Epilogue
Two months later
“Okay. You make sure to keep your eyes closed.”
“I’m blindfolded!” Diana shot back, as Calvin guided her down the path leading to the play area behind the Girdwood Springs Pre-School.
“That was just to make extra sure,” Calvin laughed, his hands on her shoulders as they made their slow way down the path. “But it could slip off.”
“Okay, okay. They’re closed!”
Calvin smiled. He really wanted this to be a perfect surprise for Diana – after all her hard work fundraising for the materials, the time she’d spent planning out exactly what she wanted for the new playground, and then driving around finding the best bargains she could to make sure the money stretched as far as it could… .
I want this to be her dream come to life, Calvin thought firmly. And it was my pleasure to create it for her.
Of course, he’d taken some leave from his job – now that he was moving to Girdwood Springs on a permanent basis, he needed some time to relocate, moving his stuff from his apartment to Diana’s house.
Not that he had a lot to move, since he’d mainly thought of his apartment as a place to sleep.
It was nothing like Diana’s warm, inviting, if slightly messy, home.
Luckily, his boss had been only too happy to let him have a couple of months away and then come back at a different location. Calvin had never been a big spender and his job paid well, so he had plenty of savings to draw on.
And it had meant he had all the free time he needed to build the playground of Diana’s dreams.
And to organize the grandest opening ceremony for it too!
Calvin trusted Diana when she told him she had her eyes closed, as he guided her around the last bend in the path, leading behind the main building of the pre-school.
He couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across his face – not that he would have wanted to – as he finally saw what the other residents of Girdwood Springs had been doing while he’d been picking her up from their home – Diana’s home, that had become his home too.
He was still getting to know everyone in town, but he could recognize some of the parents of the children who attended the pre-school, milling around by the folding table that was absolutely laden with food that had been donated by local restaurants and bakeries for the opening of the playground.
Sylvie the baker and her husband Gale were just putting the finishing touches on a massive platter of pink frosted cupcakes.
Up by the wooden play house he’d spent time building, he spotted Kieran with his wife Natasha, making sure the ‘GRAND OPENING!’ banner they’d made was hanging straight, draped over the play house’s front door.
And, to his surprise, it had turned out Kieran the griffin and Gale the unicorn weren’t the only shifters who’d decided to make their home in Girdwood Springs.
Henry the hellhound shifter was standing with his mate, Luna, and their dog, Fillmore, by the empty raised garden beds they’d helped him prepare, just waiting to be filled with the seeds for the vegetable and herb gardens that Diana had dreamed about growing with the children.
Henry had been a huge help to him while he’d been building the playground, since as it turned out, he was handy with a hammer and saw and only too happy to pitch in and donate his spare time, despite the terrifying hellhound aura he gave off.
And Caleb the dragon had used his luck powers to get them a great deal on some repurposed lumber that was going cheap – just when they thought they’d missed out on it, they’d gotten a call from the supplier saying a previous buyer had backed out, and they were willing to sell it for an even cheaper price than before.
Everyone in the town had wanted to do something to help Diana’s dreams become a reality, and give the playground a new lease on life. Calvin had felt his heart swelling every time he’d taken a phone call from someone asking how they could help with the project.
But most touching of all, he thought, as he quickly glanced around to make sure everything was perfect before he took Diana’s blindfold off and told her she could open her eyes, was the beautiful mural the children of the town had created out of interesting stones, bits of wood, old tiles, and even some dried leaves and flowers.
The mural, next to the flower beds, read ‘THANK YOU MS. RAMOS!’ in light-colored stones, and the children who’d made it were still standing with barely contained excitement next to it, clearly trying to stifle their giggles of delight as they waited for what they’d created to be revealed.
“What’s going on?” Diana asked. “Is there someone else here?”
“What? Oh, you must be imagining things,” Calvin laughed, as he gestured for the assembled crowd to be quiet and to duck down a little. “Who else would be here? Well, you can open your eyes now, anyway.”
“Well, I don’t kn—” Diana began, just as Calvin finally lifted the blindfold from her eyes.
“SURPRISE!!!!”
Diana gasped, jumping a little, at the sound of about thirty adults and half that many children all leaping up and shouting at once.
She stood, her mouth hanging open, as she stared around – at the new wooden playground with its play house, secure climbing frames made from sturdy, knotted ropes, and the swing set, placed a little apart from the rest of the play area so kids could swing to their hearts’ content.
But the main part of the playground was the huge wooden pirate ship that Calvin had built with the help of Henry and some of the other residents, featuring a flagpole flying a cartoon pirate flag – made by Eula and Janie – a long plastic slide flowing down from the deck, a short ladder and climbing rope, a steering wheel that could spin around, and even a wooden anchor that could be slowly lowered with a crank.
Looking at it, Calvin couldn’t help but feel just a little impressed with himself – while he might have worked as a builder for a long time, this was the first time he’d ever designed and built a whole playground.
Our mate will decide whether this is impressive enough for her or not! his wyvern interjected. She is the judge of whether this meets her standards!
Well, it had a point there, Calvin was forced to concede.
What does Diana think of this…?
She’d been silent so far, but when Calvin risked a glance at her face, her mouth was still open, her eyes as wide as saucers.
Is that… a good sign?
But then, a peal of amazed laughter burst out of Diana’s mouth.
She clasped her hands together and practically jumped on the spot, her eyes shining as she gazed around at the assembled crowd, the playground, the garden beds – the things that all the people of Girdwood Springs had put so much time and effort into.
“Oh – oh my goodness!” she squealed. “I can’t believe this! This is… this is amazing! I just – is this really real?”
Calvin couldn’t help himself from laughing along with her as Diana dashed off ahead of him, following the path he and Henry and Gale had spent this morning sweeping clean.
It ran through the garden beds Gale had already planted, which Calvin knew, with Gale’s unicorn’s touch, would grow up to become dense with native flowers and trees.
He followed her as she wandered, as if in a daze, past the swings and the pirate ship.
The kids from her pre-school class, clearly unable to hold in their excitement any longer, came jumping and skipping to form a crowd around her, tugging at her hands, their eyes shining as they competed to be the ones to tell her about every piece of equipment in the playground.
I’ll let them take on the tour duties, Calvin thought, smiling, as he watched Diana be buffeted along by a crowd of four-year-olds, all of whom clearly adored her.
And it was easy to see why.
Diana crouched down, listening intently to each of them as they excitedly chattered at her, pointing to the pirate flag, the slide, the swing set.
She let them pull her over to the flower beds and vegetable gardens, nodding as they explained to her what would be planted there.
Diana laughed and thanked them all for the tour of their new playground – and, of course, for the beautiful mural they’d made.
“But I think there might be some cupcakes over there that need eating,” she finally said, standing and brushing off the knees of her jeans from where she’d been kneeling on the ground. “But make sure you ask your parents first before grabbing anything!”
Whether the kids were listening was debatable, as they’d all started screaming and jumping up and down at the mention of cupcakes – but really, where Sylvie’s baking was involved, Calvin couldn’t say he blamed them.
The kids ran whooping with delight toward the snack table – only some of their parents managing to intercept them before they grabbed at the pink-frosted cupcakes – as Diana made her way back over to Calvin, stopping every now and then to thank the people of the crowd who wandered over to congratulate her on her hard work finally having paid off.
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Diana muttered when she was finally back by Calvin’s side. She squeezed her eyes closed for a long moment before opening them again, as if she expected to find everything had disappeared in an instant.
“Nope. I promise this is all real.” Laughing, Kieran’s mate Natasha broke away from the crowd who were now busily supervising a horde of apparently ravenous children to give Diana a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
“I should know, I’ve been hearing updates from Kieran about it for the past six weeks! ”
Diana laughed. “I can’t believe all of this was going on behind that temporary fencing. I knew you were fibbing when you told me it was just a basic playground and swing set!”
“Would you have preferred that I told you exactly what we had planned?” said Calvin with a grin. “No surprises, just a detailed list of what we were going to do?”