Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
It was another foolish thing she had made him do.
No, wait. That was his old self thinking again.
What she had asked for might be folly in the eyes of others, but to those whose lives had been unquestionably, irrevocably, and miraculously changed by Il Signore?
There was no such thing as folly.
Only faith.
"This is great!"
Of course she would think so.
It was raining hard. Their tent was the most basic of its kind, the kind of tent that college students bought on clearance and billionaires had no business sleeping in.
The ground was hard under their camping beds.
A zipper on the flap was broken, and every few minutes a gust of wet wind blew through the gap and reminded Dario that he owned several homes with heating systems that worked.
But when he saw the way her eyes sparkled, and how her smile came all the way from her heart, wide and unguarded and aimed at him like he had just given her the world instead of a leaking tent in the middle of nowhere—
"Isn't this the best babymoon ever?"
"It is."
Every moment was the best, and no moment was to be taken for granted. Not after everything they had survived to get here.
Kendra was five months along now. Her belly was round under one of his old shirts, which she had stolen and refused to return, and she looked ridiculous and radiant and like the only thing in this entire forest worth looking at.
"I hope the rain eases up later. I want to cook some s'mores."
"I will take care of it."
Mischief danced in her eyes. "I want to think that you're offering to do that because you're a gentleman—"
"I am."
"But why do I have a feeling it's because you don't trust me not to burn everything?"
"But also that."
His wife laughed, and it was a sound he still cherished, and always would.
"You're so mean."
"No, cara. The true mean one is you."
She gasped. "Why would you say that?"
"Our security is the one currently enjoying all the amenities of a state-of-the-art, fully equipped, bulletproof camper.
" He gestured at the sagging tent. The rain-soaked sleeping bags.
The camping stove that Kendra had somehow already managed to scorch despite having used it exactly once. "And yet here we are—"
"So you do think this is foolish!"
"Causing them to feel envious of how two people could be so in love," Dario continued without missing a beat, "that the forces of nature are nothing to them."
Kendra was torn between hilarity and adoration. "I love it when you go all romantic when you're lying."
His gaze narrowed back. "Are you laughing at me?"
"Nope!"
He slowly shook his head. "A bad liar as always."
"I was not—"
She didn't get to finish speaking. Instead, she ended up crying out as he pulled her onto his lap, and then she whimpered when his mouth found that little spot on the side of her neck—
Oh. My. Goodness.
If she wasn't already carrying their child, the way he was touching her right now, the way his hands were sliding under the shirt she'd stolen from him, the way he was whispering cara against her skin like it was the only word left in any language—
She would end up pregnant for sure.
The End