Epilogue
Ava
Twenty-two years later…
Jordan yawns behind the counter. It amazes me how she still hasn’t gotten used to the hours after all this time.
Sure, she’s only been working here as the full-time assistant manager for a few weeks—having shifted into the role as soon as she graduated from CCU—but you’d think after spending summers and weekends getting up at five-thirty in the morning, she’d be used to it by now.
As tired as she seems sometimes, she never complains about the early hours, the mundane tasks, the managing of schedules. She happily wipes tables, greeting customers by name as she makes her way around the shop.
It’s hard not to watch her and think that someday in the not too distant future, she’ll be the one running things.
While I can’t ever see us retiring to Arizona like Trevor’s parents did, splitting their time between there and Calloway Creek, I can for sure see myself slowing down and handing over the reins.
Especially when Jordan seems as much at home here as I always have been.
I look around my little coffee shop that I’ve loved for so many years.
Someday.
Not today.
Today I’m going to bask in the glorious feeling of working side-by-side with my daughter. My miracle child. My best friend.
“Mom?”
Jordan is staring at me, clearly confused, as she comes back around the counter.
I raise my brows.
“You’re staring at me.”
“Sorry.” I busy myself preparing another order so she can’t see my watery eyes. “I’m just so darn proud of you.”
She works her way between me and the cappuccino machine. “Are you… crying?”
I sniff back tears. “Of course not.”
Her eyes roll. “You are.”
“So sue me.” I set the cup down, hands landing on my hips. “How many moms can say their daughter graduated summa cum laude?”
“It was Calloway Creek University, mom. Not Cornell.”
“Did someone say Cornell?”
We both turn to see a man standing at the counter. A very attractive man. Dark hair. Striking blue eyes. Face shaved so close you can see every angle of his jaw. He’s wearing khaki pants and a button-down long sleeve shirt. Wow, he reminds me of a younger Trevor.
He’s got at least a few years on Jordan. Mid-to-upper twenties, I’d say. New in town for sure.
He looks between us when neither of us speaks. Apparently Jordan is taken by his appearance as much as I am.
“Did one of you go there?”
When the silence starts becoming awkward, I elbow Jordan.
“Um, uh… no,” she says. “I was trying to explain to my mom how my graduation accolades aren’t as good as— You know what? Forget it. Can I take your order?”
Now it’s the man who goes silent as he looks right into Jordan’s eyes. Jordan smooths out her apron and swallows as she gazes back at him. Suddenly I feel like a voyeur into a private moment. Amused, I shift my attention to the next customer in line, keeping one eye and ear on the other register.
“You’re mother and daughter, huh?” the man asks, thumbing to the large marquee on the wall. “So you’re the Crisses who own this place?”
“Jordan Criss, at your service,” she practically sings.
His arm juts across the counter. “Finn Collins.”
I’m smiling way too broadly as I fill my order. I might even mistake whole milk for half-and-half as I strain to hear their conversation.
“You’re not from around here,” Jordan says.
“Just got to town yesterday. I’m starting a new job today.” He looks at his watch. “Well, in about ninety minutes. I guess I was sort of eager. But now I have time to kill.”
“So…” Jordan waves her arm at the pastry case. “Breakfast?”
When Finn smiles, his eyes practically sparkle. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She laughs and blushes.
Well, would you look at that. She’s completely smitten.
He peruses the breakfast offerings. “What’s good here?”
“Everything,” Jordan says proudly.
“Well then, what’s your favorite?”
She shrugs a shoulder, looking between him and the pastries. “Maybe the cream cheese coffee cake?”
“I’ll take two of those then, and an iced caramel macchiato please.”
My heart twists inside my chest when she says, “You have good taste. That’s my dad’s favorite.”
“Is it now? I guess I’ll have two of those as well.”
She draws her brows for a second then goes to fill his order.
“He’s cute,” I whisper when I pass her at the coffee machine.
“Stop it.” She looks horrified as she gazes over her shoulder to make sure he didn’t hear.
When she puts his order on the counter, he looks down at it. “Well this is entirely too much for one person.” He glances at me. “Think your mom would mind if you took a break?”
Her eyes dart around, looking shy now. Wait… Jordan look shy?
“No,” I say without missing a beat filling my current order. “Her mom would not mind.”
“Um, okay,” Jordan says, now looking nervous as well. “Why don’t you go grab a seat? I’ll be there in a minute.”
He happily takes his order and walks across the shop, looking back at her over his shoulder once before sitting in a booth. Our booth. Mine and Trevor’s. Oh, the thoughts swirling in my head right now.
I try not to laugh when Jordan checks herself in the mirrored wall on her way around the counter.
For the next thirty minutes, I find it very hard to concentrate on work as I watch the two of them talk, laugh, and flirt over coffee cake and macchiatos.
At one point, her hand flies to her mouth, as if surprised, and she spares a quick glance at me, her head shaking, her expression a harbinger of disbelief.
I’m truly amazed by what I see in my daughter right now. She has a glint in her eyes that matches his. A different inflection in her laugh. A lustrous smile.
She’s had boyfriends now and again, but none of them—not even the one she dated for almost a year—had her positively glowing the way this man does.
Watching them in our booth is like seeing myself and Trevor when we were kids. It almost brings tears to my eyes.
“Who’s that handsome fellow?” Cathy Milam asks as she collects her daily order for the bank down the street.
“All I know is that his name is Finn, and he’s new in town.”
“They sure do look good together, don’t they?”
I can only nod and do my best not to be super obvious as I continue to stare at them between orders.
“Hey,” a familiar voice calls from behind as arms wrap around my waist.
I turn in Trevor’s arms and inhale his fresh scent. “Hey yourself, chief.”
He plants a kiss on my forehead and sighs. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Today chief of cardiothoracic surgery, tomorrow chief of the entire surgery department.”
He chuckles. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I look up at him and study his face. How handsome he is.
His hair is no longer stark brown, having been invaded by grays for almost ten years now.
And his eyes may have deep creases at the edges, but I rest easy knowing they haven’t come from work or stress, but from all the laughter we’ve shared. All the smiles he’s bestowed upon us.
“Do you know how proud I am of you?” I ask, feeling particularly prideful over all my family today.
“Right back at ya, Mrs. Criss. You’ve done a spectacular job with this place. Not to mention with our amazing kid.” He glances around behind the counter. “Where is our tenacious daughter?”
I nod toward the seating area out front.
Trevor’s eyes laser-focus on the booth, then his jaw slackens. “What is Jordan doing with Finn Collins?”
“You know him?”
“Yeah, well I hope so. He’s my new cardiothoracic fellow.”
Now it’s my jaw that hits the counter. “Oh my god, really?”
Trevor starts around the counter with the purposeful stride of a man on a mission. I grab his arm and hold him back. “Don’t. Leave them. Can’t you see what’s going on?”
He looks at me, confused, then over at them. I can see the second he realizes it. He laughs under his breath, head shaking. “Shit. Seriously?”
I pull him back behind the counter, grateful for the two other workers who are picking up the slack so I can stand here with Trevor and watch what I can only describe as two people experiencing love at first sight. It’s electrifying. Invigorating. Awe-inspiring.
And it’s everything I’ve ever wanted for Jordan.
I lean into Trevor. “It seems like just yesterday we were the ones sitting in that booth falling in love.”
He doesn’t make any comments about how he can’t remember. He never does anymore. It’s just a given that he never got back any of the memories from before his accident. And he always trusts what I say is the truth.
He never let it affect us, and he excelled at making new ones.
Like the time a few months after Jordan was born, when he brought me to the coffee shop for a date.
He’d catered in food, poured me expensive champagne, and made love to me right there in our booth.
I think he did it so he’d have a good memory of the same spot I had good memories of.
He scoffs. “I’d rather not think about our daughter doing the same things we’ve done in that booth.”
“You have to quit looking at her like a kid, Trev. She’s twenty-two.”
“Babe, I’m never going to want to look at Jordan like she’s a sexual being. Can’t she just be my little girl forever?” He tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “Anyway, it’s just coffee. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” I laugh. “I’ll bet you ten bucks your new cardiothoracic fellow is going to be her future husband.”
“Jesus.” He scrubs a hand across his jaw and looks back at them. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
“Get ready. Because it’s happening.”
He thinks on it, his brows meeting in the middle. “Honestly, though, she could do far worse in the boyfriend department. Finn went to med school at Cornell and comes with glowing recommendations from his past residency.”
I stare up at my distinguished husband. “And under your tutelage, he’ll become one of the finest cardiothoracic surgeons in New York.”
Over Trevor’s shoulder I see Jordan and Finn exchanging phones, presumably to put each other’s names in their contacts.
Oh, what a wild ride our daughter is in for if her life turns out anything like ours.
Well, minus the horrific accident that robbed Trevor of who he was.
But I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. Not even the bad stuff.
Because all of it brought us to where we are today.
We’ve never, not one time in the past twenty-three years, taken each other for granted.
He still looks at me the same way he did when he proposed to me from a hospital bed.
And I still love all the mixtures of the old and new him.
I smile and pull Trevor into the back. “Do you have time to run a quick errand with me?”
“Anything for you, babe.”
We walk out the back door, go around to the front, and stroll down the street to the shop next to Truman’s Grocery.
He scrunches his forehead. “Why are we at the gift shop?”
“You’ll see.”
I peruse the aisles until I come across what I’m looking for. “Ahhh, here it is.” I examine the leather-bound book. “This will do just fine.”
“What exactly is that?”
“Something I think Jordan is definitely going to need after today.”
He takes it from me, opens it, and leafs through the blank pages.
When it hits him, Trevor pulls me into his arms, gazes down into my eyes, then kisses me right here in the middle of the gift shop.
“Come on,” he says, thumbing to the register. “We’ll give it to her together.”
We make the purchase and go out the front door.
I stop him and gaze into his ever-amazing eyes “I love you, Trevor Jordan Criss. You are the best father any child could ever ask for.”
He swipes a finger across my cheek. “It’s all because of you, sweet Ava. You made me into the man I am.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You’re the man you were always meant to be.”
His lips come close and almost press against mine. “I fucking love you.”
My eyes become glassy. My trash-talking husband has once again slayed me. With his words. His loving stare. His mere presence in my universe.
I lace my fingers with his, knowing we’ll always walk hand-in-hand through whatever life throws our way. We’ve overcome. We’ve persevered.
We’ve undeniably won.