her grandmother’s Wedding Ring quilt.
Then she saw the clock.
“We’re late!”
He grabbed her ass, the pat turning into a hungry hold. “Proposal first. Sex later.”
“Of course!”
They practically ran out to his SUV, coats thrown on before the got in, Moore taking the road from the camp into downtown at a reasonable clip.
The Winter Wonderland festival was Love You, Maine’s big Christmas buying spree, designed to bring in tourists, but it also featured all the choirs from the schools in the area, from preschool through high school.
Jordy’s performing arts high school had performed yesterday.
And today, Moore and Colleen were the big show.
Rachel had arranged to have the whole extended family there, even making sure Francine and Leander were free.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“I can’t believe I only have to propose.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re not expecting me to be in costume, are you? No secret lemur fetishes?”
“Eww! Gross! You’re not Kell and I’m not Rachel.”
“Good. Because all I’m using as a prop for this proposal is my knee and the ring, and the knee is iffy.”
“How’s it feeling.” She reached over to touch him, palm warming his cold joint.
“Much better with your hand on it.”
She slid her palm up his thigh. “How about this.”
“Careful, now. Might have to pull over and have a quickie in the backseat.”
“Promise or threat?”
“You’re the best.”
Both of them laughed as they reached downtown, the homes instantly changing color, buildings all read, white and pink, most of the store and business signs in the shape of hearts.
With a shop in town, it was easy to find parking behind Love You Jewelers, and soon they were walking hand in hand toward the town common.