She covered her mouth with the hand not wearing the ring, her eyes watering before tears started falling. But I knew she cried because she was happy. I knew she loved me and wanted this.
I knew she was mine just like I was hers.
I stayed on my knee, looking up at her, letting her take her time. I have my entire life to hear your answer.
“Oh, Braxton. Yes,” she finally said, tears in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.
God, she was beautiful when she cried because she was happy.
I stood and pulled her into my arms, the sound of her breath catching as she clutched me causing my eyes to close on their own. I felt so many things right now that I swayed with her. I pulled back and slid my hands to her face, cupping her cheeks. I stared into her eyes and knew this woman owned my very soul. Without her, I was… nothing.
“I love you,” she whispered, cupping my beard-covered cheek.
My eyes closed again, her touch powerful enough to bring me to my knees. “God, I love you too.”
Now. Always. Forever.
Epilogue Two
Amelia
Four years later
I was swollen, my body ached in places I didn't even know it could, and I didn’t think I’d slept for more than an hour in the last twenty-four.
But I’d never been happier.
I swung my legs over the side of the hospital bed, my feet not touching the cold, unforgiving tile floor. The blue booties the nurses had put on my feet were itchy, the little rubber-like stripes on the bottom supposed to keep me from slipping, but I didn’t think that would matter, since I doubted I’d be able to stand, let alone walk, for how uncomfortable I was.
I stared at where Braxton slept on the couch across from my bed, our three-year-old daughter, Rainie, tucked close to him after finally falling asleep a few hours ago. She’d been dropped off by Keely earlier today, my best friend watching our daughter while I was taken to the hospital for the birth of our second child, a little boy we named Theo.
I turned my attention away from where my husband and our daughter slept and looked at the bassinet placed right beside my hospital bed. I smiled as little Theo slept peacefully, but I knew that wouldn’t last forever. He had an appetite and a set of lungs to go along with it, letting me know when he was hungry.
“How are you feeling, baby?”
The soft sound of Braxton’s voice had me looking up from Theo and at my husband. I gave him what was probably a sleepy smile, and I watched him slowly, stealthily, get up from the couch. Braxton somehow managed to not wake Rainie, and I was holding in my laughter at how quiet he was trying to be.
He walked up to the bassinet, and a small smile tugged at his lips. “He looks like you.” Braxton looked up at me, and the pure joy on his face had the breath leaving me in the most contented way imaginable.
“What?” he asked with this slow grin forming. He sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand in his, bringing my knuckles to his mouth to give me light kisses.
“Nothing,” I whispered. “I just love you so much.”
He groaned softly and tunneled a hand in what was no doubt my rat’s nest of unwashed hair, pulled me in close, and kissed me until I was lost in all the sensations that Braxton conjured in me.
“Not nearly as much as I love you,” he murmured against my lips. “Never as much as I love you.” He pulled back, and for long seconds, he did nothing but stare at me. “You take my breath away, even more so after all these years.”
“I love you,” I whispered again.
“I love you too, baby.”
Over the last several years, we built our life together in the most wonderfully imaginable way. I still played piano occasionally at the church, but I also got an advanced degree in music and opened a small school to teach others how to play.
Braxton was still a firefighter and the hardest working person I’d ever met. He was a simple man in the things he desired out of life. And that was taking care of me and the children, being a good husband and father, and loving us unconditionally. All his words. And all the things he excelled at.
He was mine, and I was irrevocably his. I loved this man and the family we were creating, and there was really nothing else that made a person whole.
The End
Welcome to Cherry Falls!
Want more stand-alone stories in the steamy and sweet interconnected world of Cherry Falls?
Find all the now available and coming soon titles HERE
Join the Facebook Group HERE
About the Author
Find Jenika at: