“All of us bring a piece of him with us when were together, Nick.”
“Ahem.” Oops. We both turn toward Brad. “Do you both mind if I finish?”
“Nope. Go for it, buddy.”
“By the power vested in me three days ago, by the great state of Alaska, I now pronounce you married—though let’s be serious. I’m not doing anything more than officiating a formality. Congratulations, friends! I’d like to be the first to introduce Mrs. Maris Smith-Cain and Mr. Nicholas Cain. Nick, you may officially kiss your wife.”
And as my lips touch Maris’s for the first time as her husband, I hear murmured oohs and aahs about an eagle soaring overhead. In the back of my mind as I draw Maris into a deeper kiss, I think, Nice touch, Jed.
We wish you were here.
Epilogue
Maris - Eight Years Later
“I regret only that I haven’t managed to bring everyone together one time so they can understand what I know in my heart. Love binds us all. It always will. In life and beyond.” - From the journals of Jedidiah Smith.
“One more,” Nick cajoles.
“What do you mean you want to adopt another baby, Nick? We already have three children.”
“And we have plenty of room. Your parents saw to that.” His arms slip around me. Damn him, the silver streaking his temples now that he’s close to fifty only makes him look more gorgeous.
“Maybe in a tent outside.” But I feel myself weakening as his lips make their way to that place right under my jaw. “Besides, you’re not the one who folds all their laundry.” I half growl, half moan.
“Neither do you. You just throw all the clothes into a different hamper and tell the kids to pull out whatever they want to wear.” His retort is distracted as he presses me against the refrigerator with his hips. But we’re stopped from going further as the back door slams open.
“Mommy, Daddy! Joanie just spotted her first eagle all on her own!” Kassidy—the little girl whose picture I couldn’t look at that first day the social worker came over and our oldest daughter—screeches in excitement. Her biological sister trails behind her. Born two years later, we didn’t care little Miss Joan Violet Smith Cain was born with some medical issues. She was ours as much as her sister was. And we both cried when the first word out of her mouth was “Dada” in contrast to Kassidy calling me “Mama” first.
Then, on a trip to Albuquerque, Nick took the fall before I did. Literally.
We were there to visit the center over winter break. Ollie, Reece, Tatum, and the kids were due any moment when Nick tripped over this tiny body that was huddled near the doorway. He’d been abandoned there sometime during the night. The tiny boy was terrified at the noise of the sirens, the men and women wandering around, the floodlights. But the one thing he wasn’t afraid of was Nick.
Nick, who stormed forward and lifted the tow-haired boy into his arms after draping his own sweatshirt over his arms and head. Nick, who hissed instead of bellowed before moving the child inside to his office. Nick, who ordered Charmaine to get the boy clothes, the guys to get him some mats to rest on, and me to figure out if he could have food and water.
By the time Children’s Services arrived, the boy was sitting on Nick’s lap listening to Kassidy read a book. I’d already woken up our own social worker to ask what it would take to bring this boy home to Alaska when we came home in a few weeks.
Quite a lot. But as Nick told me later that night when we were separated from the little boy who would eventually become our “little Jed” after many failed attempts to reunite him with blood family—none of whom gave a damn about him other than lifting a little money from the state of New Mexico—he sensed the fighter in our little man. “And he’ll be with us when the time’s right. One way or another.”
It took close to a year, but I’m still grateful to hear Jed’s irritated “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to play Fortnite?” We might not have him at all.
And now, “You want to see about having another baby?”
He shakes his head. “You’re assuming it’s another baby.”
“Fine. Another child.”
“Sunshine…” Nick starts, but the doorbell rings, and he lets me go. “I’ll get it.”
A tingle begins at the base of my neck as Nick jogs down the steps that lead to the front door. I hear the murmuring of voices. Kassidy asks me something. I tuck my now shoulder-length hair behind my ear as I bend down. “What was that, sweetheart?”
“I asked what David’s car was doing here?” She points out the window.
I straighten and turn around until I meet the light brown eyes of the boy I wanted to adopt nine years ago as he follows Nick up the stairs. We’d always remained close, just as I remained close with Sarah and Hung as they helped guide me and Nick through that final day where Kassidy first came home. But there was always something special between me and David.
And now he’s standing here, a full-grown adult. And I couldn’t be prouder of the young man he’s become than if I had raised him. “Hey, stranger.” I walk in his direction with my arms outstretched.
“Hi, Maris.” He gives me a hug. “Can we talk?”
I dart a glance at Nick, who just smiles but shakes his head. Confused, I tell David, “Sure. Let’s head out back.”
The two of us head out the door Kassidy and Joanie raced through so we can sit by the fire pit. Neither of us say a word until we’re situated. “How are things at home? It must be strange now that everyone is packing up and leaving.”
David straightens his broad—God, when did they become so broad?—shoulders. “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. I have a question for you, and I need an honest answer.”
“Oh-okay?”
“Did you want to adopt me all those years ago? Right after we first met?” His voice, his eyes, demand my honesty. Not that I wouldn’t give it to him, but I might have tried to check with Sarah first to find out why after so long this is suddenly coming up?
And what on earth does this have to do with the question my husband asked me?
“Yes.” The confession flows out of me along with a sigh.
“What happened?” There’s a tic in his jaw.
“The social worker evaluated your home and said you were better off where you were…” My voice trails off when David stands. Picking up a rock, he hurls it as far as he can.
“David!” My voice holds my shock as I surge to my feet.
“Did you know I used to pray you were there to pick one of us to be your child? That I begged God that it would be me? That you would be my mom?”
Even as I absorb the blows that this young man wanted to be mine as much as I wanted to be his, I whisper, “How did you find out?”
“I overheard Luna and Karen talking with Mom while they were packing for school. None of them knew I was there.”
“You eavesdropped,” I scold him slightly.
“Damnit, Maris. I was supposed to be yours! They stopped it.”
I’m about to snap at him for cursing when his words penetrate. “What do you mean…they stopped it?” A fissure in my heart I’d long closed with Nick’s love and the love of my own children begins to open and weep again.